The Ledes

Friday, September 6, 2024

CNBC: “The U.S. economy created slightly fewer jobs than expected in August, reflecting a slowing labor market while also clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates later this month. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 142,000 during the month, down from 89,000 in July and below the 161,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

New York Times: “Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old accused of killing two teachers and two students at his Georgia high school, was arrested and charged on Thursday with second-degree murder in connection with the state’s deadliest school shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. In addition to two counts of second-degree murder, Mr. Gray, 54, was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, according to a statement. At a news conference on Thursday night, Chris Hosey, the G.B.I. director, said the charges were 'directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.'” At 5:30 am ET, this is the pinned item in a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's report is here.

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 5, 2024

CNBC: “Private sector payrolls grew at the weakest pace in more than 3½ years in August, providing yet another sign of a deteriorating labor market, according to ADP. Companies hired just 99,000 workers for the month, less than the downwardly revised 111,000 in July and below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 140,000. August was the weakest month for job growth since January 2021, according to data from the payrolls processing firm. 'The job market’s downward drift brought us to slower-than-normal hiring after two years of outsized growth,' ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said. The report corroborates multiple data points recently that show hiring has slowed considerably from its blistering pace following the Covid outbreak in early 2020.”

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Georgia school massacre are here, a horrifying ritual which we experience here in the U.S. to kick off each new School Shooting Year. “A 14-year-old student opened fire at his Georgia high school on Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers before surrendering to school resource officers, according to the authorities, who said the suspect would be charged with murder.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I heard Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) speak during a press conference. Kemp is often glorified as one of the most moderate, reasonable GOP elected public officials. When asked a question I did not hear, Kemp responded, "Now is not the time to talk about politics." As you know, this is a statement that is part of the mass shooting ritual. It translates, "Our guns-for-all policy is so untenable that I dare not express it lest I be tarred and feathered -- or worse -- by grieving families." ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: “Police identified the suspect as Colt Gray, a student who attracted the attention of federal investigators more than a year ago, when they began receiving anonymous tips about someone threatening a school shooting. The FBI referred the reports to local authorities, whose investigations led them to interview Gray and his father. The father told police that he had hunting guns in the house, but that his son did not have unsupervised access to them. Gray denied making the online threats, the FBI said, but officials still alerted area schools about him.” ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: I heard on CNN that the reason authorities lost track of Colt was that his family moved counties, and the local authorities who first learned of the threats apparently did not share the information with law enforcement officials in Barrow County, where Wednesday's mass school shooting occurred. If you were a parent of a child who has so alarmed law enforcement that they came around to your house to question you and the child about his plans to massacre people, wouldn't you do something?: talk to him, get the kid professional counseling, remove guns and other lethal weapons from the house, etc.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, but Akhilleus found this new one that he says is easy to use.

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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass.

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Oct172019

The Commentariat -- October 18, 2019

Late Morning Update:

Jennifer Bendery of The Huffington Post: "Senate Republicans voted Thursday to advance another of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, Justin Walker, who earned a rare and embarrassing 'not qualified' rating from the American Bar Association. Every Republican on the Judiciary Committee voted to advance Walker ... to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote. Every Democrat voted no.... 'Mr. Walker’s experience to date has a very substantial gap, namely the absence of any significant trial experience,' the ABA concluded. 'Mr. Walker has never tried a case as lead or co-counsel, whether civil or criminal.... In addition, based on review of his biographical information and conversations with Mr. Walker, it was challenging to determine how much of his ten years since graduation from law school has been spent in the practice of law.'" --s

Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Shelling and gunfire continued in northern Syria on Friday morning, casting further doubt on the feasibility of a cease-fire announced a day before by Vice President Mike Pence between Turkish and Kurdish forces and raising questions about whether the Americans can even enforce it. The Kurdish leadership in northern Syria accused the Turkish military and its proxies of violating the terms of the truce. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied that any fighting was continuing."

He Was Not Amused. Borzou Daragahi of the U.K. Independent: "Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Donald Trump's recent letter ... 'was not in line with diplomatic and political courtesy. We will not forget this lack of respect. This is not a priority for us. But when the time comes we would like it to be known that we will take the necessary steps.' The extraordinary missive warned the Turkish leader not to be a 'fool' over Turkish plans to start a military campaign in northern Syria.... It emerged on Thursday that Mr Erdogan reacted angrily to the letter, throwing it in the bin and commencing the military offensive, which has left dozens of civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands."

