Mediaboss Marketing

The Republican Party is gripped by an extreme right-wing ideology that is contemptuous of basic science and the norms of constitutional democratic government. Their model of politics is that Democrats should be prevented from voting as much as possible, and their theory of jurisprudence amounts to "laws passed by Democrats are unconstitutional." This is part of why times of Republican rule tend to end in disaster.

However, there is another aspect to Republican dysfunction that gets comparatively little attention: moral corrosion. A great many Republican elected officials think nothing of using their position to turn a quick profit during a crisis.

Take Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who was recently caught by ProPublica selling between $628,000 and $1.72 million in stocks in mid-February, immediately after receiving several classified briefings about the dangers of coronavirus on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he chairs. A week before Burr co-wrote a Fox News op-ed assuring the public that "the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus," but on Feb. 27 he warned a small private club of wealthy constituents that "There's one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."

This sounds like the dictionary definition of illegal insider trading. The Securities Exchange Act establishes legal penalties for "purchasing or selling a security while in possession of material, non-public information[.]" This was explicitly extended to members of Congress in the STOCK Act of 2012, and while that law was later quietly watered down in 2013, the ban on overt insider trading definitely still applies. Even Tucker Carlson said that if the allegations were true, Burr should resign and be prosecuted. (The senator has denied any wrongdoing.)

And this isn't the first time that Burr has reportedly done something like this. ProPublica also recently reported that Burr sold $47,000 in stock in a Dutch fertilizer firm just weeks before its share price collapsed, perhaps because it was undermined by changes in Trump administration trade policy. There might not be the same stone obvious insider trading, but it certainly warrants an investigation. ProPublica further found that in 2017 Burr sold a house in D.C. to a corporate lobbyist whose clients were overseen by his committee and for tens of thousands of dollars more than its likely market value.

Neither is Burr the only culprit here. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who is married to the head of the New York Stock Exchange, also allegedly sold some $20 million in stocks after a closed coronavirus briefing. So did Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who also infamously bought defense contractor stocks in 2018 after pushing for a huge increase in the military budget and dumped them when reporters found out.

President Trump, of course, is worst of all. He is the only president to continue to run a vast business empire while in office and as a result, his administration is absolutely saturated with conflicts of interest, from grifting the Secret Service for golf cart rentals to a gigantic tax break for real estate developers like himself and his son-in-law Jared Kushner mysteriously making its way into the coronavirus rescue package. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has found 2,310 conflicts of interests and counting in the Trump administration.

Now, it's worth noting that Republicans are not the only ones who are less than scrupulous about civic propriety. The effort to undermine the STOCK Act was a bipartisan affair, passed in 30 seconds through half-empty chambers using unanimous consent. Both parties knew what they were doing was immoral and wanted to keep it from the public.

But these days, Democrats seldom engage in such outright graft. The husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) also sold stock in January, but this was in a biotech company which was then at a low price, and has since risen in value because the surge of funding for coronavirus research. If he was trading based on a tip from his wife, he surely would have have held on to it. Typically Dems instead go through the revolving door, passing corporate-friendly laws and regulations and then (by purest happenstance, they insist) going on to collect huge sums from those same corporate interests working or consulting for them.

Both forms of graft are bad, but it's clear now that the blatant Republican form is worse. A liberal hypocrite who is betraying his or her stated principles will tend to limit the amount of graft for fear of exposure and might be pressured or shamed into changing course. Trump feels absolutely no shame about anything, and since the Republican Party and its howling propaganda apparatus support him no matter what he does, he will never stop.

Today Republican governance means the party's elected officials leveraging their power to stuff money directly into their own pockets. Republican voters are fine with that Trump may have both his hands deep in their pockets, but at least he makes liberals' heads explode.

Go here to read the rest:
The Republican graft machine - The Week

If you want a quick summary of the state of play over fiscal stimulus legislation, here it is: Republicans insist that we should fight a plague with trickle-down economics and crony capitalism. Democrats, for some reason, dont agree, and think we should focus on directly helping Americans in need.

And if legislation is stalled, as it appears to be as I write this (although things change fast when were on Covid time), its because Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is holding needy Americans hostage in an attempt to blackmail Democrats into giving Donald Trump a $500 billion slush fund.

First, lets talk about the nature of the economic crisis we face. At the worst point in the 2007-2009 recession, America was losing around 800,000 jobs per month. Right now, were probably losing several million jobs every week.

Whats causing these job losses? So far its not what usually happens in a recession, when businesses lay off workers because consumers arent spending enough. What were seeing instead are the effects of social distancing: restaurants, entertainment venues and many other establishments have been closed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

And we neither can nor should bring those jobs back until the pandemic has faded. What this tells us is that right now our highest priority isnt job creation, its disaster relief: giving families and small businesses that have lost their incomes enough money to afford necessities while the shutdown lasts. Oh, and providing generous aid to hospitals, clinics and other health care providers in this time of incredible stress.

