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An Editorial

The last three paragraphs of an editorial in The News-Gazette, 02/20/2020

Spare the Rod

The News-Gazette article continues (edited):

Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin called Trump’s decision “disappointing” and said he was “never going to be able to figure out how the president messages, nor the decision making that he does.” Durkin was involved firsthand with the bipartisan effort to impeach Blagojevich in January 2009. “I saw a governor who was rogue on steroids,” he said. “He didn’t care about the state of Illinois, he cared about his own ambition, and he abused the office, and the Legislature did the appropriate thing, the federal courts did the right thing, not only at the district court level but also the appellate court and U.S. Supreme Court, and they said his sentence was appropriate.”

In a statement, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (democrat), who has argued on several occasions that Blagojevich should serve his full sentence, echoed that sentiment. “Illinoisans have endured far too much corruption, and we must send a message to politicians that corrupt practices will no longer be tolerated,” he said in the statement. “President Trump has abused his pardon power in inexplicable ways to reward his friends and condone corruption, and I deeply believe this pardon sends the wrong message at the wrong time.

U.S. Rep Darin LaHood, a Republican and honorary cochairman of Trump’s Illinois re-election campaign, said in August that he spoke to the president and encouraged him not to commute the sentence. On Tuesday, LaHood and the other Republican members of Illinois’ congressional delegation — John Shimkus, Adam Kinzinger, Rodney Davis and Mike Bost — released a statement expressing their disappointment in Trump’s action. “We believe (Blagojevich) received an appropriate and fair sentence, which was the low end of the federal sentencing guidelines for the gravity of his public corruption convictions,” they said. “Blagojevich is the face of public corruption in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that undermined the trust placed in him by voters.

The office of Illinois Senate Republican leader Bill Brady of Bloomington released a statement saying Blagojevich should serve his full sentence, and several rank-and-file Illinois lawmakers condemned the commutation and called for greater ethics reforms in state government.

The Enforcer

Today Trump commuted the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He was convicted in June 2011 and sentenced to 14 years on corruption charges. In addition to the proposed sale of Obama’s Senate seat, Blagojevich also was convicted of trying to shake down executives from a children’s hospital and the horse-racing industry for campaign contributions in exchange for official acts in office.

Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office in 2009. He was scheduled to be released from federal prison in March 2024. Trump said Blagojevich’s daughters have only seen their father wearing prison garb in recent years, and he thought of them as he made his decision.  “They rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform.” He added, “That was a ridiculous sentence.”

Trump: “I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country.”

An aside, Blagojevich used to block out the entire day on his schedule to do his hair, says a former top aide.

No, Thank You

Reign Him In

The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution this week to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.

While the War Powers resolution is not likely to garner enough support to overturn a likely Trump veto, its expected passage in the Senate nevertheless illustrates a rare congressional effort to rein in the president’s executive authority.

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East. And no matter who our president is, no president is smart enough to, on their own, make that kind of a decision without deliberation,” Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said.

Congressional Republicans generally praised Trump for the strike against Soleimani, but Democrats and even some Trump allies questioned the justification for the strike as well as Trump’s authority to carry it out without congressional approval.

Emerging from an all-senators classified briefing on the Soleimani killing last month, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) said Trump administration officials advised lawmakers to not debate presidential war powers. Lee called the suggestion “insulting and demeaning.”  “The worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in the nine years I've served” in the Senate, Lee said.

In the face of a likely veto from the president, Democrats are casting the vote as a symbolic rebuke but also a re-affirmation of Congress’ authority. “The president will veto it, but it sends a shot across his bow that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House do not want the president waging war without congressional approval,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “And once again, the American people are overwhelmingly on our side.”

Buttigieg on The View

conversation on "The View"  -  02/06/2020

Joy Behar: Vice-President Pence compared Nancy Pelosi ripping up the president’s speech [following the State of the Union] with ripping up the constitution.

Pete Buttigieg: You know what ripping up the constitution looks like? Sending your lawyer into the well of the Senate to say that anything you do, even at the expense of national security, anything you do to benefit your own campaign is by definition the right thing to do and legal. That’s ripping up the constitution.

Buttigieg’s reply is a response to a statement made by Alan Dershowitz, a member of Donald Trump's legal defense team in the president's impeachment trial, when he stood on the floor of the Senate and said, “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.” In other words, presidents who abuse their powers to win elections should be immune from punishment, so long as they believe their victory will benefit the public and doesn’t involve a criminal act.

“The Dershowitz argument, frankly, would unleash a monster,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference. “More aptly, it would unleash a monarch.”

The Revenge Tour

Trump’s Impeachment Revenge tour kicked off at a prayer breakfast yesterday where he began needling Senator Mitt Romney, the only Republican to vote to convict the president on one of the impeachment counts.  Before the Senate vote, the senator had declared that his faith had helped guide him to vote to convict the president. At the traditionally nonpartisan National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump said, faith was merely a “crutch” for Romney.

Following the prayer breakfast, Trump held a news conference in the White House. Speaking without a teleprompter, he seemed to relish in his freedom from impeachment’s shadow and the ability to slash back at his opponents. “We went through hell, unfairly. We did nothing wrong.” Trump repeated his claim that the impeachment was a “witch hunt” perpetrated by “bad people,” “dirty cops” and “liars” who sought solely to boot him from office.

“It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars,” Trump said. His remarks, in the White House East Room, were meant to be a “celebration,” he said, “after we were treated unbelievably unfairly.”

“Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person.”  He took shots at former FBI Director James Comey, whom he called a “sleazebag.”  He said it was “almost like” the Democrats “want to destroy our country.”

“I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people,” Trump said.

“He's impeached forever,” Nancy Pelosi said of Trump, “no matter what he says or what headlines he wants to carry around.”

From One Bighead to Another

During the State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Trump presented conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award in the U.S. It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

Other honorees in the past: Mother Teresa, “a heroine of our times,” and Rosa Parks, “a living icon for freedom in America.” Elie Wiesel kept “watch against the forces of hatred,” while Jackie Robinson “struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom, and the American way of life.”

Limbaugh is a polarizing figure who has insisted it was unfair to blame white Americans for slavery, blamed gay marriage for the decline of Christianity, and attempted to slut-shame a woman seeking coverage for contraception

Limbaugh has made numerous derogatory comments about minority groups as well as offensive comments about AIDS and the LGBTQ community, suicide and many other sensitive topics and marginalized communities.

Critics pointed to the time Limbaugh — a divisive media figure who has been accused of racist and sexist remarks — called a college student a “slut” and a “prostitute” because of her support of women’s access to birth control. And when he promoted the debunked birther claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. And when he questioned why Native Americans would be upset about their forced removal and ethnic cleansing since “they all have casinos.” And when he compared asylum-seekers coming to the U.S. border to the invasion of Normandy. And when he said that actor Michael J. Fox was faking the symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease.

“Meritorious contributions”?