;)
The Commentariat -- August 23, 2018
Afternoon Update:
The Elf Strikes Back. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, pushed back against President Trump's recent attack on him -- namely that Mr. Sessions never took control of the Justice Department.... 'While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,' Mr. Sessions said in a rare public statement released Thursday afternoon.... 'I put in an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department,' Mr. Trump said in an interview with 'Fox & Friends' recorded on Wednesday and aired on Thursday morning. 'Jeff Sessions never took control of the Justice Department and it's a sort of an incredible thing.' He later asked: 'What kind of man is this.' Mr. Sessions appeared to answer that question: 'I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action,' he said in the statement." ...
... Steven Dennis of Bloomberg: "Two key Republican senators signaled to ... Donald Trump that he could replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the midterm elections in November, a move that would open the way for firing Robert Mueller or constraining his probe.... 'The president's entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that's qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,' Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who may be in line to head the Judiciary Committee next year, told reporters Thursday.... Graham warned against acting against Sessions before the election.... A year ago..., [Graham] warned Trump publicly that if he fired Sessions 'there will be holy hell to pay.' Senator Chuck Grassley, the current Judiciary chairman, also changed his position on Thursday, saying in an interview that he'd be able to make time for hearings for a new attorney general after saying in the past that the panel was too busy to tackle that explosive possibility." ...
... ** Jonathan Chait: "Trump wants to ban flipping because he is almost literally a mob boss.... Over the weekend [Trump] denounc[ed] President Nixon's lawyer John Dean as a 'rat.'... To gangsters, a rat is considered the worst kind of person because they pose the greatest danger to their ability to escape prosecution.... Trump ... has worked closely with Mafia figures throughout his business career. 'I know all about flipping, for 30, 40 years I've been watching flippers,' he tells Fox News. 'Everything's wonderful, and then they get ten years in jail and they flip on whoever the next-highest one is, or as high as you can go.' Trump's claim of expertise in his area is not some idle boast. He hired Roy Cohn, by that point a mob lawyer, worked closely with figures linked to the Russian-American mafia, Felix Sater and Michael Cohen, and made money in his properties attracting money launderers.... He also follows mafia practice of surrounding himself with associates chosen on the basis of loyalty rather than traditional qualifications.... [']The only reason I gave [Sessions] the job [is] I felt loyalty.' Trump cannot imagine that admitting he picked an attorney general solely out of the expectation of personal loyalty is a confession of an intent to corrupt law enforcement." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Chait's post is an elaboration -- and a very good one -- on what I wrote in the Comments section yesterday.
Kimon de Greef & Palko Karasz of the New York Times: "President Trump waded into South Africa’s proposal to seize land from white farmers, saying in a post on Twitter late Wednesday that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to 'closely study' the 'the large scale killing of farmers' -- a claim disputed by official figures and the country's biggest farmer's group. Mr. Trump's comment ... came after the Fox News host Tucker Carlson presented a late-night program on South Africa, including land seizures and homicides, and described President Cyril Ramaphosa as 'a racist.' The tweet gives prominence to a false narrative pushed by some right-wing groups in South Africa that there have been numerous seizures of white-owned land and widespread killings of white farmers. Some of those groups have brought their claims to the United States on lobbying trips." The story goes into detail on the, you know, facts. More on this embarrassing story linked below. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump has not had time to name an ambassador to South Africa, but the Trump administration apparently did have time to tell the U.S. embassy in Pretoria not to assist President Obama, except with security, during his recent visit there. Waiting for Trump to nominate Tucker for ambassador to South Africa since he's already done a teevee show on the country & seems to know all the white people.
As the Worms Turn
Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Federal prosecutors granted immunity to tabloid publisher David Pecker as part of their investigation into Michael Cohen's hush money payments to women, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.... According to the Journal, neither Pecker nor AMI chief content officer Dylan Howard [Mrs. McC: who kept watch for anti-Trump stories so that Peter Pecker's pickled papers could head them off] will be charged in relation to the Cohen criminal investigation." ...
... Josh Marshall: "The latest news is that National Enquirer chief David Pecker also 'flipped' and agreed to cooperate in the Cohen/Trump case. This was pretty clear in the Cohen Information document, though it was not stated explicitly.... This seems like the least surprising thing in the world.... The Enquirer would troll for Trump-damaging stories, which there were obviously going to be a lot of, buy them and then sell them to Trump.... It was a specific, standing financial arrangement. The Enquirer would essentially act as a cut-out, buying stories on Trump's behalf without the seller of the story knowing what was happening.... The Enquirer was doing this as a company, with multiple employees involved.... There is potentially real legal jeopardy for him and AMI Media. And he may have more information to share than we yet realize." ...
... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Pecker's apparent decision to corroborate Cohen's account, and implicate Trump in a federal crime, is another vivid example of how isolated Trump is becoming as the walls close in and his former friends look for ways out. 'Holy shit, I thought Pecker would be the last one to turn,' a Trump friend told me when I brought up the news. Trump and Pecker have been close for years.... Pecker's friendship with Trump now seems to be over. According to a source close to A.M.I., Pecker and Trump haven't spoken in roughly eight months."
Alexander Nazaryan of Yahoo! News: "A bill that would have significantly bolstered the nation's defenses against electoral interference has been held up in the Senate at the behest of the White House, which opposed the proposed legislation, according to congressional sources. The Secure Elections Act, introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., in December 2017, had co-sponsorship from two of the Senate's most prominent liberals, Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as from conservative stalwart Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and ... Susan Collins, R-Me.... A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ... declined to say whether the majority leader ... was involved in efforts to hobble the Secure Elections Act.... The Trump administration has been unable to settle on how elections should be secured, and whom they should be secured against.... Lankford ... vowed to press on."
Adam Harris of the Atlantic has more on Betsy DeVos's excellent plan to arm teachers with guns purchased with federal dollars. "On Thursday, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who became one of the most outspoken advocates for preventing gun violence after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, introduced a bill to prevent the use of Title IV funds for the purpose of arming teachers."
