Category Archives: Liberal

The most influential center-left think tank in DC has a new plan to fix Obamacare and, perhaps surprisingly, it includes some of the same provisions as the Republican health bill in the Senate.

On Thursday, the Center for American Progress released new legislative text that proposes repairing Obamacares exchanges through a mixture of new subsidies to help insurance companies cover their most expensive patients, and lower taxes to encourage insurers to set up shop in under-served markets.

The plan is almost certainly dead on arrival with a Republican caucus that has been bent on dismantling Obamacare for years. But CAP is casting it as a bipartisan solution that could give Republicans a lifeline should Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fail to find the 51 votes to pass his bill and require Democratic support.

We are at an inflection point where theres an opportunity for senators to choose a different path, said Topher Spiro, one of the reports authors, in an interview. But its a very small window.

The CAP plan has three main components two of which are already included in Senate Republicans Better Care Reconciliation Act. (All three components have been floating around health policy circles for a number of years.)

The first involves guaranteeing Obamacares cost-sharing reductions, which help make copays and deductibles cheaper for lower-income people who get insurance through Obamacare. Trump threatened to stop making Obamacares CSR payments a move that destabilized the markets by making it unclear to insurers if they could count on the payments being there. Both Senate Republicans BCRA and the CAP plan would guarantee the CSRs.

The second component is a $15 billion reinsurance fund. It calls for giving states federal money to give insurers funding for their most expensive, high-cost enrollees which Spiro says would in turn reduce premium payments for everyone else on the exchanges. (Spiro also notes that Maine and Alaska two states with moderate Republican senators have already adopted similar approaches in their states that have shown signs of success.) Because the reinsurance fund would reduce premium costs, and thus the amount of tax credits the government would have to pay out, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association says the $15 billion fund would only cost the federal government $4 billion.

Its pretty well known that a very small percentage of patients drive the vast majority of health care costs. Thats the reasoning behind this solution: If you subsidize those high costs, it will bring premiums down for everyone, Spiro said.

And it's plucked straight from the Senate Republican bill."

These Republican ideas were put into BCRA in order to ease the blow created by the GOP plan to eliminate the individual mandate, which would cause instability in the Obamacare exchanges. CAP is proposing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on these proposals without the tax cuts for the rich and gutting of Medicaid also envisioned by McConnells team.

The third proposal in the CAP plan isnt in the GOP plan. It involves giving tax incentives to insurance companies who agree to cover patients in parts of the country where there is only one insurer (or fewer). One idea is to encourage insurers by eliminating the health insurance tax for plans that enter these markets, though Spiro said hes open to other suggestions and tweaks. The plan also says that CAP would support a public option to make sure that everyone is covered.

It goes without saying that the biggest difference between the CAP plan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's is that CAP would not call for, well, the rest of BCRA. It scraps BCRA's massive tax cuts for billionaires, the steep cuts to Medicaid, the deep wound to Obamacare's subsidies, and essentially only uses the ideas for guaranteeing Obamacare's Cost Sharing Reductions and the reinsurance fund.

But its also a marked break from what some on the progressive left want to see: unified Democratic calls for a public option, or Medicare-for-all single-payer bill. (CAP also supports a public option, and lists it as one possible way to bring down the number of uninsured Americans in the report.)

Earlier this week, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee released a statement preemptively attacking any move on the left to embrace a fix for Obamacare that didnt include these much more far-reaching fixes to Obamacare.

Any bipartisan health care solution must, at a minimum, include a robust public option for all or a Medicare buy in for all and if it doesn't, it is dead on arrival with the progressive base and most Americans, PCCCs Adam Green said.

There is robust support in the Democratic caucus for these ideas. More than half of House Democrats have agreed to cosign Rep. John Conyerss (D-MI) single-payer proposal the most support its gotten in the partys history.

Spiro says hes not bothered by concerns that the left should instead be focused on demanding a public option or Medicare-for-all. Like many in the Senate Democratic caucus, he said the priority has to be on improving Obamacare for patients in the short term and, above all, stopping Republicans dangerous bill.

Youve talked to some of these patients: They feel theyre at risk right now and that their care may be impacted next year or the year after. Our immediate focus has to be on stabilizing the markets and removing this threat and this uncertainty, Spiro told me. My number one priority, above all else, is to help and protect those people.

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A liberal think tank just released its own proposal to fix Obamacare ... - Vox

Greta Van Susteren is out at MSNBC less than six months after she started at the cable channel.

Van Susteren broke the news of her own ouster Thursday, tweeting "I'm out at MSNBC" shortly before the network issued its own announcement. Van Susteren's husband, John Coale, told CNNMoney, "They let her go," and added that she and MSNBC were "working out contract issues now."

CNNMoney also reported that Van Susteren was given no prior notice of the decision and was told her on-air presence was not "confrontational enough."

MSNBC said that Van Susteren's nightly 6 p.m. show would be replaced with one hosted by Ari Melber, MSNBC's chief legal correspondent who also hosts his own weekend show, "The Point."

