The Alpha Dog that Wouldn’t Hunt:
How Trump’s ludicrous “alpha male” act is destroying him.
When Salon’s Brendan Gauthier recently wrote about the alt-right’s reaction to Donald Trump’s humiliating performance in the first presidential debate, he included the following quote from a 4chan user defending the Republican nominee’s alleged stiffing of contractors:
“As an alpha [Trump] has no problem with asserting his will. You beta cucks wouldnt [sic] understand because when the waiter brings you the wrong order you are too busy shoe gazing at your cell phones to dispute in front of your step-sons mom [sic].”
This definitely isn’t the first time that “alpha male” rhetoric has been used to describe Trump by his radical right-wing supporters. Indeed, it’s pretty obvious from Trump’s hyper-masculine rhetoric that he views himself as an alpha-male figure — or, at the very least, that he wants to convince others this is the case. That’s why we need to remind ourselves that alpha malehood isn’t just a myth; it’s an Achilles’ heel that has been far more of a weakness than a strength for Trump and his supporters, and will inevitably doom their mutual quest for power.
It’s helpful to start by recognizing that the scientific literature that popularized the term “alpha male” is outdated. “The concept of the alpha wolf is well ingrained in the popular wolf literature at least partly because of my book ‘The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species,’” explains L. David Mech, one of the scientists whose aforementioned text helped bring the alpha-male concept into conventional use. After pointing out that the last 40 years have revolutionized scientific understanding of wolf social hierarchies, he goes on to write that “one of the outdated pieces of information is the concept of the alpha wolf. ‘Alpha’ implies competing with others and becoming top dog by winning a contest or battle. However, most wolves who lead packs achieved their position simply by mating and producing pups, which then became their pack.”
Of course, even if the lupine origins of the alpha-male trope weren’t obsolete, the notion that the term can even apply to human social structures is inherently absurd. As many scientists have noted, human beings generally inhabit a number of social circles rather than simply one, and each of these subgroups contain complex and varied hierarchies (assuming that they’re hierarchical at all instead of egalitarian). Individuals who may be the top dog in one circle could be quiet and unassuming in another, or even the so-called “beta male.” Just as important, the traits commonly associated with alpha malehood — violence, self-absorption, controlling behavior — have not been found to correlate strongly with professional and sexual success. In fact, researchers have found that assertiveness, confidence and pro-social behaviors (like sensitivity and the capacity to learn from one’s mistakes) are most likely to yield results for people of both genders who wish to lead accomplished lives.
This explains why Trump’s overblown machismo, though lapped up by his alt-right fanboys and many of his other supporters, has been met with controversy instead of widespread applause. When Trump talks about the size of his manhood or describes an opponent as a “pussy” or says another opponent (female) is too ugly to be president, he may be delighting his base while alienating at least as many others. These behaviors may seem dominant to those who subscribe to the alpha-male mentality, but to the rest of the world they come across as not just boorish but also transparently insecure. Because we live in a society that believes in civility, the instinct is to condemn a candidate who demeans his adversaries and brags about himself with playground taunts and boasts. Similarly, because we value intelligence and discipline in our leaders (or at any rate many of us do), Trump’s habit of chronically interrupting and being rude toward Hillary Clinton during last week’s presidential debate came across as uncouth rather than manly.
These observations can also be extended to the hyper-masculine rhetoric used by Trump’s supporters themselves. Take the 4channer that Gauthier quoted, the one who insulted Trump’s critics by calling them “beta cucks.” The term “cuck” is very telling here, as it harkens back to one of the alt-right’s trendiest slurs, “cuckservative.” A cuckservative, in their lexicon, is a conservative who betrays his race and gender by supporting gender equality and condemning racial bigotry, in effect allowing his white masculinity to be cuckolded by women and minorities through subservience to progressive ideals. By contrast, the right-wingers who brandish terms like “cuckservative” have rallied behind Trump because, to quote the prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer: “a) he is a tougher, superior man than ‘conservatives’ (which isn’t saying much), and b) he seems to grasp the demographic displacement of European-Americans on a visceral level.”
