;)
The Commentariat -- August 29, 2018
Late Morning Update:
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Republicans say they would like Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to appoint a successor to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who, unlike McCain, would support GOP legislation to repeal ObamaCare. Republican lawmakers say they won't have time to hold another vote to repeal the law in 2018 but vow to try again next year if they manage to keep their Senate and House majorities." Mrs. McC: If Democrats have any sense (and a few do), they'll campaign on this. See Akhilleus's commentary on this below.
Trump took a lot of executive time this morning. Besides the early morning tweets about China's hacking Hillary Clinton's e-mail server (WashPo story linked below), there was this stuff in Wednesday's Twitterstorm:
Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, will be leaving the administration this fall, President Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, leaving the president's side just as the sprawling investigation into Russian election interference could come to a conclusion. In addition to stripping the White House of another top official, Mr. McGahn's departure may fuel concerns about how the president has interacted with witnesses and potential witnesses in the Russia inquiry.
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I wonder if McGahn had to check his Twitter feed to find out he'd been canned. ...
... Update: Sure 'nuf. McGahn found out the same way & at the same time all Trump's Twitterbirds found out. Mrs. McC: Melanie had better keep an eye on her husband's Twitter account. I wouldn't put it past Trump to announce his divorce on Twitter, without mentioning it to Melanie beforehand.
... Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "This potentially puts a successor in charge of fielding a blizzard of requests or subpoenas for documents and testimony if Democrats win control of the House in the midterms. And if the White House winds up fighting special counsel Robert Mueller, an epic constitutional fight could lie ahead. We're told that Trump has not formalized a successor. But McGahn has told a confidant he would like his successor to be Emmet Flood, a Clinton administration alumnus who joined the White House in May to deal with the Russia probe. Flood also served for two years during George W. Bush's second term as his top lawyer handling congressional investigators."
Stephanie Murray of Politico: "Florida does not need a 'failed socialist mayor' as its next governor..., Donald Trump wrote online Wednesday, slamming the surprise winner of the state's Democratic primary. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum secured an upset victory in the swing state primary on Tuesday and will face off against GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis, who was endorsed by Trump, in November. Gillum, a Bernie Sanders-backed progressive, supports sanctuary cities, 'Medicare-for-all' and raising the minimum wage.... In an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' the Tallahassee mayor said he was able to win over voters by talking about issues like health care and employment, rather than bashing Trump."
Stephanie Murray: "... Donald Trump took aim Wednesday at CNN over information it reported last month that relied on anonymous sources, slamming all outlets that rely on such sources.... Trump made specific reference to a CNN story published last month with the headline 'Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting.'... That report attributed its information to unnamed 'sources with knowledge.' Lanny Davis, an attorney for [Michael] Cohen..., has since told BuzzFeed that he was a source for the CNN article and has told The Washington Post that he is no longer sure about assertions he made to CNN and other outlets. 'The fact is that many anonymous sources don't even exist. They are fiction made up by the Fake News reporters,' the president wrote on Twitter. 'Look at the lie that Fake CNN is now in. They got caught red handed! Enemy of the People!' 'When you see 'anonymous source,' stop reading the story, it is fiction!' he added in a second post." ...
... Mrs. McC: Uh, I'm pretty sure Lanny Davis does "exist." For so many reasons, I hope Mueller's team produces strong evidence Trump knew about the Junior-Russia meeting before it took place. ...
Politico: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday launched another pointed attack against Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official who has drawn intense scrutiny from Capitol Hill Republicans, asking on Twitter 'how the hell' he still has a job at the DOJ.... The message came one day after Ohr appeared behind closed doors with congressional investigators, who grilled him about the timing of his contacts with Fusion GPS, the firm that worked with former British spy Christopher Steele to create and distribute a salacious dossier about Trump's relationship with Russia." Related stories & video below.
Apropos of a comment Akhilleus made today, Irin Carmon of New York runs down the code words, phrases & Supreme Court opinions Brett Kavanaugh will likely invoke in his confirmation hearings to pretend he would not strike down Roe v. Wade.
Madeleine Aggeler of New York: "Earlier this month, Rachel Hundley, a 35-year-old woman who serves on city council in Sonoma, California, and is currently running for reelection, received an anonymous email calling for her to drop out of the race. The sender called her 'immoral and unethical,' and included a link to a now-defunct website called 'Rachel Hundley Exposed,' which featured pictures culled from Hundley's social-media profiles of her at Burning Man in her bra and underwear.... Hundley chose to respond publicly, posting a four-and-a-half minute YouTube video in which she says she will not be 'slut-shamed' into quitting."
*****
Primary Election Results:
Florida. The New York Times is updating results here. Polls closed in most of Florida at 7 pm ET, & results are coming in. Rep. Ron DeSantis, Trump's guy, has been projected to win the Republican nomination for governor. Wowza! On the Democratic side, Andrew Gillum, the Mayor of Tallahassee, & Rep. Gwen Graham are running neck-and-neck; Gillum just passed Graham for the first time tonight (@ 8:45 pm ET Tuesday). He's far more liberal than Graham, who was favored to win. At 9 pm ET, Gillum is about 2 points ahead. 9:15 pm ET: The AP has predicted Andrew Gillum will win the Democratic primary for goveror. Gov. Rick Scott (R) will challenge incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D).
Patricia Mazzei & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Florida Democrats nominated Andrew Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor, and Republicans tapped Representative Ron DeSantis for governor Tuesday, setting the stage for a hard-fought general election in the country's largest swing state between one of President Trump's most unabashed allies and an outspoken progressive who would be Florida's first black governor. Mr. Gillum's defeat of former congresswoman Gwen Graham, the front-runner, marked one of the most significant upsets of the primary season and was a major victory for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party." ...
... Steve Bousquet of the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau: "Despite being vastly outspent by his rivals, the charismatic and unabashedly liberal [Andrew] Gillum built a devoted following of progressives, many of them young and African-American, with his campaign message of social justice and lifting up poor people and appealing to Florida's growing diversity. His victory gives Florida voters a striking contrast in both style and substance with his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who has the enthusiastic support of ... Donald J. Trump. Gillum languished in the polls for most of the campaign but gained momentum in the final two weeks in a 'Bring it Home' tour across the state. He was helped by a show of support from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of several national celebrities who endorsed him, along with actress Jane Fonda, TV producer Norman Lear and former NBA star Grant Hill."
... Patricia Mazzei: "On Tuesday, Mr. Gillum, 39, became the first black nominee for Florida governor, achieving a stunning and improbable come-from-behind win over four wealthy Democratic challengers whose personal fortunes proved no match for Mr. Gillum's compelling life story and progressive message. Some Democrats worry Mr. Gillum heads into the general election untested. He polled so low for so long in the lead-up to the primary that none of his rivals seriously attacked him, despite apparent vulnerabilities."