The reliably liberal Melber worked on John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign and also served as a legislative aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., before attending law school and moving into media work.

Van Susteren's Washington-based show, "For the Record," debuted on Jan. 9. Her 14-year run at Fox News ended this past summer. Before that, she had her own show at CNN.

The program was the least-watched show on MSNBC between 5 p.m. and midnight both Monday and Tuesday of this week, according to the Nielsen company.

On Monday, for example, MSNBC's "Meet the Press Daily" at 5 p.m. had 970,000 viewers, and Van Susteren's show dipped to 797,000. When Chris Matthews' "Hardball" started at 7 p.m., the network's audience jumped to 1.45 million, Nielsen said.

The show is ending despite the public backing of Van Susteren's friend and MSNBC's most popular host, Rachel Maddow.

In a note to staff, MSNBC President Phil Griffin called Van Susteren "a well-regarded television veteran and one of only a few broadcasters who can say they've hosted shows at all three major cable news networks. We are grateful to her and wish her the best."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continued here:

MSNBC fires Greta Van Susteren, replaces her with liberal host - Fox News

Itwas a strange sight, even for the sport of professional wrestling.

A wrestler holding a microphone faced an Appalachian crowd before a match and began unleashing a torrent of insults, the nature of which seemed out of place at a pro wrestling tournament.

I understand now why you all identify with country music. Its slow and its simple and its boring, just like each and every one of you.

As the crowd grew increasing hostile, the wrestlers remarks became more politically tinged.

You know what, I think Bernie Sanders would make a great secretary of state.

I want to exchange your bullets for bullet points. Bullet points of knowledge.

He even called Donald Trump a con man. The crowd exploded in jeers. Shut up, someone yelled.

Strange, indeed. But then, the muscular mans shirt read, Not My President.

Meet the wrestler who goes by the nameProgressive Liberal Dan Richards,the most hated character inKentuckys Appalachian Mountain Wrestling (AMW) program, a small professional wrestling circuit.

Professional wrestling has long included villain characters called heels, someone for the audience to cheer against. Traditionally, though, these are burly, angry men who do evil things such as pledging allegianceto the devil or sneak-attacking other wrestlers with chairs and ladders. Hes burly enough, at 6 feet 5 inches tall. But he praises not the devil but Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

This might be the first case when a character became a villain by espousing liberal dogma. And it seems to be working hes caught the attention of Deadspin, Sports Illustrated, even the right-wing Breitbart.

The lattercalled him a wrestling heel for the Trump era, and wrote, His moves include smugness, condescension, and whining.

His shtick is simple. He plays a smug liberal elitist who lectures the audience on political matters. His enemies are Fox News maggots. His fictional character hails from D.C. His wrestling shorts bear a donkey. He insults his fans Appalachian accents, correcting them Do you live in a holler? No, you live in a hollow.

He even calls his finishing signature wrestling move the Liberal Agenda.

In one promo video, he wore a shirt patterned with dozens of photos of Hillary Clintons face, patched together in a strange collage, and he addressed AMWs fans: You people need to be reprogrammed. You continually vote against your own interests. You put people in Congress and the White House that arent going to help you. Theyre not going to bring your jobs back.

These may not sound like the most scathing of insults, but at a time when politics are a breeding ground for intense, burning emotion, it seems to work brilliantly.

As Deadspin reported:

Regardless of how much Richards plays up the left-wing politics to crowds in Kentucky and nearby states, it works. Look no further than the videos to see that those crowds despise him. Theres a kid in the crowd telling him to shut up, and relentless jeers, or Trump masks worn by attendees. And even the occasional death threat. , at a 2016 show in West Virginia, where Richards spoke about taking everyones guns, a patron displayed a pistol in a holster on his right hip and started rubbing it.

Another time, one fan threatened that if that f king liberal showed up at a different show, hed bring his gun.

The Progressive Liberal is really Daniel Harnsberger, a 36-year-old real estate agent from Richmond who had been on the indie wrestling circuit for years before conceiving of the character. Once he did, he simply waited for the prime moment to unveil it which he found in 2015 in Sabine, W. Va.

It was a small crowd and I had freedom to do whatever I wanted that night, so I just decided to get on the mic and this is maybe a couple months after Trump started running. Who knew the guy was gonna be president? Harnsberger told Sports Illustrated. So I did this interview on the house mic and I said, If hes elected president, I hope Trump doesnt build a wall around Mexico. Instead I hope he builds it around this town so none of you people can infiltrate the population.

The ire that statement got, I knew I was onto something, he added.Even then, those fans were chanting, Trump! Trump! Trump!

Part of the trick is that his characters politics are not much of a stretch from his own, as he toldDeadspin.

Its not like Im pretending to be something Im not, he told Sports Illustrated. Im just turning it up. I hear Trump chants everywhere I go now, as soon as I walk out.

The men he wrestles alongside tend to be staunch Republicans who so hate Democrats that Beau James, an administrator with AMW, pretends to feedHarnsberger his lines.

Hes protecting me, he said.

