President Biden has nominated Neera Tanden, the President of the John Podesta-founded center-left think tank Center for American Progress (or CAP) to be his Director of the Office of Management and Budget. That nomination requires Senate confirmation and at the moment it appears that Tanden will be the first and perhaps only Biden nominee to be rejected by the US Senate. Her nomination is being opposed so far by Joe Manchin and every Republican willing to take a position. Why? They say it’s due to her toxic behavior online, claiming it’s a sign of larger character issues that would prevent her from working in a bipartisan way. Several Democratic politicians and voters are calling bullshit, but they’re wrong.

Neera Tanden’s nomination should be defeated and we can find a better nominee. Let me break down the arguments.

Senator Elizabeth Warren said, “The idea that the Republicans are going to complain over someone who has sharp elbows on Twitter is pretty outrageous”. She’s right on the merits there, Republicans not only ignored but often defended the unhinged tweeting of former President Donald Trump. Even though these tweets provoked international incidents as well as an insurrection this past January. Those tweets were clearly more prominent and harmful than anything Tanden could have tweeted because she was not President.

However, Warren’s criticism is probably the most blatantly hypocritical of any that we’ll discuss. Warren notably spent the final months of her imploding Presidential campaign complaining about critical tweets from alleged supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Warren made the case on the debate stage, on the campaign trail, and famously on Rachel Maddow. Warren used “online bullying” being “a particular problem with Sanders supporters” as justification for winning an abysmal third place in her home state of Massachusetts. The tweets would be the reason why she didn’t endorse the only candidate who was remotely close to her ideological worldview in a two-candidate race. These were tweets from self-proclaimed supporters, not even Bernie Sanders himself. Yet Warren believed these tweets were sufficient to disqualify Bernie Sanders from the Presidency. Therefore, it would stand to reason that tweets actually sent by an individual would be more damaging and surely would disqualify them from the cabinet of a President.

There are some who would argue that the true barrier to Tanden’s confirmation is that she is a woman and of Asian descent, implying her roadblock is an issue of prejudice. This ignores that Janet Yellen, Jennifer Granholm, and Avril Haines were nominated and confirmed for Biden’s cabinet without issue despite being women. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who is black and a woman, received a bipartisan super majority vote. It is not as if racial prejudice or misogyny are strangers to the Senate, but clearly they are not deciding factors in the nominations we’ve seen in this Congress so far. Tanden is failing not because of what she looks like, but because of who she is.

Some have questioned how Manchin could support Kavanaugh and Fmr. Attorney General Barr but not Tanden. In a world where Democrats are held accountable for bad votes, I’d be sensitive to this argument. However, where was the outrage when 90+ progressives in the House opposed funding Trump’s border camps, while Democrats like Sharice Davids and Emmanuel Cleaver voted for it, giving necessary votes for passage? Where was the outrage at any Democrat who approved Trump’s bloated defense budget? It was non-existent because we’ve become just as partisan as the Republicans and we’re more reticent than ever to hold our politicians accountable…unless they betray the home team.

I’d like for a moment to gather some of the twitter discourse that has made many, including myself uncomfortable. Tanden chooses to regularly associate herself with people who are on record saying racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, and otherwise depraved things.

Tanden said “Happy Birthday my friend” to “Dane Weeks” who on twitter has said “Bernie Sanders is a fake fucking Jew” and “Bernie Sanders heart needs to stop right about now”.

Tanden very regularly interacts with “@electricbrotha” saying to him “I’m definitely thankful for your cold fury. And all you’ve done for the Resistance”. On Twitter this person has said, and I apologize for the vulgarities, “go fuck yourself with crusty the clown Senator from Vermont’s dick” as well as similar attacks targeted towards female journalists he viewed as sympathetic to Sanders.

Then there are of course Tanden’s own tweets, of which she has deleted over a thousand that range from 3am fights with 18 year olds to criticisms of left wing politics to implying the continued existence of Clinton’s “vast right wing conspiracy”. There’s also an assortment of personal insults for many politicians and journalists, admittedly some funny but most fairly immature.

Matt Bruenig formerly of the New York Times and Washington Post said it best, ironically enough on twitter.

Bruenig writes “When people say Republican senators are acting in bad faith about the tweets, what are they saying their real position on tweets is? Are liberals who were mad at Trump’s tweets but not Neera’s also doing bad faith? And what is their non-bad-faith position on tweets? Is Neera herself operating in bad faith by saying tweets should not disqualify her even though she has previously acted in a contrary way? Does she have any views on tweeting per se? Neera’s partisans sent tons of abuse to a WaPo reporter who asked Murkowski about a Neera tweet. Lots of people, including Biden himself, have argued that similar events somehow reflected on Bernie. Does it also reflect on Neera? Was it bad faith before or now? If every story should mention the Republican flip-flop on tweeting when it comes to Neera, shouldn’t it also mention these Neera and Biden flip-flops? Or maybe we just realize it’s all bullshit all the way down?”

