;)
The Commentariat -- April 6, 2019
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Nicholas Fandos & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A private lawyer for President Trump told the Treasury Department on Friday that House Democrats demanding the president's tax returns were abusing their powers to damage him politically, and he urged the department to keep the returns secret. The letter from William Consovoy, a lawyer whose firm also represents Mr. Trump in lawsuits related to foreign spending at his hotels, was most likely the first step in what will be a protracted effort to prevent the presidents tax information from being turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee." ...
... The Fix Is So In. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Yesterday, I linked a story by Haberman & Fandos about how Trump had pushed Mitch McConnell to prioritize the confirmation of former Trump attorney Michael Desmond as chief IRS counsel. Trump told Mitch McConnell that confirming Desmond was even more urgent than confirming William Barr as AG, even tho Barr was a clearly essential Trump ally who had written a long memo on why a president* could never be guilty of obstruction of justice, a memo we also learned yesterday from Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian that Barr had delivered on the same day he met with top DOJ attorneys. Comes now Aaron Blake of the Washington Post to remind us that "the recently confirmed [and of course Trump-nominated] head of the IRS, Commissioner Charles Rettig, in 2016 wrote an op-ed arguing Trump shouldn't release his returns." Bases covered. As Blake notes, "I'm not the first to note or assemble these examples and make the point that perhaps Trump is trying to install people to do his bidding -- or suggest that some of these people may have been auditioning for these jobs with their public comments." ...
... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday said the law is '100 percent' on his side in a battle with Democrats over the release of his tax returns. Trump, who has steadfastly refused to release his tax returns, citing an ongoing audit, expressed confidence that the law would vindicate his position after House Democrats moved to obtain six years of his personal and business tax returns. 'That's up to whoever handles it,' he told reporters as he left the White House for a visit to the southern border. 'Hey, I'm under audit. But that's up to whoever it is. From what I understand the law is 100 percent on my side.' It's not clear that the law will protect Trump from having to release his tax returns." Mrs. McC: Of course, Trump knows "whoever" is handling it -- his lackeys.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post finds the site where Donald Trump's father Fred Trump was born. It's in the Bronx, not Germany, as Trump has repeatedly claimed. Interesting. Trump moved his father's birth from an apartment building next to the elevated train in an outer borough to a charming German hamlet....
... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "While Washington waits [for the Mueller report], Trump, as always, has done his best to deflect, divert, distort, and distract from the investigations. Yet, while trying to get away from the question of his conduct in 2016, Trump may well have inadvertently resurrected the question of his fitness for office with a series of bizarre rants, false claims, and just plain odd digressions that were, even by his standards, hard to dismiss as anything resembling normal conduct by any President.... The President's Germany riff [at an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg] took a most surprising turn ... when he ... [said his] father ... was not only born in Germany but in a 'very wonderful place' there.... Making the untrue claim that his father was born in Germany was all the more amazing because Trump had spent decades denying that his father was of German heritage, instead falsely claiming, including in his best-selling nineteen-eighties book 'The Art of the Deal,' that his father was Swedish.... There is truly almost nothing about which this President will not lie, whether it's the Mueller report or his family history. Trump has become a birther again -- this time about his own father." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One reason Trump is the worst president* in American history is that he expends most of his energy in pursuit of self-serving goals -- either sleazy & illegal or simply sleazy -- then in covering up those activities by any means he can muster. This is how he has functioned all his life. The truth is his enemy. The media aren't "the enemy of the people"; their pursuit of facts make them the enemies of a liar who can't even accept his own family's history. No wonder Trump can't function normally.
Zeke Miller & Jonathan Lemire of the AP: "Trump, making a renewed push for border security as a central campaign issue for his 2020 re-election, participated in a briefing on immigration and border security in Calexico before viewing a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) see-through steel-slat barrier that was a long-planned replacement for an older barrier -- and not new wall.... The southern border is nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) long and already has about 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) of different types of barriers, including short vehicle barricades and tall steel fences that go up to 30 feet (9 meters) high. Most of the fencing was built during George W. Bush's administration, and there have been updates and maintenance throughout other administrations. Trump has yet to complete any new mileage of fencing or other barriers anywhere on the border, though he declared Friday that at least 400 miles (650 kilometers) of the border barrier would be erected over the next two years. His administration so far has only replaced existing fencing. Construction for that small chunk of fencing cost about $18 million, began in February 2018 and was completed in October. Plans to replace that fence date back to 2009, during President Barack Obama's tenure." ...