John Hudson, et al., of the Washington Post: “A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer, according to three people familiar with the testimony. George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest, said the people.... But when Kent raised the issue with Biden’s office, he was told the then-vice president didn’t have the 'bandwidth' to deal with the issue involving his son as his other son, Beau, was battling cancer, said the people familiar with his testimony. The testimony by Kent offers a reminder that as Democrats probe President Trump’s alleged actions in pressuring Ukraine to dig up compromising information on Biden, the impeachment inquiry also threatens to keep alive questions about the former vice president’s handling of his son’s foreign work at a precarious moment for his 2020 presidential campaign.”

Paul Brandus of USA Today: “... Donald Trump falls into every single sleazy category, squarely and shamelessly.... Meantime, finger-pointing at Hunter Biden diverts media attention — a time-honored Trump tactic — from his own children's brazen exploitation of their father’s office. As Bloomberg's Stephanie Baker notes, they 'have continued working with foreign business partners from Dubai to Indonesia and India while their father sits in the White House.' First daughter Ivanka and hubby Jared Kushner raked in an estimated $82 million in 2017 alone, records show. 'Time and again,' notes the Los Angeles Times, 'Trump’s children have blurred the lines of family, nation and business — essentially the charge the president makes against the Bidens.'”

Michelle Goldman of the New York Times wants to know how Gordon Sondland thought this was going to end. "... people sell their souls all the time — but why for something as small as a chance to serve a man whose depravity Sondland himself once recognized?... Sondland is desperately spinning to distance himself from this whole debacle, suggesting he knows he’s at the center of something reprehensible. What I can’t comprehend is how anyone could think that working for Trump would end up any other way.... While it may be a mistake to overestimate the acuity of Trump appointees, it’s probably safe to say that Sondland knew exactly what he was involved with.... That’s the thing about deals with the devil. You get what you want, and then it ruins you."

Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: “Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) pushed back on the idea endorsed by the Trump administration this week that withholding foreign aid to other countries for political purposes is a routine and appropriate way of doing business. 'You don’t hold up foreign aid that we had previously appropriated for a political initiative,' Murkowski, a senior appropriator, told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon. 'Period.'”

But for a Medium-Sized Spacesuit.... Hannah Devlin of the Guardian: "Two Nasa astronauts have embarked on the first all-female space walk in a historic first. Christina Koch and Jessica Meir floated feet-first out of the International Space Station’s Quest airlock on Friday lunchtime UK time, tasked with replacing a failed power control unit. The spacewalk, known as an extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in astronaut jargon, took place seven months after the original planned date for an all-female outing, which had to be scrapped because the ISS had only one medium-sized spacesuit on board. The agency sent up a second medium spacesuit in October." Mrs. McC: Ah, well. At long last, some good news. ~~~

     ~~~ Feel-Good Story Ruined. Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: “President Trump on Friday spoke to two female astronauts participating in the first all-female space walk, cheering them as 'very brave, brilliant women' and praising their work on a call at the White House.” Mrs. McC: I'm surprised he didn't tell them they looked hot in those tight-fitting spacesuits.

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump, Inc. -- The Corruption Confession

Did he also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money. -- Mick Mulvaney, on Trump's Ukraine quid pro quo