What should matter most ultimately is Tanden’s policy record, however. She is a vocal opponent of single payer healthcare. She advocated for cutting “entitlements” like social security in the pursuit of austerity politics. She punched a journalist in the chest because he disagreed with her take on Libya. What was her take on Libya? Well it was that Libyans were indebted to us for massively destabilizing their country and they should repay us with their oil if we’re ever going to convince Americans to support another conflict, yes literally. When it came to sexual misconduct, Tanden outed an employee who had survived an incident during an all staff meeting. When it came to ethical relationships, Tanden chose Netanyahu in his dust up with President Obama and solicited donations from human rights abusers like the UAE.

Neera has been more wrong more often than perhaps anyone else in Democratic politics. We shouldn’t reward her for that. Although she will of course be rewarded, if not with OMB then with undue influence somewhere else. However, if we’re lucky and any cosmic justice exists, we will not have to bear the burden of having Tanden in public life after this fiasco.

The post Neera Tanden’s Behavior Actually is That Bad appeared first on Occasional Planet.

While the Trump administration blusters and tries to discredit the brave staffer who blew the whistle on Trump’s politically motivated extortion of the president of Ukraine, 90 former top brass in national security have issued an open letter in support of the whistle-blower. Released on Oct. 7, 2019—just before a second whistle-blower came forward—the letter emphasizes that revealing wrongdoing is the right thing to do, and that the individual involved deserves protection from retaliation.

The people who signed on to the letter are a who’s who of national security — some who are refugees from the current administration that doesn’t value expertise, thoughtful decision-making or moral responsibility, and many from previous administrations that — for the most part — did (or pretended to). Listed among them are marquee names like Brennan and Clapper, who had served in different roles under both the Obama and Bush administrations. The letter isalso signed by former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and former Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council Javed Ali, along with a number of other former Defense Department, State Department and CIA officials.

Some of the signatories had even worked under the Trump administration, including James Nealon, who served as the assistant secretary for international engagement at the Department of Homeland Security until he resigned in February 2018 over the government’s immigration policies, as well as Roberta Jacobson, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico until she resigned in May 2018, and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who was a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia until resigning in July 2018.

The letter speaks for itself. Here it is in its entirety:

We are former national security officials who proudly served in a wide array of roles throughout the U.S. Government,” they wrote. “We are writing about the Intelligence Community whistleblower’s lawful disclosure, which was recently made public. While the identity of the whistleblower is not publicly known, we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. Government. As such, he or she has by law the right — and indeed the responsibility — to make known, through appropriate channels, indications of serious wrongdoing. That is precisely what this whistleblower did; and we applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility but also for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.

“A responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers. What’s more, being a responsible whistleblower means that, by law, one is protected from certain egregious forms of retaliation. Whatever one’s view of the matters discussed in the whistleblower’s complaint, all Americans should be united in demanding that all branches of our government and all outlets of our media protect this whistleblower and his or her identity. Simply put, he or she has done what our law demands; now he or she deserves our protection.”

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John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning book (with much help from speechwriter Ted Sorensen) , Profiles in Courage, focused on eight white men (yes, no women and no minorities) who stood up for principle at the expense of continuing their political careers. With one exception (James Comey), there seems to be no one who has served the administration of Donald Trump who would remotely qualify as a profile in courage.

Even before Trump was anointed president by the antiquated and anachronistic Electoral College, F.B.I. Director James Comey took unpopular stands in defense of what he thought was right. It was within the jurisdiction of his agency to investigate Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unconventional method of storing e-mails. Comey was caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. One option was to stay silent and let Attorney-General Loretta Lynch announce that no indictment would be forthcoming. However, Comey knew that Lynch’s credibility was tainted. She had recently hosted a 30-minute private meeting with Bill Clinton on her plane at the Phoenix airport. With Lynch compromised, Comey took option two, stepping up to say that while there was not sufficient evidence to indict Clinton, her conduct had been “extremely careless.”

He irritated the Clintons and many of their supporters, but his honesty shined through when he recognized that he was in a conundrum and he spoke openly about not having any simple answers.

