Archives for category: Trump

The enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2001 (signed into law on January 8, 2002) and the imposition of Race to the Top (a more punitive version of NCLB) created an era of bipartisanship based on testing, punishment, and privatization. The Democratic Party in DC abandoned its historic commitment to public schools.

Those closest to the classroom understand that the Bush-Obama program of 2002- ) was a disaster. After an initial increase in scores, the lines went flat about 2010; there is only so much that test prep can do to lift scores. Many schools were closed, many charters opened (and many swiftly closed), corporate charter chains thrived, teachers left in large numbers, enrollment in teacher education programs plummeted, now vouchers are subsidizing subprime religious schools.

Based on the evidence, the past two decades have been a disaster for American education.

Yet, as Peter Greene explains, a new third party, which calls itself “No Labels,” offers up an education platform that is a rehash of the Bush-Obama agenda. On education “No Labels” repackages the failed ideas of the past 20 years.

Know this about “No Labels”: it is targeting independent voters and will throw the election to Trump, if the election is close, as is likely. It is funded by rightwing billionaires. Caveat emptor.

Greene writes:

No Labels is supposed to be some sort of centrist break from the raging politics of left and right as a champion of “common sense,” and I’m not going to wander down that political rabbit hole (other than to note that saying you’re all about common sense while seriously considering Joe Manchin as a Presidential candidate plays about like a vegan eating a hamburger).

But they’ve got a platform, and it uses four points to address “America’s Youth” and so education, and that’s our beat here at the Institute, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Idea 11: As a matter of decency, dignity, and morality, no child in America should go to bed or go to school hungry.

The basic idea is solid enough– it’s a bad thing for children to go hungry. Some of the rationale is …odd? …off the point?

Undernourished children “Make smaller gains in math and reading, repeat grades more, and are less likely to graduate from high school, which means they’re more likely to end up in prison.” That’s an interesting chain of causes and effects. Also, they disrupt classrooms more, interfering with other children’s education.

Despite the heading, there’s not a moral argument in sight. And we still have to insert “even though Washington must reduce spending” we wave at some sort of significant expansion of funding or tax credits so children are fed. So nothing systemic about child hunger or poverty, I guess.

Idea 12: Every child in America should have the right to a high-quality education. No child should be forced to go to a failing school.

There is not a molecule of air between these “centrists” and the usual crowd of school privatizers.

Rich kids get great schools and poor kids get terrible ones, so the solution is NOT to fix or supplement funding, but to push down the pedal on charters and vouchers. Because, hey– America spends “more on education per school-aged child than any country in the world, with worse results.” Let’s also throw in some bogus testing results, and the usual claims about charter school waiting lists.

Because “we like competition too,” their common sense solution is to add 10,000 charter schools in the next ten years, to offer a “lifeline” to some students “trapped in failing traditional public schools.” I’m not going to take the time to argue any of this (just go looking through the posts on this blog). Let’s just note that there’s nothing here that Betsy DeVos or Jeb Bush would object to, other than they’d rather see more vouchers. This is standard rightwing fare.

Idea 13: America should make a national commitment that our students will be number one in reading and math globally within a decade.

You know-number one in the international rankings based on Big Standardized Test results, a position and ranking that the United States has never held ever. And yet somehow, leading nations like Estonia have failed to kick our butt. These guys invoke China’s test results, when even a rudimentary check would let you know that China doesn’t test all of its students.

If America wants to maintain our lead in the technologies of tomorrow, we’d better spend less time on waging culture wars in our schools and more time focusing on promoting, rewarding, and reaching for excellence.

Remember that, so far, we have maintained that lead without improving our test score ranking.

But if excellence in education is the goal, maybe rethink voucher-based subsidies for schools that mostly are religious and teach creationism and reading only “proper” stuff and just generally waging those same culture wars. Or starting up 10,000 charter schools that don’t necessarily do anything better than a public (and who may soon also have the chance to operate in a narrow, myopic, discriminatory religious framework).