We have a confession. -- Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) ~~~

~~~ ** A Shakedown Is Legal if Trump Does It. Michael Shear & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, threw the Trump’s administration defense against impeachment into disarray on Thursday when he said that the White House withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to further President Trump’s political interests. Mr. Mulvaney told a room full of journalists in a White House briefing that was televised live that the aid was withheld in part until Ukraine investigated an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for hacking Democratic Party emails in 2016 — a theory that would show that Mr. Trump was elected without Russian help.... Mr. Mulvaney pointed to 'three issues' that explained why officials withheld the aid: corruption in Ukraine, frustration that European governments were not providing more money to Ukraine and the president’s demand that Kiev officials investigate the issue of the Democratic National Committee server.... Asked whether he had admitted to a quid pro quo, Mr. Mulvaney said, 'We do that all the time with foreign policy.'... The declaration by Mr. Mulvaney, which he took back later in the day, undercut Mr. Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to an investigation that could help Mr. Trump politically.... Jay Sekulow, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, said Thursday, 'The president’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing.'... By day’s end, after Mr. Trump told aides to clean up the mess, Mr. Mulvaney issued a statement flatly denying what he had earlier said.... Democrats ridiculed the reversal.... Mr. Mulvaney blasted the current and former administration officials who have testified in the impeachment inquiry....” (This is a substantial update to a story linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The Lie Falls Apart. John Hudson & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday that President Trump blocked nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in part to force the government in Kyiv to investigate his political rivals, a startling acknowledgment after the president’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo." CNN's story (which has been updated) is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "Mulvaney's admission angered and confused allies of Trump inside and outside the administration, according to two people familiar with the matter. One of them called Mulvaney’s comments in the White House briefing room 'an unmitigated disaster.'" Mulvaney claimed in the briefing that another reason for blocking Ukraine military aid was to make certain Ukrainians "'were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice.' A senior Justice Department official said in response: 'If the White House was withholding aid from Ukraine with regard to any investigation by the Justice Department, that’s news to us.'"

     ~~~ The Times reprises the Q&A at the press briefing re: Ukraine & contrasts those remarks with Mulvaney's attempt to walk back his confession. Mrs. McC: Say, Mick, if you're going to confess to crimes & implicate your boss, maybe don't do it on national teevee.  ~~~

     ~~~ Jonathan Chait: "A few weeks ago, Republicans were still insisting that Donald Trump’s diplomatic posture toward Ukraine did not involve any quid pro quo — and if such a thing had happened, it would be bad. “There was no quid pro quo, you’d have to have that if there was going to be anything wrong,” said Senator Charles Grassley on September 25.... Mulvaney’s matter-of-fact manner [of endorsing Trump's abuse of the presidency] is merely a tonal shift announcing to his fellow partisans that they can stop denying Trump uses foreign policy to gin up overseas investigations of his domestic rivals and start defending it."

     ~~~ Josh Marshall of TPM provides a good explanation of Mulvaney's assertion that Trump wanted Ukraine to get to the bottom of the “'corruption related to the DNC server.'... It is ... a reference to the Seth Rich/DNC Server conspiracy theory[:]... Not only did Donald Trump not collude with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Russia didn’t even interfere in the election at all. Both were framed by a conspiracy between Ukraine and the DNC. The server is the DNC server that the Russians hacked. It’s ‘missing’, so the conspiracy theory goes, because a cybersecurity firm called Crowdstrike was part of the conspiracy and they made it look like the Russians had hacked the servers when in fact it was an inside job by a disgruntled DNC employee. And which employee? Seth Rich.... That was why the White House held up military aid. And if there’s any question that this was an offhand remark by Mulvaney, remember: Trump explicitly invoked the “Crowdstrike server” in his call with Zelensky.” ~~~

     ~~~ Fortunately for Trump, Mulvaney, Giuliani & sundry conspiracy theorists, Devin Nunes is still around. Betsy Swan & Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast: During Sondland's hearing, “Nunes (R-CA) brought up ... the Steele dossier. The context, according to three sources familiar with the episode, was his effort to explain why President Trump might be 'upset' about Ukraine. Nunes ... said some of the dossier’s contents dealt with Ukraine, and that the Clintons paid for it. Some attendees said it seemed oddly divorced from the topic at hand -- namely, whether Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate one of his political opponents. 'It was nutso,' said one person familiar with the exchange. 'It was awkward.'” Mrs. McC: Hey, it was Devin.

Nicholas Fandos & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: “Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, will tell House impeachment investigators on Thursday that President Trump essentially delegated American foreign policy on Ukraine to his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a directive that he will say he disagreed with but nonetheless followed. Mr. Sondland, a Trump campaign donor who has emerged as a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, will testify that he did not understand until later that Mr. Giuliani’s goal may have been an effort 'to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly in the president’s 2020 re-election campaign.' According to a copy of his opening statement obtained by the New York Times, Mr. Sondland will say that Mr. Trump refused to take the counsel of his top diplomats, who recommended to him that he meet with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, without any preconditions. The president said that the diplomats needed to satisfy concerns both he and Mr. Giuliani had related corruption in Ukraine, Mr. Sondland will say.... Mr. Sondland arrived on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to take his turn in the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee....” The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Sondland's opening statement is here, via NBC News. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Mulvaney's confession -- stories linked above -- was Mulvaney's idea of how to mop up after Sondland's opening statement, released this morning. ~~~

