Month: January 2019

Last week, the Trump administration took another huge hit from the Mueller investigation as Roger Stone, Republican political consultant and longtime Trump ally, was indicted and arrested.  This looks really bad for President Trump because Stone was one of the first influential people to join his campaign, and despite leaving it in 2015, remained a firm supporter who was perhaps one of the most powerful factors in getting Donald Trump elected.  

 

Before we get into exactly what Mueller has charged Stone with and how this might impact the Trump presidency, let’s take a quick look at who Roger Stone is.  Roger Stone is a 66 year old political strategist, lobbyist, and consultant who has spent his career helping Republican candidates advance themselves. He has worked for Nixon, Reagan, Bob Dole, and more.  In 1980, Stone co-founded a lobbying firm with another former Trump ally, Paul Manafort. Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly became one of the biggest lobbying juggernauts in the US by the 90s. Stone is a very interesting political character, being cited as referring to himself as a “dirty trickster” and being quoted saying things like “Admit nothing, deny everything” and “It’s rare that I’m accused of something that I’m not guilty of.”  He is also very open about his brutal political tactics, saying “Politics is not about uniting people. It’s about dividing people. And getting your fifty-one percent,” and “Attack, attack, attack—never defend.”  You can and should read more about Roger Stone’s history from this Business Insider article, which is also where those quotes were obtained.

 Despite leaving the Trump campaign in August of 2015, Stone was under investigation as part of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.  Several Stone associates have claimed that he communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In fact, Stone himself admitted to such communications but walked back on that statement.  Allegedly, he requested compromising emails on Hillary Clinton from Assange. Stone also allegedly had contact with a Russian hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 who is accused of carrying out a cyber-attack on the DNC.  In fact, Stone himself has admitted that it was likely he would be indicted over such communications with the hacker. This December article from The Atlantic accurately predicted that the Mueller investigation was closing in on Stone and elaborates on the long list of possible charges that wouldn’t have been surprising to see applied to him.  

In an early morning raid on Friday the 25th, law enforcement arrested Stone at his home.  Mueller’s team subsequently released Stone’s formal indictment, charging him with 7 separate counts.  One for obstruction of an official proceeding, one for witness tampering, and 5 for false statements. Read more about the raid and the entire formal indictment in this Politico article.  The raid itself has faced harsh criticism from the right and Stone has been extremely vocal about his mistreatment.  In fact, Stone said that in the process of the raid, he was treated more harshly than Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar.  Trump has tweeted several times about Stone’s mistreatment, and an exasperated Senator Lindsey Graham has demanded the FBI explain what warranted such harsh action against Stone.  Stone on Monday said, “I’m 66 years old. I do not own a gun. I do not have a valid passport. I have no prior criminal record. I’m charged with nonviolent process crimes.” In my opinion, Stone makes a good point here.  Although I think going so far as to say he was treated worse than a terrorist who was shot on site, it is true that there was no reason for law enforcement to expect any extreme resistance to the arrest. I do think that Stone is whining a bit too much about his treatment, claiming that he has been reduced to living paycheck to paycheck and requesting supporters to donate to his legal defense.  

Currently, Stone is free on a $250,000 bond and is expected to be in court on Tuesday and has officially pleaded innocent to all charges.  Since being released, Stone has made several TV and radio appearances. Naturally, interviews centered around his charges and how he planned on proceeding.  Many of those indicted in Mueller’s investigation have ‘flipped’ on the president in exchange for reduced sentences, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.  Stone has repeatedly said that he has absolutely no intentions of testifying against the president because he says in order to do so, he would have to make false testimony.  Stone claims the charges are purely politically motivated, but as the statements and philosophies I cited above make it hard to believe anything Stone says in this situation.  Stone has also said that Trump should fear for his presidency, which is extremely menacing and should be very concerning for the president. Only time will tell if the charges turn out to be confirmed and if so what impact they may have for the president.  This is a very important indictment and could spell doom for the president with liberals in congress circling in the water waiting to pounce on the impeach button. Even with the acting Attorney General saying that the investigation is nearing completion, it certainly seems that the air is leaking out of the Trump administration’s raft rather quickly and there’s blood in the water.