Precisely the same qualities that have made Trump so alluring to the right-wing fringe, however, are also likely to prove fatal to his quest for power. Sure, it helped him emerge as the victor in a Republican presidential primary whose electorate was hopelessly fragmented between more than a dozen candidates. Nevertheless, Trump has done serious damage to his reputation as the result of his behavior during this campaign, and it’s unlikely that future presidential candidates will look at his record-high unfavorable ratings and wish to emulate the methods that put him in this spot. Likewise, although Trump has done well in polls against Clinton when the latter’s own scandals are front-page news, Monday night’s debate demonstrated that his “alpha male” traits fail him when he’s forced to compete one-on-one with Clinton’s more polished and professional manner.
Ordinary Americans may not be well-versed in the science that discredits alpha malehood, and may not consciously recognize that Trump turns them off because he is appealing to it. That doesn’t mean they can’t discern the deeper implications in his behavior. While I’m not optimistic enough to believe the naked racism and sexism peddled by the Trump campaign will die with his political defeat, it’s hard to imagine how the cartoonish attempts by Trump and the alt-right to impersonate alpha men can possibly survive the ordeal of this election. Like the titular character from “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” their inflated male identity depends on an understanding of human behavior that is scientifically inaccurate — and on an approach to the art of politicking that, even under the freakish conditions of this election season, simply doesn’t work.
TOP LOCAL STORY, Corrupt Congressman
This Congressman does not represent the people of Virginia's 6th District. He must be representing himself and his crooked GOP buddies. Bob tried to make Congress more corrupt than it already is. The people revolted.
Bob Goodlatte Has Been in Congress too Long.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, led the effort to overhaul the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Folks in Virginias 6th Congressional District have known for over twenty years that Bob Goodlatte has NO ETHICS. Sadly it is a right wing republican district and always returns Bob to Washington. Will these voters ever wise up? After watching them send Bob to Congress for 11 terms, my guess is No, Never.
House Republicans, overriding their top leaders, voted Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail.
The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Robert W. Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure.
The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, where emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The House Republicans’ move would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries.
It also comes on the eve of a historic shift in power in Washington, where Republicans control both houses of Congress and where a wealthy businessman with myriad potential conflicts of interests is preparing to move into the White House.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, spoke out to oppose the measure, aides said Monday night. The full House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the rules, which would last for two years, until the next congressional elections.
In place of the office, Republicans would create a new Office of Congressional Complaint Review that would report to the House Ethics Committee, which has been accused of ignoring credible allegations of wrongdoing by lawmakers.
“Poor way to begin draining the swamp,” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, said on Twitter. “Swamp wins with help of @SpeakerRyan,@RepGoodlatte.”
Goodlatte defended the action in a statement Monday evening, saying it would strengthen ethics oversight in the House while also giving lawmakers better protections against what some members have called overzealous efforts by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“The OCE has a serious and important role in the House, and this amendment does nothing to impede their work,” the statement said in part.
But Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, joined others who worked to create the office in expressing outrage at the move and the secretive way that it was orchestrated.
“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” she said in a statement Monday night. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”
The Office of Congressional Ethics has been controversial since its creation, and subject to intense criticism by many of its lawmaker targets — both Democrats and Republicans — as its investigations have consistently been more aggressive than those conducted by the House Ethics Committee.
It was created after a string of serious ethical cases starting a decade ago, including bribery allegations against Represntatives Duke Cunningham, a California Democrat; William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat; and Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican. All three were convicted of such abuses, and served time in jail.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, which is overseen by a six-member outside board, does not have subpoena power. But it has its own staff of investigators who spend weeks doing confidential interviews and collecting documents based on complaints it receives from the public or media reports before issuing findings that detail any possible violation of federal rules or laws. The board then votes on whether to refer the matter to the full House Ethics Committee, which then conducts its own review.
But the House Ethics Committee, even if it dismisses the potential ethics violation as unfounded, is mandated under House rules to release the Office of Congressional Ethics staff report detailing the alleged wrongdoing, creating a deterrent to such questionable behavior by lawmakers.
Under the new arrangement, the new Office of Congressional Complaint Review could not take anonymous complaints, and all of its investigations would be overseen by the House Ethics Committee itself, which is made up of lawmakers who answer to their own party.
