OPINION - Shields and Brooks 4/19/2019

"Shields and Brooks on the Mueller report" PBS NewsHour 4/19/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to analyze the week’s news, including what the Mueller report's details mean for the Trump Presidency and American politics, whether House Democrats should pursue impeachment, and how Attorney General William Barr’s handling of the report reflects on him.

Judy Woodruff (NewsHour):  And now to help us understand the broader implications of the Mueller report, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who joins us tonight from Vancouver.

And hello to both of you.

So, the Mueller report is out, still generating a lot of controversy, as we heard a few minutes ago on the show.

But, Mark, I want to ask the two of you, what do you — what is your main takeaway from this?  What is most important here?

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist:  I guess sadness, more than anything else, Judy, sadness about the state of the leadership of the country.

I mean, every White House is inevitably a mirror reflection of the President at the top of it, whether it's in terms of optimism of a Reagan or sort of the paranoia of a Nixon.

But this White House, it may be good at some level to have worked in Donald Trump's White House for somebody, but it's terrible for one's self-respect.  I mean, at no point in the entire narrative does any sense of the President's unselfishness or patriotism or larger national interest ever emerge in any way.

And I'm grateful that people who are there who didn't come with a heroic reputation did heroic things by resisting his orders to do corrupting acts.

Judy Woodruff:  David, your main reaction?

David Brooks, New York Times:  That we have a lot of threats to the infrastructure of our society.

Donald Trump is a threat to the systems of government we have, and a threat to the basic honesty of our system.  There are all the — every time he appears in the Mueller report, he's running roughshod over what he's supposed to be doing.  He's interfering with an investigation.  He's ordering somebody to fire somebody else.

He just takes all the procedures and all the systems we have in place in our government and he just runs right through them.

And then the second character in the report are the Russians, and they're undermining the informational infrastructure of our society, the fact that we can have a debate based on solid facts and solid information, and they are systematically, as the report says, aggressively trying to undermine that.

And then the third player in the report is Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.  And they're trying to undermine the idea that we can have privacy in our society, the idea that organizations can deliberate with each other.

So what I see are three players who in either a tight alliance or a loose alliance that are all engaged in the same project which is disrupting the basic infrastructures of our society.

NEWSHOUR BOOKSHELF - "The Second Mountain"

"David Brooks on emerging from loneliness to find ‘moral renewal’" PBS NewsHour 4/16/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In his new book, "The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life," New York Times columnist and NewsHour regular David Brooks explores the current American cultural moment, in which he argues we have become self-centered and cognitive at the expense of joy and community.  Brooks sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss his personal struggles with social isolation and his choice to be "broken open."

REF: Weave: The Social Fabric Project

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 12/8/2017

"Shields and Brooks on Franken’s resignation, Trump’s Jerusalem move" PBS NewsHour 12/8/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff the discuss the week’s news, including the last days of the Alabama Senate race, the resignation of Sen. Al Franken over sexual misconduct allegations, and the politics behind President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Judy Woodruff (NewsHour):  And now that leads us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Welcome, gentlemen.

So, we just heard from Robert Costa, David, about the Alabama race.  It is on everybody’s lips, as he said, not only in Alabama, but in much of Washington.

But how — what do we make of it right now?  There is so much attention on these women’s accusations, but, as Robert said, it’s gotten much bigger than that down there.

David Brooks, New York Times:  Yes, but what I hear is a lot of Republicans looking at the Roy Moore case and it seems to have just flipped a switch, a lot of Republicans disgusted by Trump, not liking Trump, conservatives, and then, suddenly, Roy Moore, you enter a whole new realm of depravity, to be honest.

How are people not nauseated with a guy hitting on 14-year-old girls, and then, suddenly, that guy becomes a U.S.Senator, and people are not minding this?

And so how many Republicans have I talked to who have said, I guess I’m not a Republican anymore?  And these are lifelong Republicans.  Evangelicals saying, hey, I’m a Christian, but I’m not an evangelical.  If that is what being an evangelical is, that I don’t have to care about character, that’s not what I believe.

And so, to me, the big test of this is that, sure, if he wins, the Republicans will have one more vote for a couple of years, but they will have a generation who find the Republican Party something they can’t relate to.  And they will find the pro-life movement as something that’s a movement of epic hypocrisy.

So they may get a short-term gain if he wins, but I think there will be a long-term generational setback for the Republican Party, for evangelical Christianity, for the pro-life movement, for all of the things that Donald Trump and Roy Moore purport to be for.

Judy Woodruff:  Serious consequences if he wins?

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist:  Serious consequences, Judy, either way.

If you’re an Alabaman who loves your state, who cares about your state, wants your children to grow up there and come back, and your grandchildren not to move away, you’re thinking about the fact that you have already had your overtly religious governor, Republican, resign with an adulterous relationship with a woman staff member.

You have had the speaker of the House indicted, convicted on 12 counts of corruption and felony convictions.  And you know that your state’s been a punching bag.  It’s been a one-line joke.  If it weren’t for Mississippi, Alabama would be 50th in everything.

And so you want pride in your state.  You want a sense of self-respect.  And Roy Moore is not going to help in any way.  It’s going to reinforce that negative stereotype.

I think Robert Costa is second to none as a reporter, but I think one of the problems with the polling, which has, quite frankly, shown the race very, very close is this- If you’re a churchgoing Alabaman who is a Republican, you face economic and maybe social pressure if you admit you’re voting for Doug Jones, the Democrat.

But, at the same time, if you’re a churchgoing, serious Alabaman and you’re going to vote for Roy Moore, you face moral criticism.  So, I don’t — the candor level in polling is pretty difficult.

Right now, from everything I have been able to find out, I would say that Roy Moore will lose on Tuesday.

