The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

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. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

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.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Monday
Jul082019

The Commentariat -- July 9, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Daniel Dale of CNN: "... Donald Trump shared a fake quote from former Republican President Ronald Reagan on Twitter on Monday. Trump passed along a tweet from an obscure account that called itself 'The Reagan Battalion,' which appeared to be impersonating a well-known conservative account of the same name. The copycat account had fewer than 300 followers at the time Trump promoted it. Its tweet read: 'Dear weak Conservatives, never forget that you are no match for "we the people," and our president.' Attached to the tweet was a photo of Trump and Reagan shaking hands -- with a supposed Reagan quote superimposed on top. 'For the life of me, and I'll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with the president,' the supposed quote read. 'Cute! Trump wrote in his own tweet above the photo.... While the photo is real, the supposed quote is fake. Ronald Reagan never said [that] of Trump.... The fake Reagan quote has been debunked by fact-checkers since 2016, when it began spreading in pro-Trump circles on Facebook." Twitter suspended the account after Trump promoted the fake quote.

I have never met a young man with more potential than Donald Trump. He is destined for greatness. I am sure Her Majesty the Queen will come to admire him & summon him to Buckingham Palace for his wise counsel. -- Winston Churchill, 1963

France is destroyed, but the United States will prosper under a great Germanic leader called Drumpf 200 years hence. -- Napoleon, 1817

In the year 2020, the leader of a great American nation will erect a great wall around the mighty mass of the far-off promised land. He will close otheboarders on land and close all beaches to protect his great land. -- Nostradamus, 1559

Rupam Jain of Reuters: "The U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan wound up on Tuesday the seventh round of talks he has held with the Taliban in Qatar, after signs of progress in efforts to end the longest war the United States has ever fought. The U.S. envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, met Taliban officials briefly a day after a delegation of Afghan citizens and the militants agreed on a 'roadmap for peace', in particular a joint call to end civilian casualties in the 18-year war."

Barr to Protect Trump from Epstein, After All. Chris Strohm of Bloomberg News: "Attorney General William Barr won't recuse himself from involvement in the new charges filed against Jeffrey Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York, according to a Justice Department official. Barr made the decision on Tuesday after consulting with career ethics officials at the department, said the official, who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive matter. Barr considered whether he would have to recuse himself from the case because Epstein previously hired lawyers from a law firm where Barr had worked. But Barr has recused himself from any retrospective review of the Justice Department's 2008 decision letting Epstein avoid prosecution on federal sex-trafficking offenses and the decades of prison time that he could have faced if convicted." Related story linked below.

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The House Judiciary Committee will vote [Thursday] to authorize a bevy of new subpoenas on the Trump administration's practices of separating families from their children at the border and on President Trump's possible obstruction of justice, summoning some of the biggest names to surface in Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.... Among the targets are Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general; Michael T. Flynn, the president's first national security adviser; John F. Kelly, the former White House chief of staff; Rod J. Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who appointed Mr. Mueller; Corey R. Lewandowski, Mr. Trump's former campaign manager, and David J. Pecker, who as the head of American Media took part in a hush money scheme.... The committee will also authorize subpoenas for Jared Kushner...."

Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "The Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that President Trump cannot block Twitter users from his official account, finding that the practice is discriminatory. The ruling upholds a lower court ruling that also found Trump cannot block the Twitter users.... The judges wrote 'that the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise‐open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.' The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University had brought forward the lawsuit on behalf of seven people who had been blocked by Trump on Twitter."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta should resign over a 2008 plea deal involving financier Jeffrey Epstein and that if he doesn't, President Trump should fire him. 'I am calling on Secretary Acosta to resign,' Schumer said during a Senate floor speech. 'It is now impossible for anyone to have confidence in Secretary Acosta's ability to lead the Department of Labor....'"

Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "The U.K.'s ambassador to the U.S. has the 'full support' of the prime minister, a spokesman said in a statement to news outlets. He made the comment after President Trump said he'd 'no longer deal' with ambassador Kim Darroch over leaked cables showing he criticized Trump."

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer announced he will mount a bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president on Tuesday, an about-face after saying earlier this year he would not run."

David Koenig of the AP: "H. Ross Perot, the colorful, self-made Texas billionaire who rose from a childhood of Depression-era poverty and twice ran for president as a third-party candidate, has died. He was 89. Perot, whose 19% of the vote in 1992 stands among the best showings by an independent candidate in the past century, died early Tuesday at his home in Dallas surrounded by his devoted family, family spokesman James Fuller said."

Barak Ravid of Israel's Channel 13 News in Axios: "Israel's newly appointed minister of education, Rafi Peretz, said at a cabinet meeting on July 1 that the rate of intermarriage among U.S. Jews is 'like a second Holocaust,' according to three people who were in the room.... Peretz, a former chief rabbi of the Israeli army, is the leader of a bloc of ultra right-wing religious parties. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally involved in forming this political bloc, which also includes the Jewish supremacist 'Jewish Power' party. If Netanyahu wins the upcoming elections, Peretz will likely stay on as education minister."

~~~~~~~~~~

Arden Farhi & Kathryn Watson of CBS News: "President Trump touted his administration's environmental stewardship in a speech in the East Room Monday. It's a topic the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates bring up almost daily, but not one Mr. Trump often addresses. But [Trump] ... did not mention climate change.... In his speech, the president claimed his administration is working diligently to improve the environment, insisting the environment and economy go hand-in-hand. The environment can't be strong without a strong economy, Mr. Trump said. The president did tout the importance of forest management to prevent fires in California [Mrs. McC: get out the vacuum cleaner!], and blasted the 'Green New Deal.'" ...

... Gaslight! Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones: "There were so many lies strung together in...Trump's environmental speech from the White House on Monday, it's a challenge to fact-check." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Every word was a lie, including "and" and "the." Here's a ferinstance Leber cites: "'From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to make sure America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet,' Trump said. 'We want the cleanest air. We want crystal clean water. And that's what we're doing.' This statement is wrong not just because Trump has rolled back so many environmental protections in half a term, but because the US does not actually have the cleanest air and water in the world. Pick your pollution, and the US has often trailed behind other wealthy countries -- 10th on overall air quality and 29th on water and sanitation, according to Yale's Environmental Performance Index. Switzerland is number one."

