;)
The Commentariat -- August 24, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Tusk v. Trump. Michael Birnbaum & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "European Council President Donald Tusk on Saturday said escalating trade tensions between President Trump and other world leaders risk throwing the world into recession, bemoaning 'senseless disputes' that had ripped countries apart. 'This may be the last moment to restore our political community,' he told reporters at the beginning of the Group of Seven summit [in Biarritz, France].... Trade wars will lead to recession while trade deals will boost the economy,' he said. In response to a question, Tusk questioned Trump's motivation in trade wars launched by the United States.... In a sign that leaders are bracing for things to only get worse, Tusk said the E.U. was ready to retaliate against Trump if the U.S. leader followed through on some of his trade-related threats directed at France. Trump has said he will impose tariffs on French wine because France recently imposed taxes that impact U.S. technology companies." The Hill story citing the Post is here.
** The Real Reason Trump Is Slamming Powell (or Powel). Jonathan O'Connell, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump stands to save millions of dollars annually in interest on outstanding loans on his hotels and resorts if the Federal Reserve lowers rates as he has been demanding, according to public filings and financial experts. In the five years before he became president, Trump borrowed more than $360 million via four loans from Deutsche Bank for his hotels in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, as well his 643-room Doral golf resort in South Florida. The payments on all four properties vary with interest rate changes, according to Trump's official financial disclosures. That means he has already benefited from falling interest rates that were spurred in part by a cut the Federal Reserve announced in July, the first in more than a decade -- and his payments could drop by millions of dollars more annually if the central bank grants Trump's wish and further lowers short-term rates, experts said." Daily Kos has a summary of the WashPo report here. See also Akhilleus's comment in the thread below.
Jair Diddled While the Amazon Burned. Dom Phillips of the Guardian: "While the Amazon burned and Brazilians demonstrated their outrage, Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro went to a comedy club. As the president's pre-recorded speech to the nation explaining how he planned to use the army to fight the fires -- while simultaneously insisting the rate of burning forest was nothing out of the ordinary -- was broadcast on television on Friday night, he was at a standup show in Brasília by right-wing Christian comic Jonathan Nemer."
Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "The series of economic and financial developments on Friday was a strange, bewildering, exhausting microcosm of why the global economy is at risk of a meltdown. It showed the odd interplay at work between the Chinese government's actions in the escalating trade war with the United States, the sober-minded global central bankers who have limited power to deploy and an American president whose public pronouncements often appear driven by grievance more than strategy.... In one dizzying day, [Donald Trump] had seemed to be searching for whom or what to blame for economic troubles, first using Twitter to call his own Federal Reserve chief an enemy of the United States and then to urge American companies to stop doing business with China. And that was just while the markets were open. Later Friday, he said he would apply tariffs to all Chinese imports and increase those already in place.... President Trump's shoot-first approach adds to the risks at a delicate moment, with major economies in Asia and Europe already teetering and policymakers' capacity to contain the damage in question."
See also Peter Baker's NYT article about Trump's "justification" for his "order" to U.S. corporations who do business with China, linked below late this morning.
Daniel Dale & Konstantin Toropin of CNN: "When ... Donald Trump was asked Wednesday what victims of mass shootings are telling him about gun laws, he did not answer directly. Instead, he boasted of 'the love for me' among the people he visited in hospitals in El Paso and Dayton after the August massacres in those cities. 'Not only did they meet with me, they were pouring out of the room. The doctors were coming out of the operating rooms. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all over the floor, he said. Facts First: Doctors did not leave any active operating rooms, spokespeople for both the El Paso and Dayton hospitals said. The Dayton spokesperson said doctors did not even leave any patient rooms." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump is so nuts he thinks doctors would let patients die on the operating tables just to get a chance to see the "Chosen One." OR, he's so nuts he knows the doctors did no such thing, so he has to make up the story to puff himself up. Pathetic, either way.
~~~~~~~~~~
Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump has landed in Biarritz, or thereabouts.