... Seung Min Kim & Tony Perry of the Washington Post: "President Trump claimed Friday that 'our country is full' as he tried to warn off migrants arriving at the southern border in increasing numbers, and threatened Mexico with automobile tariffs if the country doesn't step up its efforts to curb migration from Central America. 'Can't take you anymore. Can't take you. Our country is full. Our area is full, the sector is full. Can't take you anymore. I'm sorry,' Trump said during a roundtable on the border at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Calexico, Calif. 'So turn around. That's the way it is.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: According to the World Population Review, the population density of the U.S. is about 13 people per square mile. By comparison, the population density of Bermuda is 437/sq. mile, of Germany is 89/sq. mile & of Italy is 76/sq. mile. The U.S. is not "full." In addition, the U.S. birth rate continues to fall, "dipping so low that the nation's population would be declining without immigration, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This marks the seventh straight year that the fertility rate has dropped." An essential element for economic growth, obviously, is a rising population -- people to produce & buy stuff. As usual, everything Trump says is a lie, oftentimes a stupid lie. ...
... Calvin Woodward & Mark Stevenson of the AP: "Giving himself credit for tough diplomacy..., Donald Trump is describing a burst of activity by Mexican authorities to keep Central American migrants from getting to the U.S. border. That's an apparent mirage as Trump retreats from his latest threat to seal off the U.S. from Mexico. Trump was wrong when he said last week that Mexico was doing 'NOTHING' about migrants coming north. It markedly tightened migration controls during the Obama administration and detained over 30,000 foreigners in the first three months of this year. And it's not evident now that Mexico has suddenly cracked down as a result of his threat, 'apprehending everybody' and making 'absolutely terrific progress' in just a matter of days, as Trump put it Friday. Mexico's apprehensions of foreigners have not surged. During his visit to the border in Southern California on Friday, Trump denounced a landmark immigration case he blamed on 'Judge Flores, whoever you may be.' The case in question was named for Jenny Flores, a migrant teenager from El Salvador in the 1980s, not a judge." ...
... Steve Benen: "A reporter asked Donald Trump [Friday] morning why, after all of his rhetoric, he didn't close the border like he said he would. The president replied: 'Because Mexico has been absolutely terrific for the last four days. They're apprehending everybody.... It's really good. Now, Congress has to act. They have to get rid of catch and release, chain migration, visa lottery. They have to get rid of the whole asylum system because it doesn't work. And, frankly, we should get rid of judges.' On the first point..., according to Mexican officials, nothing's changed.... But it's that second point that probably raised the most eyebrows.... I'm reasonably sure the president was referring to immigration judges -- whom he apparently wants to fire.... As the Washington Post's Greg Sargent noted, 'This is akin to declaring that we must end due process for asylum seekers, and with it, our international humanitarian commitments on this front.'... The Trump administration's position had long been that we need more immigration judges, not fewer, which means the president keeps denouncing his own team&'s agenda.... The Trump White House called on Congress to approve funding for hundreds of additional immigration judges in order to expedite the legal process at the U.S./Mexico border." ...
... Priscilla Alvarez, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump is pulling the nomination of Ron Vitiello to lead ICE, saying he wants to go in a 'tougher direction.' 'We're going in a little different direction. Ron's a good man but we're going in a tougher direction....,' Trump told reporters Friday at the White House." Mrs. McC: What? Smaller cages? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) See also related AP story linked yesterday. ...
... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "The Democratic-controlled House on Friday filed a lawsuit against President Trump alleging his declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall is unconstitutional, a move that shifts the political battle to the courts. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims the president violated Congress's constitutional authority over appropriations by diverting federal funds from other sources to construct a wall after Congress provided only $1.375 billion for border security. 'The House is unaware of any other instance in American history where a President has declared a national emergency to obtain funding after failing to win Congressional approval for an appropriation,' the lawsuit reads.... The lawsuit also cites comments Trump made in declaring the national emergency that he 'didn't need to do this' and that he's 'already done a lot of wall, for the election -- 2020.'" ...