~~~ “Gordon Sondland’s Ukraine Alibi: I Was the Dumbest Diplomat Ever.” Jonathan Chait: “In his testimony, Sondland claims he 'did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son,' and that such an investigation 'would be wrong.' To grasp how utterly absurd this excuse is, consider a few facts. On May 1, the New York Times ran a lengthy front-page story about Biden and Ukraine, describing and detailing Trump’s agenda of ginning up charges against his likely opponent. The word Burisma appears 36 times in that story. The Times also ran follow-ups on May 9 and May 11.... Generally speaking, professional diplomats tend to be aware of front-page New York Times stories about the president’s deep, personal interest in the country they are negotiating with.... If Sondland had boycotted all the mainstream news coverage..., he definitely caught the right-wing media’s even more thorough coverage, all of which made the connection with the Bidens extremely clear.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Maggie Haberman & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "Rick Perry, the energy secretary who has drawn scrutiny for his role in the controversy surrounding President Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine officials to investigate the son of a political rival, on Thursday told the president he would resign from the cabinet.... It is not known exactly when Mr. Perry will leave his post, but it is expected soon." The CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ An occasion to give this old favorite one last whirl:

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. McCrabbie: Last week, Akhilleus laid out the steps of a Trump Scandal Cycle. Akhilleus applied the steps to a scandal that is in progress (the Lev & Igor sideshow). Allow me to fill in the particulars re: the Trump-Zelensky shakedown, a cycle which now is complete:

Step One: Deny. It was a perfect phone call.

Step Two: Attack. The whistleblower is practically a traitor, and what he says is all second-hand lies.

Step Three: Tacit admission but accept no responsibility. Here's the transcript of the call. Ukraine corruption is terrible.

Step Four: Admission with CYA qualifications. There was no quid pro quo.

Step Five: Conspiracy time. Everyone's out to get me because I'm so great. Those wonderful gentlemen were just trying to help me against the deep state.... (by Akhilleus) Nancy Pelosi & Adam Schiff are traitors and should be impeached.

Step Six: Find someone else to blame. Deep state infiltrating White House (so cut down NSC staff & "investigate" to find scapegoat).

Step Seven: New scandal. Doral G-7 (see next linked stories).

~~~~~~~~~~~

Earlier in Mulvaney's confessional/press briefing ~~~

~~~ Self-Dealing Is Okay if Trump Does It. President* Trump Awards Businessman* Trump a Huge Government Contract. Toluse Olorunnipa & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: “President Trump has awarded the 2020 G-7 Summit of world leaders to his own private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort outside Miami, the White House announced on Thursday. That decision is without precedent in modern American history: the president used his public office to direct a massive contract to himself.... Trump’s Doral resort — set among office parks near Miami International Airport — has been in sharp decline in recent years, according to the Trump Organization’s own records. Its net operating income fell 69 percent from 2015 to 2017; a Trump Organization representative testified last year that the reason was Trump’s damaged brand. Now, the G-7 summit will draw hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel to the resort during one of its slowest months of the year, when Miami is hot and the hotel is often less than 40 percent full. It will also provide a worldwide spotlight for the club.... The administration examined 10 sites before choosing this one, according to Mulvaney, who then quoted an anonymous site selection official who he said told him, 'It’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event.' Mulvaney did not say what other sites were vetted — just that they were all worse.... Mulvaney said the White House was not going to release information about the selection process. 'If you want to see our paper on how we did this, the answer is absolutely not,' he said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Apparently, President Donald Trump no longer sees fit even to pretend that he is constrained by the law or the Constitution. He doesn’t care to disguise his contempt for the rule of law. -- Robert Weissman of Public Citizen

~~~ Katie Rogers & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “Legal experts said hosting the Group of 7 summit at the Doral might violate the Constitution in two ways. First, the Constitution prohibits the president from accepting a gift or payment from a foreign government source, technically called a foreign emolument. And second, the president is prohibited from taking any kind of payment from the federal government that is beyond his salary.” ~~~

