Senate Republicans Ready to Quash Cuccinelli Nomination

As noted in a previous post, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, is said to be set to appoint former Virginia AG Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli for director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  Sane Virginians - i.e., those not in the thrall of The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group which has its antecedents in white supremacists who backed "Massive Resistance" - know Cuccinelli as a religious extremist and ideologue who I personally would not nominate even for a position of dogcatcher.  In my opinion, Cuccinelli has some screws loose not to mention that he's a raving self-loathing closet case who projects his self-hatred on the entire LGBT community - all of which makes him a darling of the Christofascist and professional Christian set.  Thankfully, as Politico is reporting Republican U.S. Senate members may be poised to torpedo Cuccinelli's nomination. Here are article highlights:

President Donald Trump wants Cuccinelli, who most recently led the anti-establishment Senate Conservatives Fund, to be director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. But there may be nobody in Washington whom McConnell and his allies would take more pleasure in defeating, and the bottom line is Cuccinelli has little chance of getting approved for the job, Republican senators said.

“He’s spent a fair amount of his career attacking Republicans in the Senate, so it strikes me as an odd position for him to put himself in to seek Senate confirmation,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who ran the GOP’s campaign arm for two election cycles. “It’s unlikely he’s going to be confirmed if he is nominated.”

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate GOP’s chief vote-counter, called the bid “a long shot,” adding, “They’ll go forward with it or they won’t, but I will suspect he’ll have plenty of obstacles once he gets here.”

The nascent nomination fight is again pitting the president against his own party in Congress. Just this spring, because of strong and very public opposition from Senate Republicans, Trump yanked his two preferred picks for the Federal Reserve’s board of governors before they even had been formally nominated.
 And immigration has been a particular sore spot: Every leadership position at the Department of Homeland Security related to immigration is filled only by people serving in an acting capacity — and White House officials are mulling the prospect of having Cuccinelli do the same.

Some senators are still hoping to persuade Trump not to formally nominate or appoint Cuccinelli, but if the president goes through with it, the former Virginia attorney general likely will be either rejected or blocked from a floor vote entirely.

White House officials said Cuccinelli, always spoiling for a fight, is enthusiastic about another clash with McConnell. In a statement for this story, Cuccinelli showed no signs of backing down.

The pushback against Trump’s attempt to install an immigration hard-liner to run the country’s legal immigration system is the climax of Senate Republicans’ yearslong battle with Cuccinelli and his organization, which has tried to oust GOP incumbents in favor of more conservative challengers.

Cuccinelli also has taken aim at some of the senators needed to confirm him — calling on McConnell to resign as majority leader, backing Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate race to the chagrin of the GOP rank and file, and criticizing the record of Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) as a “major disappointment.”

On Tuesday, McConnell reiterated in a brief interview his strong “lack of enthusiasm” for Cuccinelli.

“It seems to me to be very difficult [to confirm him], based upon what I have read that McConnell says. I get the opinion that McConnell is not going to bring it up,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “So if McConnell’s not going to bring it up, it ain’t going to come up.”

Grassley predicted Cuccinelli will be temporarily installed in an acting role. . . . . Cuccinelli’s elevation itself is a blow to Grassley, whose former staffer Francis Cissna was ousted from USCIS despite Grassley’s pleas to keep him amid Trump’s broader purge of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Cuccinelli nomination reflects the persistent bind Trump has faced when it comes to immigration. Senate Republicans are reluctant to confirm the sorts of people who share his views, such as Cuccinelli and Kris Kobach, a former Kansas secretary of state who was considered as a replacement for former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Trump’s preferred Federal Reserve picks, Stephen Moore and Herman Cain, were scuttled by GOP resistance. And Cuccinelli could be headed for the same buzz saw, though one Senate Republican worried “then we get Kris Kobach, who’s probably worse.

“I don’t know why the president keeps putting these people out without just making a few phone calls and saying: ‘Can you confirm this person?’” the senator said.

In my opinion, Cuccinelli is a raving crazy person which why Virginians rejected his gubernatorial bid and elected Democrat Terry McAullife.  Virginia did not want Cuccinelli and the country as a whole should not want him either. He needs to disappear into total obscurity.

Yes, It Matters That Pete Buttigieg Is Gay

Democrat candidate Pete Buttigrieg isn't at the top of the polls and hasn't raised the most money, but to many in the LGBT community he has caught people's attention. Why? In part, because many of us never thought a gay man could be viewed by so many as a plausible candidate for the highest office in the land. Polls have shown that 68% of Americans - true some may be lying - say that Buttigrieg's sexual orientation is not a problem to them. Growing up gay can be traumatic, not because there is anything inherently wrong with being gay, but because the bigotry and cruelty that has been heaped on gays for so long by society.  Indeed, the Christofascists and the Trump/Pence regime continue to wage a war against LGBT equality. Two recent pieces look at Buttigrieg's candidacy, one in The Atlantic and the other by Andrew Sullivan in New York Magazine.  The first examines why Buttigrieg's gayness matters and the latter ponders whether Buttigrieg could prove to be a transformation candidate.  Here are excerpts from The Atlantic:

In my lifetime, it has been illegal for me to serve in the military, illegal for me to marry, illegal for me to adopt children, and even illegal for me to have sex. Society barred me from the first three; until 2003, the fourth meant risk of a fine or a prison sentence in some states. This discrimination did not just happen in a history book—it happened to me, and it happened to Buttigieg, too.