Alex Daugherty of the Miami Herald: "Donna Shalala fended off a well-funded challenge from her left to emerge victorious in the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's seat, setting the stage for a Democrat to represent Little Havana in Washington. The 77-year-old Shalala bested state Rep. David Richardson, her closest competition for the Democratic nomination, who argued that Shalala wasn't liberal enough for a Democratic electorate angry with Donald Trump's presidency. Shalala's long career included stints as the president of the University of Miami and the Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s."
Arizona. The New York Times has primary results here. Kyrsten Sinema easily won the Democratic nomination for Senate. NBC News has predicted Martha McSally won the Republican Senate primary over two nuttier candidates, Kelli Ward & Joe Arpaio. ...
... Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, a two-term congresswoman from Tucson, defeated her Republican rivals, former state Sen. Kelli Ward of Lake Havasu City and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Fountain Hills, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State. Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who has served three terms and is from Phoenix, also defeated her rival, Deedra Abboud, a progressive activist and attorney from Scottsdale. The Associated Press called the races for McSally and Sinema.... Donald Trump ... congratulated McSally in a late-night tweet while bashing U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, who announced his retirement last fall. 'Martha McSally, running in the Arizona Primary for U.S. Senate, was endorsed by rejected Senator Jeff Flake....and turned it down -- a first! Now Martha, a great U.S. Military fighter jet pilot and highly respected member of Congress,WINS BIG. Congratulations, and on to November!'" ...
... Michelle Cottle of the New York Times: "Well, at least Sheriff Joe isn't going to Congress.... His 24-year reign of terror [as sheriff of Maricopa County] was medieval in its brutality. In addition to conducting racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions, he oversaw a jail where mistreatment of inmates was the stuff of legend. Abuses ranged from the humiliating to the lethal. He brought back chain gangs. He forced prisoners to wear pink underwear. He set up an outdoor 'tent city,' which he once referred to as a 'concentration camp,' to hold the overflow of prisoners. Inmates were beaten, fed rancid food, denied medical care (this included pregnant women) and, in at least one case, left battered on the floor to die. Indeed, many prisoners died in Mr. Arpaio's jail -- at an alarming clip. The number of inmates who hanged themselves in his facilities was far higher than in jails elsewhere in the country.... Nearly half of all inmate deaths on his watch were never explained." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Still, Arpaio got almost 89,000 votes, & counting. That means Arizona is the home of nearly 90,000 proud sadists.
Oklahoma. The NYT results are posted here. The big race is a runoff for the Republican nomination for governor. "There will be primary runoff elections in four of Oklahoma's five congressional districts.... There will also be a runoff in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor and attorney general." Kevin Stitt has won the GOP nomination for governor. ...<
... Tulsa World: "Jenks businessman Kevin Stitt raced away from former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett on Tuesday to take the Republican nomination for governor. Stitt was ahead by about 10 percentage points in early, incomplete results in the primary runoff race where he had spent $6.5 million on his campaign through Aug. 13. Stitt will face Democrat Drew Edmondson on the Nov. 6 general election ballot for governor."
*****
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump asserted early Wednesday, without citing evidence, that Hillary Clinton's emails were hacked by China, and he said the Justice Department and FBI risked losing their credibility if they did not look into the matter. Writing on Twitter, Trump alleged that much of the former secretary of state's email that was hacked contained classified information.... 'Hillary Clinton's Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps ... their credibility will be forever gone!' Trump wrote in a tweet posted shortly after midnight. Trump provided no details about the alleged hacking, but his tweets came shortly after the online publication of a story by the Daily Caller asserting that a Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington area hacked Clinton's private server while she was secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails.... In an earlier tweet Tuesday night, Trump wrote: 'Report just out: "China hacked Hillary Clinton's private Email Server." Are they sure it wasn't Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Ironically (or by design???) Russians actually hacked my computer when I first tried to link this story. The hack, which came from a site with an "ru" extension, shut down my browser & demanded I call a particular phone number if I wanted to get it going again. The audio message claimed my computer was full of "pornographic material." I had to shut down manually & restart. You might want to think twice about opening the link to Wagner's story. Just saying.
Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump, who levied extraordinary public attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions in recent weeks, has privately revived the idea of firing him in conversations with his aides and personal lawyers this month, according to three people familiar with the discussions. His attorneys concluded that they have persuaded him -- for now -- not to make such a move while the special-counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign is ongoing, the people said. But there is growing evidence that Senate Republicans, who have long cautioned Trump against firing Sessions, are now resigned to the prospect that he may do so after the November midterm elections &-- a sign that one of the last remaining walls of opposition to such a move is crumbling." ...
... Kyle Cheney & Rachel Bade of Politico: "When ... Donald Trump attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions last year, Alabama Republicans jumped to his defense, beating back the presidential incursion and sending Trump a clear signal: back off our guy. Now, as Trump reprises his public assault on the man he blames for his mounting legal woes, Sessions is getting the silent treatment from his hometown allies.... As Trump escalated his attacks on Sessions in recent days -- and signaled his desire for a new attorney general -- Alabama's leading Republican lawmakers have gone dark." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Lorraine Woellert of Politico: "Jerry Falwell Jr., a top conservative religious leader, said Monday he urged ... Donald Trump to fire Jeff Sessions over his handling of investigations into Russian election meddling, saying the attorney general has lost evangelicals' support. 'He really is not on the president's team, never was,' Falwell, the president of Liberty University, said of Sessions. 'He's wanted to be attorney general for many, many years. I have a feeling he took a gamble and supported the president because he knew he would reward loyalty.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Rudy Admits to Using Cheap Trick. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "In a new profile, the New York Times gets at a question we've all been asking for months: What on earth is Rudy Giuliani doing?... Here's the most telling part of the profile...: 'Mr. Giuliani ... quickly noted with evident satisfaction that '[Robert] Mueller is now slightly more distrusted than trusted, and Trump is a little ahead of the game. So I think we've done really well,' said the president's lawyer. 'And my client's happy.'... He's admitting that job No. 1 is to undermine the man in charge of [the investigation]. It's the end that justifies all the unholy means. It's the thing that makes him a good lawyer for his client." The New York Times story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Tuesday delayed openings in Paul Manafort's trial in the District on charges of conspiracy and money laundering by a week, to Sept. 24, after his lawyers said they need more time to prepare after just finishing Manafort's trial in Virginia. Attorneys for President Trump's former campaign chairman also said that they will ask Wednesday to move the trial to an as-yet-unnamed venue because of pretrial publicity. (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The judge overseeing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's upcoming trial plans to exclude the press and public from jury selection. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she plans to conduct individual questioning of potential jurors in the jury room with lawyers from special counsel Robert Mueller's office, the defense team and the defendant present." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Weird News: "Jonathan Dienst of NBC New York City: "Paul Manafort's one-time banker had his Manhattan penthouse burglarized overnight, a mysterious break-in that saw a briefcase, iPad and sneakers stolen from the residence, law enforcement sources familiar with the case tell News 4. David Fallarino, dubbed Manafort's 'front office banker' at Citizens Bank by the Huffington Post, told authorities he left the terrace door of his West 58th Street home open before he went to sleep Monday, the sources say. The building is nine floors, city records show.... Fallarino was one of three so-called key figures not called by Robert Mueller's office to testify at trial of the ex-Trump campaign chief...." ...
