Opinion: America voted for a dumpster fire — Democrats just need to let it burn itself out

Posted on December 16, 2024 by fshiels

From The Hill Newletter December 15 2024

BLOG EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of the best pieces for Democrats “coping with the fraud-free Trump election” (imagine– no Fraud this time! MAGIC!) for Democrats that I have seen. Surprising from “The Hill”, which often has a conservative bent.

FLS, editor

There’s a quiet but intense debate going on today in America, over how and whether the country will function over the next few years.

Despite Republicans having an ostensible House majority for the last two years, it has been Democrats who have done all the actual governing. More House Democrats than House Republicans have voted for the bills funding the government, authorizing our national defense programs and raising the debt ceiling. In short, the House Republican caucus has been so dysfunctional that neither Kevin McCarthy nor Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) could have kept the lights on without Democratic votes. Second Chances Start With You

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There is no reason to think the next Congress — with an even narrower House Republican majority — will be any different. So the question is, should congressional Democrats continue to bail out Republicans, or should they let them sink or swim on their own?

If Johnson wants to do something that’s good for America, shouldn’t Democrats lend him their support regardless of whether his own caucus backs him or not? Shouldn’t Democrats act responsibly even when Republicans won’t?

Surprisingly, there’s a correct answer here. And it comes, of all places, from the field of addiction recovery.

For the last two years, Democrats have thought they were acting in the country’s best interests by helping Republicans govern. They have not been. They meant well, but they have actually been protecting voters from the consequences of Republican dysfunction and enabling bad Republican behavior. Related video: Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’ (NBC News)

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Joining me now is Congressman Bennie Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi,

NBC News

Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’

Republican politicians are now addicted to drama, outrage and “owning the libs.” When you shield addicts from the consequences of their actions, you’re not doing them any favors. All you are doing is enabling their addiction.

The same goes for their voters. Many are hooked on the political performance and continue to elect unserious, bomb-throwing zealots who pander on social media for the clicks and the television appearances. But Congress is not a reality television show. In real life, dysfunction has consequences.

The country won’t be on the road to recovery until it is allowed to experience those consequences. If that means giving free rein to the collection of clowns with flamethrowers that now passes for the Republican Party, so be it. Democrats should resist the urge to intervene when the inevitable happens and they set themselves on fire. Here Are The 33 Best Christmas Gifts In 2024

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For the next two years, Democrats have no responsibility to govern. They should focus on politics instead and take a longer view of the country’s best interests. If, for example, House Democrats had allowed Republican dysfunction to shut down the government in September, they almost certainly would have won a House majority in November. A few weeks of furloughed workers and shuttered national parks would have been a small price to pay for an effective check against Donald Trump’s plans for an American autocracy. Democrats should be practicing tough love and allowing Republicans to inflict pain on themselves, even if that also inflicts some pain on the country.

This isn’t to say they should let Trump permanently wreck America just to teach his voters a lesson — an approach advocated by some angry progressives. If there is an issue that could do irreversible damage to America’s future, then Democrats should be prepared to step in. But, as a general rule, if Republicans can end a crisis just by acting like responsible adults, Democrats should stand by and do nothing at all, for just as long as it takes. Book The Standard High Line - Restaurant Onsite

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Both of these situations will come up over the next few weeks. On Jan. 1, 2025, the debt ceiling kicks back in, so one of the first jobs for the new Congress will be raising the borrowing limit. Since an American debt default would be a disaster from which we might never fully recover, Democrats need to prevent that at all costs. If that means backing House Speaker Mike Johnson when Republicans won’t — as it very well might — Democrats should be prepared to do that.

But government shutdowns are a different story. On Dec. 20, the government’s funding will run out. Some Republicans are already planning to vote to shut down the government. Democrats, on the other hand, appear willing to help the Speaker pass a continuing resolution, especially if they can pry some funds loose for disaster relief in the process.

That would be a mistake. This time, Democrats should refuse to save Republicans from themselves. Keeping the government open and finding funds for disaster relief are the responsibility of the Republican House majority, not the Democratic minority. If the government gets shut down until sometime in the next Congress or there’s no money for hurricane cleanup, then either Republicans will learn responsibility or their voters will learn that Republicans are feckless and can’t be trusted to govern. Either way, that’s a win for the country.

Politics as usual is dead. In the age of MAGA, congressional Democrats are resistance fighters, and resistance fighters are often called on to make difficult and distressing choices. Trump has a lot of things planned for America — foolish things, dangerous things, things he often promised but that many of his voters don’t want and never believed he would do. Democrats should not be enabling him by spending their political capital to make all this a little more bearable.

Having won undivided power, Trump Republicans are like the dog that has caught the car. If the government now lurches from one pointless crisis to the next, or if Trump’s plans are disastrous, the Democrats’ one job is to make sure voters know who is to blame and what they can do about it.

Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

Expressing Sympathy (and Congratulations) to VP Harris

Posted on November 19, 2024 by fshiels

The View from This Seat Guest post from colleague, Dr. L.K. Seat

Introduction From Blog editor Frederick L. Shiels

I am please to share a blog post from, Dr. Leroy Seat from Missouri, a perceptive colleague whom I just reconnected with almost forty years after my Fulbright year in Japan 1985-86. Dr. Seat, whose credentials are listed at the bottom of this “guest post”, has a fine blog written from the perspective of a Christian scholar with insights on a variety of subjects, including politics. Leroy, a former Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan. His keen intellect and generous assistance to our young family was so welcome after many conversations and assistance “settling in” to my one year sabbatical in Japan. Here is the Link to his entire blog, “From This Seat.” Link: https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2024

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Friday, November 8, 2024

Expressing Sympathy (and Congratulations) to VP Harris

This is not the article I planned to write for this month’s first blog post. “Expressing Congratulations (and Sincere Sympathy) to Pres. Harris” was the title of the post I anticipated making. But the sad news I read upon arising early Wednesday clearly indicated that I would have to write a different article.

VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)

Kamala Harris campaigned well, but both the popular and the electoral votes were decisive. Nevertheless, I congratulate her for her valiant efforts, determination, and forward-looking spirit. In her concession speech on Wednesday afternoon, she said,

… while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign—the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.

Of course, no politician likes to lose, but for VP Harris herself, losing may have been good for her. Because of current and lurking problems in the U.S. and the world, she could have well ended up with a failed presidency. (For some of the same reasons, the same may happen to Trump).

If Harris had won, she would have had to contend with debilitating Senate opposition and continual opposition by the NAR (which I wrote about here a month ago) and other MAGA adherents, including the growing number of White Christian nationalists.

In addition, Kamala would have had to—and now Trump will have to—deal with the warfare in the Near East, which will likely grow worse before it gets much better. We don’t know how she would have handled that incendiary situation, but she would likely have faced considerable criticism no matter what she did.

Perhaps more serious than anything else is the worsening of climate change and the urgency of dealing with the ecological predicament. This crucial matter will quite surely get markedly worse in the new Trump administration, but Harris would not have been able to forestall the coming crisis.

Consider why Trump “should” have won the election. In addition to the large block of White Christians voting for Trump and the residual racism and sexism still lingering in the land (as I wrote about in last Saturday’s “extra” blog post (see here)**, consider the following:

* The unpopularity of President Biden. According to a highly reliable poll taken on Nov. 1-2, Biden’s approval rating was 40% and 56% disapproving. It is rare for the Party in power to win a presidential election with the sitting president’s rating 16% more negative than positive.

* The perception that the country is on the wrong track. As indicated here, 63% of the U.S. public think the country is headed in the wrong direction (on the wrong track), and only 26% that it is headed in the right direction. That makes it very hard for the incumbent Party to win a presidential election.

* Continuing high prices because of inflation and corporate greed. This 11/6 Washington Post piece doesn’t deal with corporate greed as I think it should, but it does suggest that the widely held perception that the economy is “not good” or “poor” impelled many to cast their vote for Trump.

* The unaddressed problem of classism. This issue is addressed well by a 11/6 New York Times opinion article by the eminent journalist David Brooks (see here). Another source indicates that while voters with graduate degrees vote Democratic overwhelmingly, this year more than ever before, those with no college education voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

Where do we go from here? On Wednesday, the editorial board of the New York Times wrote, “Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was ‘a republic, if you can keep it’.” They go on to say,

Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.”

So, I conclude by again congratulating VP Harris for her valiant campaign and expressing sympathy to her for losing the election to a far less worthy candidate. And I trust that she will, indeed, continue to lead in the struggle for implementing “the ideals at the heart of our nation.”

_____

** In that post, I wrote, “If VP Harris loses the election, … it will be because of the votes of White Christians more than any other chosen demographic (that is, other than non-chosen demographics such as gender, race, or ‘class.’)” Thursday morning there was this post on Religious News Service’s website: “White Christians made Donald Trump president — again.”

Posted by LKSeat at 5:30 AM

About Me

LKSeat* Born in Grant City, Mo., on 8/15/1938 * Graduated from Southwest Baptist College (Bolivar, Mo.) in 1957 (A.A.) * Graduated from William Jewell College (Liberty, Mo.) in 1959 (A.B.) * Graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ken.) in 1962 (B.D., equivalent of M.Div.) * Received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology from SBTS. * Baptist missionary to Japan from 1966 to 2004. * Full-time faculty member at Seinan Gakuin University (Fukuoka, Japan) from 1968 to 2004. * Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin from 1996 to 2004

Labels: 2024 election, Harris (Kamala)

WE GOT WHAT MUCH OF AMERICA WANTED: NO ILLUSIONS~ CARLOS LOZADA

Posted on November 9, 2024 by fshiels

What I like about this guy’s work is: he doesn’t deal in illusions, or rationalizations. To call him cynical just proves his point. To do so requires “whistling a happy tune” ~ FL SHIELS EDITOR

By Carlos Lozada

Opinion Columnist

I remember when Donald Trump was not normal.

I remember when Trump was a fever that would break.

I remember when Trump was running as a joke.

I remember when Trump was best covered in the entertainment section.

I remember when Trump would never become the Republican nominee.

I remember when Trump couldn’t win the general election.

I remember when Trump’s attacks on John McCain were disqualifying.

I remember when Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape would force him out.

I remember when Trump was James Comey’s fault.

I remember when Trump was the news media’s fault.

I remember when Trump won because Hillary Clinton was unlikable.

I remember when 2016 was a fluke.

I remember when the office of the presidency would temper Trump.

I remember when the adults in the room would contain him.

I remember when the Ukraine phone call went too far.

I remember when Trump learned his lesson after the first impeachment.

I remember when Jan. 6 would be the end of Trump’s political career.

I remember when the 2022 midterms meant the country was moving on.

I remember when Trump’s indictments would give voters pause.

I remember when Trump’s felony convictions would give voters pause.

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I remember when Trump would win because Joe Biden was old.

I remember when Kamala Harris’s joy would overpower Trump’s fearmongering.

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I remember when Trump was weird.

I remember when Trump was not who we are.

There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. “Normalizing” Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment.

We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad.

After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening?

In recent years, I’ve often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it. I decided that it was both — that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I’m considering an addendum: Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is.

Throughout Trump’s life, he has embodied every national fascination: money and greed in the 1980s, sex scandals in the 1990s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn’t we deserve him now?

At first, it seemed hard to grasp that we’d really done it. Not even Trump seemed to believe his victory that November night in 2016. We had plenty of excuses, some exculpatory, some damning. The hangover of the Great Recession. Exhaustion with forever wars. A racist backlash against the first Black president. A populist surge in America and beyond. Deaths of despair. If not for this potent mix, surely no one like Trump would ever have come to power.