Idea 14: Financial literacy is essential for all Americans striving to get ahead

Oh, lordy. Remember all those poor kids in Idea 11? Well, No Labels has an explanation.

Almost six in 10 Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck. Inflation is arguably the biggest driver of this insecurity, but far too many Americans also lack the knowledge and tools to become financially independent and get ahead.

Inflation and bad accounting. You know what helps people become financially independent? Money.

So let’s have financial literacy classes so people can get better credit scores.

Also, in Idea 22, they want civics education so people will be proud of America. Idea 24– “No American should face discrimination at school or at work because of their political view,” and I’m going to send them right back to their support for vouchers and charters that are working hard to be free to do exactly that.

Look, I feel the frustration over education’s status as a political orphan, an important sector that neither party stands up for. But if you’re looking for someone who understands some of the nuances of education and wants to stand up for the institution of public education, No Labels are not the party, either.

This sounds mostly like right-tilted Chamber of Commerce-style reformsterism from a decade ago. Even in a world in which both parties have lurched to the right, this is not a centrist approach to education. It’s the same privatizing reformster baloney we’ve been hearing since the Reagan administration drew a target on public education’s back. If you’re looking for the vegan candidate, this burger is not for you.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Dark Money, Disruption, Education Industry, Hoax, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Trump

Trump Plans to Increase Power of the President If Re-Elected

By dianeravitch

July 17, 2023 //

The New York Times describes a frightening plan developed by Donald Trump’s administration-in-waiting to consolidate power in the President’s hands. The plan would give the President direct control of independent agencies. Trump believes he didn’t accomplish his goals because the “deep state” restrained him.

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

In addition, every federal employee would serve at the pleasure of the President.

He intends to strip employment protectionsfrom tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country…”

Some elements of the plans had been floated when Mr. Trump was in office but were impeded by internal concerns that they would be unworkable and could lead to setbacks. And for some veterans of Mr. Trump’s turbulent White House who came to question his fitness for leadership, the prospect of removing guardrails and centralizing even greater power over government directly in his hands sounded like a recipe for mayhem.

“It would be chaotic,” said John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s second White House chief of staff. “It just simply would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts.”

The agenda being pursued has deep roots in the decades-long effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut what has become known as the administrative state — agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits.

Categories Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

“Democracy”: The GOP War on the Founding Fathers’ Vision

By dianeravitch

July 4, 2023 //

A blog reader who identifies as “Democracy” argues that today’s Republican Party, which prizes individualism over the common good has abandoned the vision of the Founding Fathers.

It appears that Ron DeSantis and the entirety of the Republican Party is in direct opposition to American history and the United States Constitution.

The Founders envisioned a democratic society “in which the common good was the chief end of government.” They agreed with John Locke’s view that the main purpose of government –– the main reason people create government –– is to protect their persons through –– as historian R. Freeman Butts put it –– a social contract that placed “the public good above private desires.” The goal was “a commonwealth, a democratic corporate society in which the common good was the chief end of government.”

The Preamble – the stated purposes – of the Constitution, reads

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In Article I, Section 8 of that document, the legislative branch is given broad, specific powers (among them taxing, borrowing money, regulating commerce, coining money and regulating its value, etc.). Indeed, Article I, Clause 1 gives Congress the power to tax for “the common defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Clause 18 of Section 8 stipulates that Congress had the power “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.”

Two Supreme Court decisions early in the republic’s history –– both unanimous –– supported and cemented a broad – liberal – interpretation of the implied powers of Congress.

Republicans call them “socialism.”

In 1819 (McCullough v. Maryland) the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the U.S. government was “a Government of the people. In form and in substance, it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.”

The Court explicitly reaffirmed that one of the critical purposes of government under the U.S. Constitution is to promote the general welfare “of the people.”