The new Office of Congressional Complaint Review also would have special rules to “better safeguard the exercise of due process rights of both subject and the witness,” a move that is likely a reflection of complaints by certain lawmakers that the Office of Congressional Ethics staff investigations were at times too aggressive, an allegation that ethics watchdog groups dismissed as evidence that lawmakers were just trying to protect themselves.
“OCE is one of the outstanding ethics accomplishments of the House of Representatives, and it has played a critical role in seeing that the congressional ethics process is no longer viewed as merely a means to sweep problems under the rug,” a statement issued by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an ethics watchdog group that has filed many complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics said.
“If the 115th Congress begins with rules amendments undermining OCE, it is setting itself up to be dogged by scandals and ethics issues for years and is returning the House to dark days when ethics violations were rampant and far too often tolerated.”
One Republican House aide disputed the suggestion Monday night that the Office of Congressional Complaint Review is a new entity, arguing that the staff that now works for the Office of Congressional Ethics would remain largely the same and the outside board overseeing it would also continue to exist.
“It’s the same office, same people, most of the same rules,” said the House aide, who did not have authorization to speak on the record.
Among the most prominent cases first brought by the Office of Congressional Ethics, since it was created, include an investigation into Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, who was accused of intervening with the Treasury Department to attempt to assist a struggling bank in which her husband owned stock.
Waters was cleared of allegations of wrongdoing by the House Ethics Committee, but it criticized the actions of her grandson, who served as her chief of staff, and urged the House to consider broadening the ban on lawmakers hiring their relatives to include grandchildren.
By moving all of the authority within the Ethics Committee, several ethics lawyers said, the House risked becoming far too self-protective of members accused of wrongdoing.
Bryson Morgan, who worked as an investigative lawyer at the Office of Congressional Ethics from 2013 until 2015, said that under his interpretation of the new rules, the members of the House Ethics Committee could move to stop an inquiry even before it was completed.
“This is huge,” Morgan, who now defends lawmakers targeted in ethics investigations. “It effectively allows the committee to shut down any independent investigation into member misconduct. Historically the ethics committee has failed to investigate member misconduct.”
Republicans get Caught with Hand in the Cookie Jar
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif. discusses the move by House Republicans to gut the Office of Government Ethics, during a television interview in Washington on Tuesday.
In case you were holding out faint hope that a Donald Trump administration and Republican-dominated Congress would not be an ethical dumpster fire, the events of the past 24 hours have hopefully disabused you of that Pollyannish notion.
On Monday night, as most Americans were enjoying the end of a long holiday weekend, House Republicans showed their true colors. In a secret vote — and with no public deliberation — they approved a measure that would have gutted Congress’s Office of Congressional Ethics and basically removed its independence as a watchdog.
The move had been motivated, in part, by complaints from House Republicans that the office had been too zealous in its pursuit of ethical violations by members of Congress. Upon hearing this news and reflecting on the fact that congressional Republicans spent several years and millions of taxpayer dollars and several years investigating Benghazi, “irony” reportedly keeled over and died.
But as quickly as Congress sought to shed any reasonable accountability for its actions, a backlash soon developed. Social media were ablaze with denunciations of the GOP’s move. Capitol Hill switchboards lit up with calls from angry constituents, and even President-elect Trump weighed in against it. By midday Tuesday, the GOP’s ethics proposal was dead, as the party’s leadership pulled the proposal from consideration.
It’s important to understand what did and did not happen here. Congressional Republicans acted in the same manner as they pretty much always have when they control Congress — they overreached. This time it was to feather their own nest. Soon it will be to repeal Obamacare, privatize Medicare, or whatever other politically unpopular idea strikes their fancy. But make no mistake: This Congress has little interest in ethical oversight, of either its own actions or those of the next president. They have little interest in ensuring that Trump isn’t personally profiting from the presidency or in making sure that he isn’t in violation of the Constitution the moment he takes office. Indeed, House Republicans have even made clear they aren’t even going to bother with conducting oversight of President Trump, not more than a month after pledging to spend four years investigating Hillary Clinton if she were elected president.
This time, however, Republicans got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but it would be a mistake to view the reversal as recognition that they made a blunder. According to House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy (who opposed the ethics measure), “This wasn’t the best time to go forward” with it.
President-elect Trump took the exact same position.
in a series of tweets Tuesday morning, he said, “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it . . . may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, health care and so many other things of far greater importance!”