If only the Clinton campaign had focused more on Wisconsin. If only African American turnout had been stronger in Michigan. If only WikiLeaks and private servers and “deplorables” and so much more. If only.

Now we’ll come up with more, no matter how contradictory or consistent they may be. If only Harris had been more attuned to the suffering in Gaza, or more supportive of Israel. If only she’d picked Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, as her running mate. If only the lingering fury over Covid had landed at Trump’s feet. If only Harris hadn’t been so centrist, or if only she weren’t such a California progressive, hiding all those positions she’d let slip in her 2019 campaign. If only Biden hadn’t waited so long to withdraw from the race, or if only he hadn’t mumbled stuff about garbage.

Harris decried Trump as a fascist, a petty tyrant. She called him divisive, angry, aggrieved. And that was a smart case to make if, deep down, most voters held democracy dear (except maybe they didn’t) and if so many of them weren’t already angry (except they were). If all America needed was an articulate case for why Trump was bad, then Harris was the right candidate with the right message at the right moment. The prosecutor who would defeat the felon.

But the voters heard her case, and they still found for the defendant. A politician who admires dictators and says he’ll be one for a day, whom former top aides regard as a threat to the Constitution — a document he believes can be “terminated” when it doesn’t suit him — has won power not for one day but for nearly 1,500 more. What was considered abnormal, even un-American, has been redefined as acceptable and reaffirmed as preferable.

The Harris campaign labored under the misapprehension, as did the Biden campaign before it, that more exposure to Trump would repel voters. They must simply have forgotten the mayhem of his presidency, the distaste that the former president surely inspired. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” Harris reminded us, likening him to the crooks and predators she’d battled as a California prosecutor. She even urged voters to watch Trump’s rallies — to witness his line-crossing, norm-obliterating moments — as if doing so would inoculate the electorate against him.

It didn’t. America knew his type, too, and it liked it. Trump’s disinhibition spoke to and for his voters. He won because of it, not despite it. His critics have long argued that he is just conning his voters — making them feel that he’s fighting for them when he’s just in it for himself and his wealthy allies — but part of Trump’s appeal is that his supporters recognize the con, that they feel that they’re in on it.

Trump has long conflated himself with America, with the ambitions of its people. “When you mess with the American dream, you’re on the fighting side of Trump,” he wrote in “The America We Deserve,” published in 2000.

The Democrats tried hard to puncture those fantasies in this latest campaign. They raised absurd amounts of cash. They pushed the incumbent president, the standard-bearer of their party, out of the race, once it became clear he would not win. They replaced him with a younger, more dynamic candidate who proceeded to trounce Trump in their lone presidential debate.

None of it was enough. America had voted early, long before any mail-in ballots were available, and it has given Trump the “powerful mandate” he claimed in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

This time, that choice came with full knowledge of who Trump is, how he behaves in office and what he’ll do to stay there. He hasn’t just shifted the political consensus on a set of policy positions, though by moving both parties on trade and immigration, he certainly has done that. The rationalization of 2016 — that Trump was a protest vote by desperate Americans trying to send a message to the establishment of both parties — is no longer operative. The grotesque rally at Madison Square Garden, that carnival of insults against everyone that the speakers do not want in their America, was not an anomaly but a summation. It was Trumpism’s closing argument, and it landed.

The irony of one of the more common critiques of Harris — that her “word salad” moments and default platitudes in extended interviews made it hard to know what she believed — is that Trump manages to seem real even when his positions shift and his words weave. Authenticity does not require consistency or clarity when it is grounded in pitch-perfect cynicism.

We don’t call this period “the Trump era” just because the once and future president won lots of votes and has now prevailed in two presidential contests. It remained the Trump era even when Biden exiled him to Mar-a-Lago for four years. It is the Trump era because Trump has captured not just a national party but also a national mood, or at least enough of it. And when Democrats presented the choice this year as a referendum on Trumpism more than an affirmative case for Harris, they kept their rival at the center of American politics.

Harris gave it away whenever she called on voters to “turn the page” from Trump. Didn’t we do that in 2020 when we chose Biden and Harris? Not really. Trump was still waiting in the epilogue.

For those who have long insisted that Trump is “not who we are,” that he does not represent American values, there are now two possibilities: Either America is not what they thought it was, or Trump is not as threatening as they think he is. I lean to the first conclusion, but I understand that, over time, the second will become easier to accept. A state of permanent emergency is not tenable; weariness and resignation eventually win out. As we live through a second Trump term, more of us will make our accommodations. We’ll call it illiberal democracy, or maybe self-care.

“We’re not going back,” Harris told us. The tragedy is not that this election has taken us back, but that it shows how there are parts of America’s history that we’ve never fully gotten past.

In her book “America for Americans,” Erika Lee argues that Trump’s immigration policies and statements are part of a long tradition of xenophobia — against Southern Europeans, against newcomers from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East — a tradition that has lived alongside our self-perception as a nation of immigrants. In his book “The End of the Myth,” Greg Grandin warned of the “nationalization of border brutalism” under Trump, whereby harsh policies at the U.S.-Mexico border would spread elsewhere, an “extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.”

When Trump first began his ascent into presidential politics, some readers turned to Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” about homegrown authoritarianism in the United States. In the story, Doremus Jessup, a liberal-minded newspaper editor, marvels at the power of Buzz Windrip, a crudely charismatic demagogue who captivates the country and imposes totalitarian rule. The stylistic similarities between Trump and Windrip are evident, but Lewis’s real protagonists are the well-meaning, liberal-minded citizens, like Jessup, who can’t quite bring themselves to grasp what is happening.

Jessup tells his readers that the insanity won’t last, that they can wait it out. “He simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure,” Lewis wrote. When it does endure, Jessup blames himself and his class for their obliviousness. “If it hadn’t been one Windrip, it’d been another. … We had it coming, we Respectables,” he laments.