I am two years older than Buttigieg. We could have grown up with the same cartoons, listened to the same music, felt the same fear when we heard that Matthew Shepard had been murdered. We’ve lived through discrimination, and the fact that laws have changed doesn’t alleviate the trauma of our past. Ask our gay elders whether they’ve recovered from losing their friends and colleagues who died by the tens of thousands during the AIDS crisis. That pain is fresh.

During an interview with an LGBTQ magazine, Buttigieg described himself as “somebody whose marriage exists as a function of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.” Our position in society is hardly secure. The fight for equality isn’t won. It still matters that I am gay, so it matters to me that Buttigieg is gay.

In many states, it remains legal to fire gay people for being gay. And if you’re tired of hearing about that fact, imagine how tired I am of living it. There is no public-accommodations law at the federal level that stops landlords from refusing to rent me an apartment if I show up for the home tour while holding my husband’s hand.

Buttigieg was mayor of South Bend when the Indiana governor signed a law in 2015 allowing businesses to turn away gay customers. That law didn’t stick, but the governor is now our vice president, Mike Pence. He stuck. Forgive me if I like the idea of having someone in the White House who understands what I’ve been through, and who would protect me from the people who would turn me away.

For the first time in my life, I’m now represented in government by another gay man, Brian Sims, the outspoken Pennsylvania lawmaker who went viral for flipping off Mike Pence. (He represents my corner of Philadelphia in Harrisburg.)

Sims told me that being gay put Buttigieg in “learning situations” that give the candidate “heightened insight into issues far beyond human sexuality.” Sims believes that a “multidimensional identity can help educate, enlighten, and ultimately solve many of our most pressing cultural problems.”

Identity matters. Like most Democrats, I have not yet decided who to vote for in a primary that is still months away. But I believe it matters that Cory Booker is a black man, that Kamala Harris is the daughter of an Indian mom and a Jamaican dad, and that Buttigieg is gay. These facets of their identities mean that they can understand the powerless, as victims of power, and that they can understand the alienated, having been marginalized.

Beyond questions of empathy, Buttigieg being out is germane because he’s a role model to those who want to come out.

Gay men are largely missing from positions of power. An out gay man has never served on the U.S Supreme Court. Not a single out gay man served on the federal bench until President Barack Obama took office. There is not and has never been an out gay man in the U.S. Senate. Buttigieg came out in 2015 on his own terms, but that counts as progress only in an unfair system.

“When you are a member of a marginalized or often invisible community, there is something especially powerful about seeing someone like you that isn’t actually you,” said Erin Uritus, the head of Out & Equal, a group for LGBTQ business people, when I asked her about Buttigieg. “When LGBTQ young people wonder what is in store for their future and they can look to Tim Cook or Rachel Maddow or Pete Buttigieg, their entire world opens up.”

The movement for equal rights has made tremendous strides. But we are not immune from persecution, especially not young people. Researchers at the Williams Institute estimate that 4.5 percent of the American population is LGBTQ. They also estimate that 40 percent of youth in homeless shelters are LGBTQ.

You can be sure that LGBTQ people are paying attention to how society treats Buttigieg as a candidate. The questions on their mind: Is it safe out there? Is this really possible?

“For young members of the LGBTQ community, many of whom may be suffering discrimination or bullying or even being ostracized from their own family, seeing a member of our community run for president helps them know it’s going to be okay.”

Sullivan's piece looks at a wider perspective.  He questions Buttigrieg's relative youth - forgetting that many of the Founding Fathers were even younger at the time of the American Revolution - and inexperience, forgetting that Trump had/has even less experience.  Here are highlights:

One of the reasons I thought Donald Trump would win in 2016 was not just that he was focusing on the core issues roiling the middle classes (immigration and globalization). It was because he had the perfect foil for his persona in Hillary Clinton. Trump was fresh to politics, anti-Establishment, an outsider, populist, alpha male, and nationalist, with a base primed to despise Clinton. Clinton had been in power forever, was pure Establishment, a total insider, globalist, alpha female, predictable, with a base stunned by Trump. It was the kind of contrast Trump longed for, and it was a central element in his success. And these matchups matter. Trump is widely unpopular by himself. He will need a good foil to win in a binary race.

So, leaving policy aside for a second, who would be the best Democratic foil from the anti-Trump perspective? By which I mean, which set of qualities is most likely to contrast with Trump in a way that makes the Democratic contender seem fresh, and the president appear old, clueless, and malevolent? I suspect it is this question that is behind the budding candidacy of one Pete Buttigieg. When you think of him in a debate with Trump, one-on-one, everything gets scrambled. I don’t know what that dynamic would be like exactly, but it feels a lot less predictable than, say, Elizabeth Warren or Beto O’Rourke.