When Donald Trump became president, Comey utilized the same balanced thinking that made him such a straight shooter with Clinton. If Comey had not previously been aware of Trump’s emotional and mental inadequacies to be president, he learned quickly upon having private meetings in the White House. Donald Trump clearly did not understand the role of the F.B.I., of the Department of Justice, and how the White House related to both. More importantly, Trump gave no indication that his top priority was the well-being of the United States and the world in which we live. Rather it was his personal aggrandizement.

Once Comey met Trump, his primary concern was the well-being of the country. He had the audacity to take contemporaneous notes from his meetings with Trump. Ultimately, he shared them with a friend, who at Comey’s request, leaked to the media. Comey wanted American citizens to know about the dangers that lurked while Donald Trump was president. With this knowledge, he wanted Congress, and possibly the president’s cabinet, to consider legal actions to reduce or eliminate the threat that he presented.

In contrast to Comey, there is a man named Mad Dog. You may know him as former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. He was one of Trump’s original cabinet appointees and by all regards, acquitted himself well at the Pentagon. But by the end of his second year as Secretary, he resigned, saying that he objected to Trump’s precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Syria.

His departure from the Cabinet was very disturbing to those Americans who had serious concerns about Trump. Mattis was considered to be one of the adults in the room. Presumably he could talk truth to power, and if necessary, implement, or not implement, Trump orders in a way that minimized danger to the country.

Once Mattis left the Cabinet, and Trump’s position of Chief of Staff was filled with Trump worshipers, a huge vacuum was evident. There was no one in the higher reaches of government who could straight-talk Trump, and if necessary, leave the administration on principle.

Now we learn that General Mattis has written a book which includes accounts of his service in the Trump Administration. Unfortunately, he fails to include in the book or in any of his recent magazine articles and on-air interviews that Donald Trump was putting America further at risk.

Perhaps Mattis was not the adult in the room who we thought that he was. Perhaps his comfort zone is adhering to military protocol and following the line of his commander-in-chief.

To many “adults outside the room,” it is very disappointing that Mattis has not offered legitimate criticism of Trump. Instead, he is going on to be a lobbyist.

There are many on the left who hold a grudge against James Comey because his actions clearly hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming president. This may be true, but he stood alone among those who have “served” Donald Trump, because he publicly talked truth to power. Had he not, we probably would not have had a Robert Mueller and all the misdeeds revealed in his investigation. If only Mattis had been a little more like Comey.

The post A Tale of Two Jameses appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Is it more important to elect good people or remove bad people from office? That might seem like the same thing to a lot of people but the two are not always mutually exclusive. Through the Obama years and at an increasingly accelerated pace since the election of Donald Trump, many Democrats have lost their focus on policy issues. If you check Twitter (which admittedly isn’t necessarily reflective of reality), there is an almost unhealthy obsession with Donald Trump. It’s understandable, President Trump is an odious figure who has debased the presidency and is the human manifestation of bigotry. Yet, we’ve had bad Presidents before and this led Democrats to unite around bold ideas to change our country for the better. This doesn’t seem to be happening, instead we see Democrats united against Republicans (which is good) but substance is missing.

We are becoming a party driven by personality and that’s made clear by the current primary polling and issue polling. Currently clear majorities of Democrats support Medicare-for-All and other progressive policy positions. But if you look at primary polling a full 45% of Democratic support goes to candidates who either oppose Medicare-for-All or have no stated position. Stranger still, Democrats who don’t have much in common ideologically seem to be sharing supporters. More than 1 in 4 Biden supporters list Sanders as their second choice, more Sanders supporters choose Biden over Warren as their second choice, and Warren supporters have Harris as their second choice and the same is true vice-versa.

In some limited circles there is something happening, Bernie Sanders is championing Medicare-for-All, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leading the way on the Green New Deal, and Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax would be a revolutionary step towards wealth redistribution. These are popular ideas among Democrats but there is a real question of whether we even care about policy anymore. Overall it’s good that we’re embracing these policy goals, but are Democrats actually lining up behind personalities and letting the policy come second?

It seems like the answer is yes. We have been so traumatized by the presidency of Donald Trump that we now believe that electing any Democrat by default is good. Republicans are bad and are elected by bad people which means Democrats are good and are elected by good people seeing as we all want to be good people then we must vote for Democrats. That’s the flawed circular logic that exists. Some of us are starting to believe that being a Democrat is enough, and if you follow that to its natural conclusion then we are dangerously becoming closer to the position Republicans found themselves facing in 2016. “Vote blue no matter who“ is the creed of many Democrats who have Ralph Nader pinned to a dartboard in their homes. Are we so craven in our desire to defeat Donald Trump that we would sell out the interests of working class people (especially those of color), civilians living in whatever nation shall suffer the next imperialist adventure, and anyone living on this planet who’d rather not suffer the consequences of climate chaos?

