ABA Ethics Opinion provides guidance regarding client confidentiality when lawyer withdraws from representation for failure to pay fees | Lawyer Ethics Alert Blogs

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION STANDING COMMITTEE ON ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Formal Opinion 476 December 19, 2016
Confidentiality Issues when Moving to Withdraw for Nonpayment of Fees in Civil Litigation In moving to withdraw as counsel in a civil proceeding based on a client’s failure to pay fees, a lawyer must consider the duty of confidentiality under Rule 1.6 and seek to reconcile that duty with the court’s need for sufficient information upon which to rule on the motion. Similarly, in entertaining such a motion, a judge should consider the right of the movant’s client to confidentiality. This requires cooperation between lawyers and judges. If required by the court to support the motion with facts relating to the representation, a lawyer may, pursuant to Rule 1.6(b)(5), disclose only such confidential information as is reasonably necessary for the court to make an informed decision on the motion.
ABA Ethics Opinion provides guidance regarding client confidentiality when lawyer withdraws from representation for failure to pay fees | Lawyer Ethics Alert Blogs
Hello everyone and welcome to this Ethics Alert which will discuss the recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinion which provides guidance regarding client confidentiality when a lawyer withdraws from representation. The opinion is ABA Formal Opinion 476 (12/19/16) and is online here: ABA Opinion 476.

Model Bar Rule 1.16 related to withdrawal from representation

The ABA opinion discusses Model Rule 1.16, which is substantially similar to the Florida Bar Rule 4-1.16 and other state Bar rules. According to the opinion, “Model Rule 1.16 addresses a lawyer’s duties and responsibilities when withdrawing from the representation of a client. Rule 1.16(a) sets forth the circumstances when a lawyer is required to withdraw, and Rule 1.16(b) describes the circumstances when a lawyer may be permitted to withdraw from a representation. Among the permissive reasons, Rule 1.16(b)(5) provides that a lawyer may withdraw from representing a client when “the client substantially fails to fulfill an obligation to the lawyer regarding the lawyer’s services and has been given reasonable warning that the lawyer will withdraw unless the obligation is fulfilled.”

“Comment [8] to (Model Rule 1.16) states: ‘A lawyer may withdraw if the client refuses to abide by the terms of an agreement relating to the representation, such as an agreement concerning fees or court costs . . . .’ In addition, Rule 1.16(b)(6) provides that a lawyer may withdraw where ‘the representation will result in an unreasonable financial burden on the lawyer or has been rendered unreasonably difficult by the client.’ As the courts have decided in the cases cited below, if a client fails over time to pay a lawyer’s fees, and that failure continues after a lawyer provides a reasonable warning to the client, the lawyer may be permitted to withdraw. In effectuating a withdrawal, a lawyer should do so in a manner that minimizes any prejudice to the client.”

Model Bar Rule 1.16 related to the lawyer’s duty to maintain confidentiality

“Neither Rule 1.6(b) nor the Comments expressly refer to motions to withdraw for unpaid fees. The Comments do, however, recognize that some disclosure of confidential client information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6(a) is permitted in fee-collection suits by lawyers, based on the “claim or defense” exception in Rule 1.6(b)(5). Similarly, motions to withdraw based on a client’s failure to pay fees are generally grounded in the same basic right of a lawyer to be paid pursuant to the terms of a fee agreement with a client. Nonetheless, courts have differed widely as to whether any specific information regarding a lawyer’s reasons for seeking withdrawal is required in a motion to withdraw, and if so, how much.”

Limiting any required disclosures of confidential information to mitigate harm/prejudice to clients

The opinion also discusses the requirements to limit disclosures to mitigate harm/prejudice to the client. “Comment [16] to Rule 1.6 provides that disclosures under Rule 1.6(b) are permitted only to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary to accomplish the purpose specified. Of course, where practicable, a lawyer should first seek to persuade the client to take suitable action to remove the need for the lawyer’s disclosure. When such persuasion is not practicable or successful, and disclosure of some confidential information is required, ‘If the disclosure will be made in connection with a judicial proceeding, the disclosure should be made in a manner that limits access to the information to the tribunal or other persons having a need to know it and appropriate protective orders or other arrangements should be sought by the lawyer to the fullest extent practicable.’ Thus, Comment [16] anticipates the use of in camera submissions for disclosures where any of Rule 1.6(b)’s exceptions may apply. The situation is similar to discovery disputes over claims of privilege, whereby competing claims are often resolved by a court’s review in camera of the documents at issue and such procedures can help reconcile the competing issues involved in ruling on motions to withdraw as well.

