The Commentariat -- November 21, 2017
Late Morning Update:
Say What? AP: "Longtime Michigan Rep. John Conyers on Tuesday denied settling a complaint in 2015 from a woman who alleged she was fired from his Washington staff because she rejected his sexual advances.... Conyers, who answered the door at his Detroit home, told The Associated Press that he knows nothing about any claims of inappropriate touching and learned of the story from television just hours earlier. 'I have been looking at these things in amazement,' he said, referring to allegations of sexual harassment and assault being made against politicians and others." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Um, this won't be the end of the story. BTW, Conyers didn't deny the allegations; he denied knowledge that anyone had made a claim.
Jason Szep & Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: "A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters. A confidential State Department 'dissent' memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.... Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China's influence in Southeast Asia."
Norimitsu Onishi & Jeffrey Moyo of the New York Times: "Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, resigned as president on Tuesday shortly after lawmakers began impeachment proceedings against him, according to the speaker of Parliament. The speaker of Parliament read out a letter in which Mr. Mugabe said he was stepping down 'with immediate effect' for 'the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and the need for a peaceful transfer of power.'"
Gary Cohn wants to save morons from the estate tax. Spirit of the season, Gary; you're a great guy. New York Times Editors reprise some of the lies & fake rationales Republicans are pushing to eliminate the estate tax on the top 0.02 percent of Americans. Mrs. Mc. C: BTW, the No. 1 moron Cohn is sparing is his boss (and needy little heirs).
*****
@ay back yesterday (and the day before), Trump reminded us that every day is Pick on Black People Day. Looks as if his most recent performances were preludes to this: ...
... Karen DeYoung & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has given nearly 60,000 Haitians with provisional legal residency in this country 18 months to leave, announcing Monday that it will not renew the Temporary Protected Status that has allowed them to remain here for more than seven years. The decision came after the Department of Homeland Security determined that the 'extraordinary conditions' justifying their presence in the United States following a 2010 earthquake 'no longer exist,' according to a senior administration official."
Ken Dilanian, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's charitable foundation, which last year admitted violating federal rules on 'self-dealing,' is in the process of dissolving, according to newly filed documents.... The move fulfills a promise Trump made last December, when he said he would wind down the Donald J. Trump Foundation to avoid conflicts of interest. New York's attorney general ordered the foundation to stop soliciting contributions in October 2016.... The [state] attorney general's press secretary, Amy Spitalnick, said the foundation can't close just yet, however. 'As the foundation is still under investigation by this office, it cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete,' said Spitalnick.... Trump has not donated to the foundation since 2008 but it has received tens of millions of dollars during the past 10 years." ...
... BUT His "Charity" Is Still Doing Funny Business. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "One of President Trump's golf courses paid back more than $158,000 to Trump's charitable foundation this year, reimbursing the charity for money that had been used to settle a lawsuit against the club, according to a new tax filing. The March 2017 payment came after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, launched an investigation into how the Donald J. Trump Foundation collects and disburses funds. The inquiry is ongoing.... During the probe, the foundation cannot raise money or give it away.... Along with that payment [from the Westchester golf club], the foundation received another $62,184 in reimbursements from unidentified sources.... Nonprofits are prohibited from participating in political campaigns. But the most prominent thing the Trump Foundation did in 2016 was to take part in a TV event advertised by Trump's political campaign, in which Trump held a fundraiser for veterans while skipping a Fox News-run GOP debate. Trump brought in more than $2 million to his foundation at that event, and gave some of the proceeds away during his presidential campaign rallies."
