Some Right-Wing Lies Are Subtle

This morning, the Hill was running an ad for Newsmax, the right-wing "news" operation founded by Trump BFF Christopher Ruddy. The ad included links to Newsmax stories. I clicked on one of them, a story by Cathy Burke. Her lede: "President Donald Trump's massive tweetstorm after the indictment of Russian nationals and companies for trying to influence the U.S. election might have made it harder to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, Politico reported."

Really? I hadn't seen that story when I looked at Politico's headlines, so I clicked on the linked Politico "report." I don't know who Cathy Burke is. Maybe she's so dumb she thinks the linked "report" is a report. It is not. Rather, it is an opinion piece in Politico Magazine by Renato Mariotti. At the bottom of the opinion piece, Politico identifies Mariotti as "a former federal prosecutor and a Democratic candidate for attorney general of Illinois."

The founding CEO of Politico was Fred Ryan, who was at one time chief-of-staff for Ronald Reagan. He is a Republican. (Oh, & he is now the publisher of the Washington Post. Nice.) I would not call Politico a right-wing news outlet as it has always employed some liberal reporters & commentators, and quite a few Politico reporters do a good job at straight reporting. But it definitely is not the Daily Worker, either.

Most newspapers & many news magazines publish opinion pieces by people who disagree with their own editorial outlook. Unfortunately, the dimwits who read Newsmax are very likely unable to distinguish the difference between "reports" and "opinion pieces." Newsmax not only counts on its readers' ignorance, it amplifies that ignorance by characterizing an opinion piece written by a Democrat as a "report."

The effect on Newsmax readers, whether or not they read Mariotti's opinion piece, will be to suddenly discover that Politico is a leftist rag flogging "Democrat reporters" hostile to Donald Trump. So if these Newsmax readers also had been turning to Politico as a news source, they're more likely to turn off Politico now, or at least to discount Politico reports they don't like as "fake news."

The right wing has a thousand ways of misleading the public. Many are flat-out lies & loopy conspiracy theories. But some are more subtle. And I'll bet the subtle ones are more convincing to confederates than Pizzagate.

The Commentariat -- February 20, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Katelyn Polantz & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed a charge against a lawyer for lying to investigators about his interaction with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates in September 2016. The filing is further evidence of Mueller's investigation of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Gates and their work for Russian-allied clients. Alex Van Der Zwaan, who is expected to plead guilty Tuesday afternoon, is also accused of lying about the failure to turn over an email communication to the special counsel's office." ...

... The New York Times story, by Eileen Sullivan & Ken Vogel, is here. ...

... It's a Small, Small World. Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed: " Van der Zwaan is the son-in-law of German Khan, a Russian bank owner who is suing BuzzFeed News over the publication of an unverified dossier of information concerning ... Donald Trump."

Trump's Preposterous Twisted History. Betsy Klein of CNN: "... Donald Trump is continuing to blame his predecessor for not doing enough to deter Russian interference in the 2016 election.... In one tweet, Trump quoted Obama saying toward the end of the 2016 race that there was no evidence America's elections were 'rigged,' suggesting the then-businessman should 'stop whining.' Obama, however, was referring to Trump's claims of a rigged election and calls at the time for supporters to monitor polling sites for potentially ineligible voters attempting to cast ballots. Tuesday's tweet came soon after 'Fox & Friends' highlighted the comment.... Trump also claimed on Tuesday he's 'been tougher on Russia than Obama.' The 44th president, however, personally warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against messing with the election, imposed sanctions on Russian individuals and entities, kicked out 35 Russian diplomats and closed two of the Kremlin's compounds in the United States. Trump, in comparison, still has not imposed sanctions designed to punish election meddling by Moscow." ...

... Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Wittingly or not..., Donald Trump spent the Presidents Day weekend doing the Kremlin's work. It may be months before Americans learn whether special counsel Robert Mueller will validate or reject allegations that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow's election meddling operation.But Trump's three days of Twitter venting against the FBI, his political opponents and the Russia investigation from his Mar-a-Lago resort are likely to further incite mistrust in the institutions of democracy and government, which the Russian intervention was designed to foment." ...

... Nicholas Thompson of Wired: Facebook tries to deal with its ad exec Rob Goldman, whose tweets about Mueller's indictments last Friday were so stoopid that Donald Trump retweeted them. "On Sunday night, Joel Kaplan, the VP of Global Public Policy at Facebook, put out a statement saying 'Nothing we found contradicts the Special Counsel's indictments. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.' Roughly translated, that meant, 'We asked Rob Goldman to throw his phone in a river.'" Later Goldman issued a sort-of internal apology to co-workers.