The opinion’s final summary paragraph states: “In moving to withdraw as counsel in a civil proceeding based on a client’s failure to pay fees, a lawyer must consider the duty of confidentiality under Rule 1.6 and seek to reconcile that duty with the court’s need for sufficient information upon which to rule on the motion. Similarly, in entertaining such a motion, a judge should consider the right of the movant’s client to confidentiality. This requires cooperation between lawyers and judges. If required by the court to support the motion with facts relating to the representation, a lawyer may, pursuant to Rule 1.6(b)(5), disclose only such confidential information as is reasonably necessary for the court to make an informed decision on the motion.”

GCPL 2d draft

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On Loving Another Country - Andrew Bacevich

On Loving Another Country
by  Andrew Bacevich

The Appian road to autocracy | xpostfactoid

What the consequences of four years of this deeply unworthy man of stunted limited intellectual competence I cannot estimate.  But the potential for debacle is high.

Just to indulge myself: my basic message is that conservative media, beginning with talk radio normalized insult, snark, resentment, victimization, and vulgarity.  The contempt for our civil order grew so grave that 62 million people voted for someone who exhibited and exhibits our worst selves, not our (dare I say it) greatest.

I have been toying with writing my reflections on the past year.  I may yet but I'll just link to Andrew Sprung for the moment. - gwc


The Appian road to autocracy | xpostfactoid
by Andrew Sprung

The decay of our own political institutions is obvious. Looking at the moment we're in, having just elected a lifelong fraudster turned authoritarian demagogue, who's put in a cabinet of plutocrats, racists and cranks, I see a few long-term forces converging:

 1) a globalized economy pressuring employment and wages. This could have been coped with, but we failed. 

2) The eternal tidal pull of elites' unflagging efforts to subvert restraints on their ability to maximize their advantages and pass them on to their children. Francis Fukuyama traces the corrosive force of this never-ending pressure through several societies in The Origins of Political Order. 

3) Our archaic constitution, which saddles us with nonrepresentative democracy, and renders its own amendment too difficult. 

4) Our foundational racism, which has always limited and reversed attempts to distribute wealth and opportunity (education, basic security, lead-free water, etc.) more equitably.

***On election night, I followed the results on the New York Times Upshot's app, which calculated odds for each candidate in real time. Clinton's fell steadily from 85% to 5%. When Trump crossed to 55%, I went into the bathroom and threw up my dinner.Since then it feels as if my life before that point has floated off into a kind of lost age of innocence, where we all assumed (check that -- where I assumed) that the United States would continue as a democracy, that at any given time some conditions of life would get better and some would worsen (crime in one generation, say, and income inequality in another), but we would maintain a basic capacity for collective problem solving, along with personal liberty and basic security.

I realize that these conditions did not obtain for millions of Americans, and for hundreds of millions or billions of people worldwide, but the cocoon of the relatively privileged majority of Americans felt safe.

Maybe it's fair that it wasn't. For our sins, Trump.

Of course, the jury's still out. Maybe Obama will prove right. Maybe Trump will provide a needed and manageable shock, discrediting the corrupted and now functionally fascist Republican party enough to force it to change. I wouldn't count on it. But we've got to work for it -- to defend our liberties, and do what we can to strengthen institutions meant to protect our liberty and self-governance -- what's left of electoral accountability, our judiciary, state and local government, universities and research nonprofits and media that will keep putting facts before us, businesses that have absorbed an ethos that you reach out to all potential customers and seek to attract and foster talent from all quarters, even a military with some recent experience of the ill effects of abrogating its own best norms. 

It's going to be a rough ride. Happy New Year.

Prospects for the American press under Trump, part two - PressThink

We are all journalists now.  Get smart.
Prospects for the American press under Trump, part two - PressThink
by Jay Rosen // Arthur Carter Journalism Institute - NYU


In part one of this post, I described in 17 numbered paragraphs a bleak situation for the American press as a check on power, now that Donald Trump has been elected. My summary of it went like this:

Low trust all around, an emboldened and nationalist right wing that treats the press as natural enemy, the bill coming due for decades of coasting on a model in political reporting that worked well for “junkies” but failed to engage the rest of us, the strange and disorientating fact that reality itself seems to have become a weaker force in politics, the appeal of the “strong man” and his propaganda within an atmosphere of radical doubt, the difficulty of applying standard methods of journalism to a figure in power who is not trying to represent reality but to substitute himself for it as a show of strength, the unsuitability of prior routine as professionals in journalism try to confront these confusing conditions, a damaged economic base, weak institutional structure and newsroom mono-culture that hinders any creative response, and a dawning recognition that freedom of the press is a fragile state, not a constitutional certainty.