... ** Casey Michel of ThinkProgress: "Last week, the Russian media outlet Project revealed [in a contested report*] that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, now a convicted felon, had attempted to kick the American military out of the U.S.'s final Central Asian military base, located in Kyrgyzstan.... [T]he report offers a chance to re-examine a mystery that has long clouded U.S. relations with Kyrgyzstan -- specifically, ties between former American officials and the most notoriously crooked bank in Central Asia, AsiaUniversalBank (AUB).... The key to overcoming allegations of financial impropriety? Installing former American officials -- specifically onetime GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole, as well as former senator J. Bennett Johnston -- on its board.... For years, it's been a mystery how and why Dole ended up joining AUB's board. Not anymore." Read on. --*safari: I read any Russian media with giant heaps of salt, but the report linked above claims to be the first to report on Manafort working for pro-Kremlin interests in Kyrgyzstan. The details are scant.
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team continued to ask witnesses questions about Michael Cohen's involvement in the Trump campaign weeks after federal investigators raided the office and hotel room of ... Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The special counsel's investigators also asked these witnesses about whether Cohen conducted personal business while working as an employee of the Trump Organization and for insight on why he didn't get a job in the Trump White House.... Legal experts say Mueller's continued interest in Cohen suggests that he could still be a pivotal source of information for the larger probe into whether Russian operatives colluded with Trump campaign officials to interfere in the 2016 presidential election." ...
... Jim Sciutto & Carl Bernstein of CNN: "In recent days [Lanny Davis], one of Michael Cohen's lawyers has repeatedly changed his account of what Cohen knew about ... Donald Trump's involvement in a controversial meeting during the 2016 campaign.... On July 26, citing sources with knowledge, CNN was first to report that Cohen ... claimed he was willing to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower.... For more than three weeks, Davis did not raise any issues to CNN about its reporting.... When CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Davis on August 22 whether Cohen had evidence that Trump knew about the meeting beforehand, Davis said: 'At this juncture I can only say that he was present during a discussion with Junior and dad, and beyond that, his testimony to the Senate Intelligence and House Intelligence committees was accurate.'Several hours after that, Davis changed his account, this time focusing on Cohen's testimony before Congress last year.... When pressed by [CNN's Anderson] Cooper on whether Cohen had information on Trump having knowledge about the meeting ahead of time, Davis replied: 'No, there's not.'" ...
Seth Hettena in Rolling Stone: "For the past four years, [Lanny] Davis ... has served as a registered foreign agent for Dmitry Firtash, who has been fighting to avoid extradition to Chicago, where he faces charges of international racketeering and money laundering. In registering with the Justice Department as Firtash's foreign agent, Davis said his firm was being paid ... about a million dollars a year -- by a man described by prosecutors as an 'upper-echelon' associate of Russian organized crime.... Davis' client roster puts him in the same league as Paul Manafort..., who also made a living representing dictators and Ukrainian oligarchs. Perhaps it's not a surprise that Manafort ... also did business with Firtash."
Inspector Devin is on the case! I wonder if he brought his Super Detective Kit With Trench Coat and Magnifying Glass. -- Paul Waldman ...
... Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic: "Earlier this month..., [Devin Nunes,] the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was in London, seeking out new information about the former British intelligence officer and Trump-Russia dossier author Christopher Steele.... Nunes ... was investigating, among other things, Steele's own service record and whether British authorities had known about his repeated contact with a U.S. Justice Department official named Bruce Ohr.... The people familiar with his trip told me that officials at MI6, MI5, and GCHQ were wary of entertaining Nunes out of fear that he was 'trying to stir up a controversy.'... Ohr ... has known Steele since 2007, when Steele was still in MI6, according to The New York Times. With the FBI's knowledge and approval, Ohr met with Steele repeatedly from late 2016 to early 2017 to debrief him on any new intelligence he may have obtained about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia." ...
... Kyle Cheney: "Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official whose longtime relationship with former British spy Christopher Steele has drawn intense scrutiny from Capitol Hill Republicans, is facing questions Tuesday about the timing of his contacts with Fusion GPS, the firm that worked with Steele to create and disseminate his so-called dossier about... Donald Trump's relationship with Russia. Ohr, who appeared for a closed-door interview in a Capitol office building, has become the Trump allies' latest focus in their efforts to raise questions about the investigators who ran the probe into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia. As a senior Justice Department staffer, Ohr passed along Steele's information to the FBI, even after the bureau terminated its formal relationship with Steele over media leaks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "Because Trump is petty, vindictive, obsessed with conspiracy theories and usually unable to assemble facts into a logical argument in favor of what he's doing or would like to do, those who defend him most vigorously share all those traits and weaknesses.... [Mrs. McC: I couldn't find a credible report on Tuesday's interrogation of Ohr, so Waldman's best guess will do:] I'm guessing it involved Republicans such as [Mark] Meadows and [Jim] Jordan asking some ridiculous questions positing vast conspiracies, Ohr patiently explaining why those questions were absurd, then Republicans responding by shouting the same questions much louder. Republicans have fixated on Ohr, a widely respected public servant who has spent years investigating the Russian mob, because he was a contact for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.... Ohr logged all his contacts with Steele. But ... Republicans have constructed an insane fantasy in which had it not been for the Steele dossier then the FBI would never have even suspected there was anything fishy going on with regard to Trump and Russia...." Read on. Waldman shows exactly the appropriate respect for Trumpy & the Littler Trumpies...