Melissa Ryan of Media Matters: "This week, even as the Parkland high school shooter was still at large, posters on 4chan and 8chan immediately went to work spreading false information about the shooter being a linked to a white supremacist militia, the most widely reported of the multiple hoaxes about the massacre found online. And in the aftermath of the tragedy, lies and hoaxes about the survivors who have been speaking out against school massacres have gained traction.... Parkland survivors are targets for fake news campaigns, conspiracy theories, harassment and doxxing. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has already suggested that the entire shooting is a false flag, which implies that all of the survivors are actors in an elaborate hoax. As survivors speak up, there are already attempts to attack and discredit them individually." Read on. ...

... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "Former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has joined a growing far-right smear campaign against the students who survived last week's massacre in a Parkland, Florida high school.... Kingston attacked the students as mere stooges for 'left-wing groups who have an agenda' during an appearance on CNN Tuesday morning. Kingston added he believed George Soros was actually orchestrating the students' activism.... Kingston's comments follow multiple articles smearing the students on Gateway Pundit, a Trump-supporting website that has White House press credentials. Gateway Pundit has attacked one of the students, David Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, because his father is a retired FBI agent." ...

... Legum has more on the smear campaign here.

Anything with Trump's Name on It Is Skanky. AP: "A North Carolina man with a felony conviction for indecent liberties with a child was one-half of the poster couple for a new 'Trump Dating' website. News outlets reported Monday that visitors to the dating site geared toward supporters of the president were greeted with the faces of Jodi and William Barrett Riddleberger, conservative activists involved in the Tea Party-inspired political action committee, Conservatives for Guilford County. The couple's exact role with the site is unclear. State records show [William] Riddleberger was convicted in 1995 on the charge stemming from filming sex with a 15-year-old girl. He was then 25." ...

     ... UPDATE. Avi Selk of the Washington Post has more on Trump Dating site, which Selk charitably describes as "odd." My favorite part (and there are more): "As of Tuesday, the Riddleberger's photo had undergone a retraction from Trump.dating's homepage. Instead, visitors are greeted by a stock photo of a middle-aged couple who can also be found advertising gum recession treatments." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you're feeling sad & lonely, I don't recommend Trump.dating as an antidote, but I would suggest reading Selk's article about it, because when you're feeling sad & lonely, a good laugh helps. Also too, the story gives you another confirmation that you're really, really superior to millions of Trump voters. You might be alone, but it's only because you are too fucking good for all those losers out there.

Mitt Throws Muslims, Mexicans & People with Disabilities under the Bus. Emily Stewart of Vox: "Mitt Romney happily accepted ... Donald Trump's endorsement of his run for a US Senate seat in Utah on Monday. Apparently, he's gotten past the president's comments about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, and people with disabilities from 2016 -- comments that two years ago he said would make him reject Trump's endorsements."

*****

Brandon Rottinghaus & Justin Vaughn, for a New York Times op-ed, asked "170 members of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section" to rank U.S. presidents from best to worst. If you're looking for Donald Trump, you'll have to read through the names of every other president first. Quite a distinction! ...

... Ed Kilgore of New York: "Anyone who doubts Donald Trump has totally conquered the Republican Party ... should look at the evidence (assembled by Perry Bacon Jr.) that his recent improvements in popularity are almost entirely attributable to rising GOP support.... But there's an even stronger, and perhaps even shocking, sign of the affection Republicans now bestow upon the 45th president.... [B]roken down by party ID, it turns out Trump is more popular among Republicans than W. or Poppy Bush, Gerald Ford, or even the beloved Ike. At 7.20, he trails only the Gipper (8.03) in the esteem of his fellow partisans." --safari ...

... "Living in a Kakistocracy." Paul Krugman: "... there's almost nobody left in the G.O.P. willing to take responsibility for, well, anything. And I don't think this is an accident. The sad content of modern Republican character is a symptom of the corruption and hypocrisy that has afflicted half of our body politic -- a sickness of the soul that manifests itself in personal behavior as well as policy.... Consider the behavior of John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, whose record of slandering critics and refusing to admit error is starting to rival his boss's. Remember when Kelly made false accusations about Representative Frederica Wilson and refused to retract those accusations even after video showed they were false? More recently, Kelly insisted that he didn't know the full details about domestic abuse allegations against Rob Porter.... Oh, and by the way: Roy Moore still hasn't conceded.... The modern G.O.P. is, to an extent never before seen in American history, a party built around bad faith, around pretending that its concerns and goals are very different from what they really are." ...

... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "... the problem isn't 'Washington.' It isn't 'Congress,' either. The problem is elected officials from a single political party: the GOP.... Republicans in the White House and Congress are the ones standing in the way of helping 'dreamers.' They are not merely obstructing gun reform but also rolling back existing gun-control measures." Republican politicians won't do what even a majority of their own constituents want to help Dreamers & enact mild gun-control laws.

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "The White House indicated on Monday that President Trump was open to supporting a bipartisan congressional effort to revise federal background checks for prospective gun buyers. Mr. Trump spoke on Friday to Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, about legislation he helped introduce last fall to revamp background checks, according to the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.... But the White House stopped short of a full commitment to the bill." Mrs. McC: I'll believe it when I see the signing ceremony. ...