"Donald Trump: Not That Smart!" Nick Martin of Splinter: "... Donald Trump may not be a 'super genius' after all. On Monday, the Washington Post published an interview with James Nolan, an 81 year old former admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania who played a role in ferrying Trump from Fordham University to Wharton, Penn's acclaimed business school. Nolan was a longtime friend of Fred Trump Jr., Donald's older brother, and in 1966..., Nolan ... said Fred called him up to beg the now-president's way into the school. Since then, three of Trump's children have followed in his footsteps -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka went to Wharton and Tiffany went to Penn for undergraduate.... Trump has bragged that his degree from the school is 'like super genius st[u]ff' and that it's 'the hardest school to get in.'... Nolan made clear that during his sit-down with Trump, it was clear he wasn't dealing with a particularly smart individual. 'It was not very difficult,' Nolan told the Post.... The acceptance rate for transfer students was around 40 percent.... 'I certainly was not struck by any sense that I'm sitting before a genius. Certainly not a super genius.'"

... But He Is a Thin-skinned Bully! Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out on Monday at Britain's ambassador to the United States, saying the White House would no longer deal with him after the publication of confidential cables in which the ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, disparaged Mr. Trump's administration as 'clumsy and inept.'... 'I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him.' Mr. Trump's statement came close to declaring Mr. Darroch persona non grata -- an extraordinary breach between the United States and one of its closest allies.... Mr. Trump's criticism, delivered in a pair of midday tweets, escalated the tensions between the United States and Britain that erupted after the cables were published on Saturday by a British tabloid, The Mail on Sunday. The president broadened his criticism to include Prime Minister Theresa May, whom he accused of botching Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union."...

The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is that they will soon have a new prime minister. While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month, it was the Queen who I was most impressed with! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Monday

Wow! I'll bet Queen Elizabeth is thrilled to hear she impressed Donald Trump. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

... Peter Ricketts in the Guardian: "The scandal surrounding the reporting from British ambassador Kim Darroch in Washington is not that he was sending home his unvarnished analysis: that's what good ambassadors have done for centuries. It's that someone inside the British system deliberately amassed a stash of his assessments, then chose the moment of maximum impact to leak it. This was not a spontaneous decision to make public a single document: it required premeditation and therefore an agenda.... Some people in the system are abusing their access to national security information to pursue political goals without any thought for the damage to the county's interests or reputation." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Leakers always have motives. Sometimes their motives are altruistic, but probably more often than not their objectives are self-serving. I suspected from the git-go that the leaker here wanted to embarrass the current government for the purpose of promoting a right-winger like, say, Boris Johnson. And Trump, who favors Johnson, was more than willing to go along, exacerbating the embarrassment into an international incident. I'm hardly alone in this suspicion ...

     ... Robert Mackey of The Intercept: "Donald Trump's tweet, lashing out at Britain's ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, for writing private assessments of the American president's shortcomings ... was so predictable, it looked to some observers like the intended outcome of a plot, hatched in London, to depose the ambassador in Washington by leaking his confidential briefing notes on the 'uniquely dysfunctional' administration of a man unable to brook criticism.... Speculation as to what that agenda might have been was fueled by the fact that the collection of confidential memos from Darroch to senior officials in London was turned over to Isabel Oakeshott, a pro-Brexit journalist who is known to be close to Nigel Farage and his most important financial backer, Arron Banks." --s ...

... Here's the front page of today's Times of London, to which unwashed refers in today's Comments:

... Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: "The front cover of Tuesday's edition of The Times of London has gone viral for what many people believe is trolling of ... Donald Trump."

Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "The White House has blocked a third witness who provided crucial testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller from describing the chaos she witnessed in the West Wing as ... Donald Trump sought to assert control over the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. 'The White House has directed that I not respond to this question because of the constitutionally-based executive branch confidentiality interests that are implicated,' former top White House aide Annie Donaldson repeated more than 200 times in written responses to the House Judiciary Committee, according to a transcript released Monday.... Donaldson provided some of Mueller's most compelling evidence: voluminous contemporaneous notes describing an atmosphere of chaos in the West Wing as Trump careened between damaging revelations in the Russia probe."

Jesse McKinley of the New York Times: "As the battle over President Trump's federal taxes intensifies in Washington, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed a bill on Monday to allow congressional committees to access the president's state tax returns. The bill requires state tax officials to release the president's state returns for any 'specified and legitimate legislative purpose' on the request of the chair of one of three congressional committees: the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation.... The Ways and Means Committee ... has said previously that it remains focused on pursuing Mr. Trump's federal tax information.... Legal challenges could await; Mr. Trump has previously said that he is ready to take the fight over his federal tax returns to the Supreme Court. But there have been several amendments made to the New York bill to address potential legal concerns, according to the bill's supporters, including broadening its focus to cover an array of public officials, federal executive branch employees and political party leaders." ...

... Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post: "Congressional Democrats could get some of ... Donald Trump's personal tax information thanks to a new law signed Monday by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ― but they don't seem terribly interested.... State Sen. Brad Hoylman (D), who authored the New York bill, told HuffPost he received no input from congressional Democrats while drafting the bill and hasn't heard from anyone on Capitol Hill about getting the documents. 'I can understand why they would want to test the federal waters first,' Hoylman said. 'But if they don't want to wait for the court challenge and the appeals process to complete itself, they could take advantage of this route New York has provided them today.'"

Tami Abdollah of the AP: "The Justice Department on Monday challenged a federal judge's decision to allow a case accusing ... Donald Trump of profiting off the presidency to move forward, asking an appeals court to take up the case instead. Justice lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overrule a federal judge and instead allow for a mid-case appeal or to dismiss the case outright, calling the case dealing with a Revolutionary War-era clause 'extraordinary.' The government lawyers also want the court to suspend legal discovery recently approved by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, which would force Trump-related entities such as his New York and D.C. hotels, Trump Tower, the Trump Organization, and Mar-a-Lago Club to turn over business tax returns, receipts and other documents."

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday unveiled a new Commission on Unalienable Rights, a panel he said is aimed at providing him with 'an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.' The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and ... a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice, which could lend credence to the concerns among human rights activists that the commission is a ploy to undercut LGBTQ and women's rights under the guise of religious liberty." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: When a Trump administration official suddenly shows an interest in "human rights," you can bet his plan is to curtail them.

Blatant Corruption. Scott Bronstein, et al. of CNN: "In the summer of 2017, Arizona developer Mike Ingram's proposed housing and golf course project in the desert was facing a road block because of a decision by the Department of the Interior. A field supervisor for the US Fish and Wildlife Service had determined that it was 'reasonably certain' that threatened and endangered species could be harmed. But that decision suddenly changed following a secret breakfast meeting at a Montana hunting lodge between Ingram -- a donor to President Donald Trump and co-owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks -- and David Bernhardt, then the Trump administration's deputy Interior secretary. Following the meeting, which did not appear in Bernhardt's official calendar and has not been previously reported, the field supervisor says he was pressured to reverse his decision.... The meeting is one of at least 11 interactions Ingram had with top officials at the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration[.]" --s

ObamaCare in Jeopardy. Again. Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court panel will hear arguments Tuesday on whether a federal judge in Texas was correct in striking down the Affordable Care Act, a case with enormous stakes not only for millions of people who gained health insurance through the law but for the political futures of President Trump and other candidates in the 2020 elections.... The case ... was filed by a group of Republican governors and attorneys general against the federal government, which carries out the law. But the Trump administration refused to defend the full law in court and this spring said it agreed with the ruling that the law's requirement for people to buy insurance was unconstitutional, and that as a result, the entire law must be dismantled. That has left a group of 21 states with Democratic attorneys general to intervene to defend the law, along with the House of Representatives, which entered the case after Democrats won control of the chamber last fall." The appeals court is questioning whether or not the Democratic attorneys general & the House even have standing to defend the law. ...

... Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times: "As they push a federal court to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Trump administration lawyers are arguing the law is no longer workable because Congress eliminated a penalty on people who don't have health insurance. But for months, senior administration officials and lawyers have been making the exact opposite case in other settings, a review of government reports, court filings and public statements made by Trump appointees shows. In fact administration officials, including White House economists, this year repeatedly have hailed the strength of insurance marketplaces created by the 2010 law. And in stark contrast to their claims in federal court in New Orleans, they have stressed that the 2017 legislation eliminating the so-called mandate penalty has had little to no impact on markets and consumers, let alone on the broader healthcare law, often called Obamacare or the ACA.... University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley, who has closely tracked litigation related to the healthcare law, said federal courts are usually reluctant to pry too deeply into inconsistencies in how government officials justify their actions. The Trump administration, however, is testing the limits of this restraint, he said. 'Courts can get pushed to the point where they say this is too much to swallow.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: For an even better explanation of this doubletalk, see Akhilleus's commentary yesterday. See also Ian Millhiser's post linked below. And you wonder why DOJ attorneys are jumping ship.

Katie Thomas & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "A federal judge ruled on Monday that the Trump administration cannot force pharmaceutical companies to disclose the list price of their drugs in television ads, dealing a blow to one of the president's most visible efforts to pressure drug companies to lower their prices. Judge Amit P. Mehta, of the United States District Court in the District of Columbia, ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services exceeded its regulatory authority by seeking to require all drugmakers to include in their television commercials the list price of any drug that costs more than $35 a month. The rule was to take effect this week."

Jessica Holdman of the Charleston, S.C., Post & Courier: "In a visit to South Carolina on Monday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said the Trump administration will present a legal work-around that will allow a question on citizenship to be added to the 2020 Census. Speaking to reporters after a scheduled stop at a federal prison, Barr said, 'I think, over the next day or two, you'll see what approach we're taking and I think it does provide a pathway for getting the question on the census.' He did not provide details in his brief remarks. Barr also expressed little concern for the pending testimony of former special counsel Robert Mueller to federal lawmakers next week on his investigation into U.S. election interference by the Russian government.... 'It seems to me the only reason for doing that is to create some kind of public spectacle,' Barr said. 'If (Mueller) decides he doesn't want to be subjected to that, the DOJ will certainly back that.'" Mrs. McC: Sounds like Barr went to South Carolina to threaten the rule of law & Congressional oversight. ...

... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Late last month, the Supreme Court determined that the Trump administration lied about its real reason for wanting to add a question to the 2020 census form asking if each respondent is a U.S. citizen. Less than two weeks later, as a team of lawyers led by the ACLU laid out in a remarkable brief filed in a federal district court, Trump's Justice Department is entangled in an entirely different web of deceit. The brief, moreover, references a forthcoming motion for sanctions against the government attorneys who litigated this case.... Ultimately, the fate of any sanctions against these lawyers -- and of the citizenship question itself -- is likely to be decided by Chief Justice John Roberts." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I think we now know why the lawyers on the case quit & Bill Barr had to come up with a new "team" to pursue the cases. ...

... Andrew Desiderio & John Bresnahan of Politico: "House Democratic leaders plan to move forward with criminal contempt proceedings against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for defying congressional subpoenas for documents related to the 2020 census, senior Democratic aides said Monday. Being held in contempt by Congress will be an embarrassment for the Trump administration officials but it won't lead to many tangible consequences."

Juan Cole: "The United States is already at war with Iran, squeezing its economy down to nothingness. If another country tried to do this to the US just on a whim and with no UN or international-law basis, the US would certainly launch a war over it.... Trump did this to Iran despite Iran's adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).... In 2019, Iran's economy under US sanctions will shrink an incredible 6%. Aljazeera English reports that 'the rial, plummet[ed] by about 60% over the past year. Inflation is up to 37% and the cost of food and medicine has soared by 40% to 60%, according to EU figures.' Note that Trump's sanctions are unilateral. They haven't even been approved by Congress, and are actively rejected by the United Nations Security Council." --s

Mehdi Masan of The Intercept: "The New York Times interview [by MoDo, of Speaker Pelosi criticizing the progressive wing] is yet another reminder for liberals and leftists that if they want to oppose Trump, they have to oppose Pelosi too. Think I'm exaggerating? Consider three recent -- and shameful -- episodes. First, the rape allegations [by E. Jean Carroll] against the president.... Pelosi's response to a reporter who asked her for comment a whole six days later? 'I don't know the person making the accusation ... I haven't paid that much attention to it.'... This, my dear liberals, is your (feminist) champion. Second, the crisis at the border [when] ... Pelosi 'capitulated to Republicans and Democratic moderates and dropped her insistence on stronger protections for migrant children'... Third, Trump's tax returns.... Trump lawyers are citing Pelosi's refusal to impeach him as [one of] their defense[s] in court.... Pelosi has become a Trump enabler too." --s

Red Badge of Honor. Corky Siemazsko of NBC News: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said recently he opposes paying government reparations to the descendants of American slaves, has a family history deeply entwined in the issue: Two of his great-great-grandfathers were slave owners, U.S. census records show. The two great-great-grandfathers, James McConnell and Richard Daley, owned a total of at least 14 slaves in Limestone County, Alabama -- all but two of them female, according to the county 'Slave Schedules' in the 1850 and 1860 censuses." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It seems McConnell, who has boasted about a number of his ancestors & relations, has kept secret his slave-holding forebears.

Presidential Race 2020

Elana Schor of the AP: "Rep. Eric Swalwell on Monday became the first candidate in the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential primary to exit the campaign, saying he would run for reelection to his California congressional seat next year. Swalwell, 38, announced his exit in his home district, describing his decision as 'the beginning of an opportunity in Congress with a new perspective' influenced by his 3-month-long presidential bid. The four-term congressman's White House effort never progressed significantly with voters, a fact Swalwell acknowledged on Monday...." Mrs. McC: Or, as a headline in the confederate Washington Free Beacon put it, "Swalwell to Announce He Ran for President."