Despite the anger hes provoked or, more likely, because of it Harnsberger plans to continue wrestling as the Progressive Liberal Dan Richards. After all, it kills two birds with one stone, both fueling his wrestling career and allowing him to spread his beliefs.

I wish Democrats would be as unapologetic as Republicans are, he said. Just be unapologetic with your policies and who you are. Thats how the Progressive Liberal is. Im unapologetic.

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Wrestling's new villain named himself 'Progressive Liberal.' Hillary's ... - Washington Post

Almost two months after a provincial election, British Columbians will have a new government, following a tense evening in which the provinces Lieutenant-Governor spent hours in deliberation with the leaders of the governing Liberals and Opposition New Democrats.

Finally, NDP Leader John Horgan emerged from Government House to announce that he had been invited to serve as B.C.s next premier after offering assurances to Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon that he could provide continuity of government.

We discussed the configuration of the legislature, he told reporters waiting outside, while supporters cheered. I think this is an extraordinary opportunity for a new legislature to work co-operatively.

Premier Christy Clark ended 16 years of Liberal rule when she tendered her resignation on Thursday night after she lost a vote of confidence in the legislature. The vote was tied to her governments Throne Speech.

The NDP have not won an election in B.C. since 1996, but will seek to govern with a minority of seats, buttressed by the three Green MLAs who have pledged support on key legislative measures, including budgets.

The New Democrats and Greens voted together to defeat the Liberals. A hush fell over the packed House as the roll call was read. Afterward, Ms. Clark emerged from the chamber to applause from staff, MLAs and other supporters who lined the halls of the legislature.

Inside the legislature, Mr. Horgan embraced former NDP leader Carole James in a bear hug. In the floor seats behind his caucus were retired NDP cabinet ministers Moe Sihota and Sue Hammell.

Im excited now, seven weeks after the election, we can get going on a government that works for the people, he said in an interview.

Mr. Horgan said he will take the Liberals up on their promise, contained in their recent Throne Speech, to work with all parties to craft legislation.

Theres an enormous amount of work to do, he said outside Government House. Its been 16 years since theres been a transition of government, theres been 16 years of challenges that have been created for many, many people. These challenges wont be fixed overnight.

Mr. Horgan said he would turn his focus to putting together a cabinet and preparing for the transition.

As premier-designate, Mr. Horgan and his team will have access to government briefing documents and deputy ministers. Mr. Horgan is expected to be sworn in with his new cabinet in late July. After that, they would spend some weeks drafting a Throne Speech, a budget, and several pieces of legislation that they have promised to immediately introduce as part of their agreement with the Greens.

Ms. Clark told reporters she had asked the lieutenant governor to trigger a new election.

She has chosen another path... And I respect that, said Ms. Clark, who remains premier until Mr. Horgan is sworn in.

However Ms. Clark maintained that she believes the new government, with its narrow balance of power in the House, poses a risk to really bend the rules of democracy.

Ms. Clark also said the new premier will inherit an excellent fiscal situation. He is inheriting the best balanced books in the country... I hope he finds a way to preserve that.

The legislature is not expected to be recalled until after Labour Day in early September, and the legislation would include campaign finance reform and would launch a referendum on electoral reform.

The moment was weeks in the making; however, the outcome was anything but certain.

Voters in the May 9 election delivered an inconclusive verdict on B.C. politics: The governing Liberals were reduced to 43 seats, the NDP took 41 seats and the Greens won three.

Once the final ballots were counted, the Greens began negotiations with both the Liberals and NDP to determine which they would support, and eventually reached an accord with the NDP.

The Liberals argued that the NDP and Greens together do not have enough seats to provide stable government, as they will have to provide a Speaker of the House. That leaves the legislature in a perpetual deadlock of 43 votes on each side, and Liberals say the non-partisan role of the Speaker will be eroded by having to constantly vote to break ties.

The premier had said she would not ask Ms. Guichon to dissolve the current House and trigger another election. But she told reporters on Wednesday she would if asked offer the opinion that the legislature could not function, even with the NDP-Green agreement in place.

However, the Lieutenant-Governor chose to give the NDP a chance.

Mr. Horgan said issues that will require his governments immediate attention include the fentanyl crisis, the softwood lumber dispute, and the public education system.

As well, the New Democrats plan to launch a review of the $8.8-billion Site C dam, which could lead to the cancellation of the provinces most expensive public infrastructure project in history.

In the May election campaign, the New Democrats promised to raise taxes on the wealthy and real estate speculators to pay for promises that include $10-a-day daycare, building 114,000 housing units over a decade and annual $400 subsidies for renters, as well as the elimination of tolls on two bridges in the Lower Mainland.

The Liberals had attacked the NDP platform as unaffordable, but they have since introduced a Throne Speech that offered many of those commitments and more, including an ambitious $1-billion daycare program.

In a fiscal update earlier this week, Finance Minister Mike de Jong said the Liberals new promises are affordable, as the economy is performing better than expected. That will provide the NDP more flexibility in the budget they will table this fall.

However, the NDP and Green pact could face challenges.

