Tuesday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1

Monday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 2

How Has Supporting Trump Worked Out for Russia?

As a piece in New York Magazine states, "We now know with more certainty than we did a couple weeks ago that the Russian government tried to tip the scales in last year’s presidential election toward Donald Trump and that central figures in the Trump campaign were apparently only too happy to accept the assistance."  One goal was to obviously weaken America and discredit the electoral process and on that, Trump seems to be delivering for Putin.  On climate change, China may step into America's former role and come to dominate renewable energy over time as Trump tries to breath life into the almost dead coal industry.  In terms of respect for America, Putin hit a home run as positive views of America plummet to new lows.  There are, of course, other things Putin hoped to achieve which the piece reviews.  Here are some article highlights:

[W]hat did Russian president Vladimir Putin get for his efforts? Has he received a decent return on his investment, or is Trump backfiring on him?

Here’s a look at some of the policy areas in which Putin likely hoped a Trump victory would advance Russian interests and how well Trump has delivered (whether knowingly or unknowingly). Remember, it’s Putin giving the grades here, so high marks don’t necessarily mean a job well-done.

Sanctions

In backing Trump, perhaps no objective was a bigger motivator for Putin and his oligarchic comrades than the easing of U.S. sanctions on Russia. While the impact of the sanctions on Russia’s ruling class has not been as sharp as it’s been for the underclass, a lot of wealthy Russians (including people who are personally friendly with Putin and Trump) would like to be able to travel, spend money, and do business in the U.S. and Europe more freely again. Trump’s people were signaling to Russia that he was willing to give ground on sanctions before he took office — and possibly before he was elected.

So far, no such luck. The Senate imposed new sanctions on Russia in June to punish the Kremlin for its election interference and, being well aware of Trump’s excessive coziness with Putin, took steps to limit his ability to lift them.

Grade: B-

Cybersecurity

If Putin has his way, 2016 won’t be the last U.S. election marred by Russian intelligence interference. It would be a shame if the president he helped us elect turned around and made it harder for him to “participate” in the future. Fortunately, Trump can’t admit that our elections are vulnerable to foreign interference without admitting that it helped him win, which his ego won’t allow, so he’s doing nothing to prevent Russia or other hostile actors from taking further cracks at our political parties’ communications or our election infrastructure. Instead, he’s channeling his energy into hunting down the millions of fraudulent U.S. voters that exist only in the fevered minds of some on the right.

Grade: A+

NATO

Trump’s campaign-trail diatribes against our NATO allies for not paying their fair share of defense costs was music to Putin’s ears, as a NATO weakened by wavering American support would give him a freer hand to reassert Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and particularly in the Baltic countries. Trump alarmed allies, blindsided his own national-security team, and surely set Putin’s heart aflutter when he declined to commit to the Article 5 mutual-defense provision in a speech at NATO headquarters in May — only to backtrack and say he would indeed uphold it in a press conference in Romania early last month. Clearly, his military and national-security staff set him straight in the interim. Meanwhile, other NATO countries are boosting their defense spending this year, for which Trump is taking too much credit. This is looking more and more like one campaign pledge the president won’t be able to fulfill.

Grade: F

Europe

If Putin can’t have a weaker NATO, a fractured European Union might be the next best thing — hence Russia’s (unsuccessful) efforts to help the Euroskeptical rightist Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election in the same way he helped Trump in ours. On the whole, Trump does not instill much confidence in European leaders: Alienating Europe appears to be among his policy goals, and he now has Germany worried that he will start a trade war. On the other hand, Trump’s hostility to transatlantic cooperation has Europe seeking other partners, such as Japan, and it may be unwittingly making Europe stronger by helping Europeans appreciate the value of their union and the need for self-reliance. He’s also not abandoning the U.S. commitment to European security vis-à-vis Russia, as evinced by his agreement to sell Patriot air-defense missiles to Poland earlier this month.

Grade: C

Syria

Russia’s objectives in Syria remain as they have always been: to keep Bashar Al-Assad in power, Islamists out of power, and the Russian naval facility in Tartus open. Trump’s frustration with the Syrian stalemate and hesitation to oust Assad suited Putin much better than Clinton’s plans for more direct engagement.