Holly Otterbein of Politico: "Donald Trump's campaign is injecting itself into a battle to lead Pennsylvania's Republican Party -- a race with serious implications for the president's reelection hopes.... The fight for the state's vacant Republican chairmanship was triggered when Val DiGiorgio resigned from the position two weeks ago amid a scandal involving racy texts and allegations of sexual harassment. The episode set off fierce jockeying and backbiting within the state GOP.... They argue that Trump's advisers are unnecessarily taking sides in a local feud and could exacerbate longstanding power struggles within the state GOP." --s

** Presidential Election 2016. "The True Origins of the Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory." Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News: "In the summer of 2016, Russian intelligence agents secretly planted a fake report claiming that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton, giving rise to a notorious conspiracy theory that captivated conservative activists and was later promoted from inside President Trump's White House, a Yahoo News investigation has found.... Over the course of the next two and a half years, the Russian government-owned media organizations RT and Sputnik repeatedly played up stories that baselessly alleged that Rich, a relatively junior-level staffer, was the source of Democratic Party emails that had been leaked to WikiLeaks. It was an idea first floated by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.... At the same time, online trolls working in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Internet Research Agency (IRA) -- the same shadowy outfit that conducted the Russian social media operation during the 2016 election -- aggressively boosted the conspiracy theories." Among those pushing the fake story along were Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Sean Hannity, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, & Fox "News."

Senate Races 2020

Kansas. Lachlan Markay of The Daily Beast: "Kris Kobach's U.S. Senate campaign is off to an inauspicious start. The former Kansas secretary of state, a Republican, officially declared his candidacy in a filing with the Federal Election Commission on Monday. But the filing misspelled his first name. The campaign amended the error an hour later. Kobach is running to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts." --s

Kentucky. Daniel Desrochers of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "Former Marine Corps fighter pilot Amy McGrath announced Tuesday that she wants to challenge U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November 2020, ending months of speculation about whether she'd try to take out one of the most powerful political figures in the country. In a three-minute video on social media and on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, McGrath touched on familiar themes from her failed 2018 bid to defeat U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington -- her military service, healthcare, gridlock in Congress -- while painting a bullseye on McConnell, blaming him for the dysfunction in the nation's capital."


Ali Watkins & Vivian Yang of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors unsealed the new charges on Monday accusing [Jeffrey] Epstein, 66, of running a sex-trafficking operation that lured dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, to his Upper East Side home and to a mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., according to an indictment. Mr. Epstein, 66, is accused of engaging in sex acts with minors, some as young as 14, during naked massage sessions, then paying them hundreds of dollars in cash, the indictment said. He also asked some of the girls to recruit other underage girls. 'In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit in locations including New York and Palm Beach,' the indictment said." The indictment, via the NYT, is here. (This is an update of a story linked below.) Mrs. McC: In a press conference, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said he would ask the court that Epstein be detained because he is "an extreme flight risk." Berman also acknowledged that "investigative journalists" were instrumental in bringing the new charges. Epstein will appear in court later today. ...

     .... CNN liveblogged Berman's presser. ...

     ... Update: Michael Sisak & Jim Mustian of the AP: "Epstein, who was arrested Saturday as he arrived in the U.S. from Paris aboard his private jet, was brought into court Monday in a blue jail uniform, his hair disheveled, and pleaded not guilty. He was jailed for a bail hearing next Monday, when prosecutors plan to argue that the rich world traveler might flee if released." ...

... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "In an interesting twist, the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan has pu its public corruption unit in charge of the Epstein case -- not, as might be expected, its human-trafficking team (although the latter unit is being consulted reportedly). It's likely, at least in part, that the case is being handled by corruption prosecutors because of a controversial and lenient plea deal struck between Epstein and federal law enforcement officials [led by Alexander Acosta] in Florida back in 2008.... For a while Trump was more than just a casual acquaintance of Epstein. The financier was a member of Trump's Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, and the men dined at one another's homes.... Although a court filing says Mar-a-Lago eventually dumped Epstein from its ranks after he approached an underage girl there, Trump has generally spoken about Epstein fondly -- to me and to others. During the 2016 presidential campaign, an unidentified young woman filed a suit against Trump in which she alleged that he raped her when she was 13 at a party at Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan. Trump denied the claims and the woman later dropped the suit because, her lawyer said, she was intimidated by death threats." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: O'Brien hypothesizes that Epstein may try to flip, which could make things "uncomfortable" for Trump. ...

... ** Ali Watkins: "A trove of lewd photographs of girls, discovered in a safe inside the financier Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion the same day he was arrested, is deepening questions about why federal prosecutors in Miami had cut a deal that shielded him from federal prosecution in 2008.... The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said late Monday night that Mr. Acosta should resign because of the 'unconscionable agreement' that he made with Mr. Epstein in 2008." ...

... Christine Zhao of Newsweek: "Attorney General William Barr on Monday announced his recusal from the high-profile Jeffrey Epstein case because his former law firm once represented the convicted sex offender.... Following Barr's comments, several prominent people following the case, including Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI Assistant Director for counterintelligence, noted that Barr's headmaster father, Donald Barr, had once hired Epstein to teach at the private Dalton School in New York." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Seems to me Barr recused himself to inoculate himself against any efforts by Trump to get him to quash the case against his dear old friend Epstein & against the obvious implication that Acosta minimized the case for corrupt reasons. ...

... Julia Arciga of the Daily Beast: "Former President Bill Clinton said Monday he knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein's 'terrible crimes' and tried to downplay the time he spent on the billionaire's private plane. In a statement issued hours after Epstein was arraigned on a sex-trafficking indictment, Clinton said he took 'a total of four trips' with the financier in 2002 and 2003 -- to Europe, Asia and Africa. It's not clear how many flights were involved in each trip or how that number would square with flight logs that reportedly show Clinton on 26 flights on Epstein's plane between 2001 and 2003. Gawker reported in 2015 that the logs also appear to show Clinton on a 2002 domestic flight between Miami and Westchester County, with Epstein also on board.... The statement said Clinton made 'one brief visit' to Epstein's apartment in New York -- alongside a 'staff member and his security detail' -- in 2002. The two men also met at Clinton's Harlem office 'around the same time' as the apartment visit, the statement said.... As The Daily Beast reported, a former charity of Epstein's, the C.O.U.Q. Foundation, donated $25,000 to Bill and Hillary Clinton&'s charity in 2006 and was recently listed among past and present donors on the Clinton Foundation's website."