Gabby Orr & Nancy Cook of Politico: "... Donald Trump heads into the G-7 summit ... more isolated than ever -- and perhaps never more in need of the international coordination he has repeatedly assailed. The president faces warnings of a U.S. economic downturn driven partly by his fractious trade negotiations with China. He blames other countries' trade policies for mounting economic risks in the U.S., even as many of those countries teeter on the edge of recession. And Trump is expected to spend his time in southern France urging fellow leaders to follow his lead rather than changing course himself." ...
... Update. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump posted a message on Twitter citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 -- a law meant to enable a president to isolate criminal regimes but not intended to be used to cut off economic ties with a major trading partner because of a disagreement over tariffs.... Presidents have used it to target international terrorists, drug kingpins, human rights abusers, cyber attackers, illegal arms proliferators, and multinational criminal organizations.... Seeking to use it in a trade dispute with a country like China would be a drastic departure from its history.... In raising the possibility of forcing American businesses to pull out of China on Friday, Mr. Trump framed it not as a request but as an order he had already issued.... In fact, aides said, no order has been drawn up nor was it clear that he would attempt to do so."
Trump Doubles Down on "Hereby Order." Mary March of the Hill: "President Trump defended his declaration on Friday that American companies were 'hereby ordered' to find alternatives to manufacturing in China, claiming that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act gave him the power to make such a pronouncement. Trump took aim at the press for questioning his authority to order businesses out of China, tweeting 'For all of the Fake News Reporters that don't have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!'... Trump had previously cited the 1977 Act, which gives the president the power to regulate commerce during exceptional international crises, earlier Friday before departing for the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in France.... Claude Barfield, an expert in international trade policy at the [conservative] American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told The Hill that Trump doesn't have any authorities to direct U.S. companies to move their businesses to the United States. He called the tweets a clear example of Trump 'popping off' and predicted his advisers would look to do damage control, especially if his remarks negatively impact the stock market." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "Holy crap! I might lose the election!" is not "an exceptional international crisis."
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday said he does not believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un violated any pact with him by launching another round of projectiles. 'He likes testing missiles,' Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for the Group of Seven (G-7) economies summit in France.... North Korea hours earlier fired two more unidentified projectiles into the East Sea, according to South Korean news agencies[.]" --s ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: But the Prime Minister of Denmark is "nasty."
"Especially Erratic." Peter Baker of the New York Times: "In the space of a few hours, [Donald Trump] declared that his own central bank chief was an 'enemy,' claimed sweeping powers ... to ['hereby] order' American businesses to leave China and, when stock markets predictably tumbled, made a joke of it. Mr. Trump's wild and unscripted pronouncements on Friday renewed questions about his stewardship of the world's largest economy even as he escalated a trade war with China.... Even some of his own aides and allies were alarmed by his behavior, seeing it as the flailing of a president increasingly anxious over the dark clouds some have detected hovering over an economy that until now has been the strongest selling point for his administration. They privately expressed concern that he was hurting the economy.... Mr. Trump has become one of the biggest sources of global economic instability after presiding over a period of growth and job creation.... He started the day boasting that 'the Economy is strong and good, whereas the rest of the world is not doing so well.' Hours later, he lashed out at the Federal Reserve Board for not taking the sort of action usually reserved only for an economy that is weak and bad.... Mr. Trump's tweets caught most of his advisers and staff by surprise." ...
The "Joke": The Dow is down 573 points perhaps on the news that Representative Seth Moulton, whoever that may be, has dropped out of the 2020 Presidential Race! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Friday at 3:01 pm ET
The Antidote: @realDonaldTrump is a clear and present danger -- to our country, to the globe and to himself.... #25thAmendment -- William Weld, GOP presidential candidate ...