... Rachel Maddow explains how the GOP's attacks on Bruce Ohr, Peter Strozk, etc. are eliminating America's most-experienced investigators of Russian corruption, abetting the Kremlin. --safari
Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "[P]reviously unreported emails and direct messages between [the alleged Russian spy Maria] Butina and officials at the Center show her relationship with the think tank's president -- former Richard Nixon adviser Dimitri Simes -- was closer than previously understood.... According to emails and Twitter DMs reviewed by The Daily Beast, Simes looked to use his connections with Butina and her associate, Russian Central Bank official Alexandr Torshin, to advance the business interests of one of the Center's most generous donors [Maurice 'Hank' Greenberg, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the one-time CEO of insurance and financial services giant AIG].... An attorney for the donor ... said he did nothing inappropriate. Indeed, there's no evidence that Greenberg requested the outreach or was even aware of it." --safari
** The Right Wing Media Are Far More Influential than Russian Bots. Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "... a provocative new book by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts that will be published next month [has a] simple [message]. The two [ideological] sides are not, in fact, equal when it comes to evaluating 'news' stories, or even in how they view reality. Liberals want facts; conservatives want their biases reinforced. Liberals embrace journalism; conservatives believe propaganda. In the more measured but still emphatic words of the authors, 'the right-wing media ecosystem differs categorically from the rest of the media environment,' and has been much more susceptible to 'disinformation, lies and half-truths.'... [In the 2016 election,] it was the feedback loop of right-wing quasi-journalism that had the most impact -- and that hypothesis has profound implications not only for the study of the recent past but also for predictions about the not-so-distant future."
Felicia Sonmez & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Tuesday renewed his pledge to build a border wall paid for by Mexico, prompting a sharp rebuttal from the Mexican government one day after both countries announced plans for a sweeping* new trade agreement. The offhand comments by Trump were made to reporters in the Oval Office as he met with the head of international soccer's governing body, FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The remark underscored the lingering tensions between the two allies over the president's oft-touted campaign pledge. 'Yeah, the wall will be paid for very easily, by Mexico,' Trump said when asked about plans for a wall at the southern border. 'It will ultimately be paid for by Mexico.' After footage of Trump's remarks was widely broadcast on television, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray immediately fired back, maintaining that Mexico will never agree to fund a border wall." ...
... * Mrs. McCrabbie: The new trade deal doesn't sound so "sweeping" to me.
Alan Rappeport & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "Canada’s foreign minister [Chrystia Freeland] cut short a trip to Europe and rushed to Washington on Tuesday as President Trump's top trade advisers reiterated that the United States is prepared to leave Canada out of a revised North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico. Touting the agreement with Mexico as a major win, Trump administration officials attempted to ratchet up the pressure on Canada, emphasizing the need to get a deal completed by the end of the week."
Aliza Nadi and Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "In a closed-door meeting with evangelical leaders Monday night..., Donald Trump repeated his debunked claim that he had gotten 'rid of' a law forbidding churches and charitable organizations from endorsing political candidates, according to recorded excerpts reviewed by NBC News. In fact, the law remains on the books, after efforts to kill it in Congress last year failed. But Trump cited this alleged accomplishment as one in a series of gains h has made for his conservative Christian supporters, as he warned, 'You're one election away from losing everything that you've got,' and said their opponents were 'violent people' who would overturn these gains 'violently.'" ...
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... once reporters and television cameras were ushered out of the room, Mr. Trump turned to ... how evangelical leaders can use their pulpits to help Republicans win in the midterm elections, according to an audiotape of his remarks provided to The New York Times.... Mr. Trump spent most of his private remarks to the group bragging about having gotten 'rid of' the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 provision of tax law that threatened religious organizations, like churches, with the loss of tax-exempt status if they endorse or oppose political candidates.... Eliminating the provision in the law would require Congress to act. Instead, Mr. Trump signed an executive order in May 2017 directing the Internal Revenue Service not to aggressively pursue cases where a church endorses a candidate or makes political donations. Legal experts have said the I.R.S. has very rarely pursued such cases against churches.... Mr. Trump ignored that reality Monday night. He urged religious leaders t use what he described as their newfound freedom of speech to campaign from the pulpit on behalf of Republican candidates." ...
This Nov. 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it's a referendum on your religion, it's a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment. -- Donald Trump, to evangelical leaders, Monday
... Kevin Drum: "... telling his audience that the election is a referendum on 'your religion' is refreshingly honest, since everyone knows that Trump himself has no particular religious beliefs other than 'an eye for an eye -- and then some.'... If Republicans lose, Democrats are going to overturn free speech and the First Amendment and they're going to do it 'quickly and violently'? The only reason to say something like that is to prep your supporters to become violent themselves. Be ready to take to the streets if Democrats win! I guess that's what Trump is girding his loins for."
** Fred Kaplan of Slate: "Some say last week's cancellation of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's trip to Pyongyang signaled a breakdown in the U.S.–North Korean disarmament talks, but this misses three much larger points, which go way beyond Korea and speak to the failings of President Trump's foreign policy as a whole. First, the talks were never going anywhere to begin with; there is nothing to break down. Second, the Trump administration’s policy on North Korea is in complete chaos. Third, the reason it's in chaos is that Trump himself has no idea that it is in chaos, or that the talks have been moribund from their beginning, or that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is taking him for a ride and everyone knows it, except Trump." --safari
Bart Janssen of USA Today: "... Donald Trump met twice [-- on Jan. 24 & June 15, 2018,] with government officials who decided to build a new FBI headquarters across Pennsylvania Avenue from Trump International Hotel, according to a watchdog report Monday. But the General Services Administration's inspector general said officials refused to disclose what Trump said in the meetings.... GSA revised its plans Feb. 12 to recommend razing the existing building and erecting a new facility at the site. The agency's previous plan ... had been to create a new campus in the Washington suburbs.... The report said the refusal [to disclose Trump's remarks] was based on a claim of executive privilege. But Robert Borden, GSA’s chief of staff, denied any claim of executive privilege in a written reply Aug. 10. The refusal was based on instructions not to disclose information about confidential meetings between the president and his senior advisors, Borden wrote. [Mrs. McC: Uh, that is executive privilege.] Trump's business dealings have long raised concerns among government watchdogs.... Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia said he requested the inspector-general report as the top Democrat on the House Oversight ... Committee because of concerns that changing plans would cost more. The FBI projected ... that it would cost $516 million more than estimated to build on the existing site...."
