The White House’s Problem When It Comes to Trying Things By Public Opinion

The White House and President Trump claim that his election shows that the sexual accusations against him were “litigated” by the people and that they found him not guilty or innocent (they are not the same thing).  I even heard a host on MSNBC (Gigi Stone Woods) use the White House argument in a question.  I question whether news hosts should be using the White House argument, but, aside from that, the thing the White House and Trump seem to forget (or ignore or deny) is that he didn’t win the election with the popular vote – he lost the popular vote by millions.  I heard a statistic in the days after the election that only half of eligible voters had voted in the 2016 election.  Given that Trump got about 40% of the vote that means that less than one quarter of the electorate voted for him.  How can that be extrapolated into an exoneration?

A Quinnipiac Poll (Nov. 29 – Dec. 4, +/-2.8 pts.) shows that 70% of people think that Congress should investigate the sexual accusations against Trump.  A letter was sent to Representative Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, requesting an investigation into the accusations.  Gowdy has refused the request, referring the matter instead to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Trump’s Justice Department.  Gowdy stated that, because no Congressional Committee prosecutes crimes, they shouldn’t have an investigation (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/13/trump-sex-assault-allegations-house-response-294295).   Yet, how many members of Congress have been investigated for sexual harassment and/or assault by the Ethics Committees?  If such allegations should be referred to the Department of Justice, why haven’t they been both in the past and now?  Not to mention the public funded settlements, a topic for another day, and the fact that the allegations against Trump are mostly, if not entirely, too old to be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations.

Trump has tweeted that, because no collusion with Russia has been found (not true, and investigations are ongoing), his enemies are now trying to bring up accusations by women he has never met (there is photographic evidence of his meeting several of his accusers, and one was a contestant on his reality show The Apprentice – talk about “fake news”).  Every poll result I have seen lately shows that a majority of Americans believe the President did something illegal or unethical when it comes to Russia and the election.

If the President being elected by less than a majority of the voters (and less than one quarter of eligible voters) means that he is innocent of all sexual harassment and assault allegations, then I guess it makes sense (to Trump and his followers, at least) that the majority of the public should be ignored about Russia, investigating the allegations against Trump, the tax bill, etc.

Why this matters to me and should to you to:

The American form of government is supposed to be government “of, by, and for the people.” We shouldn’t legislate by popular vote on everything – some things are just right and wrong. And Civil Rights laws, among others, would never have been enacted without that recognition.  However, an honest investigation of alleged wrong doing shouldn’t be sidelined because of an election outcome or because the statute of limitations has passed (as I’m sure will be cited by the Justice Department about the allegations against Trump).

I’m not asking for a predetermined conclusion and action based on that, but when the majority of Americans believe there has been wrongdoing, there should be an investigation.  This is true of the accusations against Trump on all matters (the perceived attempts to end the Russia investigations in both Houses of Congress is equally worrying).  Shouldn’t the American people be entitled to know that their President isn’t – or is — guilty of sexual harassment and assault, conspiring with the Russian government to use stolen goods (emails) or other Russian influence to win the election, and that he isn’t currently violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution?  Trump won the Presidency courtesy of the Electoral College.  The majority of Americans seem to feel differently about him than his supporters and he is not the President of just his supporters.  I think we all deserve honest answers about who the Electoral College put in the Presidency.

I Don’t Trust News That Doesn’t Issue Corrections

Recently there have been a number of corrections in the news about various news stories/headlines/photos that were inaccurate, overblown, or just incorrect/wrong.  This has prompted President Trump to tweet  about “fake news” and call for various journalists to be fired.  I suppose that on one hand this makes sense.  He only seems to really trust Fox News and is friends with a number of hosts there.  However, I stopped watching Fox News a number of years ago, because I never saw a correction or apology when they got a story wrong.  I give immense credit to MSNBC, and one of the reasons I watch them the most, is that I have seen corrections come as soon as before the end of the show in which they got something wrong.  It doesn’t happen often, but MSNBC reporters and commentators correct themselves and do so as quickly as they can.  Because of this, I trust them.

I had decided to write about this today and then saw a really good segment on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Carl Bernstein, investigative journalist and Watergate reporter (with Bob Woodward), and David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter and current senior editor at The Atlantic, talking about media corrections and why the media should be trusted (http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2017/12/10/why-did-newsrooms-make-so-many-mistakes-this-week.cnn/video/playlists/reliable-sources-highlights/ – this may not be the entire segment, I couldn’t get the volume to work when I tried to watch it, but the segment is worth watching).  There have been studies that have shown that Fox Viewers are less informed than people who watch no news, and there is a documentary called Outfoxed by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films that exposed Fox News’ bias and how institutionally enforced it is.  I stopped watching Fox News after repeatedly seeing MSNBC make corrections of information presented by Fox News.  It was especially true when Keith Olbermann was there, but MSNBC personnel sometimes acts as fact checkers of Fox News’ false stories as well as fact checking themselves.

It is especially rich to have a President who is considered to lie more than anyone else to have held the office [The Washington Post calculated it at 5.5 times per 24 hours (although they note is was up to 9 times per day in the 35 days leading up to the article – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/14/president-trump-has-made-1628-false-or-misleading-claims-over-298-days/?utm_term=.e4a1717cd4d5)] as the person claiming that news is false or that journalists should be fired even if they correct and apologize for their mistakes.  David Wiegel tweeted a photo of Trump’s recent Florida appearance that showed a lot of empty seats.  He learned that the picture was from before the event started and immediately deleted the tweet and posted a correction and apology – and yet Trump wants the [from what was said on various shows this weekend] highly respected and fair Washington Post reporter fired.   It’s a shame we can’t call on Trump to be fired for his repeated lying – although I supposed he would claim that, as he has never admitted to a lie or apologized, he obviously hasn’t been lying (like his claim on sexual assault despite the Access Hollywood video and Billy Bush’s public verification of Trump’s words on it in a New York Times op-ed piece this week –   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/opinion/billy-bush-trump-access-hollywood-tape.html).

On Reliable Sources, David Frum said that “mistakes are precisely the reason that people should trust the media”.  I trust news sources that correct their errors.  Reporters are human and humans make mistakes.  How we react to those mistakes are how I judge whether or not to trust a source of news.

Why this matters to me and should to you to:

If Trump had his way, we would only have news sources like Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, etc.  However, much of what comes from many of these “news” sources is much closer to the definition of fake news than what Trump likes to label “fake news,” because real journalists convey real news that he dislikes.

Attacking journalists is one sign of authoritarianism.  The first amendment provides for a free press, and there is a much quoted line from a letter by Thomas Jefferson about how he would prefer newspapers to government.  We need news sources that care about honesty and the truth – especially with a President and White House determined to re-shape reality as they see fit regardless of the truth.  To me, one sign of an honest and truthful press is one that corrects itself when it gets something wrong.  Otherwise the media would just be allowing falsehoods to be believed.  An honest media makes corrections, and we need an honest media, maybe now more than ever.

 

Additional articles of interest on the topic above:

https://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/donald-trump-lies-liar-effect-brain-214658

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-liar-20171208-story.html

I Blame Mitch McConnell for Donald Trump and Roy Moore

Of course, I realize that there are issues much greater than Mitch McConnell when it comes to Trump and Moore, but there is something that I haven’t heard or read anywhere and I want people to think about.  The Congress has been getting more and more partisan for years, and so has the electorate.  However, the throwing out of norms for partisan reasons seems to have begun with the Republicans, although I’m sure arguments can be made on both sides.  What is unarguable, to me at least, is that Republicans have thrown out many more norms of greater consequence than the Democrats.  Yes, the Democrats changed the rules to be able to approve and seat more of Obama’s judicial appointments, but that came in the wake of unprecedented blocking of judicial nominees that went so far as to suggest that there should be fewer judges (now they are talking about adding more – a lot more – weren’t they the ones who complained about when FDR suggested increasing the Supreme Court to 15?) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conservatives-have-a-breathtaking-plan-for-trump-to-pack-the-courts/2017/11/21/b7ce90d4-ce43-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?utm_term=.91b32c0d6581).

What seems to me the first of the greatest breaking of norms was McConnell’s assertion, the evening of Obama’s inauguration, that his main priority was making sure Obama wasn’t elected to a second term as President.  More recently, though, another huge breaking of forms came when McConnell refused to “advise and consent” on the nomination of Judge Garland to the Supreme Court when nominated by President Obama.  The Republicans could have voted against him, but instead McConnell said that the voters should decide (Obama won the popular vote and Trump didn’t – what does that say about who the voters wanted to fill the seat?).  The Republicans kept calling it the Scalia seat.  Justice Scalia was not the first to sit in it, and it was not the Scalia seat.  I doubt they would see things the same way when it comes to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, for instance.  It is rare for a qualified nominee to be rejected for the Supreme Court, if it has ever happened, and Republicans had previously approved Garland for a federal judicial seat.  So instead, McConnell decided to hold the seat open because he wanted a Republican President to appoint someone to fill “Scalia’s seat.” Or, more accurately, he just didn’t want Obama’s nominee, although it was Obama’s right to see his highly qualified nominee, nominated during the primaries – well before the candidates had even been chosen, confirmed to the position.

After the Access Hollywood tape surfaced, many Republicans withdrew their support for Trump.  However, as Election Day got closer they went back to him.  Republican commentator Hugh Hewitt voiced what seemed to be the primary reason for this – we need a Republican to fill Scalia’s seat and other open judicial appointment (many others also having been held open by Republicans until after the election).  So in order to have a Republican appoint judges, they supported Trump.

Now, Alabama Republicans and Trump have chosen to support Roy Moore in his bid for Senate.  The Alabama Governor, who got her seat when her predecessor resigned over a sex scandal, has said that she believes Moore’s accusers, but a Republican vote is more important – apparently more important than accusations of child sexual assault she believes.  McConnell set the stage for this.  McConnell made it clear that the chance of a Republican filling a Supreme Court vacancy was more important than just about anything else, including human decency.  Now that has been carried to its logical next step – a Republican vote for tax cuts for corporations and the ultra wealthy is more important than credible accusations of pedophilia.

Why this matters to me and should to you to:

I am horrified by the Republican’s willingness to throw out norms in their party’s interest.  Congress takes an oath to the Constitution, not their individual parties.  If packing the courts with ultra-conservative judges and ignoring accusations of unconscionable wrongdoing is considered more important than holding people accountable (electorally, even if it is too late to do so legally), then who is looking out for the country?  Gorsuch’s position on the Supreme Court is seen as one of Trumps greatest accomplishments by many Republicans, but to me it set the stage for a level of partisanship that goes so far it is actually a threat to the country.  Was Gorsuch’s appointment worth destroying our relationship with England and the growing drumbeats of war with North Korea?  I hope the Republicans will eventually come to the conclusion that there are cases in which the good of the country is more important than the good of their party.  If not, I worry for the future of our county – if it isn’t too late already.

Trump Declared Himself the Law and Order Candidate; As President He Continues to Support Law Breakers

Trump during the campaign branded himself the “law and order” candidate.  This was seen as a possible dog whistle of racial politics harkening back to Goldwater and Nixon – and a reaction to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s (http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/287635-trumps-law-and-order-gamble).  Since being elected and taking office, Trump has continued to tout a “law and order” agenda (http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/29/politics/trump-law-order-jeff-sessions/index.html).  However he has not echoed this sentiment in many of his actions.  The CNN article (linked above) notes the pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio (which I have previously written about in this blog).  Now he is supporting a candidate not only accused of sexual assault and, even worse, sexual assault against minors, but who was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court (as its Chief Justice) not once, but twice.

I have heard a few people mention it, but in the wake of the sexual allegations against Roy Moore it is not mentioned nearly as often as it should be, that he was an unfit candidate before the allegations surfaced.  Roy Moore was removed from his position of Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2003 (he was sworn in in 2001 to a six year term) for refusing a federal district court ruling (upheld on appeal and “denied review by the Supreme Court” – http://www.weeklystandard.com/roy-moore-is-constitutionally-illiterate/article/2010482#!).  This incident brought Moore to national attention as it began with him putting a two ton monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state supreme court.  Moore had commissioned the monument himself and had it installed in the middle of the night without informing any of the other judges.  He even had the installation filmed (and I have read that proceeds from the film helped pay for his defense).  In 2003 he was removed from the bench by a unanimous ruling of the Alabama Court of Judiciary that he had “violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics”, a ruling that was upheld in appeals (http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/who_is_roy_moore_former_alabam.html).