After their G20 meeting, Trump and Putin announced that the U.S., Russia, Israel, and Jordan had brokered a cease-fire in southwest Syria, which took effect last Sunday. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson maintains that the U.S.’s long-term goal for Syria is for Assad to step down, the new Syria strategy that emerged from the meeting would leave him in power, at least for the time being. . . . Critics have called the cease-fire plan unenforceable, have said it ignores Iran’s role in the conflict, and have alleged the plan entails a capitulation to Russia’s agenda from which Iran will emerge the winner. In short, it looks like the shots in Syria are now being called from Moscow, not Washington.

Grade: A

Will Chief Justice Roberts Vote to Allow Businesses to Discriminate Against Gays?

Being gay in America leaves one constantly targeted for discrimination or worse by Christofascists and/or denied protections afforded to other citizens.  Here in Virginia LGBT employees have zero protections currently from being summarily fired simply because business owners or superiors are anti-gay bigots.  Most people are shocked when they hear there are neither state or federal non-discrimination protections and I regularly get calls from those who have been fired and have to tell them that unless their employer is a large company with internal protections, they are simply out of luck.  Even state employees have no protections other than a gubernatorial Executive Order which can disappear with the election of a new governor.  Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted a case that could well determine if businesses can refuse services to LGBT couples (and by extension individuals) based on "religious belief."  If allowed, it would put in place something equivalent to the "whites only" signs of the Jim Crow era.   If one of the "liberal" justices should retire and Der Trumpenführer (or a President Pence) appoints another anti-gay bigot, the swing vote on the Court will be Chief Justice John Roberts.   Newly appointed Justice Gorsuch has already tipped his hand and shown that to him, religious belief trumps all else and that such discrimination would be perfectly allowable.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at what Roberts might or might not do in the pending case.  Here are excerpts:

A Supreme Court mystery: Has Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. embraced the court’s same-sex marriage decision that he so passionately protested two years ago?

The “does-he-doesn’t-he” question is prompted by a case that the court decided without oral arguments at the end of the recently completed term. The justices ruled in favor of same-sex couples, but did so in a way that has turned those who closely follow the court’s actions into a debating society.

And the answer could be important for more than curiosity’s sake. The court has accepted for its next term a case dealing with whether business owners must provide services for same-sex unions even if they are religiously opposed, and the nation’s courts are filling with cases about how far the 2015 same-sex marriage ruling extends.

Usually, there is no question about where the justices stand. One of the Supreme Court’s boasts about its transparency is that justices put their names on their work, joining the reasoning of a majority or dissenting opinion or writing their own.

“Except sometimes they don’t,” said Joshua Matz, a former clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and proprietor of the legal blog Take Care.

And one of the times they don’t is when issuing a “per curiam” decision, an unsigned opinion that is filed on behalf of the court. In Pavan v. Smith , the court summarily overruled a decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court and agreed with same-sex married couples who said the state treated them differently than heterosexual married couples when issuing birth certificates. The state automatically listed spouses of mothers on birth certificates when the spouse was a man, but not when she was a woman.

The per curiam decision said that Arkansas’s justices had failed to properly apply the court’s landmark decision that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, Obergefell v. Hodges.

“Differential treatment infringes Obergefell’s commitment to provide same-sex couples ‘the constellation of benefits that the states have linked to marriage,’ ” the unsigned opinion said.

The court’s three most conservative justices objected. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined a dissent written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, which said the court should have accepted the case for full briefing and argument because the outcome wasn’t nearly as clear-cut as the majority claimed.

Noticeably absent from the dissent was Roberts, who was on the losing side in Obergefell. He issued a strongly worded dissent and underlined his opposition by reading a summary of it from the bench — the first and only time he has taken such a step in more than a decade on the court.  Same-sex couples are justified in celebrating their newly found right, he said, but he added tartly that “the Constitution has nothing to do with it.”

But if Roberts wasn’t with the named dissenters in the recent Arkansas case, does that mean he was with the unnamed majority?

Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky said during a recent panel discussion at the University of California at Irvine Law School that the answer was yes and the vote should be seen as 6 to 3.

Law professor Leah Litman said she wasn’t sure Chemerinsky could make such a claim. But another panelist, Alex Kozinski, the celebrated and conservative longtime judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, was definitive: Yes, Roberts was in the majority.

Will Baude, a University of Chicago law professor and former Roberts clerk who has closely studied the per curiam decisions, rulings on emergency filings and stay requests that collectively have been referred to as the court’s “shadow docket,” is skeptical of Kozinski’s pronouncement.