CBS/AP: "A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to mailing a classified U.S. report to a news organization was sentenced to more than five years Thursday as part of a deal with prosecutors, who called it the longest sentence ever imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media. Reality Winner, 26, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information. The former Air Force translator worked as a contractor at a National Security Agency's office in Augusta, Georgia, when she printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet. In court Thursday, Winner apologized and acknowledged that what she did was wrong." ...
... Betsy Reed of the Intercept: "Reality Winner was sentenced today to 63 months in prison for disclosing a top-secret NSA document describing a hacking campaign directed by the Russian military against U.S. voting systems. On June 5, 2017, The Intercept published a story about the document. We did not know the identity of the source who had sent it to us. Shortly after we posted our story, we learned that Winner had been arrested two days earlier. After an internal review, we acknowledged shortcomings in our handling of the document. However, it soon became clear that the government had at its disposal, and had aggressively used, multiple methods to quickly hunt down Winner."
*****
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday suggested that the practice of cooperating with prosecutors as part of a plea agreement 'ought to be illegal' after ... Michael Cohen said in a guilty plea that he violated campaign finance laws at Trump's direction. Trump told 'Fox & Friends' host Ainsley Earhardt that Cohen was able to secure a better deal because he used Trump's name." ...
... Mrs. McC: Somebody should tell Whineyface von Clownstick that about 97 percent of U.S. federal convictions are the result of plea bargains. The federal judiciary would grind to a halt if judges & juries had to hear 33 times as many cases as it does now. Then again, Trump could use his new law as an excuse to pack the judiciary with thousands of new nut-job federal judges. ...
... Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "Trump bombed his softball interview on Fox News.... '... what [Cohen] did, and they weren't taken out of campaign finance -- that's a much bigger thing, did they come out of the campaign? They didn't come out of the campaign,' Trump said about payments to Stormy Daniels. Trump seems to think that the fact that the money used to silence Daniels didn't come directly from his presidential campaign exonerates him. It does not. Cohen has said that the payment to Trump's former mistress were made using personal funds for the purpose of evading federal election law, which requires candidates to report expenses to the Federal Election Commission.... Just because campaign funds weren't used doesn't mean that this wasn't a campaign expenditure, in other words. Using personal money is still a crime, and Trump appears to have just admitted to committing a crime." ...
... The Ever-Evolving Lies of Donald Trump. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday falsely claimed that hush money payments arranged by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, did not break the law and [falsely] denied he had knowledge of them at the time. 'My first question when I heard about it was, "did they come out of the campaign?" Because that could be a little dicey. But they didn't come out of the campaign and that's big,' Trump said during an interview with 'Fox & Friends' host Ainsley Earhardt. 'It's not even a campaign violation,' added Trump.... The president ... [said] he found out about the arrangements 'later on.'... But that claim has been undercut by a secret recording Cohen released last month that contains a conversation with Trump about how they would purchase the story of former Playboy model Karen McDougal.... He also asserted they did not break the law because 'they weren't taken out of campaign finance,' an apparent reference to his campaign's bank account, and were paid for with personal funds. But what Cohen described is known as an in-kind contribution on behalf of the Trump campaign. The amount of the payments exceeded contribution limits and went unreported at the time, according to prosecutors." ...
... The related story, by Glenn Kessler, documents the history of the series of lies Trump & his associates told about the payments of hush-money to McDougal & Daniels and contrasts these lies with the facts that later came to light. ...
... Rebecca O'Brien, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "... David Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, provided prosecutors with details about payments Mr. Cohen arranged with women who alleged sexual encounters with President Trump, including Mr. Trump's knowledge of the deals.... American Media executives were involved in both hush-money deals that formed the basis of Mr. Cohen's guilty plea to campaign-finance violations, prosecutors said on Tuesday." Emphasis added. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I could not access this firewalled WSJ story until I tried opening it in a private window, a trick I learned from contributor Whyte O. The story is about what caused Cohen to flip on Trump, & is worth a read if you can access it. (Right-click on your mouse/pad & click on "Open in a private window" [or the equivalent for your browser]). ...
... Feliciz Sonmez of the Washington Post: "In April, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One he did not know Cohen had paid Daniels to prevent her from revealing details of the alleged affair. Trump also said he did not know where Cohen had gotten the money to make the payment.... White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday it was 'ridiculous' to accuse President Trump of lying after he reversed course on whether he knew about a $130,000 payment by his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election. 'I think that's a ridiculous accusation,' Sanders said when asked whether the president had lied to the American people. 'The president in this matter has done nothing wrong, and there are no charges against him.'..." ...
... Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "Fox News Host Ainsley Earhardt said Wednesday night on the network's 'Hannity' that President Trump told her he was considering a pardon for his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. 'I think he feels bad for Manafort. They were friends, he didn't work for him very long, worked for him for basically one hundred days,' she said. Earhardt had an ... interview with the president, which will air Thursday morning on 'Fox & Friends.'" ...
... John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday praised his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort as a 'brave man,' saying that he 'refused to break' during the prosecution that led to convictions Tuesday on eight tax- and bank-fraud charges in federal court. In a series of tweets, Trump sought to contrast Manafort's posture with that of Michael Cohen.... 'I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family,' Trump wrote. '"Justice" took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to "break." A large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case. Witch Hunt!'... 'Such respect for a brave man!' Trump added in a tweet that is certain to raise speculation about whether the president might pardon Manafort at some point.... 'If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!' Trump said on Twitter.... 'Michael Cohen plead [sic.] guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime,' Trump wrote. 'President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!' Trump did not spell out what he was referring to regarding Obama.... Trump also accused Cohen of having made up 'stories in order to get a deal.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Grumpy Trumpy Had a Sad. Maggie Haberman & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "In the hours after two of President Trump's former advisers delivered his administration potentially grave legal setbacks, the mood inside the White House was grim, a return to a trench-warfare mentality.... This time, advisers noticed that the president, a man who has in the past relished the idea of leading his troops into political battle, seemed subdued. He appeared to realize the serious nature of what had just taken place, and yet his relative calm -- contrasted with his more typical lashing out when he is anxious -- unnerved some of his aides. 'We started with collusion,' the president mused, according to several people who witnessed Mr. Trump's somber mood. 'How did we end up here?'... On Air Force One on Tuesday night on the way back from a rally in West Virginia, Mr. Trump ... groused over the optics of the rally, telling a person close to him that the crowd seemed flat and that some chairs were empty." ...