Then Moore was re-elected to the Chief Justice position in 2012.  He was removed three years later (2013–2016).  On this occasion Moore ordered state judges to defy the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage (https://www.npr.org/2017/09/27/553856901/roy-moore-s-long-controversial-history-in-alabama-politics).  This time Moore was not removed, but suspended without pay.  However, due to his age, Moore is ineligible to run for the position again (his term would end in 2019).  Instead he ran for the Senate and landed us where we are now in the Alabama Senate election to be held on December 12, 2017.

Moore’s removal from the bench is not his only legally questionable stance.  As the Weekly Standard article notes, “Moore seems to respect only those constitutional provisions compatible with his worldview” (http://www.weeklystandard.com/roy-moore-is-constitutionally-illiterate/article/2010482#!).  He has publicly stated a number of views of his that violate the Constitution.  For example, he called on Congress to refuse to seat Representative Keith Ellison because he is a Muslim, despite the fact that the Constitution forbids a religious test for office.

Trump has also declared that Doug Jones, Moore’s opponent in Alabama, is weak on crime.  Doug Jones is a former Alabama prosecutor.  In 2002 he was the lead prosecutor in the case against two of the KKK members who bombed the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama – killing four African-American girls.  Jones was also involved in the prosecution of Eric Rudolph who bombed an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an off-duty police officer (http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/politics/who-is-doug-jones/index.html and https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/doug-jones-alabama-democrats_us_59cbeb52e4b053a9c2f5e7f5). Trump has claimed he supports police officers and yet he labels someone who participated in the prosecution of the killing of an off-duty officer as weak on crime.  How does this make sense? And these are only two of the more famous cases in Jones’ career prosecuting criminals rather than being “WEAK on crime.”

Finally – and as a sort of an aside – Trump and the White House continue to support Kellyanne Conway.  Conway pitched Ivanka Trump’s clothing line during a Fox News interview, despite the fact that “federal law that bars public employees from making an ‘endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.’” (http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-hatch-act/index.html).  Then mere days ago, Conway went on Fox News in front of the White House and spoke against Doug Jones.  Walter Shaub, former White House Ethics Director, has filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel against Conway for violating the Hatch Act by advocating against a candidate in her official capacity (demonstrated by the backdrop in her appearance).  The White House previously decided to do nothing substantive against Conway, and White House spokesman Raj Shah has released a statement defending Conway.

Why this matters to me and should to you to:

Trump has repeatedly claimed he is a law and order President, but his actions have defied that description.  We need to know that the President supports the laws and Constitution of the United States.  Trump keeps supporting people who don’t and seems to be flaunting the law himself, the emoluments clause in particular among potential others.  I saw David Cay Johnston on MSNBC recently give a list of ways/times that Trump has evaded prosecution/consequences for various legal violations (taxes and financial mostly).  Shouldn’t the President be held to a higher standard and not be able to flaunt the law and encourage others to if he agrees with them?  In a democracy, no one should be above the law.  I worry that this is all part of turning our democracy into something else – and Trump is leading the way on that change.  I don’t want to live in an autocracy, a kleptocracy, or a dictatorship, and I’m worried that’s where we are headed.  Where else do some people get to break the law and get promoted while others are persecuted with enthusiasm? If they do go after the Clintons legally, we will be even closer to that result – keep an eye on any potential developments there.  We need to hold everyone accountable, and people in power even more so, or we are headed down a very bad, slippery path.

For a deeper look at “Law and Order” as a dog whistle in campaigns:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/donald-trump-law-and-order-richard-nixon-crime-race-214066

For a deeper look at Roy Moore and his religious stances:

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/29/16379112/roy-moore-christian-theocrat-ten-commandments-judge-alabama-senate