Month: August 2018

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Letter from, to Senator Angus King

Today, I received an email from Senator King. Not a personal one, a constituent-outreach email. This is what it says

I, too, believe that the American public deserves to know more about what was discussed between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at their meeting in Helsinki on July 16th. While I strongly disagree with President Trump’s approach to U.S.-Russian relations and have been critical of his handling of his meeting with President Putin, I do not support efforts to subpoena the U.S. interpreter present at the meeting, for several reasons. Under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, the President has broad authority over the implementation of U.S. foreign policy. Further, I am concerned that subpoenaing  the interpreter from the Helsinki meeting would break with existing protocol and set a precedent that could threaten the ability of this—or any future—President to conduct sensitive diplomacy in the future. One possible result, for example, could be that our President would decide not to have an American interpreter at such meetings at all, and rely exclusively on the interpreter supplied by the foreign country which, clearly, could be inimicable to our national interest.

While I do not support a subpoena for the interpreter at the Trump-Putin meeting, I do believe the Administration should be more forthcoming in explaining what was agreed to in that meeting. I explained my viewpoint on CNN on July 19th. You can view the interview with the following link. As I mentioned in the interview, I find it disturbing that there was no transparency on what precisely was discussed or agreed to during that meeting and that the President continues to equivocate on Russia’s attempts to influence our elections. It is imperative that we effectively deter future Russian interference in our democracy with a coordinated response from the U.S. government. I will continue to work with my colleagues to support policies that protect the integrity of U.S. elections and strengthen our ties with our European Allies.

This is my response:

Senator King,

Thank you for reaching out to let your constituents know what you are thinking on the issue of the Helsinki meeting.

I disagree with your reasoning. If we were talking about a private meeting between the President of the United States and the Premier of Canada, or Prime Minister of England, or the Prime Minister of Israel, I would agree. These countries are allies. However, that is not what happened.

Mr. Trump held a private meeting not with a proven or even a new ally. This meeting was held with the leader of a hostile nation. A national leader directly implicated in attempting to, or perhaps successfully, interfering with our internal governmental processes in electing a government. A national leader who has maintained his own power over the course of the past 18 years by controlling the once-free press of Russia, intimidating, jailing and probably murdering political opponents and critics, a tactic that is being brought to bear by Donald Trump as we speak.

There are strong allegations from domestic and international intelligence agencies that directly link Putin and Trump on many levels in such a manor that indicate that Trump is, in essence, owned by Putin.

We very much need to know what was said at that meeting in Helsinki. We need to know what Trump promised or gave Putin. Or perhaps more accurately, you need to know, since you are on the Intelligence Committee.

 

 

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Susan Collins: Political Opportunist

Annie Clark, the Communications Director for Senator Susan Collins (R, Maine) argues in a recent Portland Press Herald Letter To The Editor that Sen. Collins’ voting record over the past year and a half is being unfairly reported. She claims that statistics are being used to skew the reporting, and is in turn using statistics to make her case. I would expect that the Communications Director for a politician to defend their boss, that is their job after all.

However, she conveniently ignores several key facts that support what she claims is misleading reporting. Susan Collins has voted for:

All but two of Trump’s Cabinet nominees: DeVos and Pruitt. In the case of Betsy DeVos, Collins is on the Committee that pre-approves the nominee before the vote goes to the floor, and she voted to allow the vote. She then voted No on the floor after calculating that the nomination would go through without her. She did a similar calculation on Pruitt. With very few exceptions, this Cabinet is uniquely UNqualified for their positions. As examples, Education Secretary DeVos is dismantling student protections against financial abuse by the education loan industry, and is shifting government support from public education to for-profit schools from K-12 all the way through college. EPA Director Pruitt, and now his successor, is rolling back environmental protections. HUD Secretary Carson is making it harder for the working poor to afford housing. Interior Secretary Zinke is selling off National Monuments to the fossil fuel industry. The list goes on and on.

The GOP Tax overhaul: Prior to the vote last winter to rewrite the US Tax Law to heavily favor the 1% and large corporations, Sen. Collins “promised” to vote no because of its provisions to defund the Affordable Care Act’s Individual Market subsidies. She then almost immediately started backpedaling on that with multiple layers of backtracking, going from her initial “I will not vote for this” to “I will not vote for this unless [other bill] is passed first to protect the ACA”, to “I will not vote for this unless Leader McConnell promises that [other bill] will be voted on to protect the ACA immediately after” to “I will not vote for this unless Leader McConnell promises to hold a vote on [other bill] to protect the ACA in January”. She then voted for the tax bill, that [other bill] never materialized, the ACA subsidies are decimated, and the deficit has skyrocketed.

Collins has already started a similar backpedal regarding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court of the United States. She had originally stated that she would not vote to confirm any Justice that is hostile to the settled law of Roe v Wade, which legalized a woman’s choice to terminate an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. Yet she has already voted to confirm multiple Justices on the Federal Appeals Circuits and SCOTUS that are proven hostile to Roe v Wade. And she has also backpedaled on this with the specific context of Brett Kavanaugh by refusing to consider the nomination source of the Federalist Society, which pre-vetted all of Trump’s judicial nominees to be hostile to Roe v Wade, and his already publicly known history of judgements and dissentions all in favor of restricting or denying a woman’s choice, rolling back environmental protections, voting rights, equality, etc, etc, etc.

Susan Collins is not bipartisan. She is a political opportunist hack at best, voting in favor of whatever party has the majority at the moment. She has voted to confirm almost all Supreme Court nominees that happened during her time in the Senate, regardless of ideology, and while she bemoaned the changes to Senatorial procedure for Judicial nomination confirmations, she voted them anyway. She has expressed “concern” over the kidnapping of migrant children from their parents seeking asylum by Federal authorities, but did nothing, actually worse than nothing as she opposed a topic specific Democratic bill to address this calling it “too broad”. She expressed as “unbelievable” over statements by Trump wanting to stop the Special Council investigation over Russian interference in the 2016 election, but has done nothing to protect the investigation.

Her message is one of carefully crafted narration, but her actions are oftentimes the exact opposite. She will do just enough bipartisan effort to lend a veneer of credibility to her claim of being a bipartisan moderate who happens to be a Republican, but the truth is, she is not. She is a craven political opportunist bending to the whim of whoever is in charge.