... Michael Kruse of Politico Magazine: Trump "has called himself a 'great loyalty freak.' He has said he values loyalty 'above everything else -- more than brains, more than drive.' And one of his greatest strengths, at least of a certain sort, always has been his ability to engender unwavering, slavish, even sycophantic allegiance. But it's also been so brutally, consistently one-sided, and the Cohen flip brings to the fore the fragility of Trump's transactional brand of loyalty and potentially its ultimate incompatibility with the presidency.... And Trump's long span of quiet about Cohen was so out of character it suggested even he understands the reality of his legal jeopardy.... And then ... he started tweeting (and talking). Evidently unable to restrain himself, he urged his nearly 54 million followers in a sad bleat of a tweet to not hire Cohen, as if this were a moment for a Yelp-like review of an attorney. He impugned his truthfulness as well as his fortitude, and he dubiously concluded that Cohen's admitted campaign finance violations allegedly committed in concert with the president himself 'are not a crime.' 'He is unraveling,' [former Trump Organization executive vice president Barbara] Res said." ...
... Sarah Ellison, et al., of the Washington Post have a story on how in August 2015 "David Pecker and Michael Cohen hatched a plan to help" suppress negative stories about Donald Trump. ...
... Jim Rutenberg & Rebecca Ruiz of the New York Times have a drier account of the same, but it also contains great detail. ...
... William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "The court filing in the case of Mr. Cohen ... indicates for the first time that others at Mr. Trump's company had a role in the financial arrangements used to silence women who claimed that they had affairs with him, after the hush money payments were made. Two senior Trump Organization executives had involvement in the financial arrangements, according to the 22-page court filing. Separately, one or more members of the 2016 Trump campaign were cited as having worked to identify stories about Mr. Trump's romantic entanglements 'so they could be purchased and their publication avoided,' the filing said. Mr. Cohen, the filing said, 'coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls,' about the nature and timing of the payments, which were made to influence the election.... Several current and former prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers said that if the officials at the Trump Organization were aware of what the payments were for, they could possibly be criminally culpable. And they said that if the $420,000 in payments to Mr. Cohen, which were recorded as legal expenses, were written off as a tax deduction, as would be the general practice, it could lead to criminal tax charges." ...
... Another Mystery from the Plea Deal. Christina Wilkie of CNBC: "Buried in the legal documents released Tuesday as part of Cohen's guilty plea on eight felony counts, there was a new, previously unreported payment Cohen made in 2016 to help Trump: $50,000 for work that prosecutors say Cohen 'solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign.' The documents do not identify which tech company Cohen paid the money to, or what, exactly, the company did for him. But the mere existence of the previously unknown payment suggests that Cohen may have been doing more for Trump, and for the Trump campaign, than simply paying off women. Furthermore, the way that Cohen reported the $50,000 expense to the Trump Organization in January 2017 suggests the money may not have been paid out through traditional financial channels.... The Trump Organization would later say that the $50,000 was a 'payment for tech services.' However, prosecutors say the $50,000 'was in fact related to work Cohen had solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign.'" ...
... Rachel Maddow notes that the Steele dossier claims that Cohen went to Prague to meet with Kremlin officials to discuss how to pay for Russian hacking services. Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said Wednesday that Cohen had never been to Prague. ...
** Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Michael Cohen told lawmakers last year, in sworn testimony, that he didn't know whether then-candidate Donald Trump had foreknowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians, three sources with knowledge of Cohen's testimony tell Axios....And Cohen still doesn't know whether Trump knew about the infamous meeting, according to Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis. 'Nothing has changed,' he told Axios. Reports last month said Cohen was willing to assert to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump did know about the meeting in advance.... This information about what Cohen told Congress about Trump -- reported here for the first time -- colors in the gaps of a statement Tuesday by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner that got buried under the Cohen-Manafort news avalanche." In the statement, the Senators wrote that 'the Committee inquired of Mr. Cohen's legal team as to whether Mr. Cohen stood by his testimony. They responded that he did stand by his testimony." Davis said he could not address the erroneous stories when they surfaced because of the "sensitivity" of the "criminal investigation."
... Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Lanny Davis, an attorney and spokesman for Cohen, went on a media blitz in the wake of Cohen's guilty plea, repeatedly floating the idea that Cohen is willing to be a witness against Trump and his associates in state and federal investigations.... New York's state tax-collecting agency took Davis up on that. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the agency said it had issued a subpoena to Cohen for information related to an investigation of Trump's charitable foundation. Cohen immediately responded by personally calling the agency to see how he could help, according to an official in Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's administration familiar with his call.... Potentially more significant, Davis repeatedly said Cohen would be willing to assist special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the election and suggested that Cohen may be able to tell Mueller that Trump had advance knowledge of the hacking of Democratic emails." ...
... David Klepper of the AP: "Investigators in New York state have issued a subpoena to Michael Cohen as part of their probe into the Trump Foundation, an official with Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration confirmed to The Associated Press Wednesday. The subpoena was issued after Cohen's attorney said his client has information of interest to both state and federal prosecutors. As Trump's longtime lawyer and self-described 'fixer,' Cohen could potentially be a significant source of information for state investigators looking into whether Trump or his charity broke state law or lied about their tax liability.... If evidence of alleged crimes is found, the matter could be referred to state Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who could pursue criminal charges and seek the release of Trump's tax returns. Anyone charged with a state crime in relation to the investigation could not be cleared by a presidential pardon." ...
