1. Paul Rosenzweig: George Washington has a warning for us

Washington seems especially prescient in his warning against demagoguery and its link to factions and political parties, which he worried would over time “become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Washington also predicted how a party leader would gain and keep power. At worst, he said, a party head “agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, [and] foments occasionally riot and insurrection. [This] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.” Surely that, too, echoes in today’s heated Twitter-filled rhetoric.

Today, I think Washington would look at the party system and see his fears rather than his hopes realized. He would see a small minority faction of one of the parties, led by an unprincipled man dedicated to his own elevation and built on the ruins of public liberty. Were Washington to speak to the leaders of the Republican Party, to which I formerly belonged, he would warn: “That way lies despotism.” https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-16/op-ed-george-washington-warning-donald-trump

2. Bess Levin: Trump Goes On Pardoning Spree For Rich Friends, Apprentice Contestant Rod Blagojevich

When Donald Trump was running for office, he famously vowed to “drain the swamp” and end the pay-to-play schemes that have long plagued Washington. That pledge, of course, was one of his bigger whoppers, on par with how he was going to eliminate the national debt, bring peace to the Middle East via Jared Kushner, get Mexico to pay for the wall, and leave Medicare alone. (It’s almost as though the guy lies every time he opens his mouth.) Instead, the Trump administration has cemented its reputation as arguably the most corrupt executive branch in modern history, one in which the “swamp” has flourished and everyone from the top down seemingly starts the day by asking, “How can I use the government to enrich myself today?” a morning routine recently declared a-OK by Senate Republicans. But just in case it wasn’t abundantly, ridiculously, overwhelmingly obvious that Trump values corruption over nearly everything else, he’s decided to put a fine point on it by commuting the 14-year sentence of a Celebrity Apprentice contestant who went to prison for trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat, among other things.

Happily for convicted criminals everywhere, Blagojevich isn’t the only lucky recipient of Trump’s generosity/campaign to send a message that not only will he be completely and fully flouting the law moving forward but also rewarding others who do. Also on Tuesday, the president announced a pardon for Edward DeBartolo Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers who pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony; ex-NYPD chief and Rudy Giuliani pal Bernie Kerik, who pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, among them tax fraud and lying to White House officials; and the poster child for Wall Street greed whom Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko would be partially based on, junk-bond king Michael Milken, who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1990. (Seven other people had their sentences commuted or received pardons as well.)

Today’s slew of what can be best described as “f**k you I can do whatever I want” executive actions brings Trump’s total number of pardons and commutations to more than two dozen. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/donald-trump-blagojevich-milken-kerik-pardons

3. Hannah Natanson, John Woodrow Cox and Perry Stein: Trump’s words, bullied kids, scarred schools

Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered "Ban Muslims" at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president's proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and, as she confided to her mother, told the girl: "This is Trump country."

Since Trump's rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016, a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis. Students have also been victimized because they support the president — more than 45 times during the same period.

“It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected,” said Ashanty Bonilla, 17, a Mexican American high school junior in Idaho who faced so much ridicule from classmates last year that she transferred. “They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/school-bullying-trump-words/

4. Bess Levin: Trump And Mike Bloomberg’s Twitter War Has Entered “You’re A Virgin Who Can’t Drive” Territory

Donald Trump has a long history of attacking anyone and anything he’s threatened by, be they political opponents or showers and toilets. Typically, those on the receiving end of the president’s abuse have not struck back, whether they’re inanimate objects or living, breathing things, the thinking presumably being that they don’t want to dignify the insults with a response. Michael Bloomberg, however, apparently has no such qualms. The former New York City mayor has launched a campaign that appears to be designed with the express purpose of driving Trump insane first and winning the Democratic nomination second, with the former goal achieved via nonstop ads attacking both the president’s abysmal record and his pant size. And it appears to be working! Of course, any attempt to get under Trump’s skin would be nothing without a strategy to go after him on Twitter, i.e., his den, and Bloomberg has a plan for that too.