Trump Is a Moron, Ctd. Joseph Bernstein of BuzzFeed: "National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster mocked President Trump's intelligence at a private dinner with a powerful tech CEO, according to five sources with knowledge of the conversation. Over a July dinner with Oracle CEO Safra Catz -- who has been mentioned as a candidate for several potential administration jobs -- McMaster bluntly trashed his boss, said the sources, four of whom told BuzzFeed News they heard about the exchange directly from Catz. The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an 'idiot' and a 'dope' with the intelligence of a 'kindergartner,' the sources said. A sixth source who was not familiar with the details of the dinner told BuzzFeed News that McMaster had made similarly derogatory comments about Trump's intelligence to him in private, including that the president lacked the necessary brainpower to understand the matters before the National Security Council. Both Oracle and the Trump administration heatedly denied the comments that Catz later recounted.... Three of the sources said that McMaster disparaged multiple members of the administration to Catz, including [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and ... Jared Kushner.... '[Catz] said the conversation was so inappropriate that it was jaw-dropping,' another source told BuzzFeed News." ...
... digby: "I could easily see him saying it. I could just as easily see someone lying about it to cause a rift between McMaster and Trump. But it doesn't really matter. He is an idiot and a dope who has the intelligence of a kindergartener and he does not have the necessary brainpower to understand matter before the NSC. Nobody needs McMaster to say it privately. He's a fucking moron and everyone knows it." ...
... ** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic puts the fucking moron's candidacy & his presidency in its historical context: "It was not just Trump's supporters who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum, who, as had been the case with those who had backed [David] Duke, searched desperately for any alternative explanation -- outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety -- to the one staring them in the face [-- racism]. The frequent postelection media expeditions to Trump country ... are a direct outgrowth of this mistake. These supporters will not change their minds because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of." ...
... AND, Speaking of History..., Dana Milbank: "... there is something truly historic about Trump -- his histrionics. He surely has no rival in trying to assert the historic nature of everything he does. A search of the White House website finds that the president and his team have declared their actions historic nearly 400 times in their first 10 months in office. Trump has always asserted that he is the best and the greatest, but his attempts to write himself into the history books have truly been history-making." Milbank goes on to name some of the things that Trump & mike pence have labelled "historic." pence is especially ridiculous; he calls the most routine functions "historic."
Exploding Thanksgiving Turkey? Jonathan Chait: "... in the face of this mounting evidence and the warnings of some allies, Trump has remained -- by Trump's standards -- fairly calm [about the Mueller investigation]. Obviously, by the standards of a normal president, he is acting like a complete lunatic. But given Trump's patterns of spewing indiscriminate rage and abuse and lashing out at his enemies in wildly counterproductive fashion, he has conducted himself with notable restraint. Despite his barely concealed impulses, Trump has refrained from mass pardons or attempting to fire Mueller. The apparent reason for his serenity is that his lawyer, Ty Cobb, has placated Trump with promises that Mueller's probe would be over ... by Thanksgiving.... If Cobb has bought time with Trump by blowing sunshine up his ass, at some point Trump will stop believing his lawyer's absurdly copacetic analysis and start believing the people who are warning him about the Gambino-style roll-up under way.... At some point, Trump is going to blow." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is a pretty funny column. Chait equates a personal situation he & his wife endured with Trump's Cobb-induced expectation that everything will be fine. If you've ever taken off work to wait for the cable guy or sat by the phone like a teenager waiting for an important call that never came, you'll relate. ...
... Matthew Mosk of ABC News: "Travels by Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to meet with senior officials in Hungary during the 2016 presidential election are being closely examined by congressional investigators, given the increasingly close ties between Hungary and Russia and the role of the country as a hub for Russian intelligence activity. The Hungarian prime minister was the first foreign leader to endorse Donald Trump's candidacy. Though characterized as a low-level volunteer, Page held high-level foreign policy meetings with Hungarian officials before the 2016 presidential election.... The meetings included a 45-minute session in September 2016 with Jeno Megyesy, who is a close adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and focuses on relations with the United States, at his office in Budapest, where Page presented himself as a member of then-candidate Trump's foreign policy team."
Cecilia Kang & Michael de la Merced of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Monday sued to block AT&T's $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner, setting up a showdown over the first blockbuster acquisition to come before the Trump administration. By challenging the deal, the Justice Department is taking a starkly different approach to antitrust issues than the Obama administration did. In 2011, for instance, the department approved a similar deal -- Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal -- after imposing numerous conditions on the transaction." ...
... Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "The move by the Justice Department's antitrust division is unusual because it challenges a deal that would combine two different kinds of companies -- a telecom with a media and entertainment company. Antitrust officials are relatively untested in the courts on opposing such deals and have rarely tried to squash them. If successful, however, the government's case would send a strong signal across the business world that Washington is no longer looking as kindly on such mergers.... There is also political risk for the Justice Department. Some Democrats have expressed concern that antitrust officials could be seeking to block the deal because the Trump administration has been highly critical of CNN, which is owned by Time Warner -- a charge that the department and the White House have denied." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So is this JeffBo's gift to Trump? Just asking. It seems a little odd that the anti-regulation Trump administration would suddenly get all anti-trust.
Traffic Jam. Welcome to the Slow Lane of the Information Superhighway: Cecilia Kang: "The Federal Communications Commission is preparing a full repeal of net neutrality rules that require broadband providers to give consumers equal access to all content on the internet, putting more power in the hands of those companies to dictate people's online experiences. Ajit Pai, the chairman of the F.C.C., plans to reveal a sweeping proposal to scrap the net neutrality rules on Tuesday.... A rollback of net neutrality regulations would represent a significant victory for broadband and telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast and would amount to a strike against consumers."
Euan McKirdy of CNN: "A federal judge has permanently blocked ... Donald Trump's executive order to cut funding from cities that limit cooperation with US immigration authorities. US District Court Judge William Orrick issued the ruling on Monday in lawsuits brought by two California counties, San Francisco and Santa Clara. Orrick said Trump cannot set new conditions on spending approved by Congress. The ruling nullifies the executive order Trump signed in January, shortly after taking office, which was designed to crack down on so-called 'sanctuary cities,' municipalities that do not comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requests for assistance with identifying and deporting undocumented immigrants.... A Department of Justice spokesman said the court had 'exceeded its authority' in its ruling, and vowed that the department would continue to follow Trump's direction with regard to the January executive order." Mrs. McC: Orrick is an Obama appointee. It would be such a shame of AG JeffBo, Evil Elf & Number 1 fan of Trump's sanctuary cities order, ended up in prison for defying a court order.
All the Best People, Ctd. Danny Vinik & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "The Trump administration is leaning toward naming Thomas Brunell, a Texas professor with no government experience, to the top operational job at the U.S. Census Bureau, according to two people who have been briefed on the Bureau's plans. Brunell ... has testified more than half a dozen times on behalf of Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts, and is the author of a 2008 book titled 'Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America.'... The pick would break with the long-standing precedent of choosing a nonpolitical government official as deputy director of the U.S. Census Bureau. The job has typically been held by a career civil servant with a background in statistics. It does not require Senate confirmation, so Congress would have no power to block the hire.... The fate of the Census under Trump has been closely watched by voting-rights advocates worried that the administration -- which has already made unsupported claims about voter fraud -- might nudge it in directions that over- or under-count some Americans. Subtle bureaucratic choices in the wording and administration of the Census can have huge consequences for who is counted, and how it shifts American voting districts."
** Tax "Reform." The GOP lie machine is cranked up to maximum, but it's Paul Krugman who's exploding: "... we're really looking at an unprecedented level of dishonesty here. But what happens when you try to explain what's going on? When Senator Sherrod Brown tried to point out, correctly, that the Senate G.O.P.'s tax bill heavily favors the rich, Senator Orrin Hatch exploded, calling it 'bull crap' and asserting that he grew up poor (which is relevant why, exactly?). Sorry, but this isn't the righteous anger of a man falsely accused of wrongdoing. It';s the rage con men always exhibit when caught out in their con." Mrs. McC: And here's a line for P.D. Pepe & me: "Oh, and a memo to journalists: If you play it safe by reporting this as 'Democrats say' that middle-class taxes will go up, you're misleading your readers: Those estimates come from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's own nonpartisan scorekeeper." In reading Krugman's column, one might think he wrote parts of it off Reality Chex. ...