... White House Staff Grateful for Massacre "Reprieve." Ashley Parker & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "While the White House mourned the loss of life in Parkland, Fla., some aides privately acknowledged that the tragedy offered a breather from the political storm.... 'For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,' said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal conversations. 'A lot of people here felt like it was a reprieve from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled.'" The reporters also catalog quite a list of scandals (a/k/a SOP) that will likely resurface this week. ...

... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post on how the Rob Porter story broke. "The story seemed to begin innocuously -- a tale of a White House romance [between Hope Hicks & Rob Porter], delivered in gossipy style, with the help of paparazzi who caught the attractive staffers canoodling around town. But it gave only a hint of a darker intrigue that was percolating -- as reporters for strikingly different publications chased a story about domestic abuse allegations against the male half of the couple, Rob Porter, whose job as the president's staff secretary involved handling highly sensitive documents."

This Russia Thing

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "... President Trump spent the week[end] in a frenzy, blaming the FBI and Democrats for the shooting in Parkland, Fla., and suggesting that if the authorities lay off investigating him, then more children won't die.... Aside from the blizzard of lies, one is struck by how frantic Trump sounds. The number and looniness of the tweets arguably exceed anything he has previously done. His conduct reaffirms the basic outline of an obstruction charge: Desperate to disable a Russia probe that would be personally embarrassing to him, he has tried in many ways to interfere with and end the investigation. In doing so, he, at the very least, has abused his office. In turning on his inquisitors rather than to the job of protecting America from Russian influence, he confirms his peculiar fidelity to Vladimir Putin and reminds us he continues to violate his oath of office. There is no doubt he has, based on what we already known, committed actions constituting an abuse of his office." ...

... MEANWHILE. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "More than 15 months after a general election that was stained by covert Russian interference, the chief election officials of some states say they are still not getting the information they need to safeguard the vote. They say the federal government is not sharing specifics about threats to registered voter databases, voting machines, communication networks and other systems that could be vulnerable to hacking and manipulation. In some cases, the election officials say they have no legal access to the information: After a year of effort, only 21 of them have received clearance to review classified federal information on election threats." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND it isn't as if elections aren't looming. I'm not sure when the first primaries are, but my recollection is that some are as early as April & some as late as August. The primaries matter everywhere, but extremists often have the advantage in primaries because turnout is low & extremist voters are more motivated than "ordinary" voters. You can bet Russian bots are only going to exacerbate this reality. In addition, in "one-party" states & regions, primaries are the elections. The primaries may be contested, but the general elections are usually shoo-ins for the majority-party candidates. ...

... Shimon Prokupecz, et al., of CNN: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's interest in Jared Kushner has expanded beyond his contacts with Russia and now includes his efforts to secure financing for his company from foreign investors during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the inquiry. This is the first indication that Mueller is exploring Kushner's discussions with potential non-Russian foreign investors, including in China." ...

... Jason Leopold, et al., of BuzzFeed: "Federal law enforcement officials have identified more than $40 million in 'suspicious' financial transactions to and from companies controlled by ... Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort -- a much larger sum than was cited in his October indictment on money laundering charges. The vast web of transactions was unraveled mainly in 2014 and 2015 during an FBI operation to fight international kleptocracy that ultimately fizzled.... It explains how the special counsel was able to swiftly bring charges against Manafort for complex financial crimes dating as far back as 2008.... In 2014, then -- attorney general Eric Holder announced an FBI team that would tackle international kleptocracy -- and its first target would be ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Manafort's longtime client and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.... As the task force heightened its scrutiny of Manafort, the US Treasury Department's financial crimes unit unearthed a mountain of evidence about him."

**Nicole Lafond of TPM: "While on an unofficial business trip to promote the Trump family's real estate projects in India this week, Donald Trump Jr. plans to give a speech on foreign policy at a summit attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.... Trump Jr. also plans to spend part of the trip meeting with investors and business leaders, as well as attending an advertised $38,000-per-ticket 'conversation and dinner' event with Trump Tower Delhi National Capital Region buyers.... Trump Jr. will also to travel to Mumbai to attend a presentation at the new Trump Tower there, a project that will be developed by a firm owned by a state legislator from Modi's political party.... Before inauguration, Trump pledged his company would make no new foreign investments and said he would donate any of his company's profits from foreign governments to the Treasury Department." --safari

Barak Ravid of Axios: "U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman told a closed door meeting yesterday [of the conference of presidents of the Jewish organizations in North America] in Jerusalem that a massive evacuation of Jewish settlements from the West Bank could lead to a civil war in Israel.... Friedman said that the approximately 400,000 settlers who live in the West Bank 'are not going anywhere ... and significant evacuation could result in a civil war. This is my opinion'.... In all previous negotiation rounds during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations there was a common understanding that in a future peace deal most of the Israeli settlements would be annexed to Israel and the rest will be evacuated." --safari

David Smith & Edward Helmore of the Guardian: "Dozens of teenage students lay down on the pavement in front of the White House on Monday to demand presidential action on gun control after 17 people were killed in a school shooting in Florida. Parent and educators joined the gathering, where protesters held their arms crossed at their chests. Two activists covered themselves with an American flag while another held a sign asking: 'Am I next?'" --safari ...

... Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Fox News fans are sick and tired of seeing students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School call for stronger gun laws. In response to a Fox News tweet about students in Parkland, Florida rallying to demand change to gun laws in the United States, many pro-gun Fox fans lashed out at the students and said they didn't know what they were talking about when it comes to guns, despite the fact that a gunman last week murdered 17 of their classmates with an AR-15-style rifle. One of the most common themes among the Fox fans was that the students were being paid by a shadowy left-wing donor to speak out, while other commenters accused the students of swallowing too many Tide Pods." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you wonder why elected Republicans don't do what a majority of their base wants, it's because they do what the rabid Foxbots want: easy access to arsenels & no Dreamers, for instance.

... Alec MacGillis in ProRepublica: "[T]here's an equally predictable refrain on the center-left and in the media [on gun violence]: 'Once again, nothing will be done.'.... Yet this world-weary defeatism is self-fulfilling in its own way, and helps explain why Washington hasn't taken action to address the killing.... Most importantly, liberal fatalism on gun control overstates the strength of the opposition. The National Rifle Association's influence depends heavily on the perception of its power. By building up the gun lobby as an indomitable force, pessimists are playing directly into its hands." --safari ...

... Trump & Scott: American Cowards. Justin Baragona of Mediaite: "This coming Wednesday, CNN will hold a televised town hall event on the recent horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The live event, which will be held at BB&T Center [in Sunrise, Florida], will include classmates of the victims, parents, and members of the community. CNN also invited prominent Florida lawmakers and politicians to take part in the town hall. While Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) have all confirmed that they will attend the forum, the state's Republican governor has told CNN he won't be there. 'With only two weeks left of our annual legislative session, Governor Rick Scott will be in Tallahassee meeting with state leaders to work on ways to keep Florida students safe, including school safety improvements and keeping guns away from individuals struggling with mental illness,' Gov. Rick Scott's office told CNN. According to CNN..., Donald Trump has also declined the network's invitation." ...

... CBS News: "The 19-year-old accused of killing 17 people on Valentine's Day at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, allegedly bought seven rifles in the last year, a federal law enforcement source has told CBS News." Here are five things that are more difficult to obtain in Florida than guns: cold medicine, a marriage license, fertilizer, anti-diarrhea meds & medical marijuana. ...

... Eliot McLaughlin & Madison Park of CNN: "A law enforcement source briefed on the investigation told CNN that Cruz had obtained at least 10 firearms, all of them rifles. Investigators are trying to track the purchases, which Cruz appears to have made in the past year or so, the source said."

Senate Race

Neutralizing Mitt. David Shepardson of Reuters: "... Donald Trump on Monday endorsed former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's run for a U.S. Senate seat in Utah, despite Romney often being critical of Trump.... Trump said on Twitter that Romney 'will make a great Senator and worthy successor to @OrrinHatch, and has my full support and endorsement!'" ...

... Margaret Hartmann: "... it took Romney less than 40 minutes to accept Trump’s endorsement." Hartmann recalls Mitt's self-serving ups & downs with the Donald. These two invertebrates surely deserve each other.

Nina Burleigh of Newsweek: "White nationalist provocateurs, a pair of fake news sites, an army of Twitter bots and other cyber tricks helped derail Democratic Senator Al Franken last year, new research shows.... The Franken takedown originated in -- and was propelled by -- a strategic online campaign with digital tentacles reaching to, of all places, Japan. Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's initial accusation against Franken became effective propaganda after right-wing black ops master Roger Stone first hinted at the allegation."

Sheera Frenkel & Daisuke Wakabayashi of the New York Times: "One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate. The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting. Earlier on Wednesday, before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., many of those accounts had been focused on the investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.... In testimony to Congress last year and in private meetings with lawmakers, social media companies promised that they will do better in 2018 than they did in 2016. But the Twitter campaign around the Parkland shooting is an example of how Russian operatives are still at it.... Any issue associated with extremist views is a ripe target." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I linked to a tech mag story on this last week, but I'm glad to see the NYT picking up the story & putting it at the top of the online front page this morning. I do want to congratulate Twitter for doing such a good job squelching these Russia-linked accounts.

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Apropos of a conversation in yesterday's Comments, Paul Waldman interviews Jessica Fishman, the author of a book on how U.S. news media censor photos of dead Americans. Fishman says, "... the news media have praised the picture's power to document and reveal, but when reporting on tragedy, the cameras are used to conceal death. In the U.S. news media, images of a corpse are exceedingly rare. Ironically, the news media are commonly criticized for exploiting and sensationalizing the dead, but the bodies are actually carefully hidden.... The vast majority of the postmortem pictures published document foreign victims.... When publishing a picture of a corpse, which almost inevitably shows a non-American victim, editors contend that it is important to lay bare the dire nature of the situation.... However, during domestic crises, the same editors feel it is important to show 'positive images' that capture hopeful scenes, where first responders rescue the injured, and ordinary citizens hug tight in supportive embraces."

