BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

Yup.

In my view, that's the wrong conclusion. Senate Rules don't make sense. Governing majorities should be able to govern, without firing taking the Senate parliamentarian (who rules on what can be done under budget reconciliation) out to fancy dinners.

Our views, as least in my case, arise partly through knowledge and partly from our personality, experiences and preferences. I have been thinking a little more about the ACA. and the Supreme Court.

My understanding of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution is that it granted some powers to the federal government in the area of commerce, the default being that without this granting of powers, the federal government then lacked the power. That is, the default was "doesn't have power", so if a power isn't granted then it does not exist.
The issue the first time the ACA hit the SCUTUS was whether the feds could require people to engage in commerce by buying insurance. Somehow the decision was that they could tax people for not buying insurance but not fine them. I don't understand just why, but so it was. And the Roberts pushed the idea that the penalty was a tax, not a fine. I can't say I see that, but so it was.
Then, thanks to the help from this thread, I now understand that later the votes were not there to eliminate the mandate but they could reduce the penalty to zero, tis latter requiring fewer votes.
And now, with no penalty, does this mean that it is no longer a tax? And if so, is in tow an unconstitutional mandate?
Ok, I can make an argument. In my youthful days I sometimes had tax withheld from my paycheck. Then, at the end of the year, I would get it all returned because my total income was such that I owed no taxes. That is, I had a tax of zero dollars. With that logic, if "logic" is the right word, a tax that has been reduced to zero can still be considered a tax. So no problem.
Well, yuk. The thought that this could all come down to whether the penalty was a tax or a fine was bad enough, and now if we have to argue whether reducing the tax/fine to zero changes its status is depressing.

In https://www.washingt...a-live-updates/ Roberts is quoted as saying "We spent all that time talking about broccoli for nothing?"
Possibly I am not the only person who finds the discussion frustrating. Reading all of the thoughts quoted in the article, I am not inspired.
This is not how it is supposed to work.

We got a pretty good indication this week of how President-elect Joe Biden is going to try to reconcile his two big campaign promises: A return to normal politics — including a commitment to represent the entire nation, and not just those who supported him — and a solidly liberal policy agenda.

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris made a brief appearance on Tuesday, with each giving short speeches, as the latest Obamacare lawsuit was heard by the Supreme Court. Their comments were … I guess I’ll go with “uninspired.” But when taking questions from the press as president-elect, Biden was relaxed, smiling and able to dismiss Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the election results as inconsequential. Whether treating such extremism as a trivial distraction will be a viable public-relations strategy going forward is hard to say. But for now, Biden’s politics-as-normal seems like a good contrast to Trump’s bluster.

Also on Tuesday, Biden rolled out a series of transition teams, which will prepare for the policy and personnel decisions needed to begin governing across executive-branch departments and agencies. These teams got mostly positive reviews from Democratic policy wonks, but were also solidly on the liberal side. One advantage the president-elect has at the moment is that Republicans are pretending that there is no Biden transition, and so they aren’t attacking the names on these lists as they normally would. But logical inconsistencies don’t always prevent partisan attacks, and Biden shouldn’t expect the distractions to last.

Reconciling what’s sure to be a liberal agenda with Biden’s promise to represent the entire nation will be a challenge. It’s not impossible; after all, such a synthesis was central to Barack Obama’s presidency, and he was at least moderately successful in pursuing both goals. But Obama had large Democratic majorities in Congress to work with in his first two years, and Biden will not. Perhaps that means fewer partisan policy gains, which would cause tension among Democrats. Perhaps it means that policy progress will come mainly without congressional action, which could make it even more vulnerable to public opinion. Surely, Biden would like to see bipartisanship succeed — but that remains unlikely in most policy areas, and it’s hard to see what leverage he’ll have.

At any rate, good policy is usually good politics, and from what we’ve seen so far there’s a decent chance Biden’s administration will have quality people and a sensible policy process. So that, at least, is a good start.

The last time the anonymous person or group of people posing as Q posted on the notorious message board 8kun was at 1:30 a.m. on Election Day. It’s not the first time Q has gone silent, but it’s happening following Trump's loss at the polls—a time when Q followers need more guidance and affirmation than ever.

It’s fashionable to think that, just like his former boss, President Barack Obama, president-elect Joe Biden is inheriting a damaged economy that will struggle to recover, perhaps for years. The reality is quite the opposite, with Biden stepping into a dream scenario for economic growth on the other side of the battle with the Covid-19 pandemic.

When Obama took office in January 2009, the economy was still grappling with the aftermath of the housing bust and subsequent financial crisis while not receiving the fiscal support needed from Congress to boost the pace of growth. A slow recovery ensued. So, naturally, the failure of Congress to agree on another stimulus package before last week’s election and the inability – so far – of the Democrats to gain control of the Senate has raised the specter that the economy will endure a similar fate in come years.

But the current economic cycle is in no way like the last. The economy is instead poised for a rapid rebound for six main reasons:

First, there is nothing fundamentally “broken” in the economy that needs to heal. And unlike the last two cycles, there was no obvious financial bubble driving excessive activity in any one economic sector when the pandemic hit. There is no excessive investment that needs to be unwound and the financial sector has escaped largely unharmed.

