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The Commentariat -- April 2, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Red State Revolt. Dana Goldstein of the New York Times: "Thousands of teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job Monday morning, shutting down school districts as they protested cuts in pay, benefits and school funding in a movement that has grown in force since igniting in West Virginia earlier this year. The wave of strikes in red states, mainly organized by ordinary teachers on Facebook, has caught lawmakers and sometimes the teachers' own labor unions flat-footed. The protesters say they are fed up with years of education funding cuts and stagnant pay in Republican-dominated states. In Oklahoma City, where protesting teachers were gathering at the Capitol on Monday morning, Katrina Ruff, a local teacher, carried a sign that read, 'Thanks to West Virginia.'"
President* Bizarro. Trump Can't Even Do an Easter Egg Roll. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump on Monday welcomed children to the White House for the annual Easter Egg Roll with a bizarre rant about the strength of the American military. In his address to the children at the event, Trump began by referring to the White House as 'this house or building or whatever you want to call it because there is no name for it, it is special.' Trump then said that he and his staff keep the White House 'in tip-top shape, we call it sometimes tippy-top shape, and it's a great, great place.' He then pivoted to talking about the military, which he said would soon be 'at a level it's never been before' and 'you see what's happening with funding' and 'just think of $700 billion, because that's what's going into our military this year.'" Mind you, he's addressing kindergarteners.
Thomas Heath of the Washington Post: "Stocks dropped Monday as technology companies came under fire and fears grew about a trade war with China. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged down more than 580 points, or 2.4 percent, by midday. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was down 2.6 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 2.9 percent as volatility continues to rock markets."
Christian Berthelsen of Bloomberg: "A former employee of ... Donald Trump's 2016 campaign team sued the organization to nullify a non-disclosure agreement she signed, saying it muzzled her from airing discrimination claims. Jessica Denson, a Los Angeles-based journalist and actress who oversaw phone banks and Hispanic outreach for the campaign, claims she was harassed by a superior. She had earlier filed a discrimination case against Donald Trump for President Inc. in New York state court, but the campaign sought to enforce the confidentiality deal, filing an arbitration claim asserting $1.5 million in damages. Denson is the third woman who has sought to void a secrecy agreement involving Trump...."
Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "On Thursday at a Chicago nightclub, [George] Papadopoulos had some drinks and, in a conversation with a new acquaintance, allegedly made new and explosive claims about Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Papadopoulos, according to this new acquaintance, said that Sessions was well aware of the contact between Papadopoulos and Joseph Mifsud, an academic from Malta with high-level connections in Russia. Papadopoulos' indictment revealed that Mifsud had told Papadopoulos that the Russians had '"dirt" on then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."' Jason Wilson, a computer engineer who lives in Chicago, told ThinkProgress that Papadopoulos said during their conversation that 'Sessions encouraged me' to find out anything he could about the hacked Hillary Clinton emails that Mifsud had mentioned." Papadopoulos's wife, Simona Mangiante, later tried to downplay her husband's revelations. ...
... Mrs McCrabbie Note to Journalists: This is, of course, a one-source story. Next time you interview Papadopoulos, bring vodka.
** Supremes to Cops: Shoot First, Think Later. David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday shielded a police officer from being sued for shooting an Arizona woman in her front yard, once again making it harder to bring legal action against officers who use excessive force, eve against an innocent person. By a 7-2 vote, the court tossed out a lawsuit by a Tucson woman who was shot four times in her front yard because she was seen carrying a large knife. In dissent, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the victim did not threaten the police or a friend who was standing nearby. This 'decision is not just wrong on the law; it also sends an alarming signal to law enforcement officers and the public. It tells officers that they can shoot first and think later.'"
*****
Come on By, Vlad. Washington Post: "President Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the two leaders could meet in the White House, a Kremlin aide told Russian media Monday, Russian news agencies said.... This is a developing story. It will be updated." ...
... Update. Anton Troianovski of the Washington Post: "President Trump proposed meeting Vladimir Putin at the White House in a March phone call, the Kremlin said Monday, a fresh revelation about a conversation that stirred controversy for Trump's friendly tone toward the Russian leader amid mounting tensions with the West."