This is a crisis with many overlapping and deep-seated causes, not just a problem but what scholars call a wicked problem— a mess. You don’t “solve” messes, you approach them with humility and respect for their beastliness. Trying things you know won’t “fix” it can teach you more about the problem’s wickedness. That’s progress. Realizing that no one is an expert in the problem helps, because it means that good ideas can come from anywhere.

Four more years. Leader of the "Free World"

Four more years!

U.S. Government Ethics Chief Was Behind Those Tweets About Donald Trump, Records Show : The Two-Way : NPR

Donald Trump has suggested that the American people waived objections to any conflicts of interest and that the "the President can't have a conflict of interest", presumably because the 1978 Ethics in Government Act does not apply to the President.  If the statute does not require Trump to sell his hotels, etc. should that settle it?

On his business: “Oh, yeah, that’s very routine. ... You people are making that a big deal — ‘the business.’ ... It’s a much bigger business than anyone thought. It’s a great business. But I’m going to have nothing to do with it.” He reiterated the position that he is not legally required to step away from his role at the company but said he wants to in order to “focus on the country.” He added: “We’ll be having a press conference sometime in early January.” (DJT - quoted by Market Watch 12/30/16)

U.S. Government Ethics Chief Was Behind Those Tweets About Donald Trump, Records Show : The Two-Way : NPR

In November, the typically straitlaced Office of Government Ethics surprised observers with a series of tweets mimicking Donald Trump's bombastic style, exclamation points and all: "Brilliant! Divestiture is good for you, good for America!"

The controversy was two-fold: (1) The OGE doesn't typically air its positions publicly, advising White House transition teams behind the scenes. (2) Trump hadn't promised the total divestitures of business interests implied by the tweets.

New records shared with NPR on Friday show that behind the curious tweets was the head of the OGE himself, Director Walter Shaub Jr.

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Was John Kerry’s Speech a Swan Song to Israel — or a Last Gasp Peace Push? - Opinion – Forward.com

J.J. Goldberg, former EIC of The Forward, offers a characteristically sober assessment of John Kerry's speech (with links to key documents).  He suggests that Kerry aimed at  the upcoming January 15 Paris conference on Palestinian- Israeli relations.
The thrust of Kerry's talk was, of course, our ally's obstructions of efforts to achieve the two-state settlement all claim to seek.
The key message of the recent Security Council resolution is the international unanimity that Israeli West Bank settlements are illegal. 

There is no reason for Palestinians to acquiesce in the continued seizure of their land.  Nor in the continued occupation.   No matter what compromises Israel has or may offer (we'll give you some of our land for the land we took from you) the basic fact is that the burden is principally on the conqueror to withdraw, rather than expand the takings. - gwc
Was John Kerry’s Speech a Swan Song to Israel — or a Last Gasp Peace Push? - Opinion – Forward.com
by J.J. Goldberg

Israel Labor Party chief Isaac Herzog said the speech “expresses a genuine concern for Israel’s security and future.” Americans for Peace Now called it “powerful, wise and compassionate,” and urged Congress and the incoming Trump administration to “take heed” of it. Still, even the most sympathetic observers couldn’t explain how Kerry’s words might become reality. For the most part the sympathizers seemed, like the secretary himself, to be venting.

There is, however, another interpretation: that Kerry is up to something and the speech was an opening salvo. Sources in Jerusalem say Netanyahu government officials are worried about an upcoming international conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace that’s due to convene in Paris with 70 nations in attendance on January 15, at the invitation of the French government.

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Court receives evidence in $24 million 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill lawsuit - Global Times

Court receives evidence in $24 million 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill lawsuit - Global Times

The status quo is leading to one state -John Kerry

“The status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation,” [Secretary of State John] Kerry said, his voice animated. He argued that Israel, with a growing Arab population, could not survive as both a Jewish state and a democratic state unless it embraced the two-state approach that a succession of American presidents have advocated."
full text of Kerry speech

Secretary of State John Kerry harshly criticizes Israeli intransigence
by David E. Sanger - New York Times  December 28, 2016

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday that the Israeli government was undermining any hope of a two-state solution to its decades-long conflict with the Palestinians, and said that the American vote in the United Nations last week was driven by an effort to save Israel from “the most extreme elements” in its own government.

