The Commentariat -- March 31, 2019
Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Last night, I started posting today's Commentariat, which I labelled, "The Commentariat -- April 1, 2019." Ken W. soon pointed out to me that actually, no, today is March 31, a day which I plumb forgot. That is to day, I thought March had 30 days, even tho I know that ditty, "30 days hath September...." So I fixed the heading. Now, to rub it in, Ken sends this along!
... I might be as dimwitted as Doonesbury Donald, but at least I admit -- and correct -- my mistakes. I think I need a vacation in one of those Mexican countries ...
Afternoon Update:
... Yeah, that's a real screenshot of a "Fox & Friends" segment that aired Sunday morning. Avery Anapol of the Hill: "The show later issued an on-air correction and apology, saying the graphic was 'inaccurate' and that the funding was being cut from 'three Central American countries.'" Mrs. McC: I guess since Trump uses Fox "News" as an audition spool to staff the White House, Fox no longer has all the best people. ...
... White Supremacists Turn to Fox "News" for Tips on Talking Points. Tamar Auber of Mediaite: "The son of Stormfront founder Don Black revealed on CNN on Saturday that his family watches Fox News' Tucker Carlson for tips on white supremacist talking points.... '... they feel that he is making the white nationalist talking points better than they have and they're trying to get some tips on how to advance it,' [Derek Black told CNN's Van Jones.]"
AP: "Former Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday he doesn't believe he ever acted inappropriately toward women but will 'listen respectfully' to suggestions he did. Biden, who is deciding whether to join the 2020 presidential race, released a new statement in response to allegations from a Nevada politician that he kissed her on the back of the head in 2014 and made her uncomfortable. 'In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. And not once -- never -- did I believe I acted inappropriately,' he said. 'If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention.'"
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Elisabeth Malkin of the New York Times: "President Trump's plan to cut off aid to three Central American countries for failing to stop the flow of migrant toward the United States breaks with years of conventional wisdom in Washington that the best way to halt migration is to attack its root causes. The decision also runs counter to the approach advocated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, among others.... The decision turns American policy in the region on its head. Not only will it cut development and humanitarian assistance, but it will also halt joint law enforcement efforts, such as anti-gang units vetted by the United States, that had been supported by Republicans and the Trump administration until now...." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Yes, but past presidents never had vengeance & cruelty as goals.
Calvin Woodward of the AP: "... Donald Trump is misrepresenting the circumstances of a 7-year-old migrant girl's death as he seeks to steer any potential blame for it away from his administration. Trump, after mockingly painting asylum seekers as a 'con job' in a rally the previous night, asserted on Friday that Jakelin Caal Maquin was given no water by her father during their trek to a remote border area and that the dad acknowledged blame for his daughter's death on Dec. 8. Those assertions are not supported by the record. TRUMP: 'I think that it's been very well stated that we've done a fantastic job. ... The father gave the child no water for a long period of time - he actually admitted blame.' -- to reporters Friday. THE FACTS: An autopsy report released Friday found that Guatemalan girl died of a bacterial infection just more than a day after being apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol.... Neither the autopsy report, nor accounts at the time by Customs and Border Protection, spoke of dehydration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Maureen Dowd went on a field trip to Donald Trump's rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She writes that Trump started the rally "hot," but "For the last hour of the speech, Trump went flat, simply resorting to golden oldies.... It's not clear why, on a night when his aides promised high energy, he seemed to lose altitude.... Did he know in his heart that he was guilty of some of those sins? Is he tired of rallies even before the 2020 race gets well underway? Does he know that his No Collusion' headline will not change the minds of all those Americans who disdain him? Or is he being a sore winner again? Maybe Trump, like America, is just tired of winning." Mrs. McC: I read or heard elsewhere that Trump has told advisors he didn't want to do so many rallies this campaign season & that he's already begged off a few rallies his advisors have suggested. This is no country for old men.
