;)
The Commentariat -- December 11, 2017
Late Morning Update:
Dan Merica of CNN: "A group of women who have publicly accused ... Donald Trump of sexual harassment and assault will detail their accounts of being groped, fondled and forcibly kissed by the businessman-turned-politician at a news conference on Monday. The women, according to the group organizing the event, will call on Congress to investigate accusations of sexual misconduct against the President." ...
... The Washington Post is carrying the press conference on its front page @ 11 am ET.
Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Former President Barack Obama is adding his voice to the Alabama Senate race, imploring voters to go to the polls Tuesday to reject the candidacy of Roy Moore as part of an aggressive effort by Democrats to try and counter ... Donald Trump's full-throated endorsement of the controversial Republican candidate. 'This one's serious,' Obama says in the call. 'You can't sit it out.' Two Democratic officials familiar with the Alabama race tell CNN that Obama recorded the phone message in recent days, at the very time Trump stepped up his own involvement in the campaign with a recorded message. Obama does not mention Moore by name. 'Doug Jones is a fighter for equality, for progress,' Obama says. 'Doug will be our champion for justice.....'" ...
... Eliana Jackson & Alex Isenstadt of Politico write on how Trump & the RNC came to publicly support Roy Moore. One tidbit: the two guys who talked Ronna Romney McDaniel into backing Moore: John Kelly & Bill Stepien. Stepien is such a jackass Chris Christie fired him; (oh, & he had an affair with Bridget Anne Kelly, the woman convicted in the Bridgegate scandal). Kelly, as we found in his refusal to acknowledge or apologize for his untrue attacks on Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), is a horrible human being.
William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "An explosion Monday morning caused the authorities to evacuate one of the busiest transit hubs in New York City.... The Police Department said in a tweet that it was responding to reports of an explosion of unknown origin at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue, where two subway stations, Times Square and Port Authority, are connected by a tunnel. The Port Authority bus station was also evacuated.... One person was in custody, the Police Department said. A senior city official ... said that the suspect had been wearing an explosive device strapped to his person and that the police had stripped him naked to remove it. The suspect was alone and the device was reported to have gone off prematurely in the passageway between the two subway stations. The explosion was recorded on surveillance video.... The man who was in custody was in serious condition at Bellevue Hospital." This is a developing story. The WashPo had a very preliminary story up a few hours ago, with no details. ...
... Tom Winter, et al., of NBC News: "The suspect in a terror-related attack in New York City has been identified as Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant who lives in Brooklyn."
Jill Disis of CNN: "Celebrity chef Mario Batali is stepping away from his restaurant business and ABC television show amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Batali said in a statement to CNNMoney that he is 'deeply sorry' for any pain or humiliation he has caused."
*****
NEW. Eighteen Days in Winter. Carole Lee & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller is trying to piece together what happened inside the White House over a critical 18-day period that began when senior officials were told that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was susceptible to blackmail by Russia, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The questions about what happened between Jan. 26 and Flynn's firing on Feb. 13 appear to relate to possible obstruction of justice by ... Donald Trump, say two people familiar with Mueller's investigation into Russia's election meddling and potential collusion with the Trump campaign." ...
... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday the evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia is 'pretty damning.' 'The Russians offered help. The campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help. And the president made full use of that help,' Schiff said during an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'And that's pretty damning, whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy or not,' he continued. Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a probe into possible Russian election hacking, said people need to look at the 'pattern of chronology.'" ...
There are powerful forces in Washington trying to sabotage our movement. These are bad people, these are very, very bad and evil people.... But you know what, we're stopping them. You're seeing that right now. -- Donald Trump, at a rally for Roy Moore, Friday ...