In that case, Chief Justice Marshall wrote this about the necessary and proper clause:

“the clause is placed among the powers of Congress, not among the limitations on those powers.” And he added this: “Its terms purport to enlarge, not to diminish, the powers vested in the Government. It purports to be an additional power, not a restriction.”

In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) Chief Justice Marshall wrote this about the Congressional commerce power:

“This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution.”

The history of the United States, and the Constitution, over time, reflect progressive changes. The American Revolution was a progressive movement inspired by the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers; conservatives opposed it. The early expansion of voting rights to those who didn’t own land was progressive, and conservatives of the day fought
against it. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory, a purchase that doubled the size of the fledgling United States, rested on a liberal interpretation of constitutional authority. U.S. government funding of roads and canals relied on a liberal perspective of Congressional commerce power. Those roads and canals were instrumental to economic growth and prosperity, not unlike federal funding of interstate highways, the Internet, medical research, and health care.

And yet, the Republican Party is filled with people who basically reject all of this in favor of sedition.

As David Blight, Yale professor of American history put it,

“Changing demographics and 15 million new voters drawn into the electorate by Obama in 2008 have scared Republicans—now largely the white people’s party—into fearing for their existence. With voter ID laws, reduced polling places and days, voter roll purges, restrictions on mail-in voting, an evisceration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a constant rant about ‘voter fraud’ without evidence, Republicans have soiled our electoral system with undemocratic skullduggery…The Republican Party has become a new kind of Confederacy.

Obviously, public education has a central – critical – role to play here. Here’s how Will and Ariel Durant explained it in ‘The Lessons of History’ (1968):

“Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”

Republicans: The New Confederacy

Categories Democracy, Democrats, DeSantis, Elections, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, History, Lies, Republicans, Trump

Dana Milbank: House Republicans Have Gone Bonkers, Passing Resolution to Impeach Biden

By dianeravitch

June 23, 2023 //

Dana Milbank, a regular columnist for the Washington Post, writes here about the bizarre behavior of House Republicans, who have no agenda other than impeaching Biden, censuring Adam Schiff, and punishing anyone else who doesn’t share their Trump-worship. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert got into a tiff on the House floor about whose impeachment resolution would be introduced first. Greene reportedly called Boebert a “little bitch,” for being first to offer a Biden impeachment resolution.These petty, vindictive people are our nation’s “leaders.”

Milbank wrote:

A couple of weeks before the midterm elections, Kevin McCarthy assured voters that House Republicans, if given the majority, wouldn’t be so rash as to go on an impeachment binge.

“I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” he told Punchbowl News at the time. “I think the country wants to heal,” he added, and avowed that he didn’t think anybody in the Biden administration merited impeachment proceedings.

The voters gave Republicans a chance, awarded them narrow control of the House.
And now Republicans are starting their impeachment binge.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) rose in the House Tuesday evening after the last vote. “For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Colorado seek recognition?” asked the presiding officer, Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.).

The gentlewoman sought recognition to unveil a parliamentary maneuver that would force a vote within 48 hours on H. Res. 503, “Impeaching Joseph R. Biden Jr., president of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”

No impeachment proceedings. No investigation. No evidence. No crimes. Not so much as parking ticket. Just a willy-nilly, snap vote to impeach the president, because Boebert dislikes Biden’s immigration policies. In her mind, “President Biden has intentionally facilitated a complete and total invasion at the southern border,” she charged on the House floor.

At this, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) flew into a fit of jealousy because Boebert had thought to use the maneuver (called a “privileged resolution”) to force an impeachment vote before Greene got a vote on her articles of impeachment against Biden. Boebert stole her impeachment articles, Greene whined to reporters, calling Boebert that name that every kindergartner fears: “Copycat.”

Congresswoman Jewish Space Lasers then confronted Boebert on the House floor and called her a “little b—-” who “copied my articles of impeachment,” according to a Daily Beast account that Greene confirmed.