I know what you’re thinking, defeating Donald Trump accomplishes the goal of protecting those people or at least makes it easier. But that’s only partially true. A necessary condition for making our world better is defeating Donald Trump, but it is not sufficient. As we look to our nominating contests not just for the presidency but for Senate races and House races and governors races across this country we have to consider whether the people we are nominating should win rather than if they can win. We currently have representatives, many of whom are diverse in their identities and had inspiring candidacies, who have voted to give legitimacy to the president constructing concentration camps along our southern border. We currently have Democratic senators who have signaled that if and when the time comes, they will give President Trump authorization to launch an illegal war in Venezuela. There are candidates running for president, namely Joe Biden, who will negotiate the slow privatization of Social Security to make a deal with Republicans.

Many of those politicians are “electable“and poised to defeat Republicans in their individual elections. But our goal should be to not only defeat Republicans, or defeat Trumpism, but to also defeat the system that puts the interests of an elite class of people above the majority of Americans. This system lied us into war in Iraq, this system bailed out Wall Street, this system builds private prisons, this system kills public unions and this system is determined to put profits before people. Even if Donald Trump is defeated, the system that created him will continue to exist and will undoubtedly produce something worse than Donald Trump. This system is the persistent enemy of progress and we should focus on how to attack it. In order to do that though, we are going to have to have tough conversations about whether people we like are on our side and if we should allow them to compromise our livelihoods in pursuit of voters. We’re going to have to ask ourselves whether we are getting a fair deal and if this coalition that we’ve cobbled together can continue to exist.

But of course, some Democrats would rather discuss how many languages a candidate can speak or how cool it is that a candidate has legislative plans but no plans to win back the legislature. It’s less stressful to project your hopes and dreams onto your candidate of choice, developing this feeling of personal connection despite them never having met you and becoming personally offended when anyone challenges them on policy. We’d rather add hashtags to our Twitter bios like “resistor” and “ImStillWithHer” not to be outdone by “NotMyPresident”. We’ll still get together and laugh about “those people” and how they elected Donald Trump and remember how George Bush gave Michelle Obama candy, God don’t we miss him? We’ll compromise away every last value because Donald Trump is so gauche and offensive that we’ll do anything if we think we’ll win. Bret Stephens wrote that it’s rude to call racists out for being racist? Guess we mustn’t do that. Oh, and Ross Douthat said that being pro-choice turns off swing voters, well in that case I guess that’s done too. Now Neera Tanden says universal healthcare is bad policy, anything it takes. Then after all that, after we’ve been embraced every third way position and ignored policy for personality, we might very well beat Donald Trump.

But at what cost? It’s time to stand up for something or we will again, fall for anything and the country will continue to hate us, and they will be justified in that hatred.

The post Democrats need to be more ideological and less partisan appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Kamala Harris, California’s junior senator and perhaps a 2020 presidential candidate, is walking into the quagmire of political correctness with a nominee for the federal court in Nebraska. It has to do, in part, with religion. Most politicians tend to avoid questions related to religion because the risk of offending someone is far greater than the payoff of criticism, however justified.

In this particular case, Senator Harris, along with Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii are raising questions about Brian Buescher, who has been nominated by Donald Trump to serve on a federal district court in Nebraska. It turns out that Mr. Buescher is a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization.

The Knights of Columbus is an all-male group, clearly an anachronism, but as a private organization, they have the right to restrict their membership in this way. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal quotes Senator Hirono as saying that the Knights “hold a number of extreme positions, particularly on same-sex marriage and abortion.”

But the question is should Mr. Buescher be disqualified because of guilt by association. After all, John F. Kennedy was also a member of the Knights, but he made compelling arguments that if elected president, he would separate church from state and make decisions based on the constitution and not the bible.

Mr. Buescher has somewhat followed President Kennedy’s strategy and has said that as a judge he would uphold precedent by both the Supreme Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is certainly understandable that Senator Harris has concerns about the associations of any person being considered for a judgeship, or any number of other federal jobs. But the problem is, where do we draw the line?

The French historian Alexis de Tocqueville found that one of the unique characteristics of Americans is how they form groups, and strongly identify themselves with these groups. In one sense, a group provides support for individuals. In a different sense, a group provides baggage for individuals.

So, a key question becomes, how can someone belong to a group, enjoy the benefits, and not be responsible for those components of the group that are not in their comfort zone?