** Tired of Winning, Ctd. Carol Davenport of the New York Times: "In a major legal blow to President Trump's push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Mr. Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast was unlawful. The decision, by Judge Sharon L. Gleason of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, concluded late Friday that President Barack Obama's 2015 and 2016 withdrawal from drilling of about 120 million acres of Arctic Ocean and about 3.8 million acres in the Atlantic 'will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress.' She wrote that an April 2017 executive order by Mr. Trump revoking the drilling ban 'is unlawful, as it exceeded the president's authority.' The decision, which is expected to be appealed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, immediately reinstates the drilling ban on most of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska.... The Arctic Ocean drilling case could give legal ammunition to opponents of Mr. Trump's efforts to roll back protections for two million acres of national monuments created by Mr. Obama and President Bill Clinton. The case adds to a growing roster of legal losses for Mr. Trump's efforts to undo Mr. Obama's environmental legacy."
Michael Paarlberg in the Guardian: "Were it not for this singular obsession [of the Trump/Russia investigation], we might have come to appreciate the full scope of graft, influence peddling and petty theft that has made this the most crooked administration in US history. One doesn't have to go to Moscow to see it; pick almost any country in the world.... For legal scholars, the question of what to make of these gross conflicts of interest is a technical one: do they violate the constitution's so-called emoluments clause, barring presidents from accepting 'any present, emolument....' But there's a simpler term for this: public corruption. It's broader than hacking, and it's well documented, if not nearly as breathlessly discussed on cable news." --s
Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "Reacting to conservative commentators and opinion hosts pushing for an investigation of the investigators following the completion of the Mueller report, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace burst Fox viewers' bubble Friday, informing them that the Russia investigation did not begin with the infamous Steele dossier.... 'It [the investigation] started in June and July of 2016 when George Papadopoulos had spoken to a Russian agent and spoke to an Australian diplomat and said he had heard they had information on -- dirt on Hillary Clinton,' [Wallace told Fox 'News' host Bill Hemmer., who got all discombobulated by Wallace's insistance on relaying, you know, facts]." This was some six months before BuzzFeed News published the dossier. Mrs. McC: Trump & other wingers are now conflating Christopher Steele's so-called dossier with the Mueller report, calling Mueller's report "the dossier." Just a slip-of-the-tongue, I'm sure. Ha ha.
E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump handed a victory to a major North American energy company on Friday afternoon with a new presidential permit allowing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to go forward. Many say the move is an effort to sidestep judiciary and environmental review and is likely to face legal challenges.... The presidential permit revokes and replaces a previous presidential permit granted by Trump in March 2017. In November 2018, a Montana judge invalidated that permit and it is currently being appealed, while a December lawsuit and subsequent injunction largely halted pre-construction activities on the pipeline." --s See also related WashPo story, also linked yesterday.
Trumpish "Values"
** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: "The president's rhetoric about 'shithole countries' and 'invasion' by immigrants invites dismissal as crude talk, but behind it lie ideas whose power should not be underestimated. The seed of Nazism's ultimate objective -- the preservation of a pure white race, uncontaminated by foreign blood -- was in fact sown with striking success in the United States. What is judged extremist today was once the consensus of a powerful cadre of the American elite, well-connected men who eagerly seized on a false doctrine of 'race suicide' during the immigration scare of the early 20th century.... Perhaps the most important among them was ... Madison Grant. He was the author of a 1916 book called The Passing of the Great Race, which spread the doctrine of race purity all over the globe.... His book went on to become Adolf Hitler's 'bible,' as the führer wrote to tell him.... The president's stated preference for Scandinavian immigrants over those from Latin America or Africa, and his expressed disdain for the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship, are Grantism paraphrased."
Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump announced Saturday that a Navy SEAL who is accused of fatally stabbing an Islamic State detainee during a 2017 deployment to Iraq will be 'moved to less restrictive confinement' ahead of his trial in May. 'In honor of his past service to our Country, Navy Seal #EddieGallagher will soon be moved to less restrictive confinement while he awaits his day in court,' the president tweeted. 'Process should move quickly!' Trump's message follows a request by 40 members of Congress to the Navy on Tuesday to 'analyze whether a less severe form of restraint would be appropriate...' 'We ask that you weigh this decision given the terrible message Chief Gallagher's confinement sends to our warfighters, that they can be confined behind bars away from their family, legal defense, and community for nine months before their day in court,' the lawmakers wrote.... 'To confine any service member for that duration of time, regardless of the authority to do so, sends a chilling message to those who fight for our freedoms,' the lawmakers added.... Apart from the accusation that he murdered a teenage ISIS fighter under his care, military prosecutors contend that he held his re-enlistment ceremony with the detainee's corpse. Gallagher is also accused of shooting two civilians in Iraq and firing inadvertently into crowds." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's odd. Trump & these 40 MoCs don't seem all bent out about the plight of Chelsea Manning, who is reportedly being held in solitary confinement for refusing to testify to a grand jury, a decidedly nonviolent crime. Nor were they all upset, as far as I can recall, when in 2011 Manning was held in solitary at Quantico & stripped to her underwear every night, again for a non-violent crime of which she was later convicted. Apparently, one has to allegedly commit a "macho" murder to be awarded "less restrictive confinement" in Trumpworld. There is something really, really wrong with Trumpian "values."
The Great Divide. Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: "... if a Democrat ever insulted the 'heartland,' there'd be hell to pay, while Republicans insult heavily Democratic places all the time. Ted Cruz could sneer at 'New York values' as a way of attacking Donald Trump in 2016, but what would happen to Kamala D. Harris if she told [Pete] Buttigieg that Democratic primary voters didn't want any part of his 'Indiana values'? One more vivid example from recent history: In 2004, the conservative Club For Growth ran an ad against Howard Dean, in which a couple told him to 'take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs.' Everyone laughed. Now imagine the outcry if a liberal group told, say, Mike Huckabee to 'take his trailer park-living, tobacco-chewing, NASCAR-watching, squirrel-eating freak show back to Arkansas where it belongs.'... When Buttigieg says that he has to educate people in California on the fact that 'Trump voters actually exist...,' he means that liberals have no conception of who Trump voters are or what might motivate them. But that's also absurd. As Adam Serwer of the Atlantic points out, 'There are more Trump voters in New York than Wyoming, Alaska, and the Dakotas combined.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let us not forget the weeping & gnashing of teeth when, in 2008, a HuffPost stringer surreptitiously recorded Barack Obama "explaining" to California supporters that (white) working-class voters "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." ...
... digby: "I would just remind Democratic candidates that this is playing into Donald Trump's hands: 'Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!' -- [Donald Trump, in a tweet January 9] And, by the way, the county most affected by the wildfires he was referencing voted for Donald Trump."
Jon Swaine & David Smith of the Guardian: "Stephen Moore, the economics commentator chosen by Donald Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, was found in contempt of court after failing to pay his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony, child support and other debts. Court records in Virginia obtained by the Guardian show Moore, 59, was reprimanded by a judge in November 2012 for failing to pay Allison Moore more than $300,000 in spousal support, child support and money owed under their divorce settlement. Moore continued failing to pay, according to the court filings, prompting the judge to order the sale of his house to satisfy the debt in 2013. But this process was halted by his ex-wife after Moore paid her about two-thirds of what he owed, the filings say.... The Guardian revealed this week that Moore owes the US government $75,000 according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Moore disputes the government's claim and blames confusion over tax deductions relating to his child support and alimony payments.... Unlike all current members of the Federal Reserve board of governors, Moore does not hold a doctoral degree." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So now I'll be Donald Trump: "It's a terrible thing the way the fake news attacks a good man. This is a sad day when socialist foreign agitators try to destroy our democracy."
Gavin De Becker, an investigator for Jeff Bezos, in a Daily Beast essay: "Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos' phone, and gained private information.... While both the Daily Beast and the Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos' love interest Lauren Sanchez had provided material about Bezos' intimate relationship with Lauren to the National Enquirer, the Journal was "able to confirm a claim Michael Sanchez had been making: It was the Enquirer who first contacted Michael Sanchez about the affair, not the other way around.... Obviously..., the initial information came from other channels -- another source or method.... The Saudi government has been very intent on harming Jeff Bezos since last October, when the Post began its relentless coverage of [Jamal] Khashoggi's murder.... In October, the Saudi government unleashed its cyber army on Bezos (and later me).... [There is a] well-documented and close relationship between MBS and AMI chairman, David Pecker.... The tabloid and its chairman have evolved into secretly entangling with a nation-state that's using its enormous resources to harm American citizens and companies. And now they've evolved into trying to strong-arm an American citizen whom that country's leadership wanted harmed, compromised, and silenced." Italization original.