With only 23 days left as secretary of state, Mr. Kerry, the former presidential candidate who made the search for peace in the Middle East one of the driving missions of his four years as secretary, spoke with clear frustration about Mr. Netanyahu’s continued support of settlements “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible.” But he spoke knowing that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump may well abandon the key principles that the United States has used for decades of Middle East negotiations.

“The status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation,” Mr. Kerry said, his voice animated. He argued that Israel, with a growing Arab population, could not survive as both a Jewish state and a democratic state unless it embraced the two-state approach that a succession of American presidents have advocated.

The speech came at a moment of tension between the United States and Israel, on a scale rarely seen since President Harry S. Truman recognized the fragile Israeli state in May 1948. In a direct response to Mr. Netanyahu’s barb over the weekend that “friends don’t take friends to the Security Council,” a reference to the Obama administration’s decision to abstain from a resolution condemning the building of new settlements in disputed territory, Mr. Kerry said the United States acted out of a deeper understanding of the alliance.

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RELATED COVERAGE

• 
  

  John Kerry, in a Final, Pointed Plea, Will Outline a Vision of Mideast Peace DEC. 27, 2016

• 
  

  Trump Assails Obama Over U.N. Action on Israeli SettlementsDEC. 28, 2016

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scott mcandrews

 3 minutes ago

Good Afternoon!Mr. Kerry, a long-term public servant, has not done himself proud these last two years, culminating with an unnecessarily...

Jeffrey Davidson

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What Obama & Kerry did to Israel is disgraceful.Too bad we have to waste good $$ on Obama's retirement.

kestrel27

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Hang in there Israel. The children will soon be out of office and the adults will again be taking over. I find it sad that there are so many...

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“Some seem to believe that the U.S. friendship means the U.S. must accept any policy, regardless of our own interests, our own positions, our own words, our own principles — even after urging again and again that the policy must change,” he said. “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect.”

Mr. Kerry usually speaks in the careful words of diplomacy, being careful not to publicly name names, or put choices in the harshest terms. He dropped most of those niceties on Wednesday, especially about Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

“The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution, but his current coalition is the most right wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” he said. “The result is that policies of this government — which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ — are leading in the opposite direction, towards one state.”

It was a remarkable moment in the American-Israeli relationship, and it was a remarkable moment for Mr. Kerry.

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NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Draft Laws: Dec. 26, 2016 (UPDATED) – NPC Observer

NPCSC Solicits Public Comments on Draft Laws: Dec. 26, 2016 (UPDATED) – NPC Observer
General Principles of Civil Law
Amendment to Water Pollution and Control Law
E commerce law

Obama and Abe at Pearl Harbor

As President Obama paid respectful tribute to our soldiers and sailors at Pearl Harbor and Japanese Prime Minister Abe pledged never again, DJT again demonstrated his unfitness for office:

 

Donald J. TrumpVerified account‏@realDonaldTrump

President Obama campaigned hard (and personally) in the very important swing states, and lost.The voters wanted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

• RETWEETS6,466
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1:52 PM - 27 Dec 2016

"The world was gloomy before I won" - DJT

 Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  17h

17 hours ago

The world was gloomy before I won - there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!

p.s. - the market is up by 285% since Barack Obama assumed office - that includes a record seventy three consecutive months of job growth.

And the Goldman Sachs estimate for 2017 is based on their understanding that we are already at "full employment".

How do we understand the disconnect between the surge for Trump ( principally among white voters) who says everything is horrible - and the reality that things are pretty god - steady growth, low unemployment, low inflation, better health care, et cetera?

Stolen Supreme Court Seat. NY Times

The Stolen Supreme Court Seat http://nyti.ms/2hiWxMV

Thoughts on The UN Resolution- Josh Marshall

"Friends tell friends the truth. Friends don't enable self-destructive behavior. Even if you put morality and values entirely to the side, the current trajectory of West Bank settlement has no good outcome for Israel." 

That is Josh Marshall's conclusion about Obama and the U.S. failure in its relationship with Israel.