... New York Times Editors: "Even in the relatively sterile language of the legal system, the accusations against Mr. Epstein are nauseating.... In addition to short-circuiting federal charges, the plea agreement [Alex Acosta engineered in 2008] killed an F.B.I. investigation and granted immunity to any' co-conspirators.'... Mr. Acosta and his former team members [should not] be allowed to wave off the tough or awkward questions that are likely to arise going forward." ...

... Vicky Ward, in the Daily Beast, details her reporting on Epstein for Vanity Fair in 2002, including the part where then-editor Graydon Carter excised the part of her story that covered the accusation that Epstein had molested a teenaged girl." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The title of Ward's profile of Epstein, BTW, was "The Talented Mr. Epstein," a riff on the 1999 film "The Talented Mr. Ripley," based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. Ripley is a liar & a fraud, who murders people when they threaten his schemes. The film got mixed reviews, but it's one of my faves. ...

What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it.... All mentioned the girls, as an aside. -- Vicky Ward, to Michelle Goldberg ...

... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes.... Among the mysteries of the Epstein case are why powerful prosecutors of both parties treated him with such leniency." Read the whole column for the particulars. ...

Matthew Haag of the New York Times describes Epstein's luxury Manhattan townhouse.

... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Maxwell Tani & Andrew Kirell of the Daily Beast: "Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz is a frequent Fox News guest, but for some reason the network never seems to ask him about his involvement in a high-profile case that continues to make news. On Nov. 28, 2018, when the Miami Herald revealed that, in 2008, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers, a group that included Dershowitz, had pressured then-U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta -- now serving as Donald Trump's labor secretary -- into negotiating a sweetheart plea deal for the billionaire financier, who was accused of molesting more than 100 underage girls. Since that news broke, Dershowitz has appeared on Fox News a total of 27 times. Not once has anyone on the network asked him about his client or his connection to the secret plea deal a judge has since declared illegal."

David Corn of Mother Jones: "While Americans feel 'an increasing alarm' about climate change, according to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, scientists have been coping with this troubling data for decades -- and the grinding emotional effects from that research are another cost of global warming that the public has yet to fully confront.... Are scientists, then, canaries in a psychological coal mine? Is understanding their grief important because their anxiety could become more widespread within the general population?" With lots of interviews with climate scientists. --s

Rosanna Xia of the Los Angeles Times: "Miami has been drowning, Louisiana shrinking, North Carolina's beaches disappearing like a time lapse with no ending. While other regions grappled with destructive waves and rising seas, the West Coast for decades was spared by a rare confluence of favorable winds and cooler water.... Blinded from the consequences of a warming planet, Californians kept building right to the water's edge.... More than $150 billion in property ;could be at risk of flooding by 2100 -- the economic damage far more devastating than the state's worst earthquakes and wildfires. Salt marshes, home to shorebirds and endangered species, face extinction. In Southern California alone, two-thirds of beaches could vanish." --s

Moira Donegan in the Guardian: "The talent pool for female soccer players in America appears bottomless.... The US has found itself with a huge number of phenomenally talented female soccer players: how did we get them? In large part, we got them through policy, in particular the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Shepherded into law by Congresswoman Patsy Mink of Hawaii, the title IX provision of the act was a response to feminists' push to close a loophole in the Civil Rights Act of 964 that allowed federally funded schools, colleges and universities to discriminate by sex.... Taken as a whole, title IX's success in creating discrimination-free educational environments for women and girls is spotty at best. But the athletic non-discrimination provision has been a massive success in encouraging American girls to play sports." --s

Way Beyond the Beltway

Philippines. Hannah Ellis-Peterson of the Guardian: "The president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte is carrying out a 'large-scale murdering enterprise' and should be investigated by the UN for crimes against humanity, according to a new Amnesty report into his so-called war on drugs." --s

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Sunday
Jul072019

The Commentariat -- July 8, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times: "As they push a federal court to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Trump administration lawyers are arguing the law is no longer workable because Congress eliminated a penalty on people who don't have health insurance. But for months, senior administration officials and lawyers have been making the exact opposite case in other settings, a review of government reports, court filings and public statements made by Trump appointees shows. In fact administration officials, including White House economists, this year repeatedly have hailed the strength of insurance marketplaces created by the 2010 law. And in stark contrast to their claims in federal court in New Orleans, they have stressed that the 2017 legislation eliminating the so-called mandate penalty has had little to no impact on markets and consumers, let alone on the broader healthcare law, often called Obamacare or the ACA.... University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley, who has closely tracked litigation related to the healthcare law, said federal courts are usually reluctant to pry too deeply into inconsistencies in how government officials justify their actions. The Trump administration, however, is testing the limits of this restraint, he said. 'Courts can get pushed to the point where they say this is too much to swallow.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: For an even better explanation of this doubletalk, see Akhilleus's commentary below. See also Ian Millhiser's post below. And you wonder why DOJ attorneys are jumping ship.

Ali Watkins & Vivian Yang of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors unsealed the new charges on Monday accusing [Jeffrey] Epstein, 66, of running a sex-trafficking operation that lured dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, to his Upper East Side home and to a mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., according to an indictment. Mr. Epstein, 66, is accused of engaging in sex acts with minors, some as young as 14, during naked massage sessions, then paying them hundreds of dollars in cash, the indictment said. He also asked some of the girls to recruit other underage girls. 'In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit in locations including New York and Palm Beach,' the indictment said." The indictment, via the NYT, is here. (This is an update of a story linked below.) Mrs. McC: In a press conference, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said he would ask the court that Epstein be detained because he is "an extreme flight risk." Berman also acknowledged that "investigative journalists" were instrumental in bringing the new charges. Epstein will appear in court later today. ...

     .... CNN liveblogged Berman's press conference.

Juan Cole: "The United States is already at war with Iran, squeezing its economy down to nothingness. If another country tried to do this to the US just on a whim and with no UN or international-law basis, the US would certainly launch a war over it.... Trump did this to Iran despite Iran's adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).... In 2019, Iran's economy under US sanctions will shrink an incredible 6%. Aljazeera English reports that 'the rial, plummet[ed] by about 60% over the past year. Inflation is up to 37% and the cost of food and medicine has soared by 40% to 60%, according to EU figures.' Note that Trump's sanctions are unilateral. They haven't even been approved by Congress, and are actively rejected by the United Nations Security Council." --s

Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Late last month, the Supreme Court determined that the Trump administration lied about its real reason for wanting to add a question to the 2020 census form asking if each respondent is a U.S. citizen. Less than two weeks later, as a team of lawyers led by the ACLU laid out in remarkable brief filed in a federal district court, Trump's Justice Department is entangled in an entirely different web of deceit. The brief, moreover, references a forthcoming motion for sanctions against the government attorneys who litigated this case.... Ultimately, the fate of any sanctions against these lawyers -- and of the citizenship question itself -- is likely to be decided by Chief Justice John Roberts." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hmmm. I think we now know why the lawyers on the case quit & Bill Barr had to come up with a new "team" to pursue the cases.