Now, while social distancing is currently driving employment destruction, there will eventually be a second, more conventional round of job losses as distressed families and businesses cut back on spending. So there is also a case for stimulus to sustain overall spending although helping Americans in need will provide much of that stimulus, by also helping them continue to spend.

So whats in the stimulus bill that McConnell is trying to ram through the Senate? It grudgingly provides some, but only some, of the aid Americans in distress will need. Funny, isnt it, how helping ordinary Americans is always framed as a Democratic demand? And even there the legislation includes poison pills, like a provision that would deny aid to many nonprofit institutions like nursing homes and group homes for the disabled.

But it also includes a $500 billion slush fund for corporations that the Trump administration could allocate at its discretion, with essentially no oversight. This isnt just terrible policy; its an insult to our intelligence.

After all, it would be hard to justify giving any administration that kind of power to reward its friends and punish those it considers enemies. Its almost inconceivable that anyone would propose giving such authority to the Trump administration.

Remember, weve had more than three years to watch this administration in action. Weve seen Trump refuse to disclose anything about his financial interests, amid abundant evidence that he is profiting at the publics expense. Trumps trade war has been notable for the way in which favored companies somehow manage to get tariff exemptions while others are denied. And as you read this, Trump is refusing to use his authority to require production of essential medical gear.

So it would be totally out of character for this administration to allocate huge sums fairly and in the public interest.

Cronyism aside, theres also the issue of competence. Why would you give vast discretionary power to a team that utterly botched the response to the coronavirus because Trump didnt want to hear bad news? Why would you place economic recovery efforts in the hands of people who were assuring us just weeks ago that the virus was contained and the economy was holding up nicely?

Finally, weve just had a definitive test of the underlying premise of the McConnell slush fund that if you give corporations money without strings attached they will use it for the benefit of workers and the economy as a whole. In 2017 Republicans rammed through a huge corporate tax cut, which they assured us would lead to higher wages and surging business investment.

Neither of these things happened; instead, corporations basically used the money to buy back their own stock. Why would this time be any different?

As I write this, Republicans are ranting that Democrats are sabotaging the economy by refusing to pass McConnells bill which is a bit rich for those who remember the G.O.P.s scorched-earth opposition to everything Barack Obama proposed. But in any case, if McConnell really wants action, he could get it easily either by dropping his demand for a Trump-controlled slush fund or by passing the stimulus bill House Democrats are likely to offer very soon.

And maybe that will happen within a few days. As I said, were now living on Covid time. But right now Republicans seem dead set on exploiting a crisis their own president helped create by his refusal to take the pandemic seriously.

Read the original:
Republicans Add Insult to Illness - The New York Times

Republicans who voted against Obama's stimulus package during the 2008 financial crisis have embraced the coronavirus relief bill.

Republicans who have spent the past decade howling about the danger of ballooning deficits embraced thecoronavirus rescue package approved by Congress and signed by Donald Trump, shrugging off past concerns about spending in the face of a public health crisis.

In many cases, the conservatives who backed the $2 trillion bill the largest economic relief measure in U.S. history were the very same ones who raged against the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package backed by the Obama administration.

But facing the unprecedented threat of a global pandemic and working under a Republican who has largely brushed off concerns about debt and deficits the GOP was willing to overlook an unprecedented flood of taxpayer spending. Leading budget hawk Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who insisted in 2009 that government cannot spend its way out of a recession, this week joined a unanimous Senate majority that approved what he described as "the biggest government intervention in the economy in the history of the world."

"This is a response to an invasion," he told reporters. "This is the kind of thing you'd have to do if we were at war."

Like other conservatives, he noted that much of the nation's current economic distress was caused by the government's social distancing orders, while the Obama stimulus was in response to a crisis created by the private sector.

Failing to take dramatic action now, Toomey said, "would be a wildly imprudent thing, and it would probably result in such a severe recession it might very well be a depression and it could take decades to come out of this."

Even before the health crisis struck, the Republican-aligned fiscal conservative movement had dramatically diminished under Trump, who has pushed the nation's budget deficit to heights not seen in nearly a decade. That's prompted arguments that the GOP is hypocritical when it comes to government spending.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump's outgoing chief of staff and a former Republican congressman aligned with the tea party movement, told a private audience last month that the GOP only worries about deficits "when there is a Democrat in the White House," according to a report in the Washington Post.