As his longtime rival, Bloomberg knows exactly how to push Trump’s already-overstretched buttons, hitting not only on how he made his money—by inheriting it—but also his reputation as a terrible businessman, which obviously hurts given the image the former real estate developer has attempted to sell to the masses. To then toss in a “behind your back they laugh at you” when Trump has a documented history of being unable to cope with his peers mocking him, and a reference to being worth approximately 17 times as much as the guy? Those are fighting words. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/mike-bloomberg-donald-trump-twitter-war

5. Peter Hamby: The Grim Logic Of Money Makes Bernie And Bloomberg The Only Candidates Who Matter

The feel-good days of the presidential primary season, with its parades and door knocks and small-town quirks, are about to come to a sudden and jarring end. In just two weeks, the Democratic race will transition overnight from the charming theaters of the early caucus and primary states into a full-scale national campaign, dominated by Gross Ratings Points and pre-roll ads and media appearances instead of handshakes and whimsy.

If the Democrats are holding onto the precious myth that the first four states can somehow level the political playing field and lift up underdog campaigns—the idea that there isn’t a national primary—they’re in for a brutal reality check when Super Tuesday arrives. “To run a competent ballot chase program in say, California, you need real sustained money, not money you get from one good night,” said Lily Adams, a former adviser to Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. “It’s a massive issue.” Buttigieg, Warren, and Biden all have staffers on the ground in Super Tuesday states, with Buttigieg clearly in a stronger position than both, according to polls, delegates and money. But only two Democrats, Sanders and Bloomberg, have the financial resources to wage the long and costly battle ahead, regardless of what happens in Nevada or South Carolina.

“The challenge for Democrats is that since nothing is winner-take-all, there’s even less incentive to drop out than there was in the GOP race,” said Schrimpf, who advised Kasich’s 2016 bid. “So you hang on, just like Republicans did, until you don’t have to be super self-aware to realize you aren’t going to be the nominee.” The question those dead-enders will have to ask themselves in a few weeks, if nothing drastic changes, will be an uncomfortable one, a prospect almost no smart person in politics considered just three months ago: Do you get behind the socialist, or the billionaire? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/grim-logic-of-money-makes-bernie-bloomberg-only-candidates-who-matter

6. Eric Lutz: Mike Bloomberg’s Big Spending Strategy Is Making A Lot More Sense

Skip Iowa and New Hampshire? Don’t worry about debates? Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg’s late entry into the crowded 2020 race and his Super Tuesday strategy, which was met with deep skepticism, is looking more prescient as moderate Democrats are divided and increasingly desperate for a savior. “I’m feeling a momentum shift to Bloomberg right now,” Representative Lou Correa, a Joe Biden supporter, told Politico.

But Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor and media mogul with unlimited resources and a willingness to spend billions to unseat Donald Trump, could benefit the most from Biden’s stumbles. While Buttigieg and Klobuchar duke it out for the chance to represent the moderate wing against Sanders, Bloomberg is steadily building momentum, saturating the market with advertisements, getting under the Trump’s skin, and rolling out endorsements nearly every day—including from three members of the Congressional Black Caucus Wednesday, who suggested he had succeeded Biden as the electability candidate. “There’s a number of [candidates] who are ideologically where I am,” Representative Gregory Meeks, a senior member of the CBC, told Politico. “But I also had to add to that electability. And that’s a tremendous consideration we’ll have to make because you can have the best ideology but if you’re not electable, then where are we?”

But if his vast sums of money help him weather the political storms ahead, he might find himself in a two-way race with Sanders, his ideological opposite—particularly if the center lane remains up for grabs by the time Super Tuesday rolls around. “The longer the waters are muddy,” former South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges, a Biden supporter, told the Times, “the better off Bloomberg is.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/mike-bloombergs-big-spending-strategy-is-making-a-lot-more-sense

7. Jonathan Chait: Barr Wants to Hide Trump’s Authoritarian Plans, But Trump Keeps Confessing

Asked by the New York Times if he wanted the Justice Department to reopen its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server, he explained, “What I’ve done is, I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.” He wasn’t investigating Clinton just then, but he could — it all depended on whether Trump himself was “treated fairly.”

Since this epiphany, Trump has proclaimed the “absolute right” to pardon himself for any crimes (not that there were any!). He has also insisted that he has the “absolute right” to ask any country to investigate any American for any reason he sees fit. On many occasions, Trump has gestured to Article II of the Constitution as the source of this authority. He has barely hidden his enthusiasm for this clause and the powers he believes it confers upon him. “It gives me all of these rights, at a level nobody has ever seen before,” he gushed at one point.

Trump’s allies like to pretend that he is not using the Department as his own private detective agency. Conservative media is filled with busy justifications for each individual instance. Of course the DOJ is right to scale back Roger Stone’s sentence, and create a process for sifting Rudy’s Russian-funded dirt, and investigate James Comey and Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe and James Brennan, and look into the Clinton email case and the Foundation again.