The two parties will find points of discord. The Greens say they will vote for the NDP budgets but they oppose the lifting of tolls, because the policy would run counter to their climate action agenda. The Greens have also signalled that they will oppose the changes to the Labour Code that the NDP have promised to their labour supporters.

The success of any NDP government could hinge on the continual and unconventional support of the Speaker.

The Speaker, who must enjoy a level of respect from all parties to keep order in the House, has traditionally been detached from regular votes. But that position is challenged with a legislature evenly divided, because the Speaker is, by convention, elected from the government benches.

Under this NDP minority, barring a change in the numbers, the Speaker would regularly be voting to break ties, which some observers have warned would turn it into a highly partisan role.

This happened in New Brunswick in 2003, where a Progressive Conservative government survived on a one-vote margin for three years.

A government in perpetual survival mode put great stress on the Speaker and led the public to become deeply cynical of the politicians in power, according to Shawn Graham, who was Liberal leader at the time.

Mr. Graham, who formed government after beating the Progressive Conservatives in 2006, said the actions of the Conservative Speakers damaged democracy at the time, but had little lasting effect to the role of Speaker as later elections have been won by larger margins.

Philippe Lagass, an associate professor and constitutional scholar at Carleton University, said an NDP Speaker breaking ties is no more partisan than the Liberal Speaker resigning his post after his party loses government.

If impartiality was the pre-eminent concern, then that Speaker wouldnt resign, he said.

As well, the coming legislative sessions will be trying for all members of the House. The opposition Liberals will have 43 seats, and absent the Speaker, the governing NDP will have 40 votes. They will need the Greens, at the least, to support any legislative changes. There will be no margin for MLAs to be absent for travel or illness, unless they can find a degree of goodwill which has been markedly absent in recent weeks to agree on pairing up absences on both sides.

Follow us on Twitter: Mike Hager @MikePHager, Justine Hunter @justine_hunter

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BC NDP to form government, ending 16 years of Liberal rule - The Globe and Mail

BERLIN -- The opening of a new mosque this month in Berlin further strained already-tense relations between Germany and Turkey, and has caused outrage in various corners of the Muslim world -- even prompting religious authorities in Egypt to issue a decree condemning the mosque as un-Islamic.

But despite recieving hundreds of death threats, the mosque's founder, Seyran Ate, says she'll continue to fight for her cause.

That cause, and the principle behind the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe mosque, is that Muslims from all of the religion's many sects are welcome to worship. Named after medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Rushd and German writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the mosque holds prayers every Friday in space rented inside a Lutheran church.

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Most people have no idea what the actual differences are between the two main sects of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites. CBS News correspondent ...

Ate wanted to create a place where Sunni and Shiite, Alawite and Sufi Muslims, men and women -- and members of the LGBTQ community -- could pray side by side. The 54-year-old lawyer and women's rights activist of Turkish origin has a long history of challenging conservative interpretations of her religion, which she believes are no longer compatible with modern-day life.

The progressive house of prayer offers a platform for female imams like Ani Zonneveld, from the U.S., who gave the call to prayer for the mosque's inauguration. House rules state that female visitors not wear full-body garments like the burka or niqab, as it "would only send a political statement."

While liberal Muslims who feel restricted by mainstream Islam cherish Ate' project, conservative worshippers have expressed outrage, calling it "disgusting and sinful," as it "disrespects the key elements of Islamic faith." Egypt's Dar al-Ifta al-Masriyyah, a state-run religious authority, issued a "fatwa" or official decree labelling the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe mosque an "attack on Islam."

The Egypt-based Al-Azhar, the most prestigious Sunni institution in the world, called the mosque, "religious innovation that is not approved by Islamic Sharia".

Muslims attend Friday prayers during the opening of the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe Mosque, June 16, 2017, in Berlin, Germany.

Getty

"I receive hundreds of death threats every day. I rely on personal protection, but I will continue to stand up for my organisation. Islam needs a change, and together with our supporters across the world we can make a difference," Ate told CBS News.

After Turkey's religious affairs agency Diyanet commented on the new mosque, the case became yet another point of contention between the German and Turkish governments.

The mosque's practices "do not align with Islam's fundamental resources, principles of worship, methodology or experience of more than 14 centuries, and are experiments aimed at nothing more than depraving and ruining religion. We are convinced that all fellow believers will keep their distance from such provocations," said Diyanet in a statement.

German officials were "very surprised" by Diyanet's stance. German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schfer defended one of Germany's fundamental rights; "I want to be very clear in rejecting all comments that clearly intend to deprive people in Germany of their right to freely exercise their religion and to limit the right to free expression of opinion."

Play Video

Turkish President Erdogan says the exiled cleric is responsible for this summer's coup. In 2012, 60 Minutes examined why Gulen is in the U.S.

Diyanet and a number of pro-government newspapers in Turkey went further, linking the Ibn-Rush-Goethe mosque to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his supporters, whom theTurkish government blames for a failed military coupin July 2016 and wants sent to Turkey to face prosection.

Ate told CBS News that she never expected to be accused of working alongside Gulen.