For too long, today’s Respectables have insisted on Trump’s abnormality. It is a reflex, a defense mechanism, as though accepting his ordinariness is too much to bear. Because if Trump is normal, then America must be, too, and who wants to be roused from dreams of exceptionalism? It’s more comforting to think of Trumpism as a temporary ailment than a pre-existing condition.

When Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” in September of 2016, she did more than dismiss a massive voting bloc and confirm her status as a Respectable in good standing. What she said about those voters moments later was even more telling: “Some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But, thankfully, they are not American.”

It’s a neat move: Rather than accept what America was becoming and who Americans could become, just write them out of the story.

Are we what we say, or what we do — are we our actions or our aspirations? From America’s earliest moments, we have lived this tension between ideals and reality. It may seem more honest to dismiss our words and focus on our deeds. But our words also matter; they reveal what we hope to do and who we want to be. That yearning remains vital, no matter in what direction our national reality points.

The way to render Trump abnormal is not to insist that he is, or to find more excuses, or to indulge in the great and inevitable second-guessing of Democratic campaign strategy. It begins by recognizing that who we are is decided not only on Election Day — whether 2024 or 2016, or 2028 for that matter — but every day. Every day that we strive to be something other than what we’ve become.

I remember when I thought Trump wasn’t normal. But now he is, no matter how fiercely I cling to that memory.

Opinion

Biden should not just drop out of the race. He should resign.

Posted on July 2, 2024 by fshiels

from THE HILL, (Washington newsletter)

Biden should not just drop out of the race. He should resign.

BY JAMIE BARNETT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 07/02/24 9:45 AM ET

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – MAY 29: U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wave to members of the audience after speaking at a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris are using today’s rally to launch a nationwide campaign to court black voters, a group that has traditionally come out in favor of Biden, but their support is projected lower than it was in 2020. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden should not just leave the presidential race. He should resign the presidency. Now.

But his greatest achievement was his first one, the one that caused him to run in 2020: saving the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term.

It’s about the country. It’s about the democracy. It’s about the people.

Biden and Trump set for election rematch after clinching nominations

Posted on March 13, 2024 by fshiels

OK, then the question becomes: How long are the media going to fill their copy with obsession with the aging candidate? Or candidate’s? Or as a neurologist on NPR interview suggests: age Can be a a factor increasing cognitive issues. BUT age is not a disease, you have to judge the older person on a specific basis. Biden’s sharpness on policy speaks for itself.

By Kayla Epstein,BBC NewsShare

Getty Images Viewers watch a 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The two will likely face off again in the 2024 US presidential election. Getty ImagesViewers watch a 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The two will likely face off again this year

US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have both passed the delegate thresholds to clinch their parties’ nominations.

They each won several states in primary elections on Tuesday to propel them over the finish line.

The two 2020 contenders will provide the US with its first rematch in a presidential election for 70 years.

Polling suggests it will be a tight race that will come down to narrow margins in a few key states.

The nominations will be made official at party conventions this summer.

The 81-year-old president said on Tuesday evening that he was “honoured” voters had backed his re-election bid “in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever”.

Citing positive economic trends, he asserted the US was “in the middle of a comeback”, but faced challenges to its future as a democracy, as well as from those seeking to pass abortion restrictions and cut social programmes.

“I believe that the American people will choose to keep us moving into the future,” Mr Biden said in a statement from his campaign.

Incumbency gave Mr Biden a natural advantage and he faced no serious challengers for the Democratic nomination.

Despite persistent concerns from voters that his age limits his ability to perform the duties of the presidency, the party apparatus rallied around him.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump, 77, remains very popular with the Republican voter base, which has propelled him to victory in primary after primary over well-funded rivals.

His campaign for a second term in the White House has zeroed in on stricter immigration laws, including a pledge to “seal the border” and implement “record-setting” deportations.

Graphic showing delegates won in Republican race

Mr Trump has also vowed to fight crime, boost domestic energy production, tax foreign imports, end the war in Ukraine and resume an “America first” approach to global affairs.

Tuesday night’s results do not come as a shock, as both men have dominated their races so far.

Both their re-nominations seemed all but predetermined, despite polling that indicates Americans are dissatisfied with the prospect of another showdown between Mr Biden and Mr Trump in November.

The US presidential primaries and caucuses are a state-by-state competition to secure the most party delegates.

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‘It’s like 2020 all over again – with higher stakes’

Washington watchdog gets victory in Trump Colorado disqualification case

Posted on December 22, 2023 by fshiels

Just In…

Washington watchdog gets victory in Trump Colorado disqualification case

by Taylor Giorno – 12/22/23 5:30 AM ET

Guaranteed to stir up a hornets’ nest on the Right. Is Trump still a happy camper? Doubt it. But a man on a mission. America’s women will Take Him out. There are 100 men in their ’80s who are highly functional. Biden is one. He may be forgetful and occasionally stumble.

But the incumbent will be re-elected because he is not diagnosibly a narcissistic grandiose sociopath like his opponent. In better shape than Trump, Just look at DT’s belly for starters. And that haircut! You can see the baldness when the wind blows over it. Nothing wrong with bald, Just don’t hide it with a $500 gel comb-over.

A District of Columbia nonprofit that has filed numerous ethics complaints and launched in-depth investigations into former President Trump was a key player in the case that got him kicked off the Colorado ballot.

In a stunning decision, Colorado’s highest court ruled this week that Trump was disqualified from running for president in the state for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead, more than 100 Capitol Police officers injured and a nation divided.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was part of a bipartisan legal team that brought the case on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters including Norma Anderson, the former Republican majority leader of the state House and Senate.

“My fellow plaintiffs and I brought this case to continue to protect the right to free and fair elections enshrined in our Constitution and to ensure Colorado Republican primary voters are only voting for eligible candidates. Today’s win does just that,” Anderson said in a statement issued by CREW.

CREW President Noah Bookbinder told The Hill that “we have drifted back towards normalizing what happened after the 2020 election, particularly on Jan. 6,” and he hopes the Colorado court’s decision will help ensure the “unprecedented attack on democracy not be allowed to be normalized.”

The Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 primary ballot under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars people who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking the oath of office from holding certain positions.

“I think this decision shows that this is very much a living protection in the Constitution, and one that we need to use and can use and will use going forward,” Bookbinder, former chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Hill.

The former president lashed out at the “TRUMP DERANGED ‘CREW’” on various social media platforms following the decision.

This isn’t the first time CREW has clashed with Trump, whom the organization described in a January 2018 report as as “the most unethical president in history.”

CREW previously sued Trump for refusing to divest from his business interests when he took office and filed ethics complaints against more than a dozen key Trump officials, including top aide Kellyanne Conway.

“We’re an organization that pushes for government ethics and reducing the influence of money in politics and really, you know, protecting our democratic form of government,” Bookbinder said. “I feel entirely justified in devoting a lot of energy to combating this unique threat.”

‘Unprecedented’ decision draws criticism from both sides

Many Republicans have attacked the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision as voter suppression, and some Democrats and left-leaning groups have been wary of the decision.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) called the decision “extreme judicial activism that is designed to suppress the vote and voices of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, which is absolutely unacceptable.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) argued that voters “should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary.” Trump has consistently led in GOP presidential primary polls, clocking a 52.9 percent lead over his closest opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to the latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling average.

Even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a GOP presidential primary candidate who has criticized the former president for his actions Jan. 6, said it would be “bad for the country” if a court kept Trump off the ballot.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is challenging President Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that even though he believes Trump is guilty of “inspiring an insurrection and doing nothing to stop it,” it is “absolutely” wrong to bar Trump from the Colorado ballot.

Bookbinder disagrees.

“The Constitution sets out the rules for our democracy,” Bookbinder argued, adding that not engaging in an insurrection after taking an oath is just as much a qualification as being at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen.

“It is unprecedented,” Bookbinder said. “We’ve never seen anything like that before in this country and so it kind of makes sense that the legal responses to it are going to be things you haven’t seen very often.”

A ‘very unique threat’ to democracy

For more than two decades, CREW has leveraged legal action and investigations to hold elected officials they say use their power for personal gain or to advance special interests accountable.

CREW, which describes itself as a nonpartisan nonprofit, has gone after both Republican and Democratic officials in the past.

The organization recently called on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign after federal prosecutors accused him of a bribery scheme to use his political influence to benefit the Egyptian government, allegations the senator has denied.

The organization also filed a complaint against then-Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki for violating the Hatch Act after she endorsed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe from the briefing room podium, prompting an apology from Psaki.

But many of the group’s lawsuits and investigations are aimed at Republican lawmakers, officials and groups, with a particular focus on the former president’s alleged indiscretions.

Bookbinder pushed back on claims that the organization unfairly targets conservatives, saying, “I don’t think it is a partisan exercise to particularly respond to this very unique threat to our democracy.”

CREW’s board includes several former Democratic officials, including former Clinton White House counsel Beth Nolan and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), as well as former GOP Rep. Claudine Schneider (R.I.). Other Republicans, including former Rep. Mickey Edwards (Okla.), have sat on the board in recent years.

Bookbinder also said the organization has worked with and continues to work with Republican members of Congress on legislation.

“There are plenty of I think good, ethical, democratic, democratically minded Republicans, just as there are Democrats. But right now that party is led by somebody — or appears to be in many ways led by somebody — who is quite open about being a threat to democracy,” he added, pointing to Trump’s comments that he would only be a dictator on his first day if reelected.

Case revives ‘constitutional protection,’ regardless of outcome

The Colorado high court stayed their decision until Jan. 4, 2024, the day before the deadline to file as a candidate in the state, to allow Trump to appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Trump campaign has said it plans to “swiftly file an appeal” to the Supreme Court and request “a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision.” The case faces a 6-3 conservative majority in the nation’s highest court that includes three Trump-nominated justices.

While much has been made of the partisan makeup of the court and how it could impact the case, Bookbinder told The Hill, “We are confident that we will get a fair hearing before the Supreme Court.”

“This is, in many ways, an issue that is tailored for this court,” Bookbinder said. This Supreme Court is perceived to be an “originalist and textualist” one, he added, an ideal audience for a 14th Amendment case.

“It’s important to note that the 14th Amendment does not say, as it could, convicted of an insurrection,” David Becker, executive director of the Election Official Legal Defense Network, said during a call with reporters Wednesday. “We take the drafters of the Constitution’s language at their word when it’s in there.”

Similar cases in Michigan, Minnesota and other states have thus far failed to remove Trump from the ballot. But this case has thrown a wrench into the Republican primary race with less than a month before other states start casting their ballots.

“On behalf of the American people, it would be better for all of us if this is resolved by the United States Supreme Court sooner rather than later,” Becker said.

Regardless of what happens, Bookbinder said he hopes the case “will help to define how people think about what happened going forward.”

“I think in some ways, regardless of how it goes, this revitalizes that constitutional protection and it’s one that I hope we don’t need to use for another 150 years,” Bookbinder said. “But we know it’s there, it’s alive and it can be used if the republic needs it.”

Trump Hoping to See US Economy Reopened by Easter Amid Virus

Posted on March 24, 2020 by fshiels

GIVING THE PRESIDENT HIS DUE BEFORE THE CRITICISM:

HE HAS FINALLY “GOTTEN” IT (?) AND BEHIND MOBILIZING, FOR HIM AND REPUBLICANS, A HUGE PROACTIVE AID PACKAGE FOR ‘SAVING THE COUNTRY’
i’M GOING TO SAY HE MEANS WELL AND SO HAS GOTTEN OUT OF HIS COMFORT ZONE.
BY THE VERY LOW STANDARDS OF GOVERNMENT ACTIVISM FOR TRUMP AND THIS COHORT OF HIS SUPPORTERS (A MINORITY OF REGISTERED VOTERS), HE HAS FINALLY RISEN TO THE OCCASION.