Some groups are very purposeful, such as a professional scientific organization. But others are based on beliefs, even myths. Religious groups tend to resemble the latter.

But religion is such an engrained part of our past, that it is unrealistic to limit those who are qualified to hold positions such as judgeships to those who do not have religious affiliations.

The bottom line seems to be that individuals can have religious affiliations, not necessarily because joining a religion was motivated by rational thinking or even an emotional need for community. Rather, it is something that is almost in their genes, at least in the recent history of them and their families. The question is whether or not, like John F. Kennedy, the individual can separate the secular from the religious. If they can, this is tantamount to an individual acknowledging that religion may serve a purpose for them, but when it comes to decisions that impact others, it has to sit on the sidelines.

I definitely want to see Kamala Harris succeed and not fall into rabbit-holes that can be avoided. She has had her own experiences with religion, growing up in both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. But as a public official, she is very comfortable taking the road of rationality. Our goal is to increase the number of humans who are comfortable with reason and empathy. In the process, we may have to forgive some people for how they got there.

The post Kamala Harris: Walking the Tight-Rope of Political Correctness appeared first on Occasional Planet.

At a rally in support of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in Stockbridge, Georgia on October 7, 2018, former U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder said,

“It is time for us as Democrats to be as tough as they [Republicans] are, to be as dedicated as they are; to be as committed as they are.

Michelle says when they go low, we go high. No, when they go low, we kick them.”

Kudos to Holder for urging Democrats to work harder. Words of caution and concern to Holder for asking us to take the low road.

It may be true that in recent years the Democrats have been out-hustled by the Republicans. In the 2016 presidential race, apathy contributed to the Democrats’ defeat as much as anything. But when Eric Holder takes away the high ground from the Democrats and says that “we kick them,” he gives Republicans a line that they can run with, similar to Hillary’s “basket of deplorables.” Furthermore, he distracts Democrats from the direction in which they must move by only focusing on the intensity of the movement.

It’s somewhat similar to praising the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for making the trains run on time, without any regard as to where they were going (often to war). If Democrats use dirty tactics, it is of little consequence what values they purport to hold.

It’s not just a question of “just makes right” for the Democrats. While most of us who are active progressives are more likely to get a good night’s sleep after working in an above-board fashion, there is even more than that to consider.

Democrats need to find new ways to distance themselves from Republicans. What they must do to distance themselves from Republicans needs to be:

1. Satisfactory to the Democratic base.
2. Meaningful to independents and others who infrequently vote for Democrats and whose votes are essential for Democratic wins.
3. Most importantly, what Democrats do differently has to be visible to independents and other infrequent Democratic voters.

For today, here’s one strategy that Democrats can take. Focus on voters and not dollars.

There are two obnoxious ways in which Democrats seek money for their campaigns. First is groveling for big money, often from sources that are “dark.” Second is by being like the out-of-town uncle at the Thanksgiving table who is constantly begging everyone else to give him money.

Yes, money is needed for campaigns, if even just to spread the message that Democrats are not acting like Republicans when it comes to money. Ideally, this seed money would be available through public financing, but we’re not there yet.

Democrats need to make the point that their policies are designed to protect consumers, workers and businesses that operate in an ethical fashion. They also advocate strengthening the safety net so those who are experiencing mis-fortune or are simply not skilled enough to function in today’s economy have the means to have a livable income.

Democrats need to advocate for those who live as close to honest and hard-working lives as possible and who value the common good as well as individual liberties.

Jettison the money crap; it’s not the way that the grass-roots base of the Democratic Party lives its lives. We have no control over whether the Republicans go low or high, although I wouldn’t go to Vegas to put money on Republican ethics. But Democrats need to go high. Money may or may not be the root of all evil, but it makes sense that the first place for Democrats to “go high” is to totally reform their relationship to money. To paraphrase the “Raging Cajun,” James Carville, “It’s the voters, stupid!”

The post Really, Eric Holder says we should kick them appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a truly just world, Brett Kavanaugh would not be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court for so many reasons. While the “he said – she said” conflict between Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is stealing center stage, there are countless reasons why the process is flawed. Not the least is that Dr. Ford is already receiving the Anita Hill Treatment from many Republican Senators, both on the Judiciary Committee and in the rank and file.

Let’s deal quickly with this issue. It is possible that what Brett Kavanaugh “remembers” (which seems to be nothing) more accurately describes what happened between him and Christine Blasey thirty-six years ago than what she recalls (being attacked; experiencing trauma; and carrying it with her for the intervening years). It’s possible but far from a certainty.