But Boebert was unmoved — because she’s on a mission from God. She filed her impeachment resolution because “I am directed and led by Him … by the spirit of God,” she told the evangelical Victory Channel.

God could not be reached for comment…

McCarthy had tried to stall his caucus’s drive for impeachment by setting House committee chairmen loose to launch a series of overlapping probes into whatever catches their fancy. At least three committees are investigating Hunter Biden. At least three committees are auditioning impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. At least three committees are probing imagined “censorship” of social media by the administration. Multiple committees are pursuing fanciful conspiracy theories involving public health officials and the supposed “weaponization” of the FBI, the Justice Department and the rest of the government by the “deep state.” And, of course, the committees investigate anybody — Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg — who investigates Trump.

Exit polls in the midterms showed voters cared most about inflation and abortion, followed by guns, crime and immigration. Yet the House majority just passed a bill to expand access to a common mass-shooting weapon and is now moving tax cuts that would aggravate inflation.
There’s talk that House Republicans next month will take up bills further restricting abortion access — that is, if they can find time between impeachment votes.

Since any legislation to impeach the President requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate, this bill is obviously cheap grandstanding. But House Republicans choose to devote their time and energy to such displays of petty vengeance. Pathetic.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Elections, Republicans, Shame, Stupid, Trump

Adam Schiff Responds to the Republicans’ Vote to Censure Him

By dianeravitch

June 23, 2023 //

Congressman Adam Schiff replied in the House chamber to the vote to censure him for his role in investigating Trump, including his leadership of the first Trump impeachment trial. The House voted 213-209 to censure him. Watch his five-minute speech. He was censured for doing his job as a member of a Congress.

As Jay Kuo explains in this post, censure is rare, administered for financial or ethical improprieties. A censure vote against Schiff was taken twice. The first time it failed, because 20 Republicans opposed it (some may have thought it was a dumb idea, but most were bothered because it would have fined Schiff $16 million for daring to lead the charge against Trump). The second vote passed for two reasons: 1) the $16 million fine was dropped, and 2) Trump threatened to primary any Republican who opposed it. Trump still terrifies House Republicans.

Schiff is running for the Senate in California. After watching his speech, I went to his website and contributed to his campaign.

Categories California, Character, Courage, Democracy, Elections, Injustice, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: The Case Against Hunter Biden

By dianeravitch

June 21, 2023 //

Heather Cox Richardson hits it out of the park with this column. Republicans are screaming that Hunter Biden got a slap on the wrist for his crimes, and that the Justice Department went easy on him. But Richardson points out that President Biden left the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware in place, and he prosecuted the case. For those upset about Hunter Biden, when will they demand to know why the Saudis gave Jared Kushner $2 billion six months after he left office?

She writes:

After years of accusations and rumors swirling around Hunter Biden, the 53-year-old son of President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice has reached a tentative deal with the younger Biden: He will plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of failing to file income tax returns for 2017 and 2018 by the filing date, for which he owed more than $100,000 each year. Biden’s representatives say he has since paid the Internal Revenue Service what he owed. Prosecutors will ask for two years’ probation.

Biden will also admit to the fact that he possessed a firearm as an addict, for which he and prosecutors have agreed he will enter a pretrial diversion agreement that will require that he stay clean for two more years, after which the charge will be removed from his record.

Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, promptly accused “the Bidens” of “corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery” and called the deal “a slap on the wrist.” Throughout the day, right-wing figures have insisted that the deal is proof that President Biden is using the Justice Department to shield his family and to persecute his enemies.

In fact, Biden worked hard to reestablish the independence of the Justice Department after Trump had used it for personal ends. Trump broke the tradition that FBI directors should serve out their ten-year term—a term chosen to emphasize that the position should not be political—by firing FBI director James Comey when Comey refused to stop the bureau’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russian operatives; Biden tried to reestablish the guardrails around the position when he declined to replace FBI director Christopher Wray, appointed by Trump.