Trump would be the oldest president in history at 74; Buttigieg would be the youngest at 39. Trump landed in politics via his money and celebrity after years in the limelight; Buttigieg is the mayor of a midsize midwestern town, unknown until a few weeks ago. Trump is a pathological, malevolent narcissist from New York, breaking all sorts of norms. Buttigieg is a modest, reasonable pragmatist, and a near parody of normality. Trump thrives on a retro heterosexual persona; Buttigieg appears to be a rather conservative, married homosexual. Trump is a coward and draft dodger; Buttigieg served his country. Trump does not read; Buttigieg does. Trump’s genius is demonic demagoguery. Buttigieg’s gig is careful reasoning. Trump is a pagan; Buttigieg is a Christian. Trump vandalizes government; Buttigieg nurtures it.

To put it simply, Mayor Pete seems almost designed to expose everything that makes the country tired of Trump. . . . . David Brooks rightly notes Buttigieg’s Obama-like combination of somewhat banal leftism with personal rectitude and calm. After the fever of the culture wars of the high-temperature Trump era, this might come across as a welcome balm. Voters tend to go for a contrast with the current president, a correction of sorts. . . . Buttigieg is a near-perfect way to put a drop shadow behind all of Trump’s grandiosity, age, temperament, and privilege.

More importantly, he would mitigate our current polarizing patterns. He’s not sanctimoniously woke, but woke enough to have the “social justice” left potentially buy in (if its members can get over their fear of white cis gay men as oppressors). He’s a left-liberal, but relatively unformed on policy, and has carved out a moderate place in a field careening leftward. Even his most daring ideas — expanding the Supreme Court to 15 — are designed to reduce polarization.

There’s something both very new and yet very traditional about the mayor — and that’s appealing to moderate conservatives.

Too gay? They said Barack Obama was too black. Bad name? Sure, but again: Barack Hussein Obama. (My gay hack for pronouncing his name is to think of him as a “booty judge.”) Too young? That’s possible. He’d be approaching 40 at his inauguration, but his affect is younger. There remains something boyish about him, which is something Trump would immediately fasten onto as rendering him a lightweight. But Buttigieg can rebut that in a simple and powerful way: He can say he was man enough to serve his country in uniform, which should be man enough for any president. (The contrast with the aged, spoiled draft-dodger brat could be deadly.)

But it’s also important to say that 39 is not that young for high office. Emmanuel Macron was the same age when he became president of France. Jacinda Ardern became prime minister of New Zealand at the age of 37. Sebastian Kurz became chancellor of Austria at the age of 31. Leo Varadkar became prime minister of Ireland at the age of 38, and came out as gay (like Buttigieg) in his 30s. In an age when nothing seems to be able to get done nationally, a serious pragmatist with an actual record of governing has an opening. And he has a good line when confronted with lack of experience: He will have had more experience actually governing than Trump.

He has some obvious vulnerabilities. The Democrats have to rally the black vote to counteract Trump’s rural strength. Mayor Pete hasn’t proved he can do that, even though his city is over 26 percent African-American.

Buttigieg’s immigration policies are very vague — he favors a “path to citizenship.” My own view is that the only Democrat who will beat Trump next year will campaign for control of immigration, legal and undocumented, in a sane and humane way. . . . We could, in other words, be in the mother of all immigration scares as the first primaries take place. We could have a million more migrants to grapple with. Currently, no Democrat has any response to this. . . . . If Buttigieg counters with a campaign for a path to citizenship for most here, but also in favor of mandatory e-verify (a completely humane way to enforce immigration law in the interior of the country via employment), he’d break out of the pack. Just actively treating the fears about immigration as legitimate — and seeking to assuage them — would mark him as a different kind of Democrat. And, of course, Buttigieg’s emergence has a personal salience for me. He is, quite simply, what many of us in my generation of gays fought for and rarely believed could happen: He is proud to be gay but not defined by it, happily married, a veteran, wickedly smart, and completely integrated. When I read some LGBTQ activists push back on him for not being gay or “intersectional” enough, it depresses me beyond measure. His candidacy is as historic as Obama’s. His potential presidency even more so. That so many see him as a credible, formidable candidate is a reminder that in America, we can still unite in a more humane consensus. Trump has eclipsed that possibility in a welter of poison. Buttigieg quite simply rescues it again.

Trump Immigration Policy Veers to Evil

Unless one is of 100% Native American descent, everyone of us in America is an immigrant and our ancestors often came to the New World to escape danger, discrimination, or religious persecution.  In a sense they were refugees seeking safety and better opportunity. Sadly, the ancestors of many, if not most, African Americans were forcibly brought to America, their families torn asunder in the process and then they faced being treated as chattel property.  This, combined with the genocide against  Native Americans are the two original sins of America - the ugly underbelly that flag waving self-anointed "patriots" conveniently forget.   Now, the Trump/Pence regime is adding another chapter of evil to America's record through its treatment of refugees arriving at the southern border.  Disturbingly, his strongest supporters are white Christian nationals who underscore just how hideous conservative Christianity has become. Trump is not only committing daily lies but he and the always reprehensible Jeff Sessions are killing America's soul and basic human decency.  A column in the New York Times takes a look at what is being done in the name of every American citizen.  It is ugly and it is evil, plain and simple.  Worse yet, I believe racism against non-whites is the lynch pin behind it all. "Christians" who support this ought to save all of us from the display of hypocrisy of them parking their despicable assess in church pews on Sunday mornings. Here are column excerpts:  

We as a nation have crossed so many ugly lines recently, yet one new policy of President Trump’s particularly haunts me. I’m speaking of the administration’s tactic of seizing children from desperate refugees at the border.