What is that truth that is so hard to say?  It is the west decided to make amends to the Jews by making Palestinian Arabs pay the price.  The inevitable result is that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians who see the Israelis as enemies.  The western powers allowed a refuge to be created for the survivors of what we have come to call the Holocaust.  The Nazis were of course responsible for the death camps.  But there was plenty of complicity and passivity and collaboration in anti-semitism by all the western countries until the U.S. and England were themselves under attack.  We have excused ourselves with romanticized stories like Schindler's List and the one about the Danes wearing yellow stars of David (they didn't but behaved more admirably than others).

But now - fifty years after the young State of Israel vanquished the army of Egypt - the pride of the Arab world - there is scarcely a truce between Palestinians and Israelis.  Gaza is an open air prison and the west bank is weakly governed by the defanged Palestine Liberation Organization.  And Israelis steadily take more Palestinian land - citing specious arguments about recovering the ancient land of Israel.  An argument with less plausibility than Mexico has a right to re-take Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and California. -gwc

Thoughts on The UN Resolution
by Josh Marshall
***the whole drama confirms what I believe is the overriding reality of the current situation, which is that America's hyper-support of Israel and (by default) the Israeli settlement project has made the US into a dangerous enabler of Israel's own self-destructive behavior. There is no longterm solution to the conflict other than some form of partition of the land. This is dictated by an iron grip of demography and ideology. 

You can either have partition, a binational state or a state in which Jews and a portion of the Arab population (those who are currently citizens of Israel) have political rights and the majority of Arabs (those who now live in the territories) do not. 

You can call that last option anything you want. But the countries of the world will never and should never accept it. The binational option would be the end of Zionism and either a politically unstable and unworkable state or a slow motion and perhaps fast motion bloodbath. The least bad option for everyone is partition (indeed, it needn't be a bad option at all with creativity and good will, but both are close to non-existent).

This is obvious. The alternative ideas one hears from the Zionist right are either ugly or fantastical. From a Israeli and Zionist perspective, whether the Palestinians are nice or pragmatic or want peace or don't is basically beside the point. The trajectory is the same regardless. These questions affect timing and process, not end result.

The US's hyper-protection, not only from genuine threats (which I strongly support) but even from symbolic criticism, has simply enabled Israel's self-destructive behavior, allowed the Israeli political nation to ignore these realities and pretend that somehow they'll go away.***

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Deutsche Bank agrees to $7.2 billion mortgage settlement with U.S. | Reuters

Trump's businesses owe $175 million to Deutsch Bank.  $8 million is personally guaranteed.  Will he put America First when his Department of Justice is negotiating with Deutsch Bank?  When regulators are looking at DB USA?
Deutsch Bank is reportedly trying to restructure the debt to remove the personal guarantee, perhaps by posting additional collateral.
Is this how the swamp is drained?
Deutsche Bank agrees to $7.2 billion mortgage settlement with U.S. | Reuters

PBS: Coates on How Obama's unique background shaped his outlook on race

Ta Nehisi Coates on Obama on PBS.  Brilliant.

3rd Circuit uphold's lawyers $1.09 million libel verdict against client

 by Charles Toutant // NJ Law Journal

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has for the second time upheld a $1 million verdict won by a New Jersey lawyer who claimed his former client conducted a smear campaign against him.

The appeals court upheld dismissal of a motion by Matteo Patisso, which sought to overturn the $1 million judgment awarded to Morristown attorney Bruce Baldinger because of fraud on the court, and to have U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan recused from the case. But the appeal was dismissed under the law of the case doctrine, since it was "essentially indistinguishable from prior requests for relief, which the District Court had denied and which we had affirmed," Judges Thomas Ambro, Cheryl Ann Krause and Richard Nygaard said in Baldinger v. Patisso.

Wednesday's ruling follows a September 2013 decision in which the court found no abuse of discretion by a trial judge in denying Patisso's motion for reconsideration of the $1 million award. The appeals follow a July 2012 award to Baldinger of $537,500 in compensatory damages, the same amount in punitive damages and $14,497 in legal fees, for a total of $1.09 million, on his defamation claim.

Patisso, of Huntington Station, New York, allegedly made statements about Baldinger online and in email and postal mail sent to his clients referring to his "chicanery," "abuse of his law license" and "unethical role" in his clients' criminal conduct. The statements also said Baldinger abused his former wife and is "perilously close to being disbarred." Patisso's website, National Fraud Constable, is also a defendant in Baldinger's suit.