Not even conservative ideologues are prepared to openly defend the principle Trump insists he believes, because the nakedness of it is self-defeating. Trumped-up charges against your adversaries are worthless if they’re labeled as such.

A more dangerous and effective authoritarian party would find a leader who understands how to maintain appearances. That fact helps explain the habit Trump’s allies have of complaining about his tweets — and only his tweets, the one tiny flaw in his otherwise masterful handling of the job. Trump keeps blowing their cover.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/trump-authoritarian-barr-justice-roger-stone-dictator-rule-of-law.html

8. Sally Yates: Trump thinks the Justice Department is his personal grudge squad

Presidents and department leaders from both parties have recognized that for case decisions to have legitimacy, they must be made without political influence — whether real or perceived. Implementation of these restrictions has not always been perfect, but the department’s independence has remained honored and unquestioned.

Until now.

From virtually the moment he took office, President Trump has attempted to use the Justice Department as a cudgel against his enemies and as a shield for himself and his allies. He ran off Jeff Sessions after Sessions’s recusal in the Russia investigation rendered Sessions useless to protect him. The president has attempted to order up investigations of his perceived political enemies and enlist the department to protect his friends. With every blow, the wall of Justice independence has wobbled a bit more. This week, it teetered on the verge of collapse.

The Justice Department is not a tool of any president to be used for retribution or camouflage. In all of government, the Justice Department uniquely functions in a trusted bond with Americans to dispense justice without fear or favor. Over the almost three decades that I served at the department, through Democratic and Republican administrations, I witnessed lawyers across the country embracing their responsibility to do their jobs in a manner that engendered the trust of the people they served. That is what it means to represent the people of the United States. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/14/sally-yates-trump-thinks-justice-department-is-his-personal-grudge-squad/

9. John McWhorter: Bloomberg Flunks the Wokeness Test

Is the American left about to prioritize virtue signaling over keeping an unqualified monomaniac from a second term as president? This is what would happen if Michael Bloomberg’s failed stop-and-frisk policy is treated as automatically disqualifying him from serious consideration as the Democratic presidential nominee.

For some, stop-and-frisk is a deal-breaker. Note how modern—up-to-the minute, even—it seems to disqualify Bloomberg for one mistake on race, even if he would govern better than Trump has in all ways. It’s straight from the woke playbook. Freezing out the former mayor would also be a kind of atonement for the left’s having let pass Hillary Clinton’s “superpredator” comment in the 1990s. Atonement is the operative word here. To shout down Bloomberg because of that one policy would constitute a strain of anti-racism that has all the characteristics of religion rather than rationality. By denouncing a candidate as formidable as Bloomberg, people will show one another that they understand the evil of racism and go in grace—even on the pain of an impeached, amoral Trump being reelected.

This gives new meaning to the idea that the personal is political, and it should alarm all good people. Bloomberg has apologized again—and the truth is, there is no way for him to do so in a fashion that would reveal to us the actual contours of his heart. Especially if this man can dislodge Trump, a president whom most Americans of color abhor, the apologies should be enough. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/bloomberg-flunks-wokeness-test-it-doesnt-matter/606634/

10. Doyle McManus’: Who will be the Un-Bernie?

Again, most Democratic voters aren’t Sanders fans or socialists. A CBS News study found a three-way ideological divide: about one third described themselves as “very liberal,” which is Sanders’ base; another third said they were “somewhat liberal,” and the last third called themselves “moderate” or “conservative.” In other words, die-hard progressives are a minority.

Party leaders are reluctant to intervene in a way that would alienate Sanders supporters, since their votes will be crucial in November even if he’s not the nominee.

“They seem to know they don’t want Sanders, but they can’t do much about it,” said Hans Noel, a political scientist at Georgetown University who studies the role of parties in the nominating process.

If no one amasses a majority of delegates during the primaries, several candidates could try to cut bargains before the Democratic convention in Milwaukee in mid-July.

But those hypothetical plot twists are months away. Until then, the choice is out of the establishment’s control and up to the voters. Like it or not, the Democrats are going to have to solve their problem through democracy. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-16/who-will-be-the-un-bernie

11. Eli Stokols: Flush with cash and confident after impeachment, Trump campaign revs up the road show

Four years after his hostile takeover of the White House, President Trump’s second campaign bears little resemblance to the first — he’s flush with cash, buoyed by an uptick in poll numbers, and brimming with confidence after surviving investigations, an impeachment and myriad controversies that have helped unite once-wary Republicans behind him.