So Mr. Drain the Swamp thinks an ethics watchdog is “unfair” but that moving forward on this now is bad timing. Yet neither he nor McCarthy appears to be bothered at all by the actions themselves — ones that would make it nearly impossible for independent ethics investigations of congressional wrongdoing.
For those of us who have followed the actions of Republicans in Congress and the executive branch over the past 15 years, none of this is a surprise. Bending ethics rules and violating democratic norms are par for the course. Indeed, the main reason the Office of Congressional Ethics existed is because of congressional scandals in the ’00s, most famously one involving Jack Abramoff, which implicated several key Republicans, including former House Majority Leader Tom Delay. If you’re seeking a more contemporary example or norm and rule-bending just look at what Republicans did in North Carolina last month to undermine a new Democratic governor — and maintain GOP rule there.
Anyone who voted for Republicans in November with the expectation they would drain the swamp should perhaps wake up to reality. In an election in which the GOP standard-bearer regularly assailed the lack of ethics and transparency of his opponent, voters have empowered a political party with no interest in transparency or ethics. Today’s reversal by the House Republicans is welcome news, but this is only just the beginning of the ill wind emanating from Republican-controllled Capitol Hill.
Who will stand up to Donald Trump?
Here’s a sentence that I expect to use a lot over the next four years: Donald Trump is a petulant, thin-skinned, and vindictive man-child.
Here’s the sentence that I’m increasingly fearful I’m going to end up writing in the next four years: The target of Donald Trump’s latest Twitter attack was violently assaulted.
Trump’s lashing out at those who he believes have slighted him is only going to get worse — and the consequences could be dire.
None of this should be surprising. From his attacks on “loser” Mitt Romney and the “dishonest” media to the Khan family, Alicia Machado, and the Pope, Trump regularly took to Twitter during the campaign to attack those who had dared utter a negative word about him. Since winning the White House, Trump has given no indication that he intends to act more presidential, or even like an actual adult.
Everyone, it seems, is fair game — whether it’s the cast of “Hamilton’’ or Alec Baldwin, who imitates him on “Saturday Night Live.’’
When the CEO of Boeing recently offered a tepid critique of Trump’s protectionist trade views, Trump immediately jumped on Twitter to attack the company. He claimed that, as president, he would end the $4 billion contract with Boeing to build a new Air Force One. Trump was of course lying. There is no $4 billion contract with Boeing. But the quick drop in Boeing’s stock price sent an unmistakable message about the consequences of getting on Trump’s bad side.
When questions were raised about Trump’s phone call with the new Taiwanese president, which upended more than 35 years of delicate US diplomacy in the Far East, Trump took to Twitter to defend the move and attack his critics, and then he turned around and bashed China — which only further compounded Trump’s diplomatic blunder. .
While Trump’s childish attacks could have a chilling effect on those inclined to criticize him, there is greater reason for concern.
Consider the experience of Chuck Jones, the head of the local union responsible for the workers at the Carrier plant in Indiana, who accurately went on TV and said Trump was misleading Americans about the number of jobs he saved. Trump savaged him on Twitter. He accused Jones of doing a “terrible job” representing workers and said that if his local union was “any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana.” Once you get past the surreal nature of an alleged billionaire who lives in an apartment that looks like it was designed by Saddam Hussein’s interior decorator bashing working-class Americans who work in a factory in Indiana, this is pretty scary stuff. Here’s the president-elect of the United States attacking a private citizen who criticized him. Jones is now getting death threats from outraged Trump supporters.
All of this comes on the heels of the frightening escalation of the bizarre “pizzagate” story, a fever swamp falsehood that alleged a Washington, D.C., pizzeria was, in fact, the headquarters of a child sex ring run by Hillary Clinton. The utter insanity of the story did not dissuade many from buying the accusations, and this week, one true believer, Edgar Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington — with his trusty assault rifle — to free the children he’d read online were held in tunnels underneath the restaurant. Thankfully no one was hurt, though Welch did fire his weapon.
It’s only a matter of time, it seems, before someone does get hurt, perhaps emboldened by Trump’s unhinged behavior. Trump supporters are already verbally and physically attacking the same groups Trump scapegoated on the campaign trail. This week, it was a young Muslim woman on a New York City subway wearing a hijab. Who knows who’s next?
There are so many reasons to be fearful of a Trump presidency, but the ease with which he uses his bully pulpit to lash out at practially anyone who displeases him should send chills up the back of any freedom-loving American. These are the actions of an authoritarian, one backed up by his unquestioning supporters, who are all too happy, it seems, to translate his words into actions. Worst of all, there is evidently no one who can tell Trump to knock it off. Not the coterie of sycophantic aides who indulge his childish animosities; not cowardly congressional Republicans too fearful of upsetting Trump’s supporters or inflaming the man himself; and not the cable news networks and mainstream media who treat Trump’s actions as a topic of political debate rather than as evidence of his derangement.
The president-elect is the most dangerous man in America. The question now, for which there is as yet no answer, is: Who will stand up to him?
Ill-informed Electorate
Much has been written about the media’s failures in covering election 2016, so today let’s widen the focus to include a touchier topic: What of the voters’ shortcomings? To function well, after all, democracy needs an informed citizenry — and here, the evidence is dispiriting.
Granted, in some instances, the media’s failure to put a story in proper perspective certainly added to the confusion. Far too much, for example, was made over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her time as secretary of state. It was always unlikely that this controversy would go anywhere legally. But the breathless coverage that this supposed scandal got helped create the impression in Americans’ minds that something truly serious had happened.
Now, obviously the Trump troops and GOP convention-goers who engaged in the dopey “lock her up” chants were never inclined to look carefully at the issue. But if reporters had devoted more time and energy to explaining the legal principles and precedents that guide prosecutions for mishandling classified information, other voters might well have had a better sense of perspective.
In other matters, however, the responsibility lies with the citizenry. How, for example, could anyone who has followed the issue at all believe that the number of people with health insurance had declined as a result of Obamacare? And yet, at least according to a mid-December survey, 37 percent of Trump voters thought so, with an equal percentage saying the number of Americans with health insurance had remained the same. The facts there were readily available to anyone willing to invest a little effort. For example, they might simply have Googled “Obamacare, percentage uninsured.” They’d have found some dispute over how many millions more had health care coverage, but not over the basic truth that more now do. (They might even have turned up a clip of Chris Wallace of Fox News taking Ted Cruz to task for spreading misinformation about the ACA.)
And when it comes to getting the basics wrong, how about this? According to post-election surveys, somewhere between 32 percent and 52 percent of Republican voters seem to think Donald Trump won the national popular vote. That’s a stunning level of confusion.
What, meanwhile, can one say about the people who took seriously the cross-eyed-crazy conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and her campaign were involved with a child-sex ring conducted from beneath a Washington pizza parlor? It’s lunacy on horseback. And yet, if the mid-December Economist/YouGov poll is to be believed, almost half of registered Republicans thought Clinton staffers’ leaked e-mails “contained code words for pedophilia, human trafficking and satanic ritual abuse — what some people refer to as ‘Pizzagate.’ ” That susceptibility to conspiracy theories positively boggles the mind.
Back in the late 1980s, a revisionist would-be historian alleged that Dwight Eisenhower had maneuvered to lower the rations for German POWs held by Americans after World War II in order to starve them to death. After a conference of experts examined the charge and found it baseless, Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose explained what had actually happened: In a time of severe food shortages, the allied high command had decided the German prisoners would be fed at the same level as the civilian population in Germany, which was close to a subsistence diet.
Ambrose offered a simple answer to the question of how a layperson can assess allegations like the one made against Ike. Trust common sense. One test he posed: “Is this . . . consistent with our picture of Eisenhower’s character as we know it from innumerable other sources?”
Regardless of their political inclinations, the common-sense test alone should have left Republicans immensely skeptical about Internet allegations that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were involved in a child-sex-ring. That it didn’t is deeply depressing for the state of our democracy.
Trump Embraces Ethics for Other POLITICIANS
Trump got it half-right. Stripping the Office of Congressional Ethics of its power to investigate wrongdoing should not be a priority for House Republicans — or, for that matter, for any member of Congress, regardless of party affiliation.