The statements came after Baldinger represented a creditor, JMB Group, in the Eastern District of New York in a dispute over a $300,000 debt. Baldinger's client filed a third-party complaint against Patisso for allegedly brokering the loan. The appeals court also agreed with Sheridan's decision to deny Patisso's motion for reconsideration of the denial of his bid to overturn the judgment and recuse the judge. Patisso is not entitled to reconsideration because he failed to demonstrate an intervening change in the controlling law, the availability of new evidence that was not previously available or a clear error of law or fact, the appeals court said.

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"

Despair and Hope in Trump’s America - The Atlantic

James Fallows - the longtime commentator on American society and politics, a regular on NPR is on the brink of despair:

"I view Trump’s election as the most grievous blow that the American idea has suffered in my lifetime. The Kennedy and King assassinations and the 9/11 attacks were crimes and tragedies. The wars in Vietnam and Iraq were disastrous mistakes. But the country recovered. For a democratic process to elevate a man expressing total disregard for democratic norms and institutions is worse. "

The African American writer Ta Nehisi Coates  said in an interview with Ezra Klein that unlike President Obama he does not think that history has a moral arc.  Many optimistic tales are told: Marx saw progress from slavery to feudalism, to capitalism,to socialism,and communism.  President Obama appeals to our better angels...slavery, Civil War, Jim Crow, then the second reconstruction led and symbolised by Martin Luther King, Then extension of greater rights to women and recently to homosexuals.

But the election of Donald Trump and GOP majorities in both houses of Congress tells a different tale.   The mistrust in our civic institutions has many roots (the Vietnam  war).  But contempt for government itself received a huge boost when Ronald Reagan declared "the eight most feared words in the language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."  Thence began the move of the modern day GOP to  becoming not a conservative but an anti-government party. That process was concisely described by PBS commentators Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann: "It's even worse than it looks".

The whole process is overdetermined (meaning it is a welter of overlapping causes).  But in my view race - whie backlash - does the most to explain Trump's and the GOP's overall victory, as Boston Mayor Martin Walsh has said.  At the moment I am inclined toward despair:  but despair leads to inaction - which is intolerable.  So put me in the hope camp.


Despair and Hope in Trump’s America - The Atlantic
by James Fallows

***I have been personally and professionally, and increasingly, an American optimist. The long years I have spent living and working outside the United States have not simply made me more aware of my own strong identity as an American. They have also sharpened my appreciation for the practical ramifications of the American idea. For me this is the belief that through its cycle of struggle and renewal, the United States is in a continual process of becoming a better version of itself. What I have seen directly over the past decade, roughly half in China and much of the rest in reporting trips around the United States, has reinforced my sense that our current era has been another one of painful but remarkable reinvention, in which the United States is doing more than most other societies to position itself, despite technological and economic challenges, for a new era of prosperity, opportunity, and hope.

And now we have Donald Trump. We have small-town inland America—the culture I think of myself as being from—being credited or blamed for making a man like this the 45th in a sequence that includes Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. I view Trump’s election as the most grievous blow that the American idea has suffered in my lifetime. The Kennedy and King assassinations and the 9/11 attacks were crimes and tragedies. The wars in Vietnam and Iraq were disastrous mistakes. But the country recovered. For a democratic process to elevate a man expressing total disregard for democratic norms and institutions is worse. The American republic is based on rules but has always depended for its survival on norms—standards of behavior, conduct toward fellow citizens and especially critics and opponents that is decent beyond what the letter of the law dictates. Trump disdains them all. The American leaders I revere are sure enough of themselves to be modest, strong enough to entertain self-doubt. When I think of Republican Party civic virtues, I think of Eisenhower. But voters, or enough of them, have chosen Trump.

Alabama Guv Interviews Roy Moore As Potential Replacement For Sen. Sessions

Alabama Guv Interviews Roy Moore As Potential Replacement For Sen. Sessions

ByMATT SHUHAMPublishedDECEMBER 21, 2016, 3:24 PM EDT

The Alabama governor's office confirmed Wednesday that he had interviewed suspended Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to potentially replace Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

Sessions, Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, would leave an vacancy in the U.S. Senate if he is confirmed next year. Local news station WVTM confirmed with the Gov. Robert Bentley's (R) office that Moore was under consideration to fill Session's seat.

Moore was formally suspended for the remainder of his term as chief justice in September, on the grounds that he ordered lower court justices not to give same-sex couples marriage licenses. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in June of 2015 that same-sex couples have marriage rights in all 50 states.