... Leaky Don McGahn. Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump didn't consult his campaign finance lawyer Don McGahn about hush-money payments that were made days before the election and are now the center of a criminal case, a person familiar with the matter said. The absence of McGahn, who is now White House counsel, could be a key piece of evidence in any criminal prosecution, according to the person close to McGahn. Prosecutors could argue it shows Trump knew the payments were illegal and hid them. But Trump's lawyers could counter that it's a sign Trump didn't realize they were related to the campaign." Mrs. McC: I wonder if McGahn has a staff member whose job title is to "Official Leaker." ...
... ** Peter Doocy, et al., of Fox "News": "Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team was one holdout juror away from convicting Paul Manafort on all 18 counts of bank and tax fraud, juror Paula Duncan told Fox News in an exclusive interview Wednesday. 'It was one person who kept the verdict from being guilty on all 18 counts,' Duncan, 52, said.... Duncan described herself as an avid supporter of President Trump, but said she was moved by four full boxes of exhibits provided by Mueller-s team -- though she was skeptical about prosecutors' motives in the financial crimes case." In a photo of Duncan accompanying the story, she is wearing a MAGA cap. and she says she'll be voting for Trump in 2020. She was not the holdout. ...
... Burgess Everett & Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Twenty-four hours after one of the most damaging days for Donald Trump's presidency, the Republican wall of support around him shows no signs of crumbling. Though some GOP senators expressed discomfort with the the plea deal reached by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the guilty verdict rendered on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, there has been no seismic shift in the GOP after a bombshell Tuesday. Some Republicans attacked Cohen as not credible, some said Manafort's conviction has nothing to do with Trump and others still said the matter doesn't fall in their purview as senators. Moreover, the president still enjoys strong support among most Republican elected officials, a significant achievement given the rising prospects that Senate Republicans could be the backstop against an impeachment trial in the Senate if Democrats win the House." ...
... Eric Gueller & Martin Matishak of Politico: "A bipartisan bill meant to secure future U.S. elections against foreign meddling suffered a major setback Wednesday after Republicans pulled support from the measure. A dispute& over the Secure Elections Act boiled down to whether Congress should compel more states to use paper-based audits -- a safeguard that election integrity advocates say would help ensure vote tallies weren't tampered with or altered.... The Rules Committee announcement did not say when the rescheduled markup would take place." --safari ...
... Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "[W]e are in a situation where the constitutional responsibility of Congress is to step up to the plate and do something.... But congressional Republicans don't care.... The key thing to remember about the Russia investigation is it exists not because it's the only aspect of Trump's conduct worth investigating, but because it's the only worthwhile investigation that congressional Republicans were willing to pursue.... Rather than look into [Trump's other potential wrongdoings], congressional Republicans are whistling past the graveyard and have plunged the country into a constant state of constitutional crisis." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "It's Tuesday afternoon.... News is breaking that could prove existential for [Trump's] presidency. But his social media feed hardly records the magnitude of the developments.... Trump's carefully curated feed is a reflection of the ideological chasm that's dividing the media and splintering society. Tuesday offered vivid evidence of the way in which right-wing media insulates Trump, and his most devoted supporters, from blunt assessments of his administration.... Alongside a Daily Caller story about Cohen were laudatory posts about Trump, from the president's defense of free speech to his status as 'the most feminist president.' TheBlaze gave prominence to Trump's attacks on ESPN for not 'defending our anthem,' foregrounding the president's grievances with NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence." Read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Guardian editors: "Mr Trump is a self-aggrandising liar whose desire for riches, infamy and adoration appears insatiable. The father of the US constitution, James Madison, once said that if men were angels they would not need government. But what if government itself is possessed by a character like Mr Trump? That is the threat the work of the special counsel Robert Mueller has been uncovering.... US institutions were not designed to protect the public from a leader like Mr Trump. Principled politicians, judges and lawyers are needed to dig deep in the face of much resistance.... Mr Mueller needs to be shielded to prove that the system can work as well as it did then." --safari
Stephen Brown of the New York Daily News: "President Trump's tough talk about protesters is evidence he 'authorized and condoned' a harsh crackdown by his bodyguard and other staff during a 2015 campaign event in Manhattan, a judge ruled Tuesday. Bronx Supreme Court Justice Fernando Tapia ruled that Trump should remain a defendant in a suit brought by four Mexican protesters over a rowdy rally outside of Trump Tower. One of the protesters, Efrain Galicia, charged that Trump's bodyguard at the time, Keith Schiller, tore a sign out of his hands reading 'Trump: Make America Racist Again.' Schiller then smacked Galicia in the face when he tried to grab it back, the suit says. Much of the confrontation outside of Trump Tower in September 2015 was caught on video."
White Nationalist International Cooperation. Kate Lyons of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has asked his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to 'closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures' and the killing of farmers there. Trump posted a quote from Fox News on Twitter alleging the South African government was 'seizing land from white farmers'. The president's tweet and his direction to his secretary of state seem to have been prompted by a segment on Fox News on Wednesday night." --safari ...
... How Fox "News" (and White Nationalists) Now Run U.S. Foreign Policy. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: In his tweet, Trump "quoted Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, who earlier Wednesday had railed against plans by South Africa's ruling party to pursue constitutional changes allowing the government to redistribute land without compensation. The measure is designed to redress racial inequalities that have persisted nearly a quarter-century after the end of apartheid in 1994. The episode represented a case study in how the president runs his administration. The apparent basis of Trump's directions to the nation's top diplomat were accusations leveled by Fox -- accusations that echo talking points used by white-nationalist groups, including an organization that has referred to 'the so-called apartheid' and the 'so-called "historical injustices of the past."'... Daniel Dale, a correspondent for the Toronto Star, observed that Trump's tweet Wednesday marked the first time he had used the word 'Africa' on the social media platform since becoming president -- [and it was] 'to express support for white people[.]'..." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Also a good time to remember Akhilleus's commentary of a few days ago on the Amateur-in-Chief.