... Kevin Drum: For some reason Republicans were all upset that their own Joint Committee on Taxation had calculated the effects of their tax "reform" bill on what-all was in the Senate version -- including repeal of the ObamaCare mandate. So the Tax Policy Center obliged their concern, & analyzed the bill minus the effects of repealing the mandate. "Among middle-class families, 50-70 percent will see a tax increase by 2027. Among the rich, that number is only 15-30 percent. And among the super-duper rich, almost no one sees a tax increase.... These charts ... come out every few days, and they're from reputable sources. And they all show a massive preference toward the rich. But Republicans like Orrin Hatch pretend to be outraged when anyone points this out. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan stay scarce so they don't have to answer questions. Other Republicans insist that these analyses are totally bogus because they don't account for supercharged growth, and Fox News eagerly joins in. Donald Trump, who would reap tens of millions of dollars from this tax bill, routinely lies in public about how he'd 'get killed' -- and then tosses in a real thigh slapper: 'The deal is so bad for rich people, I had to throw in the estate tax just to give them something.'"
Derek Hawkins, et al., of the Washington Post: "A U.S. Border Patrol agent who was killed while on patrol in southwest Texas may have been beaten to death by attackers wielding rocks, according to the president of the National Border Patrol Council. Brandon Judd, president of the labor union, said Agent Rogelio Martinez died Sunday of blunt force trauma to the head.... Authorities have been searching for witnesses and potential suspects after Martinez was killed and a fellow agent was seriously injured.... By Monday afternoon, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction for what he called the ;murder; of a Border Patrol agent." Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday night, "Border Patrol Officer killed at Southern Border, another badly hurt. We will seek out and bring to justice those responsible. We will, and must, build the Wall!"
** Today in Sexual Harassment News:
M.J. Lee of CNN: "A woman says Sen. Al Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010, telling CNN that he grabbed her buttocks while taking a photo at the Minnesota State Fair. It is the first allegation of improper touching by Franken, who is a Democrat, while he was in office.... Lindsay Menz, a 33-year-old woman..., reached out to CNN on Thursday hours after [Leeann] Tweeden made her story public. Menz said she wanted to share an 'uncomfortable' interaction that left her feeling 'gross.'... As her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken 'pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear,' Menz said. 'It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek.'" Menz told her husband & other family members at the time about the incident & wrote about it on Facebook as well. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Menz's account seems completely credible to me. I'm afraid Al is toast. If he did this once, he likely did it many times. Ask professional ass-grabber & retired President George H.W. Bush. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "What makes this allegation different from the earlier accusation by TV personality Leeann Tweeden (other than the lack of photo evidence) is that it occurred after Franken was elected to the Senate. That makes it squarely within the jurisdiction of the Senate Ethics Committee, which was already expected to investigate the Minnesotan, at his own request. The fate of Al Franken's political career, if it has not already been sealed, may depend on whether other women now come forward in response to fresh evidence that the senator had a problem that led to inappropriate if not criminal conduct." ...
... Brandon Carter of the Hill: "Two prominent progressive groups are calling on Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to resign in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against him. Credo Action and Indivisible called for Franken's resignation Monday after a second woman accused Franken of groping her without her consent. 'Sen. Al Franken had the chance last week to take full responsibility for past sexual harassment, sexual assault and any other behavior that demeaned women. He failed to do so,' Credo said in a statement. 'We believe that Sen. Franken should immediately resign from the U.S.Senate and that Gov. Mark Dayton should appoint a progressive woman to replace him.'" ...
... Nicole LaFond of TPM: "Sen. Al Franken's (D-MN) tribute to David Letterman will be [was] cut from Monday night's PBS special honoring the longtime comedian, according to a PBS spokesperson, who said including Franken would be a distraction in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against the senator."
... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times is troubled by her call last week for Franken to resign, even in light of the new accusation by Lindsay Menz.