Eliot Cohen of The Atlantic: "At events like the Munich Conference, it is no coincidence that the word 'networking' has largely replaced the word 'debate' among global elites.... Whathas happened here is the same phenomenon that explains so many of the ills of the last couple of decades: the algae-like bloom of elites and their simultaneous loss of substance.... This political entropy seems to be a near-universal phenomenon in the Western world.... But the nicely tailored generation represented in Munich this year seemed baffled by the re-entry into history of today's authoritarians and fanatics." --safari

Third World Nation. Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "The risk of dying as a newborn in the US is only slightly lower than the risk for babies in Sri Lanka and Ukraine, according to Unicef. A report by the UN children's agency found that five newborn babies die around the world every minute, or about 2.6 million every year. The figure is described as 'alarmingly high', particularly as 80% of these deaths are from preventable causes." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has redrawn the map of the state's congressional districts, overturning a Republican gerrymander that's been used in the past three congressional elections. The new map more closely reflects the partisan composition of the state, all but ensuring that Democrats will pick up several new U.S. House seats in November. It's also more compact than Republicans' original map, and it splits fewer counties and municipal areas -- a key concern of the court as it sought to ensure voters' ability to participate in 'free and equal' elections.... Pennsylvania Republicans are almost certain to challenge the new map in court.... But [election law expert Rick] Hasen noted that Republicans' legal options for challenging the new maps are limited. The U.S. Supreme Court already rejected one challenge to the Pennsylvania court's ruling, and Republicans are on uncertain legal ground when it comes to any new challenge in federal court." ...

     ... NEW. UPDATE. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Tuesday encouraged Republicans in Pennsylvania to challenge the way that the state's supreme court redrew congressional districts to more closely reflect the partisan composition of the state, saying that the original districts drawn by Republicans were 'correct.'... 'Hope Republicans in the Great State of Pennsylvania challenge the new 'pushed' Congressional Map, all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary,' Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday morning. 'Your Original was correct! Don't let the Dems take elections away from you so that they can raise taxes & waste money!'" See also safari's comment in today's thread on headlines that topped the original redistricting stories.

Bob Brigham of RawStory: "A grand jury indictment unsealed Monday sheds more light up [sic] the arrest of Rhode Island state Senate Republican Whip Nicholas Kettle.... In addition to the counts of extortion against the male page, Kettle was also charged with a count of video voyeurism after his then-girlfriend discovered that he had allegedly sent a pornographic image of her without her consent.... A two-thirds vote is required to expel a member in Rhode Island." --safari

Way Beyond

** Juan Cole: "Australia's march to solar power is a reason for climate optimism because it is happening under adverse circumstances.... Australia has a horrible environmental record and is among the worst carbon polluters per capita. Australia is the biggest exporter of coal in the world, providing 33% of world exports of this commodity. Some three quarters of Australian coal mined is exported and the industry brings in on the order of US$126 bn a year.... At the same time, the Australian public desperately wants renewable energy (96%) and Australia is especially vulnerable to the worst effects of climate change.... And yet, Australia is in the midst of a solar revolution in which it could double its solar energy production in a single year." --safari

The Commentariat -- February 19, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Brandon Rottinghaus & Justin Vaughn, for a New York Times op-ed, asked "170 members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section" to rank U.S. presidents from best to worst. If you're looking for Donald Trump, you'll have to read through the names of every other president first. Quite a distinction!

Nina Burleigh of Newsweek: "White nationalist provocateurs, a pair of fake news sites, an army of Twitter bots and other cyber tricks helped derail Democratic Senator Al Franken last year, new research shows.... The Franken takedown originated in — and was propelled by — a strategic online campaign with digital tentacles reaching to, of all places, Japan. Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's initial accusation against Franken became effective propaganda after right-wing black ops master Roger Stone first hinted at the allegation."

*****

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie Note: Includes only presidents who don't require an asterisk.

"They Are Laughing Their Asses off in Moscow." Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump has taken the presidency to yet another new low. In a remarkable set of tweets over the weekend, the commander in chief sounded off on new revelations about the extent of Russia’s campaign to undermine our electoral system. His response: to lash out at his political adversaries and the institutions that are charged with keeping the country safe.... These are the moments that test a country — and a president. They call for bringing people together in a sense of national purpose against a common adversary. Once again, Trump has failed that test.... His self-absorption is such that he cannot see beyond his own fixation, which is that all of this has no meaning beyond the legitimacy of his own election. Moscow must indeed be laughing." ...