... Angry Man in White House Pledges to Punish You Because China. Alan Rappeport & Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "President Trump, angered by Beijing’s decision on Friday to retaliate against his next round of tariffs and furious at his Federal Reserve chair for not doing more to juice the economy, said he would increase taxes on all Chinese goods and demanded that American companies stop doing business with China[.] Mr. Trump, in a tweet, said he would raise tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 30 percent from the current rate of 25 percent beginning Oct. 1. And he said the United States would tax the remaining $300 billion worth of imports at a 15 percent rate, rather than the 10 percent he had initially planned. Those levies go into effect on Sept. 1.... Those levels are likely to exacerbate the financial pain already being felt from the tariffs as companies and consumers face higher prices for products that they buy from China. Even before the new 30 percent rate, the tariffs were expected to cost the average American household more than $800 per year, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York." The CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks plunged on Friday after ... Donald Trump ordered that U.S. manufacturers find alternatives to their operations in China. Apple led the way lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 623.34 points lower, or 2.4% at 25,628.90. The S&P 500 slid 2.6% to close at 2,847.11. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3% to end the day at 7,751.77. The losses brought the Dow's decline for August to more than 4%." This is an update of an earlier report. Mrs. McC: What? Just because the POTUS* is insane? You people haven't been paying attention. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... ** Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday pledged to respond to China's latest round of tariffs 'this afternoon,' further ratcheting up the trade war between Washington and Beijing. In a string of tweets sent Friday morning, Trump also said he was ordering U.S. companies to 'immediately start looking for an alternative to China,' proposing they begin making their products in the United States, though it was not immediately clear what authority he was attempting to invoke. Trump has previously pressured companies including Apple to begin producing their goods in the U.S. 'The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing ... your companies HOME and making your products in the USA,' Trump tweeted." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't have to tell you Trump's "order" is insane. Maybe in a state of emergency -- like war -- Trump could "order" private corporations to alter their trade practices, but I know of no authority a president or president* has to do so for political or economic reasons in peace time. Trump so firmly believes he's a dictator who can push everyone around that he doesn't think twice before trying it. ...
... Update. The Washington Post story, by Taylor Telford & others, is here. "The White House does not have the authority to force companies to follow such directives, but his comments came in the middle of a Twitter tirade in which he appeared to be expressing mounting fury that his economic agenda is not coming together. 'I have no idea how the president thinks he can order companies to stop working with China. I'm baffled,' said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank." See safari's third comment in today's thread. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
...OR, as Kevin Drum puts it, “Anyway, the president obviously doesn't have the authority to order US companies to do anything, even if he does use a big word like 'hereby.' Still, I assume Republicans will all be shocked and outraged by this megalomaniac attempt to interfere in the free market. Right?" Akhilleus, in yesterday's Comments, invoked the Obama Corollary. (Also linked yesterday.)
... Yun Li of CNBC: "China said Friday it will impose new tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods and resume duties on American autos. The Chinese State Council said it decided to slap tariffs ranging from 5% to 10% on $75 billion U.S. goods in two batches effective on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. That happens to be when President Donald Trump's latest tariffs on Chinese goods are to take effect. It also said a 25% tariff will be imposed on U.S. cars and a 5% on auto parts and components, which will go into effect on Dec.15. China had paused these tariffs in April. Stocks tumbled and bond yields fell following the announcement." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jonathan Chait: "President Trump is in the midst of a public meltdown that is humiliating, scary, and banana republic-y even by Trumpy standards. The reason is that Trump started a trade war and China refuses to back down.... Trump has picked fights with lots of countries. Usually they either placate him or try to give him a face-saving way of de-escalating...."
... Earlier, that same morning:
... Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "... Donald Trump on Friday again ripped into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, comparing him to Chinese President Xi Jinping. 'My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powel or Chairman Xi?' Trump tweeted, misspelling Powell's last name.... Trump tweeted his attack not long after the text of Powell's speech in Jackson Hole Wyoming, was made public. Powell on Friday promised to take the steps needed to maintain U.S. economic growth as fears about a potential recession grow. In his remarks..., [Powell] said the economy has 'continued to perform well overall' but acknowledged 'trade policy uncertainty seems to be playing a role in the global slowdown.' In a previous tweet Friday, Trump said, 'as usual, the Fed did NOTHING!' It is unclear what Trump expected the central bank to do at its symposium, as it does not have a policy meeting until the middle of next month." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Update. The New York Times story, by Jeanna Smialek, is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: A few hours later, it became clear that Trump had more in common with Xi than with Powell when Trump "hereby ordered" U.S. businesses to obey his commands, a power which the communist leader has & which Trump obviously envies.
Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for Deutsche Bank and Capital One repeatedly refused to tell a federal appeals court Friday whether the banks have President Trump's tax returns, citing 'contractual obligations' for rebuffing the court's questions. Trump is appealing a district court ruling that cleared the way for the banks to hand over years of financial records from the president, his three eldest children and the president's companies to two House committees. Toward the end of Friday's hearing, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit considering the appeal asked the banks' attorneys whether the documents subject to the subpoenas could potentially include the president's tax returns.... The banks, which have not publicly taken a position on Trump's efforts to block the subpoenas, agreed to provide the appeals court a letter within 48 hours addressing the matter, but it was unclear what the letters would specify or whether they would be made public." CNN's story is here.
Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Attorneys general rarely follow up on inmate deaths, but [William] Barr has continued to bird dog the investigation into how one as high-profile as [Jeffrey] Epstein could have died in federal care, evidence of how serious the matter is for the Justice Department.... Mr. Barr is personally overseeing the four federal inquiries into the matter and is briefed on them multiple times a day.... Mr. Barr's close handling of the case also underscores the toll that a nearly three-year war on the Justice Department's credibility -- waged chiefly by Mr. Trump when he attacked the Russia investigation -- has taken." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I would suggest Barr is less interested in restoring the DOJ's credibility than in creating a diversion from the various unsavory stunts he has undertaken in service of the guy he sees as his No. 1 Client. ...
... LIKE THIS. Dominic Holden of BuzzFeed News: "The Trump administration took its hardest line yet to legalize anti-gay discrimination on Friday when it asked the Supreme Court to declare that federal law allows private companies to fire workers based only on their sexual orientation. An amicus brief filed by the Justice Department weighed in on two cases involving gay workers and what is meant by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination 'because of sex.' The administration argued courts nationwide should stop reading the civil rights law to protect gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers from bias because it was not originally intended to do so. That view conflicts with some lower court rulings that found targeting someone for their sexual orientation is an illegal form of both sex discrimination and sex stereotyping under Title VII." ...
... AND THIS. Hamed Aleaziz, et al., of BuzzFeed News: "An arm of the Justice Department regularly sent summaries and links to articles from an online white nationalist publication over the last year, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. In addition, similar newsletters sent to the Labor Department, ICE, HUD, and the Department of Homeland Security included links and content from hyperpartisan and conspiracy-oriented publishers.... While these newsletters typically shared articles from local and mainstream national news outlets -- including BuzzFeed News -- they also regularly delivered content from partisan publications touting anti-immigration rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Among these publications: ... VDare, an anti-Semitic and racist site whose editor who has claimed that American culture is under threat from nonwhite peoples..., the Western Journal, a hyperpartisan publisher whose founder once questioned if then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was Muslim, and the Epoch Times, a newspaper associated with the Chinese Falun Gong movement and whose related media properties have backed QAnon, a conspiracy theory claiming a group of high-ranking officials known as the 'Deep State' is subverting ... Donald Trump's goals." ...
... AND THIS. Katelyn Polantz & Caroline Kelly of CNN: "The Justice Department asked a federal court of appeals on Friday to reconsider a case where ... Donald Trump was told he couldn't legally block Twitter users from seeing his tweets. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals has not yet said if it would rehear the case. The request comes following a three-judge appellate panel having decided in July that Trump blocking users on Twitter from following or interacting with his account handle @realDonaldTrump was unconstitutional. The Justice Department, which has represented Trump in the lawsuit, called the matter one of 'exceptional importance.' The department maintains that Trump's Twitter account is his personal account and will remain his handle after he leaves office." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What a grotesque waste of taxpayer money, Bill Barr. If Trump were using his Twitter account for nothing but sharing taco salad recipes and cute pictures of him romping with Barron, he might have a case. But Trump uses the account for official business every day: he orders troop withdrawals, communicates with foreign leaders, changes Pentagon policy, fires top staff & now hereby orders U.S. companies to run their businesses in ways he favors. Former press secretary Sean Spicer even said Trump's tweets were "official White House statements." Barr is using the DOJ to press a manifest lie. ...
... Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has canceled a news-clip service for employees in its immigration review office after Monday's edition included a link to and a summary of a blog post from a white-nationalist website that used an anti-Semitic slur, officials said Friday. In an email Friday, employees at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) were told that 'the Communications and Legislative Affairs Division will no longer distribute a daily news briefing within EOIR,' and were given instructions for how to sign up for a different department-wide briefing service, if they wished to receive those notifications.... The Justice Department called the Florida-headquartered firm [TechMIS] Friday and explained its decision. The contract expires at the end of August." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Barrett's story refers only to the clips that went to EOIR. It isn't clear whether or not the DOJ also is cancelling TechMIS's clips to the other agencies which BuzzFeed outlines in the story linked above.
... Bill Barr has a couple of investigations going into the FBI for its checking out Russian interference in the 2016 elections, & he has four, count 'em four investigations running on the federal prison system. Where are the investigations about of ICE & Customs & Border Patrol? Everyone knows these agencies are out of control, yet Bill Barr seems totally unconcerned. ...
... Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "In February, Congress directed ICE to reduce its detention population, but ICE has ignored that request. After President Donald Trump forced a government shutdown in December, legislators ... directed ICE to go from detaining nearly 49,000 people to 40,520 by October. Instead, ICE has pushed its detention population to all-time highs. The agency was detaining a record-high 55,220 people as of Saturday and has been rapidly contracting with new private prisons to house that increased number of detainees." --s
Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "Immigration authorities did not realize for eight days earlier this month that they had detained both parents of two children [aged 12 and 14] in Mississippi after a massive workplace raid, family members told ABC News." --s
Presidential Race 2020
Trip Gabriel & Isabella Paz of the New York Times: "Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday took a series of unusual rhetorical detours at the end of a town-hall-style campaign event nominally dedicated to health care, speculating about how a political assassination of Barack Obama might have affected the country in 2008 and recalling that he was accused of being gay because of his support of women's rights in the 1970s.... A campaign spokesman said Mr. Biden had previously drawn an analogy between an Obama assassination and the political killings of 1968 [-- Biden's senior year in college --] when speaking to younger audiences not alive at the time."
Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts is dropping out of the presidential race, ending a candidacy that emphasized Mr. Moulton's centrist politics and military service but gained no traction with Democratic primary voters.... He warned in [an] interview that if Democrats were to embrace an overly liberal platform, it could make it harder for the party to defeat President Trump." The CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The Epoch Times, a conservative publication that has become a key promoter of President Trump and been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories, has been barred from advertising on Facebook. An NBC News investigation earlier this week showed how the Epoch Times became Trump's biggest advocate on the social media platform, morphing from a nonprofit newspaper with anti-communist messages into a conservative outlet often promoting the White House and right-wing theories. Facebook banned future ads after NBC News' reporting showed that the Epoch Times had shifted its spending on Facebook in a way that blurred its links to $2 million worth of ads promoting Trump and disparaging his critics. Pro-Trump conspiracy ads peddled by the Epoch Times would appear under page names like 'Honest Paper' and 'Pure American Journalism,' which effectively bypassed Facebook's rules around political advertising and transparency." The NBC News story is here.
Elizabeth Thomas & Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recently treated for a 'localized malignant tumor' on her pancreas, a court spokesperson said Friday. 'The tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,' the spokesperson said." (Also linked yesterday.)