"It's getting more and more ridiculous. It's no longer a religious matter, it's about Erdogan and his aim to oppress progressive, liberal Turks," she said, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ate, who is training to become an imam, sought talks with the conservative Ditib organisation which manages a few hundred mosques throughout Germany.

Human-rights activist Seyran Ates, left, chats with colleagues prior to Friday prayers during the opening of the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe Mosque that she helped found on June 16, 2017 in Berlin, Germany.

Getty

"Over the past few years I would approach conservative Islamic organisations with the aim to cooperate, but instead of a peaceful dialogue they accuse me of being a member of the Gulen movement," she told CBS News.

Germany, which has a Turkish population so large it represents Erdogan's 4th biggest constituency, was already on bad terms with the Turkish government over a number of diplomatic disputes, including the arrest of a German-Turkish journalist, Turkey's barring of German politicians from visiting an air force base hosting German planes, and Germany's refusal to allow Turkish election campaigning in German cities.

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"Death threats every day" for woman behind new liberal mosque - CBS News

Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter who now writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page, is aghast at the Senate GOPs health care bill. Paying for a massive tax cut for the wealthy with cuts to health care for the most vulnerable Americans is morally reprehensible, he says.

If Republicans want to confirm every liberal caricature of conservatism in a single piece of legislation, they could do no better than vote on the GOP bill in its current form.

But at what point do we admit that this isnt the liberal caricature of conservatism? Its just ... conservatism.

Though Republicans had long promised the country a repeal-and-replace plan that offered better coverage at lower cost, the House GOPs health care bill cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It was widely criticized and polled terribly.

Senate Republicans responded by releasing a revised health care bill that also cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It has also been widely criticized, and it also is polling terribly.

Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of covering everyone with better health insurance than they get now, has endorsed both bills.

Republicans, in other words, have repeatedly broken their promises and defied public opinion in order to release health care bills that cut spending on the poorest Americans to fund massive tax cuts for the richest Americans. (The Tax Policy Center estimates that 44.6 percent of the Senate bills tax cuts go to households making more than $875,000.)

If they would simply stop doing that, their health care problems would vanish: They could craft a bill that would rebuild the health care system around more conservative principles and do so without triggering massive coverage losses. But at some point, we need to take them at their word: This is what they believe, and they are willing to risk everything their reputations, their congressional majorities, and Donald Trumps presidency to get it done.

And its not just health policy. Though Trump said he would raise taxes on people like himself during the campaign, the tax reform plan he released amounted to a massive tax cut for the richest Americans. That cut will ultimately have to be paid for, and because Republicans refuse to increase taxes to close deficits, and because they support increasing spending on the military, the only plausible way to pay for their tax cuts will be by slashing programs that serve the poor and/or the elderly. (This isnt just hypothetical: Trumps budget relies on massive cuts to programs that serve the poor.)

Like Thiessen, I want to see a better, more decent conservatism drive the Republican Party. I dont want to believe that this is the bottom line of GOP policy thinking. But this is clearly the bottom line of GOP policy thinking.

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It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct - Vox

In times of unexpected strife, the aggrieved seek comfort anywhere they can find it, like trees trying to grow on the side of cliffs. Since Donald Trumps election, dejected liberals have sought catharsis in tears, in marches, in late-night comedy, in essays about reasons that marches occurred. But none of those things have changed the fact that Trump is the president.

Were now entering a new phase in liberal self-soothing: the calming Nixon-expert-with-a-crystal-ball phase.

This weeks New York magazine cover story, written by Frank Rich, lays hard into the Trump-Nixon tie, offering history as balm. The resistance neednt worry just yet. Just wait, Rich urges. Watergate auto-da-f wasnt built in a day.

Rich isnt alone in his Trump-Watergate fantasy. Its hard to avoid drawing some parallels between Tricky Dick and Teflon Don.

Like Trump, Richard Nixons Congress was stocked with allies. Nixon taped people (Trump, thus far, only lies about it). Nixon had Deep Throat, an aggrieved FBI guy, and Trump has James Comey, an aggrieved FBI guy. Nixon, like Trump, hated the press and loved his daughters and had a strange relationship with his wife.

The next part of the story, the fantasy goes, ends happily for the opposition. In Nixons case, journalists grabbed a thread and kept pulling. And within two years of his election, a president who had logged a record popular vote was quite literally peacing out of the White House.

Rich argues that Trumps TBD-gate is unfolding at a comparable rate to Watergate. You will find reason to hope that the 45th presidents path through scandal may wind up at the same destination as the 37thsa premature exit from the White House in disgraceon a comparable timeline.

Is it possible that Trumps presidency will end in Nixonian disgrace? Sure. But theres a much greater likelihood that it wont, that Richs prediction will age about as well as Van Jones March 1 proclamation that Donald Trump became president last night, or Fareed Zakarias proclamation on April 7 that Donald Trump became president last night. If Trump somehow lurches through four or eight years, history will view the lefts starry-eyed Watergate dreams as in the same genre of smug as Clinton acolytes cockiness going into the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign. Litanies of Trump-Nixon comparisons amount to little more than fantasy, wastes of precious time that could have been better used on reality.