... A pdf of the complaint is here. As Ali Velshi noted on MSNBC Friday, the complaint goes deep for context: "Even the monarchs of England long ago [1640s] lost the power to raise and spend money without the approval of Parliament."
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Trump on Friday called on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and take additional steps to stimulate economic growth, his latest attempt to put the traditionally independent central bank under his thumb. Speaking to reporters before traveling to the southern border, Mr. Trump once again criticized the Fed's interest rate increases in 2018, saying 'they really slowed us down." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is Trump asking the supposedly nonpartisan Fed to help his 2020 campaign. ...
... Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "What makes Mr. Trump's approach to the Fed so unusual is that he has repeatedly, publicly undermined a Fed chief he appointed (Jerome Powell), and, if successful, he would put two officials with a background in partisan politics in the inner sanctum of Fed policymaking.... The risk is that the Fed becomes yet another partisan battlefield.... The United States' role as the global reserve currency -- which results in persistently low interest rates and little fear of capital flight -- is built in significant part on the credibility the Fed has accumulated over decades.... The hazards of a more politicized Fed are evident from the experience of the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon used both political pressure and underhanded tactics to try to push the Fed chairman, Arthur Burns, to keep interest rates low heading into the 1972 election. Among other things, the White House leaked a false story that Mr. Burns sought a large pay raise at a time the Fed was pressuring employers not to increase wages to fight inflation. Mr. Burns and the Fed followed the president's wishes, and Mr. Nixon won re-election handily in 1972, amid a booming economy. But it was in those years that inflationary pressures were building in the economy, and within a few years the rate of inflation reached double digits."
Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: "For the third straight year, President Donald Trump says he will skip the White House Correspondents' Dinner. In a pool spray outside the White House Friday ahead of his trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, the President ... [said,] 'I'm going to hold a rally,' Trump said. 'Yeah, because the dinner is so boring and so negative that we're going to hold a very positive rally.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Manipulating Trump. Jake Sherman & Anna Palmer in Politico Magazine, in an excerpt from their book: "The lawmakers around Trump who wanted a shutdown knew exactly how to bring the president around to their side: threaten that others might perceive him as weak and push that threat around Capitol Hill and, eventually, all the way to Fox News. It helped to have a man on the inside, too -- in this case, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. As [confederate crackpot Rep. Mark] Meadows was about to find out, following this playbook was enough to get inside the head of the most powerful man in Washington, and use him to get what Meadows and his allies wanted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Mulvaney is all over Trump's flip-flops. In addition to egging Trump on in the border wall brouhaha, Mick was behind Trump's decision to join the court fight to invalidate all of ObamaCare, a move that caused Trump to pretend he -- or somebody -- would make the GOP the healthcare party before McConnell put the kibosh on that.
BBC News: "The US has revoked the entry visa for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda. The decision is thought to be the US response to Ms Bensouda's investigation into possible war crimes by American forces and their allies in Afghanistan. The US secretary of state had warned the US might refuse or revoke visas to any ICC staff involved in such probes. Ms Bensouda's office said the ICC prosecutor would continue to her duties 'without fear or favour'."
Presidential Race 2020. Electricians Love Hugs. Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday twice jokingly referred to complaints from several women that he had made them uncomfortable with his physical contact, and then offered a convoluted apology about their concerns and his behavior. 'I'm sorry I didn't understand more,' he told reporters about his hugs and kisses to women over the years. 'I'm not sorry for any of my intentions. I'm not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I've never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman.'... As he took the stage [at an IBEW conference], he hugged Lonnie R. Stephenson, the union's president. 'I just want you to know I had permission to hug Lonnie,' he said, and the largely male crowd burst into laughter.... Several minutes into his remarks, Mr. Biden spotted children in the audience. After welcoming them to the stage, Mr. Biden wrapped his arm around a young boy. 'By the way, he gave me permission to touch him,' he said, to laughter."