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump declared on Monday that a plan to protect young immigrants from deportation is 'dead' and repeated his calls for Mexico to enforce border security laws and prevent immigrants from coming to the United States illegally. In a series of tweets Monday morning, Mr. Trump again referred to 'large "Caravans" of people' headed toward the United States. The 'caravans,' a popular topic on Fox News, are a group of hundreds of Central Americans who have been traveling through Mexico with the goal of crossing into the United States to seek asylum, or sneak across the border. A BuzzFeed reporter has been traveling with the group and chronicling the experience.... The president on Monday blamed Democrats for weak immigration policy and called on Congress to act, tweeting that 'our country is being stolen.' The House and Senate -- both controlled by Republicans -- are in recess and return next week.... Less than two weeks ago, Mr. Trump tweeted, 'remember DACA, the Democrats abandoned you (but we will not)!'" ...
... Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Trump, blaming Democrats and the Mexican government for an increasingly 'dangerous' flow of illegal immigrants, unleashed a series of fiery tweets on Sunday in which he vowed 'NO MORE DACA DEAL' and threatened to walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Minutes after wishing the nation a happy Easter Sunday, Mr. Trump denounced 'liberal' laws that he said were preventing Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs. He said that Republicans should use the 'nuclear option' to sidestep Democratic opposition in the Senate and enact 'tough laws NOW.' It was unclear whether the president's tweets represented any change in his immigration policy, or were just the sort of venting he is known to do after reading a newspaper article or seeing a television program. The president, who spent much of his holiday weekend golfing with supporters and watching television, was apparently reacting to a 'Fox and Friends' segment on immigration that had aired minutes before." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: What is clear is that the Paper of Record has been reduced to writing front-page stories in which its reporters must speculate whether the President* was being one kind of asshole or another kind of asshole. ...
... Philip Rucker & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post, also writing a straight-news story on Trump's Easter tweets, cannot mask their disgust: "President Trump spent his Easter morning ... on an anti-immigrant tirade.... Trump thrust the future of millions of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children into peril by promising 'NO MORE DACA DEAL,' and he directed congressional Republicans to pass tough anti-immigration legislation.... Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a proponent of hard-line immigration policies, has been with Trump [during the weekend]. Trump was back on the same theme Monday. In a series of tweets, Trump said Mexico must exert 'absolute power' to block migrants from entering Mexico possibly en route to the U.S. border, declared DACA 'dead,' and again called on U.S. lawmakers to streamline voting rules to pass tougher border measures.... In Florida, the president also has been spotted spending time -- both over dinner Friday at Mar-a-Lago and on Saturday at the nearby Trump International Golf Club -- with Fox host Sean Hannity." ...
Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. 'Caravans' coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL! -- And Easter Morning Message from Our Lord Donald
Yeah, Trump really tweeted that at 9:56 am ET, just as some of you were entering church on Christianity's highest holy day. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
... The White Man's Burden. Mrs. McCrabbie: Rucker & Weigel cite an "inspirational" "Fox & Friends" tweet, which reads in part, "... We can have compassion for these people but it doesn't mean the laws don't matter - Americans come first...." Uh, the immigrants Trump hates -- i.e., "these people" -- did come first; they are descended from who were in the Americas for thousands of years before the white man cometh. Real real Americans don't look like Donald Trump, who has no American heritage earlier than the late 1800s. His mother immigrated even later. Trump, like the European villains before him, hates the peoples white men have subjugated. It's a pathology. ...
... James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "With a trio of temperamental tweets on Easter Sunday and three follow-ups this morning, Trump announced there will be no deal to save the 700,000 'dreamers.'... He also called on Republicans to change the rules of the Senate to pass anti-immigration legislation with a simple majority and threatened to kill the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico does not step up border security. The president then falsely claimed that there are 'big flows of people' who are sneaking into the United States 'because they want to take advantage of DACA.' In truth, to be eligible for the program created by Barack Obama, immigrants must have lived in the United States since 2007, have arrived in the country before they turned 16 and have been younger than 31 on June 15, 2012. Anyone who came after does not qualify. Trump's erroneous musings capture in miniature six features of his presidency: 1) This is the improvisational presidency.... 2) Trump does not understand how Congress works.... 3) The president does not think through the second- and third-order consequences of his decisions.... 4) Proximity is power in Trump's White House.... 5) He's heavily influenced by cable news punditry.... 6) Trump is not a reliable negotiating partner because he moves the goal posts." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hohmann does quite a good job of generalizing Trump's behavior as evidenced by this set of tweets. He might have added "evil ignoramus" and "racist," but that "wouldn't be prudent," as a former occupant of the White House might say. ...