Donald Trump is not Richard Nixon, and 1973 is not 2017.

During Nixons time, Americans could only get their news from a few outlets; if they wanted anything less mainstream than the NBC Nightly News, they had to seek out the Whole Earth catalog or their local Ron Paul-esque kook and his facsimiled newsletter. The internet has democratized information, but it has also muddied the waters. In 2017, we are all denizens of a customizable media reality that has never felt more subjective. Pre-web, a person at odds with the mainstream opinion about what the truth is would be pushed to the margins. Now, the president himself has endorsed a fringe news outlet that denies that the murder of dozens of children in Sandy Hook ever happened. We no longer agree what the definition of is is. The margins have gone mainstream.

Watergate fantasy porn neglects to realistically establish that Watergate was a series of freakish lightning strikes. Its hard to imagine how they could replicate themselves in 2017. Even if the public trusted the press as they did in the early 1970s (they dont), or if Trump is actually guilty of prosecutable wrongdoing as recognized by those in a position to prosecute (we dont know, but are acting as though we do), or if Congress, given Trumps theoretical wrongdoing, would move to impeach (also unknown), theres the not-small problem of Trumps supporters. Theyre not going anywhere, and the reasons they were drawn to Trump arent going anywhere.

In the 2016 election, Polk County, Wisconsin, went about 2-1 for Donald Trump. The 956 square-mile grid of field and forest hugging the states western border is home to only 43,400 residents. I was born in the now-shuttered hospital in one of its towns, a village with a population that barely cracks four digits, and lived there until I was 18 years old.

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Alan Walker has been the head of Polk Countys Republican Party for over a decade. To hear him tell it, nothing has happened since the inauguration to make him second guess his vote.

The same goes for most of the people Alan Walker knows who are active in local politics. They arent ready to abandon President Trump. In Walkers view, Trump is following through on what he promised hed do. Investigations into Trump are nothing more than media agitating designed to derail a true conservative agenda.

Many here in Polk County think the liberal elite were looking down on them, Walker wrote in a post-election op-ed in a local newspaper. The people in Polk County are good, honest, down-to-earth people, good citizens. People here are not racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic people, but are labeled that way by the liberals. If people had been talking to the people of Polk County, the notion of a Trump victory wouldnt have seemed farfetched in October before the election.

In April, Trump supporters in the area held two Trump-less Trump rallies in the area, one in Turtle Lake, and one a short drive south in Hudson. Walker estimates that a few dozen gathered in Turtle Lake; about 120 in Hudson. Local politicians and activists spoke. At one gathering, Walker led a prayer.

I dont know if youre old enough to remember Reagan, Walker tells me, via phone. When Reagan was president, it was constantly people against him. Its much worse with Trump than it was with President Bush or Bush Jr.

People who want Donald Trump to be president for as little time as possible are in the market for good news right now, but theres not much good news to be had. Trump already has installed one Supreme Court justice and will probably get to nominate another, a feat that hasnt gone unnoticed by his supporters like Alan Walker. Trump has already pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, another victory for his base. Hes got part of his travel ban enacted, for the time being. His party has the House and the Senate, and most statehouses. Sure, hes faced setbacks due to his seeming lack of knowledge of how to navigate the Washington jungle gym, but the longer hes in charge, the more accidental wins hes likely to stumble into. The people who already liked Trump are always going to like him; the people who never liked him never will.

Hoping for the best is sustaining. But the other half of that adage is prepare for the worst. For too long, liberals have clung to the former and ignored the latter. In order to survive the Trump era intact, they must resist the urge to look for the future in the 1970s. They must stop wasting their time reading fan fiction and deal with the reality that we are probably stuck with Trump. And then what?

Originally posted here:

Liberal Impeachment Fantasies Have to Stop - The Daily Beast - Daily Beast

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In the debate swirling about how to handle North Korea, one important aspect maybe the most important aspect seems to always get lost: Anything the United States might want to do to rein in the so-called "hermit kingdom" needs to be agreed to by the nation that would be affected most: South Korea.

With President Trump meeting today with liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the stage is set to build a relationship that must not only stand the test of time, but could very well be tested in the most strenuous of ways possible: war.

Consider where things stand with Pyongyang for a moment.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are running so high that one false move, like an errant North Korea missile landing in South Korea, for example, could start a crisis taking all three nations down a path to conflict that is clearly in no one's interests. And with North Korea in possession of nuclear weapons, millions of people could die once the bombs start falling.

To make matters even worse, Pyongyang also seems intent to make sure its military might only grows with each passing day. North Korea seems close to not only testing another nuclear weapon in the coming days, but it's also on the cusp of testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. In the months and years to come, Kim Jong Un will likely be able to pair these two technologies together to produce a weapon that can land an atomic payload on U.S. soil, something President Trump has committed to stopping.

From here things get even worse.