... E.J. Dionne: "Our democratic republic is in far more danger than it was even a few weeks ago. Until this point, there was an underlying faith in much of the political world that if Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian collusion in the election turned up unmistakably damning material about Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress would feel obligated by their commitment to the country's well-being to accept Mueller's findings and challenge the president.... But we learned last week that Republicans are deepening their complicity in derailing Mueller's investigation and burying the facts. The more Mueller imperils Trump, the more McCarthyite the GOP becomes. The apotheosis of Republican congressional collusion with Trump's efforts to hang on at all costs came at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee." ...
... OR, There's This. Daniel Politi of Slate: "The winners of the Nobel Peace Prize warned that a nuclear war that could devastate the planet was closer to being a reality than most realized. Beatrice Fihn, who is the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), accepted the award in the group's name and warned that the total destruction of humanity could be one 'impulsive tantrum away.' Speaking at the awards ceremony in Oslo, Fihn left little doubt about who she was referring to when she noted that 'a moment of panic or carelessness, a misconstrued comment or bruised ego could easily lead us unavoidably to the destruction of entire cities.' That is why, Fihn noted, the only way to assure that it won't happen is to get rid of nuclear weapons entirely."
The Pollution Presidency. Eric Lipton & Danielle Ivory of the New York Times: "An analysis of [EPA] enforcement data by The New York Times shows that the [Trump-Pruitt] administration has adopted a more lenient approach than the previous two administrations -- Democratic and Republican -- toward polluters.... The Times built a database of civil cases filed at the E.P.A. during the Trump, Obama and Bush administrations. During the first nine months under Mr. Pruitt's leadership, the E.P.A. started about 1,900 cases, about one-third fewer than the number under President Barack Obama's first E.P.A. director and about one-quarter fewer than under President George W. Bush's over the same time period. In addition, the agency sought civil penalties of about $50.4 million from polluters for cases initiated under Mr. Trump. Adjusted for inflation, that is about 39 percent of what the Obama administration sought and about 70 percent of what the Bush administration sought over the same time period." ...
... Chas Danner of New York: "Since Donald Trump became president, the Environmental Protection Agency has been doing a lot less to target polluters than the previous two administrations, according to a new analysis of EPA enforcement data and confidential internal documents by the New York Times... [Scott] Pruitt says he is no ally to polluters and that they will not be allowed to run amok as the Trump administration rolls back regulations across the government. The data in the Times analysis seems to indicate otherwise." --safari: More bald-faced lies from Trump's henchmen. Par for the course.
Nick Turse of The Intercept: "What did officials at U.S. Africa Command know about the fate of Sgt. La David Johnson, and when did they know it?... Despite an enormous amount of attention on the killings ... the Pentagon has refused to officially say what happened to Johnson.... Reporting by The Intercept reveals, however, that the day after Johnson was separated from his Special Forces Unit, officials at the headquarters of Africa Command apparently said he was alive.... The U.S. military's statements about the attack have changed over time, and even the nature of the mission remains unclear." --safari
#YouTooDonald. Michael Shear & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that women who have accused President Trump of sexual misconduct 'should be heard,' a surprising break from the administration's longstanding assertion that the allegations are false and that voters rightly dismissed them when they elected Mr. Trump.... Her remarks are the latest indication that the president's behavior toward women -- more than a dozen have accused him of unwanted touching, forcible kissing or groping -- may not escape renewed scrutiny at a time when an array of powerful men have had their careers derailed because of their improper treatment of women, some of which took place decades ago." ...
... "Merry Christmas, Everybody." David of Crooks & Liars: "One of the Trump administration's top diplomats, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, wished CNN host Jake Tapper a 'Merry Christmas' on Sunday -- even though he is Jewish. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This is the biggest downside to saying "Merry Christmas" to people you don't know or don't know well. It forces you to make snap decisions about a stranger's faith, & that thought process itself discriminatory. Like Haley, I've never given an iota of thought to Tapper's religious heritage, & why should we? In the context in which we "know" him, he's a secular figure. Since most working people get a day off on Christmas or thereabouts, "Happy Holidays," or other generic greetings & well-wishes are appropriate in most cases. Very often, "Merry Christmas" is not. If I know someone is a practicing Christian, I do say, "Merry Christmas" or something like it. But not to anyone else.
... Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker: Last week, during a White House briefing, a reporter asked Sarah Sanders, 'Does Donald Trump ... agree with Roy Moore that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress?' 'I haven't asked him about a past statement from Roy Moore,' Sanders said. Her answer just about summarizes the nihilism of Trump's Washington, where, when questioned whether the President would ban a religious group from Capitol Hill, his spokeswoman won't say for sure without checking.... Each day dawns with a possibility that Trump will disgrace the Presidency more than he already has, whether he is insulting Native Americans or mangling relationships with our most trusted allies.... [But Trump has acted with his party's cooperation.] If the [Republican] Party is willing to give its money and its credibility to protect a candidate accused of molesting teen-agers, what might it talk itself into doing to protect the President?" ...
... ** Charles Blow: "If Alabama voters on Tuesday elect Roy Moore to the Senate, the Donald Trump-diseased party once known as the Republicans may as well call themselves Roypublicans.... Trump was the gateway to the Roypublicans.... Republicans have surrendered the moral high ground they thought they held, and have dived face-first into the sewer. The Trump agenda is the Republican agenda: hostility to women and minorities, white supremacy and white nationalism, xenophobia, protectionist trade policies, tax policies that punish the poor and working class and people living in blue states. Trump is a white man on a white stallion fighting to preserve white culture and white power. People who support this point of view and cheer the Trump charade forgave his failings because they believed so deeply in his mission." ...
... Senate Race
** Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore appeared on a conspiracy-driven radio show twice in 2011, where he told the hosts in an interview that getting rid of constitutional amendments after the Tenth Amendment would 'eliminate many problems' in the way the US government is structured." At the prodding of the host, Moore criticized the 14th Amendment, which addresses the rights of citizens, including due process & equal protection. "The danger in the 14th Amendment, which was to restrict, it has been a restriction on the states using the first Ten Amendments by and through the 14th Amendment. To restrict the states from doing something that the federal government was restricted from doing and allowing the federal government to do something which the first Ten Amendments prevented them from doing," he said. Read on....
...David Ferguson of RawStory: "In a 2011 radio interview, ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore revealed that he fervently wants to move the U.S. back to the 40s -- the 1840s.... There are 27 Amendments to the Constitution, the last of which passed in 1992. Among the Amendments Moore would happily do away with are the 13th and 14th Amendments, which abolished slavery and established equal representation. The 19th Amendment gave U.S. women the right to vote." --safari...
... Cameron Joseph of TPM: "A national Democratic group is putting out a 'predator alert' on Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore to try and convince Republican women to vote against the accused child molester on Tuesday. American Bridge is launching a last-minute digital ad that begins with the sound of an emergency alert -- and only gets darker from there." --safari...
Alex Isenstadt & Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "In the last weekend of Alabama's wild special Senate election, Doug Jones barnstormed the state with A-list Democrats in a bid to turn out black voters he desperately needs to win in the deep-red state. Republican Roy Moore disappeared." It appears he went to Philadelphia to watch the Army-Navy football game, but his campaign would not say.
Rosalind Helderman & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Sen. Richard C. Shelby, who serves as Alabama's senior senator, said repeatedly Sunday that the state's fellow Republicans can 'do better' than Roy Moore.... Shelby has previously said he was not supporting Moore, but his words on CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday offered a fresh denunciation of his party's nominee.... 'I didn't vote for Roy Moore,' Shelby said. 'I wouldn't vote for Roy Moore. I think the Republican Party can do better.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, Donald. Looks as if the WashPo refused to take your advice to fire Dave Weigel.
Charles Bethea of the New Yorker interviews Doug Jones -- you know, the guy running for the vacated Alabama Senate seat who is actually qualified for the job.
** Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "Is Donald Trump about to turn America into Kansas? It's a question some worried people who live in the state are asking as the Republican party pushes through the biggest tax overhaul in a generation -- an overhaul that, they claim, bears an uncanny resemblance to a tax plan that left their midwestern home in disarray.... The plan would provide a 'shot of adrenaline' to the Kansas economy, [Governor Sam] Brownback claimed. Instead, the state's revenues collapsed. Rich people who had been paying high taxes became 'pass-through entities'. The state's coffers emptied and the promised economic miracle failed to materialize." --safari ...
... Dominic Rushe (May 15): "The plan's similarity to the one that has left Kansas in crisis is 'unbelievable', according to Duane Goossen, the former Kansas secretary of administration.... Campaigning for re-election in 2014, Brownback pledged his tax plans would add 100,000 new jobs over four years. By March this year, the state had added just 12,400 private-sector jobs.... The prop of the Brownback plan, as with Trump's, was a huge cut to taxes paid by limited liability companies (LLCs) -- and so-called 'pass-through' businesses -- which meant independent business owners would pay no state tax on the bulk, if not all, of their income.... At the time, Kansas had about 190,000 LLCs. Now it has about 300,000, but so far they have not spurred a new hiring drive in the state." --safari...
... Oliver Gilman in Mother Jones: "For tribal people in northern Alaska, a Republican tax overhaul that was hastily cobbled together in congressional backrooms 3,000 miles away has raised fears that their entire way of life could be erased from this frigid corner of the US. The Senate's tax bill may land a decisive blow in a 30-year environmental battle over the Arctic national wildlife refuge, a vast untrammeled area hailed as America's Serengeti by conservationists, by finally prising open the wilderness to oil and gas drilling. The region's Gwich' in people fret that their primary food source, caribou, may be lost, and with it the future of the tribe itself." --safari: More reason for bigoted assholes to pass the plan. ...
... Killing Them Softly with Their Tax Bill. Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The House tax bill would eliminate the [medical] deduction, while the Senate bill would keep it (and even make it a bit more generous). It's a key difference that must be reconciled before the final legislation goes to President Trump.... In 2015, 8.8 million Americans used the deduction. Over half were older than 65, according to AARP.... Trump promised that the middle class would be better off under his plan, but scrapping this deduction hits some in that group. Nearly 70 percent of the people claiming the deduction made $75,000 or less, according to AARP. 'This isn't a high-income deduction,' says Cristina Martin Firvida, director of financial security and consumer affairs at AARP...."
Josh Marshall of TPM: "Sen. Lindsey Graham has oscillated between being a fierce Trump critic to being increasingly supportive of the President. But he now seems to have moved firmly into the Trump loyalist camp.... [Graham] is asking for a Special Counsel to reinvestigate Clinton's private server, the Uranium One story, which is completely ludicrous, and anti-GOP bias at the FBI, which is not only factually nonsensical but seems intended to lay the groundwork for ideological purges of the primary national law enforcement agency which already has a very Republican-leaning political culture.... Why he would now swing so hard and so totally in a Trumpite direction is, frankly, not clear to me. He's up for reelection again in 2020, which is a ways off.... There's some story here." --safari
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "Lindsey Vonn, the most successful American ski racer in history, suffered a back injury while competing at the World Cup in Switzerland, threatening her participation in the Olympic games next year. Fox News could barely contain its glee. In an article posted without a byline, the network quickly connected Vonn's injury to her criticism of President Trump days earlier. The clear implication is that, as a result of her comments, Vonn deserved to get hurt.... Vonn commented that when she participates in the Olympics, she views it as representing the United States, not the president. She offered mild criticism of Trump without mentioning him by name." --safari
Way Beyond the Beltway
Ta Ta, London; Bienvenue à Paris? David Segal of the New York Times: "France has long been known for its open hostility to corporations and its suspicion of personal wealth. Taxes were high, regulations were baffling.... Now, the country is in the midst of a sweeping attempt at national rebranding. Labor laws are being changed to make hiring and firing easier. New legislation has slashed a 'wealth tax' that was said to drive millionaires out of the country. Courts with English-speaking judges are in the works, and a new international school is under construction to cater to the children of foreign executives.... Paris is vying against Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg.... What is prized most in boardrooms is an array of business-friendly laws, regulations and culture -- the sort of warm welcome that Paris once defiantly refused to offer.... And since [Emmanuel Macron's] election, the government has started a highly aggressive campaign to poach jobs from London."