Daniel Markovits in the Atlantic writes about the rise of "meritocracy" and how it leaves everyone worse off. --s
Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "David H. Koch, who joined his brother, Charles G. Koch, in business and political ventures that grew into the nation's second-largest private company and a powerful right-wing libertarian movement that helped reshape American politics, has died. He was 79." Thanks to unwashed for the lead. Here's the NBC News obituary. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Just a Reminder. Jessica Piper of Open Secrets (June 7): "Over the last two decades, the Koch network ... spent about $120 million ... supporting Republican candidates or opposing Democratic candidates.... They have not spent a single dollar supporting Democratic candidates during that time." --s
Lynh Bui of the Washington Post: "Leon Haughton, a legal U.S. resident & green-card holder, bought three bottles of honey from a Jamaica roadside stand last Christmas "before heading home to Maryland. It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore. Customs officers detained Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid meth. Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles." There's an AFP report here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews "Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School..., the academic who perhaps best represents the ideology of the Trump Administration's immigration restrictionists. Wax, who began her professional life as a neurologist, and who served in the Solicitor General's office in the late eighties and early nineties, has become known in recent years for her belief in the superiority of 'Anglo-Protestant culture.' In 2017, Wax said, in an interview, 'I don't think I've ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half.' The dean of Penn Law School, Theodore Ruger, said that Wax had spoken 'disparagingly and inaccurately' and had been barred from teaching core-curriculum classes.... During our conversation..., Wax expounded on her beliefs that people of Western origin are more scrupulous, empirical, and orderly than people of non-Western origin, and that women are less intellectual than men. She described these views as the outcome of rigorous and realistic thinking, while offering evidence that ranged from two studies by a eugenicist to personal anecdotes, several of which concerned her conviction that white people litter less than people of color." (Also linked yesterday.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Hans von der Burchard & Rym Momtaz of Politico: "Only two months after Europe concluded a landmark trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc [Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay. Uruguay & other South American countries], the French president [Emmanuel Macron] is threatening to kill it off over what he sees as betrayal by Brazil's maverick President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of allowing big business interests like ranchers and loggers to torch the [Amazon rainforest]. Macron has called for the burning Amazon to lead the agenda of the G7 summit he is hosting in Biarritz this weekend. In an unusually undiplomatic broadside against his Brazilian counterpart, he concluded that Bolsonaro 'lied to him' about the Mercosur pact when it was struck in June, by promising to respect the Paris Climate Agreement and to protect the rainforest, an Elysée official said. If France doesn't sign up to the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, it is dead." ...
... Looks like that got Bolsonaro's attention. ...
... Victor Caivano of the AP: "Under international pressure to contain fires sweeping parts of Brazil's Amazon, President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday authorized use of the military to battle the huge blazes while thousands took to the streets to protest his environmental policies. Brazilian forces will deploy starting Saturday to border areas, indigenous territories and other affected regions in the Amazon to assist in putting out fires for a month, according to a presidential decree authorizing use of the army. The military will 'act strongly' to control the wildfires, Bolsonaro promised as he signed the decree.... Bolsonaro has previously described rainforest protections as an obstacle to Brazil's economic development, sparring with critics who note that the Amazon produces vast amounts of oxygen and is considered crucial for efforts to contain climate change. As the president spoke, thousands of Brazilians demonstrated in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and the capital of Brasilia demanding the government announce concrete actions to curb the fires.... An Associated Press journalist who traveled to the Amazon region Friday saw many already deforested areas that had been burned.... In some instances, the burned fields were adjacent to intact livestock ranches and other farms, suggesting the fires had been managed as part of a land-clearing policy." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I assume that "act strongly" is a translation from the original Portugese, but it is still notable that Bolsonaro & Trump use exactly the same weird clause, one that normal speakers never say.
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Reader Comments (10)
I wonder if one of those "lovely" letters trump got from Kim Jong Un included words along the lines of "I've got a copy of the pee pee tape."
Seriously. What does the leader of North Korea have on our president*??? We cancel our military exercises with South Korea, but it's okey dokey for NK to test their missiles?
"the 1977 Act, which gives the president the power to regulate commerce during exceptional international crises"
Shitty poll numbers certainly don't reach 'international crisis' levels, but...
