Are the GOP Planning to Make America (And the World) Even Worse Off If Trump Loses?

Think Vlad Putin is a threat to America? The Russian thug can't hold a candle to what Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have in store for their Star Spangled Bungle if they fail to take the White House on November 8.

Few would argue that the legislative branch of America's federal government - Congress - has been utterly dysfunctional over the 8-years of the Obama administration, particularly the House of Representatives. Far more energy has been invested in seeing that nothing gets accomplished by the Republican dominated House and Senate than in actually doing anything. The GOP leadership has acted as though they were elected to subvert the government, not serve it - and America.

An article in The New Republic warns that the GOP could become even more extreme under a Clinton presidency.

“I think if Clinton should get elected, I guarantee you in one year she’ll be impeached and indicted,” Trump’s top surrogate, Rudy Giuliani, told conservatives in Iowa on Wednesday. “It’s just going to happen. We’re going to sort of vote for a Watergate.”

We know from recent history what Republicans mean when they say, in effect, “elect us or there will be gridlock”: They mean they will paralyze government unless they control it all. In 2009 and 2010, this manifested in the weaponization of the filibuster. When Republicans cobbled together more power after the 2010 midterms, they threatened government shutdowns and took the country to within hours of an artificial solvency crisis that would’ve caused a national if not a worldwide economic crisis. Once Democrats began passing bills and issuing regulations, Republicans turned to federal courts, inventing novel, opportunistic legal theories and interpretations in the hope that conservative judges and the conservative Supreme Court would use them as pretext for vacating Obama’s agenda. In this, they have frequently succeeded.

If Republicans retain the Senate, it’s likely that they will prevent Clinton from filling Supreme Court vacancies. Notably, almost nobody in the party is intervening to promise swift confirmation for qualified nominees, to counter those who are promising indiscriminate obstruction. This would amount to a legitimation crisis, unprecedented in our modern history, but astonishingly it wouldn’t constitute the most troubling possible outcome.

If Democrats reclaim the Senate, but can only confirm Clinton’s nominees by further eroding the filibuster, Republican voters will extend the presumption of illegitimacy from Clinton to her nominees and then to their legally binding decisions. Filling the existing vacancy with a liberal justice would effectively turn the Roberts Court into the Kagan Court, which would begin issuing decisions that conservatives abhor almost immediately. But if conservatives perceive the president who appointed the decisive justice as illegitimate, they will reject the new Court’s rulings and pressure their state governments to annul them. (If you think Republican states wouldn’t ignore court orders out of sheer determination or panic, you haven’t been paying attention this election cycle.)

A Republican-controlled Senate could make mischief well beyond judicial vacancies, too, by denying Clinton a cabinet or refusing to fill key administrative vacancies in agencies across government. Imagine, for instance, that Republicans investigate Clinton’s administration—as they’ve prematurely promised to do—and she claims executive privilege over White House communications. Republicans can simply refuse to confirm any more nominees of any kind until she hands the information over. They could concoct nearly any excuse for doing this, in fact, or they could do it just for sport.

You know who this really terrifies? A lot of America's top military commanders, that's who. Military affairs correspondent, Mark Urban, touches on this in his 2014 book, "The Edge," in which he chronicles the hollowing out of Western military superiority.

Urban offers this warning from General Stan McChrystal: "...the most fundamental threat to the US comes not from abroad, but from the failure of our educational system.Absent the ability to produce skilled workers and an educated electorate, it will be impossible to compete in the world."

US Navy admiral, Bill Fallon, finds the issue of political gridlock in Washington deeply disturbing. "Our biggest problem is really domestic, our seeming inability to clean up our act here at home politically and economically."

America's prowess in the years ahead is dependent on foreign creditors, including one or more of its major rivals, continuing to be willing to buy American government debt denominated in American dollars. A refusal to buy American debt at current favourable interest rates or a switch to one or more alternate currencies for debt purchases could be devastating for the world economy, but especially America's, and for America's military posture abroad.

If the GOP turns on their nation's government, effectively bringing Washington to its knees, it could trigger "a run on the banks" by foreign creditors and tempt America's military rivals to exploit the situation to expand their presence and influence whether in northeastern Europe, the South China Sea, the Middle East or even Africa.

In the post-Soviet era, America saw the world as its backyard. That sort of dominance becomes intrusive, resented and invites push back when weakness or opportunities are discerned.

If the GOP does carry through with its threats to bring America low the world could become a markedly more dangerous place, almost overnight.

Netanyahu's High-Risk Gambit

What?  I Stepped In What?

With just three weeks to go, Israel's national election has turned into a real nail-biter.  The governing Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu is in a dead heat tie with the rival Zionist Union party, each of which stands to collect 24-seats according to the latest polls.  Of course it's not all that simple.  With 11-parties expected to meet the 4-seat party threshhold, forming a government coalition really is a matter of herding cats.