Now that we have officially passed the midterms, the 2020 presidential election is on the horizon.  Since President Trump will be the incumbent, only the Democrats and third parties will be holding primary elections.  It seems with every election, the campaigns are beginning sooner and sooner, and it seems that trend will continue with this election.  This effect will most likely be exacerbated because regardless of your own politics, the Trump administration has been plagued by scandals and investigations.  Even before the election, there was pushback against James Comey’s announcement of the reopening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton because many cited that as the nail in her campaign’s coffin.  Then there was the issue of the popular vote. In short, the Trump administration has been rife with controversy from the beginning. It only follows that many Democrats have been itching for their chance to challenge President Trump and replace him in office.  This has so far proven to be true as a cascade of Democrats have announced their candidacy or hinted at it. I would like to take this post to look at who has announced candidacy, who might, and how they all differ.

 

Confirmed Candidates:

 

1) Elizabeth Warren

 

Elizabeth Warren is 69 year old Massachusetts senator.  Before being a Senator, she was a schoolteacher and law professor.  She represents a fairly progressive liberal and intends to build her campaign on income inequality and economic disparities.  Response to Warren’s announcement has been loud because polls have shown her to have low favorability ratings and because conservatives including President Trump himself have attacked her in the past.  The Atlantic offers a different interpretation of this pushback, but I’ll let you read about that from them.  Many are citing her controversial claims of Native American heritage which she tried to substantiate with a DNA test as being one of her major obstacles to winning over mainstream Democratic approval.  However, as a well-known and progressive Democrat, she stands as a strong candidate to run against Trump in 2020.

 

 

2) Julian Castro

Julian Castro is a 44 year old prior Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (2014-2017).  He stands at opposition to President Trump’s anti-immigration policies as a 2nd generation American immigrant.  He stands at an interesting cross-section of socio-economic background, being raised by a single mother, while also having attended Stanford and Harvard.  Castro’s best chance of winning the nomination is to continue riding pushback to Trump’s controversial immigration policies. I would personally be surprised if a man with the last name Castro were able to overcome the stigma of that name in America and win DNC backing.  Read more about his platform on his campaign website here.

 

3) Kirsten Gillibrand

Gillibrand is a 52 year old senator from New York.  She is a former lawyer and much of her work in Congress has been related to combating sexual assault, especially in the military and at colleges.  Her main contingent is going to be strongly feminist Democrats who see sexual equality as a top concern for the upcoming election. A big concern for Gillibrand, and many of the other female candidates, must be to separate herself from the shadow of Hillary Clinton.  If she really wants a solid chance at winning, she needs to advertise a platform where she represents more than just a woman for president. This New York Times page compiles their reporting on Gillibrand.  

 

4) Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris is a 54 year old California senator.  She formerly served as the state District Attorney. As the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, she can ride the same wave as Castro.  She has become a more well-known Democrat since Trump’s election because she is one of the most outspoken Trump opponents, attacking him and challenging his nominations.  She serves on several key Congressional committees including the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee. Harris has a history of strong liberal legislation as a congresswoman and a liberal agenda as District Attorney.  She has fought for higher minimum wages, tax cuts for the middle class, and correcting high rent. As an attorney she fought to get money for Californians who were in foreclosure after the Great Recession, defended consumers against big companies, attacked predatory for-profit colleges, and worked against big polluters.  Harris seems to fit in a nice position to represent a wide swath of Democrats and in my eyes has a good chance at a Democratic nomination. Here is her campaign website.

 

Other announced candidates include: West Virginia state senator Richard Ojeda, businessman Andrew Yang, Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and former Maryland congressman John Delaney.

 

The list will surely not stop there.  More and more Democrats seem to be throwing their hats in the ring.  For a substantial list of potential runners, check out this amazing article from the Guardian, where a lot of the information for this post was obtained.  Some strong contenders listed in the article who have not announced yet include Joe Biden, Cory Booker, and Beto O’Rourke.  Oh and I can’t forget to include the everpresent Bernie Sanders, who I’m not sure will ever give up on being president.