"'Leader' of Western-capitalism, an arrogant, narcissist white male businessman getting his ass handed to him in on the world stage in an international trade war by yellow-bellied Chinese communists"
...reaches "international crisis" levels for the insecure and unstable white male superiority complex worldwide.
@safari: Yeah, well, okay, when you put it that way ...
The Pretender's latest el caudillo claim of more emergency powers to combat yet another crisis shouldn't startle or surprise. It's what has become the standard Republican Way of Governance:
Cut taxes. Create immnse debt. Decide the debt is an emergency. Go on an austerity kick when a Dem is in office.
Object to executive orders when a Dem is in the White House. Call the president a tyrant, but sign a ton of ‘em when you’re in charge (the Pretender is already signing at a 40/yr clip and he had a complicit congress for the two of his less than three years in office. Obama, whom they loved to call a dictator, averaged fewer with a Dem Congress in only two years of eight.)
Claim emergency powers to build a wall at the southern border. The emergency? Far fewer illegal border crossing than during the peak years of the early 2000’s, when yearly arrests were in the 1 million range.
Spend your first threes years in office creating an international trade crisis so you can use the turmoil you have created to justify assuming even more dictatorial powers.
As I said, no surprise. What we see here at work here are what have become the four cornertones of Republican governance:
Rank incompetence, total unwillingness to accept responsibility for anything, a yen for autocracy, all supported by a rising sea of hypocrisy.
Whyso? Because (I'm into simplicity this AM):
Self interest and democratic governance are mortal enemies. Since democratic government requires cooperation, selfish, greedy people, the kind capitalism breeds, nurtures and rewards, cannot govern in a democracy.
They can only destroy one.
Trump has been so used to bullying people his whole life and (mostly) getting away with it that he’s completely off kilter now that he’s tried to push China around and not only do they push back hard, they spit in his eye.
And unlike with Trump, who has to deal with bad press, anxious, and vocal farmers, truckers, and corporate chiefs, and a stock market that shows the entire world that there is little to no confidence in his ability to win this fight he started, purely based on ego and ignorance, the Chinese have no such concerns. They control almost everything in that country so if Xi wants to blast another mud pie at Trump’s fat face, he’ll get nothing but cheers.
The Chinese will not—can not—back down here. Trump has picked a fight with a much more unscrupulous and hard ass bully than he is and he can’t take it. He has always picked fights with weaker opponents, and even if they are in the right, he plays dirty and eventually wins because he changes the rules whenever it appears he might lose.
Not this time. And like most cowardly bullies, he has no idea how to get out of a fight gracefully.
He will be forced to back down. He will lose. But of course, he’ll declare himself the winner as he always does when he is bested.
He’s a fat, out of shape juvenile bully but this time he’s picked on an adult in great shape, with brass knuckles.
Let’s hear it for the idiot bully.
Trump has been so used to bullying people his whole life and (mostly) getting away with it that he’s completely off kilter now that he’s tried to push China around and not only do they push back hard, they spit in his eye.
And unlike with Trump, who has to deal with bad press, anxious, and vocal farmers, truckers, and corporate chiefs, and a stock market that shows the entire world that there is little to no confidence in his ability to win this fight he started, purely based on ego and ignorance, the Chinese have no such concerns. They control almost everything in that country so if Xi wants to blast another mud pie at Trump’s fat face, he’ll get nothing but cheers.
The Chinese will not—can not—back down here. Trump has picked a fight with a much more unscrupulous and hard ass bully than he is and he can’t take it. He has always picked fights with weaker opponents, and even if they are in the right, he plays dirty and eventually wins because he changes the rules whenever it appears he might lose.
Not this time. And like most cowardly bullies, he has no idea how to get out of a fight gracefully.
He will be forced to back down. He will lose. But of course, he’ll declare himself the winner as he always does when he is bested.
He’s a fat, out of shape juvenile bully but this time he’s picked on an adult in great shape, with brass knuckles.
Let’s hear it for the idiot bully.