Being tied for first isn't an enviable position for Netanyahu's Likud, not when the prime minister is about to stage his potentially explosive appearance before a far-less-than-joint session of the US Congress.  Many Democrats are expected to boycott the speech which is seen as an effort by Netanyahu to undermine the White House.  That's worrisome to voters in Israel who hate to see anything that harms Israel's relationship with Washington.  Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden are giving Bibi the cold shoulder.  He won't be received at the White House and Biden won't attend the speech although he's the president of the Senate.

Some of Israel's strongest Democratic supporters tried to reach out to Netanyahu, offering to arrange a separate meeting but Netanyahu returned the snub and rejected their offer.  That'll go over - not well - either on Capitol Hill or in Israel.

The White House is fighting back:

The Obama administration has engineered a series of highly visible snubs of Netanyahu – from refusing a White House invitation and levelling accusations that the Israeli government is not trustworthy to a humiliating leak about new limitations on intelligence sharing – just weeks before the Israeli leader faces a tight general election.

Top administration officials, including Vice-President Joe Biden and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, have made a point of meeting Israeli opposition leaders who have seized on the dispute to characterise Netanyahu as jeopardising relations with Israel’s most important ally.

Aaron David Miller, who served six US secretaries of state as an adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations, said the confrontation marks a further deterioration in an already dysfunctional relationship between Obama and Netanyahu. But Miller, who is now a vice-president at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, said the Israeli leader’s divisive handling has handed the administration an opening “to try to demonstrate how much the US-Israeli relationship is dysfunctional at the top because of Netanyahu” and an opportunity to press for “regime change”.

...Last week, the White House made an unusually direct attack on the Israeli government, accusing it of dishonesty in selectively leaking information about the Iran nuclear talks to the Israeli press in an attempt to discredit the negotiations.

“We see that there is a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States,” said the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest. “There’s no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterising our negotiating position have not been accurate.”

That led the US not only to take the unusual step of limiting the intelligence it shares with Israel about the Iran talks but to embarrass Netanyahu by leaking the move.

Bibi's credibility took another body blow with the leak of documents showing that Netanyahu has been dishonest about the state of Iran's nuclear programme.  The focus has been on his appearance before the UN General Assembly when he claimed that Iran was on the cusp of production of nuclear weapons.  He used a red marker pen to show that Iran was all but ready to go nuke.

Bibi's problem is that even Israel's own and highly-respected intelligence service, Mossad, has a much different opinion.  Mossad's assessment is that Iran is years away from producing a bomb.  In other words, Netanyahu has been freely lying to anyone and everyone about Iran and the imagined threat it poses to Israel.

Well, now that he's pissed off Obama and pretty much every other world leader, that leaves Netanyahu with just one unquestioningly loyal friend, Mr. "Bring on Armageddon" himself, Stephen Harper.

And So It Goes - Layton in the Crosshairs

Stephen Harper couldn't have scripted this any better.

The Globe headline says it all, "Liberal, Tory attack ads zero in on Layton as NDP rise in the polls."   Harper's first electoral gift was Layton turning on Ignatieff, deflecting the NDP effort against the Cons.   Now it's the Liberals predictably doing his bidding, slagging Layton and exposing the abject silliness of his platform.

Any true progressive who doesn't see this opposition infighting as paving the way for a Harper majority is delusional.

Harper made the 2005 election a referendum on the Liberal Party and the sponsorship scandal.   He made the 2008 run off a referendum on Stephane Dion.  Now he's turning this election into a referendum on which opposition party is the worst, in the process turning the faithful of each party against the other opposition  party and ensuring Harper smooth sailing ahead.

Harper probably couldn't have managed a majority against a focused, resolute opposition.  Layton neutered that threat by turning on Ignatieff.   Now Iggy is left with no option but to return the favour.   And that leaves Steve away to the races.

Afghanisnam - Coup Time?

Prominent Americans are beginning to compare Afghan president Hamid Karzai to an earlier troublesome leader, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem who was murdered and removed from power in Saigon in 1963 in a US-backed military coup during the John F Kennedy administration.

David Kilcullen, former counter-insurgency advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq, drew the parallel while speaking to the US Institute of Peace:

"He [Karzai] is seen as ineffective; his family are corrupt; he's alienated a very substantial portion of the population. He seems paranoid and delusional and out of touch with reality. That's all the sort of things that were said about President Diem in 1963."

Then again, who wouldn't be a bit paranoid in Karzai's situation? Washington wants him gone, preferring Tajik rival Abdullah Abdullah. That's driving Karzai ever deeper into the arms of his country's worst warlords.