Guardian: "Donald Trump on Tuesday night launched yet another attack on NFL players who have knelt during the national anthem, although the numbers suggest his criticism may be off the mark.... In the latest round of preseason game just one player -- the Miami Dolphins' Albert Wilson -- knelt during the national anthem. That means 0.06% of the NFL's 1,664 players knelt during the most recent action, although that percentage is actually smaller as teams are allowed larger rosters during preseason. A small number of players protested by staying in the tunnel during the anthem or raising their fists." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
At his rally in West Virginia Tuesday, Trump confirmed that he had threatened to leave NATO if other countries didn't contribute more money to support the international defense organization. The Atlantic Council has transcribed his baby talk remarks on how he conducts international diplomacy here.
Ben Judah, in The Atlantic, explains the ways that Washington is turning into Moscow. --safari
Erica Green of the New York Times: "The Education Department is considering whether to allow states to use federal funding to purchase guns for educators, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plan." The headline fingers Betsy DeVos.
#Resistance. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "Environmental groups caught the Department of the Interior trying to sell off part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, despite a pledge by Secretary Ryan Zinke never to put public lands up for sale. After massive backlash from environmental groups and the public, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) late Friday canceled all plans to sell off the land.... In a March 3, 2017 speech, only days after getting sworn in as secretary, Zinke promised Interior staffers: 'You can hear it from my lips. We will not sell or transfer public land.'... But then last Wednesday, the Trump administration released its management plans ... that placed a priority on energy development and included the plan to sell off the 1,610 acres of public lands." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
All the Best People, Ctd.
Rebekah Entrelago of ThinkProgress: "Kathy Kraninger, currently the associate director for general government programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has no background in financial regulation or consumer protection. However, in Trump administration fashion, she is the nominee to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a position she herself has admitted she is unqualified to hold, and one she may be granted regardless, if the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs votes to confirm her on Thursday.... Currently, the position is being held in acting capacity by OMB Director Mick Mulvaney." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nahal Toosi of Politico: "Two top House Democrats are slamming Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for giving a new position to Brian Hook, a Trump administration appointee suspected of engaging in political retaliation against career staffers at the State Department. The lawmakers, Reps. Eliot Engel of New York and Elijah Cummings of Maryland are also demanding more information on what Pompeo has done, if anything, to punish Hook and others involved in the alleged retaliation. Those others include Mari Stull, a wine-blogger-turned-appointee alleged to have, among other things, sifted through career staffers' social media accounts for signs of disloyalty to President Donald Trump [and is still on the payroll].... Hook was involved last year in discussions about sidelining Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a career civil servant who specialized in Iran and was a member of the policy planning staff [and pushing out any "Obama holdovers"]." --safari
Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "A conservative commentator who was lauded by President Trump this week as 'wonderful' and who has argued that past sexual indiscretions should have no bearing on Trump's presidency was fired from Arizona State University four years ago for making sexually explicit comments and gestures toward women, according to documents and a university official. An internal investigation by the university concluded that Paris Dennard, a surrogate during the campaign and now a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, told a recent college graduate who worked for him that he wanted to have sex with her. He 'pretended to unzip his pants in her presence, tried to get her to sit on his lap, and made masturbatory gestures,' according to a university report obtained by The Washington Post.... Dennard, a CNN political commentator, opinion contributor to the Hill, and regular guest on NPR's 'Here & Now,' was working at the time as events director for ASU's McCain Institute for International Leadership.... Shortly after The Post published this article Wednesday night, a CNN spokeswoman said the network was suspending Dennard while it reviews the allegations."
2018 Elections
Natasha Korecki & Quint Forgey of Politico: "On Tuesday, authorities charged a man who they said is an undocumented immigrant in the slaying of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts, and within hours the tragedy emerged as a polarizing wedge issue -- just in time for the fall campaign homestretch.... The White House followed up Wednesday by releasing an emotional video of direct-to-camera stories from families of victims of violence committed by undocumented immigrants.... For Republicans, the Tibbetts case has a complicating factor. Cristhian Rivera, the 24-year-old Mexican national facing charges, had worked for years on Yarrabee Farms, owned by the Lang Family, including Craig Lang, a Republican who in June narrowly lost a primary bid for state agriculture secretary. Lang is a previous president of the Iowa Farm Bureau.... The [Des Moines] Register also reported that Rivera's attorney filed a court document Wednesday asserting that Rivera was working legally in Iowa." --safari
Senate Race. Texas. U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) addresses a question about NFL protests. Thanks to Keith H. for the lead:
... Wow! Let's see how O'Rourke's opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, responds to that moving, compassionate defense of civil rights activists:
... What a sniveling, disningenuous creep. O'Rourke is within 3 or 4 points of catching Cruz, & he's been an excellent fundraiser.
Congressional Race. Jermaine Ong of KGTV San Diego: "Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) told 10News that he's innocent of accusations of campaign funding misuse one day after he and his wife Margaret were indicted by a federal grand jury.... 'This is modern politics and modern media mixed in with law enforcement that has a political agenda. That's the new Department of Justice.... This is the Democrats' arm of law enforcement, that's what's happening right now. It's happening with Trump, it's happening with me. We're going to fight through it and win and the people get to vote in November ... I think they've used every dirty trick in the book, so it'll go to court when they want it to.... They can try to have a political agenda as our law enforcement, as a U.S. government ... as we've seen with [former FBI agent Peter] Strzok, and with the FBI and DOJ have been doing. Let them expose themselves for what they are: a politically motivated group of folks.'" Mrs. McC: The U.S. attorney who brought charges against Hunter & his wife is a Trump appointee.