Dumb & Dumber Make up Stuff about Google. Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "President Trump attacked Google on Tuesday for what he claimed was an effort to intentionally suppress conservative views supportive of his administration, an accusation that increases pressure on technology companies grappling with their increasingly central role as purveyors of information. Mr. Trump's remarks -- an about-face from last month, when he said Google was 'one of our great companies' -- come ahead of congressional hearings next week in which executives from many of the country's largest internet companies will be questioned.... 'Google search results for "Trump News" shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media,' Mr. Trump said on Twitter at 5:24 a.m. 'In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD.'... Mr. Trump's criticism appeared to be inspired by a segment last night from Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Isaac Stanley-Becker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is 'taking a look' at whether Google and its search engine should be regulated by the government, Larry Kudlow, President Trump's economic adviser, said Tuesday outside the White House. 'We'll let you know,' Kudlow said. 'We're taking a look at it.' The announcement puts the search giant squarely in the White House's crosshairs amid wider allegations against the tech industry that it systematically discriminates against conservatives on social media and other platforms." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Greg Sargent: "Political Twitter is having fun this morning with President Trump's latest conspiracy theory: Google is rigging its results, so when you search 'Trump news,' only 'Fake' news criticism of Trump pops up, while conservative media are getting suppressed! Trump's claim is, of course, absurd: As Daniel Dale explains, this is based on a bogus right wing media claim, and all it really means is that when you google about Trump, you are likely to initially see stories from major news organizations that are legitimately reporting aggressively on Trump, rather than from conservative opinion sites& that are putting out propaganda on his behalf. But while this might seem like typical Trumpian buffoonery, at its core is some deadly serious business. These attacks on the media -- which are now spreading to extensive conspiracy-mongering about social media's role in spreading information -- form one part of an interlocking, two-piece Trumpian strategy (whether by instinct or design is unclear) that serves to underscore the urgency of this fall's elections." Read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: See also Jeff Toobin's post, linked above. It applies.
White House Staff Screws up Trumpy Spite Stunt. Shane Harris & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The White House reaffirmed Tuesday that former CIA director John Brennan has been stripped of his security clearance, after Brennan said earlier he has yet to receive formal notice about the matter. Earlier this month, President Trump announced in a statement read by his press secretary that he had revoked Brennan's clearance, citing Brennan's criticism of the administration and alleging that he had abused his position. Paperwork to formally revoke the clearance has been 'delayed,' a senior White House official said, without offering any explanation."
Nicole Lafond of TPM: "While he eventually agreed to lower the White House flag in honor of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) passing again on Monday.... President Donald Trump was resistant to the gesture because he thought McCain’s death was getting too much news coverage.... Trump thought the reporting on McCain's passing, just one day after his family announced he would stop seeking medical treatment for his brain cancer, was 'over-the-top and more befitting a president,' in WSJ's words." --safari: You see, playing president* means teevee time 24/7. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump has been attempting to manipulate the news most of his adult life. Now that he's president*, he thinks he should have the power not just to blast news media almost daily, not just to bend the Googles to favor reports opinion pieces he likes, but also to micro-edit every news outlet in the country, up to and including what they can cover & how much. Trump isn't just a whiney baby; he is actively attempting to rescind the first three guarantees of the First Amendment: freedom of religion, of speech & of the press. It's what despots do. ...
... ** Update. Dana Milbank Explains All That: "First-year students of Trumpian jurisprudence are puzzled to learn that some crimes are legal and some legal acts are criminal. This confusion comes from a textual discrepancy. The U.S. Constitution, as written, has seven articles. But Trump's Constitution has 12.... Though lower courts such as the Supreme Court ruled the 'individual mandate' in Obamacare constitutional, Trump struck it down as 'so unconstitutional.' The Constitution gives Congress the power to tax, but Trump claimed he alone can cut taxes on investors. Trump, perhaps using his Article IX authority, also determined that trade deals are 'unconstitutional' if 'there's no end date' in them. The common thread to Trumpian law: Stuff he and his allies do is legal, even if previously outlawed; stuff his opponents do is illegal, even if previously kosher. For example, Trump declared in June that polls showing him doing poorly are a form of 'suppression' and 'should be illegal.'" And so forth.
Paul Krugman: "Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a friend of mine -- an expert on international relations -- made a joke: 'Now that Eastern Europe is free from the alien ideology of Communism, it can return to its true historical path -- fascism.'... As of 2018 it hardly seems like a joke at all.... [In] Poland and Hungary, both still members of the European Union, in which democracy as we normally understand it is already dead. In both countries the ruling parties -- Law and Justice in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary -- have established regimes that maintain the forms of popular elections, but have destroyed the independence of the judiciary, suppressed freedom of the press, institutionalized large-scale corruption and effectively delegitimized dissent. The result seems likely to be one-party rule for the foreseeable future. And it could all too easily happen here.... The Republican Party is ready, even eager, to become an American version of Law and Justice or Fidesz, exploiting its current political power to lock in permanent rule." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Bernard Condon of the AP: "The Kushner family real estate company was fined $210,000 by New York City regulators on Monday following an Associated Press investigation earlier this year that showed it routinely filed false documents with the city claiming it had no rent-regulated tenants in its buildings when, in fact, it had hundreds.... The city's buildings department fined the Kushner Cos. for filing 42 false applications for construction work on more than a dozen buildings when presidential adviser Jared Kushner ran the business. The AP report showed that the false paperwork allowed the Kushners to escape extra scrutiny designed to stop landlords from using construction to make living conditions for low-paying, rent-regulated tenants unbearable and get them to leave.... Separately, a watchdog group said Monday that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has engaged in the same practice, perhaps in a more brazen way, by telling the city that buildings he owned were empty, though tax records showed they were filled with tenants, many rent-regulated." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm shocked to learn that Jared is a lying, cheating scum who purposely made life unpleasant for his low-rent tenants. I wonder where he got that idea.
All the Best People, Ctd. Rosie Gray of the Atlantic: "Recent developments have shed light on previously unknown connections between white nationalist activists and the Trump administration. Now, the Department of Homeland Security has denounced 'all forms of violent extremism' following the resignation of a policy analyst [Ian Smith] who had connections with white nationalists, according to leaked emails obtained by The Atlantic.... [Smith] was a policy analyst working on immigration. He used to work for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, an anti-immigration legal organization associated with the right-wing Federation for American Immigration Reform." ...
Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "Kelly Sadler was forced out of her gig as a communications official after she infamously said that Team Trump didn't have to worry about McCain opposing Trump's CIA nominee Gina Haspel because, as she reportedly put it, 'he's dying anyway.' Since then, few former colleagues have heard from her and none seem to know what she's doing professionally.... But her disappearance has not been because she's now persona non grata in the administration. In fact, Sadler was offered help at securing another Trump administration gig after her White House departure; she just had no interest in taking it. 'They gave her that option but she told them to fuck off,' a former colleague recalled." --safari
Joshua Hoyos of ABC News: "Puerto Rico had a significant increase in deaths following Hurricane Maria in 2017, according to a new study. Researchers determined that an additional 2,975 people died from September 2017 through the end of February 2018 due to the hurricane. The independent study, from George Washington University's Milken School of Public Health, was commissioned by the Puerto Rican government.... Donald Trump visited the island in the days following the storm. 'If you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died ... 16 people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people,' he said. Hurricane Katrina claimed over 1,800 lives, according to the National Hurricane Center.... The GWU report also offered a blistering criticism of [Gov. Ricardo] Rossello and his government, saying there was 'inadequate preparedness and personnel training for crisis and emergency risk communication.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Congressional Race. Michael Tackett of the New York Times: "A former C.I.A. officer running for Congress accused a super PAC aligned with Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Tuesday of improperly obtaining her entire federal security clearance application -- a highly sensitive document containing extensive personal information -- and then using it for political purposes. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate challenging Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Corry Bliss, the executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has raised more than $100 million to help Republicans in the midterm elections. She demanded that the super PAC destroy all copies of the form and agree to not use the information in any fashion.... The super PAC released a statement on Tuesday strongly denying Ms. Spanberger's charge, saying that the document was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the United States Postal Service by America Rising, a separate Republican-aligned research firm.... A lawyer for Ms. Spanberger's campaign, said that explanation, which laid the mistake on the Postal Service, did not ring true. 'In this unredacted form, this is not a document that the government can provide under the Privacy Act,' he said. Ms. Spanberger, 39, said in the letter that she had 'clear evidence' that the Congressional Leadership Fund had provided a copy of her security clearance application to 'at least one news outlet.'..."
Zaid Jilani of The Intercept: "Across the country, teachers have been getting heavily involved in Republican primaries to change the party's stance on public education from within, and their successes suggest that Republican incumbents ignore the concerns of educators at their own risk." Includes a few examples. --safari
Judicial Trolling. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "On Monday, a three-judge federal court held that North Carolina's congressional maps are an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. Judge James Wynn's opinion for two of the three judges on this panel is a masterpiece of trolling. Wynn cites Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion in NIFLA four times. He constructs much of his opinion through citations to conservative campaign finance decisions such as Citizens United v. FEC. He even quotes two opinions by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Will Wynn's opinion survive an appeal to the Supreme Court? Not if Kavanaugh is confirmed! But Wynn appears determined to expose the Court's Republicans as a bunch of partisan hacks if they do reverse his decision." --safari
Beyond the Beltway
Darryl Fears & Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: A "monster algal bloom span[s] the southern Gulf Coast [of Florida]. It is killing untold numbers of marine animals from Bradenton to Naples, where rotting fish still lay scattered on a beach behind Gov. Rick Scott's seaside mansion, even after a cleanup. As the outbreak nears the year mark, with no sign of easing, it's no longer a threat to just marine life. Business owners in the hardest-hit counties report they have lost nearly $90 million and have laid off about 300 workers because of the red tide and a separate freshwater algal bloom in the state's largest lake. Together, the two blooms have caused a sharp drop in tourism." Many human victims are blaming Rick Scott, who cut millions of dollars & hundreds of employees from water management districts. Scott is the GOP nominee for Sen. Bill Nelson's seat. Nelson (D) is seeking re-election.
Way Beyond
Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "Drivers in Europe have paid €150bn more on fuel than they would have if their vehicles had performed as well on-the-road as in official laboratory-based tests, according to a new report. Car companies have legally gamed official tests of fuel economy for many years.... The gap between test and actual performance has soared from 9% in 2000 to 42% today." --safari
Share Article
Reader Comments (23)
Before I embark on today's news I have got to say, Marie, what a kick to see your "red pencil" corrective on the NYT's story on Aretha's "lie in"––-started off my morning with a great big smile. Lay lady lay.....
@PD Pepe: Yeah, the copy editor on that piece gets $10 deducted from her paycheck this week.
A heavily fried meal is easier to digest than much of the news here, although the voting results show promise, especially the beautifully constructed Gillum campaign video. Listening to this man brought a few tears–-doesn't take much these days––his emphasis on education is so crucial––it saved his life and he has done so much with that life.
But then we read this from Krugman:
" The result seems likely to be one-party rule[in Hungary and Poland] for the foreseeable future. And it could all too easily happen here.... The Republican Party is ready, even eager, to become an American version of Law and Justice or Fidesz, exploiting its current political power to lock in permanent rule."
Not that we haven't bandied that around before but it becomes more of a possibility when we see what Trump and his crew are trying to do. We can no longer snicker saying, as some have, "oh well, that's Trump for ya–-he jest loves to upset the apple cart." Such jolly retorts.
Which brings me to safari's link to ThinkProgress' piece on Judge James Wynn's opinion on Gerrymandering. TP's opinion in the end is that it appears Wynn is determined to expose the S.C's Republicans as "a bunch of partisan hacks" if they reverse his decision. Now that, my friends, are words enough to curl your hair.
And curling hair on the Donald head is getting thiner and thiner. His tiny heart, squeezed to the limit, simply could not open up to the coverage of McCain. Such heartlessness––and will he address the death toll in P.R.? Will you punk?
Tea Leaves
Historians have the luxury of pointing to what should have been, in hindsight, obvious signs of coming disasters, like how the captain of the Titanic should have realized that having a dickhead like owner J. Bruce Ismay on board during the maiden voyage, pushing for speed records through an ice field in the North Atlantic--at NIGHT--probably wasn't the best idea.
There's a scene in the Godfather part II in which Michael Corleone, traveling to Havana, sees a Castro supporter blow himself up in the streets rather than be arrested by Batista's goons. He brings this up in a meeting of Mafia leaders as a potentially bad sign, but no one listens. Next scene, revolution.
My sign of the day is a number and it comes courtesy of Marie's comment about the Arizona election. The number is 88, 819. That's the number of people in Arizona who voted for murdering, racist, Nazi, Trump-loving scum Joe Arpaio.
Almost 20% of the votes in that race went to this criminal, a criminal who promised to raise up the white race over the mongrel hordes, who doesn't give a shit about law and order as long as can put his boot on the necks of non-whites, and keep it there.
This is becoming the death by a thousand cuts, and it's been going on for some time. But Democrats are la-di-da-ing it all the way to impotence and obscurity.
Krugman pointed out yesterday that Confederates are working hard, day and night, at all levels, federal, state, local, right down to fucking boards of zoning appeals and dog catchers, to steal and maintain control, and then to deny their enemies the right to vote, by hook or by crook (mostly crook). And pretty soon, the court of last resort, the SCOTUS will be nothing more than a Potemkin court, a joke, a reality TV show trial affair with less proper jurisprudence than you'd get from Judge Judy.