Eriq Gardner of the Hollywood Reporter: "In Massachusetts, an attorney for seven women told a federal judge on Friday that his clients are now satisfied by a settlement in a defamation suit against Bill Cosby for denying their stories of being sexually assaulted. According to Cosby's spokesperson, the settlement was made by Cosby's insurer and that the comedian himself didn't know about the deal. 'He is not paying anything to anyone,' says Andrew Wyatt. 'AIG decided to settle these cases, without the knowledge, permission and/or consent of Mr. Cosby.'... On Friday, Joseph Cammarata, an attorney for the women, reported [the] settlement ... doesn't fully resolve the case. That's because Cosby has filed counterclaims against the women for defamation and interference in his NBC and Netflix deals."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Kevin Granville of the New York Times: "The German carmakers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen colluded for years to restrict the development of clean-emissions technology, the European Commission said on Friday, a finding that could cost the companies billions of dollars in fines. The collusion occurred from 2006 to 2014 during regular technical meetings at which the carmakers agreed to limit the development and production of emissions technology for cars sold in Europe, the commission said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Martin Chulov of the Guardian: "Saudi Arabia has launched a fresh round of arrests of activists and critics, many of them supporters of jailed civil rights campaigners, in an apparent rebuff to mounting international pressure over its treatment of dissidents. Eight people, including two US-Saudi citizens, were detained on Thursday in the first such sweep of perceived critics of the country's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, since the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.... News of the arrests came the morning after US lawmakers voted to end military support for a Saudi-led war in neighbouring Yemen, which has triggered what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.... The Guardian revealed earlier this week that medical reports prepared for King Salman show that some Saudi prisoners are suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns." ...
... Washington Post Editors: "In targeting U.S. citizens, Mohammed bin Salman may also have been responding to Congress.... Mohammed bin Salman has yet to suffer any tangible sanction for his human rights abuses, even though they exceed anything seen in Saudi Arabia for decades. Senate Republicans have held up legislation that would mandate punishment for the murder of Khashoggi. That, along with kid-glove treatment from Mr. Trump, has emboldened the regime. Mr. Trump has frequently bragged about his record of freeing Americans unjustly imprisoned abroad. But he had nothing to say about the arrest of the two Saudi Americans. As he did in the case of Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia's 33-year-old ruler is making the president of the United States look timid and weak." Mrs. McC: And corrupt.
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Reader Comments (6)
Alex Shephard asks: Is Pete Buttigieg a political genius?
https://newrepublic.com/article/153424/pete-buttigieg-political-genius
Genius might go a tad too far, but this young man certainly has the gravitas and a very sharp ear to the ground.
Is it because Joe Biden was pinned for the sure thing to beat Trump or are we seeing a rally round from members of his own party trying to discredit him. Whatever the reason Biden has been front page news for a week now. Interesting to listen to women of his generation–-we who have been hugged and fondled by many males throughout our lives and if not quite enjoyed that affection, certainly did not condemn it. As Barbara Boxer said on Hayes last night: "I've known Joe for years–-he is such a kind and loving person and yes, he is demonstrative in his affections but many of us are. I hug a lot of people–-I see someone in the grocery store that I haven't seen for awhile and we hug." Others–-younger women–-don't see it that way and I wonder whether the very important "Me Too" movement is going too far in its assessment of hands across the border. It would be a shame if a display of true affection has to be quashed because some women feel uncomfortable. If that be the case these women need to tell whomever HOW they feel at the time whether it be the vice president or the candidate who's grateful for your generous support or your Uncle who loves to pat you on the fanny or squeeze you a tad too hard.
@PD Pepe: Yes. Whether or not we're comfortable with close encounters of the kindly kind seems to be a product of experience or perhaps even of fundamental psychological makeup. My parents were not at all the huggy kind, so as a young woman I had to teach myself to accept & then enjoy the Biden style of intimacy.