Leaky Brett Kavanaugh. Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "During independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's tumultuous investigation of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, there were loud objections and even lawsuits filed over the fact that information meant to be kept secret was being leaked to the press by Starr's staff. Among those guiding the journalists and authors was a young lawyer named Brett M. Kavanaugh.... Interview with those who dealt with Kavanaugh at the time and documents relating to his confirmation show the nominee to be a savvy Washington source.... Now Senate Democrats are exploring whether Kavanaugh crossed a line in his private communications with outsiders and revealed grand-jury testimony related to Foster';s suicide or other matters then under scrutiny in Starr's wide-ranging investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton. This week, Senate Democrats contacted an author who said Kavanaugh was offered as a confidential source by Starr's deputies, and the lawmakers were part of a successful effort to persuade a judge to order the release later this week of a sealed 1999 report into alleged grand-jury leaks by Starr's office."
Sheera Frenkel & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The Democratic National Committee said Wednesday that it was alerted to an attempted hack of its voter database this week and that it had notified law enforcement. The effort to target the Democratic Party's voter file, known as Votebuilder, was not successful, and a party official said the identities of the culprits were unclear.... This week's attempt was aggressive, two officials briefed on it said. The hackers set up a fake page that mimicked the party's login page for its voter-registration website, a tactic that could gather names, passwords and other credentials of those using the voter database. The hackers also may have sent emails to people within the national committee to try to trick them into using the fake page, a tactic known as 'spearphishing,' the officials said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the incident, one of the officials said." ...
... Update. Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Whoops. What the Democratic National Committee this week thought was an attempted hack of its valuable voter file turned out to be a security test organized by a state party, unbeknownst to the national organization."
Sheera Frenkel & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Facebook said on Tuesday that it had identified multiple new influence campaigns that were aimed at misleading people around the world, with the company finding and removing 652 fake accounts, pages and groups that were trying to sow misinformation. The activity originated in Iran and Russia, Facebook said. Unlike past influence operations on the social network, which largely targeted Americans, the fake accounts, pages and groups were this time also aimed at people in Latin America, Britain and the Middle East, the company said. Some of the activity was still focused on Americans, but the campaigns were not specifically intended to disrupt the midterm elections in the United States, said FireEye, a cybersecurity firm that worked with Facebook on investigating the fake pages and accounts." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Voter Suppression by Any Means. Kira Lerner of ThinkProgress: "A majority-black county in rural Georgia announced a plan last week to close seven of its nine polling places ahead of the November election, claiming the polls cannot continue to operate because they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.... Republican lawmakers and election administrators in Randolph County are not the first to use the ... ADA, intended to protect the nation's disabled communities, as a pretext to disenfranchise minority voters.... Jim Tucker, an attorney and member of the Native American Voting Rights Coalition, said he learned earlier this year that the Department of Justice's Disability Rights Section is targeting at least three largely Native American counties, where facilities used as polling locations often lack ... ADA-required features. In several counties, the Justice Department has threatened enforcement actions if local governments do not either spend large sums of money to modernize polling locations or shutter them altogether." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Benjamin Haas of the Guardian: "North Korea is continuing to develop its nuclear weapons programme, according to a report by the UN atomic watchdog, raising questions over the country's commitment to denuclearisation. In one of the most specific reports on Pyongyang's recent nuclear activities, the International Atomic Energy Agency observed actions consistent with the enrichment of uranium and construction at the country's main nuclear site." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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Reader Comments (23)
Listening to Cruz's response to O'Rourke's extensive answer to the NFL kneeling question makes me want to jump into that video, shove him aside, take the mike and say to that audience––WAIT a minute there folks, let's hear what O'Rourke actually said, because this man here, Ted Cruz, has deliberately misled you.
Ah, if wishes were horses...
When Elizabeth Warren, like Camilla Harris, appear on the talk shows they invariably get asked if they will run for President in 2020 and both always say they are concentrating on here and now. But back in the "good old days" when there was much discussion about Warren running or even being a vice to Hillary, the issue I had with Warren was her lack of foreign policy acumen or perhaps I should say, her lack of any discussion of. So this morning I came across this piece from Sam Husseini, a DC-based independent journalist, who is bothered by this same thing. Of course it seems pretty ironic that I'm even concerned about this since we have a demented man at the helm who knows nothing about other countries except what he learns from Fox News (the newest South Africa blunder he got from Tucker Carlson of all people). However we must forge ahead and prepare for saner times.
ELIZABETH WARREN'S ANTI-CORRUPTION STANCE SHIFTS WHEN FOREIGN POLICY IS RAISED.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/elizabeth-warrens-anti-corruption-stance-shifts-when-foreign-policy-is-raised/
The latest presser had Huckelberry looking a little green in the gills; I'm so looking forward to when she has to admit her big boss lied. How long to we have to wait?
Trump pleaded guilty. He said Manafort 'refused to break.' In other words, he announced that Manafort has something to hide.
Of course those laws don't apply to Trump. And BTW, my guess is that the Trump team is so incompetent, they had no idea of the laws.
PD,
Liarbee will never admit that. If Trump were standing in the room wearing a clown costume, she’d spend ten minutes berating the reporters who asked why then call them all agents of the deep state and ban them from the White House.
@PD Pepe: I had the same reaction to Ted Cruz that you had. He 's sort of the right-wing version of Glenn Greenwald. I don't know how anyone can make it thru an hour's conversation with either of them without strangling them. I'd rather spend an hour with Donald Trump. Really.
By all rights and in any universe where justice was more than a word to be used to hide their snickers, the party in charge of the upcoming circus sideshow, aka the Kavanaugh Canonization, would set aside those hearings until it was determined that the person who nominated him was not 1. charged with a crime, 2. impeached, or 3. both. Not to mention the fact that Kavanaugh could possibly end up deciding that person’s fate should appeals of any conviction or elements of the investigation make it to the Supreme Court.
But that won’t happen in Trump World with the Party of Traitors running things. The legal and moral dangers of the current situation will only prompt them to race him through the confirmation process in record time. Democrats will be lucky if they get to ask Kavanaugh his favorite color and whether he prefers chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
Are the Repugnants really this cynical?
Vox says "yes."
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/23/17769206/bull-stock-market-michael-cohen-trump-manafort-gop-donors
Again, it may be hard to remember, but this is the party of the Moral Majority.