... Anyway, this scientific development is pertinent:
... Neopalpa donaldtrumpi Named for President SmallBalls. Narjas Zatat of Indy 100 News: "Evolutionary biologist Vazrick Nazari has identified a new centimetre-wide moth.... It has a silky head of bright yellow scales, which the moth develops in adulthood, and its head has been described as orange-yellow in colouration, the body is white and the wings are brown or greyish. Alsoan important detail - its genitalia is 'comparatively smaller' than that of the Neopalpa neonata, its close relative. Nazari has therefore named it thusly: Neopalpa donaldtrumpi.... Oh yes, yes he did: the evolutionary biologist named the moth with the white-blonde tresses and small genitalia, after Donald Trump.... And where can you find this new species? Mexico. Donaldtrumpi has been found in Southern California and all the way along the coast to Baja California, in Mexico." Thanks to MAG for the link.
Calling All Cranks. Maxwell Tani & Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "It is difficult to fully understand the Trump presidency without first understandingLou Dobbs, the Fox Business powerhouse host and one of the main precursors to Trumpism.... What sets Dobbs apart is the degree to which the president views him as a political and populism godfather, the #MAGA Socrates to Trump's Plato.... During the first year of the Trump era, the president has patched Dobbs in via speakerphone to multiple meetings in the Oval Office so that he could offer his two cents ... to senior-level meetings on issues such as trade and tax policy." --safari
Kathryn Watson of CBS News: "President Trump has blasted Amazon the last few days, alleging the e-commerce giant is taking advantage of the U.S. Postal Service and failing to pay enough in state and local taxes. Mr. Trump claims his criticisms of Amazon long predate his election. But Mr. Trump's presidential campaign relied on Amazon for office supplies regularly spending $158,498.41 in 379 transactions labeled as office supply purchases in 2015 and 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by CBS News.... The White House has insisted Mr. Trump's criticisms of Amazon are strictly policy-related. But Mr. Trump expanded that attack on Saturday morning, claiming, without any evidence, that Amazon is using the Washington Post as a 'lobbyist.'... The president's decision to bring the 'fake' Washington Post into the conversation makes it more difficult for the White House to argue that Mr. Trump's concerns are strictly related to policy and to Amazon specifically. Both Amazon and the Washington Post are owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos."
** Jonathan Chait, in a New York cover piece, argues that "corruption, not Russia, is Trump's greatest political liability.... Trump's core proposition to the public was a business deal: If he became president, he would work to make them rich. Of course, the fact that Trump was able to reduce the presidency to such a crass exchange, forsaking such niceties as simple decency and respect for the rule of law, exposed terrifying weaknesses in the fabric of American democracy.... Trump's behavior runs directly contrary to his most important promises.... It is hardly a coincidence that so many greedy people have filled the administration's ranks. Trump's ostentatious crudeness and misogyny are a kind of human-resources strategy.... He had spent much of his life buying off politicians and exploiting the system, so he knew how the system worked and could exploit that knowledge on behalf of the people. In fact, his experiences with bribery opened his eyes to what further extortion might be possible. Trump was never looking to blow up the system. He was simply casing the joint." Chait sees "this Russia thing" in context: it's but one star of many in Trump's corruption constellation. ...
... ** David Cay Johnston, in an introduction to a longer New York piece by Joy Crane & Nick Tabor: "More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal." Crane & Tabor have compiled a very long list of the known instances in which Trump & his entourage have monetized the executive branch. As Johnston notes, "Given how little Trump has disclosed about his finances, this timeline of self-dealing is undoubtedly only a fraction of the corruption that will eventually come to light." ...
... Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post suggests that the courts may get Trump before Congressional Democrats do. She cites the decision of a federal judge to greenlight "a lawsuit ... claiming he unconstitutionally received foreign emoluments."