If you have ever witnessed a wild child willfully rejecting a parental order–-screaming, throwing himself on the floor, refusing any kind of recompense, perhaps even throwing objects across the room then you are in familiar territory watching "the Chosen One" react to what he deems as negative probations.
Boo hoo bully boy––BOO HOO!!!!!! And we are paying the price.
Musing on Ken W's musings this AM:
Yes, the Republican Party is the party of greed, hate, and the big lie. It always has been, and it certainly is now. The GOP maintains no shred of ethical, moral, or prudential principle. Its actions and objectives mortally threaten the future of the US as a democracy.
This is why the D party -- as vile, feckless, stupid, and compromised as it is -- must make war, not simply upon Trump, but upon the Republican Party. I've suggested before that no D should ever refer to DJT except as 'the Republican president', because Trump is more symptom than cause. The R's single-minded determination to perpetuate minority rule cannot be defeated by pretending that there are some 'good' republicans. No such creature exists.
This is why I believe that if the Ds nominate Joe Biden they will guarantee disaster in one of two ways. Either Biden will lose, because he is not up to the task of leading the Nation in the present hour, and we'll enter the promised land of greed, hate, and the big lie; or Biden will win weakly, and his years in the Oval Office will convince the entire under-40 cohort that democracy is a failure and a waste of time. Multiple factions will resort to violence, as will the state.
I'm sure that many here will disagree. But it's for sure that the Ds will either win, or lose, the coming election (broadly understood, including State legislatures, the US Senate, etc.) It makes sense to nominate for the top of the ticket a person who is likely to be elected, but that cannot be the sole objective.
If the Rs win, they will definitely claim to have a mandate for fundamental change (minority rule, institutional bigotry against 'degenerate' and 'undesirable' groups, explicit legalization of official looting, private/criminal appropriation of the public realm, unchecked executive power, etc.) This will be a distinctly retrograde approach to the future, but they will carry it out.
Maybe a Biden candidacy could be buttressed by a program for real fundamental change that truly faces forward, looking at the future honestly, confessing the errors and failures of the past, and committing to meet the challenges we actually confront, rather than some other, easier, ones we might prefer. To me, this sounds unlikely. Some magic jackhammer or other would need to break up a lot of concrete. But I'd be interested to read others' views on this subject.
Too soon Keith. Too much could happen. R-Classic republicans could come out with a centrist challenger. Biden could gaff himself out of the race before New Hampshire. I don't think anyone can predict how the issue conversations will change if we are hit with a full-on recession. And then there is the running mate selection announcements - which have a substantial influence (e.g. Clinton choosing Gore, McCain choosing Palin, Gore choosing Lieberman, and von Clownstick choosing his evangelical lapdog).
At this point we have a bunch of candidates who have tossed up their planks on the party platform and we've got to jump up and down on them through debate and media opinion. The strong ideas will steer the process and influence the message of the remaining contenders. I'm sure Inslee really only wanted to put climate change on the top of party issues through the primary process, and it has noticeably influenced the conversation. I don't think anyone can see over the horizon until maybe after the first super primary.
Occam (Ockham, for you purists) is right more often than we probably care to acknowledge. In the case of Fatty McClownstick, trying to parse ideological, political, economic, or policy considerations is a waste of time. For Trump, ideological, economic, and policy concerns merit about the same amount of intellectual worry as does whether or not one gets the race car or the thimble in Monopoly (although truth be told, I was always a race car kinda guy, but the shoe was kinda cool too).
But for most of us, Monopoly is a game. For Trump EVERYTHING is a game. Except anything having to do with his pocketbook. Ergo his anger directed toward the “cheaters” at the Fed.
Forget theory and micro and macro economics. For Trump, what matters is “How can I increase the grift?”
So, sticking it to the Fed, for a guy who is pretty much ignorant of national and world economies, becomes much more understandable when one recognizes that all Trump really cares about is his personal bottom line.
He’s an ignorant, greedy, grasping prick.
There’s nothing deeper or more complicated than that.
“What’s best for me?” has been his most pressing concern since he was stealing lunch money from the private school kids he would threaten to beat up. And it’s still that way as president*.