... Joshua Yaffa of the New Yorker: "It must indeed be amusing for the political technologists — as the stage managers of Russia’s domestic scene are called — to watch a U.S. President at war with so many parts of the political system, while, at the same time, the Kremlin is preparing for a serene, almost unnoticeable coronation of Putin for his fourth Presidential term, next month.... What a laugh it must be to see how much turbulence those institutions can churn up for your adversary. The question — the answer to which we’ll find out sooner rather than later — is whether the joke is ultimately on us or them." ...

... Larry, Mo & Curly. David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "CNN’s Boris Sanchez reported on Sunday that sources say President Donald Trump’s weekend Twitter attacks on the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were spurred by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric. Sanchez told anchor Fredericka Whitfield that the president has chose to spend the weekend indoors and away from the golf course to avoid the 'bad optics' of being seen golfing while the grieving families of Parkland, FL lay the victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting to rest. The trouble with the restive president and his child-like attention span is that it has left him beholden to the influence of his sons, who have shown themselves to be eager dupes for racist conspiracy theories and other disinformation campaigns." ...

Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said ... his takeaway from Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals and Russia groups is that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and that the best way to respond would be for Trump to impose the bipartisan sanctions against the country that Congress passed last year. 'Instead he’s launched a desperate sounding series of unhinged tweets this morning, and to me that is not only wildly inappropriate, it shows consciousness of guilt,' Lieu said. 'Which is what a [guilty] person would do,' he said. 'Mislead, lie and not take action against the Kremlin.'” ...

... David Frum of The Atlantic: "Having failed at one presidential duty, to speak for the nation at times of national tragedy, Trump resumed shirking an even more supreme task: defending the nation against foreign attack.... At every turn, Trump has failed to do what a patriotic president would do—failed to put the national interest first.... But Americans who cherish democracy and national sovereignty need to start discussing a bigger and darker question.... To what extent does President Trump—to what extent do congressional Republicans — look to Russian interference to help their party in the 2018 cycle?.... A little extra help could make a big difference to Republican hopes — and to Trump’s political survival. Nothing has been done in the past 15 months to prevent that help from flowing. You have to wonder whether the president does not privately welcome that help, as he publicly welcomed help from WikiLeaks in the summer of 2016." --safari ...

... "The Case of the Petrified President*." An American Mystery Tale. Tom Friedman: "Our democracy is in serious danger. President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.... Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump’s refusal to respond to Russia’s direct attack on our system — a quiescence that is simply unprecedented for any U.S. president in history." ...

... David A. Graham of The Atlantic: "[B]y refusing to take information warfare seriously — in an attempt to distance himself from it and any questions it might raise about the legitimacy of his election — the president has paradoxically made the story about himself again and again.... In theory, the things he said [during his latest tweetstorm] were designed to push the story away from himself and downplay any connection. In practice, he forced himself into the middle of the story, inextricably linking himself to it.... Rather than stick to a single, coherent message, the president is trying out several contradictory ones. " --safari ...

...Emily Stewart of Vox: "Greg Touhill [is] a retired Air Force general officer and one of the nation’s premier cybersecurity experts.... I spoke with Touhill about what the United States can do to try to stop Russia from interfering in US politics and elections in 2018 and beyond." --safari ...

... Emily Stewart: “'I never said Russia did not meddle in the election,' Trump wrote [in a tweet this weekend]. 'I said "it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer". The Russian "hoax" was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia — it never did!' This would make sense, if it were even a little bit true. It appears the president is suffering from a bit of Russian-meddling-denial amnesia, or perhaps a case of selective memory: Trump has publicly doubted increasingly clear evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. And he’s done so a lot. Fact-checking website PolitiFact declared Trump’s continued proclamations that Russian interference is a 'made-up story' as its 2017 Lie of the Year." Stewart goes on to cite numerous instances where Trump denied or refused to conclude Russia interfered in the 2016 election. ...

... George Washington Saw Trump Coming. Thomas Pickering & James Stoutenberg, in a New York Times op-ed: "In September 1796, George Washington ... wrote a farewell address explaining why he would not seek a third term. His message is worth remembering in our current political moment.... One of his greatest concerns: The ways in which hyperpartisanship could open the door 'to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.' On Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, charged 13 Russians with trying to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election. One need only read the indictment to understand what the first president was talking about.” ...

     ... Washington's farewell address is here....

Buried in the Dawsey-Rucker WashPo story -- also linked yesterday -- about Trump's crazed Twitterstorm is this: "The president also surveyed Mar-a-Lago Club members about whether he ought to champion gun control measures in the wake of last week’s school massacre in nearby Parkland, telling them that he was closely monitoring the media appearances by some of the surviving students, according to people who spoke with him there." Mrs. McC: Right, because it's very important to know what rich people think about gun control. And other stuff. Trump is also gauging whether or not traumatized kids will make him look bad. It's all about Trump. ...

     ... Mrs McCrabbie BTW: If you didn't see the stories linked in yesterday's Commentariat about Trump's wild & crazy Twitterstorm, you might want to read them today. The old boy was bouncing off the stuccoed Mar-a-Lago walls.