Asia Times Online outlines a massive US campaign to discredit Karzai:

...the vicious media attack on Karzai continues. Elizabeth Rubin of The New York Times magazine quoted a Western intelligence official as saying, "The Karzai family has opium and blood on their hands ... When history analyses this period and looks at this family, it will uncover a litany of extensive corruption that was tolerated because the West tolerated this family."

Anthony Cordesman, senior foreign policy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who just visited Afghanistan to assist US commander General Stanley McChrystal in the preparation of the Pentagon's review of the current situation, wrote in the Times newspaper that Karzai's government is "corrupt, grossly over-centralized, lacking in capacity and virtually absent in large parts of Afghanistan". In an article in The Washington Post last week, US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry ostentatiously distanced the US from Karzai.

...Abdullah's camp openly threatens to create an "Iran-like situation" in Kabul if Karzai pulls off victory in the August 20 round. If violence ensues, the Tajik-dominated Afghan security will be hard-pressed to control the situation and foreign forces may need to intervene, which is hugely controversial.

On the other hand, if a runoff becomes necessary, a date needs to be fixed for that, which cannot be earlier than end-October. Meanwhile, the Abdullah-Ghani combine, with tacit encouragement from the US, is bound to challenge the legitimacy of Karzai running a government even after its mandate expires on August 20. But Karzai will most certainly resist any demand on him to step down.

... Behind all this looms the grim reality that the Afghan body polity has been hopelessly split on ethnic lines. The election campaign has aggravated the creeping ethnic polarization. Every political issue today takes ethnic overtones. The US should have anticipated this and taken the lead to create a level playing field but instead it narrowly focused on ousting Karzai.

If this assessment is right, Afghanistan is poised to fracture along ethnic lines as the result of this election. There's plenty of reason to fear an anti-Western backlash also following the vote. And we thought the Taliban were trouble enough.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH15Df04.html

(photo - Hamid Karzai shows SHarper the size suit he'll be wearing after the Americans finish carving him up)

Playing Electoral Hardball

This appeal to Democrats, published in The New Republic, holds an invaluable lesson for liberals everywhere:

One of America's quadrennial rituals is liberal shock. Again the Democrats are surprised by the brutality of the Republicans. They are lying. Yes, they are. They want very much to win. So should we lie, too? "We" already have. (John McCain did not say that America should stay in Iraq for a hundred years.) The Democrats believe that, by running roughly, "we" become like "them. " More grandly, the objection is that the moral character of a campaign is a premonition of the moral character of an administration. I do not see the correlation. The "missile gap" made possible the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The "Daisy Girl" was an indirect cause of the Voting Rights Act. And if, as a consequence of exaggerated or erroneous statements about John McCain, universal health care will be established by the next administration, well, the omelette will have been made. And "we" will not have become like "them," because "they" would not deliver this right and this relief to America. I apologize, of course, for my chilliness. I am not unmindful of the relationship of means to ends. I took Kant. But an election is not a seminar; and to worry the means so much more than the ends is also to distort the relationship. The air of ethical exquisiteness in which Barack Obama wraps himself has psychologically hobbled his party. It finds itself elevated and stunned. Yet there is nothing in the history of our democracy that warrants the belief that electoral politics should be elevating: in this regard, we have no height from which to fall. And there is the touchy question of whether the hope for consensus is not also the fear of conflict. Conflict is not--to use Obama's condescending language for whatever gets in his way--always "silly" and "a distraction." As the polls are again demonstrating, this is a divided country, and some of its divisions are honorable, matters of first principle, the effects of worldviews. Conviction is a hardening influence, a partisan thing. All the current talk about political syncretism obscures the fact that there is philosophical gridlock. That is why the "independents" will determine the outcome. Liberals must not perceive the world in the image of their pacific desire.

http://www.tnr.com/toc/story.html?id=eda292db-2a6a-4b29-9459-683dc17b3604

The Battle of Kabul, Ottawa

Well it looks like our Furious Leader has found an issue he's prepared to hang an election on - Afghanistan. Word has it he's going to toss out a confidence motion calling for an extension of Canada's Afghan mission beyond 2009.

Sounds to me like Stephane Dion had better pull his thumb out and find a clear position he can explain to the Canadian public, a position they can support. I'm betting that's what Harpo believes Dion can't do and he plans to make the election a referendum on the Liberal leader. The way everything else is going for Lardo this is probably his best bet.

The first thing Dion needs to do is to ensure that his policy is viable. As Hillier has said we can't stay in Kandahar and not fight. It's bandit country and, unless Dion can get the Taliban to go away, they'll take over if we don't fight to defend our turf. Can't be any simpler.