Because the five members of the Obergefell majority — Kennedy and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — remain, Roberts certainly knows there is no way of dislodging Obergefell as precedent, and perhaps he thought it covered the Arkansas case, whether he liked it or not.

But it doesn’t dictate what a judge might do in the next case, he said, if circumstances — for instance, the court’s membership — change.

Republicans and Der Trumpenführer have promised Christofascists that they will overturn Obergefell, or gut it, to "protect religious liberty" and by default grant special rights to Christian extremists.  This is what "friends" who voted for Trump gave to their friends and neighbors.  Feigning ignorance should no allow them forgiveness. 

Monday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1

Sunday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 2

Could We End Up With President Orrin Hatch?

Where the Russiagate investigation will lead is anyone's guess at this point, but I for one hope it ends with the removal of both Donald Trump and Mike Pence from office.  That scenario then leads to the question of which morally bankrupt Republican would end up in the oval office.  A piece in The Week conjectures that it could be Senator Orrin Hatch given that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell may prove to be tainted in the Russiagate scandal since indications exist that Mitch - and likely Ryan - knew of the collusion and looked the other way in their zeal to have the GOP win the White House at literally any cost.  It is an interesting conjecture and the piece and certainly has some possible plausibility in America's insane political nightmare.  Here are highlights:  

The Republican Party holds the White House and both houses of Congress. A majority of the justices on the Supreme Court have been appointed by Republican presidents. The GOP controls a majority of state governments. Yet members of the president's senior staff and immediate family are under investigation, and the president himself may well come to face impeachment and/or calls to resign, not to mention indictment and prosecution for charges ranging from violations of election laws to obstruction of justice and even treason.

The Trump-Russia scandal may well come to be the biggest in American history. There's nothing funny about that.

And yet ... there is something a little amusing about the prospect of the Republican leadership in Washington attempting to replace a President Trump who's been taken down by the Russian scandal. The fact is that if the scandal grows wide enough to topple the president, it's quite likely to touch a number of other high-ranking Republicans, several of whom stand in the line of succession. What happens then?

Let's start with Vice President Mike Pence, the man who would be tapped first to take over in the event that Donald Trump doesn't complete his term. A Pence spokesperson appeared uncertain on Wednesday when asked whether the vice president had ever met during the presidential campaign or transition with representatives of the Russian government. By Thursday morning, the uncertainty had been replaced by assurance that no such meeting ever took place. It would be nice to think that this is true, though the Trump administration's record is somewhat … spotty when it comes to forthrightness about Russian contacts.

But let's assume it's true: Pence never met with Russian officials. Good! But is it also the case that he knew nothing about meetings and conversations that clearly did take place between a prominent Russian attorney and Donald Trump's eldest son, son-in-law, and one-time campaign manager? And between the Russian ambassador and Mike Flynn? And Jeff Sessions? On several (vaguely remembered) occasions? Unless Pence can show that the Trump circle made concerted efforts to keep him out of this rather large and permeable loop, the claim sounds implausible on its face. Or at least implausible enough that leading Republicans are likely to consider it ill-advised to allow Pence to succeed Trump as commander-in-chief when he could end up having to govern under the same cloud of Russian suspicions.

That's how we could easily end up with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, second in the line of succession, ascending to the presidency (as some intelligent commentators have already begun to predict).

There's just one problem with that scenario: Reports have indicated that Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may have known about Russia's attempts to meddle in the election on Trump's behalf as early as last summer, more than two months before Election Day. That means it's possible, and perhaps likely, that Ryan and his Senate counterpart will end up tainted by the Russian scandal as well — at least enough to raise concerns about allowing anyone from the Republican leadership to take over for a disgraced President Trump.

And that brings us to the third person in the line of succession: the president pro tempore of the Senate, who just so happens to be … the 83-year-old Republican from Utah, Orrin Hatch.

That's right: There is a non-negligible chance that at some point prior to the 2020 election, we could see President Hatch in the White House. And here's the thing: Given the available options and the still-unclear scope of the Russian scandal, Hatch may well be the best choice around. If you doubt it, take a look at who comes immediately after him in the line of succession: Secretary of State Rex "Russian Order of Friendship" Tillerson. And he's followed by a series of other Trump Cabinet members, all of whom could end up tainted by the scandal as well. Only Hatch is sufficiently distant from both the White House and the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill to be a safe bet.

There's another compelling wrinkle in the Hatch thought experiment, too: He's a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Mormon folklore includes an 1843 prophecy by church founder Joseph Smith according to which a Mormon will one day become president of the United States at a moment when the Constitution is "hanging by a thread," thereby saving the country from calamity. Mormons call this the "White Horse Prophecy."

Could the deeply pious octogenarian be America's gallant knight riding in on a white steed, sent by God himself to save us from civic doom? Sure, it's unlikely. But then again, two years ago the idea of America electing a septuagenarian reality-show star and transparent con artist to the highest office in the land sounded like a bad joke.

The Delusional World of Breitbart and the GOP

As a former Republican - for new readers I was a city committee member for the GOP in Virginia Beach for eight years - it seems that each passing day has me more horrified at what the Republican Party has become.  It was bad enough when the Party gave up all pretense that its agenda was anything less than to steal from the poor and give to the rich so as to restore America to the worse elements of the Gilded Age.  Then there was the pulling back of the curtain to reveal an embrace of racial and religious based hatred not seen in decades.  Now, the latest degradation of the GOP is that it has become the party of treason, a party where colluding with a hostile foreign government and giving away America's role in the world is not only fine, but to be embraced. Leading the way in the transformation of the GOP has been right wing news - Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, lead the way with assists from Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart - and the Christofascists and white supremacy who have slithered out from under the rocks they have hidden beneath.  A New York Times editorial summarizes this hideous and delusional world that now is the Republican Party.  Here are highlights:

The revelation that Donald Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer promising information that would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton was a true bombshell in an era when we have become almost inured to them. Here was proof that members of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign had, at the very least, been eager to collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

No one could gainsay the facts: Mr. Trump’s own son published them on Twitter.

As recently as five or 10 years ago, every major news outlet would have treated this set of facts as front-page news and a dire threat to Mr. Trump’s presidency. The conservative press and Republican voters might disagree on certain particulars or points of emphasis. But their view of reality — of what happened and its significance — would have largely comported with that of the mainstream. You’d have had to travel to the political fringe of right-wing talk radio, the Drudge Report and dissident publications like Breitbart News to find an alternative viewpoint that rejected this basic story line.

Not anymore. Look to the right now and you’re apt to find an alternative reality in which the same set of facts is rearranged to compose an entirely different narrative.
On Fox News, host Lou Dobbs . . . . described the Donald Trump Jr. email story, with wild-eyed fervor, like this: “This is about a full-on assault by the left, the Democratic Party, to absolutely carry out a coup d’état against President Trump aided by the left-wing media.” [O]ver the last several years the conservative underworld has swallowed up and subsumed more established right-leaning outlets such as Fox News. The Breitbart mind-set — pugnacious, besieged, paranoid and determined to impose its own framework on current events regardless of facts — has moved from the right-wing fringe to the center of Republican politics. There have been mileposts along the way: the populist revolt on the right that killed bipartisan immigration reform in 2013, the toppling of House Speaker John Boehner in 2015. And, of course, the rise of Mr. Trump, whose attacks on the mainstream media have conditioned his supporters to dismiss as “fake news” any reporting that is critical of him or his administration — Mr. Trump has even criticized the coverage of his son’s Russia liaison, where the basic facts aren’t in dispute, as coming from the “fake media.”

The full scale of this transformation still hasn’t registered, but it’s evident in President Trump’s approval ratings. Despite six months of White House strife, precious few legislative achievements and a metastasizing Russia scandal, Republicans have largely stood by their president. While his national support has dipped below 40 percent, his approval rating within his own party remains strong: Republican support for the president has hovered around 85 percent since his inauguration.

[T]he transformation of the Republican mind-set encompasses more than just news or politics. Andrew Breitbart, the founder of Breitbart News, liked to say that “politics is downstream from culture.”  Culture has always been a driving obsession of the conservative underworld of Breitbart and its ilk.