“I was given only five minutes to say goodbye,” a Salvadoran woman wrote in a declaration in an A.C.L.U. lawsuit against the government, after her 4- and 10-year-old sons were taken from her. “My babies started crying when they found out we were going to be separated.”

“In tears myself, I asked my boys to be brave, and I promised we would be together soon. I begged the woman who took my children to keep them together so they could at least have each other.”

This mother, who for her protection is identified only by her initials, J.I.L., said that while in El Salvador she was severely beaten in front of her family by a gang, and she then fled the country to save the lives of her children.

J.I.L. noted that she had heard that her children might have been separated and sent to two different foster homes, and added: “I am scared for my little boys.”

Is this really who we are? As a parent, as the son of a refugee myself, I find that in this case Trump’s policy has veered from merely abhorrent to truly evil.

Family separations arise in part because of the new Trump administration policy, announced last month, of “zero tolerance” for people who cross the border illegally. That means that parents are jailed (which happened rarely before), and their kids are taken away from them.

Mirian, a Honduran woman who arrived in the U.S., broke no law. She simply followed the established procedure by presenting herself at an official border crossing point and requesting asylum because her life was in danger in Honduras — nevertheless, her 18-month-old was taken from her.

“The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle,” Mirian said in a declaration accompanying the A.C.L.U. suit. “My son was crying as I put him in the seat. I did not even have a chance to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat.”

Likewise, Ms. G, a Mexican in the A.C.L.U. suit, went to an official border crossing point and requested asylum with her 4-year-old son and blind 6-year-old daughter. None of them had broken American law, yet the children were taken from their mother.

But even for those parents who commit a misdemeanor by illegally entering the U.S. — because they want to protect their children from Central American gangs — the United States response seems to be in effect to kidnap youngsters.

If you or I commit a misdemeanor, we might lose our kids for a few days while we’re in jail, and then we’d get them back. But border-crossers serve a few days in jail for illegal entry — and after emerging from criminal custody, they still don’t get their kids back soon, said Lee Gelernt, an A.C.L.U. lawyer. In one case, he said, it has been eight months and the child still has not been returned.

It’s true that immigration policy is a nightmare, we can’t take everyone and almost no one advocates open borders. . . . Yet none of that should be an excuse for brutalizing children by ripping them away from their parents.

So what’s next, Mr. President? Minefields at the border would be an even more effective deterrent. Or East German-style marksmen in watch towers to shoot those who cross?
We as a nation should protect our borders. We must even more assiduously protect our soul.

When the husband and I travel to Europe in September, we will likely have to explain repeatedly that (i) we opposed Trump's election, and (ii) the majority of Americans oppose the immorality of his regime's brutal policies.  Right now, I am ashamed to be an American. 

The Fictitious State of Trump’s Fantastical Union

I may not have watched Der Trumpenführer's "State of the Union" address since I knew in advance that it would bear little resemblance to objective reality, but many others did.  In the New York Times, the reactions ranged from that of "conservative" Ross Douthat who perpetually has his head up his ass, in my view, especially when it comes to being an apologist for religion and all of the toxicity it ushers into the world, to making the statement  about last night when he said "you could read tonight’s remarks (a better idea than listening to their somewhat soporific delivery) in part as an attempt to hit the reset button, to pitch himself as a centrist dealmaker rather than a predictable ideologue . . . we saw a glimpse of a potentially successful presidency. . . "  The only problem is that given Trump's utter lack of any moral compass, we will never see a "successful presidency" and even Douthat concedes that Trump lacks any plan to act on the few meritorious items he mentioned.  

Far Better analysis of the disingenuous performance can be found from Nicholas Kristof - who fact checked Trump's claims - who counters Trump claims with facts and figures that show the speech had little to do with reality and, instead was a propaganda piece believable only to his most unhinged base and or the otherwise delusional.  Another good take down comes from Frank Bruni.  Here are excerpts:

The word that came to mind most often as I watched Donald Trump deliver his first State of the Union address was “pretend.”

He pretends to be a statesman, and we’re supposed to pretend that hundreds of vulgar and recklessly divisive moments before this — thousands, if we’re adding tweets — don’t negate that claim.

We’re supposed to pretend that he gives a fig about decorum, though it disappears almost as soon as the teleprompter does. Above all, we’re supposed to pretend that what he says today has any bearing on what he’ll say tomorrow, when what he said yesterday contradicted it.

Our president  [Trump] lives in a world of sand and wind and make-believe, where the merest gust can alter the shape of everything, and Tuesday night’s remarks — especially his appeal for “common ground” and his vision of “all of us together” as “one American family” — should be seen in that shifting, swirling, fantastical context.

But Trump is a ridiculous breed apart, his moods more erratic, his poses more ephemeral, his pledges emptier.

Last February, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, he used his opening minutes to exalt civil rights, decry anti-Semitism and proclaim that “we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.”

Later came the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and his insistence that there were “some very fine people” among the white nationalists and neo-Nazis there.

Early this month he invited television cameras into the White House so that we could behold his placid demeanor as Democrats made their pitch for Dreamers and he recommended a “bill of love.” Within 48 hours, he was ranting about “shithole countries” whose human effluvium befouls our shores.

On Tuesday night, Trump dwelled boastfully on certain economic indicators — unemployment figures, the stock market — to portray America as a newly industrious land, dizzy with sudden riches. But we Americans aren’t that dizzy: We still expect more from our country and president than a Dow above 25,000, and that’s why Trump’s approval rating is below 40 percent.

He took starkly partisan positions on regulations, gun rights, foreign aid, “religious liberty” and more, then dared to pretend that he was extending an “open hand” to Democrats.

There were howlers aplenty in his address. “Americans love their country, and they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return,” he said. How does minimizing Russian interference in the 2016 election — and thwarting the investigation into what happened — accomplish that?

There were fictions galore. “For the last year,” he asserted, “we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.” No. He, his brood, Steven Mnuchin, Louise Linton and Tom Price (remember him?) swanned around on the government’s dime, their self-promotion and self-celebration extraordinary even by Washington’s standards.

The distance between Trump when he’s controlled and Trump when he’s unbound makes a speech like Tuesday night’s an especially hollow charade. And the orchestrated news in it can’t erase the messier developments beforehand, including the escalation of his assault on the F.B.I. and reports of his lawyers’ panic about his offer to be interviewed by the special counsel Robert Mueller. Jonathan Swan wrote in Axios that one of Trump’s intimates “believes the president would be incapable of avoiding perjuring himself. ‘Trump doesn’t deal in reality,’ the source said. ‘He creates his own reality.’ ”

His speech was such a creation, and to treat it any other way is to launder his entire political history and see a leader who has never been there.

Trump/Pence Regime to Attack Affirmative Action

At the same time that he has announced that he wants to cut legal immigration to America in half - most likely meaning a decrease in non-whites admitted to the country - the Trump/Pence regime that it intends to take on affirmative action for minorities at the college level, saying that it discriminates against white students.  It goes without saying that the Trump evangelical Christian and white supremacist base of Trump's support is thrilled by both prospects.  Both moves underscore that Trump's slogan "make America great again" actually means "make America white again."  It also underscores that Trump voters are motivated first and foremost by animus towards those they deem "other" and that while evangelicals continue to pack church pews, they are the antithesis of true followers of the Gospels.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the planned attack on minorities:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s internal announcement indicating that the Justice Department is seeking to curb affirmative action in a university admissions case has roused President Trump’s conservative base by seizing on a longtime grievance of the right at a moment when the administration is struggling to fulfill core Republican promises.

Sessions’s apparent intention to prohibit “intentional race-based discrimination” is also a window into the direction he is pulling the department’s Civil Rights Division in his effort to reverse Obama administration policies on a range of issues, including criminal justice, policing and voting rights.

Sessions’s moves signal that the administration is embracing the base during a time of turbulence and tension, with heavy attention being paid to the concerns of the white voters who lifted Trump into the presidency.

When Trump publicly attacked Sessions last week for his decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe, conservative groups and Republican lawmakers swiftly rallied to the attorney general’s defense. They argued Sessions — more than any other Cabinet member — has delivered quickly and concretely on Trump’s priorities. . . . .  Although the president is still unhappy with Sessions, Kelly told him that Trump does not plan to fire him or want him to resign, the person said. Kelly’s call came after a week of criticism in interviews and tweets by Trump of his attorney general.

Some Republican operatives also see the affirmative action initiative as a strategic play by the White House to rally middle-class and upper-middle-class white voters, especially as the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill has stalled.

“This touches a lot of issues and talks right to the folks who look at college admissions and believe slots for their kids are being taken, whether it’s by illegal immigrants or by other groups,” said Brett O’Donnell, a veteran Republican consultant. “It strikes to the heart of how they feel college is increasingly unaffordable and sometimes impossible to get into.”

Polling reflects the unease among Trump voters. A Washington Post-ABC News poll last year showed 44 percent of registered voters who supported Trump saw “whites losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics” as a bigger problem than minorities “losing out.”

[T]wo people familiar with discussions in the Civil Rights Division said the announcement came after career staffers who specialize in education issues refused to work on the investigation out of concerns it was contrary to the division’s long-standing approach to civil rights in education.

Civil rights groups Wednesday lashed out at the initiative and said Sessions may be trying to end college affirmative action programs that allow schools to promote more diversity on campus by considering race in college applications. For generations, up until the mid-1960s, African Americans were systematically denied admission to universities, they said.

In two cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that schools have a compelling interest in creating a diverse student body and may use race as one of multiple factors in admissions decisions. In June 2016, the court ruled 4 to 3 that a race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Texas was constitutional.

Critics of affirmative action say the Supreme Court rulings have left an opening to challenge race-conscious policies, and federal cases are pending against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina.

Sessions has long faced questions about his attitudes and actions regarding racial justice. In 1986, a Republican-led Senate committee rejected his nomination by Reagan for a federal judgeship amid allegations of racism. In January, civil rights groups spoke out against his nomination during a bitter confirmation hearing. For the first time, a sitting senator, Cory Booker (D-N.J.), testified against Sessions, focusing on his civil rights record.

Bannon and Miller echo the president’s instincts about what his base — which Trump calls “my people” — wants from the administration: a mix of grievance-infused politics, populism and hostility toward anything viewed as “politically correct.”

As noted in past posts, Sessions is a racist of long standing dating back to the days when he and I both lived in Mobile, Alabama, when he refused to prosecute KKK members who had lynched a young black man.  As for the media's use of the term "conservative," it should not be applied to racists and people motivated by hatred.  They need to be call what they are - racists and bigots.

Britain Votes to Leave EU; Markets Plunge

In a move that seems more motivated by bigotry and racism, not to mention nostalgia for a past that will never be again, a majority of voters in the United Kingdom voted for withdrawal from the European Union - despite agreement by virtually all economists that the move would significantly harm Britain's economy.  Like it or not, the days of the sun never setting on the British Empire are gone for ever, but why rely on logic and objective reality when one can satisfy one's racist bent and xenophobia.   As  piece in the Washington Post, those who voted for withdrawal in many ways mirror the know nothings and white supremacists rallying to Donald Trump.  Here are article highlights:

It may be pure coincidence that Donald Trump flew to Scotland on the day that British voters decided to leave the European Union. But in striking ways, the forces fueling Thursday’s historic referendum here were similar to those that have shaken U.S. politics to its core in the past year.

On both sides of the Atlantic, political establishments and the elites have found themselves on the defensive. Rising resentment over the fallout from globalization and the effects of the financial collapse of 2008, which has widened the gap between the rich and everyone else, has divided voters in Britain and the United States.

Added to that are emotional issues of national and cultural identity at a time of growing demographic diversity, highlighted in both countries by often-angry debates over immigration. Both Trump and those pushing for Britain to leave the European Union have found the immigration issue to be their most potent political weapon.

Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” could easily have been adapted to the messaging of those in the “leave” campaign across the pond. Here, that desire for a return to an earlier time — to make Britain great again — is expressed through the issue of control.

Those who have pushed for Britain to leave the E.U. want to reclaim a measure of sovereignty by wresting power from the bureaucrats in Brussels, the headquarters of the 28-member bloc. They feel about the E.U. bureaucracy as tea party Republicans do about the federal government.

Early Thursday, Steve Devereux, an economist and teacher, was passing by the polling place at London’s Methodist Central Hall, a short distance from Parliament. . . . . On balance, Devereux said he feared that rattling the establishment’s doors by voting to leave the E.U. would pose a great risk. But it is clear that the sense of disgust and disenfranchisement is deep and widespread.

Distrust with political establishments cannot be overstated, on either side of the Atlantic. During the debate here, Michael Gove, a Conservative Party lawmaker and a leading voice in the “leave” campaign, sought to discredit studies warning of the economic consequences of leaving. “People in this country have had enough of experts,” he said.

The choices in the two countries may be different, but what animates the sentiment behind the votes springs largely from the same set of grievances. Even the contours of the electorates are similar. Here, as in the United States, voters are polarized along recognizable lines: young vs. old; college-educated vs. non-college-educated; urban vs. small town and rural.

A SurveyMonkey online poll showed that voters younger than 45 favored the “remain” campaign, with the very youngest overwhelmingly in favor. Those 45 or older supported the “leave” campaign. Similarly, those with a college degree supported the “remain” campaign by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. Those without a degree favored the “leave” campaign, though by a narrower margin.

By better than 2 to 1, those here who cited immigration as their most important issue said they would back Britain’s exit. Those worried about the economy, poverty and inequality, or defense and foreign affairs, all backed remaining.

Beyond the issues that have shaped the campaign here and in the United States, there are other parallels. As in the United States, the campaign here has been marked by a coarsening dialogue, befitting perhaps of the age of social media and the culture of cable television.

The SurveyMonkey poll found that people here who said they would support Trump for president if they could vote in the United States backed the “leave” campaign by a significant margin. Those for Clinton said they were voting to remain in the bloc.

It is sad to see that like America, Britain has a significant uneducated white trash element that can be duped into voting against its own financial best interest by appeals to racism and the fantasy of restoring the past.  

The Fact Free World of Today's GOP

I have long said that today's Republican Party no longer functions in world of facts and objective reality.  Instead, much of the party and certainly a majority of the GOP base lives in a fantasy world.  It wasn't always this way, but the slide to lunacy began, in my view, when the Christofascists began their insidious hijacking of the GOP grassroots more than 25 years ago.  And as those who base their lives and world view on ancient myths authored by unknown, ignorant individuals have increased in the party, sane and rational individuals have felt compelled to escape the asylum.  The result is the on going spectacle of the GOP presidential nominee field which would have horrified Republicans of forty or fifty years ago.  The New York Times looks at the fact free world in which today's GOP functions.  Here are highlights:

Eleven presidential candidates had three prime-time hours on the national stage on Wednesday to tell the American people why they should lead the country. . . . . the Republican Party’s “A-Team,” as one of them, Mike Huckabee, said at the outset.

And that, America, is frightening. Peel back the boasting and insults, the lies and exaggerations common to any presidential campaign. What remains is a collection of assertions so untrue, so bizarre, that they form a vision as surreal as the Ronald Reagan jet looming behind the candidates’ lecterns.

It felt at times as if the speakers were no longer living in a fact-based world where actions have consequences, programs take money and money has to come from somewhere. Where basic laws — like physics and the Constitution — constrain wishes. Where Congress and the public, allies and enemies, markets and militaries don’t just do what you want them to, just because you say they will.

Start with immigration, and the idea that any president could or should engineer the mass expulsion of 11 million unauthorized immigrants. Not one candidate said that a 21st-century trail of tears, deploying railroad cars, federal troops and police dogs on a continental scale, cannot happen and would be morally obscene.

On foreign affairs, there was a lot of talk about not talking with bad people. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said his first act would be to tear up the Iran deal, throwing the nuclear race back to the ayatollahs and rupturing global alliances — but making a point! Carly Fiorina said: “What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message.”

We get the message, and it’s scary.

Jeb Bush spun a particularly repellent fantasy. Speaking reverently of his brother the president, he said, “He kept us safe,” and invoked the carnage of 9/11. Wait, what? Did he mean George W. Bush, who was warned about the threat that Al Qaeda would attack? Who then invaded a non sequitur country, Iraq, over a nonexistent threat?

When the A-Team got around to science and health, many of them promised to help Americans by killing the program that gives millions of them medical insurance.

Despite an abundance of serious issues to talk about, nobody offered solutions to problems like child poverty, police and gun violence, racial segregation, educational gaps, competition in a global economy and crumbling infrastructure. On looming disasters (the changing climate) and more immediate ones (a possible government shutdown over, of all things, Planned Parenthood), the debate offered no reassurance that grown-ups were at the table, or even in the neighborhood.

The insanity is the result of the rise of the Christofascists in the GOP and the years and years over which the GOP has fanned the insecurity of whites who see their era of white privilege waning.  Things did not have to be this way but for the short term cynicism of the so-called GOP establishment that welcomed in the insane and delusional in the hope of winning the next election cycle with no thought to the long term damage being done to both the party and the nation.

Donald Trump's Immigration Lunacy

As noted before on this blog, historically the Richmond Times-Dispatch has been one of Virginia's most conservative newspapers and it has all too often been either a supporter of or apologist for Republican Party lunacy.  And like the GOP establishment, the paper seem to revel in the short term benefits of empowering Christofascists and low life types of the GOP base for short term political expediency.  Now, belatedly, the Times-Dispatch seems to recognize the Frankenstein monster that was created and now embodied in Donald Trump's insane candidacy.  Here are highlights from an editorial condemning Trump's immigration lunacy that is being embraced by far too many in the ignorance worship Republican Party base:

Apparently goaded by complaints far and wide that his campaign was long on bloviation and short on specifics, Donald Trump finally unrolled a policy proposal. Be careful what you wish for.
The Donald’s plan to address immigration reads like something a seventh-grader might have come up with. It contains the inevitable proposal to build a giant wall along the Mexican border, because “a nation without borders is not a nation.”

Trump says he would make Mexico pay for the wall. If it doesn’t, he will “impound remittances” — money sent back to the home country — made with illegal immigrants’ wages. How is he going to do that, exactly?

He would have to trace all international monetary transfers back to their originating point, and then try to figure out if the sender is legally present in the U.S. That takes considerable time. Legal immigrants also send remittances. Ergo, Trump wants to impound all remittances — and then, after sufficient research, release some of them. Good luck getting the courts to approve such guilty-until-proven-innocent logic.

But for Trump, that’s just an appetizer. He also wants to triple the size of ICE, amend the Constitution to prevent birthright citizenship, and impose a nationwide E-Verify system so no business can hire anybody until the government agrees.   This is the favorite in a party that claims to want smaller government?

Trump’s proposals have so little connection to facts or logic that they are laughable. But then, facts and logic are irrelevant; his fans are not interested in them, and to bring them up simply proves, to Trumpmaniacs, that you are part of The Enemy.

Trump is the candidate of the primal scream. Like a primal scream, his campaign has no coherent message, no organizing principle, no concrete agenda. It is an emotional volcano, a geyser of raw id. Like a volcano, it is a phenomenon to behold. But if it isn’t capped soon, both the GOP and the nation could end up badly burned.