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If De Becker is right -- and he is confident enough of his research that he's turned it over to federal authorities, according to his account -- then this is yet another Trump scandal that has everything: a gruesome murder, sex, international intrigue, hacking, attempted bribery, betrayal, a sleazy tabloid & connections to Middle Eastern "royalty" and the POTUS*. For decades, we've seen lurid claims against politicians emblazoned on the tabloids that supermarkets urge us to buy. In the past, the politicians have been the targets of the tabs; today our top politician is benefiting from some of these stories.
Ashley Powers of the New York Times on how "sovereign citizen' crackpots help would-be taxpayers swindle at least $1 billion from the federal government. "A loose network of perhaps tens of thousands of far-right antigovernment extremists, sovereigns share certain conspiratorial beliefs and, sometimes, a desire to profit off a government whose legitimacy they deny.... One way sovereigns try to make the imaginary money real is by abusing legitimate I.R.S. forms. Law-abiding taxpayers use Form 1099-OID, for example, to report 'original issue discount' income. But some sovereigns write in fake OID income, and fake withholding, in order to claim illegitimate refunds.... From 2012 to 2014, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the I.R.S. received close to 7,000 sham OID filings. Chronically underfunded and understaffed, I.R.S. investigators refer only about two dozen sovereign-scam cases, on average, for prosecution each year. The agency sometimes misses returns that should raise suspicion. For example, in 2016, the I.R.S. discovered a sizable redemption scheme -- but only after processing 207 bogus returns and disbursing more than $43 million. That's another reason these strange theories persist, and have begun to leach out of the sovereign network and into the general population: Sometimes, improbably, they work." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The key words here are "chronically underfunded." Cuts by Congressional Republicans have made the IRS enforcement staff a bare-bones operation. Non-enforcement costs billions. In the 1970s, I got audited three years running for prosaic "suspicious" deductions: high childcare costs. (On the last audit notice, I told them to cut it out as their "suspicions" were the same every year, & during audits, I was always able to provide authentic documentation of my expenditures. So they quit.) Now, I have much more complicated -- and equally honest -- returns, & I never get audited. Knock on wood.
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "The rapidly dropping cost of renewable energy has upended energy economics in recent years, with new solar and wind plants now significantly cheaper than coal power. But new research shows another major change is afoot: The cost of batteries has been declining so unexpectedly rapidly that renewables plus battery storage are now cheaper than even natural gas plants in many applications.... Costs for lithium-ion battery storage have dropped 76 percent since 2012 -- and plunged 35 percent in the past year alone.
Beyond the Beltway
California. Sleeping While Black. Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Vallejo police have released footage of the killing of Willie McCoy at a Taco Bell, showing six officers shooting the 20-year-old who was sleeping in his car. The disturbing body-camera videos show the young rapper had moved his hand to scratch his shoulder before officers opened fire. The footage is consistent with key claims of McCoy's family, who watched footage earlier this month and said the officers 'executed' him while he was not alert or awake."
Way Beyond
Britain. Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian: "The all-consuming nature of Brexit left almost no space for us to contemplate the significance of the news from America even as it demonstrated how entwined our fates are and continue to be.... In Britain, the news from America should be a huge red flag.... Mueller's investigation has laid out how a foreign power had used America's own media organisations and technology platforms to subvert its own democracy.... But in Britain, we don't have the bandwidth or the resolve or the understanding of the bigger picture to want to even try to understand this web of interconnected relationships." --s
Saudi Arabia. Nick Hopkins et al. of the Guardian: "Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country's ruler, King Salman. The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government's denials that men and women in custody are being tortured.... A spokesman declined to discuss the issue, despite being given repeated opportunities to do so. Officials did not challenge the authenticity of the reports." --s
Slovakia. Siegfried Mortkowitz of Politico: "Political novice and activist Zuzana Čaputová is on course to became the first female president of Slovakia, swept into office by public outrage at the 2018 killings of an investigative journalist and his fiancée. With around 97 percent of the votes counted the 45-year old lawyer's tally stood at 58.3 percent of the vote in Saturday's runoff against European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič."