This is an extraordinary exchange of documents, which I learned about by reading Bill Moyers’ website.
Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Governmental Ethics, wrote a letter to the White House saying that Kellyanne Conway should be disciplined for using her official position to encourage people to buy Ivanka Trump’s merchandise. The White House responded by saying that officials who work for the White House are not subject to the same ethics rules that apply to other government officials.
Never before, at least in modern history, has the White House claimed to be exempt from federal ethics rules.
These are not normal times. This is not a normal administration. Ignoring ethics rules is not normal. The Republicans who run the Congress should not tolerate this flouting of laws and long-respected rules of behavior. It is a very bad precedent.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The Republicans who run the Congress should not tolerate this flouting of laws and long-respected rules of behavior.”
And I’ve got some prime white sand ocean front property over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri for sale cheaply.
LOVE BILL MOYERS.
I think that the GOP as well as Trump are a menace and threat not only to this country but to the world. The fact that they think that climate change is a hoax or something of no particular importance is just mind boggling. They will set this country back years, maybe decades as regards the environment, health care, women’s rights, financial stability, the essential social programs, worker rights and the list is endless. It’s a continuing horror show.
If they thought climate change was a hoax the could be forgiven. . Knowing that it is real and, allowing greed to be their guiding concern ,thinking that they and theirs will not be affected is criminal.
Lock them up
Trump wants to “Make America GRATE!” And I do mean GRATE. Trump is a very unhappy man and rightfully so. He’s totally empty.
Diane: I have long thought that Donald Trump came into the White House thinking he was going to be able to act like a Russian autocrat with no regard for the rule of law or the other institutions that make up our way of life and government. He also apparently thought that Obama could just tell the FBI to bug Trump Tower, at will, again, with no hint of a question about the law or accountability. Trump seemed to think Obama also could do whatever he wanted regardless. His ignorance is far-reaching just on the basics of what democratic government is about. Basically, he thinks HE IS TH LAW. The Ethics thing is just another case in point.
Also, that recent thing with Flynn’s paid association with Turkey “told” us that Trump thinks his own position as president is only about having a good “brand,” and that he can use it now to “buy” whatever he wants and to leverage his business “deals.” And again, he probably thinks everyone else does the same thing and thinks the same way. The man’s narcissism won’t let him out of himself and so he has become a mental midget. He’s charted to go down, but what he’ll take with him and what damage he will leave behind are the new questions.
Who’s left behind? The smoothest self-fictionalizers and liars we’ve seen in a long time: Pence and Ryan. Someone should tell them that Ayn Rand was a reactionary of her time, a pseudo-intellectual; and a bad philosophical/political argument to follow in our time. They are better off with their Catholic roots in Christ’s teachings (about the poor and the rich). Reliance on Rand’s idiocy of individualism can only do harm to authentic conservatism and to those who look to these people for leadership in today’s politics.
CBK,
What you need to realize about Teump is that he runs (still runs) a family business. He does not have a board of directors to report to. He rules as an autocrat. No one can overrule him. In a normal corporation, the CEO must answer to the board. The board can fire him. Trump is not accustomed to any limits or accountability. He was shocked when federal judges said he couldn’t ban Muslims. I am willing to bet he has never read the Constitution. He still thinks he can do whatever he feels like.
Although I agree with your sentiment about Trump being the authoritarian. Not many Boards or CEOs have had that scenario that you described, not for a very long time. If ever.
Joel,
CEOs do get fired by the board. It happened this week at some big corporation. Can’t recall which one.
Joel,
Here are some CEOs who got the boot. Google “CEO fired.”
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/246043
More about firing the CEO:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/07/why-c-e-o-s-are-getting-fired-more/amp
Trump has no Board. Just his children. Autocrat.
dianeravitch
Perhaps a little tongue in cheek . I am not saying that CEOs never get fired. But all too often they have a very cozy relationship with the boards that hire them . Thus CEO compensation has gone through the roof. Sometimes as companies , workers and share holders got clobbered
So if this is getting fired, somebody please fire me. Ill come out of retirement just to get fired.
Let us just quote Maxine Waters as to Pence and Ryan . I will not accept Pence either he was complicit. Ryan may be what we have to settle for .
Of course Obama could have had the FBI spy on political opponents had he been 37th President and not the 44th.
We should not settle for Ryan! I suspect that the way he smirks every time the so-called president signs an executive order which rolls back people’s protections and rights might be a tell that he was in on that hot mess, too, and is just thrilled to reap the rewards.
If the executive branch won due to Russian involvement and collusion with Trump and his team, as well as the electoral college not doing their job in preventing a sociopath who didn’t win the popular vote from becoming POTUS, then we should have a do-over election –and get rid of the electoral college.
Sorry, meant to say “If the GOP in the executive branch won due to…”
homelesseducator
No argument from me, that is Michael Moore’s position as well unfortunately it does not work that way .
And also, Catherine, Ayn Rand in her later years lived off the public welfare she railed against, Social Security and Medicare.
Ellen Lubic: I didn’t know that. History loves irony.
Like the other deplorables her justification was, she was just taking advantage of the system .
Joel Herman: I don’t know if what you say about Rand is actually true, but it’s certainly plausible considering her writings. Opportunism must be a high moral craft.
Many in DC are playing some variant of the game: “It may be unethical, but it is not illegal.”
I was introduced to Aynn Rand by reading The Fountainhead in a sophomore Englich class in a state college. Even then, I was scornful of its inclusion in a serious education. I was equally scornful of Slaughterhouse Five. I was a year away from a classical education that was just coming to accept Sinclair Lewis.
The older I get, the more I think I was right on both counts. These books more accurately needed to be embedded in a deep study of American political thought and writing. If a person reads Rand and hears Reagan suggest the evil of government in the absence of any exchange about context and history, that person is apt to come to the same conclusion Paul Ryan did.
Thus we are increasingly governed by those who believe that government is bad. They create a self-fulling prophecy of erosion of the things that make government good. We see the advocacy of the abolition of the national endowments, the defunding of public radio, the gutting of the EPA, and the attempt to monetize everything so that individuals can grow rich at the trough of what public money is spent.
Honest government is not bad. This should be our theme.
Roy Turrentine you say: “If a person reads Rand and hears Reagan suggest the evil of government in the absence of any exchange about context and history, that person is apt to come to the same conclusion Paul Ryan did.” And: “Honest government is not bad. This should be our theme.”
I guess that’s why they call them the “humanities.” But I think Obama was trying to counter the Reaganesque “government is the problem” thing with his “smart government” mantra; but it didn’t stick, or he (and those of us who supported him) probably didn’t say it enough. If you don’t live your life by bumper-sticker thinking, you tend to pay less attention to slogans.
I continue to be terribly disturbed by Trump; but when I see Ryan and Pence, I spontaneously conjure up images of pod people, vacant eyes and empty souls, they are so “set” in their Rand-like thinking.
This is “Animal Farm” come to life: Animals shall not drink alcohol “to excess.” Somehow those last two words were forgotten by the animals. But now that they’ve read it there on the barn wall it must be true. So the pigs were not, in reality, breaking the commandments. (This is paraphrased, but you get the idea: “those” rules apply to you, not us.) Orwellian, indeed.