THE PROBLEMS WITH THE PRESIDENT’S MAGICAL THINKING:

EVERY SCIENTIST, MEDICAL PERSON, MOST JOURNALISTS AND STATE GOVERNORS RECOGNIZE THAT THE IDEA OF SOME RETUR TO NORMALITY BY APRIL 12TH EASTER WE WILL ALL BE HUGGING AND GOING TO CHURCH TO CELEBRATE IS SHEER FANTASY. IF THIS BELIEF INFLUENCES HIS POLICY MOVES, HE WILL BEAR CRIMINAL REPEAT CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR FEDERAL UNDER-ACTION, (NOT INACTION BUT LESS THAN NEEDED ACTION)

2. HIS STRESS AND HIS LAP-DOG MIKE PENCES’S BRIEFINGS ON THE HEROIC MEASURES HE IS TAKING AND THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL APPRECIATE THIS, BE BEHIND HIM, SING KUM-BAA-YAA’S OF GRATITUDE.

3. THE PROBLEMS WITH THIS ANALYSIS ARE THAT ANY, REPEAT ANY PRESIDENT FACED WITH THIS WORLD WAR TWO-GREAT DEPRRESSION-1918 FLU PANDEMIC WOULD BE DOING EVERYTHING HE IS DOING AT LEAST AS MUCH AND PROBABLY MUCH MORE. HE IS MUCH CLOSER TO HERBERT HOOVER OR OR JAMES BUCHANAN THAN TO EVEN GW BUSH WITH 9.11 MUCH LESS ROOSEVELT.

4. TRUMP’S DIE-HARD SUPPORTERS AND THE UNINFORMED PUBLIC SEE HIM AS SOME SORT OF MACHO HERO: NOT SO. AS BIDEN SAID, HE DID NOT CAUSE THE VIRUS OR ENABLE IT (OF COURSE!), HE HAS JUST BEEN BEHIND THE CURVE SINCE DAY 1. THOUSANDS WILL ALREADY DIE BECAUSE OF HIS SLOW, SKEPTICAL EARLIER RESPONSE. THIS IS NOT “HUMAN ERROR” THIS IS CRIMINAL REPEAT CRIMINAL NEGLECT.

HIS RHETORIC HAS IMPROVED AND HE IS DEFINITELY “ON IT” COMPARED WITH A MONTH AGO. BUT THE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE. PRAISE GOD THAT HE IS FINALLY BEGINNING TO GET IT. OR IS IT? WE’LL SING TOGETHER IN CHURCH BY EASTER LOOKING BACK ON THIS THING IS SERIOUS MISINFORMATION. IT IS FANTASY. IT IS KILLING PEOPLE. THIS IS ALREADY TRUMP’S KATRINA. BUT THIS IS NOT 2005. IT IS 2020. AN ELECTION YEAR. BYE-BYE MR, PRESIDENT. THE UKRAINE IMPEACHMENT WAS INDEED PEANUTS COMPARED TO THIS .

+Trump Hoping to See US Economy Reopened by Easter Amid Virus

By The Associated Press

March 24, 2020Updated 5:08 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — With lives and the economy hanging in the balance, President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is hoping the United States will be reopened by Easter as he weighs how to relax nationwide social-distancing guidelines to put some workers back on the job during the coronavirus outbreak.

As many public health officials call for stricter — not looser — restrictions on public interactions, Trump said he was already looking toward easing the advisories that have sidelined workers, shuttered schools and led to a widespread economic slowdown.

“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said during a Fox News virtual town hall. Easter is just over two weeks away — Apr. 12.

“Wouldn’t it be great to have all of the churches full,” Trump said in a subsequent interview. “You’ll have packed churches all over our country.”

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Health experts have made clear that unless Americans continue to dramatically limit social interaction — staying home from work and isolating themselves — the number of infections will overwhelm the health care system, as it has in parts of Italy, leading to many more deaths. While the worst outbreaks are concentrated in certain parts of the country, such as New York, experts warn that the highly infectious disease is certain to spread.

The U.S. is now more than a week into an unprecedented 15-day effort to encourage all Americans to drastically scale back their public activities. The guidelines, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are voluntary, but many state and local leaders have issued mandatory restrictions in line with, or even tighter than, those issued by the CDC.

On Monday, the U.S. saw its biggest jump yet in the death toll from the virus, with more than 650 American deaths now attributed to COVID-19. Trump’s comments come after dire warnings by officials in hard-hit areas. New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his state’s hospital system will soon hit a breaking point — resulting in avoidable deaths — even with the restrictions already in place.

“I gave it two weeks,” Trump said during the town hall from the Rose Garden. He argued that tens of thousands of Americans die each year from the seasonal flu and in automobile accidents and “we don’t turn the country off.”

When the 15-day period ends next Monday, he said, “We’ll assess at that time and we’ll give it some more time if we need a little more time, but we need to open this country up.” He added, “We have to go back to work, much sooner than people thought.”

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Trump’s Easter target was not immediately embraced by Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the White House task force, who indicated any move would have to be guided by data still being collected. She suggested that public health professionals could recommend a general easing, while pushing for local restrictions to remain in the hardest-hit areas.

Trump acknowledged that some want the guidance to continue, but claimed without providing evidence that keeping the guidance in place would lead to deaths from suicide and depression.

“I’m sure that we have doctors that would say, ‘Let’s keep it closed for two years,'” Trump said. “No, we got to get it open.”

He added, “This cure is worse than the problem.”

Trump’s reassessment comes as the White House is encouraging lawmakers on Capitol Hill to pass a roughly $2 trillion stimulus package to ease the financial pain for Americans and hard-hit industries.