Sharon LaFraniere & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "It was sweet redemption for Charles Kushner last year when his son Jared was named senior White House adviser. A dozen years earlier, a sordid scandal stemming partly from a family falling-out had reduced the senior Mr. Kushner from real estate baron to felon making wallets at a prison camp in Alabama.... However..., for the patriarch and his family, the pinnacle of American political power has turned out to be a wellspring of trouble. Jared Kushner is embroiled in the special counsel inquiry, including questions about whether he discussed the family's business with foreign officials -- a suggestion he has denied. His younger brother, Josh, has opposed the Trump presidency, driving a wedge between the men in a family that prizes close ties. The elder Mr. Kushner, his company and his family are assailed by criminal and regulatory inquiries largely rooted in their newfound access to presidential power. The family's East Coast-based real estate empire is under a fiscal and ethical cloud, shunned by some investors who fear being dragged into the spotlight trained on the Kushner nexus with President Trump. Two major Manhattan properties are on creditors' watch lists...."
Devan Cole of CNN: "The author of a new book on the current state of affairs in the White House claims that Kellyanne Conway is the 'number one leaker' in ... Donald Trump's White House. In a Sunday interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union,' Ronald Kessler, the author of 'The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game,' [Mrs. McC: & a total Trumpbot,] claimed that the President's counselor and former campaign manager leaks more information to the press than any other individual working in the White House. Kessler told Tapper that in at least one interview with Conway, she forgot that they were on-the-record as she ripped into her fellow colleagues. According to Kessler, Conway said some of the most 'mean, cutting and honestly untrue' things about former chief of staff Reince Priebus, and also 'dissed' Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the President's senior advisor and son-in-law." Mrs. McC: Hey, somebody had to take over for Steve Bannon. I would caution that major media stories almost always cite more than one source, so Conway is hardly the lone blabbermouth.
New York Times Editors: EPA Administrator Scott "Pruitt has been averse to science and fact from Day 1.... As Gina McCarthy, a former E.P.A. administrator, and her deputy for air quality, Janet McCabe, said in a recent Times Op-Ed: 'Mr. Pruitt's goal is simple: No studies, no data, no rules.'... Though the E.P.A. is the epicenter of denial, avoiding inconvenient truths is common practice elsewhere in the administration.... Even the official vocabulary of global warming has changed, as if problems can be made to evaporate simply by describing them in more benign terms.... Mr. Trump's economic advisers have reinforced this bias. His latest budget called for big funding cuts and in some cases elimination of programs aimed at protecting human health and building resilience against the effects of climate change...."
... And the Horse You Rode in on, Trumpinocchio. Dave Weigel: "Former veterans affairs secretary David Shulkin said Sunday that he did not voluntarily leave his office, clashing with the White House's description of his exit and adding to questions about who will run the department until a new secretary is confirmed. 'I would not resign, because I'm committed to making sure this job was seen through to the very end,' Shulkin said in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' with Jake Tapper. 'I did not resign.' Shulkin made similar comments on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' saying that he did not submit aletter of resignation, and was not asked to. Whether Shulkin resigned or was fired would have bearing on who leads the Department of Veterans Affairs until the president's nominee, Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson, is confirmed by the Senate. According to federal statutes, the departure of a Senate-confirmed secretary elevates the department's deputy secretary to that position until a permanent replacement arrives."
Shrivel and Die Please. Amanda Michelle Gomez of ThinkProgress: "The Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Office on Women's Health removed a webpage dedicated to breast cancer and other helpful reproductive health information, including important insurance information for low-income people, according to a new report.... The information removed is especially helpful to low-income individuals and people of color, such as important insurance information. The Affordable Care Act requires coverage of no-cost breast cancer screenings for certain individuals, but the website no longer makes mention of this.... The main breast cancer webpage also linked to a Spanish version. All of this information has been removed and is not found elsewhere on the OWH website, according to the Sunlight Foundation report. There is still a page dedicated to mammograms, but a significant amount of content has been removed." --safari
Esther Yu Hsi Lee of ThinkProgress: "The U.S. government will allow a veteran who was deported to Mexico to come back into the county [sic] and become a citizen.... Hector Barajas, a former Army paratrooper who honorably served between 1995 and 2001, crossed the southern border as a seven-year-old.... Barajas thanked his supporters, including California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), whose pardon of his criminal offense cited his work in Mexico with other deported veterans.... Barajas is the second deported veteran who will be allowed back into the United States thanks to a pardon from Brown, according to the ACLU. The other is Marine veteran Marco Chavez.... Though Barajas and Chavez received good news about their deportation cases, there are likely thousands of other U.S. military veterans who have been deported to other countries." --safari
CBS News: "China says it's rolling out new tariffs on U.S. meat, fruit and other products as retaliation against taxes approved by President Trump on imported steel and aluminum. The Chinese finance ministry says in a statement that the new tariffs begin Monday."