** Paul McLeod & Lissandra Villa of BuzzFeed: "Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not 'succumb to [his] sexual advances.' Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits ... from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sexual favors, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.... And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.... The Conyers documents ... give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures." ...
... Margaret Hartmann has a good summary of the Conyers story, with additional commentary. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: There is no doubt that the allegations against Conyers are true. He really must resign now, & if he will not do so, the House must oust him, with full Democratic support. And, no, I don't care that BuzzFeed got its story from a right-wing nut.
Irin Carmon & Amy Brittain of the Washington Post: "Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas. The women were employees or aspired to work for Rose at the 'Charlie Rose' show from the late 1990s to as recently as 2011. They ranged in age from 21 to 37 at the time of the alleged encounters. Rose, 75, whose show airs on PBS and Bloomberg TV, also co-hosts 'CBS This Morning' and is a contributing correspondent for '60 Minutes.'... Within hours of the publication of this story, PBS and Bloomberg LP immediately suspended distribution of the 'Charlie Rose' show. CBS announced that it was suspending Rose as it looked into the matter.... Rumors about Rose's behavior have circulated for years." "That's just Charlie being Charlie." his long-time producer Yvette Vega allegedly told one of Rose's victims when the victim told Vega of Rose's behavior toward her. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The stories the women tell are awful -- and credible. If you're curious about how "respectable" men get away with this crap, the article is a short course.
Laura McGann of Vox reports on an incident in which New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush "caught me off guard, put his hand on my thigh, and suddenly started kissing me. Thrush says that he recalls the incident differently.... Three young women I interviewed ... described to me a range of similar experiences, from unwanted groping and kissing to wet kisses out of nowhere to hazy sexual encounters that played out under the influence of alcohol.... I was -- and am -- angry. Details of their stories suggest a pattern. All of the women were in their 20s at the time. They were relatively early in their careers compared to Thrush, who was the kind of seasoned journalist who would be good to know. At an event with alcohol, he made advances. Afterward, they (as I did) thought it best to stay on good terms with Thrush, whatever their feelings." Thrush presents himself as an advocate for female journalists. "Eileen Murphy, the senior vice president of communications for the New York Times..., [wrote], 'We intend to fully investigate and while we do, Glenn will be suspended. We support his decision to enter a substance abuse program....'" ...
... The New York Times story, by Sydney Ember, is here.
** Kyle Whitmire of AL.com: Many Alabama voters say they believe Roy Moore but not his accusers. Then these voters should believe what Roy has said about how he first scoped out his wife -- it was at a junior college dance recital in which she performed a "special dance." Kayla would have been 15 years old at the time, by Whitmire's calculation. Years later, when he met her again, he said he remembered her from that "special dance." Kayla Moore is 14 years younger than Roy. ...
Jonathan Stempel of Reuters: "Twenty-First Century Fox Inc has reached a $90 million settlement of shareholder claims arising from the sexual harassment scandal at its Fox News Channel, which cost the jobs of longtime news chief Roger Ailes and anchor Bill O'Reilly. The settlement, which requires a judge's approval, resolves what are known as 'derivative' claims against Fox officers and directors, including: Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, who are Fox's executive chairmen; James Murdoch, another son and its chief executive, and Ailes' estate. The defendants did not admit wrongdoing.... Monday's settlement calls for insurers of Fox officers, Fox directors and Ailes' estate to pay the $90 million to the New York-based company for the benefit of shareholders.... In a typical derivative case, shareholders sue in the name of a company to remedy wrongs inflicted by an alleged lack of oversight by a company's officers and directors."
Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Jeanine F. Pirro, the high-octane host of a Fox News Channel show, was given a summons on Sunday for driving 119 miles per hour in upstate New York, according to the State Police. Ms. Pirro ... said in a statement that she was unaware that she was going nearly double the speed limit of 65 miles an hour." Mrs. McC: She should get her good friend & promoter Donald Trump to pardon her.