For the first time in the modern era, Republicans are on record supporting direct cash payments to most American adults a government-backed measure more likely to be found in socialist countries. While a 2008 stimulus package offered tax rebates to many taxpayers, the 2020 legislation offers all Americans making less than $100,000 grants of up to $1,200 each with an additional $500 for each child. Also in the bill: a massive expansion of unemployment benefits, $500 billion in loans to businesses and local governments, and tens of billions more for the airline industry, hospitals, and food assistance.

David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, Washington's preeminent fiscal conservative watchdog, which Toomey previously led, raised the possibility that the coronavirus package could push this year's budget deficit to $4 trillion. The largest annual deficit in U.S. history was $1.4 trillion in 2009.

"The spending is just outrageously high," McIntosh said in an interview. "But on the short-term basis, we're pleased."

He opposed the direct payments to Americans but was satisfied that a significant portion of the taxpayer-funded package consists of loans likely to be repaid. He added that Congress rejected what he called the Democrats' list of unrelated "political goodies."

"Yes, it's too much, and we're worried about overall spending, but we recognize something has to be done," McIntosh said. "That's the kind of comment I'm hearing from conservatives who would normally oppose big spending bills."

What remains of the tea party movement, which sprang up early in Barack Obama's presidency to oppose government spending, has largely been silent. One major exception: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) who upset congressional leaders and Trump himself on Friday by unsuccessfully trying to force a formal House voteon the historic legislation.

Massie tweeted that the $2 trillion rescue package, in addition to $4 trillion in stimulus from the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, would create roughly $17,000 in new debt for every American citizen.

"Not a good deal," he wrote.

Trump, in a rare public rebuke of another Republican, punched back on Twitter: "Throw Massie out of the Republican Party."

The Congressional Budget Office reported weeks before the coronavirus outbreak that the national debt was already on track to reach nearly 100% of the gross domestic product in just 10 years. The current package, and a subsequent round of government intervention already being discussed, will substantially escalate that timeline.

The budget office did not release specific projections on the fiscal impact of the legislation before it passed. Not including the rescue package, the current national debt exceeds $23.5 trillion, which is $3.5 trillion more than when Trump took office.

The coronavirus spending surge will put heightened pressure on lawmakers to cut the social safety net in the coming year, including Social Security and Medicare. Trump and leading Democratic rival Joe Biden have both promised not to touch the popular entitlement programs, yet they consume a disproportionate share of government spending.

"The future will be more painful," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Still, she added: "This is definitely not the time to worry about the deficit. This is the time to be borrowing as much as we need to deal with the huge health crisis."

Grover Norquist, one of Washington's most notorious fiscal hawks, praised a series of temporary deregulations in the legislation that he hopes might permanently eliminate bureaucracy controlling such things as medical professionals' ability to work in other states, the use of health savings accounts, and liquor store deliveries.

He predicted that the rescue package could actually lead to a "more open society with more freedom."

"There's no permanent damage," Norquist said. "On balance, it seems to have been the best you could do under the circumstances."

Read more:
Republicans once opposed to government spending now approve of it under Trump - The American Independent

Former Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a doctor-turned-lawmaker who annoyed Republican leadership in both chambers of Congress with his adherence to fiscal conservatism and opposition to politicians' pet spending projects, has died at 72.

Coburn's death was announced on Twitter by former Republican Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, a House colleague in the class of 1994, whose rise to power on promises to slash federal spending and enact socially conservative policies ended Democrats' 40-year majority in the chamber. Coburn died Friday due to complications with cancer, according to the Oklahoman .

Coburn stood out in the House during his 1995-2001 tenure for his adherence to fiscal conservatism even while the Republican majority in which he served, led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, passed a series of big-spending budget bills. Coburn, in a 2005 C-SPAN interview, said his greatest regret in government was a House vote to reopen the federal government in early 1996 as part of a budget agreement with Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Like many Republican congressional candidates in 1994, Coburn ran on a term-limits pledge. But he actually meant it, stepping down after six years to return to the practice of medicine as an obstetrician.

Coburn joined the political fray again in 2004, running for an open Senate seat and beating an establishment-favored rival in the Republican primary. In the general election, he faced negative headlines over charges that 14 years earlier, he had sterilized a young woman without her permission. But the matter didn't stick politically, and Coburn won easily.

During an orientation for freshmen senators, Coburn struck up an unlikely friendship with an incoming Democratic colleague, Barack Obama of Illinois. The pair bonded over their distaste for some of the sillier political rituals needed to win high office. Coburn told reporters in 2004 that he had "a wonderful time with Obama during the orientation.

"I think I can work with him, Coburn said then.

Once in office, despite being ideological opposites, Coburn and Obama worked together when they could. They co-sponsored bills to ensure strict oversight of government aid for Hurricane Katrina victims and to require all government grants and contracts to be posted on the internet in a database. After Obama won the presidency in 2008, they maintained an open line of communication, frequently talking by phone.