~~~ Toluse  Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: “In admitting that Trump had personally intervened to award a multimillion-dollar summit to his own company, and that the president had also used taxpayer money as leverage to push a Ukrainian investigation into Democrats, Mulvaney embraced a classic Trumpian tactic: saying the quiet — and potentially illegal — part out loud.... Mulvaney did not say what other sites were vetted. But he did say how Trump’s property got on the list of properties under consideration: Trump suggested it. 'We had the list, and he goes, “What about Doral?” Mulvaney said, recounting the president’s comments in the White House dining room. 'And it was like that’s — that’s not the craziest idea.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: They chose the Doral in the White House dining room? What was the selection process? A drinking game? ~~~

~~~ Should you still be confused by any of this in-your-face corruption, Paul Campos, in LG&$ puts it simply: "This is the most unambiguous possible violation of the emoluments clause, short of sending the leaders of the G7 certified letters informing them that the president will consider their requests on a cash-only basis[.]... The point is to steal everything that isn’t nailed down, and to do it right out in the open, with total impunity, because this is basically a banana republic now.. . . All this is either a pure political smash & grab, or we’re not having real elections next year. Either interpretation seems fairly plausible right now."

Create a Crisis, Retreat, Declare Victory and Move On *

Bethan McKernan of the Guardian: "Fighting is continuing on the border between Syria and Turkey, according to witnesses, despite an announcement from the US vice-president, Mike Pence, that Ankara had agreed to a five-day ceasefire to allow the US supervision of the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from the area." ~~~

~~~ pence Displaces Kurdish People, Bows to Erdogan. Annie Karni, et al., of the New York Times: “Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday said Turkey had agreed to suspend its military operations in northeast Syria for five days while Syrian Kurdish fighters left the area, immediately raising questions about whether the agreement was a diplomatic breakthrough or a capitulation to the Turkish government. Emerging from close to five hours of deliberations with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr. Pence said that the American delegation had achieved the cease-fire it had hoped to broker in the hastily organized trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital. Hailing the agreement as a diplomatic victory for President Trump, he called it a ‘solution we believe will save lives.'... But Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately countered that the agreement was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a 'pause for our operation.' He added that 'as a result of our president’s skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.' Mr. Cavusoglu also directly contradicted Mr. Pence’s announcement that Turkey had agreed to engage in no military action in Kobani, Syria. 'We did not make any promises about Kobani,' Mr. Cavusoglu said, adding that they would discuss Kobani with Russia going forward.... [The agreement] was in practice less of a cease-fire deal than an acknowledgement of the United States’ rapid loss of influence in Syria since the Turkish invasion began last Wednesday.” ~~~

     ~~~ USA Today has a story here. Chuck Todd says the U.S. is beating such a hasty retreat that we're bombing our bases so the Turks don't get 'em. Mrs. McC: Not only did Trumpence give the Kurds' region to Turkey, I haven't seen where we're not knocking ourselves out helping the displaced Kurds relocate. ~~~

I’m happy to report tremendous success with respect to Turkey. This is an amazing outcome. -- Donald Trump, Thursday afternoon ~~~

~~~ David Sanger & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The cease-fire agreement reached with Turkey by Vice President Mike Pence amounts to a near-total victory for Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gains territory, pays little in penalties and appears to have outmaneuvered President Trump.... The cost for Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against the Islamic State, is severe: Even Pentagon officials were mystified about where tens of thousands of displaced Kurds would go, as they moved south from the Turkey-Syria border as required by the deal — if they agree to go at all. And the cost to American influence, while hard to quantify, could be frightfully high." Pence also said the Trump administration would lift sanctions against Turkey. Trump's cave to Turkey is also a win for Russia, Iran & Syria. "Several civilian and military officials complained that the broadly worded deal left large policy and logistical gaps to fill, with many questions about how to carry out commitments by the two sides that appeared to contradict the fast-moving situation on the ground." ~~~

~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The deal agreed between the US and Turkey immediately achieved the priority objective of vice-president Mike Pence’s peace mission to Ankara: Donald Trump was able to claim victory on Twitter.... The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also scored a quick win. The threat of US administration sanctions was suspended and his occupation of the Turkish-Syrian border zone was given an extra layer of respectability. Otherwise it was hard to pinpoint what the 13-point document produced in Ankara actually meant.... Washington had been in touch with the actual combatants on the ground, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but appears to have sold them a completely different deal....[According to] Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute[:] 'So everyone seems to be talking a different language, which can only spell more trouble.'" --s ~~~

~~~ Zeke Miller of the AP: “... Donald Trump framed the U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal with Turkey as 'a great day for civilization' but its effect was largely to mitigate a foreign policy crisis widely seen to be of his own making.... The cease-fire [agreement between pence & Erdogan] codifies nearly all of Turkey’s stated goals in the conflict.... In the negotiations, a senior U.S. official said, Pence and national security adviser Robert O’Brien expressed condolences to Erdogan and his military commanders over their dead and injured in the week-long campaign.... A senior U.S. official insisted that the agreement was negotiated in consultation with Kurdish forces and Pence said the U.S. would 'facilitate' the Kurds’ pullout, but he did not say if that would include the use of American troops.... Before the talks, the Kurds indicated they would object to any agreement along the lines of what was announced by Pence.” ~~~