Reconstruction? Sure, just as soon as we establish an adequate level of security. Oops, there we go again, fighting.

No, I think this is a "take it or leave it" question and the Libs are going to have to support the Cons or fall into line with the Dippers. I'm pretty sure that's what Harpo's thinking too.

Maybe it's time to reassess the whole business. Let's not get snowed by the Manley panel report. It's simply not reality based. An extra thousand soldiers and a few helicopters isn't going to secure Kandahar province, not even close. That's a political sop, nothing more, and Manley ought to be ashamed for playing Harper's stooge.

We could begin by asking what "success" in Afghanistan would look like and then contrast that with conditions on the ground to see what needs to be done to get there if that's even possible. What do we want out of this? What's our bottom line?

If our goal is simply to be a dutiful member of NATO, success or failure against the Taliban is irrelevant, the corrupt and chaotic central government is irrelevant, the Afghan security services that alienate the people in the countryside are irrelevant, the looming unrest and threats from the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan are irrelevant. Just by staying there, we succeed. Afghanistan may utterly fail but that doesn't matter.

If the Canadian people want a "goal oriented" approach then our participation in the NATO/ISAF mission becomes less significant and all the irrelevant considerations above suddenly become very meaningful. Suddenly it becomes relevant that we're not winning against the Taliban. It becomes relevant that the central government is corrupt and unviable. It becomes relevant that the Afghan security services are actually undermining our best efforts to build support among the Afghan people for their central government. The descent into violence and destabilizing religious extremism across the border in Pakistan becomes relevant.

So what we need is to engage the voting public on these issues, to make them see the fundamental flaws in the Afghan mission. The Canadian people have been kept in the dark about this little war and that's understandable - the less they know the better it is for Lardo. The same goes for Hillier. Then there's John Manley. Manley has done Harpo an enormous favour, a shield that Stevie can hide behind and a club he can use to bludgeon Dion.

Working around Harpo, Hillier and Manley will be tough. It'll require a clear message and solid communication with the voting public and I'm not sure the Libs can manage either challenge. Their message is muddled and indecisive and, as for a communicator, well it's Stephane Dion.

The Coherence Vacuum

These days the leaders of Canada's two top parties - and no, that doesn't include the NDP - are eager to avoid having to set actual policy. With their support wobbling like jello in the low to mid-30's, it's as though each sees the way forward as something of a minefield where one mistep could be fatal.

Harper has done almost nothing of consequence this past session of parliament save to lower the GST by one point. He doesn't dare bring out his social conservative agenda for fear he might hand the Liberals a solid majority by default. He talks about global warming and greenhouse gas curbs but ducks and weaves his way around any concrete action. He even dodges Afghanistan, the one issue where his opinions are fixed.

Then there's Stephane Dion, the man most responsible for Harper maintaining even a slim lead in the polls. He says he's green but won't say what that means in terms of the Athabasca Tar Sands and its pending expansion. He says he wants Canada out of its combat role in Afghanistan but wants NATO to somehow kick ass inside Pakistan. He too seems to have less to offer by the day.

Nobody has a coherent policy save, perhaps, for Smilin' Jack, the guy whose greatest ambition is to advance out of the political cellar. Safe from the prospect of ever having to govern, Layton is the very image of clarity and decisiveness. Policies are wonderful things when you'll never have to enact any of them. Wind and noise, that's all there is to Jack Layton.

Mr. Layton's posturing, however insincere and opportunistic, lets neither Dion nor Harper off the hook for failing to express coherent, effective and acceptable policies of their own.

My guess is that Harper truly doesn't want to act. He certainly doesn't want to betray his ideological fellows by being responsible for withdrawal of the Canadian contingent in Kandahar. That may account for the deft way in which he backed Canada into a "too late to leave" corner. It may be duplicitous, manipulative, even despicable but it's been done and, for the far right, it is at least a temporary victory.

On global warming and carbon emission reductions, I suspect that Harper only feigns his conversion to belief. He probably still sees the potential advantages of also backing Canada into a deadlock where economic growth is only notionally balanced against emissions. After all, when it comes to carbon curbs, it's a charlatan's paradise. That's not to say he won't set some emission reduction targets. He will. Yet they'll likely be little more than "intensity based" tomfoolery, mere window dressing.

In these things, Harper will be aided and abetted by Stephane Dion. The well-intentioned but timid Mr. Dion has shown that he's unwilling to genuinely press Harper because that would require him to spell out clear and meaningful policies of his own. That is a risk only to be taken by someone who can capture the public's imagination, confidence and support. That is the work of a leader of a nation, not a mere party boss.

There's talk of Mr. Dion triggering an election. Maybe that's just what we need to get the long overdue debate on so many important issues.