In December, Moore's attorneys appealed that suspension, arguing that it amounted to a “de facto removal” from the bench, which requires a unanimous vote from the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, and that Moore had not actually ordered lower court judges to defy federal orders.

General Liu Yazhou: Great Critics are Often Great Patriots | 高大伟 在美国华盛顿人的博客

General Liu Yazhou is political commissar of the National Defense University of the People's Liberation Army.  His blunt article addressing Chinese media is at least as applicable to our situation as it is to China's.  -gwc
General Liu Yazhou: Great Critics are Often Great Patriots | 高大伟 在美国华盛顿人的博客

***Our situation today is that “the common people don’t believe anything, the experts don’t understand anything, the media doesn’t say anything and political education is useless.” It is because you are being phony that people can’t take you seriously. You are writing things that you don’t believe yourself but want other people to believe them. How strange is that? First of all, do you believe what you are writing? Would you want your son to read it? That is a kind of dishonesty.

Writing dishonest articles and being a dishonest person are the same thing. A pen weighs a thousand pounds. Articles must be truthful. The fundamenal content of an honest article is truth. Only truthful articles are lively and vigorous. The ancients said that people must be upright and that writing should be unconventional. “Unconventional” here means be actively thinking for ourselves. People should be honest but articles should be beautiful and brilliant. The “unconventional” along with beauty and brilliance are built on foundation of truthfulness. An article that is not honest cannot be beautiful and brilliant. Simply preaching at people cannot win their hearts. Preaching in itself does not have vitality. Future generation will not benefit from important things that are not said. The problem remains a problem of the system and a problem of education. We of our generation started lying from the moment we started writing. I lied too. We have all written that kind of essay. For example, “I found a penny and gave it to Uncle Policeman, Uncle Policemen asked me my name and I said my name is Red Scarf”. We all wrote “I helped an old man cross the street, then I looked at the sun and it shined even brighter”; “After I swept the classroom, I wiped off the perspiration and laughed seeing how my red scarf shined even brighter”. I escaped from there.

After I told lies, I felt how evil it was. These days we don’t want for anything, but what we are most short of is truth! In 1958 during the Great Leap Forward in Anhui Province there were people dying of starvation. When they went to the hospital for medical care, the physician, after taking their pulse, the physician said you lack a certain kind of medicine. One word: food. The man was starving.

Today we very often are missing this medicine: truth! In an honest society, honesty itself is not something that people make a big thing of; it is in a dishonest society that honesty is particularly valuable. Truthtellers are often critics. Critics are often patriots. Great critics are often great patriots.

Trump’s Pick For OMB Director Has Vowed To 'End Medicare As We Know It'

Another example of what will be tsunami of "things we didn't vote for".
Who among Trump's voters and rally goers thinks cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits and raising premiums and co-pays is a good idea?

These problems can all be addressed by a higher cap on Social Security taxes, perhaps Medicare too, and moving toward the efficiency of single payer system - such as by lowering the Medicare eligibility age. - gwc

Trump’s Pick For OMB Director Has Vowed To 'End Medicare As We Know It'
ByTIERNEY SNEEDPublishedDECEMBER 20, 2016, 1:36 PM 

Talking Points memo

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget, has been an ardent supporter of budget proposals that would privatize Medicare and has made overhauling the program a key issue in his approach to governance.

“We have to end Medicare as we know it,” Mulvaney said in 2011.

A Tea Party budget hawk who led the opposition to many of the funding compromises during the Obama era, Mulvaney vocally championed proposals by then-Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and others to privatize Medicare or impose other major changes to the program. He relentlessly argued that cutting retirement programs like Medicare was the only way to “balance the budget,” the Tea Party call to arms. He hasn't been shy about calling for a drastic refashioning of Medicare.

“Medicare as it exists today is finished," Mulvaney said at a townhall in 2011. As OMB director, Mulvaney would have major sway within a Trump administration, and would play a key role in determining the administration's position on mandatory programs like Medicare and Social Security, which Mulvaney once called a “Ponzi scheme.” The post requires confirmation by the Senate.

“The OMB director is one of the three most senior economic advisers to the President. In that role as an advisor to the president, he or she has a huge influence on all policy matters,” said Ken Baer, a former associate director at OMB in the Obama administration. “OMB director also has a huge influence over Medicare policy. Next to the [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] administrator, who actually administers the program, and along with [Health and Humans Services] Secretary, OMB director is equally important.”

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