Ken,
The Party of Traitors is more than just cynical. The two pillars of this group of treasonous liars and racists are money and power. The Paul Manafort trial (and interestingly, it was just a single holdout who threw a monkey wrench into what would have been a stunning defeat for Manafort's lifetime of wheedling, grasping, and knavery--the rest of the jurors reportedly would have convicted him on all counts) is a microcosm of the greed/power nexus that has convinced Republicans that rules don't apply to them.
Look at this greedy little dolt Duncan Hunter who is now playing the Trump card, it's all about deep state actors trying to undermine his great patriotism, it's a witch hunt, he's being set up, blah, blah, blah. In fact, he's nothing but a cheap chiseler, a low rent Trump knockoff. A grasping little prick who had access to money, and laws and rules be damned. But he is not alone.
You can close your eyes and throw a dart at Congressional Republican names and chances of your hitting one who places money and power over duty and honor and constitutional responsibility are probably well over 90%. Hell, over 99%.
Manafort, who even screwed his own clients, established the rules for this new era of fierce kleptocracy: there are no rules. It's grab for all you can get, then lie like hell. He was even trying to jimmy the Trump campaign to pad his own bank account, getting a shady loan from a Chicago banker despite incredibly dodgy financials, in return for a seat on the little dictator's economic advisory board.
But Manafort knew dicators and Trump knew world class grifters, and they realized it could be a match made in...well, somewhere; surely not heaven. But each recognized something in the other that could be used to forward their own ends.
The inbred kleptocracy genes in the Party of Traitors have helped insulate Trump from the sort of problems Nixon had when members of his own party, stunned by his misdeeds, took action on behalf of the Constitution and the country.
The current occupant has no worries on that score. None of these losers will lift a finger in defense of country or Constitution, never mind rule of law.
Unless maybe there was some money in it for them.
@KenW: Just thinking, maybe when they came up with that group name there was a bit of a typo...kinda of what happens when one is dancing over the keyboard.
Wondering if we go back to the original forming document we might see it as someone had typed: a moral majority...unfortunately hitting the space bar which instead gave us the incorrect version: Moral Majority, when all along it really has been the Amoral Majority. (See Merriam-Webster for definition).
Speaking of Manafort, I've been wondering about his decision not to cooperate with prosecutors. I'm sure he was asked about it. He had to realize that they had the goods on him and that a guilty verdict would mean a life sentence. His lawyers surely told him that.
At first, I thought it might have something to do with the lifestyle the guy has led. He and Roger Stone and Lee Atwater were always the bad boys, the guys who gave everyone else the finger. Maybe he considered himself a tough guy and he'd just tell the prosecutors to kiss his ass. Besides, he'd gotten out of plenty of jams before.
But Franklin Foer, who has written extensively about Manafort, believes that Manafort's innate sense of his own superiority was likely at work here. Manafort had created his own universe, one in which the only one that mattered was himself. He did what he wanted when he wanted, and rules didn't apply to him. Foer suggests that Manafort believed no one would ever find him guilty.
But now that they have, what will he do? Does he have the sort of "stand-up guy" balls that certain Mafia figures have demonstrated, agreeing to spend the majority (or the rest) of their lives in a cage rather than help out the government? He's been living the high life for a loooong time. And now he's got another trial to go through. Will he trade his ostrich jacket for a jumpsuit with DOC or some such delightful demonstration of his new state in life on the back until they carry him out in a box?
A Trump pardon won't help him out of everything. State charges are beyond a president's pardon powers so there's that. He could still spend the rest of his life in prison.
The question I have is what does Manafort know? I'm guessing he knows at least enough to give the little dictator hives. If both he and Cohen can corroborate the fact that Trump knew about--and approved of--Russian ratfucking, then that should be the ballgame.
But then we still have the Party of Traitors to deal with. And it's pretty much a lead pipe cinch that even confronted with evidence of Trump's collusion/treason, they won't do a thing.
The Values Party.
Now that several of Mollie Tibbetts' family members have announced their opposition to Trump and fellow Confederates using her as a prop for their immigration policies, look for them to be attacked as well.
Just a thought about those death threats that Manafort jurors and the judge received. The judge declined to release the names of jurors because of these threats. I was wondering. Hmmm....where could these threats have come from?
Maybe......RC readers? You think? PD! Are you making death threats again? It's not funny! Now cut that out. We here at RC might seem a tame bunch but I bet more than a few of youse guys have brass knuckles in the glove compartment, along with the odd Beretta and a blackjack or two.
OR...do you think threats of violence could have come from, oh...I dunno...crazy-ass Trumpbots? You know, those people who routinely promise violence at rallies where Trump suggests that they beat up people he doesn't like? The guy who hires thugs who smack women around? From people who love that sort of thing? People who might think that a guilty verdict against Manafort might put President* Bomb the Shit Out of 'Em in legal jeopardy?
Just wondering...
I see where DeVos-on-the-Sauce wants to spring for guns for teachers with, of course, taxpayer money.
Jesus, has the grizzly bear population skyrocketed all of a sudden? I didn't even know!
My daughter posted on FB a story from a Minn-St. Paul paper (City Pages).
"U.S.-born American citizen in country legally charged in teen's death"
This one is not a national issue.
@Ak; Where'd those warning about death threats to judge/jurors come from? I suspect the same folks or folk, aka the Donald who are propagating this: "Trump says the stock market would crash if he were impeached: 'Everybody would be very poor' "
(https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/trump-says-the-stock-market-would-crash-if-he-were-impeached.html)
Just read that David Pecker (Enquirer) gets immunity in the Michael Cohen case. Hah! More rats leaving the big rat on a sinking ship of fools.
"But Franklin Foer, who has written extensively about Manafort, believes that Manafort's innate sense of his own superiority was likely at work here. Manafort had created his own universe, one in which the only one that mattered was himself. He did what he wanted when he wanted, and rules didn't apply to him."