... Guardian: "Students who escaped the deadly school shooting in Florida have focused their anger at Donald Trump, saying that his response to the attack has been needlessly divisive.... Students across the country are organising rallies and a national walkout in support of stronger gun laws in a challenge to politicians they say have failed to protect them.... These will include a 'March for Our Lives' protest in Washington on 24 March to call attention to school safety and ask lawmakers to enact gun control. They also plan to rally for gun control, mental health issues and school safety on Wednesday in Tallahassee, Florida’s state capital." --safari ...

... Devlin Barrett & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Students at the Florida school where 17 people died last week said Sunday they will organize nationwide marches for gun control next month and try to create a 'badge of shame' for politicians who take money from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups."

Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes. The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Sunday

... Way back last month, Donald liked Oprah. Now he's all mad at her because of a "60 Minutes" segment in which she re-interviewed some Michigan Trump and non-Trump voters. ...

... Margaret Hartmann: "Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t seem Trump actually watched the 60 Minutes segment, which was the followup to a previous discussion with a bipartisan group of 14 Michigan voters.... Plenty of time was devoted to Trump voters loudly expressing why they still support the president.... [Trump] seems desperate to be back on the campaign trail attacking a female opponent...."

The Fixer. Jim Rutenberg, et al., of the New York Times: "As accounts of past sexual indiscretions threatened to surface during Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, the job of stifling potentially damaging stories fell to his longtime lawyer and all-around fixer, Michael D. Cohen. To protect his boss at critical junctures in his improbable political rise, the lawyer relied on intimidation tactics, hush money and the nation’s leading tabloid news business, American Media Inc., whose top executives include close Trump allies. Mr. Cohen’s role has come under scrutiny amid recent revelations that he facilitated a payment to silence a porn star, but his aggressive behind-the-scenes efforts stretch back years, according to interviews, emails and other records.

Michael Birnbaum & Griff Witte of the Washington Post: "Amid global anxiety about President Trump’s approach to world affairs, U.S. officials had a message to a gathering of Europe’s foreign policy elite this weekend: Pay no attention to the man tweeting behind the curtain. U.S. lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — and top national security officials in the Trump administration offered the same advice publicly and privately, often clashing with Trump’s Twitter stream: The United States remains staunchly committed to its European allies, is furious with the Kremlin about election interference and isn’t contemplating a preemptive strike on North Korea to halt its nuclear program." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... John Oliver confirms that yes, indeed, the world is laughing at us. --safari

** Nuclear Scurfuffles. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "On Thursday Nov. 9, when President Trump and his team visited Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Chief of Staff John Kelly and a U.S. Secret Service agent skirmished with Chinese security officials over the nuclear football.... When the U.S. military aide carrying the nuclear football entered the Great Hall, Chinese security officials blocked his entry. A U.S. official ... told Kelly what was happening. Kelly ... told the U.S. officials to keep walking.... A Chinese security official grabbed Kelly, and Kelly shoved the man’s hand off of his body. Then a U.S. Secret Service agent grabbed the Chinese security official and tackled him to the ground.... I'm told that at no point did the Chinese have the nuclear football in their possession or even touch the briefcase.... [T]he Chinese security detail apologized to the Americans afterwards for the misunderstanding." --safari

All the Best People, Ctd. New York Times Editors: "President Trump’s White House has been so scandal-plagued that controversies involving cabinet members and other high-level officials that would have been front-page news in any other administration have barely registered in the public consciousness." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, but look at the bright side. Trump has failed to fill many positions, leaving most agencies short-handed. If he'd staffed the executive branch in a timely manner, there would be a lot more scandals.

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "... the online pitches [by Russian trolls] reached a big audience. In written answers to questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee, Facebook said some 338,300 people saw the announcements of rallies promoted by the bogus pages — and 62,500 said they planned to attend one. Those numbers ... show that the Russians were able not just to attract Americans to their ersatz groups but actually manipulate their actions.... While most of the Americans duped by the Russian trolls were not public figures, some higher-profile people were fooled. The indictment mentions the Russian Twitter feed @TEN_GOP, which posed as a Tennessee Republican account and attracted more than 100,000 followers. It was retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.; Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor; Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser; and his son, Michael Flynn Jr." ...

... Jeff Toobin has a long piece in the New Yorker on Trump's Miss Universe pageants, which apparently he fixed to coincide with his other business interests, & his fixation on Russia, which provided both a source for capital when legitimate U.S. money dried up because of Trump's business failures & bankruptcies & a potential market for his Trump-branded real estate projects. ...

... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "After months of criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe..., Donald Trump’s supporters are issuing increasingly bold calls for presidential pardons to limit the investigation’s impact. 'I think he should be pardoning anybody who’s been indicted and make it clear that anybody else who gets indicted would be pardoned immediately,' said Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and senior vice president at the conservative Center for Security Policy.... So far, the talk of pardons has mostly centered around [Michael] Flynn, whose clemency Trump did not rule out in a brief mid-December exchange with reporters. 'I don’t want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens,' Trump said." ...