One reason that an alternative view of reality has taken such deep root among Republicans is that they seem to be focusing more on the broader culture. Last week a new Pew Research Center poll showed that a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now believes that colleges and universities — the flash point of our current culture wars — have a negative effect on the country. At least so far, the news that Donald Trump Jr. was prepared to accept Russian help to subvert a United States election doesn’t appear to have changed this state of affairs. If you’re not a Republican, watching Republicans react to the news can feel a bit like witnessing a mass hallucination. There’s no guarantee that this will endure. Even on Fox News, there are scattered signs that the latest Russia developments may finally be breaking through — at least to a few folks. . . . . But of course the conservative ranks have always included principled NeverTrumpers, whose resistance to the Republican drift has been mostly ignored by the rank and file. Don Jr.’s travails will be a good test of the resiliency of the new Republican worldview. If special counsel Robert Mueller finds evidence of Russian collusion, it will be followed by a bigger test measuring just what it takes to snap out of a mass hallucination.

I truly do not understand what is wrong with today's Republicans.  As I type this post, I am surrounded by photos of my  late parents and grandparents who would be sickened by what we are witnessing and a political party that they supported for many decades. 

One comment on the Times editorial sums up what decent, moral people should be doing vis-a-vis the GOP, although I would extend the boycott to any Republican at any level:

I am a former Republican who cares about Russia --- a lot. Since 1972, I have never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.   Those days are finished. The GOP has become the party of corruption, cruelty and bigotry. Its members are stuck in time, and have not evolved socially since 1960.   That is why I will never again vote for a Republican for national office. The GOP is no longer worthy of consideration by this loyal American.

Here in Hampton Roads, Virginia, with its huge military personnel presence, how can members of the military vote for traitors?  I simply cannot comprehend it.  What is wrong with these people?

Health Insurers Trash Latest Senate GOP "Reform" Bill

Other than Congressional Republicans and the pathological liars at the White House, there seems to be little enthusiasm for the GOP's latest rob the poor to give tax breaks to the rich scheme which is once again dressed up as a pretend "reform" of America's health care system.  Opponents range from hospital associations - rural hospitals could literally be forced to close if the bill is enacted - to AARP which is galvanizing the elderly who (i) vote in high percentages, and (ii) worry a great deal about health care. Now joining the chorus of opponents even before the Congressional Budget Office releases its scoring net week are major health care insurance carriers. While obviously not the most reliable critics, these companies do have an interest in a program that will not bankrupt them or leave them as the villains when millions lose coverage.  A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at this new assault on an already horrendously bad proposal ( a copy of the letter from Blue Cross?Blue Shield is embedded in the article)   Here are excerpts:

Big players in the insurance industry, which has mostly held back public criticism of the GOP’s Obamacare repeal push, eviscerated a Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)-sponsored provision that was included in the latest version of the Senate legislation.

“It is simply unworkable in any form and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market,” Blue Cross Blue Shield and America’s Health Insurance Plans said Friday in a rare joint letter to Senate leaders.

The Cruz proposal, known as the “Consumer Freedom Option,” would allow insurers to sell plans that would be free of many Affordable Care Act mandates if they were also selling Obamacare-compliant plans.

Insurers and outside health experts had already been raising their concerns with the idea when it was being discussed in the abstract, warning the it segment the market between healthy people choosing the non-compliant plans and sick people the comprehensive ACA ones. The insurers upped their complaints in the letter Friday.

“This would allow the new plans to ‘cherry pick’ only healthy people from the existing market making coverage unaffordable for the millions of people who need or want comprehensive coverage, including, for example, coverage for prescription drugs and mental health services,” the insurers said.

The insurers also bashed the details of the proposal that became clear after it was unveiled, including an apparent attempt of have the non-compliant plans and the ACA plans share a single risk pool.

“That is not the case. The Consumer Freedom Option establishes a ‘single risk pool’ in name only. In fact, it creates two systems of insurance for healthy and sick people,” the insurers said.

They said that the $70 billion added to the new draft to offset premium increases for the sick “is insufficient and additional funding will not make the provision workable for consumers or taxpayers.”

They went on to predict that the proposal “will lead to far fewer, if any, coverage options for consumers who purchase their plan in the individual market.”

“As a result, millions of more individuals will become uninsured,” the letter said.

One more GOP defection from the legislation, which already has two Senate Republican opponents, would kill it even before the Senate could advance it procedurally, in a vote slated for this coming week.

Stated another way, the insurers basically said that the GOP description of the bill is nothing shirt of a huge lie.   Given the dishonesty of today's GOP, none of this should come as a surprise. 

Sunday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1