Second, the indiscriminate nature of the shutdowns this past spring provides the economy with a solid base from which to grow. The economy collapsed in the spring because in the effort to get ahead of the virus, we shut down about a third of the economy on an annualized basis. That created a lot of opportunity to rebound when the unnecessary causalities of the shutdown came back online and began to grow around the virus. That process will continue.

Third, household balance sheets were not crushed like they were in the last recession. Instead, the opposite occurred. Reduced spending, fiscal stimulus, rising home prices and a buoyant equity market have all helped push household net wealth past its pre-pandemic peak.

Fourth, the demographics are incredibly supportive of growth. During the last recovery, the economy was still adapting to the Baby Boomers aging out of the workforce with a much smaller cohort of Generation X’ers behind them. The larger Millennial generation was just entering college at the time. Now, the Millennials are entering their prime homebuyer years in force and will be moving into their peak earning years. The resulting strength in housing is fueling higher home prices and durable goods spending, and we are just at the beginning of the trend. Housing activity should hold strong for the next four years.

Fifth, household savings have grown by more than a $1 trillion, providing the fuel for a hot economy on the other side of the pandemic. Sooner or later, that money is going to come out of savings and into the economy and I expect it to flow into the sectors like leisure and hospitality where there is considerable pent up demand.

Sixth, and most importantly, vaccine is coming. Pfizer Inc. announced its Covid-19 vaccine is 90% effective. Many other vaccines are in development using the same strategy as Pfizer. To be sure, it will take some time for vaccines to be widely available but once they are the sectors of the economy most encumbered by the virus (the same as those for which consumers have pent-up demand) will be lit on fire. Moreover, schools and day cares can reopen allowing parents to return to the workforce.

With Covid-19 cases surging again, it is understandably hard to look optimistically to the other side of this winter. We should see some economic softness the next couple of months, but we can afford it with the private sector creating jobs at the 906,000 monthly pace that was seen in October. Don’t let the near-term challenges distract from the economic stage being set for next four years.

https://www.bloomber...o?sref=UHfKDqx7

Interestingly, Democrats in the House passed legislation last year requiring post-election auditing (not specific to mail-in ballots). The bill died in the Republican-controlled Senate. https://nytimes.com/...-mcconnell.html

Senator Rand Paul said:

President Trump’s claims of voter fraud are resonating with many of his supporters. We should never deny anyone their day in court, and he has every right to produce evidence to support his allegations. The election results themselves, however, strongly suggest he did not lose because of fraud.

Mass voter fraud should be relatively easy to detect, even if it might be difficult to prove. Since we elect presidents through the electoral college, political operatives trying to nefariously produce a victory would focus on states critical to an electoral college majority. Thus, if fraud were behind President-elect Joe Biden’s win, we should expect to see significantly higher turnout increases in key states when compared to the nation as a whole. Furthermore, we should expect to see higher turnout increases within those states in Democratic areas than in Republican areas, since those regions are places where Democrats are more likely to be able to hide any stolen votes. Finally, we should expect to see significantly larger shifts in voter margins toward the Democrats from other, previous elections as the fraud alters the area’s normal voting patterns.

None of these early warning signs of fraud appear in the results.

https://www.washingt...ms-are-baloney/

For years, watching Republicans actively defend Trump’s solipsism has been unbearable. Whether he’s lying about the size of the crowd at his inauguration, or auctioning U.S. foreign policy off in exchange for dirt on his political opponents, or virtually ignoring a deadly infectious disease that could hurt his re-election, Republicans have twisted themselves in knots either vying for Trump’s affection or dodging questions about his latest vile utterance.

Last Tuesday, Republicans were rewarded for this strategy, picking up seats in the House of Representatives, and, depending on a pair of January runoff elections in Georgia, retaining control of the Senate. It appears only Trump can’t survive Trumpism.

But the lesson from voters? More of the same, please.

That is why, even with Trump soon to be out of office, Republicans are still spooked by his shadow, actively taking part in his campaign to misinform millions of American voters and plunge the country into a fruitless legal war. Even the supposedly “responsible” Republicans issuing milquetoast statement demanding every “legally cast” vote be counted are winking to the low-information crowds who believe millions of illegal votes were cast.

This, of course, includes a number of GOP presidential hopefuls, who know a ticket to 2024 will cost them their dignity in the short-term. The past is an ever-growing resource, and many of these would-be contenders hope there will soon be enough of it to distance them from the post-election freak show.

Some of these presidential aspirants are counting on Trump fading from view, once news networks are no longer forced to cover him. Others are trying to grab hold of the dragon Trump created and hope they can ride it for four more years.

“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time?” one “senior Republican official” told the Washington Post. “No one seriously thinks the results will change. … He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”

Naturally, the ongoing behavior of Trump’s sycophants depends on how visible Trump remains while in exile, and whether he continues to demand fealty from weaker-willed Republicans. And much of Trump’s power will be determined by how much money he can make as a political figure once he’s out of office.

