Patterico's Pontifications

5/18/2020

A Contrast Of Two Men

Filed under: General — Dana @ 1:23 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Let’s let the tweets do the talking.

Saturday:

Monday:

[Ed. What’s funny is, I think Trump is so delusional that he actually believes he could have beaten Obama in 2008 and/or 2012...]

P.S. Two other Republicans have publicly questioned the firing:

“As I’ve said before, Congress requires written reasons justifying an IG’s removal. A general lack of confidence simply is not sufficient detail to satisfy Congress,” Grassley said in a statement.

Late Saturday night, Maine Sen. Susan Collins also responded to the firing in a series of tweets that suggested Linick’s dismissal didn’t meet the standard required by law.

“The President has not provided the kind of justification for the removal of IG Linick required by this law,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, referencing a law she co-authored in 2008, as part of a Twitter thread.

–Dana

34 Responses to “A Contrast Of Two Men”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. I don’t think that anyone who is OK with this supports limited government.
    The IG have been a key check on the power of the executive branch who work jointly for congress. Obama’s stonewalling should have been met with institutional changes to limit executive power. If congress couldn’t pass them with him in office they should have done so as soon as Trump was elected. But that’s impossible because Trump is a dumpster fire.

    I expect our next competent president to take actions of similar impact in a boring way that sounds plausible and garners very little public attention. To the detriment of anyone who thinks the federal government has too much power.

    Time123 (daab2f)

  3. @2 Yep. Congress really needs to take back a lot of the powers they have actually or defacto ceded to the executive branch. It’s part of the intended checks and balances, but all the do is whine with the other guy is in and cheer on the abuses when their guy is in. Somebody needs to get some gumption.

    Nic (896fdf)

  4. RIP – Ken Osmond

    ‘Eddie Haskell’, one of the all-time great TV characters.

    Also a top cop:

    “ In 1970, Osmond joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and grew a mustache which helped to secure his anonymity. He worked as a motorcycle officer. On September 20, 1980, Osmond was struck by five bullets while in a foot chase with a suspected car thief. He was protected from four of the bullets by his bullet-resistant vest, with the fifth bullet ricocheting off of his belt buckle. Osmond was placed on disability and in 1988 retired from the force.”

    _

    harkin (8f4a6f)

  5. I don’t think that anyone who is OK with this supports limited government.

    Well, there sure are a lot of silent Republican lawmakers who are silent on this…

    Dana (0feb77)

  6. #3,

    The rule is: the rules only apply when the other guy is in office.

    Dana (0feb77)

  7. I think its the opposite (@Nic and @Time123).

    The IG is a creature of two bosses… being that it’s an executive position, thus is subordinate to POTUS. Yet, the IG also reports to Congress.

    The idea that every single IG appointee is going to operate in good faith, with non-partisanship is a bit of a stretch.

    Frankly, Congress already have the ability to “check” on the executives…namely:
    a) blocking the president’s agenda
    b) slow-walking his nominees
    c) conducting oversight hearing that can be embarrasing
    d) to, yes, impeachment

    whembly (c30c83)

  8. #8 LOL… Trump affirms that he’s been taking Hydroxychloriquine these past few weeks.

    However, given his age and his eating happens… this would stress his cardiac system due to the know QTc prolongation.

    Literally putting his words in his mouth here…

    Seriously though, he’ll need to be constantly monitored.

    whembly (c30c83)

  9. The rule is: the rules only apply when the other guy is in office.

    What is “Situational Ethics”?

    I’ll take “Draining the Swamp” for $400, Alex.

    Dave (1bb933)

  10. Be very, very careful the idiot govna of assholeachusetts is hunting small businesses.
    mittens/charlie parker/2020

    mg (8cbc69)

  11. Kind of telling that people aren’t even sure which one of Pompeo’s scandals the IG was fired for investigating.

    There are apparently at least four:

    1) Using a staffer for personal chores
    2) His wife’s frequent unofficial travel at taxpayer expense
    3) Declaring a bogus emergency to circumvent congressional ban on arm sales to the Saudis
    4) Numerous trips to Kansas at taxpayer expense while considering a senate run

    More

    Dave (1bb933)

  12. Not sure Trump even knows which one, Dave.

    Dana (0feb77)

  13. @7 Were you happy with the extent of executive branch power when Obama was in? Because it hasn’t gotten any better and, I would argue, has gotten worse.

    Nic (896fdf)

  14. @13 Not really. The IG framework is a mess.

    Also, I’m not sure if it is any worse or better under current administration.

    whembly (c30c83)

  15. Obama never declared a state of emergency in order to steal military funds for a project that Congress used their powers deliberately NOT to fund.

    Nic (896fdf)

  16. I’m sorry, Dana. Mostly your posts are flawless, but I really must take issue with the title of this one. It is not a contrast of two men. It is a contrast of one man and one 260-pound pile of New York sewer sludge.

    nk (1d9030)

  17. @15

    Obama never declared a state of emergency in order to steal military funds for a project that Congress used their powers deliberately NOT to fund.

    Nic (896fdf) — 5/18/2020 @ 3:14 pm

    And?

    Do you know what Congress did for future bills? The put riders in it to expressly prohibit Trump from moving future allocated $$$ to the border wall.