Moira Donegan in the Guardian: "The talent pool for female soccer players in America appears bottomless.... The US has found itself with a huge number of phenomenally talented female soccer players: how did we get them? In large part, we got them through policy, in particular the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Shepherded into law by Congresswoman Patsy Mink of Hawaii, the title IX provision of the act was a response to feminists' push to close a loophole in the Civil Rights Act of 964 that allowed federally funded schools, colleges and universities to discriminate by sex.... Taken as a whole, title IX's success in creating discrimination-free educational environments for women and girls is spotty at best. But the athletic non-discrimination provision has been a massive success in encouraging American girls to play sports." --s

David Corn of Mother Jones: "While Americans feel 'an increasing alarm' about climate change, according to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, scientists have been coping with this troubling data for decades -- and the grinding emotional effects from that research are another cost of global warming that the public has yet to fully confront.... Are scientists, then, canaries in a psychological coal mine? Is understanding their grief important because their anxiety could become more widespread within the general population?" With lots of interviews with climate scientists. --s

Rosanna Xia of the Los Angeles Times: "Miami has been drowning, Louisiana shrinking, North Carolina's beaches disappearing like a time lapse with no ending. While other regions grappled with destructive waves and rising seas, the West Coast for decades was spared by a rare confluence of favorable winds and cooler water.... Blinded from the consequences of a warming planet, Californians kept building right to the water's edge.... More than $150 billion in property could be at risk of flooding by 2100 -- the economic damage far more devastating than the state's worst earthquakes and wildfires. Salt marshes, home to shorebirds and endangered species, face extinction. In Southern California alone, two-thirds of beaches could vanish." --s

Philippines. Hannah Ellis-Peterson of the Guardian: "The president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte is carrying out a 'large-scale murdering enterprise' and should be investigated by the UN for crimes against humanity, according to a new Amnesty report into his so-called war on drugs." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

The Counterfactual World of Trump & Troupe. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: “President Trump and his top immigration officials on Sunday contested reports that migrant children were being held in horrific conditions in federal detention facilities, as the administration argued that the government was enforcing oversight standards even as it struggled to house and care for an influx of migrants.... Speaking to reporters, Mr. Trump called the report about the Clint facility a 'hoax.'... The Times said in a statement that it stood by the article." ...

... Chris Rodrigo of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday accused the media of reporting 'phony and exaggerated accounts' of conditions at migrant detention centers along the border in the wake of two bombshell reports from the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) watchdog. 'The Fake News Media, in particular the Failing , is writing phony and exaggerated accounts of the Border Detention Centers,' Trump tweeted.... The reports from the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) covered the conditions at facilities near El Paso, Texas, and in the Rio Grande Valley. The government watchdog found severe overcrowding, migrants being held too long and dirty conditions at many of the facilities. A group of lawyers who visited a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, made similar claims about the treatment of migrants. The Trump administration has denied reports and images of the conditions in detainment facilities." Mrs. McC: Sunday afternoon, Trump gave a chopper presser in which he elaborated on his phony charges. I'll get a report on that when one becomes available. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Quinn Owen of ABC News: "Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said he did not accept reports of unsanitary conditions and limited food and water at U.S. Border Patrol stations, calling the situation at the border 'extraordinarily challenging' for the department, in an interview on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.... For months, McAleenan has raised alarms about the potential for disastrous conditions on the southern border while maintaining his agency has upheld government standards for housing detainees, despite evidence to the contrary. He said on Sunday that the food and water at one facility in Clint, Texas, that has faced scrutiny were 'adequate' and that migrants in holding centers had access to showers and clean living quarters.... Conditions were so severe at facilities in the Rio Grande Valley that one CBP manager described it to federal investigators as a "ticking time bomb" in the report made public this past week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Camilo Montoya-Galvez CBS News: "The Trump administration's top official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said immigration authorities are ready to identify, detain and eventually deport approximately one million undocumented immigrants with pending removal orders. 'They're ready to just perform their mission, which is to go and find and detain and then deport the approximately one million people who have final removal orders,' Acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli said on 'Face the Nation' on Sunday, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) branch charged with removal operations. Cuccinelli, an immigration hardliner who took the helm of the agency last month, said it is within ICE's discretion to determine who among those with final orders of deportation will be targeted in operations, suggesting the full pool of approximately one million immigrants might not face deportation after all." ...

... Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have mined state driver's license databases using facial recognition technology, analyzing millions of motorists' photos without their knowledge. In at least three states that offer driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, ICE officials have requested to comb through state repositories of license photos, according to newly released documents. At least two of those states, Utah and Vermont, complied, searching their photos for matches, those records show.... [Harrison Rudolph of Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology, said,] 'This is a scandal.... States have never passed laws authorizing ICE to dive into driver's license databases using facial recognition to look for folks.... These states have never told undocumented people that when they apply for a driver's license they are also turning over their face to ICE. That is a huge bait and switch.'" The story was first reported by The Washington Post.

Fox "News" Program-Director-in-Chief Unhappy with Weekend Lineup. Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "... Donald Trump took a swipe at Fox News on Sunday, saying the network ... 'is now loading up with Democrats & even using Fake unsourced @nytimes a "source" of information.'... '@FoxNews is changing fast, but they forgot the people who got them there!' he said [in a tweet].... 'Watching @FoxNews weekend anchors is worse than watching low ratings Fake News @CNN, or Lyin' Brian Williams (remember when he totally fabricated a War Story trying to make himself into a hero, & got fired. A very dishonest journalist!) and the crew of degenerate Comcast (NBC/MSNBC) Trump haters, who do whatever Brian & Steve tell them to do,' the president said, presumably referring to executives Brian Roberts and Steve Burke." ..

Oh, and this: "During a live broadcast from France [aired on Fox 'News'] after the U.S. women's soccer team won the Women's World Cup, the crowd was heard loudly chanting 'F[uck] Trump' behind correspondent Greg Palkot." Thank you, soccer fans.

Mike Balsamo of the AP: "The Justice Department is shaking up the legal team fighting for the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census but offered no specifics on why the change was being made. The change announced Sunday comes days after the department vowed to continue to try to find a legal path forward to include the question on the census. ...