Even the current legal battles over the election results are a fundraising scam, with Trump’s appeals telling donors a portion of the money will be spent to retire campaign debt. As a private citizen, Trump faces hundreds of millions of dollars in debt he needs to repay—if he remains “political,” it seems his focus will be more on vacuuming money from his supporters’ pockets than refereeing disputes between Biden and potential Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But in the shorter term, without any sort of condemnation from his own side, Trump will continue to put his own fundraising over the nation’s well-being as the phony voter fraud lawsuits continue. Historically, the peaceful transfer of power has relied on the losing candidate hoping to preserve his dignity and character. We are seeing what happens when we elect someone with neither of those things.

Look - if Trump were serious about contesting the election, we'd be starting to hear some noise from a few very red state governments about not recognizing the Biden administration, redirecting tax withholding from the Biden controlled IRS to a different Trump controlled IRS, and so on.

None of that is happening.

I suppose that I might agree a bit sort of. I still think we are in a potential crisis. Trump respects no boundaries, that has become completely clear. "Can I get away with it?" is the only consideration. Unlike some, I don't write off other Republicans as all being completely unprincipled. For example in Georgia we see that there will be a recount because of the close nature of the results, but I gather that the Republican Secretary of State is arranging a careful honest recount. I'm fine with careful honest recounts in close races (49.5 % versus 49.2 % be the WaPo map) But I gather that (and yes, I know it is from WaPo) some Rs think he is a traitor.

So we have an incomplete answer to the question of how far Rs are willing to go. Some will go a good deal further than others. Chas gets mentioned from time to time. Well, he isn't Q. There is a spectrum. Lindsey Graham seems comfortable in acting like an idiot. I really don't get it. A person can have too much to drink and say stupid things but he doesn't seem to be downing Scotch as he talks. But I don't think even LG has suggested that state legislatures should intervene in the electoral college choices. Maybe I missed it, I don't quite rule it out.

Briefly, I think we now all understand who Trump is. Never mind the psychological diagnoses, that's for the shrinks to do, we recognize what we see. But there are many Rs with varied interests, standards and power. What will they do? I'm an optimist, but realism is that it is not yet clear just where their limits are.

President-elect Joe Biden has selected Ron Klain to be White House chief of staff, to fairly widespread acclaim. Klain was once a staffer for Biden on the Senate judiciary committee; since then, he’s worked for a number of Democratic big shots, eventually serving as Biden’s vice-presidential chief of staff during the rollout of the recovery act, and then as Barack Obama’s Ebola czar. He’s well qualified for the job, and seems to be well regarded by party groups and even by some Republicans (which is why I said Biden should choose him!).

Also presumably happy? Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The White House staff, in its modern sense, only goes back to Harry Truman’s presidency, and for a long time there was a serious partisan disagreement on how to run what was practically a new branch of government. Eisenhower, drawing on his military background, introduced the idea of a chief of staff and a highly structured organizational chart. Every Republican from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush followed his lead. Truman had used a much looser set-up, basically emulating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. Democrats tended to follow Truman’s example at the beginning of their terms, with either no designated chief of staff or (as with Bill Clinton) a very weak one. But over their presidencies, they gravitated toward the Ike model. The argument seemed to end in 2009, when Barack Obama began his presidency with Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, only to have Donald Trump govern — or fail to govern — in the old Democratic style.

It’s no surprise that Biden will follow Obama’s lead. Indeed, it’s hard to give him all that much credit for selecting the most obvious candidate and organizing his presidency in the most obvious way — except that we’ve just been through an administration that got the easy things wrong all too often. So credit Biden for ignoring any temptation to do something dramatic or unexpected.

Selecting a chief of staff is the single most important personnel call that Biden will make in setting up his administration. Get that wrong — as Ronald Reagan did when he chose Don Regan in 1985 — and a president invites all sorts of problems. A good chief of staff functions as both an extension of the president and as someone who can compensate for the boss’s weaknesses; see, for example, Reagan’s original choice, James Baker. All presidencies are subject to infighting, staffers who care more their own profiles than about the president’s success, and various other crises and disputes. A good chief of staff will minimize the downsides.

Of course, we’ll have to see if having the right experience and reputation will actually yield success for Klain. But to the extent that restoring normal, boring, competent governance was one of Biden’s key promises, he seems to be on the road to fulfilling it.

Republican and conservative elites are beginning to bail on Trump's effort to overturn the election, which is good. But they're bailing because it won't work, not because it's wrong. They're leaving Trump as he's losing. I won't forget how few stood up to him when he was winning.

"President Trump is saying he needs your money for legal challenges...but he’s showing you in the fine print that your money won’t be used for legal challenges. What will he do with your money? Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior."

https://www.usatoday...umn/6239950002/

Start a finish the wall fund?

The Bernstein quote gives some history I was not aware of and then quotes with a very hopeful sentence
"But to the extent that restoring normal, boring, competent governance was one of Biden's key promises, he seems to be on the road to fulfilling it."
Not only does this make me very happy, I also think it can win over a lot of voters. Unless the human race has undergone fundamental genetic change since I was young, a boring competence is appreciated by many people. Shove the midnight tweets.

Start a finish the wall fund?