 

So if you’re a registered Democrat, I encourage you to really look into all these people and keep up with your favorite because there will be no shortage of choices and you want to be informed going into the primary polls.  If you’re not a democrat, definitely look at some of the top contenders. These are the people potentially running against President Trump in 2020. I’m not a huge fan of the party system, so I would encourage you to at least get familiar with those candidates across the aisle; you never know, you might agree on more than you expect.

As of the time of this writing, the government is in its 26th day of shutdown, which makes it the longest government shutdown in US history.  Why is the government shut down, what does this mean, and how might this be resolved? This blog will explore all of these topics in the context of the current shutdown.

 

The government enters shutdown when a funding bill is not passed in time to fund government operations after the previous funding bill expires.  In other words, congress works on a bill that defines how much money they plan to allocate to all of their operations. It gets passed like any other bill and must be signed by the president.  This year, President Trump refused to sign the bill on the grounds that the bill did not provide the $5.7 billion he had requested for his planned southern border wall.

 

A government shutdown would in theory leave every government agency and department without funding and thus all operations would cease.  However, in reality, the government is prepared to the extent that the country will remain with basic functions. Most government agencies and nine out of 15 departments lose funding, but several other agencies including the Postal Service and Departments including Defense, Energy, Education, and others remain in operation through the shutdown because Congress maintained their full funding.  Other departments left without funding are forced to define essential personnel, who must continue to work without pay, while non-essential personnel are sent home. The Senate Appropriations Committee estimates that 420,000 government employees are being forced to work without pay, while another 380,000 are not coming in to work at all, per CBS.com.  To read more about the nature of government shutdowns and some more specifics about this shutdown, I point you to this article from Vox.  

 

As I mentioned, President Trump decided to let the government enter shutdown over the requested $5.7 billion for his proposed border wall.  This is the third and longest shutdown during his administration. Trump reportedly was willing to sign the spending bill late last year, but after getting pushback from conservative backers claiming he was folding to the Democrats, Trump drastically changed his stance.  In a White House meeting with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Trump declared that he was willing to take the government to shutdown and also assume all responsibility for it. Citizens seem to have taken this seriously because polls from many sources indicate that slightly more than 50% of Americans blame the President and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, with around 30% blaming congressional Democrats.   

 

The shutdown has been met with mixed reactions.  Some citizens are happy to see the President take a stand on the border wall and attempt to follow through with one of his most common campaign promises.  On the other hand, others see the shutdown as a waste of time and as a bureaucratic nightmare. In either case, it is clear that Trump’s approval rating has been slipping over the course of the near month-long shutdown.  

 

But what exactly is this shutdown all about?  President Trump wants money put into the construction of a physical wall at the Southern border of the US.  Congressional democrats refuse to allocate any funding for such a barrier. Negotiations have been slow and both parties have held fast in their stance.  President Trump announced that he would back off of a concrete wall and instead settle for a metal barrier, but Democrats remain adamant that this is wasted money.  To read more about the change to a metal barrier, read this article from The Hill.  Since this, talks have stagnated, with President Trump reportedly storming out of a meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and in a separate instance, Democrats reportedly turning down a meeting with President Trump where he hoped to sway moderates.  Stagnated discussions have led the White House to seek other means for getting a wall built. President Trump, this week, has been increasingly loud about his ability to declare a national emergency to allocate funding for the wall without Congressional approval.  However, Politico reports that a majority of Americans oppose the idea of declaring a national emergency at the border.  

 

President Trump is pushing for a border wall because he has made border security a priority, but the issue is very murky when looked at critically.  Illegal border crossings have reached fifty year lows during the Trump administration, so there seems to be less and less of the problem that the wall seeks to solve.  President claims the wall would prevent thousands of illegals from entering the country, halting much of the flow of drugs and criminals into the country. On the other hand, most of the criminals and drugs enter the country via boats and planes, which would be entirely unhindered by a wall.  

 

This shutdown will only end with the passing of a spending bill, which Trump claims he will only sign if it contains funding for the border wall.  On the other hand, a bipartisan committee is trying to get the president to sign a bill on the condition that talks will continue on border security.  This seems unlikely given that President Trump has made it a point of pride that he will not back down on the wall.

For now, the government remains shut down and the country sits waiting to see if Trump will declare a national emergency or not.  To keep up on further developments, I would recommend this webpage from Politico, which remains updated on their reporting on the shutdown.