However, Trump could have also used the opportunity to assure Americans that ethical conduct is a priority, not just for Congress but for his own presidency. He did not go that far, and indeed, used the word “unfair” to describe the work of the watchdog office.
As The New York Times pointed out, the ethics office, created in 2008 to conduct independent investigations of House members and employees, has been the target of bipartisan criticism about supposed violations of due process rights. Lawmakers, meeting behind closed doors on Monday, voted to undermine the office’s authority by ruling out anonymous complaints or public statements about investigations.
Partisan outrage to those changes quickly followed. “Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions. Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi in a statement.
On Tuesday morning, Trump weighed in with two consecutive tweets : “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it . . . may be,
their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!” Not long after Trump’s tweets, Politico reported that House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) offered a motion, accepted by his fellow Republican lawmakers, to restore the current rules governing the ethics office.
As the Democratic National Committee noted in a statement, Trump did not oppose the evisceration, just the urgency to make it a priority. Ethics questions continue to swirl around him, given the many conflicts presented by his business and real estate assets and the presidency he’s about to assume. It will be hard for him to hold others to the highest ethical standards until he shows he’s willing to apply them to himself as well.
Congressman Goodlatte Decides To Refill The Swamp By Gutting Congressional Ethics Office... But Drops It After Bad Publicity.
House Republicans have magically dropped this plan, after it received a ton of negative press overnight, and had tons of inbound phone calls and, yes, even our President Elect sort of (but not really) came out against the plan. While the Bloomberg article above credits Trump for this, if you read what he actually said, he does call the Office of Congressional Ethics "unfair," he just says this isn't a priority now (perhaps meaning the following plan will come back in the future). Since this is still a possibility, here's the original post.
Well, we're into a new year, and the promised "swamp draining" in Washington DC continues to move in the other direction. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (whose name you may remember from the fact that he's leading the charge on copyright reform (but who has a history of being terrible on copyright), or perhaps from the fact that he's also bad on surveillance) has made the surprise move of completely gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics, and basically taking away its independence from Congress.
The OCE was created in 2008 in response to the Jack Abramoff scandal, and some other Congressional corruption scandals, that resulted in three members of Congress going to jail. The OCE was an independent office that was set up to investigate Congressional ethics and corruption violations. Not surprisingly, not everyone in Congress was thrilled about having an independent office investigating them, so Goodlatte seems to have made sure that won't be a problem -- and he did so without any warning, without any debate and even against the wishes of the leadership of his own party:
The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure.
The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, where emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The House Republicans’ move would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries.
It also came on the eve of a historic shift in power in Washington, where Republicans control both houses of Congress and where a wealthy businessman with myriad potential conflicts of interest is preparing to move into the White House. Continue reading the main story
Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, spoke out during the meeting to oppose the measure, aides said on Monday night.
Goodlatte, has put out a somewhat ridiculous statement defending the move, claiming (incorrectly) that this strengthens OCE's mission. Of course, then he also notes that it "improves upon the due process rights" of members of Congress. But experts note that all it's really doing is letting Congress take control over the previously independent organization, and giving Congress the power to kill investigations. I guess that's one way to "improve due process rights." But, really, was there really a problem with the "due process rights" of members of Congress being investigated for corruption and ethics violations?
In fact, Buzzfeed does a nice job showing all of the ways in which this does the exact opposite of what Goodlatte claims concerning "strengthening" OCE's mission:
6 Things House Republicans want ethics investigators to stop doing.
1. The OCE should no longer be independent. Insteads, it will be under the House's Committee on Ethics, which is run by members of Congress.
2. The office will no longer be able to accept anonymous tips from whistleblowers.
3. The ethics office must stop any investigation if the House ethics committee tells them to.
4. The ethics office cannot investigate any tips of misconduct that took place before Jan. 3, 2011
5. The office can no longer talk about its findings -- even hire a spokesperson.
6. OCE cannot investigate any criminal cases or turn allegations of corruption over to law enforcement.
That, uh, does not sound at all like "strengthening" OCE's mission. It sounds like the exact opposite. In other news, Rep. Goodlatte's statement over this is a blatant lie.
