With Democrats like these...

 

Yep

Pathetic.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

War powers

The Senate could pass a limiting resolution.  But Trump would undoubtedly veto it.

When Tim Kaine was pushing Republicans to support his effort to curb military action in Iran, he kept hearing concerns that the resolution was an attack on President Donald Trump.

[...]

“When they said, ‘Is this about President Trump? Isn’t this about any president?’ I said you’re right, it’s about any president,” Kaine said, adding that he then nixed the sections in his resolution that specifically mentioned Trump.

[Mike] Lee and [Rand] Paul eventually backed the resolution, after a briefing from top administration officials about the killing of General Qassem Soleimani left them deeply dissatisfied. And on Tuesday, Kaine got additional support from Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Susan Collins of Maine, giving him the four Republican votes he needs to pass the measure.

  Politico

So maybe the newly released documents from Lev Parnas will make some more of them think again.

Last year, the Senate passed a bipartisan War Powers resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-backed war in Yemen, which Trump vetoed.

The chamber also voted on an amendment to the defense authorization bill from Kaine and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) that would require Trump to seek congressional approval for military action in Iran. The amendment, however, didn’t meet the 60-vote threshold to pass.

[...]

[Kaine] notes that he also called for President Barack Obama to come to Congress when it came to the war with ISIS or possibly striking Syria for the use of chemical weapons. That position, Kaine says, has helped him earn trust in his conversations with Republicans when it comes to this president.

[...]

Kaine said there are about 10 to 12 Republicans who could possibly back the War Powers Resolution. But it’s likely to be met with resistance from most members of the Senate GOP, who have raised concerns about the resolution’s timing amid recent tensions with Iran and fear further restricting Trump’s authority.

The timing shouldn't be a problem. The timing should be dispositive.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said in a statement Tuesday that he will oppose Kaine’s resolution, arguing it would “send the wrong message to Iran” and “tie the President’s hands in responding to further potential Iranian aggression.”

Wrong lesson, Mitt.

Collins, who initially had concerns about the message Kaine’s resolution would send to Iran, had qualms about some of the earlier language, particularly when it came to removing troops from hostilities. Kaine, however, helped convince her by clarifying language that the resolution aimed to “terminate the use of U.S. forces in hostilities." That change appeared to appease Collins.

[...]

Kaine initially drafted the War Powers resolution three months ago. The latest version of his resolution can come to the Senate floor as early as next week.

Or not at all, when you consider the fact that Mitch McConnell gets to choose.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And this was Hillary's choice for VP

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Democratic Party reformation badly needed

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is urging the Democratic National Committee to end its tradition of using superdelegates, which activists say diminish the influence of regular voters at the expense of party bigwigs in the presidential nominating process.

  Politico

And "activists" (??) would be right.

Under the current system, elected officials and influential party members get to cast a vote for their preferred presidential candidate with extra weight, regardless of how their state or district votes during the primary.

[...]

The plea from Kaine — himself a former DNC chairman, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, and a superdelegate — puts him on the side of many backers of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

[...]

Kaine — who served as the DNC chairman between 2009 and 2011, largely during his time as Virginia’s governor — goes on to pledge that if the rules do not change, he will commit to voting for whoever his state supports in future nominating contests.

Which he should have been doing all along.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tim Kaine's "Communist Connection"

A STORY PUBLISHED this week by the Daily Beast about the nine months Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine spent working as a volunteer in a Jesuit community in Honduras in 1980-1981 has been making the conservative rounds. The Beast’s tabloid headline is a cheap exercise in red-baiting: “Tim Kaine’s Time with a Marxist Priest.”

[...]

The scandal that the Beast claims “may cause trouble” for Kaine is that he once met Fr. [James] Carney, 35 years ago.

[...]

“There’s some serious questions here,” [the right wing] Catholic Vote’s spokesman told The Beast, speaking about the one meeting Kaine had with Carney.

[...]