Biden also left in place the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware—the person overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden that began in 2018—to make the independence of the investigation clear. That Trump appointee, U.S. Attorney David C. Weiss, is responsible for the deal. Georgetown University policy professor Don Moynihan pointed out that Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years and “[b]est they could do is tax charges which rarely get this level of attention. If Comer has anything real, the prosecutor would have used it.”

Indeed, rather than going easy on Hunter Biden, there are signs that prosecutors treated him more harshly than is typical for similar crimes. Roger Sollenberger, a senior political writer for the Daily Beast, explained that “Roger Stone and his wife settled a $2 million unpaid taxes civil case with DOJ last year—they weren’t charged criminally, unlike Hunter Biden, so they didn’t even get probation.” Justice reporter for NBC News Ryan Reilly noted that it is very rare for prosecutors to bring the addict in possession of a weapon charge they used against Biden. In the past it has been used to find a charge that will stick or alongside charges concerning violent crime.

As right-wing leaders, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), nonetheless attacked the Justice Department for what they claimed was a “two-tiered justice system” that went easy on Biden, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post noted, “The right doesn’t seem to care about the legal process—they care about the results. Their aim is the destruction of the independence of federal law enforcement in favor of a weaponized justice system, and they will keep creating new pretexts until they get it.”

Trump had his own reaction to the Biden charges, calling them “a massive INTERFERENCE COVERUP & FULL SCALE ELECTION ‘SCAM’ THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN IN OUR COUNTRY BEFORE. A ‘TRAFFIC TICKET,’ & JOE IS ALL CLEANED UP & READY TO GO INTO THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION – AND THIS AS CROOKED DOJ, STATE, & CITY PROSECUTORS, MARXISTS & COMMUNISTS ALL, HIT ME FROM ALL SIDES & ANGELS WITH BULL….! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” [sic]

Eric Lipton of the New York Times reported today on the Trump family’s ties to a multibillion-dollar project in Oman. The resort project is backed by the Omani government, which has put up the land for the project and is investing up to a billion dollars to upgrade the infrastructure near the project and to fund the project’s initial phase. It will also take a cut of the profits. A Saudi real estate firm closely allied with the Saudi government brought Trump into the deal. The Trump family will not put any money into the project, but the Omani government has paid the Trump Organization at least $5 million for the use of his name and will pay the Trump Organization to manage a hotel, golf course, and golf club for the next 30 years.

“There is a big wealth concentration in the world, which means that those people will more and more demand more exclusive products and more exclusive projects,” the chief executive of the London-based DarGlobal subsidiary of the Saudi real estate firm said earlier this year. The project is being constructed by migrants paid as little as $340 a month for ten hours a day of grueling work in heat above 100°F, or 38°C.

Tonight news broke that on Friday, Owen Shroyer, who worked alongside Alex Jones at the right-wing conspiracy media site InfoWars, will change his plea for charges associated with the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to “guilty,” which might signal that he has flipped.

Shroyer was at the so-called “War Room” on January 5 with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, advisors Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, General Michael Flynn, and Christina Bobb, the lawyer who later signed off on Trump’s statement that he had returned all the classified documents in his possession (he had not). Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, repeatedly expressed interest to his aide Cassidy Hutchinson in joining the people in that command center, but in the end was talked into calling the group rather than going over.

Shroyer was also part of the 47-member “Friends of Stone” encrypted chat group that organized in 2019 to support Trump in the upcoming election and then to keep him in office after he lost in 2020. If Shroyer has, indeed, flipped, he could provide an important window into the upper levels of the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Both the New York Times and the Washington Posthave recently reported that several months ago, officials in the Biden administration began indirect talks with Iran in hopes of stopping Iran’s proxy attacks on U.S. forces in Syria, bringing home three Iranian American business executives being held on charges the U.S. considers false—Emad Shargi (detained 2018), Morad Tahbaz (detained 2018), and Siamak Namazi (detained 2015)—and reining in that country’s nuclear weapons development program. In 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran that limited Iran’s nuclear research and development. Tehran quickly restarted its uranium enrichment, research and development of advanced centrifuges, and expansion of its stockpile of nuclear fuel. According to Colum Lynch of Foreign Policy, this cut in half the time Iran would need to produce enough weapons-grade fuel to build a nuclear weapon.