Politico has some details of how some members who had been investigated by the OCE supported gutting it, claiming that they felt unfairly targeted -- even though all of the examples given resulted in OCE deciding there were no ethics violations. It's entirely possible that OCE may have been annoying for Congress to deal with, but no one seems to have presented any evidence that it ever came to conclusions that were incorrect or unfair -- just that their investigations were annoying. And... so what? Congress should be under a microscope when it comes to ethics and corruption. The whole idea that Congress itself can just unilaterally undermine its own oversight is pretty ridiculous -- especially at a time when so few trust Congress, and so many believe it to be so corrupt.
Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news, Rep. Goodlatte famously dined with the MPAA right after a hearing on copyright reform, and MPAA boss Chris Dodd has told every MPAA studio that they need to donate at least $40k each to Rep. Goodlatte. Again, I'm sure that's a total coincidence and completely unrelated to the story above.
The Surveillance Oversight Board Is Dead And It's Unlikely President Trump Will Revive It.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) -- at least partially responsible for recent surveillance reforms -- is dead. The first hints of its demise were tucked away in the annual intelligence budget, which gave Congress direct control of the PCLOB's investigative activities.
The last vestiges of the board's independence have been stripped away and it seems unlikely the incoming president is going to have much interest in restoring this essential part of intelligence oversight. Congress now has the power to steer the PCLOB's investigations. A new stipulation requiring the PCLOB to report directly to legislators means intelligence officials will be less forthcoming when discussing surveillance efforts with board members.
At best, the PCLOB would have limped on -- understaffed and neutered. That was back when the news was still good (but only in comparison). The Associate Press reports that Donald Trump is being handed the keys to a well-oiled surveillance machine, but with hardly any of the pesky oversight that ruins the fun.
The five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will have only two remaining members as of Jan. 7 — and zero Democrats even though it is required to operate as an independent, bipartisan agency. The vacancies mean it will lack the minimum three members required to conduct business and can work only on ongoing projects.
This could be fixed quickly, but it would require Trump nominating members and having the Senate approve them. It took well over a half-decade for President Obama to do this, so it wasn't even a priority for a president who promised to helm the "most transparent administration." These vacancies will probably be left open by an incoming president who seems largely uninterested in safeguarding civil liberties.
The PCLOB's report was instrumental in the challenged renewal of the Section 215 bulk collection program. The board might have played a similar role in the Section 702 renewal discussion in 2017, but with it out of the way, there's a good chance it won't receive as much of a challenge as the NSA's phone metadata program. (Then again, the PCLOB wasn't very critical of this internet backbone-tapping collection program, despite it harvesting far more than "just metadata.")
More critically, it left some work unfinished -- its investigation into the executive order underpinning the government's many intelligence programs.
Already in limbo is a public oversight report on the use of a Reagan-era executive order that since 1981 has authorized sweeping powers by intelligence agencies like the NSA to spy even on innocent Americans abroad and never has been subject to meaningful oversight from Congress or courts...
The privacy panel's report on the order is stalled and there's no work being done on it, according to the individual, who has knowledge about the project's status. Some individual agency reports related to the order were expected to be completed before the board loses its quorum, the person said.
The PCLOB is dead, for all intents and purposes. It survives in name only, awaiting presidential attention it's unlikely to receive. The last 15 years have shown what a lack of oversight can result in. The past couple of years have seen some encouraging movements towards accountability and transparency, but without the PCLOB's ability to perform its own investigations and, more importantly, deliver its findings to the public, further reform efforts are likely to be snuffed out.
Trump Still Falsely Taking Credit For Sprint Jobs He Had Nothing To Do With
Last month, we noted how Donald Trump proudly implied he was single-handedly responsible for Japan's Softbank bringing 50,000 jobs and $50 billion in investment to the United States. The problem, of course, is that it's not clear those numbers are entirely real, and there's absolutely no evidence suggesting they had anything to do with Donald Trump. The jobs were first unveiled back in October as part of a somewhat ambiguous $100 billion global investment investment fund between Softbank and Saudi Arabia aimed at boosting technology spending worldwide.