Candidate Clown Car Has GOP Leaders Worried About 2016

I have noted a number of times the race to see who among the would be GOP 2016 presidential candidates can most self-prostitute them self to the unwashed, insane, religiously extreme members of the Republican party base.  In addition to some of the candidates being basically batshit crazy, the effort to win votes among the far right early primary voters could well doom the GOP in the 2016 general election.  What plays well with the extreme party base can be radioactive to voters in the general election.  As The Hill notes, a number of issues are potential landmines for the GOP.  Here are some highlights:

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Republican contenders for the White House are under pressure to toe the party line on a number of issues as they battle for the nomination.

Primary voters will demand to know where the presidential hopefuls stand on a slew of hot-button issues, including immigration, taxes and climate change.

Several of the candidates have already stumbled with their answers, highlighting the intense scrutiny they will be under in the critical early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Here are some of the biggest political landmines ahead for the Republican field.

IMMIGRATION

Immigration is one of the thorniest issues for the Republican Party.

In the GOP primary, the candidates are fighting for the support of mostly conservative voters, who are generally opposed to anything they view as granting “amnesty” to undocumented people.

But the eventual Republican nominee will need to make gains with Hispanic voters in the general election to win the White House, but that segment of the electorate has shifted decisively toward Democrats in recent years.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who helped write the Senate’s 2013 immigration reform bill, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have cast themselves as candidates who can appeal to Hispanics and win the general election.

Bush has mostly stuck to his guns on granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, while emphasizing to conservatives their common ground on border security and fighting Obama’s executive actions.

Other candidates in the 2016 race, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), are likely to hammer Rubio and Bush as backing “amnesty.”

COMMON CORE

The federal education standards known as Common Core are deeply unpopular in the GOP, with polls show that Republican voters oppose them by a 3 to 1 margin.

The education standards have provided a ripe target for Republican candidates to take swings at a top-down prescription from the federal government.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) have assailed the education protocol, with Paul’s PAC referring to it as “anti-American propaganda.”  Walker has said he wants to eliminate the requirement, and Gov. Chris Christie has created a commission to review its place in New Jersey.

Standing virtually alone in support of Common Core is Bush, who argues states have plenty of say in how the standards are carried out.

That stance could prove to be a real liability in Iowa. A February Des Moines Register poll found that while 56 percent of Iowans back the standards, just 34 percent of Iowa Republicans do.

THE IRAQ WAR

President George W. Bush’s controversial tenure in the White House looms large over the current field, and candidates have been rushing to distance themselves from his Iraq War.

It’s been hard to find a prominent Republican who now supports the 2002 invasion, which remains deeply unpopular with the public. Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Cruz have all said that in hindsight, going to war was a mistake, as has Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a longtime critic of that military action.

The political peril of Iraq is especially acute for Jeb Bush, who struggled much of the past week to say whether he would have also authorized the military action. After vacillating on the issue for several days, Bush finally came out against his brother’s decision on Thursday.

THE IRAQ WAR

President George W. Bush’s controversial tenure in the White House looms large over the current field, and candidates have been rushing to distance themselves from his Iraq War.

It’s been hard to find a prominent Republican who now supports the 2002 invasion, which remains deeply unpopular with the public. Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Cruz have all said that in hindsight, going to war was a mistake, as has Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a longtime critic of that military action.

The political peril of Iraq is especially acute for Jeb Bush, who struggled much of the past week to say whether he would have also authorized the military action. After vacillating on the issue for several days, Bush finally came out against his brother’s decision on Thursday.

But his confusing and dismissive responses to the question over several days gave his rivals an opening, with Paul arguing his responses made clear Jeb would be “George Bush 3.”

GAY MARRIAGE

Opposition to same-sex marriage used to be a reliable position for any Republican presidential candidate, but at a time of growing support for such unions, the GOP primary field has splintered.

Most Republican candidates have answered affirmatively when asked if they would attend a gay wedding. Walker said he actually has done so for a family member.

But social conservatives remain staunchly opposed to gay marriage, and some of the contenders are taking a hard line.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Cruz and Jindal have fiercely opposed same-sex unions, and back legislative efforts to block them.

The challenge of the issue was apparent when Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon now running for the White House, apologized after saying that same-sex relationships in prison prove sexual orientation is a choice.

TAXES

Any Republican with an eye towards the White House is going to be talking taxes, which has long been one of the biggest dividing lines with the Democratic Party.

While all of the GOPers are eager to promote fiscal responsibility and tax cuts, there is an emerging split among the candidates on how far they are willing to go.

Some of the 2016 hopefuls have issued dramatic plans to slash taxes, as they look to stand out in the crowded field.

CLIMATE CHANGE

While none of the Republican contenders are vowing to tackle climate change if elected president, they are split on whether human activity is driving it.

Most Republican voters say it would be unacceptable for their candidate to believe in man-made climate change, let alone pursue policies to address it.

Some of the candidates, including Paul and Bush, have adopted an agnostic view, saying the jury is still out on how much the climate is changing, and if so, what role humans play in it.

Others, such as Cruz and Santorum, have depicted climate change as a hoax by the left to impose new environmental restrictions on the business community.