Biden yesterday announced a $600 million investment in addressing climate change, with that investment focused on coastal areas and communities around the Great Lakes. Funding for projects, including modernizing electrical grids to make them resilient to extreme weather events, national disasters, and wildfires, comes from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

—

Notes:

To read the footnotes, please open the article.

Twitter links:

SollenbergerRC/status/1671180412498878464

donmoyn/status/1671163439333650436

MuellerSheWrote/status/1671262234352451589

ThePlumLineGS/status/1671226546676170787

SykesCharlie/status/1671230641831129088

harrylitman/status/1671179022313865220

harrylitman/status/1671157442921791488

ryanjreilly/status/1671157209735237633

Categories Biden, Elections, Ethics, Justice, Republicans, Scandals, Trump

The Backstory of the Clinton Socks Drawer Tapes

By dianeravitch

June 21, 2023 //

The day after Trump was arraigned in federal court in Miami on 37 counts, mostly involving the Espionage Act, he attended a campaign rally in New Jersey. At that rally, he dismissed the charges against him, which were based on his refusal to return documents to the National Archices, including some that were classified and top-secret. Trump ridiculed the case against him, asserting that the Presidential Records Act allowed him to take with him any documents he wanted. The ruling precedent, he claimed, was the “Clinton socks case,” which was dismissed by a judge.

“Under the Presidential Records Act — which is civil, not criminal — I had every right to have these documents,” Trump said, incorrectly describing the law that has no enforcement mechanism, and which is separate from the federal statutes Trump is actually charged under. “The crucial legal precedent is laid out in the most important case ever on this subject, known as the Clinton socks case.”

What was the Clinton socks case? I had never heard of it.

The Washington Post explained it a few days later.

First, the story pointed out, Trump’s reference to the Presidebtial Records Act as exculpatory for his actions was wrong. Did his lawyers tell him to say so or did he misinterpret what they told him?

Even before he pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, Trump and his legal team have argued that the Presidential Records Act gives the president the right to take any record upon leaving office and declare it personal. In reality, the 1981 law requiring White House documents to be preserved as property of the U.S. government was established, in part, so that presidents could not declare every record to be personal.

Second, his insistence on refusing to return classified documents bore no relation to the Clinton socks case.

When Clinton was elected, he reached out to a college classmate and friend who was a respected historian, Taylor Branch, and invited him to come to the White House periodically and tape record Clinton’s reflections on his presidency. Branch visited 79 times over the eight years of the Clinton presidency and taped their conversations as a running record of the Clinton presidency. He recorded their conversations on two cassette recorders. Clinton kept one set of the tapes, which he kept in his sock drawer.

In 2009, Taylor Branch published The Clinton Tapes, and he told the story of the socks drawer. The conservative organization Judicial Watch sued in 2010 to seek access to the tapes and to have them declared presidential records. A federal judge ruled in 2012 that the tapes were personal and were not presidential records.

A senior official at Jusicial Watch argued in an article in the Wall Street Journal that the Clinton tapes and Trump’s retention of government secrets were analogous.

Taylor Branch scoffed at the claim.

“Judicial Watch lost the case, and it was not a close case,” Branch said. Branch said “it’s amazing” that Trump’s team would cite the “failed case as a precedent for excusing Trump and how he handled classified government documents.”

Trump did not have the right to take classified documents home when he left the presidency. He did not have the power to declassify some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets. He did have the right to refuse to return them when asked to do so or when ordered to do so. Nor did he have the right to hide them from his lawyers and the FBI. By taking home those documents, where they were not secure, he put at risk the lives of America’s troops and national security.