I earned my spurs on the battlefield … and Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor. -- Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, in response to Trump's calling him “the world’s most overrated general”

David Nexon, in the Atlantic, explains why Trump is incapable of handling: “... Trump’s primary interest lies in his own advancement. His information environment is dominated by Fox News and fever-swamp, right-wing conspiracy theories. He’s also all short-term tactics and no long-term strategy. Trump seems to be simply incapable of the kind of strategic thought required for foreign policy. In a devastating Atlantic article, Mark Bowden interviewed numerous U.S. generals who attest that Trump refuses to work through how other countries might respond to his actions. He just wants to make 'gut' decisions, which means that he neither anticipates nor plans for contingencies. This makes him fundamentally reactive.”

Now We Can Feel Safe & Secure. Vladimir Soldatkin of Reuters: "Russia and the United States are gradually starting to resume cooperation on cyber security, TASS news agency cited the head of Russia’s FSB Federal Security Service as saying on Thursday."

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: “William P. Barr just gave the worst speech by an Attorney General of the United States in modern history. Speaking at the University of Notre Dame last Friday, Barr took “religious liberty” as his subject, and he portrayed his fellow-believers as a beleaguered and oppressed minority. He was addressing, he said, 'the force, fervor, and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion we are experiencing today. This is not decay; this is organized destruction.' Historically illiterate, morally obtuse, and willfully misleading, the speech portrays religious people in the United States as beset by a hostile band of 'secularists.'... Barr claims the mantle of victimhood in order to press for a right-wing political agenda.”

* Mrs. McCrabbie: I borrow the "Create a Crisis/Declare Victory" headline from a July 2019 Japan Times article. The article had expired, so I don't know what it was about, but the author, whoever s/he may be, described it as "the Trump pattern" and cited an earlier instance in which Trump had used the same template. IOW, it is the Trump playbook.

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Reader Comments (14)

Mick, Mick, Mick...don't try to blur the distinction between foreign policy leverage and extortion. You only have to identify the stakeholders to see the difference.

Mulvaney's admission and the "get over it" comment is a step beyond Akhilleus' step 4 of the scandal cycle because he's saying there was quid pro quo and that political information-conditional military aid was standard foreign policy leverage, implying that the OMs domestic political advantage doesn't matter.

So is there a Step 4.5? Admit there was a quid pro quo, but blur the distinction between leverage and extortion, or invent a false equivalency.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterPeriscope

Watching clips from Drumpf's latest rally got me thinking again about his rabid base support. The GOP now knows, beyond almost literally any doubt, that their electoral base will tolerate and condone pretty everything they coud dream of doing. As long as messaging is on point, or even just brazenly empathic with its Big Lie and in lock step with their warped media networks.

But today this reality has led to me other worries. We've documented here the slow infestation of conspiracy theories from the fever swaps of the internet into the center of national dialogue. Stark examples exist in just today's run-down of news where stable-minded citizens have to go and learn about "Crowdstrike" and Clinton servers in Ukraine.
With the arrival of mass fake bots and fake news and now even deep fake videos, I'm seriously afraid that this whole Republican base will never wake up from this dystopian lullaby. So many hope that the cult-like spell will wear off once the cult leader is dethroned, but what if 40% of the population just stays on the batshit crazy train for a generation, mindfucked by Facebook and YouTube?

As far as I know there has never been a national propaganda de-programming effort atempted, and the GOP would never even entertain the idea knowing how much free rein they have in politics under this full press mind manipulation campaign. The only way those minds begin to heal would be through a GOP initiative, but we all know the power of the grift is far too strong.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered Commentersafari

Nothing to see here, folks, let's move on, shall we? It should be clear by now that we are running this government just like the leader ran his business and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that operation. You people are like rats sneaking and sniffing around this administration trying to find raw meat––I'm telling you–-those nothing burgers are the only things you'll find. And let's be clear–- I can stand up here and lie my ass off and afterwards deny everything and our base will applaud. You have to understand–-and I know it's hard for you "paper people", not being too bright, chaos is control in this White House. As for the choice for the G7 summit we looked high and low but no place suited as well as the leader's––I mean there were some places we'd have to supply oxygen tanks because of the high altitude––so Dural is the perfect place and if you don't cotton to that, too bad––we don't really give a shit.