Suppose that there are no credible witnesses. Is the winner Kavanaugh because (a) he’s a male, (b) he’s a Republican and that party holds the moral high ground, (c) his supporters like Orrin Hatch and Charles Grassley are more righteous? Or is the “winner” Dr. Ford because (a) she does not have the extensive history of shading the truth as Kavanaugh has revealed in the hearings for his nomination, (b) women are more believable than men, (c) in the history of these kinds of disputes, the man has been believed far more than the woman, and (d) it’s payback time for what happened to Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.

Hard to tell. Maybe an FBI investigation will turn up incontrovertible evidence. Maybe the questioning of Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford before the Committee will trip up one or the other. If we have to go by a “feeling in the gut,” I would say that the safe thing to do would be to side with Dr. Ford because the consequences of having two sitting members on the Supreme Court who have acted very inappropriately regarding sex is more than the country should have to bear. As said so eloquently by Anita Hill in an op-ed in today’s New York Times:

But, as Judge Kavanaugh stands to gain the lifetime privilege of serving on the country’s highest court, he has the burden of persuasion. And that is only fair.

Surely there is another conservative nominee who has not been charged with such and who may not have the same paper trail as Kavanaugh.

But let’s look at the broader picture of why this process is so flawed. What are we doing here? We’re selecting someone to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States? And what does he/she do? “Interpret” the laws made by extremely flawed individuals; our legislators in the federal, state and local legislatures. While there are some outstanding legislators, the nature of the job is that it attracts many who have excessive egos and who are comfortable asking for money with little to offer in return. That’s not the way in which healthy human beings interact with one another.

As a group, they are not the most qualified people we have in our society to fashion our laws. Yet we treat what they create as being sacrosanct and engraved in stone. The work of these legislators must be precisely interpreted. But what if what they made was crap, as often is the case. What do the judges do then?

If our judges are wise and capable, then their job should be to clean up the mess. That means more than interpreting what has been written. It means working to have our laws conform to the parts of our Constitution that promote democracy and fairness.

How do we know if a nominee is capable of helping us clean up legislative messes? It certainly is not from them providing bullshit like, “That is a hypothetical question and I don’t want to answer it because it’s a case that may come before the court.” Since nominees dodge most questions, we can only use conjecture to try to figure out what they support.

We need a system in which the nominees are fully vetted – and that information is available not only to the executive branch but also to Congress and ultimately to the American people. The nominees must be required to answer all questions, so we learn what their professed beliefs are.

Their skills in interpreting the laws are less important than their abilities to exercise common sense. That means being good at reasoning, having empathy and understanding irony and hypocrisy.

This system won’t change now. If we’re fortunate, Kavanaugh will not be confirmed and we’ll go through the same song and dance with the next nominee. But ultimately, we need to face reality and have Supreme Court Justices be individuals who have boots on the ground of the United States and who are more arbiters of fairness than presumed scholars of the law.

The post It’s not just Kavanaugh; it’s the whole process appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s appointee to head up [translation:destroy] the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes in for devastating criticism in a letter of resignation submitted by Seth Frotman, a seven-year veteran of the Bureau who served as its Student Loan Ombudsman.

In his letter, as published by NPR, Frotman describes the ways in which Mulvaney has undermined and essentially reversed the original mission of the CFPB in general, and the office of the student loan ombudsman in particular.

“…After 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side,” writes Frotman…” Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”

From his letter, you can tell that Frotman liked his job and was passionate about helping student-loan borrowers get fair treatment from lenders. When Mulvaney took over as interim director, he quickly began turning the CFPB on its head, Frotman implies. Frotman charges Mulvaney with undermining the bureau’s mission, undercutting enforcement, and switching the focus from protecting consumers to “going above and beyond” to protect lenders’ interests.

Frotman cites several instances that demonstrate Mulvaney’s intent to wreck the CFPB from within—something that Republicans have wanted to do since Day 1 of the bureau conceived and promoted by Senator Elizabeth Warren [D-MA].

“For example” writes Frotman, “Late last year [2017], when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were ripping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees, Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.”

Frotman also calls some actions by the bureau, under Mulvaney’s leadership, as “unprecedented,” “illegal,” and designed to “shield the biggest financial institutions from accountability.”

“The current leadership of the Bureau has made its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers,” writes Frotman. “…American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.”

Frotman cannot be accused of making this stuff up. For a bit of context, it should be noted that when Mulvaney was in Congress, he sponsored legislation to abolish the CFPB. In June 2018, after being appointed acting director of the bureau by Trump, Mulvaney fired the agency’s consumer advisory council, which according to NPR,” is designed to help consumer groups work with the CFPB to identify problems facing Americans who are treated unfairly by financial firms.”