... David Willman of the Los Angeles Times: "A former top aide to Donald Trump's presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days – and has made clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul J. Manafort Jr., the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign. The change of heart by Trump's former deputy campaign manager, Richard W. Gates III, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to Manafort's, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Maggie Haberman & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "In a West Wing where senior officials have developed something of a bunker mentality to keep the chaos at bay and survive each day, this better-not-to-know approach allowed the [Rob] Porter problem to fester and raises questions about whether the White House is capable of creating a system with greater accountability.... 'They haven’t figured out how the place operates, and apparently they don’t want to learn,' said John Dean, a White House counsel under President Richard M. Nixon. The Porter situation, he added, 'is a manifestation of what happens when you have chaos.'”

Pruitt Cancels Taxpayer-Funded Vacation Official Trip. Juliet Eilperin & Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has canceled a nearly week-long trip to Israel, agency officials confirmed Sunday. Pruitt, who had been scheduled to leave this weekend for an extensive tour of the Mideast ally, has come under fire over the past week for the cost of his domestic and international travel. In May, the head of Pruitt’s security detail recommended he travel either business or first class whenever possible to avoid public confrontations with critics." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Samantha Michaels of Mother Jones: "Federal prison employees across the country say staffing cuts made by the Trump administration have crippled their ability to provide services to inmates and keep prisons safe.... For more than a decade, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has run on what it describes as 'mission critical' staffing — the minimum number of correctional employees necessary to safely run the 98 facilities it operates. Yet over the past year, federal prisons have dipped far below those numbers.... In January, the Bureau of Prisons told its facility administrators to expect a 14 percent reduction in their staffing levels.... The practice of making prison teachers, nurses, and other non-correctional staffers work as guards, called 'augmentation,' started more than a decade ago.... Now, employees say the practice has become a near-daily occurrence at some facilities. As a result, they say, the wait lists for inmate medical care are growing and classes are being canceled." --safari

History Lesson. Tom Philpott of Mother Jones: "When you look at the White House, you probably don’t think of it as a Southern plantation mansion.... But Washington, D.C. was carved out of territory from Virginia and Maryland, both slave states.... Enslaved people not only built the original White House and the post-1814 edition, but they also toiled in the kitchen for the first several decades of the republic.... In his 2017 book The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas, Adrian Miller, an historian and former adviser to President Bill Clinton, unearths this largely hidden history ... of previously invisible black cooks working at the center of American power." --safari

Jill Abramson writes a long piece for New York titled, "Do You Believe Her Now?" The subhead is. "With new evidence that Clarence Thomas lied to get onto the Supreme Court, it’s time to talk seriously about impeachment." Abramson puts together a convincing case. Mrs. McC: I wouldn't recommend impeaching Thomas while a serial sex-abuser is the guy who gets to choose his replacement. AND Joe Biden is making noises about a presidential run again. It would be a bitter irony if the senator who suppressed women's testimony against Thomas picked an impeached Thomas's replacement.

Amanda Arnold of New York: "The Movement for Black Lives recognized a great opportunity to register a whole lot of people to vote: the opening weekend of Black Panther. According to activist Kayla Reed, the campaign has already inspired similar drives all over the country. The initiative is spearheaded by members of the organization’s Electoral Justice Project, who are dressing up in 'Wakanda-inspired outfits' to register citizens to vote — or, as they’re calling it, #WakandaTheVote." --safari

E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "Keeping global warming below the lower Paris agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius is 'extremely unlikely,' according to a leaked draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a trend that can only be countered if countries like the United States devote themselves to countering rising global temperatures." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

Max Londberg of the Kansas City Star (in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch): "Third-graders in a Missouri community are continuing to sell raffle tickets for an AR-15 to benefit their traveling baseball team after the same type of rifle was used to slaughter and injure dozens at a Florida school. Levi Patterson, the coach of a 9-and-under baseball team in Neosho, Mo., told The Star the idea was conceived before the shooting in Parkland, Fla. A father of one of the players — who co-founded Black Rain Ordnance Inc., a weapons purveyor in Neosho — offered the weapon for the raffle.... Lee Woodward, the principal of South Elementary School in Neosho, announced the raffle on her Facebook page and encouraged purchases to support the '9u Neosho baseball players, coaches, and parents.' The post was made hours after the Florida shooting." Mrs. McC: The Star & the Post-Dispatch are both reputable newspapers, so I'm just going to assume this story is not a hoax & the principal & parents in Neosho, Mo., are really this stupid.

Way Beyond

Daniel Boffey of the Guardian: "The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, has ramped up his populist rhetoric ahead of April elections to claim that 'dark clouds are gathering' and that his country is a last bastion in the fight against the 'Islamisation' of Europe...He claimed the west had 'opened the way for the decline of Christian culture and … Islamic expansion' while his administration had 'prevented the Islamic world from flooding us from the south'." --safari