Wonderful description. Had to wonder, Akhilleus, as you typed it, did it remind you of anyone else?
Regarding the meaning of "cynic," wouldn't argue with anything you said but the "not just" part. I took cynical to mean motivated only by selfishness, acting with no interest in the effect of one's actions on anyone but oneself (I would add in the short term only), which I believe covers the whole stinking mass of the R's behavior, back to belly, head to toe.
MAG,
I've always wondered about that expression, rats fleeing a sinking ship. My question is, where do they go? Are things better out on the open ocean? I know that some rats can swim, but hundreds or thousands of miles?
Which leaves me with the lovely image of Mr. Pecker (fingers wanted to type "Pecksniff") floundering around, his rat whiskers flickering as he finds himself with no safe harbour, hundreds of miles to shore.
Unfortunately, that probably won't be the case. Sleazy creeps like Friends of Trump all too often are able to sidestep the well deserved consequences of their slimy actions.
Doesn't make them any less rat-like, however.
To flip or not to flip...
Question (rhetorical, obviously):
If Donaldo was in a situation similar to Cohen's or Manafort's, would he man up and do his time ("If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.") or would he tuck tail and flip?
Don't bother to respond. We all know the answer.
It's all about what's best for Trumpy. He's a textbook example of the bloviating braggart who, when hearing about someone who, in the midst of combat, ducked and covered, will loudly proclaim how if it had been him, he'd have grabbed his weapon, stood up, and bravely gone right at the enemy, taking them all out and saving all his comrades into the bargain, pausing only long enough to graciously accept their fawning thanks for his fearlessness.
The truth is, when he had the chance to show his mettle, he pretended to have a hurt piggy toe and weaseled himself multiple deferments so he didn't have to go anywhere near someone with a gun that might be pointed at his exalted person.
After flipping, to save his fat ass, he'd make a grandiose statement about how everyone was "out to get him" (which he does every day) and how it was just not right that he should go to jail (or get shot at) to protect those who didn't appreciate what a superior person he was.
Not just a liar and a braggart, but a despicable coward. I don't mean it's despicable to be afraid to be shot. I certainly wouldn't relish the idea, but it's despicable to pretend otherwise when, in fact, you are far more fearful than anyone else, and proved it, five times.
Would he flip? Like a tumbler in the Cirque du Soleil, baby.
Looks like Trump isn't even a very good Mafia boss. Most of his lieutenants have ratted on him when it became convenient to do so. Some of them could hardly wait to turn state's evidence.
The only people who seem to fear him are members of Congress, but that's an illusion. The MOCs really fear the voters, not Trump. If voters abandon Trump, Lindsey Graham & Mitch McConnell will suddenly realize Trump is who he is. This is all so "Citizen Kane"ish.
Loved (thanks Marie) Peter Pecker's pickled peppers... how many... or
If you were were in a pickle, Peter (otherwise known as David)
If you were in a paper pickle
I'd throw a lifeline to ya, Peter
along with a Buffalo nickel ....
I mean, really, a guy that prints salacious goodies in a sleazy magazine has a last name like Pecker?
During the Fox interview the question to Trump was "How would you rate yourself as president?"
"I'd give myself an A-Plus" said the man, smiling like a Cheshire cat, to which the Fox interviewer looked stunned and the camera man had to stuff his hand in his mouth to keep from laughing.
And to discover what we had all along was a Mob boss operating our government–––mercy!
Trump Administration* Guffaw No. 2,456 and No. 2,457
"Trump cannot imagine that admitting he picked an attorney general solely out of the expectation of personal loyalty is a confession of an intent to corrupt law enforcement.”
HoHoHo.
And...here is the aggrieved, much put upon Jeffbo claiming that he never lets politics interfere with his lawmanning.
Hahahahahahahaha.
How about his attacks on immigrants? His attacks on legal marijuana? His attacks on black Americans? His absolute denial of voting rights for those he believes should not be allowed to vote?
Not political?
HAHAHAHAHAAHahahahahaha.
For weasels like Sessions, everything is political.
Maybe he can get that Silent Sam statue memorializing Jim Crow and put it up on his front lawn. His white supremacist pals would surely approve.
In fact, "As implemented in recent decisions to curtail asylum grants, ramp up immigration enforcement, and dial back criminal-justice reform and voting-rights protections, [the Trump-Sessions] agenda is more than just the reversal of policies enacted during the Barack Obama era, which Trump promised during his campaign. Rather, from the Black Belt in Alabama in the 1980s to the farthest reaches of the border fence today, the Sessions Doctrine is the endgame of a long legal tradition of undermining minority civil rights."
If that ain't political, then I'm the present bald king of France.
These people are not just liars, they're accomplished liars, and even more accomplished at unAmerican policy processes.
Sorry-- I appreciate the trouble people on this thread go to in putting indescribably nasty things on video, but I just could not get past that sneering lickspittle creep Cruz, rushing to hit pause the second he said they were protesting our anthem. He and Trump are perfect clones of each other. Each cannot be tolerated by reasonable people the minute they open their stupid lying mouths. Each transmits hatred with every gesture, every nuance, every lift of the eyebrow, every sneer. Come to think of it, little racist nastyman JeffBeau is their triplet. And what in the hell happened to Lindsey Graham to turn him from a "reasonably" intelligent thinker to trump's little b****??? I used to give him a teaspoon of credit. We know Lyin' Ryan and fecal sample McConnell can't help themselves-- they are simply bad people.
Or maybe it is us. We want badly to believe SOMEONE on the evil side might be redeemable, sorta like occasionally believing Susan Collins isn't a total sellout (Lucy/football) every time she flirts with humanitarian impulses. Or says she does... We are dinosaurs, believing we will be here forever. And we know what happened to them--
@ Jeanne: I saw a print article where Kavenaugh assured Senator Collins that Roe vs. Wade was settled law. Lucy and football was my first thought.
NiskyGuy: Yup, I actually heard her say that with my own ears. Naturally, I believe her BS-- and HIS!! Haha--