"World's Greatest Deliberative Body" Has Quit Deliberating. Burgess Everett of Politico: "When Mitch McConnell took over as majority leader in 2015 after years in the minority, he vowed to make good on a central campaign pledge of returning to a more 'free-wheeling' Senate. And in the early days of his tenure, he did: McConnell presided over open, raucous floor debate on the Keystone XL Pipeline, winning praise even from some Democrats. But the Senate has reverted to form. The body has taken just 25 roll call votes on so-called binding amendments so far during this two-year Congress, a sharp decrease from the 154 amendments voted on by this point during the 114th Congress under Barack Obama. Each year since McConnell took over, the Senate has voted on fewer nonbudget amendments: 140 in 2015, 57 in 2016, 19 in 2017 and six so far this year. 'There's a lot of weeks I'm not sure why I show up,' said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).... 'I think it sucks,' [said John Kennedy (R-La.)]." Mrs. McC: Sounds like Mitch's version of "Shut up and dribble."
Priorities. Emily Hazzard of ThinkProgress: "Teachers across Oklahoma plan a massive walkout Monday to demand better pay and school funding. Those on strike plan to gather at the Capitol to protest. Currently, Oklahoma falls at the very bottom of the list of states ranked by teacher pay. Teacher salaries haven't changed in 10 years and lawmakers have slashed the education budget by almost a third over the past decade.... Many teachers rely on food banks, and some told CNN they work multiple jobs ... to make ends meet. Meanwhile, millions of dollars in state tax cuts have primarily benefited the oil and gas industries." --safari...
... ** Mike Elk of the Guardian: "The [Oklahoma] strike comes at a turning point for teachers across America's heartland. On Friday, teachers in Kentucky went out on illegal wildcat strikes in more than 25 counties against the wishes of union leaders to protest against draconian changes to the state's pensions plan.... The strikers have been buoyed by a successful strike by their peers in West Virginia, their first statewide work stoppage since 1990, which ended with them winning a 5% pay rise and other concessions.... The [Kentucky] teachers are planning to go out on strike despite the state legislature passing a raise equal to an average $6,000 ... which teachers called inadequate [also calling for education funding].... It's a feeling shared by teachers in places like Arizona, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other states, who are all also considering action. The strikes are unique in that they are not being called for by the leadership of the unions, but often through direct appeals of rank-and-file members using social media and their own personal networks." --safari
Brian Stelter of CNN: "Sinclair Broadcast Group's corporate mandates are exacerbating tensions between the company's local stations and its management. Journalists in local US markets are chafing at the company's requirements, including a new promotional campaign that echoes ... Donald Trump's anti-media rhetoric. The promos, first reported by CNNMoney last month, went viral over the weekend after Deadspin edited dozens of them together to show how anchors across the country were told to read the same script." ...
... Joe & Mika Are on the Case. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were disgusted by the pro-Trump propaganda that Sinclair Broadcast Group forced its anchors to read on the air. Scarborough and Brzezinski agreed this was indeed 'extremely dangerous to our democracy,' and bashed the right-wing broadcast company for 'shoving propaganda down local anchor's throats.'"
Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker on honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. 50 years after his assassination. A moving essay. ...