As Mulvaney bid adios and left the podium he reminded those "paper people" that underneath their seats they'd find some ripe bananas–-sustenance for the long trek back to their place in the Sun or the Times or the Post, or the....

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe

No additional sites considered for the G7? Of course there were. Whadaya talkin'?

I am in possession of the list of the other nine sites carefully vetted before the little king settled on his playpen, so all you lying demycraps can just go jump. Harumph.

Sights Konsidered for Gee Seven Thing. By Trumpy, the king.

1. Trump Tower. Plenty of empty condos. World leaders can stay in them. Cheap. $100,000 a night. Room service extra. A LOT extra.

2. Trump World Tower. Right next to the horrible UN where they can go to find others who talk their gibberish if they get homesick. Weenies.

3. Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. Hey plenty of almost naked broads to take their minds off fake stuff like global warming which we're not talking about anyway.

4. Central Park Carousel. Yeah. I own it. And I get to pick which leader rides on which animal. Snake for you, sheep for you, busted hump camel for you, you asshole. Lion, of course, for me.

5. Trump Winery. Get 'em sloshed. They'll forget everything. I'll get 'em to let my boss Vlad back in the club.

6. Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach
7. Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, NJ
8. Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, FL
9. Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles. Get 'em on the links, cheat, kick their asses and take their money.

But the Doral is better. Besides, we might bring back the strippers. Plus, I REALLY know how to cheat at the Doral.

See? A lot of great places we looked at. So go suck a lemon, you third rate losers.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: You think that's funny, do ya? It's completely plausible that what you've typed up there is the real list. At least we know for certain that the only property or properties under consideration had "Trump" in its name.

The only funny thing is that Donnie really has no idea at all how tawdry his cheap stunt makes the U.S. look in the eyes of the entire world. He thinks people admire or envy him. What a disgrace.

October 18, 2019 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

"So here we are in a meeting in the Trump House, er, I mean the White House,...whatev, and we're trying to figure where to put the stiffs, er, I mean, world leaders for that bullshit G7 thing, and the king goes 'What about Doral?' and I'm like 'Hey, ya know, that's not the craziest idea...'"

Sure Mick. Just the other night my wife and I were talking about how it would be nice to have an extra ten or twenty thou in our pockets. And she sez "Why not rob a bank?" and I'm like "Hey, ya know, that's not the craziest idea..."

Unless it's ILLEGAL, you stupid schmuck.

But at this point, why do they even bother trying to make shit look legal and honest? It's a waste of everyone's time. It's like Rick Perry putting on glasses. He's just as stupid with as without. They all need to follow Melanie's lead and get their own "I really don't care" jackets when they do these confessional pressers.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Adding a bit to TPM's article on the conspiracy propaganda and the single offending server:

"The president appears to be promoting at least a few misconceptions about the DNC breach: First, that the DNC relied on a single server that stored all relevant data; and second, that the server was at some point misappropriated and shipped to Ukraine, possibly by CrowdStrike, possibly because Trump is laboring under the delusion that Alperovitch is Ukrainian. (He is not.)…...from a lawsuit that it filed last year, that the DNC ultimately had to decommission more than 140 servers....."

https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/trump-ukraine-call-crowdstrike-server-2016-dnc-hack.html

Barr's view of the unitary executive and his tolerance, if not encouragement of corruption, may be related to his "close relationship" with Opus Dei. He talks the talk and walks the walk.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/ag-bill-barr-has-ties-to-ultra-conservative-catholic-opus-dei-and-that-could-explain-his-ends-justify-the-means-corruption/

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAnonymous

@Anonymous. Thanks. That was a head-smacker. Once you pointed it out, it seemed so obvious, but I never made the connection between Barr & the Opus Dei mindset. I didn't know there was probably an actual affiliation there, but you don't really have to know that to see the "intellectual" or "philosophical" thread. Creepy.

October 18, 2019 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Hey ladies and germs, welcome to the Comedy Stop. Let's have a big round of applause--no tomatoes please, at least not yet--for the Mad Dog! C'mon out, Mad Dog Mattis.

"Take my wife....please."

"No, really, I just wanted to make a few jokes about that joke in the Oval Office....oh! Hahaha."

Okay, so who knew Mattis could be funny? But where was this crisp bravado when he was working in the White House? Where were the one liners and the zingers then? I'm guessing there weren't any, otherwise he'd have been fired toot sweet. But at least he'd have made his point, instead of sitting on his hands. And at this point, I'd rather hear something a bit more substantive than "I'm the Meryl Streep of generals."