Meanwhile the traitor McConnell, grinning his Cheshire Cat grin up in the tree is getting Arpaio-like judges appointed faster than Young Jared can print out illegal construction permits. McConnell put these confirmations on a fast-track and what did Democrats do?
"Oh well, oooooh-kaaaay, if we have to..."
"Democratic leaders came under fire from party activists for consenting to fast-track votes when they had the ability to force procedural votes and slow down the confirmations.
'Mitch McConnell is in the middle of stealing the federal courts for conservatives, and Democrats continue to bring a butter knife to a gunfight,' said Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive judicial group Demand Justice and a former spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. 'It is hard to think of a more pathetic surrender heading into the Kavanaugh hearings.'"
Butter knife to a gun fight. That says it all. What should they be doing? Pulling out every trick in the book. Stall, stall, stall, make it a crawl through barbed wire for every single one of Trump's Nazi judges.
And don't think Confederate machers aren't taking notice of Andrew Gillum's suprise win in Florida. The fact that he seems to have energized a base of young black voters will only spur wingers who control the majority of states along with the all the voting apparatuses and rules therein to throw up all the roadblocks they can get their filthy hands on to keep blacks--and Democrats--from voting.
These people are like viruses. They test out their poison on a block of cells. If those cells have a strong enough immune system, they mutate and try again somewhere else until they develop a strain that can kill on contact. That scheme wingers had in Georgia of closing seven polling places in black districts may have been too heavy handed, but they must think it was a great idea. Look for that particular virus to have a little cosmetic work done on it and resurface somewhere else with new and improved ways to deny Americans the ability to vote.
Gerrymandering is ridiculously widespread. And once Kavanaugh gets on the court, every contested district in states controlled by Confederates will get the Rorschach test makeover.
Meanwhile Democrats are still doing the Hillary v Bernie tango.
This is bad, people. Shit is happening right under our noses, these people are getting away with murder and tacking so far right, if the world actually were flat, they'd have steamed past China and fallen off years ago. But too many Democrats are still pretending to be "moderates".
This morning I heard (as much as I could listen to) that execrable creep, the racist and gay bashing pastor Robert Jeffress, on NPR, talking about how he loves him some Trumpy because the little dictator will appoint the farthest of far right rubbers stamps to the courts (the ones McConnell is racing through, with help from Democrats(!)) and there's no sense that compromise has to play a role in any of their evil calculations, because fuck that. They don't compromise.
Compromise is for Democrats.
So is extinction.
Case in point...
Confederates are all about taking care of Confederate business. They don't stand on no ceremony, that's for sure.
McCain isn't even in the ground and they're already giddily planning to hold another Fuck the Poor vote to demolish the ACA, which McCain disallowed last time they tried that trick.
But now McCain is dead. And the R's are dancing in the streets.
"Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he hopes the next senator from Arizona will be a 'strong ally [read: amoral rubber stamp] who 'recognizes that ObamaCare is not a proper solution.' [i.e., we ain't gonna put up with no health care for poors and middle class moochers put together by some nigger].
'It hasn’t worked. It’s created a lot of harm and damage to real people,' [meaning it has annoyed assholes like himself to no end] he added.
A senior Senate GOP aide said the chamber would 'absolutely' vote again to repeal ObamaCare..."
They are all about control. And they will not stop.
@Akhilleus: There's one more Democrat in the Senate now than there was when McCain cast his vote (Doug Jones). If Murkowski & Collins hold the line (and there's no guarantee they will) & Democrats stick it out, the GOP's plan to rob millions more of health insurance will be just a GOP wet dream, thanks to pedophile Roy Moore.
Ron DeSantis cut right to the chase, said that Florida would "monkey this up" if it elects Gillum.
You can take the cracker out of the ... wait, no you can't, DeSantis doesn't sound like a cracker name, he must be one of those imported racists, or just acting like one.
Marie,
I'm not overly sanguine about Murkowski and Collins. Collins met with BlowJob Kavanaugh and came away thrilled because he blew a few smoke rings up her ass about how Roe is "settled law". Yeah, for Kavanaugh that means "settled on the bottom of the ocean, if I can help it". And without McCain to provide a little cover, maybe they decide to bend a little more to the right. I'm not taking anything for granted these days.
Maybe they don't need McCain to screw their courage to the sticking place, but McConnell and his fellow crooks will have time to work them over pretty good between now and whenever the next Kill the ACA vote takes place.
But hey, maybe we take back the Senate and do a little working over of our own.
Gotta hold on to some tiny shred of optimism, don't we?
@Patrick: DeSantis also called Gillum "articulate," an adjective Joe Biden used to describe Barack Obama when Biden announced his 2008 presidential bid. Biden's racist "compliments" got him in trouble. DeSantis is borrowing from that playbook: isn't it a-mazing that a Nee-gro can speak white English in complete white-English sentences?
My guess is there will hardly be a day between now & November 6 when DeSantis won't point out that with feigned admiration that Gillum is an articulate African-American, albeit, as DeSantis said on Fox "News," for "far-left views."
@Akhilleus: Yeah, I belong to the "tiny shred of optimism" club. According to the Hill, Republicans won't try this stunt before the new Congress is sworn in, but I'd be surprised if they don't try it during the lame-duck session.
If they can't get the votes in the Senate during the lame-duck period, and if Democrats take the House, Obamacare is safe for two years from everything except what Trump can do to it, and he's doing his damnedest to destroy it.
I wonder, is there any person from Trump's WH staff on day one that is still there?
On another matter. As I look at each days news, it appears to me that Homo sapiens consists of two subgroups. One group feels part of the entire species and another group believes that they are part of a special subspecies, one that looks and acts as they do. For them, the remainder of H. sapiens are worthless crap.
Taking by Giving
I've been reading about a book by Anand Giridharadas, a former New York Times columnist, "Winners Take All", in which he takes a magnifying glass (and a fumigator) to American philanthropy.
Thinking about things like naming rights, he wonders "'...why are we sitting in the Koch building? Why is this event funded by Monsanto, and by Pepsi, which seems to be changing the world by fattening kids? Why is Goldman Sachs a sponsor of our annual summer retreat?' The reality of the world outside kept getting worse and worse, and the people in the fellowship, and the sponsors, seemed to be the very people sucking most of the juice of progress. What I started to realize was that giving had become the wingman of taking. Generosity had become the wingman of injustice. 'Changing the world' had become the wingman of rigging the system."