Trump’s enthusiasm for getting people back to work comes as he takes stock of the political toll the outbreak is taking. It sets up a potential conflict with medical professionals, including many within his government, who have called for more social restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, not fewer.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, did not appear at the virtual town hall, but Trump denied there were any tensions between the two men.

Lawmakers have suggested they’ll look to Fauci for guidance on when the restrictions should be lifted.

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“I’m going to take my lead from Anthony Fauci,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., said on CNN. “That’s the person I trust, that’s the person Americans trust.

Fauci told WMAL radio in Washington on Tuesday that Trump has always heeded his recommendations.

“The president has listened to what I have said and to what the other people on the task force have said,” Fauci said. “When I have made recommendations he has taken them. He’s never countered or overridden me, the idea of just pitting one against the other is just not helpful.”

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, told reporters Tuesday that “public health includes economic health.”

“That’s the key point. And it’s not either-or. It’s not either-or, and that’s why we’re taking a fresh look at it,” he said.

During a private conference call with roughly 30 conservative leaders on Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence reinforced Trump’s eagerness to lift coronavirus-related work and travel restrictions “in a matter of weeks, not months.”

When pressed on a specific timeline for lifting restrictions, Pence said there would be no formal decisions made until the current 15-day period of social distancing was complete, according to a conference call participant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the private discussion.

Pence told the group that accommodations would need to be made for the highest-risk populations if and when restrictions begin to be lifted.

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Despite Trump’s rosy talk, other elements of the government were digging in for the long haul. Top defense and military leaders on Tuesday warned department personnel that the virus problems could extend for eight to 10 weeks, or even into the summer.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Defense Department town hall meeting that restrictions could go into late May or June, possibly even July. He said there are a variety of models from other countries, so the exact length of the virus and necessary restrictions are not yet clear.

——

Associated Press writers Lita Baldor in Washington and Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.

Jimmy Carter dismisses Donald Trump’s wall lies with short and sweet statement

Posted on January 8, 2019 by fshiels

Walter Einenkel Daily Kos StaffMonday January 07, 2019 · 4:12 PM EST Recommend 363 Share 5594 Tweet 268 Comments 268 new

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Donald Trump has cornered himself by insisting that the wall he promised his base—the one that Mexico was going to pay for—must be paid for… by his base. Because Trump is an insane liar person, he’s doing what he always does: spouting insanely dumb and easily verifiable lies. A couple of days ago he made the statement, “This should have been done by all of the presidents that preceded me, and they all know it Some of them have told me that we should have done it.” Really? Really. For real? Yes. That’s what he said. Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush quickly told people that no, no, they did not tell Trump anything regarding an expensive and pointless wall on our southern border. A short while ago, President Jimmy Carter made a statement going one further.

The Carter Center✔@CarterCenter

President Carter has been an honest critic of Trump’s garbage fire corruption circus show, and probably still cannot believe he has to answer questions about possibly agreeing with him on anything. Traditional news outlets are considering whether or not to air Trump’s immigration windbag of lies Monday night. The rest of us have yet to hear a single truth come out of this dirtbag’s mouth.

‘The Rise of the American Taliban

Posted on February 11, 2016 by fshiels

[REPORTED IN FOREIGN POLICY FEB 4, 2016]: I guess if Pakistan is bewildered by Trump and Putin is enthusiastic (perhaps not the endorsement that Trump needs) and his effigy is a hit in Dusseldorf,and he’s “Taken New Hampshire”, the dude is having a very good week… shiels/2/11/16

DISPATCH
‘The Rise of the American Taliban’
Pakistan’s elite on the Trump phenomenon.
BY LAWRENCE PINTAK FEBRUARY 4, 2016
‘The Rise of the American Taliban’
KARACHI, Pakistan — In the strongholds of hard-line Pakistani Islamist thought, they are talking about Donald Trump and laughing. Then they shake their heads with concern. “He doesn’t belong in the White House, he belongs in a mental hospital,” 46-year-old Hafez Tahrir Ashrafi, a Muslim cleric who is head of the country’s Ulema Council, told me with a throaty roar. An obese man with a wild dark beard, Ashrafi is an advisor to the Pakistani government and a former jihadi who fought in Afghanistan as a youth — Pakistani media has quoted him endorsing suicide bombing against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “We do not believe the Americans will elect a man like that with his very dirty statements,” Ashrafi continued. “But if that happens, then he creates the problem not for the Muslims, but for the Americans and for himself.”

Ashrafi is not alone in that view. Sen. Ted Cruz may have won Iowa, but it’s Trump who has Pakistan’s elite simultaneously amused and concerned.Sen. Ted Cruz may have won Iowa, but it’s Trump who has Pakistan’s elite simultaneously amused and concerned. Ten days of interviews in late January with a broad cross-section of Pakistani intelligentsia — Islamists, liberals, policymakers, and bloggers — can be summed up in a single sentence: Trump is a clown, but he is a dangerous clown who could cause long-term damage to U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

Pakistan’s relationship with the United States is complex. It has been a vital ally in the Afghan war, but its intelligence services have played both ends against the middle, supporting some extremists for its own geopolitical aims, while battling others. The country is in a virtual state of civil war and there are deep divisions between the civilians and military leadership. The army has been locked in a major offensive against militants in the tribal areas and a simultaneous operation to wrest back control of Karachi, the commercial capital, from militias and criminal gangs, and there are ongoing rebellions in several parts of the country. But Pakistan’s importance to U.S. foreign policy is seen in both its efforts to help broker a deal in Afghanistan and its efforts to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

And it’s that positive side that makes Trump’s campaign rhetoric so problematic. “When people who are not sophisticated hear his comments and see Americans voting for him, that translates into anti-U.S. sentiment,” says Dr. Ishrat Husain, a former central bank governor under the early 21st-century regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. “We can only hope he doesn’t get the nomination. That would be a disaster.”