Trump surrounded himself with people he believed made him look good, and that he could control. That hasn't panned out. He's left with people he can control, but does anyone think Mulvaney, Barr, Munchkin, and whoever that lady is who pretends to be press secretary but no one ever sees, make him look good?

He's like the sad sack coach on a failing football team who misses all the good draft choices and ends up with guys from third rate teams who won all of three games in college and can't sign anyone decent because no one wants to play for an idiot loser.

But Mattis ought to restrict himself, at least for the time being, to serious criticisms. I'm guessing he doesn't because the obvious rejoinder would be "So what did you do about it?" And I suppose the truthful response would be "Not much".

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Thanks to Anonymous, both for his reminder that no operation relies on a single server that could be spirited out of the country, and the tip on Bill Barr's fanaticism. Even small businesses now have multiple back ups either on, off site, or in the cloud. Operations the size of the DNC typically use server farms and RAID arrays to back up their work product.

As for Barr, it makes perfect sense that he's heavily involved in and influenced by a secret organization like Opus Dei that promotes the importance of religious fealty and control over all else. Political connections are useful in advancing the goals of the organization, therefore things like loyalty to democracy or to any government are secondary. Barr is far more corrupt that even I thought. But the idea that he despises even the idea of a secular culture and will do anything, including supporting a traitor in order to damage it makes clear his willingness to ignore whatever (in his eyes, very likely, worthless, but necessary for appearances) oaths he has taken to protect and defend the Constitution.

Opus Dei's founder, Father Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, praised Hitler and Franco for protecting Spain from the communists. Opus Dei was formally recognized by the Catholic Church in 1950 by Pope Pius XII, otherwise known as "Hitler's Pope".

The rise of fascism within the Republican Party in this country has been propelled by a number of competing and sometimes overlapping agendas, the enforcement of "conservative" values, the protection of the white race, authoritarianism, the ever popular MONEY rationale, and now, as we see, the underground workings of theocrats like Barr and, from a slightly different, but no less dangerous position, the half-pence.

It's no coincidence that the greedy, the controlling, the authoritarian, the theocrats, all cleave to the bloody garments of a fascist leader, Herr Drumpf. Treason, for these people, is not treason if you serve another goal other than the preservation constitutional democracy. If democracy gets in the way, it too can be dealt with, which makes clear their perfect agreement with allowing foreign governments to help hamstring it.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Whoa...Hillary Clinton is charging Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard with being a puppet for the Russians (in addition, I suppose, to the Russian puppet in the White House).

Maybe that's true, I don't know, but it has more the flavor of a typical confederate alarum. I'm pretty sure Clinton is not that kind of nutjob, but I would prefer some sort of evidence beyond "I think...". Although I have no doubt that the Russians are in it again to help the Orange Menace complete his assignment of destroying as much of the United States' official capacity to get in their way as he can, and Putin is not the kind of guy to bet all his rubles on one horse, I'd like to see or hear something more concrete about Gabbard.

Until then, let's let the R's keep full control of the Screwball Vote.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Just a harebrained and preposterous thought here. Just because Big Donnie has chosen Doral for the G7 doesn't mean the dignitaries are required to stay there.

Even Trump doesn't stay in his South Florida properties during the summer. June is the start of the dead season for South Florida tourism and Miami has numerous hotels and they are all underbooked during the hot, humid, summer months. Delegates have their choice of high quality hotels, probably at far lower rates as well..

What a chance for national leaders to subtly flip off Trump, possibly even mentioning the emoluments clause as a reason.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

Bobby Lee,

I’d rather stay in a Motel 6 than in Bedbug Central with Fatty’s winger creeps like Mulvaney snooping around and scary life sized photoshopped portraits of the Orange Menace damaging your optic nerve at every corner. And speaking of Motel 6, would the owners of a single hospitality business invite hundreds of clients to their establishment with the understanding, as Mulvaney claims, that there won’t be a single nickel’s worth of profit? The lies rain down like thumb-sized drops in a rain forest during monsoon season.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Opus Dei???? (which means "Works of God) good lord! So now we have both Barr and Pompeo steeped in religiosity up to their eyeballs.
I'm with Marie: CREEPY!!!!!

Watched the excellent film "Spotlight" again last weekend and I urge those who haven't seen it, please do. The list, at the end of the film, of pedophile priests in various countries all over the world is stunning and shocking.

October 18, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe
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