Frotman’s decision to resign with a bang echoes that of an ever-growing cadre of career government employees—dedicated to and passionate about the good things that good government can do—who have quit the Trump Administration on principle. His experience with Mulvaney also parallels what well-intentioned federal employees have encountered in other Trump-run agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

You have to wonder how many others, perhaps not as articulate as Frotman, in agencies whose missions are similarly threatened under Trump, are suffering in silence, keeping their heads down, trying to continue the mission they thought they were supporting, hoping that this is just an Orwellian nightmare from which America will wake up before it’s too late.

Here’s the full text of Frotman’s resignation letter, as published by NPR.

August 27, 2018

…

Acting Director Mulvaney:

It is with great regret that I tender my resignation as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Student Loan Ombudsman. It has been the honor of a lifetime to spend the past seven years working to protect American consumers; first under Holly Petraeus as the Bureau defended America’s military families from predatory lenders, for-profit colleges, and other unscrupulous businesses; and most recently leading the Bureau’s work on behalf of the 44 million Americans struggling with student loan debt. However, after 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side.

Each year, tens of millions of student loan borrowers struggle to stay afloat. For many, the CFPB has served as a lifeline—cutting through red tape, demanding systematic reforms when borrowers are harmed, and serving as the primary financial regulator tasked with holding student loan companies accountable when they break the law.

The hard work and commitment of the immensely talented Bureau staff has had a tremendous impact on students and families. Together, we returned more than $750 million to harmed student loan borrowers in communities across the country and halted predatory practices that targeted millions of people in pursuit of the American Dream.

The challenges of student debt affect borrowers young and old, urban and rural, in professions ranging from infantrymen to clergymen.  Tackling these challenges should know no ideology or political persuasion. I had hoped to continue this critical work in partnership with you and your staff by using our authority under law to stand up for student loand borrowers trapped in a broken system. Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.

As the Bureau official charged by Congress with overseeing the student loan market, I have seen how the current actions being taken by Bureau leadership are hurting families. In recent months, the Bureau has made sweeping changes, including:

Undercutting enforcement of the law. It is clear that the current leadership of the Bureau has abandoned its duty to fairly and robustly enforce the law. The Bureau’s new political leadership has repeatedly undercut and undermined career CFPB staff working to secure relief for consumers. These actions will affect millions of student loan borrowers, including those harmed by the company that dominates this market. In addition, when the Education Department unilaterally shut the door to routine CFPB oversight of the largest student loan companies, the Bureau’s current leadership folded to political pressure. By undermining the Bureau’s own authority to oversee the student loan market, the Bureau has failed borrowers who depend on independent oversight to halt bad practices and bring accountability to the student loan industry.

Undermining the Bureau’s independence. The current leadership of the Bureau has make its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers. For nearly seven years, I was proud to be part of an agency that served no party and no administration; the Consumer Bureau focused solely on doing what was right for American consumers. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Recently, senior leadership at the Bureau blocked efforts to call attention to the ways in which the actions of this administration will hurt families ripped off by predatory for-profit schools. Similarly, senior leadership also blocked attempts to alert the Department of Education to the far-reaching harm borrowers will face due to the Department’s unprecedented and illegal attempts to preempt state consumer laws and shield student loan companies from accountability for widespread abuses. At every turn, your political appointees have silenced warnings by those of us tasked with standing up for servicemembers and students.

Shielding bad actors from scrutiny. The current leadership of the Bureau has turned its back on young people and their financial futures. Where we once found efficient and innovative ways to collaborate across government to protect consumers, the Bureau is now content doing the bare minimum for them while simultaneously going above and beyond to protect the interests of the biggest financial companies in America. For example, late last year, when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were reipping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees. Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.

American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.

In my time at the Bureau I have traveled across the country, meeting with consumers in over three dozen states, and with military families from over 100 military units. I have met with dozens of state law enforcement officials and, more importantly, I have heard directly from tens of thousands of individual student loan borrowers.

A common thread ties these experiences together—the American Dream under siege, told through the hear wrenching stories of individuals caught in a system rigged to favor the most powerful financial interests. For seven years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fought to ensure these families received a fair shake as they strived for the American Dream.

For these reasons, I resign effective September 1, 2018. Although I will no longer be Student Loan Ombudsman, I remain committed to fighting on behalf of borrowers who are trapped in a broken student loan system.