North Korea has already murdered an American student, Otto Wambier, and is holding captive several other Americans as pawns. With their fate uncertain, the stage is set for a potential showdown and where it could end up is anybody's guess.

Then there is poor South Korea. Not only does Seoul have to somehow deal with the North's constant threats of annihilation Kim Jong Un just threatened to assassinate South Korea's former president, for instance they must also deal with the constant pain of seeing their Korean brothers and sisters abused behind one of the last iron curtains on the planet.

The South also faces a reality that very few nations must deal with: thousands of pieces of artillery and missiles pointed at its capital city, ready to strike at any moment. Even though North Korea would be wiped out in any sort of military conflict with South Korea and America, it stands to reason that Seoul and large sections of the South would be turned to rubble.

Considering all of this, Trump and Moon must not only have a successful meeting, but also work to ensure they are on the same page and quickly develop a comprehensive strategy to deal with North Korea.

First and foremost, both sides need to establish a friendly, working relationship with each other. This sounds obvious, but due to domestic politics in both nations, it might actually be difficult. Trump was very harsh towards South Korea during his presidential run calling the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement a "job-killing deal" so he probably has some fence-mending to do. At the same time, the recently elected Moon is a dove on North Korea and had some tough words about America on the campaign trail, so he will also need to reassure his American counterparts. Indeed, today's meeting must move past the talk of both campaigns and reaffirm the alliance for the world to see especially North Korea.

Next, Trump needs to convince his South Korean colleagues to end any challenges to the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system. While there's been recent talk in South Korea of removing this vital system, which could help shield the South from the North's missiles, it seems such concerns have eased. Still, President Trump must make it clear that such a system is in both nations' interests (keep in mind, the U.S. has 28,000 troops in South Korea that also would benefit). He must also pledge not to charge them for the system either, as he suggested months back.

Finally, both nations need to agree to a common strategy and framework when it comes to dealing with Pyongyang one that goes beyond the obvious military questions of missiles and nuclear weapons. How would the alliance, for example, deal with a North Korean cyber attack on South Korea's nuclear reactors or electricity grid? Or, how would both nations jointly respond if Pyongyang was serious about talks to ease tensions? Clearly both sides need to know each other's redlines when it comes to the Kim regime, but also where they could work cooperatively to ease tensions.

To be fair, most first meetings of heads of state tend to feature both sides just feeling each other out, trying to get a sense of each other's motives and aspirations. But neither side has the luxury of time. One can only hope Trump and Moon can become the best of friends and fast.

Read the original post:

Can Trump make friends with South Korea's liberal president? Because he has to. - The Week Magazine

The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, told Katie Couric during the Aspen Ideas conference on Wednesday that he worries that President Donald Trump is turning the American public against liberal journalists to the point of violence.

He said that if violence against journalists were to occur, Trump would solely shoulder the blame.

After Couric asked Goldberg his thoughts on Trump continually blasting fake news outlets i.e., CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, to name a few Goldberg claimed that his biggest concern for the media at large is a physical, violent attack on liberal journalists.

Couric said, When the president constantly tweets that different newspapers are examples of fake news and accuses reporters of being fake news at White House briefings or when he appears before reporters there, whats your reaction?

Goldberg responded, Part of my reaction is that were all engaged in a reality TV show, that this is a reality TV version of a war between a president and the press.

He continued, The problem is, and this is what I worry about more than anything else, is that there are people in the country who dont understand that [Trumps war on the media] is a cynical reality TV game and are going to hear over and over again from the president that reporters, journalists are enemies of the state.

He added, And someone, I mean God forbid, someone is going to do something violent against journalists in a large way, and then I know where the fault lies. And were heading in this direction, and its quite frightening.

See the segment in the video below.

Read more here:

Liberal magazine editor says Trump will incite conservative violence against liberal journalists - TheBlaze.com

The night Hillary Clinton lost the White House, Amanda Litman cried so hard she threw up.

In Atlanta, as the returns rolled in, Traci Feit Love faced a question from her anguished 8-year-old daughter: Now what do we do?

Across the country, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Rita Bosworth wondered the same thing.

The three never met, never spoke, never communicated in any fashion. But in the days and weeks that followed, they became common threads in a sprawling patchwork: the angry and politically aggrieved who with no help from politicians, political parties or any formal campaign structure have joined to fight President Trump and his policies.

From her Brooklyn apartment, the 27-year-old Litman co-founded a group called Run For Something, which encourages people under age 35 to do just that. Thousands have signed up, many of them political novices.

Love, a 40-year-old attorney, took to Facebook and virtually overnight created Lawyers for Good Government, now a coast-to-coast army of legal experts battling Trump on issues such as immigration and a ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

Bosworth, 38, helped start a network that steers donors and activists in Democratic-leaning states like California toward legislative contests in more Republican redoubts, on the theory that their actions can have a greater impact where resources are scarce.

The idea is to build a pipeline of candidates and create incubators for policy that can eventually take the national stage, said Bosworth, who plans to leave her job as a San Jose public defender soon to work full time for her organization, the Sister District Project (as in sister cities).