After years spent among the poor and oppressed in Latin America, Carney renounced his U.S. citizenship and joined the armed guerrilla struggle against U.S.-backed death squads and governments. He also left the Jesuits because, he explained, the order would not condone his involvement in an armed struggle. Whatever one thinks of that decision, Carney sacrificed his privilege and status to join the people he was ministering to as a priest. In the eyes of the Reagan administration, that made him a terrorist. In the eyes of the peasants and revolutionaries Carney joined in struggle, he was a hero.

[...]

What is entirely absent from Catholic Vote’s [accusations] is the context of what was happening in Latin America during the 1980s — particularly to Catholics. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated by graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas as he performed mass. Catholic nuns and laywomen, including four from the U.S., were raped and murdered. Jesuit priests were executed by death squads. The U.S.-backed Honduran Army’s secret police unit, Battalion 316, committed systematic massacres — all while John Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. Negroponte was very close to 316’s commander, Gen. Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, and met with him frequently.

[...]

And what became of Father Carney?

He was thrown from a helicopter in 1983.  A whistleblower who deserted Battalion 316 [...] asserted that “Álvarez Martínez gave the order for Carney’s execution in the presence of a CIA officer, known as ‘Mister Mike.’” The Los Angeles Times reported that Negroponte failed to report a “U.S.-backed operation that resulted in the execution of nine prisoners and the disappearance of an American priest.” The year Carney was murdered, Negroponte praised Gen. Álvarez Martínez’s “dedication to democracy.”

[...]

[Hillary Clinton] engaged in the same kind of red baiting against Bernie Sanders over comments Sanders made about the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, who fought the Contra death squads passionately supported by Clinton’s endorser Negroponte.

Awkward.

  Jeremy Scahill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

VP Debate

Didn't watch. Here are a few synopses:



Perhaps that's because Lester Holt took so much flak for allowing Trump and Clinton to go at it.

Or perhaps because they know nobody really cares what vice presidential candidates in this campaign have to say.  Let's just get this over with and move on to the real bouts with Clinton and Trump.

In one of the stranger moments of this strange vice presidential debate, Mike Pence and Tim Kaine puffed up their chests and grappled with one another over who can be more antagonistic to Russia and who can scare Vladimir Putin more. Though it was a close call, Pence won this Tough Guy competition by advocating the use of military force against Putin’s ally, Syria’s Bashar Assad, and even calling for the targeting of Russian military assets in Syria.

  Glenn Greenwald

Perhaps it's important to note that even though Trump talks like he's against making war with Russia, he's said that Pence will be in charge of domestic and foreign policy. I think that's because he doesn't know anything about either and only wants to be president to soak up more publicity and put the Trump brand on the whole country - nay, the world. He wants to be king, not president. I'm pretty sure he could be talked into anything as long as it didn't interfere with his narcissistic aims.

Both Donald Trump and Governor Mike Pence have clear records in support of privatizing Social Security — in fact, Pence criticized George W. Bush’s failed privatization plan for not going far enough! But rather than being honest with the American people, Mike Pence sought to mislead them tonight. He did that because poll after poll shows that the American people support expanding, not cutting, Social Security. In one recent survey, 68% of voters, including 53% of Republicans, opposed Social Security privatization.”

  Jon Schwarz

I wonder if Trump's blue collar supporters understand this.

“I know, Senator Kaine, you hold pro-life views personally, but the very idea that a child that is almost born into the world could still have their life taken from them is just anathema to me,” Pence said.

Kaine replied: “We support Roe versus Wade. We support the constitutional right — of American women to consult their own conscience, their own support of partner at their own minister, but make their own decision about pregnancy. That is something we trust American women to do.”

  Naomi LaChance

Moderator Elaine Quijano implied that Social Security faces a coming crisis, pointing to the future of the Social Security Trust Fund as if it were synonymous with the Social Security program overall.

[...]

. The program will still be taking in enough money to pay most of its payments. And there’s a simple fix that would allow it to make 100 percent of payments for the foreseeable future.

Currently, the payroll tax only taxes income up to $118,500. Whether you earn that income or $10 million a year, only the first $118,500 is taxed. If we simply lifted the tax cap and taxed all income equally, there would be no issue making payments for decades.