... Michael Wines, et al., of the New York Times: The DOJ "offered no explanation for the en masse change, which came on the heels of an extraordinary week in a yearlong clash over the issue that has raised concerns about whether the department's arguments for adding the question could be believed. And it strongly suggested that the department's career lawyers had decided to quit a case that at the least seemed to lack a legal basis, and at most left them defending statements that could well turn out to be untrue.... The change in the legal team appeared to signal even deeper problems for the administration's effort to put the question on the next census, a proposal that critics have assailed as an ill-disguised plot to manipulate the final head count in ways that would benefit the Republican Party." Read on. The "Justice" Department seems to be in nearly as big a mess as the White House, but largely because many career lawyers won't make crap arguments to defend crap policies. ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. A Citizenship Question Too Hard for the Sunday Shows. Alex Kaplan of Media Matters: "Most of the Sunday morning news shows ignored ... Donald Trump's efforts to force a question about citizenship status into the 2020 census.... Of those that didn't, none engaged substantively at all with Trump's admission [that the question was needed to give Republicans a big boost in reapportioning Congressional districts].

Aw, Another Crack in the "Special Relationship." Emma Anderson of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Sunday blasted Britain's ambassador to Washington [Kim Darroch], saying he was not a 'big fan' after reports of leaked memos in which the diplomat called Trump and his administration 'dysfunctional' and 'inept.' 'The ambassador has not served the U.K. well, I can tell you that,' Trump told reporters in New Jersey.... The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported that Trump aides have called for Darroch to be fired since the leak." ...

     ... Update. "It Is, of Course, a Matter of Regret." Michael Holden & William James of Reuters: "Britain said on Monday it had contacted Washington to express regret for the leak of confidential memos in which its ambassador described ... Donald Trump's administration as 'dysfunctional and 'inept'.... 'Contact has been made with the Trump administration, setting out our view that we believe the leak is unacceptable,' Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman told reporters. 'It is, of course, a matter of regret that this has happened.' Trade minister Liam Fox, who is visiting Washington, told BBC radio he would apologize to Trump's daughter Ivanka, whom he is due to meet." Mrs. McC: French may be the language of diplomacy, but the Brits are veddy, veddy good at using it to twist the knife a little deeper. I'm hearing delighted snickers at Ten Downing Street. We are so amused.

Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: “An artist blasted by the Anti-Defamation League for creating a 'blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon' has been invited to the White House by ... Donald Trump. Cartoonist Ben Garrison proudly tweeted his invitation to join a 'Social Media Summit' this coming Thursday at the White House.... Trump's Social Media Summit is expected to address the president's complaints that social media platforms' policies against threats and hate speech are blocking conservative voices.... Two years ago, Garrison created an inflammatory cartoon depicting Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros using puppet strings to control then-Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was serving as Trump's national security adviser at the time, and retired Gen. David Petraeus. The image was a nod to an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that a secretive international Jewish cabal controls the world. In the cartoon, Soros is being controlled by a hand labeled the 'Rothschilds,' a famous Jewish banking family. The ADL wrote at the time that the 'thrust of the cartoon is clear: McMaster is merely a puppet of a Jewish conspiracy.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Kirkpatrick & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Iran said on Sunday that within hours it would breach the limits on uranium enrichment set four years ago in an accord with the United States and other international powers that was designed to keep Tehran from producing a nuclear weapon. The latest move inches Iran closer to where it was before the accord: on the path to being able to produce an atomic bomb." Mrs. McC: Thanks, Trump! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

If the Bees Die, We Die. Sam Fossum of CNN: "The US Department of Agriculture has suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report, citing cost cuts -- a move that robs researchers and the honeybee industry of a critical tool for understanding honeybee population declines, and comes as the USDA is curtailing other research programs. It's also another step toward undoing President Barack Obama's government-wide focus on protecting pollinators, including bees and butterflies, whose populations have plummeted in recent years."

Robert Burns of the AP: "The four-star admiral set to become the Navy's top officer on Aug. 1 will instead retire, an extraordinary downfall prompted by what Navy Secretary Richard Spencer on Sunday called poor judgment regarding a professional relationship. The sudden move by Adm. William Moran may add to the perception of turmoil in the Pentagon's senior ranks, coming less than a month after Pat Shanahan abruptly withdrew from consideration to be defense secretary after serving as the acting secretary for six months.... Moran had been vetted for promotion to the top uniformed position in the Navy, nominated by ... Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in May to succeed Adm. John Richardson as chief of naval operations and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.... [Officials said] Moran ... recently [took] public affairs counsel from Chris Servello, who ... was accused of making unwanted sexual passes while dressed as Santa at [a 2016 Navy Christmas] party.... Servello had previously worked for Moran as a public affairs officer."

Jim Mustian & Desmond Butler of the AP: "A federal grand jury in New York is investigating top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, examining whether he used his position as vice chair of ... Donald Trump's inaugural committee to drum up business deals with foreign leaders, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and people familiar with the matter.... The Brooklyn probe appears to be distinct from an inquiry by Manhattan federal prosecutors into the inaugural committee's record $107 million fundraising and whether foreigners unlawfully contributed. It followed a request last year by Democratic U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut that the Justice Department investigate whether Broidy 'used access to President Trump as a valuable enticement to foreign officials who may be in a position to advance Mr. Broidy's business interests abroad.'"

Jamie Ehrlich of CNN: "Newly independent Rep. Justin Amash, the only congressional Republican to have publicly argued that ... Donald Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct, told CNN that high-level party officials have thanked him behind closed doors for his stance on impeachment proceedings against Trump. 'I get people sending me text messages, people calling me, saying "thank you for what you're doing,'" Amash told CNN's Jake Tapper in a wide-ranging interview on 'State of the Union' Sunday....In the same interview, Amash said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should start impeachment proceedings against Trump. 'From a principled, moral position, she's making a mistake. From a strategic position, she's making a mistake,' Amash said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Edward Helmore of the Guardian: "Congressional approval for funds for the Trump administration to spend at the southern border has triggered open warfare between a 'squad' of high-profile progressive House Democrats and party leaders they accuse of caving to a White House determined to mistreat migrant children.... On Saturday [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [said] in a New York Times interview, [with Maureen Dowd, also linked in yesterday's Commentariat] taking aim at The Squad for voting against 'our bill'. 'All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,' she said. 'But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got.' In a tweeted response, [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: 'That public "whatever" is called public sentiment. And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country.' She also defended her use of social media. The progressive-moderate split is becoming more evident and bitter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.);

Presidential Race 2020. Because We Need Another Billionaire Prez. Daniel Lippmann & Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist who toyed with a 2020 presidential run before deciding against it, has told people he plans to announce that he's entering the race for the Democratic nomination, according to three people familiar with his plans. Steyer had said in January that he was passing on a 2020 run."