Once, when I was in my 20s, something bad happened to me, but I had to go on as if things were swell. I was walking across a grocery store parking lot in San Diego when I suddenly burst into tears from the stress. A woman & her husband, both of whom looked to be in their 50s, were coming out of the store. I don't remember him particularly, but she was almost a caricature of a Midwestern farmwife, big & round & soft & wearing a 1950s-style flowered dress. A complete stranger to me, she ran up to me & put her arms around me & said anodyne comforting things. Her kindness startled me; I had never experienced anything like it. But I did deeply appreciate her. I don't know if that was exactly an awakening moment, but I do know that the woman made me realize that physical closeness is one way -- and quite a good way -- to show sympathy or empathy for another person.
Her embrace was more emphatic than Joe Biden's hug was of me, but they were of the same kind, I think. Women (and men) whom Joe has made "uncomfortable" are probably simply expressing their own limitations when it comes to physical contact. That doesn't mean they're "wrong"; it means they are "comfortable" when they control their own spaces, when they can maintain a distance between themselves & others.
It seems a shame that Joe will have to curb his enthusiasm, but perhaps that's something he should have learned a long time ago -- that he is unusually warm & compassionate, and millions of people are just not there yet. I consider his delight in others an expression of his politics, but evidently many people think it's just creepy. Different strokes.
I agree with Marie. I grew up in a non-handy-huggie house also, and I think I might still be that way-- but I hesitate to pillory Mr. Biden for being huggy-handsy. The stories of his empathy and sympathy are legion. I remain skeptical of his candidacy, but his refusal to take responsibility for the Anita Hill debacle are more how I feel about him. He says he wishes he could have steered the hearing in another direction, but he should have simply done it if he felt it was going wrong for Ms. Hill, and he did not. As a consequence, we have a nasty, bitter, partisan fundamentalist on the Court, with a fully damaging wife, and Joe still wishes he could be president. I don't want Joe as president, but it isn't because he is a hugger. It's because he seems to have evolved, but I don't really forgive him, I guess. I listened to that hearing, every word, and I don't think he did/said the right things. He doesn't need to be president to be respected. But since he doesn't REALLY get it, I don't think he will be president, and we can all respect his supposed evolution. Second chances, but not the presidency...
I don't presume to know with certainty what other people feel about hugs or about much of anything else. Much of the time I have enough difficulty sorting out my own feelings about things.
But I do know that feelings are malleable. What one feels at the moment is not necessarily what one might feel about the same incident or moment (or memory thereof, particularly a memory thereof) sometime down the road.
Therefore I believe it is reasonable to be skeptical of present descriptions of feelings experienced in the past while at the same time believing the statements of those feelings in the present are genuine enough.
Not much help, I know, but I am old enough to have seen men of Biden's generation (mine plus a couple of years) and my father's take the opportunity to what used to be called "cop a feel" when circumstances allowed, and while I don't know what the women involved were feeling at the time, they seemed at least compliant.
I do remember my own father embarrassed me a couple of times when he hugged a female family friend I thought too closely. But then he was a good Catholic boy, as far as I know "faithful" to his wife and was raised and lived in a more repressed time and culture......and the woman didn't seem to object, which may have added to my discomfort, paticularly when it occurred in my mother's presence.
My point aside from that memory thing I don't trust: It would seem that history, culture and personal preference all play a part in determining what kind of touching (male/female and other possible combinations) is allowable.
At the present moment, this all has me thinking that all politics is as much sexual as it is local....or something.
Here's a sort of bland NYT piece on how DiJiT makes threats and then doesn't execute.
Some of the outcomes are described as deferrals or changes of mind. But I think we all know the real explanation: the guy has the attention span of a gnat. He's used to stating a desire and having an underling follow through, or firing the underling if he notices lack of follow-up. But in his current job his underlings in the sub-cabinet jobs know they can just ignore the initial blurts and wait to see if a "serious person" checks up. It's not even risky anymore, since DiJiT doesn't have a competent staff.
Patrick: I think the changes of mind represent the crackup of Trump's brain. I used to think it was all about distraction or attention grabbing, but this rapid switching is so disorganized and stupid that I think it's just the progression of his dementia. Why do we allow this to persist? It's getting worse by the day.
On another note, in today's Informed Comment, there is a blurb:
"It's the Corporations, Stupid. Russian Collusion was never the Real Scandal." It's interesting enough, but at the end is a wonderful video of AOC nailing it in terms of big real scandals. Worth watching