    That, ladies and gentleman, is what I call Congress exercising their Article powers to “check” on the Executive.

    whembly (c30c83)

  18. @17 my point being that the current administration is worse

    Nic (896fdf)

  19. One man (Trump) is trash, the other a gentleman (Mitt).

    But here is the thing. When Mitt ran, much of the media treated him like trash. Now he is their favorite Republican.

    And, media darling Obama was protected with a tissue of fawning and lies.

    That is how we got Trump. Trump is a mendacious liar. But “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,” was also a mendacious lie, one that had profound policy effect. Yet it received far less scrutiny.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  20. Trump is not taking hydroxychloroquine for the coronavirus. He’s taking it for something else:

    Hydroxychloroquine suppresses acute-phase reactants, lymphocyte responsiveness, macrophage function, and cytokine release. Inflammatory mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease: implications for therapy. In rheumatoid arthritis, this drug is a well established, slow-acting, disease-modifying treatment

    But it’s a Hail Mary.

    Effect of hydroxychloroquine on progression of dementia in early Alzheimer’s disease: an 18-month randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

    nk (1d9030)

  21. Romney is wrong, this is not unprecedented.

    Obama fired IGs also: https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2009/06/18/obama-has-fired-2-igs-in-2-weeks-leashed-another/

    kaf (0ff60d)

  22. A Stunned Neil Cavuto Warns About Hydroxychloroquine After Trump Says He’s Taking the Drug: ‘What Have You Got to Lose? … Your Life’
    ……
    Fox News’ Neil Cavuto was so shocked by President Donald Trump announcing he’s taking hydroxychloroquine that he took a few minutes to explicitly warn viewers about the risks of taking it.

    At one point the president asked “what have you got to lose,” but as Cavuto said, “A number of studies, those certainly vulnerable in the population have one thing to lose, their lives. A VA study showed that among a population of veterans in a hospital receiving this treatment, those with vulnerable conditions, respiratory conditions, heart elements, they died.”
    ….
    [Dr. Bob] Lahita [chairman of medicine at St. Joseph University Hospital] continued warning viewers about the serious risks, and at one point Cavuto just straight-up asked him, “The president says, ‘What have you got to lose? It sounds like what you’re saying, you have a risk of losing your life if you do about the president just recommended.”

    “That’s correct,’ Lahita said. “Everything has a trade-off. And these drugs can be very dangerous. And if they don’t have any effect, there’s no reason to take them.”
    ……

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  23. Right ventricle enlargement a major predictor for mortality among COVID patients, new study finds
    Enlargement of one of the heart’s four chambers — the right ventricle — was the best predictor of which patients with severe Covid-19 infections were most likely to die, doctors reported Monday.

    A team of doctors from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai looked at the health records of 105 Covid patients hospitalized at Mount Sinai Morningside in New York City between March 26th and April 22nd.

    Of the 105 patients in the study, 32 of them — or 31% — had dilation of the right ventricle based on an echocardiogram, or ultrasound of the heart. Of these, 41% died by the end of the study period, compared to 11% of those without right ventricular enlargement.
    …….
    The reason behind the new findings remains unknown. Enlargement of the right ventricle may be caused by obstruction of blood flow in the lungs due to blood clots or lung tissue damage, according to the new study’s authors.
    ……

    Ripmurdock (bbf61d)

  24. @23 – Sounds more like correlation than causation.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  25. @18

    @17 my point being that the current administration is worse

    Nic (896fdf) — 5/18/2020 @ 4:10 pm

    I most definitely disagree. Gimme Trump, warts and all, over any period of the Obama era.

    whembly (c30c83)

  26. “This… all of this:”

    I was only able to read the first sentence before I died of irony poisoning.

    Attorney General Barr is right in his commitment to purge the Justice Department and the FBI of their recent political proclivities.

    Davethulhu (6c08ad)

  27. @25 See above comment @3.

    @26 That entire article is “I AM OUTRAGED OUTRAGED OUTRAGED ABOUT THIS TERRIBLE THING OUTRAGED I SAY ABOUT THE TERRIBLE um nevermind, nothing important happened here.”

    Nic (896fdf)

  28. I wouldn’t be surprised if his physician is giving him a very low dose of hydroxychloroquine or even a placebo.

    DRJ (15874d)

  29. He should give him distemper shots.

    nk (1d9030)

  30. Excellent argument on Trump’s side, all Romney had to do was win and he could have protected all the ineffective ‘independent’ Inspectors Generals who somehow never made derogatory information about the last Administration’s Secretaries of State public.

    Laughing at ‘political’ when ‘independent’ is the real howler is the sign of either a DC neophyte or someone who wants to mislead DC neophytes for his own benefit. But how many people are left who don’t already know the score?

    Zincfree World (dbcd33)

  31. Didn’t Mittens, the only “Republican” to vote to remove Trump for a bogus impeachment, also attack Trump for firing the IG? Lets not assume its just Collins.

    rcocean (846d30)

  32. Bringing up prior D behavior to justify R behavior NEVER works with the MSM. They just ignore it. Or claim ‘This is different’. IRC, Clinton fired all the Federal District Attorneys and replaced them with his own people and no one in the Press cared. When Bush did it in 2001, it was THE GREATEST SCANDAL EVER.

    This is similar. Obama could fire IG’s and who cared? No one. Now every IG fired by trump is evidence of some not proven corruption.

    rcocean (846d30)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0833 secs.