Ali Watkins & Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors appear to have resurrected a federal sex crimes case against the billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein by focusing on accusations that he sexually assaulted girls at his mansion in Manhattan -- more than a decade after a widely criticized plea deal shielded him from similar charges in Florida.... Mr. Epstein is charged with using his vast network of contacts and associates to bring a constant stream of underage girls to his Manhattan townhouse, one law enforcement official said. He is accused of shuttling the girls between the townhouse and his home in Palm Beach, Fla., paying them in cash and urging them to recruit other underage girls to visit his home.... [Epstein's New York City] mansion, which runs along East 71st Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, has been called one of the largest townhouses in Manhattan. It contains at least seven floors and covers 21,000 square feet."

Julie Brown of the Miami Herald: "Jeffrey Epstein spent a second night in a New York jail cell Sunday, with a federal indictment expected to be unsealed Monday, charging him with sex offenses involving underage girls he and others allegedly trafficked in New York and Florida, sources have told the Miami Herald.... Although details of the case remain undisclosed, there are indications that others involved in his crimes could be charged or named as cooperating witnesses.... Epstein's arrest could open a window to expose other influential people who knew about or participated in his crimes. The question is what evidence or information does Epstein have against them and how might he use it?" ...

... Vivian Wang: "The case [against Jeffrey Epstein] could shed new light ... on the extent to which officials who have been linked to Mr. Epstein -- including, most notably, President Trump and his labor secretary, Alexander Acosta -- knew about or downplayed them.... [Epstein's] circle of friends and acquaintances included many high-profile figures, including Mr. Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of Britain and Leslie Wexner, a business mogul who owns Victoria's Secret and other retail brands. Mr. Clinton flew on Mr. Epstein's private plane dozens of times, according to flight records, and Prince Andrew has attended parties with Mr. Epstein. Mr. Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that Mr. Epstein was a 'terrific guy' whom he had known for 15 years. 'He's a lot of fun to be with,' the president said at the time. 'It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.'... One of Mr. Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, said in court documents that she was recruited to give Mr. Epstein massages while she was working at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump's Florida resort. Mr. Epstein has been photographed with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago.... Federal prosecutors in Miami initially drafted a 53-page indictment against Mr. Epstein. But in 2008, those prosecutors -- led by Mr. Acosta, then the region's United States attorney, and now Mr. Trump's labor secretary -- struck a deal with Mr. Epstein's lawyers that allowed him to avoid federal charges.... Mr. Acosta's office also agreed to help shield the deal from public scrutiny, according to The [Miami] Herald." ...

Here are Trump, Melania, Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000. According to Julie Brown of the Herald, Maxwell, heir to a British publishing fortune, "could be charged or named as cooperating witnesses.... [She] has been accused of working as Epstein's madam.... Maxwell has denied the claim and has never been charged":

... From the Small World (of Sleazebags) Department. Todd Neikirk of the Hill Reporter (May 4): "In 1973, [Attorney General William] Barr's father Donald, the headmaster at Manhattan's Dalton School, hired [Jeffrey] Epstein as a calculus and physics teacher.... Epstein had not earned a college degree ... [and] was only 20 years of age.... During ... Barr's confirmation hearing..., Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) ... asked Barr about the lenient sentence given out to billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.... The future Attorney General told Sasse that he would look into the matter." Thanks to MAG for the lead. ...

... AND "Look into the Matter," He Did. Frank Rich (in a tweet July 6): "Little noted was that William Barr's Justice Dept a week ago upheld Jeffrey Epstein's secret wrist-slap 2007 Florida plea deal, engineered by fellow Trump cabinet member Alex Acosta."

Spencer Kimball of CNBC: "Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will pull out of global equities sales and trading, scale back investment banking and slash thousands of jobs as part of a sweeping restructuring plan to improve profitability. Deutsche will cut 18,000 jobs for a global headcount of around 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank aims to reduce adjusted costs by a quarter to 17 billion euros ($19 billion) over the next several years. The German bank's decision to scale back investment banking comes just two days after investment banking chief Garth Ritchie stepped down by 'mutual agreement.'... The German lender once sought to compete with America's big banks on Wall Street, but has been pummeled by scandals, investigations and massive fines stemming from the financial crisis and other issues in recent years.... Deutsche has come under renewed scrutiny in the U.S. over its business relationship with ... Donald Trump."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Greece. Matina Stevis-Gridneff of the New York Times: Greece's "Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, a former firebrand leftist, was defeated in a landslide [Sunday]. Greeks turned instead to the resurgent center-right New Democracy party led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a Harvard-educated former banker and son of a 1990s prime minister. His party secured almost 40 percent of the vote and a comfortable majority of 158 seats in the 300-seat Parliament.... It is a reminder that even as Britain moves to leave the European Union, voters in other parts of the bloc appear committed to sticking with it."

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Sunday
Jul072019

The Price of Soap

By Akhilleus

This is the actual face of Trump's Amerika. A place where only the chosen few are protected. The rest are not only NOT protected, they are actively tortured if it suits the fuhrer.

This is not just moral midgetry, it's depraved indifference to human suffering, suffering imposed with willful intent by this administration. This is how Trump makes America great? Anyone voting for this monster needs to reassess their sense of what it means to be a decent human being.

And while we're talking monstrous, how 'bout this?

The little king swears that he can't give these kids soap because A. Obama won't let him, and B, He doesn't have the money for it so he can't pay for the soap.

Wow. How could we possibly pay for these kids to be able to maintain basic hygiene and get something to eat other than a piece of bread and slice of baloney?

"The same way that we just 'paid for' $700,000,000,000 for a single year of military funding.

The same way that we just 'paid for' $1,500,000,000,000 in tax cuts for the wealthy.

The same way that we 'paid for' a $1,300,000,000,000 fighter jet in 2016.

The same way that the United States has always 'paid for' all of the fantastically-expensive things that benefit the powerful: Immediately and without discussion. Because they want it."

And get this, the fighter jet mentioned above is the glitchy F-35 which has been on the drawing board since Bush stole his first election. It's a technical marvel, so they say, if it ever really works. Added to the marvels is the pilot's helmet. Price tag? $400,000. Each.

How 'bout we trade a single F-35 helmet for soap, fresh water, clean clothes and decent food for babies being tortured in Trump's concentration camps? You can buy a 12 pack of Irish Spring soap bars at Walmart for less than six bucks. So, six bucks for soap for 12 kids, divided into $400,000....let's see, 6 into 40....okay, then multiply the quotient by 12....

You could buy soap for about 800,000 kids for one helmet. So, okay, we only need a small piece of that helmet, maybe the backup chin strap. Even more disgusting, Trump has billed the US taxpayers--as of a few weeks ago--$500,000 For use of his own golf carts. So right there is soap for a million kids. Can we get some of that money to feed and clean babies?

Not on your life.

Depravity incarnate. Besides fatty can't be expected to walk when he's golfing. So those kids can go fuck themselves.

Animals are better off.

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