And as he had in the House, Coburn proved a thorn in the side of Senate Republican leaders. In October 2005, he tried to block $453 million for two Alaska bridges that had been tucked into a recent highway spending bill, pushed by then-Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican from the state who had served in the chamber since December 1968. Coburn wanted to redirect the money to the Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, a major thoroughfare that was severely damaged during Hurricane Katrina less than two months earlier.

The gambit failed by a wide margin but set the tone for Coburn's fiscally conservative approach during his 10-year Senate career.

Coburn left the Senate on Jan. 3, 2015, after a recurrence of prostate cancer, with nearly two years left in his term.

Read more:
Ex-Sen. Tom Coburn, who pressed Republicans to keep budget-cutting promises, dies at 72 - Washington Examiner

Obviously, we are a very badly divided nation: so divided we agree on virtually nothing; so divided we cant even talk to one another anymore; so divided one side doesnt believe in anything the other side says; so divided California, New York and Illinois might as well be on a different planet than Texas.

We cant even agree on how to respond to the novel coronavirus, and when to get back to business.

Check out the latest Rasmussen poll. Sixty-one percent of Republicans believe America will rise from the dead by Easter. Count me among them.

But only 41% of all likely voters somewhat believe the USA can get back to work by Easter. Among Democrats, the number must be in the teens.

In the past few days, President Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans need to get back to work.

I have said repeatedly on my nationally syndicated radio show: The business of America is business. Its time to get back to work because the deadly virus is temporary, but the economic disaster were causing could last a lifetime and prove far more deadly in the long run.

Many conservatives such as myself have also pointed out that the mortality rates of the coronavirus have been greatly exaggerated. On Thursday, Dr. Deborah Birx, Americas Doctor, said the same thing in a press conference: There will not be millions dead in the USA. The math doesnt add up.

She reported how computer models predicting 500,000 dead in the U.K. have been downgraded to 20,000. She reported how the terrible death count in Italy just doesnt add up to millions of Americans dead, not even close.

President Trump and Republican businessmen like me remain steadfast and optimistic that we can start bringing this terrible pandemic to a close and be back to business (or at least a limited business rollout) by Easter.

Its not because we dont take this pandemic seriously but because we believe in our hearts that we cant allow the U.S. economy to die. We cant allow another Great Depression. We cant honor the sick or dying by losing our job, income and life savings.

Someone has to mind the store, keep the economy going, pay the bills and pay the taxes so that after we win this war and we will win there is something for the older, the weak and the vulnerable to come back to.

We believe in our hearts and souls there is a way to restart this economy, and to do it carefully, reasonably and responsibly while protecting the oldest, weakest and most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Democratic politicians and liberal Hollywood activists scream about millions dying and about keeping the nation locked down for months. And they call Trump and Republicans all kinds of terrible names.

What accounts for this difference? I believe Ive figured it out. Its all about personality.

Most every Republican I know is positive, outgoing and relentless, wont take no for an answer and has can-do spirit. Thats why so many Republicans are successful in the business world. Thats why were proud to create the jobs and pay the taxes. We are the workers, makers and producers of America. We turn lemons into lemonade. We see the glass as half full, not half empty. We love working. We see it as our American way of life. We desperately want and need to get back to work.

Democrats are the polar opposite. They are cynical, negative and always finding fault with America, capitalism and business. Thats why conservative talk radio is so successful whereas there is virtually no liberal talk radio. Its just too negative, too dark, too depressing. Liberals are always complaining, offering no solutions other than bigger government.

That explains the differences in how we see the coronavirus. Republicans have everything to lose if they dont get back to work. We see our business, career, job as our calling in life, our baby. It is who we are. Taking that away from us is like death.

Democrats are made up of groups who dont see anything to gain by rushing back to work. Some of them didnt work before this crisis. Some are protected by union contracts and union pensions. Some work for government and they have jobs for life. Some have lived on a welfare check for much of their life. Some want to be paid bigger checks for being unemployed than for working. In the end, they feel they can stay home, take no risk and have the government pay them.

Its a completely different mindset. Democrats depend on government. Republicans depend on God, prayer, self-reliance and personal responsibility. Our lives are wrapped up in our work. Were risk takers. We must get back to work or risk losing everything weve worked our whole lives to build. Its what makes us who we are.

Yes, were a divided nation. Its like were from different planets. Im proud to be from the planet where the glass is always half full, where America, with the greatest health care system in the world and the strongest economy in the world, will always prove victorious.

Yes, its true that the business of America is business. Let the people who want to get back to it get back to it.

Continued here:
Why are Republicans and Democrats so divided over the coronavirus? - The Star Democrat