Powered by social media and fired up by deep antagonism, Bosworth and others have produced a movement seemingly without precedent: artists, doctors, lawyers, scientists, software engineers and others organizing themselves to seek elected office, flood congressional town hall meetings and agitate on a broad range of issues.

Their numbers are unknowable; for many, a good part of the appeal of the do-it-yourself movements is the lack of rigid structure or top-down management.

But seemingly every week brings a new group with new designs: academics giving advice, librarians raising their voices, quilters taking up their sewing needles.

It turns out Trump, a president loathed by Democrats, is a far greater spur to liberal activism than the revered Barack Obama, a former community organizer who hoped to inspire a wave of officeholders and Democratic idealists. Instead, he presided over the hollowing-out of his party.

In November last year, being a politician was the last thing I would have ever, ever, ever intended to do, said Kellen Squire, a 32-year-old emergency room nurse in central Virginia, who, helped by Litmans group, is waging an uphill fight for a seat in the state House of Delegates. But I saw whatever was going to come down the pike was going to be so jacked up, I wasnt going to just take it. I had to stand up, yell, scream and holler.

Not all of the incipient energy is being directed toward the electoral arena.

A group calling itself the Resistance Media Collective has assembled 200 animators, graphic designers, videographers and other volunteers to live-stream anti-Trump protests and produce materials such as a cartoon brochure titled A Preparedness Guide for Undocumented Families.

Its tips, in English and Spanish, include finding a U.S. citizen to act as a childs legal guardian and advice on navigating the court system. Our goal, very very simply, is to amplify the resistance, said Kathryn Jones, 48, a former actress in New York City and one of the groups leaders.

Much of the effort is aimed at revivifying a Democratic Party that lost hundreds of gubernatorial, congressional and legislative seats under Obama, slumping to its weakest position in decades.

But many involved have purposely kept their distance from the national party and also tried to steer clear of lingering resentments over who backed Clinton or Bernie Sanders in 2016.

Its not a Bernie thing or a Hillary thing or an Obama thing, said Alex Wall, a Democratic communications strategist and one of dozens of volunteers working together to help the anti-Trump opposition hone its message and broaden its reach on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Its about speaking with one voice.

Party leaders say they welcome the freelancing. Were all united in the same message, said Sabrina Singh, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee. We want to elect Democrats that reflect our values and the values of the states theyre running in.

Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times

Amanda Litman pitches Run For Something to an audience of prospective candidates and donors at a house party in Brooklyn Heights.

Amanda Litman pitches Run For Something to an audience of prospective candidates and donors at a house party in Brooklyn Heights. (Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)

Litman, a product of the Washington, D.C., suburbs, started walking precincts in Virginia as a 16-year-old. She went from Obamas political operation to directing Clintons 2016 email program. After her queasy election night, she binged on Netflix and traveled to Costa Rica, where she devoured a history of Emilys List, the Democratic group that promotes women running for office.

She contemplated a life away from campaigns. During an interview with a New York publishing house, however, she found her thoughts drifting to the imagined horrors of a Trump presidency and passively watching from the sidelines.

That just seemed pathetic, she said, as she headed to her office for the day, a table and chair at a Lower Manhattan wine bar renting work space in the off hours.

Running up her credit cards and digging into savings, Litman worked with Democratic consultant Ross Morales Rocketto, the husband of a Clinton campaign co-worker, to launch Run For Something. Their idea was to tap thousands of political contacts and share that knowledge base with a fresh generation of candidates.

They launched on Inauguration Day, and within a week 500 people had visited their website and expressed interest. The number, Litman said, has since climbed to more than 10,000.

The most common question what should I run for? is easily answered, she told about 20 potential donors and candidates gathered beneath a leafy canopy at a backyard party in New Yorks Brooklyn Heights. Decide the problem you want solved and the best place to do so, she said.

For many, that means local offices, such as school boards and city councils, which are easier to win than seats in Congress, and where results can be more immediate than in gridlocked Washington. Theyre affordable, Litman said, as though peddling a line of practical footwear, and so, so, so important.

Candidates who pass a screening they must be Democratic-leaning, personable and committed to the time and effort a campaign requires are offered a buffet of free advice from political pros: how to file for office, write a news release, design a website.

Heather Ward, 21, a recent college graduate running for a school board seat outside Philadelphia, was counseled on door-to-door canvassing: Polish a crisp message; leave a note if no ones home. With guidance from her tutor, who helped run Clintons North Carolina campaign, she finished atop a field of four candidates and reached the November runoff.

Like any start-up, theres a freedom that comes with low overhead and minimal expectations. No fat cat donors to appease, no anxious incumbents to allay, so the group can look beyond a single election cycle.

The hope, of course, is to win wherever and whenever possible, Litman said, but more important is grooming a stable of newcomers who can step up years from now to run for governor or U.S. Senate.

Or, she posited, the ultimate post-Trump fantasy: A 2032 presidential candidate who started with us.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

@markzbarabak on Twitter

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Trump succeeds where Obama failed spawning a new wave of liberal activism - Los Angeles Times