Unlike his slapdash 2016 campaign, Trump now can rely on a massive, professionalized apparatus that has helped raise more than $200 million, deployed eager surrogates to early primary states, and built an extensive field operation and advertising network months before Democrats are likely to choose their nominee.

It’s an in-your-face strategy hashed out largely by campaign manager Brad Parscale and, of course, the president, an intense manager of his own brand who is determined to remain on offense and to create the appearance of dominance and popularity that, he hopes, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in November.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-14/flush-with-cash-and-confident-after-impeachment-trump-campaign-revs-up-the-road-show

12. Michael Gerson: Republicans owe Vindman a public apology

In the large category of things that justice demands but will never come to pass: The elected Republicans who voted against the impeachment and removal of President Trump owe Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman a public apology.

The National Security Council staffer, Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient obeyed a lawful subpoena, gave truthful testimony and was rewarded by his commander in chief with unceremonious removal from the White House and vicious criticism designed to destroy his life and career. A pathetic smattering of Trump’s congressional enablers criticized this calumny. But most winced, fidgeted and said nothing. All of them knew that Trump unremoved would be Trump unbound. And that utter predictability makes them personally responsible for all that has followed.

Cowardice on this scale is not a single act; it includes all the guilty silences that complicity continues to require. And the consequences of Republican cravenness are still unfolding.. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-republicans-have-failed-vindman/2020/02/17/50b2825a-51a1-11ea-9e47-59804be1dcfb_story.html

13. Philip Rucker: ’Something has to be done’: Trump’s quest to rewrite history of the Russia probe

The U.S. intelligence community long ago produced evidence of Russia’s illegal interference in the 2016 presidential election to try to boost Donald Trump’s candidacy. Then the special counsel investigating the matter detailed myriad ways President Trump sought to stymie the probe. And then Robert S. Mueller III testified to Congress about Trump’s conduct — and warned of Russia’s continued interest in thwarting U.S. elections.

But it is Trump who is trying to have the last word.

“The whole Mueller investigation was a shakedown and a disgrace. It probably should be expunged,” Trump said in an interview last week with radio commentator Geraldo Rivera, a longtime friend.

Referring to Mueller, Trump added: “I don’t call him special counsel because special counsel is not an accurate term. It’s a special prosecutor, because what he and his 13 angry Democrats — all horrible, just horrible people — what they did to destroy the lives of people that you know, but to destroy the lives of many, Geraldo, should never be forgiven, should never be forgotten, and something has to be done about it.”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/something-has-to-be-done-trumps-quest-to-rewrite-history-of-the-russia-probe/2020/02/15/ea7a1b06-4f61-11ea-9b5c-eac5b16dafaa_story.html

14. Aaron Blake: Trump keeps pardoning himself

One of Trump’s earliest pardons was for conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza, like Trump, was a major proponent of the racist “birther” conspiracy theory about former president Barack Obama’s birthplace. He was also convicted of a campaign finance violation, which is the crime Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to and implicated Trump in.

Trump’s first pardon was for Joe Arpaio, who might be the most pronounced embodiment of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies in American politics. Arpaio’s crimes also involved disobeying a judge’s orders against racial profiling of suspected undocumented immigrants; Trump as a candidate in the months before the pardon advocated racial profiling and for a ban on Muslim immigration and, in one of his first acts as president, banned immigration from several majority-Muslim nations.

Several of Trump’s pardons also involve people who made false statements to investigators or obstructed justice, including I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Black and another man granted clemency Tuesday, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik. Trump has defended allies who lied to investigators and was personally the subject of extensive evidence of obstruction in the special counsel report. He has also repeatedly downplayed the severity of meddling in such investigations.

It’s perhaps understandable that a president would find cause to grant clemency to people whose situations carry certain parallels to his own. Trump’s sympathy for an immigration hard-liner and a conspiracy theorist, for example, would certainly be greater than that of your average politician. And if you think someone’s crimes aren’t as serious, it makes granting them a break much easier.

But the Blagojevich commutation and the dual billionaire pardons Tuesday drive home the idea that Trump may sometimes see himself in these pardons. That’s too much coincidence for one day. Trump has maintained before that he has the “absolute right” to pardon himself if need be. He kind of already has. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/19/trump-keeps-pardoning-himself/