Some of that money could end up in the United States in the form of investment and jobs, but it has never been entirely clear how much. It's even less clear given that Softbank's Sprint here in the states has been trimming thousands of jobs over the last few years as it struggles with soaring debt. Still, all it took was a Manhattan meeting with Softbank Chair Masayoshi Son -- and a few Tweets by the President-elect -- to have the newswires filled with stories about how Donald Trump was somehow already performing miracles before even taking office:
It was, of course, quietly pointed out by many that Softbank's pledge didn't have anything to do with Trump and had, in fact, been announced more than a month before Trump was even elected. But over the holiday, Sprint intentionally reignited the story again, announcing via press release that the company would be hiring as many as 5,000 new employees at Sprint over the next four years. Again, this was all thanks to the investment plans Softbank had already announced, but Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure was quick to feed Trump's ego by vaguely tying his administration to the (potential) new jobs:
Trump tweeted Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs....Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!
"We are excited to work with President-Elect Trump and his Administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S.,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. "We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans."
That allowed Trump to launch a new media event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, again implying the jobs he had absolutely nothing to do with creating were somehow thanks to his incredible business accumen (even as the same reports now try to inform people this just isn't true):
"I was just called by the head people at Sprint, and they are going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States," Mr. Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "They have taken them from other countries. They are bringing them back to the United States."
...Although Mr. Trump claimed credit for SoftBank’s $50 billion investment in the United States, those plans predated the election, and Mr. Son has owned a controlling stake in Sprint, among other companies, for several years.
So what's actually happening here? And why would Sprint be encouraging the press to falsely give Trump credit for something he had nothing to do with? Because Masayoshi Son wants regulatory approval for the company's planned acquisition of T-Mobile, which was rejected by U.S. regulators in 2014 because it would have reduced sector competition (and, ironically, jobs). Son has been pushing for another chance ever since, and apparently sees feeding Trump's ego as a smart path to success. Of course, as the New York Times noted today, Softbank and Sprint aren't the only companies pursuing this particular strategy.
Sure, it's possible that Trump is encouraging the false claims and undeserved press just for PR benefit and has no intention of giving Son what he wants.
But there's no real signs that's true. There's every indication that Trump intends to appoint revolving door regulators and telecom sector allies to the FCC. These folks have made it clear they intend to gut the agency and strip back numerous consumer protections, including net neutrality. They've also made it clear they don't think things like telecom monopolies are real, and they're unlikely to appoint any FCC Commissioner eager to use his regulatory authority to thwart job-killing mega-mergers like Sprint T-Mobile. Most analysts believe the telecom sector will soon be getting everything it wants, and then some.
The end result of these policies is going to be something decidedly less pleasant than is being sold, suggesting that everybody may want to keep their receipts.
Donald Trump is, once again, taking credit for jobs he had no part in creating.
Donald Trump is taking credit for a jobs deal that he objectively had nothing to do with.
The president-elect bragged on Wednesday about brokering a deal in which Sprint will bring 5,000 jobs to the United States and another company, OneWeb, will bring 3,000 jobs into this country. This is consistent with a theme that Trump has been spouting off about on Twitter all week — namely, that he deserves credit for the nation’s currently prosperous economic conditions.
The American voters have elected an idiot as president.
The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index for December surged nearly four points to 113.7, THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN MORE THAN 15 YEARS! Thanks Donald!
“Because of what’s happening and the spirit and the hope I was just called by the head people at Sprint and they’re going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States,” Trump said to reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Wednesday. “Masa and some other people were very much involved with that.”
The problem is that, like so much of what Trump says, it simply isn’t true.
“This is part of the 50,000 jobs that Masa previously announced,” said a Sprint spokeswoman to Engadget on Wednesday. “This total will be a combination of newly created jobs and bringing some existing jobs back to the U.S.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on a $100 billion tech investment deal in October, before Trump even became president-elect. ABC News has confirmed that the 5,000 Sprint jobs are part of a 50,000 job deal that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son had planned weeks ago.
Per @alex_mallin a Sprint spokesperson tells ABC "the 5,000 jobs are part of the 50,000 jobs that Masa Son announced a few weeks ago."
Although Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has been happy to share credit for the deal with Trump on Twitter, neither he nor any of the other participants have offered a scintilla of evidence that Trump played any kind of role.
While it’s understandably why the business community wishes to remain on Trump’s good side, it doesn’t do America any favors when Trump gets credit for creating jobs without actually having to do anything. Now the president-elect can add lying about the Sprint deal to his lies about the Ford deal and the Carrier deal.
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