Judy Woodruff:  Really?

Mark Shields:  I really do.

Now, it’s 96 hours to go.  The President is going down tonight, but I think that Roy — Doug Jones will spring an upset.  And I think it will be a political earthquake.

Judy Woodruff:  But, meantime, in Washington, and, David, which you were just talking about, you have got the Republicans torn asunder, if you will, by what’s happened to Roy Moore.

But Democrats came together this week, and basically drummed Al Franken out of the Senate, a bunch of — led by Republican — I mean, by Democratic women senators.

David Brooks:  Yes.

Judy Woodruff:  So, do we now have some sort of moral separation between the two parties?  How do you read this?

David Brooks:  Well, it’s indisputable that the Democrats have kicked Al Franken, pushed him out of the Senate for things which are much less egregious than anything Roy Moore is accused of, or anything Donald Trump is accused of.

So, there’s that fact.  I would associate myself a little bit with a column Ruth Marcus, our friend Ruth Marcus, wrote today, which said, it feels — for the Al Franken case, it should be judged on the basis of Al Franken and what Al Franken did or didn’t do.

And it feels like we don’t totally know.  And it feels like he was pushed out of the Senate not just because of what Al Franken did, but because for the political opportunism of the Democratic Party to say, hey, we’re not the Republicans.

And so it felt like a lot of the pressure against Franken was not about Franken.  It was just for political expedience, so we could have the contrast with Roy Moore.  And whatever Al Franken did and didn’t do — and I bear, I carry no water for him — it seemed a little unfair that his case had to be so much influenced by political expediency and Roy Moore.

Judy Woodruff:  Unfair, Mark?

Mark Shields:  Well, we’re in uncharted waters here.

Yes, I think capital punishment is not the answer for everything from winking at an office Christmas party or to what Harvey Weinstein did.

And, by the way, Judy, I just have to digress for a second and say, if you want to see newspapering at its best, this past Thursday’s New York Times, with Megan Twohey, and Jodi Kantor, and Susan Dominus, and Jim Rutenberg, and four pages, and this is what — this is really the crime involved.

This is a consortium of applying economic, social, personal, emotional and physical pressure, and threats to anybody, a witness, a woman who wanted to confess, or anything of the sort.  And so…

Judy Woodruff:  This was around supporting Harvey Weinstein.

David Brooks:  Yes, Harvey…

Mark Shields:  It was about Harvey Weinstein.  That’s right, exactly.

And everybody — it was like Donald Trump.  Everybody who got near him is stained, sullied and diminished by it.  But this was a terror — really, a terror organization.

This is not Al Franken.  This is what Al Franken did.  But there’s no question that the serial nature of it, the picture, the photographic evidence, was damning.

Judy Woodruff:  Putting his hands on a woman’s chest, yes.

Mark Shields:  The hands, and the fact, Judy, quite honestly, that women led the march.

I mean, it wasn’t just Kirsten Gillibrand, but the other women in the Senate.  That was it.

When John Conyers fell, one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, there was a question of double standard.  There is no question that Democrats are trying to make this — draw a line between themselves.

If, in fact, Roy Moore wins or loses on Tuesday, if he wins, then he becomes the face, along with Donald Trump, of the Republican Party going into 2018, which is not good for the Republicans.

If he loses, then there’s only one person who hasn’t paid some price for this charge, and that’s Donald Trump.  So, either way, Republicans are facing a very bleak Wednesday.

David Brooks:  Yes.

And, you know, the Republicans, all the honorable Republicans, thought, oh, this guy Trump will win.  We will give him a little.  We will sort of tolerate him, but I can still go ahead and have my honorable career.

But the point I tried to make in the column today is, he — Trump always asks something more.  First, he asks you to tolerate his tweets, then his sexual harassment.  Now you have to tolerate Roy Moore.

The next question is going to be, oh, I’m going to fire Bob Mueller.  You got to tolerate that.

And at every step along the way, the Republicans just say we’re not standing up to you, you own a little more of our soul.

And, finally, he owns all of the soul.  And that’s the case whether you’re working around Harvey Weinstein or you’re working around Donald Trump.  You make a deal with the devil, he takes over everything.  And that’s what’s happening in the Republican Party.  They don’t know where to draw the line.

POLITICS - GOP, the Party of Corruption

Don't believe the Republican Party, while calming higher moral values, is the supporter of corruption in the federal government? The ripping off of the American taxpayer?

"GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton" by Bob Geiger, AlterNet

Republicans in Congress have made it clear they're willing to fight for military contractors' right to lie, cheat and defraud taxpayers.

While Democrats have been complaining for years about the GOP-led Congress abandoning its oversight of the executive branch's wrongdoing, a vote that took place in the Senate last week shows how the Republican desire to ignore fraud and abuse extends right into killing legislation that would help stop defense contractors from ripping off the American people.

And just what were the stern rules that the GOP didn't think their buddies at Halliburton should have to live with? The text of the legislation spelled out that Bush and Cheney's defense-contractor buddies would be in trouble if they did any of the following:

• "Executes or attempts to execute a scheme or artifice to defraud the United States or the entity having jurisdiction over the area in which such activities occur."


• "Falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact."


• "Makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any materially false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry."


• "Materially overvalues any good or service with the specific intent to excessively profit from the war or military action."

The measure called for those found guilty of violating the law to be imprisoned for up to 20 years and be subject to a fine of up to $1,000,000 -- a drop in the bucket for these guys -- or a percentage of their ill-gotten gains.

Is there any real doubt that the GOP is deep into the pockets of Halliburton and other big government contractors? That the GOP is doing everything is can to protect their big contributers from any oversight, American taxpayers be damn? Oh, almost forgot, our illustrious VP is honest and aboveboard "trust me"..... NOT!