But many Pakistanis who are “sophisticated” also question what Trump’s success so far says about the direction of American society. They fear they are getting a glimpse into the dark side of the American psyche — and seeing it reflected back in their own. More than 4,600 people died of violence in Pakistan in 2015, according to the country’s Centre for Research and Security Studies — which in itself is a sharp drop from the more than 7,600 people who died in 2014.

“We’re living in a world where we seem to be competing for the space from which you can preach or promote intolerance of the other,” says Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the nonprofit Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, with exhaustion in her voice.

Inside the heavily fortified walls of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, some of the country’s best and brightest study business, computer science, and engineering, with images of careers in the United States dancing in their heads. “Social media is full of posts about Trump,” a graduate student, who asked not to give her name, told me when I asked if Pakistanis are paying attention to the campaign. “Positive or negative?” I teased, just to see the reaction. She and her friends erupted in laughter. “Negative, of course!”

In Pakistan these days, one hears much talk of visas denied and dreams quashed. The daughter of a close friend recently earned her medical degree. She just returned home to the city of Lahore after three months looking for opportunities in the United States where she had always dreamed of being a doctor. Now she is having second thoughts. An Australian or New Zealand accent may be in her future. “She just didn’t feel comfortable with all she was hearing and seeing on television,” my friend told me. “She felt like people were judging her wherever she went.”

Trump may be a fixture on the social media feeds of educated Pakistani youth, but he has been largely AWOL from the mainstream media. Ditto the primaries as a whole. “It barely comes up in our editorial meetings,” Fahd Husain, executive director of Express News TV, one of Pakistan’s dozens of often-sensational news channels, told me, sitting in his Lahore newsroom.

At the Karachi headquarters of Geo TV, one of the country’s largest networks, I heard much the same. Geo has aired most of the GOP and Democratic debates with Urdu translations, but the broadcasts have elicited relatively little comment. “People are more concentrated on what’s happening in Pakistan,” says Azhar Abbas, Geo’s news chief. Not surprising given that the nation is still reeling from the deaths of more than 20 people, most of them students, in a January attack on a university — just the most egregious recent example of the daily carnage. “Now we will not kill the soldier in his cantonment, the lawyer in the court, or the politician in parliament, but in the places where they are prepared, the schools, the universities, the colleges that lay their foundation,” a Pakistani Taliban leader warned after the attack.

Badr Alam, the self-effacing editor of The Herald, an English-language newsweekly, sheepishly notes that another reason for the lack of coverage of Trump — and the campaign in general — is that many Pakistanis, including editors, simply don’t understand the U.S. primary system. “In the media I think there will be 10-15 people who would really know how the election happens.”

But Hameed Haroon, Pakistan’s most influential publisher — and Badr’s boss — says there is also a conscious decision on the part of some editors not to stir the international relations pot. The Pakistani media does not normally hesitate to publish anti-American rants, but Haroon, whose family owns the Dawn media group, says those opinions are usually tied to specific U.S. policy actions and include “a retreat mechanism,” by which he means that when policies or policymakers change, the framing of the United States in the media changes.

Trump, says Haroon, endangers that fail-safe “retreat mechanism” in U.S.-Pakistani relations. “It’s not a conscious censorship as such, [but] to enshrine Trump as an example of how bad America is would open up darker perspectives and dis-balance the possibility of any positive perception of America in this region,” he told me.

Not everyone is so grim. “The Europeans have become more tolerant [toward Islam], but tolerance can be condescending,” says Muneer Kamal, chairman of both the Karachi Stock Exchange and the National Bank of Pakistan, who thinks Trump is an aberration. “The Americans have moved to a completely different place — acceptance” of Muslims.

Still, Trump and Hillary Clinton are upending Pakistan’s policy worldview about relations with Washington: Since Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to the well-worn trope, Democrats tilt toward India, Republicans tilt toward Pakistan (and more problematically, Pakistani military dictatorships). Clinton may be a Democrat, but she’s a proven commodity — someone Islamabad can deal with. The battle of inflammatory soundbites on the Republican side has Pakistani heads spinning.The battle of inflammatory soundbites on the Republican side has Pakistani heads spinning. “This time around,” according to retired Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi, head of the Center for International Strategic Studies think tank, which is close to Pakistan’s military and political leadership, “we can’t make sense of the Republican party.”

“You need a dose of Hillary to clean out a dose of Trump,” says Dawn’s Haroon. But he and others worry that isn’t enough, that something more fundamental is taking place in American society that will reshape U.S. foreign policy.

There’s that theme again: the dark side. Economist Kaiser Bengali, an advisor to the governor of the province of Baluchistan, calls it “the rise of the American Taliban,” which he says began in the Reagan administration and is now hitting critical mass with the Trumpites. “This is against the democratic values,” warns Dr. Farid Ahmed Piracha, number two in Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s largest Islamist group. “If there is such mindset, then there will be more difficulties for the United States and more terrorism.”

But let’s not be misled. As every foreign correspondent knows, there is one ultimate go-to source for the real ground truth in every country: the taxi driver.

Heading through the deserted, early morning streets toward the airport in the military capital Rawalpindi, fending off hawkers and beggars at each red light, my hotel driver Syed and I talked U.S. politics. On the other side of the world, Iowans were donning boots and parkas as they headed toward — well, wherever it is Iowans go in that bizarre quadrennial ritual.

“How many days lasts American election?” asked Syed.

“Ten months,” I replied, wondering how I was going to explain this.

There was a long, pregnant pause.

“Hillary is a nice lady,” he said.

And we drove on.

Image Credit: Joe

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‘The Rise of the American Taliban

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The View from This Seat Guest post from colleague, Dr. L.K. Seat

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Washington watchdog gets victory in Trump Colorado disqualification case

‘Unprecedented’ decision draws criticism from both sides

A ‘very unique threat’ to democracy

Case revives ‘constitutional protection,’ regardless of outcome

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