Stora tråden om amerikansk inrikespolitik

John F. Kelly, the new White House chief of staff, told Stephen K. Bannon in late July that he needed to go: No need for it to get messy, Mr. Kelly told Mr. Bannon, according to several people with firsthand knowledge of the exchange. The two worked out a mutually amicable departure date for mid-August, with President Trump’s blessing.

But after Charlottesville, Mr. Bannon maintained that an Aug. 14 exit would look like part of the president’s response to the violence. He did not want that, and others were understanding. So they discussed moving the date to around Labor Day weekend, although two administration officials said Mr. Bannon sought to entirely renegotiate the terms of his departure.

Then came Mr. Bannon’s unguarded comments to The American Prospect, published on Wednesday evening. He denigrated some colleagues, specifically identified one that he was going to see fired and said of striking North Korea, “There’s no military solution here, they got us” — a direct contradiction to the message Mr. Trump had been sending. Mr. Bannon could buy no more time.

As soon as Mr. Bannon arrived at the White House on Inauguration Day, he seemed to realize that he would not be long for the job. He felt that Mr. Trump had treated him as a peer during the presidential campaign, but, he often complained to friends, “when I got to the White House, all of a sudden I was just a staffer.”

But more likely, Mr. Bannon’s exit will clarify that only one person, Mr. Trump, for better or worse, has always been his own chief strategist. While several administration officials interviewed said they see Mr. Kelly as perhaps the last hope for fixing the fractured administration, they concede that only Mr. Trump can right his listing presidency.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 14h14 hours ago

Heading back to Washington after working hard and watching some of the worst and most dishonest Fake News reporting I have ever seen!

An online tracker developed by former FBI agent Clint Watts has identified Russian bots as responsible for many tweets urging the firing of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 16m16 minutes ago

Jerry Falwell of Liberty University was fantastic on @foxandfriends. The Fake News should listen to what he had to say. Thanks Jerry!

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 13m13 minutes ago

Thank you, the very dishonest Fake News Media is out of control!

The Trump administration is working with like-minded sheriffs from around the country on a plan to channel undocumented immigrants from local jails into federal detention, according to several sheriffs involved in the discussions. If it succeeds, it could vastly expand the dragnet that has already begun to transform immigration enforcement in the United States.

The plan is intended to circumvent court decisions that have thus far limited the role of local law enforcement in immigration. It involves a legal move regarding detainers, which are requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to local sheriffs or police departments to hold people who are suspected of being in the country illegally, even after they have posted bail, finished their jail sentence or otherwise resolved their criminal cases.

ICE sends detainers to jails when it becomes aware that someone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant is being held on a criminal charge because the person’s name or fingerprints match those of someone ICE has previously arrested or deported.

But since defendants can post bail or otherwise win their freedom at almost any hour, they are often released before ICE agents can arrive to take them to immigration detention centers. To address that, detainers ask that these people be held for up to an additional 48 hours.

The practice has raised a number of legal issues, many of which hinge on that crucial period. Under federal law, sheriffs cannot make immigration arrests because they are civil in nature, and sheriffs enforce criminal law. As a result, judges have found that jailing people during that gap constitutes an unlawful seizure, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Under the proposed legal tactic, ICE and the sheriff would sign a contract that pays the sheriff’s department a daily fee to hold the immigrant until ICE can take the person into custody. The legal argument is that the arrangement effectively makes the immigrant a detainee of ICE, not the sheriff’s department, and allows the sheriff to hold the person on a noncriminal charge.

“It’s a seamless transition,” said Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, Fla. “They are immediately in ICE custody. And what ICE does with them, that’s up to ICE. That’s not our business.”

It was Sheriff Gualtieri, who is also a lawyer, who devised the reasoning behind the new tactic and presented it to ICE.

He unveiled the plan in a presentation to the National Sheriffs’ Association at its annual convention in June. Several sheriffs who were present described the reaction as one of excitement and relief.

I've been reading a lot of 20th century political literature recently, especially Nixon. We need a major reappraisal of the GOP's history. The usual story goes something like this: after two decades in the wilderness under FDR, the Republicans finally managed to start getting their crap together in the 1950s, had a false start in the 1970s thanks to Nixon literally Hitlering Watergate, and renewed itself in 1980.

I have noticed a common theme with Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump. In each case, you had a GOP that was apparently a shipwreck, yet won the Presidency thanks to an outsider (either from truly outside the party or its periphery) running on a populist message that appealed to a wide swathe of Americans, dispensing with rigid doctrines that had consistently failed to win people over. And in all four cases, once in office, his own party set about immediately trying to undermine him rather than reorient itself to follow his lead to new heights of victory. Of the four, Nixon was the closest to being a "party man," but he was disliked by the core of the party since the day he "embarrassed" them by exposing Alger Hiss' lies and treason to our nation, thus earning the permanent ire of the Communist-loving press (Republicans will forgive treason, but not being made to look like bad people in the New York Times). Of the four, Reagan was the closest to turning the GOP his direction, as the Reagan faction in the Party has had some influence in the intervening decades.

It seems to me that 20 years of consecutive losses during the Depression permanently shattered the Republican Party. It seems to have never actually recovered. To this day, the Party is organized as a minority party. A minority party is not designed to govern; it's designed to secure benefits for particular patrons and constituents from the ruling party. Democrats are punished when they break party discipline; Republicans are punished when they don't secure donations. This is why, despite having more power on paper than at any time since before the Depression, the Republicans are intent on sabotaging their own President and completely incapable of passing any meaningful legislation. Democrats sacrificed their elections to get Obamacare passed; Lisa Murkowski won't sacrifice a $5000 donor check and Rand Paul won't sacrifice a stern tut-tut in Reason to repeal it. They aren't really set up to achieve anything, because their whole party, its structure, and its incentives are designed to always have it anticipating its next defeat, positioning itself to secure maximum benefits once it has lost.

http://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/9965-the-gop-garbage-since-1932/#entry376263