... "The Drum Major Instinct." Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Final Sermon. Dagmawi Woubshet in the Atlantic: "King preached on the virtues of service and the false ideals of greatness, adapting his sermon from a 1949 homily, 'Drum Major Instincts,' by James Wallace Hamilton, a prominent white liberal Methodist minister.... While the central idea is borrowed, King's sermon is ultimately his own. 'The Drum Major Instinct' is a work that must be heard, and not simply read.... Today, King's sermon is a pitch-perfect counterpoint to the ugly cacophony of the present political culture." ...
Vindu Goel & Rachel Abrams of the New York Times: "Saks has been hacked -- adding to the already formidable challenges faced by the luxury retailer. A well-known ring of cybercriminals has obtained more than five million credit and debit card numbers from customers of Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, according to a cybersecurity research firm that specializes in tracking stolen financial data. The data, the firm said, appears to have been stolen using software that was implanted into the cash register systems at the stores and that siphoned card numbers until last month. The Hudson's Bay Company, the Canadian corporation that owns both retail chains, confirmed on Sunday that a breach had occurred."
Beyond the Beltway
Alex Horton, et al., of the Washington Post: "A 61-year-old woman was struck by a police vehicle as it peeled away from protesters demonstrating against the police killing of Stephon Clark in what was described by the victim and protesters as a hit-and-run. Wanda Cleveland, a local activist, was hit in her right leg and taken to a hospital, where she was treated for injuries to her arm and back of the head and released.... In a video recorded by public defender and legal observer Guy Danilowitz, the woman's white sign is lit up by the headlights before impact."
Tom Dart of the Guardian: "A protest and a community meeting are planned for Monday at the location where an unarmed black man with his trousers around his ankles was killed by a Texas police officer. Danny Ray Thomas appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis when he was shot dead last month by a deputy with the Harris county sheriff's office who encountered the 34-year-old walking on a north Houston street." --safari
Orange County Asian-Americans Go Full Nimby. Ahn Do of the Los Angeles Times: Especially in Irvine, Assian Americans "rallied to protect their community from what they see as the ills of homeless camps, which many argued don't belong in their famously clean, safe, family-oriented planned community. Their protests helped persuade the Orange County Board of Supervisors to overturn the shelter proposal, leaving the county without a homeless plan at a time when the population is growing and officials are shutting down tent cities along the Santa Ana River.... Some accus[ed] the residents of intolerance and simply wanting to keep the homeless out of their own cities without offering an alternative solution. Orange County is now struggling to figure out what to do."
Paul Woolverton of the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer: "The North Carolina Republican Party is attempting to link Democratic Supreme Court candidate Anita Earls to three Fayetteville-area convicted killers even though she never took part in their cases.... On March 12, state GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse began tweeting pictures of ... three of Cumberland County's most-notorious convicted murderers -- and said that Earls had a hand in getting their sentences commuted from death to life in prison." Read on. She didn't. Mrs. McC: To North Carolina Republicans, merely favoring racial justice is "evidence" of coddling black murderers. Seems fair.
Way Beyond
Ellen Barry & David Sanger of the New York Times: "British officials investigating the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian double agent, believe it is likely that an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle at his home. This operation is seen as so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the early findings of the inquiry.... Because the nerve agent is so potent, the officials said, the task could have been carried out only by trained professionals familiar with chemical weapons. British and American officials are skeptical that independent actors could have carried out such a risky operation or obtained the agent without approval at the highest levels of the Russian government -- almost exactly the same phrase that American intelligence agencies used in October 2016, when they first attributed the hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee to a team of Russian hackers."
David Alire Garcia & Enrique Andres Pretel of Reuters: "The centre-left's Carlos Alvarado Quesada has decisively defeated a conservative Protestant singer in Costa Rica's presidential runoff election by promising to allow gay marriage, protecting the country's reputation for tolerance. A former minister and fiction writer, Alvarado Quesada, 38, had 61% of the vote with results in from 95% of polling stations, a far bigger lead than predicted by opinion polls that foresaw a tight race.... The election had exposed divisions in the Central American tourist destination known for laid-back beach culture and pristine rainforests, but where some rural communities remain socially conservative." --safari
News Ledes
New York Times: Villanova bested Michigan for the men's NCAA championship. It's Villanova's second title in three years.
New York Times: "Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, whose hallowed place in the pantheon of South Africa's liberators was eroded by scandal over corruption, kidnapping, murder and the adulterous implosion of her fabled marriage to Nelson Mandela, died early Monday in Johannesburg. She was 81."