This is from an article a few days ago on the NY Mag site. This morning he was on NPR and had this
to say about market-based philanthropic solutions:
"There's this idea that has taken hold in our time, which is the idea of the win-win. And win-win sounds great, right? A win-win is the idea that essentially, the winners can profit while helping other people. They can do well by doing good. Doing well by doing good has become the mantra of so many elites in our time. What this often ends up meaning in practice is that social change that offers a kickback to the winners is favored, and forms of social change that don't are not."
The idea being that philanthropists (not all, but plenty) choose "solutions" that don't change THEIR world. They can take credit for certain ideas while not endangering their own status or bank account (see Zuckerberg, Mark who says, "Well, geez, sorry about that Russian hacking stuff that put Trump in the White House. We'll get right on it. Just so long as it doesn't affect me...").
And then we get to Trump:
"One of the most disturbing things to me in reporting this book is: I started to realize that a lot of Donald Trump's language and intellectual moves, if that is not an exaggeration, actually took root in the so-called philanthro-capitalists of the last generation. So when President Trump says 'only I can fix it,' that idea doesn't start with him. That's actually something that has been pushed by these private-sector change agents for years, [that] they are especially capable of solving social problems. When Donald Trump says, 'Yeah, yeah, I manufactured stuff in China and Mexico, but that's going to help me figure out how to make sure that never happens again,' again, that is a move that America's plutocrats have been making for a long time. 'The arsonists are the best firefighters.'"
Except some arsonists (Trump) don't bother with the firefighting part.
He also has a few observations about how liberals helped pave the way from the little dictator.
Re: the ACA repeal
The only thing more irresponsible than Republican hacks even bringing up another swing at imploding the health insurance market, is the fact that the GOP still, to this day, approaching a fucking DECADE later (8 years), have no fucking clue what to replace it with, besides, well, predatory shitsurance. Even with the wonkiest wonk, boy genius of conservative policy visions, Lyin' Paul Ryan on their side, or the grand wizard of legislative slights Mitch McConnell.
The GOP has outsourced all of its political party operations to the highest bidder, and now the best policy-making brain trust they have in their corner is ALEC. It's a party of empty suits knee-capping its way across the nation and nickle-and-diming the poor souls that don't donate enough to keep the racket churning. They're all unabashedly Mick "the grinch" Mulvaney now: if you don't put money in my coffers, your existence serves only for my exploitation.
@Akhilleus: "Charitable giving" is essentially a wealth redistribution mechanism. When you & I do it, we're taking money out of our own pockets & redistributing it to some group we think needs the money more than we do. When the ultra-rich do it, they're taking from you & me (because we "gave" them all that wealth), then giving "our money" to some group they decide merits help, especially if the group gives them "credit" for it: naming a building after them, putting their names on a plaque, whatever.
"Margaret Byington, author of a study of steel-town life, wrote of her interviews with [Andrew] Carnegie's workers, 'Many a man said to me, "We'd rather they hadn't cut our wages and let us spend the money for ourselves. What use has a man who works twelve hours a day for a library, anyway?'" (Margaret Byington, Homestead: The Households of Mill Town)."
@Bea: I sent you a link to an advertisement I received about
signing up for TrumpCare. I didn't have time to follow through
on it as the process seemed to go on and on.
Look for TrumpBot racist goobernatorial candidate DeSantis to do his first general election campaign video planted in a watermelon patch talking about all the things Floridians don't need.
His next live interview with Fox will be shot with him standing in front of a chain gang that just happens to be all black.
After that, he might do a few fundraisers with George Zimmerman.
No racism here, just coincidences. He's not trying to jigger anything. Oops, how did that white hood get here? Put that away until our meeting with the Aryan Brotherhood in the governor's office.
We can bellyache all we want (I mean, not me; I never do that...) about how disgustingly awful the other side is, and how on a regular basis they simply cast all dignity, decorum, decency, and truth aside in their never ending quest to rule over the rest of us, bury the country under untraceable firearms, shove Jesus down our throats, put pesky women back in the kitchen and the bedroom (just for procreation, though, wink-wink), black people back in chains, and brown people back in orchards working for ten cents a week prior to being deported.
The truth is, if everyone who is not cool with racism, hatred, economic inequality on a galactic scale, crony capitalism, theocracy, and gun deaths that equal a bad night in Baghdad, went out and voted, there'd be no problem. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. This is a big reason they work so hard to screw with elections and deny voting rights (all the way up to and including their Supreme Court Jesters).
Democrats need to get their messaging straight (which, admittedly is more difficult than Confederates whose message is simple "We lose, They Kill Us All. And Outlaw Jesus." Democrats tend to want to talk more about issues--but forget identity politics for the nonce. Bread and butter, healthcare, jobs, actual education as opposed to Schools by DeVos-on-the-Sauce). But more importantly, they need to get out the vote.
Beating the criminals, creeps, white supremacists, haters, gun knobbers, misogynists, and Bible bangers is as simple as filling in the little blocks under DEMOCRAT.
Okay, just one more thing.
Confederates are steaming at the suggestion that a congressional office building be renamed to reflect the service of John McCain. The Russell building, named for a white supremacist from Georgia, cannot under any circumstances be renamed. Trump would have bird (as my aunt used to say). What would his KKK pals say?
So the Turtle has decided, so as not to piss off the petulant child in the Oval Oafice, to rename a room after McCain instead. Room or building, room or building? Okay. Room. Mighty white of him, eh? I'm not sure but I think it might be a men's room. It's supposed to be a committee room, but I wouldn't put anything past these assholes.
@Akhilleus: "Goobernatorial" might be your best word yet.
I have not seen anything in print to help me with this:
Hope Hicks goes to talk with Mueller, and then she quits the WH.
D. McGahn goes to talk with Mueller and then he quits the WH.
Is Mueller telling them something we don't know about?
Somehow I think these two "exits" are related. I'm not sure why.
(and I'm not thinking about conspiracies). Anyone have a hypothesis?
@Akhilleus: Goobernatorial. I will try to submit that to the
Urban Dictionary, with your permission, of course.
A person running for office in the peanut state.
@forrest morris: Ha! Thought you were kidding. Thanks a lot! I'll bet those TrumpCare deals -- good even if I missed the open enrollment deadline! -- are great! As long as I don't get sick or hit by a car.
Word of advice: click on that "unsubscribe" link.
According to the Pretender, it's all fake news, every bit of it.
Complaining about the CNN report a week of so back that Cohen had information about the Pretender's foreknowledge of his tower's infamous meeting, he told us to believe nothing that's sourced to "anonymous."
OK, a little skepticism never hurts. But can I believe something the Pretender himself said that's clearly on tape? Apparently not. Never said that, he says.
Turns out that's fake news, too. All of it.
The whole thing is quite a puzzle.