It’s quite a stretch to compare the tapes in Clinton’s socks drawer to the nondisclosure of classified documents.

Categories Accountability, Trump

WAPO: Trump’s Lawyers Urged Him to Return the Classified Documents; He Refused

By dianeravitch

June 15, 2023 //

In a fascinating article, the Washington Post reported that several of Trump’s lawyers urged him to avoid an indictment by returning all the classified documents. He refused. He chose instead to take the advice of Tom Fitton, head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, who told him he could keep the documents. Fitton is not a lawyer. Early on, in 2021, one of Trump’s lawyers tried to persuade him to negotiate a return, to avoid an indictment. Trump refused.

Since the National Archives first asked for the return of presidential documents in Trump’s possession in February 2021 and until a grand jury issued its indictment this month, Trump was repeatedly stubborn and eschewed opportunities to avoid criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the case, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details. They note that Trump was not charged for any documents he returned voluntarily.

Interviews with seven Trump advisers with knowledge of the probe indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some of his longest-serving advisers warned of peril and some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them.

When Trump returned 15 boxes early last year — leaving at least 64 more at Mar-a-Lago — he told his own advisers to put out statements to the National Archives and to the public that “everything” had been returned, The Washington Post has previously reported. But he quietly kept more than 100 classified documents….

Trump time and again rejected the advice from lawyers and advisers who urged him to cooperate and instead took the advice of Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, and a range of others who told him he could legally keep the documents and should fight the Justice Department, advisers said. Trump would often cite Fitton to others, and Fitton told some of Trump’s lawyers that Trump could keep the documents, even as they disagreed, the advisers said…

“I think what is lacking is the lawyers saying, ‘I took this to be obstruction,’” said Fitton. “Where is the conspiracy? I don’t understand any of it. I think this is a trap. They had no business asking for the records … and they’ve manufactured an obstruction charge out of that. There are core constitutional issues that the indictment avoids, and the obstruction charge seems weak to me.”

Several other Trump advisers blamed Fitton for convincing Trump that he could keep the documents and repeatedly mentioning the “Clinton socks case” — a reference to tapes Bill Clinton stored in his sock drawer of his secret interviews with historian Taylor Branch that served as the basis of Branch’s 2009 book documenting the Clinton presidency.

Judicial Watch lost a lawsuit in 2012 that demanded the audio recordings be designated as presidential records and that the National Archives take custody of the recordings. A court opinion issued at the time stated that there was no legal mechanism for the Archives to force Clinton to turn over the recordings.

For his part, Fitton said Trump’s lawyers “should have been more aggressive in fighting the subpoenas and fighting for Trump.”

Trump’s unwillingness to give the documents back did not surprise those who knew him well. Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly said that he was particularly unlikely to heed requests from people or agencies he disliked.

“He’s incapable of admitting wrongdoing. He wanted to keep it, and he says, ‘You’re not going to tell me what to do. I’m the smartest guy in the room,’” Kelly said Tuesday…

Other advisers said the FBI and National Archives wanting the documents so badly made Trump less likely to give them back…

“It’s mine,” Trump said, explaining why he did not want to give the materials back, according to people with knowledge of his comments.

If this sounds like the behavior of a 2-year-old, well, draw your own conclusions.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Disruption, Ignorance, Justice, Lies, Stupid, Trump

Paul Cobaugh: Jim Jordan, American Disgrace

By dianeravitch

June 11, 2023 //

Paul Cobaugh is a military veteran who retired as a Chief Warrant Officer who worked in special operations in communications and narrative strategies. He writes a blog about national security called “Truths About Threats.”

He wrote here about the loathsome Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan.

Cobaugh writes:

This is a short TAT. After all, it is the weekend. This morning, a friend posted on LinkedIn, a copy of the letter Jim Jordan sent to AG, Merrick Garland. That is what pushed me to my keyboard before resuming chores. Endless words will be written after the historical indictment of a former president. I will bring you a very different perspective on that indictment that very few will address, as I wade into this national security nightmare the beginning of next week. In the meantime… please consider my brief thoughts below, not for my sake but for all of ours. “All politics are local.”

The public square in Urbana, Champaign County, Ohio

Okay, I admit that I have a special disgust for Congressman, Jim Jordan. I will though be fair in this short post.

From a political perspective, any honest and well-informed person knows that Jordan was and in some ways, still is a Seditionist and enabler of the Jan 6th armed rebellion. He is also the Rep for the small Ohio town, where I attended 7th grade thru high school graduation. In my view, one of the finest small towns in the nation. Urbana, Ohio, the county seat of Champaign County numbered around 9000 people at the time, the biggest town in the county.

Now Jordan, is the rep of one of the most gerrymandered districts in the country. When I lived in Urbana, Ohio in the late 60’s and early 70’s, our local congressman was exceptionally well liked and respected. Clarence, “Bud” Brown represented what the Republican Party could have been, had they not deviated to scorched earth politics under the leadership and tutelage of Newt Gingrich. America has never been the same since. Don’t see this as an endorsement of the so-called, “other side” but as a statement of clear-eyed facts.

Jim Jordan’s, Ohio 4th Congressional District

This letter by Jordan to the AG, Merrick Garland shows in detail and Jordan’s own hand, the level of false narratives and utter dishonesty that keeps today’s MAGA-controlled GOP afloat. For those who have been warning about this and other indictments based on reality, research, and the opinions of elite experts, this is just another “hail Mary”, mis/ disinformation campaign designed to empower those who’ve proved that they will believe anything, if it suits their political identity. My personal and professional opinion of Jordan sees him as one of the most unethical and dangerous members of Congress.

What I once knew as a community of hardworking mostly rural Ohioans with remarkable grace, compassion and honesty, is now burdened by the weight of being sold snake oil by traitors and conmen who can’t even spell, “American values.” They largely operate on the traitorous narratives of FOX news. Fortunately there is still a solid core of great Americans in my home town but sadly, they are a minority. Even the Trumpists are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. The manipulation of their political identity by unethical, professional influencers, some domestic and some foreign, has resulted in Seditionists like Jordan and his ilk, leading the worst threat to our democracy since the Civil War.

The pain I feel for my hometown, is being played out all across America in small and large towns. The extraordinary work by U.S. Department of Justice, has thrown a hand grenade into their political identity. Now, with DOJ’s meticulously assembled public case being the news of the day, Jordan is launching a full-scale mis and disinformation campaign to support a known traitor. Not one person in Urbana would have tolerated this in my youth, despite being in one of the most reliable Republican Congressional districts in the nation.

Yes, I would also love to scream the words, “I told you so” but that will not heal America. Many Americans who were victimized by foreign and domestic malign influencers, are beginning to realize that they have been badly duped. Give them an open invite back into reality without the derision. They are family, friends and colleagues. Tragically, those who resist reality will likely never recover, because the level of indoctrination that leads to public displays of extremism, more often than not, is like rabies, mostly incurable.

It’s time for all Americans to realize that our fellow citizens are not enemies because they have different beliefs. Our Constitution, based on our founding principles, guarantees our right to our own beliefs, false or not. It’s really up to those who are willing to debate over facts and reality, to heal this nation for America’s sake, not a politcal party. It will be those who adhere to what it means to be a truly patriotic American, left, right or otherwise to put our nation, back on the path of progress, respectability and strength.

Truism: If you vote for honesty, integrity and our true American, founding principles… folks like Jim Jordan would never be in office. However you vote, we can never again allow any extremist movement to have so much say in our government, that they can once again threaten what so many have died to preserve.

Wishing everyone the most enjoyable weekend,

Paul