  Zaid Jilani

Not to mention, they could stop taking money out of it for other things.



It sounds like the VP debate discussed more domestic issues than the presidential one.

One of the odder moments in tonight’s debate came when Tim Kaine spoke eloquently about his faith and his personal opposition to the death penalty — then boasted that he was able to separate his faith and his duty as Virginia’s governor by carrying out executions anyway.

  Zaid Jilani

There's a man of convictions. This is the second instance I see where the candidates have had to discuss their religion. When did this become a prerequisite for the presidency? It's strictly forbidden by the Constitution. Did it happen when John Kennedy - a Catholic - ran for office, or was it there before him? How long has this been going on? It needs to stop.





Helpful, Don.  Thanks.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

How's That Obamacare Coming Along?

A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that as many as two states and 650 counties are on track to have just one insurer on the Affordable Care Act exchanges next year.

[...]

That’s up significantly from 225 counties with just one marketplace competitor in 2016.

[...]

And that number could even grow; filings in many states aren’t public yet, and insurers are free to change and update their offerings until September.

  IBA

Aetna’s announcement Monday night was the latest sign that large insurers are losing money in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, heightening concerns about the long-term stability of a key part of Obama’s domestic policy legacy.

[...]

Aetna said it will exit 11 of the 15 states where it offers coverage through the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare. That affects about 80 percent of its customers covered through insurance marketplaces.

[...]

Earlier this month, Humana said it will cut back its participation on the exchanges from 15 states to 11. On an earnings call in July, UnitedHealth Group chief executive Stephen Hemsley announced that his company plans to remain on “three or fewer exchange markets.”

[...]

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has pledged to modify the law to expand coverage and wants to add a public insurance option.

  WaPo

Really? Is that like her insistence that she's against TPP while bringing in Tim Kaine for her VP (who voted for fast-tracking TPP) and Ken Salazar for her transition team (who supports TPP and opened the Arctic Ocean for drilling while secretary of the interior)?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Good Choice, Hillary

Hooray for the first woman presidential nominee.  Women's rights must be at the top of her list.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Getting to Know Tim Kaine

Could be it's a state law that he had no ability to change.  But could he have pardoned any them?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Does Tim Kaine Remind You of Anyone?

This never gets old.

   

Reminds me of that scene in "O, Brother Where Art Thou".

An Inconvenient Idea

Vulnerable Democrats fighting for their political lives are frustrated that [Senator Tim] Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, is pressing for a debate on giving President Obama new war powers [to approve military strikes in Iraq and Syria]at a time when the commander-in-chief has become a political liability for them.

“Asking anybody to take that vote within two months of an election is just stupid. Why would you put people in that position?” said a Senate Democratic aide.

  

Really. Just stupid to be thinking about dealing with a current issue when there are elections on the horizon.

A vote to authorize Obama to strike at Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria beyond the 60-day window set out by the War Powers Resolution would be a de facto referendum on the president, according to another aide.

“I think it’s dumb,” said the second Democratic aide. “The less the president is in the news with anything right now, the better.”

We can deal with crises later. We’re talking elections here.

Kaine believes granting the president the power to wage war is the most solemn responsibility Congress has. It certainly should not be casually handed off to the executive branch, he asserts.

He also argues that it is important to achieve public consensus behind military action so that American troops know they have the support of their country.

[...]

Kaine pressed his case on Monday, arguing that Obama may not have constitutional authority to attack the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria because it is uncertain whether the group poses an imminent threat to the United States.

“I am calling for the mission and objectives for this current significant military action against ISIL to be made clear to Congress, the American people, and our men and women in uniform. And Congress should vote up or down on it,” he said in a statement.



Seriously, dude. Elections! Where do you think you are?

[A Democratic aide] said the political danger posed to vulnerable Democrats is slight because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the head of messaging and floor strategy, are unlikely to schedule a tough political vote in September.

They’ve got it covered. No worries.