New York Times: "Steven Bochco, a celebrated television writer and producer whose sophisticated prime-time portrayals of gritty courtrooms and police station houses redefined television dramas and pushed the boundaries of onscreen vulgarity and nudity, died on Sunday in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 74.... Over three decades starting in the early 1980s, Mr. Bochco, whose earlier shows 'Hill Street Blues' and 'L.A. Law' upended the traditional hourlong drama, was one of Hollywood's most prolific and sought-after producers. He mixed elements of daytime soap operas -- like story lines that stretch over multiple episodes and feature a rich ensemble of characters -- with a true-to-life visual style and colorful language."
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Wandered afield yesterday into what I knew to be potentially dangerous territory when I commented on my inability to find my lawnmower's oil drain plug and (out of fear or guilt?) hastened to come up with an excuse to justify my foray into the non-political. It wasn't hard.
Maybe it was all just a metaphor for the Pretender's growing swamp, the one he promised to drain. I'm not optimistic, but I do hope Rubin has it right and that the decision to allow one of the emoluments cases to move forward might be the drain plug that can be removed to open the way for all the stink and corruption to rush out. We all know the Republican Congress that seems perfectly comfortable in the miasma has no interest in looking for one.
To carry the strained metaphor just a bit farther, after thorough inspection of both the mower and the internet, I'm satisfied may mower does not have a drain plug. One set of internet instructions tells me I have to remove the old gas and the oil filler cap, then tip the mower on its side or even upside down to pour the old oil out.
I haven't done it yet, but it seems a solution, inelegant maybe, but direct and effective.
Upend the mower? Sounds like the November election to me.
It's no wonder Ted Nugent is a Trump supporter, and that Trump is a Nugent fan. They're both racists, misogynists (and in Nugent's case an actual pedophile), liars, and blowhards.
Nugent calling the Parkland kids "soulless" is a case in point. No, Ted, what's soulless is finagling a mom and dad to make you the legal guardian of their underage girl so you could have sex with her. He even wrote a song about how great it is to have sex with 13 year old girls. Now that's some soulless shit right there. Or is this a part of the Republicans' focus on the family?
This is the guy, by the way, who called Barack Obama a "subhuman mongrel" and threatened to assassinate him if he was reelected in 2012. He says he'd like to murder every immigrant crossing the border. Not just arrest them and send them back, murder them. He calls black people violent, stupid, and lazy. And that's across the board, not an attack on one or two particular individuals. That is the textbook definition of racism. But he is a hero to Confederates.
This is an unhinged, sick asshole. And the fact that he has achieved icon status in the Republican Party says all you need to know about the complete amorality and revolting depravity of the Party of Traitors and their little orange king. Cleaving to power is the only goal. To hell with humanity, decency, rule of law, morality, and integrity. An ignorant, chest-thumping, predatory, pedophile mutt like Ted Nugent is honored by Republicans and the NRA and their loathsome base. That's about as soulless as you can get.
Not explicitly political, the Barbara Ehrenreich essay linked below is a definition by example of the frank and blunt engagement with experience that our political leaders almost never display. I am reminded of the George Orwell of Down & Out in Paris & London and Homage to Catalonia, and also of his warnings about the degradation of language in the public realm.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/31/why-poor-blamed-shamed-their-deaths-barbara-ehrenreich
A couple of good jolts this morning.
First, the Trumpi SmallBall Moth. Perfect. A flittering, flighty thing with a microscopic pecker, attracted to glowing objects. Gives a new meaning to "moth balls"; and speaking of which, I'm sending a few boxes to the White House. Maybe it'll keep Tiny Peckered Trumpi from gnawing on the drapes after watching the Fox dolts.
Second, the connection of the names of "Dobbs" and "Trump" to "Socrates" and "Plato" caused a momentary synaptic jumping of the tracks. Once I regained cogitative capability, I got it, but not before a slight brain hemorrhage. It's as if one were to momentarily compare Melania Trump with Eleanor Roosevelt. I get it...but...