 

Sincerely,

Seth Frotman

Assistant Director & Student Loan Ombudsman

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The post Student Loan Watchdog Quits Trump Administration with scorching resignation letter appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Melania Trump rolled out a First-Lady policy initiative today. She says she’s focusing on cyberbullying. It is, of course, a hilariously ironic focus for a woman whose husband, courtesy of his Twitter feed, is the Cyberbully-in-chief. Some observers—who may know the otherwise publicly inscrutable Melania Trump better than the rest of us—are calling it a not-so-subtle slap at Donald Trump by a First Lady who is fed up and who may actually have a vicious sense of humor, when it comes to her husband.

All of the above, or some of the above, may or may not be true. But one clear truth that has emerged is that Melania Trump’s program is not an original initiative. In fact, it is a blatant act of plagiarism. According to Vice, Melania Trump’s new “Be Best” pamphlet was first published during the Obama administration.

The White House credits Melania and the Federal Trade Commission as the authors of a new booklet called “Talking with Kids about Being Online” that accompanied the announcement. It’s just a part of Melania’s just-unveiled initiative, which focuses on well-being, opioid abuse, and positivity on social media. But it’s also, as BuzzFeed’s Ryan Mac pointed out on Twitter, almost identical to one the FTC published way back in 2014.

From its distinctive blue-and-orange graphic design scheme to its tips on properly reporting phishing scams, Melania’s booklet matches almost entirely word-for-word the FTC’s 2014 pamphlet.

Nat Wood, the FTC’s associate director for consumer and business education, told VICE News that a version of the pamphlet has been in circulation since 2009. He said that Melania authored a letter at the top of the pamphlet.

The White House’s website says the booklet is “by First Lady Melania Trump and the Federal Trade Commission.”

The incident also bears a substantial similarity to a previous scandal that arose after Melania gave a speech before the Republican National Convention plagiarizing a speech the former first lady Michelle Obama gave to Democrats in 2008.

Compare the pamphlets for yourself. Here is the 2014 version. Here’s the 2018 version.

And here are clips of the graphic design “similarities.”

Plagiarizing from the administration you consider your arch-enemy is the ultimate irony. But if they’re going do it, we’d all probably be better off if they copied Obama policies more often.

And, by the way, take a look at Melania’s signature on the letter she “wrote” for the 2018 version. Notice any stylistic similarities to the Sharpie signature of anyone else?

The post Melania’s plagiarism problem resurfaces appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Among a sufficient number of American voters, Donald Trump’s description of the infamous Access Hollywood tape as being just locker room talk worked. The reaction of most people who were abhorred what Trump said was to dismiss his explanation (not excuse) as a disregard of the seriousness of his words and actions.

But maybe we should not be so casual in dismissing what he said about locker room talk. The locker room may not be where it all starts, but it certainly is where it is fermented. The locker room can be a euphemism for wherever boys and men tend to gather, exclusive of the company of women.

There are places where men tend to brag and mock others, often women. It may or may not have anything to do with the penises that always accompany them into the room. What’s important is that for many men, perhaps not all, gathering leads to bravado, conceit, and often disregard for others, again, most particularly, women.

Bragging and mocking are not exclusive to the domain of men.  Women can be exceptionally cruel when it comes to the likes of gossip, particularly in the new-found realms of social media. If we are going to find a solution to men behaving badly, we probably are going to have to include women in the solution for two reasons:

1. Women are not immune from bad behavior; they too can learn.
2. Women can educate men in that wide arc of vision that forms their blind spots.

Without the benefit of empirical evidence, I’m going to hazard a guess that pushing the limits was part and parcel of the persona of Al Franken and Charlie Rose when they were young. Franken as much as admitted it in his book Giant of the Senate.

I tend to vomit when I hear adults say to students, “the future of the world depends on you.” That’s because the baby-boomer generation and every other one before us heard the same platitude and look where it has gotten us. We have to do more than utter throw-away lines to children and young adults.

But it is not all dismal. There are schools which emphasize no teasing or mocking or embarrassing anyone else. I have seen them and been part of them. If you have a critical balance of teaches who truly believe this and can model the behavior, it can and will trickle down to most of the students.

Many of those students are at those very schools because their parents want environments for their children which in no way resemble a locker room, or a locker room-to-be.

Conservatives talk a lot about values, but since there is so much hypocrisy in the way many conservatives practice their values, we may have to look to progressives for real values education. Make no mistake, hypocrisy is alive and well on the left. But there are those among the more educated who have some sense of how improve human behavior. You probably see that in places where people brag a lot less than in the typical locker room.

So, thank you Donald Trump for pointing us in a direction where we can focus on creating fewer little Trumps running around amongst us. That will help make America better, in a more modest and more well-behaved way.

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