Peter Beaumont & Patrick Wintour of the Guardian: "Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has warned US recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital was a 'threat to peace' as he hosted the country;s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on his first foreign trip since Donald Trump provoked widespread condemnation with the decision. The joint appearance by the two men, following talks in Paris, came after tear gas was used to disperse protesters outside the US embassy in Beirut and a Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli security guard at Jerusalem's central bus station in the first attack in the city since Trump's announcement.... In uncompromising remarks unlikely to calm the ongoing crisis, Netanyahu replied by saying that the sooner Palestinians recognised the reality that Jerusalem was Israel's capital, the sooner there would be peace." --safari
News Lede
Washington Post: Simeon "Booker, the Washington bureau chief of Jet and Ebony magazines for five decades, died Dec. 10 at an assisted-living community in Solomons, Md. He was 99 and had recently been hospitalized for pneumonia, said his wife, Carol Booker. Few reporters risked more to chronicle the civil rights movement than Mr. Booker. He was the first full-time black reporter for The Washington Post, serving on the newspaper's staff for two years before joining Johnson Publishing Co. to write for Jet, a weekly, and Ebony, a monthly modeled on Life magazine, in 1954."
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Reader Comments (7)
So who do you think is going to be the new UN ambassador ?
@Marvin: how bout Moore's wifey? I mean, why not? Let's spread the love.
Elizabeth Shackelford, a star U.S. diplomat quits with fiery letter to Tillerson.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rex-tillerson-diplomat-letter_us_5a2d3fbae4b073789f6a91c5?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
There's been an explosion in N.Y's subway station–-don't have the particulars at this time. I don't think anyone was hurt.
Looks like, just maybe, cross your fingers maybe, Ted Cruz may lose his seat to Beto O'Rourke, (D-Tx) who I have had my eye on for some years now-––I am very impressed by this young man. He is gaining some speed, especially after the hurricane that hit Texas because he is getting key environmental endorsements and people are changing their minds about climate change since it has hit them where it hurts. With video:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/beto-orourke-cruz-environment_us_5a2c44c3e4b0a290f0513f93?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
NYT: Developing
Transit Hub in Midtown Is Evacuated After Explosion
Looks like a bomb went off still being carried. Suspect taken to hospital with serious injuries.
"The further a society drifts from the truth,
the more it will hate those that speak it".
-George Orwell
Bet he never envisioned the truth being labeled "fake news".
Ryan Lizza and Mario Batali now join the "Men Behaving Badly" cabal. Every day it seems up pops someone else and we say, with incredulity, "Oh Noes," not him, too? It's like discovering people you thought you knew who turn out to be pod people ( Invasion of The Body Snatchers) or Russian spies or...and I'm thinking of the wives, if indeed wives are in the picture––what this does to them and their families. We have reached a culture change here––we could call it a culture shock–– in the sense that it's an explosion of misconduct on a massive scale that has been exposed with retributions except for Trump and Moore––two peas in a pod pretending this isn't going to make a difference in the end. We wait with anticipation.
@PD Pepe: Yeah, who's up next? Who get named, shamed, fired, put on leave by some executive body that fears a scandal could hurt the bottom line. We gotta act! Fast! Now! sayeth those whose own behaviors might come into question...can you imagine those executives/lawyers nervously keeping an eye out that they could be next? Not just their star performer, or writer, or artist, or chef.
But the guys (and no mistake, these are the guys) who likely knew about these things long before, whose tacit concurrences helped the coverups! Therefore you go, ere I go!
In executive speak it's called CYOA*...cover your own tush!