Bea, thanks for reminding us of the reality of 'America'. Millions of dead natives from the immigration of those white Europeans. Our education system mainly ignores the truth. We just teach our children about Thanksgiving.
Is it me? or just wishful thinking...but, seems the anti-Trump movement is (finally) growing well beyond the daily frustrations and anger expressed here. See Jonathan Chait's article ( http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/corruption-is-trumps-greatest-political-liability.html ) over on New York magazine...as well as many other sites where the disdain is increasing. Or am I just an incurable optimist?
@KenW: think I have you to 'thank' (if that is the appropriate word) for the article I downloaded and printed out months ago, but finally got around to reading. "Naming America's Own Genocide" by Richard White. The author described have the need to feel like a shower upon his various readings/research of the subject. Made me think back to when I was a kid and we all 'thrilled' to those cowboy & indian movies...how little we knew the horror behind the story. Yeah, right...the cavalry always rode in on handsome horses, flags flying to put down those 'terrorist' Indians who had dared to slaughter one steer in order to feed their starving tribe. Won't ever look at another article praising Leland Stanford et al in the same respectful way again.
MAG,
As is often the case these days, I don't remember, this time recommending the White piece to you, but if it's a lengthy book review on the extermination of California Indians from "The Nation," I might be the culprit.
Our family has an interesting tho' sketchy association with Professor White. When he taught at the University of Washington, he co-authored a history book with a friend, a U. of W. professor and a fellow classmate of mine from that Farm founded by Leland Stanford. White then later moved to Stanford himself, where I believe he remains and where one of my sons had the opportunity to take a course from him in the early 2000's.
The extermination of the real First Americans is, like slavery, woven deep into our past and carries its poisonous threads into our present. To my mind, our present-day militias are direct descendants of of those who still, despite, maybe because of, all the evidence to the contrary, believe our real Manifest Destiny is an exclusively white one.
Much as I love my alma mater, I know it was founded for white boys with a few girls tossed in for flavor. The class of '68, for instance, had only a dozen or so black students (a few, but not all athletes ), but things do change in ways even immensely wealthy founders can't foresee. By the time my older son was there in the mid-1980's the university had a black student residence. That son lived there, one of the white students who seasoned that new mix, and I remember when my wife and I visited, I could not help but think that if Leland were not already dead, that change woulda killed him.
A change I noted with wry pleasure.
The teacher protests in Oklahoma and Kentucky are proof of how little education is valued in Red America. Education is seen as a danger. Smart people are unlikely to vote for Confederates, and certainly not for Confederate traitors like Trump and McConnell, or lying imbeciles like Inhofe.
It's more important to keep up the fiction that "family matters" and "character matters", neither of which are vaguely true in Red America where love of Trump overthrows any semblance of interest in character or morality or rule of law. What matters is money and tax cuts and power for the Emperors of the Universe, a kick in the ass for poor people, and short shrift, albeit with a pretense of support, for middle class citizens.
That those same citizens in Red States vote for their own demise and that of their children is a separate but not entirely unconnected issue.
But in a place like Kentucky, where the governor, a tax evading con man like Matt Bevin, who grabs favors and money hand over fist from supporters while sticking it to teachers who make a tiny pittance compared to what he pulls in, it's crystal clear who and what matters, and it's not education, or teachers, or students either. Unless, of course, they're being "educated" (*cough, cough*), by Betsy DeVos's Edu-Sort of-for-Profit crowd, or by Sinclair Broadcasting types who enbalm truth and fact in support of the worst, stupidest, most dangerous, and most anti-American president in history.
The Republican Way. They even fuck their own.
"There is a new era; this is the Trump era." Said by Jeff Sessions on a sunny day back in May.
"Tot Bench" antics recorded by John Oliver spells out the absolute horror of our immigration court in this country of new eras: I knew it was mismanaged and unfair, but I had no idea it was this bad. Soon––very soon–– I want that Sessions' smirk changed into a downward droop and I want him out on his fanny along with his buddy of long standing but a buddy that now won't give him the time of day–-or so they say.
Man stands on balcony during White House Easter egg ceremony speaking to CHILDREN–-and gives a speech that glorifies his accomplishments. Man is the President of the United States; man is, unfortunately, a total fucking asshole. Do any of those children understand that?