;)
The Commentariat -- December 15, 2018
Late Morning Update:
... And the Horse He Rode in on. Julie Turkewitz & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a key figure in President Trump's sweeping plan to reshape the nation's environmental framework, will leave his post at the end of the year, Mr. Trump said on Saturday. Mr. Zinke's departure comes amid numerous ethics investigations into his business dealings, travel and policy decisions. 'Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.' The president said he would name a replacement this coming week.... In one of the final acts of [John] Kelly's tenure as White House chief of staff, his team told Mr. Zinke that he should leave by year's end or risk being fired in a potentially humiliating way, two people familiar with the discussion said." Thanks to Ken W. for the lead & to Patrick for the headline. ...
... Zahra Hirji of BuzzFeed News: Trump's "tweet came minutes after Bloomberg News reported Zinke would be leaving." ...
Ryan Zinke has notified the White House he intends to step down as interior secretary. Concern about legal costs and scrutiny of his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest were factors in Zinke's decision, I'm told. Plan is to announce Wednesday. -- Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg
Mike Allen, acting chief of DC gossip, on Mick Mulvaney's appointment as acting chief of staff: "President Trump had a meeting scheduled Monday with a possible candidate for White House chief of staff. Guess that guy ain't getting it.... Trump blurted out his decision with a 5:18 p.m. Friday tweet, amid coverage of how few top people wanted the job.... Trump announced Mulvaney as 'Acting' chief of staff, a puzzling wrinkle which prolongs the instability that a new chief of staff presumably would be tasked with vanquishing.... Trump keeps control and doesn't fully empower his guy, reminding Mulvaney who the real chief of staff is: No funny business like General John Kelly tried to pull, restricting enablers' access to POTUS. This is exactly why some other candidates didn't take the job or didn't get the job.... A senior administration official who spoke to reporters at the White House said: 'There's no time limit.' Asked why Mulvaney was named 'acting,' the official said: 'Because that's what the president wants.'"
Trump is very happy at the prospect of millions of Americans losing health care coverage.
Philip Ewing, NPR's national security editor, writes that Mueller has bupkus on Trump-Russia collusion. Mrs. McC: Ewing seems awfully good at looking past redactions & what-all the Mueller investigators may be holding back. Anyway, his post should please Trump.
*****
Abby Goodnough & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Texas struck down the entire Affordable Care Act on Friday on the grounds that its mandate requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional and the rest of the law cannot stand without it. The ruling was over a lawsuit filed this year by a group of Republican governors and state attorneys general. A group of intervening states led by Democrats promised to appeal the decision, which will most likely not have any immediate effect. But it will almost certainly make its way to the Supreme Court, threatening the survival of the landmark health law and, with it, health coverage for millions of Americans, protections for people with pre-existing conditions and much more. In his ruling, Judge Reed O'Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth said that the individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance 'can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress's tax power.'... At issue was whether the health law&'s insurance mandate still compelled people to buy coverage after Congress reduced the penalty to zero dollars as part of the tax overhaul that President Trump signed last December. When the Supreme Court upheld the mandate as constitutional in 2012, it was based on Congress's taxing power. Congress, the court said, could legally impose a tax penalty on people who do not have health insurance." O'Connor is a Bush II appointee. ...
... Ezra Klein of Vox: "The Texas ruling finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional is ludicrous in its reasoning and unlikely to survive appeal. It argues, in short, that since Congress removed the penalty from the individual mandate, the individual mandate is no longer a tax; because the individual mandate is not a tax, it is no longer constitutional; and if the mandate is no longer constitutional, the entire law must be judged unconstitutional. To do anything else would be, of course, immodest. As Judge Reed O'Connor writes, courts 'are not tasked with, nor are they suited to, policymaking.' Yes, he is literally writing that as he tries to overturn Obamacare with a stroke of his pen. You can almost hear the 'lol' he must've deleted from the first draft. 'If you were ever tempted to think that right-wing judges weren't activist ... this will persuade you to knock it off,' wrote law professor Nicholas Bagley. 'This is insanity in print, and it will not stand up on appeal.'... But if you want to know why Democrats are suddenly dotting the landscape with new proposals for Medicare-for-all and Medicaid-for-all, this ruling is a useful artifact."
Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "For the first time in decades, every major type of investment has fared poorly, as the outlook for economic growth and corporate profits is dampened by rising trade tensions and interest rates. Stocks around the world are getting pummeled, while commodities and bonds are tumbling -- all of which have left investors with few places to put their money.
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The special counsel's office rejected on Friday a suggestion from Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying to F.B.I. agents investigating Russia's election interference and ties to Trump associates. Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Mr. Flynn to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications during the presidential transition with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time.... 'A sitting national security adviser, former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant general and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents,' prosecutors wrote in court papers. 'He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: the linked "court papers" -- "The Government's Reply to Defendant's Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing" -- are interesting reading.
Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The FBI released for the first time Friday night a two-page summary former FBI Director James Comey used to brief President-elect Donald Trump nearly two years ago on a so-called dossier about Trump's ties to Russia.... Comey has said he did not show or give Trump the memo, but used it as a reference when briefing him on the dossier, which U.S. intelligence officials feared Russia might try to use as blackmail against Trump. The synopsis was also used to brief President Barack Obama.... The document was released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a Politico reporter and the James Madison Project, a pro-transparency group." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Released" is an overstatement. The substance of the summary is redacted. The unredacted part includes some background information about Christopher Steele, who is unnamed. So thanks, FBI!
Pamela Brown of CNN: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team continues to be interested in interviewing ... Donald Trump, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN."
George T. Conway III, Trevor Potter & Neal Katyal in a Washington Post op-ed: Having benn caught in multiple attempts to lie his way out of the campaign finance felonies, "Now Trump and his acolytes have turned to two other excuses: They point to an earlier case involving former senator John Edwards to argue that what Trump did wasn't a crime; and they say, even if it was a crime, it wasn't a biggie -- there are lots of crimes, so what, who cares. The former is a very weak legal argument, and the latter a dangerous one.... The [Edwards] case is actually harmful for Trump.... Edwards repeatedly argued that the payments were not campaign contributions because they were not made exclusively to further his campaign. The judge rejected this argument as a matter of law, ruling that a payment to a candidate's extramarital sexual partner is a campaign contribution if 'one of' the reasons the payment is made is to influence the election.... [And] there's good reason to believe that the evidence in a criminal case against Trump would be much stronger.... The grievous minimization of serious campaign finance violations by members of Trump's political party further corrode our commitment to our age-old ideal of being a 'government of laws, and not of men.'" The authors run down the significant differences in evidence in Edwards' & Trump's cases. Interesting. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: However, Conway, et al., are not taking into account Rudy's latest defense of Trump:
Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed…. This was not a big crime. -- Rudy Giuliani, to the Daily Beast (linked below)
I think Sec. Clinton would disagree with that statement. As well as a few million American voters. -- Dan L., in today's commentary
>... Here's the transcript of George Stephanopoulos' interview of Michael Cohen. (Also linked yesterday.)
Clare Foran & Manu Raju of CNN: "Sen. Orrin Hatch, the outgoing Utah Republican and most senior GOP senator, issued a statement on Friday expressing regret for telling CNN 'I don't care' when asked about ... Donald Trump being implicated in crimes by Michael Cohen.... Ha[t]ch went on to say [in his Friday statement] that 'when we see Mueller's full report and the complete filings from the New York U.S. Attorney's office, we can determine the path forward. While I believe the President has succeeded in a number of important policy areas, that success is separate from the validity of these investigations, which I believe should be allowed to run their course." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hatch accurately stated his initial remarks were delivered in "an unplanned hallway interview." Yeah But. A high-profile pol who's been talking with the press for half-a-century maybe shouldn't complain Raju ambushed him. While you might think Hatch's statement represents his rethinking of the importance of the rule of law, it more likely represents the fact that his "I don't care" comment was the prominent feature of numerous media reports ridiculing the GOP response to revelations that Trump was implicated in a felony.
Murray Waas of Vox: "Paul Manafort ... provided advice to the president and senior White House officials on the FBI's Russia investigation during the earliest days of the Trump administration. He gave guidance on how to undermine and discredit the FBI's inquiry into whether the president, his campaign aides, and family members conspired with the Russian Federation and its intelligence services to covertly defeat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.... In short, Manafort and Trump were working together to discredit the investigators as well as potential witnesses.... Manafort wanted nothing less than to 'declare a public relations war on the FBI,' this same person said." --safari: The alignment between Manafort's and Putin's interest is astounding.
Oops! Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "U.S. prosecutors on Friday asked a federal judge for permission to move Maria Butina to and from jail for ongoing interviews, including potentially to testify before a grand jury, in a filing intended to be sealed that appeared on the public docket for her case."
Special counsel Robert Mueller appeared to be locked in a subpoena battle with a recalcitrant witness Friday in a sealed federal appeals courtroom, the latest development in a mystery case that has piqued the curiosity of Mueller-obsessives and scoop-hungry journalists. Oral arguments in the highly secretive fight played out behind closed doors under tight security. Officials at the U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. even took the extraordinary measure of shutting down to the public the entire fifth floor, where the hearing was taking place. More than a dozen reporters who had been staked out in the hallway adjacent to the courtroom -- in the hopes of eyeballing attorneys for Mueller or the mystery appellant's lawyers -- were kicked off the floor...."
The von Trump Family Grifters, Ctd. Ilya Marritz & Justin Elliott of ProPublica: "When it came out this year that ... Donald Trump's inaugural committee raised and spent unprecedented amounts, people wondered where all that money went. It turns out one beneficiary was Trump himself. The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company's Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica. During the planning, Ivanka Trump, the president-elect's eldest daughter and a senior executive with the Trump Organization, was involved in negotiating the price the hotel charged the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for venue rentals. A top inaugural planner emailed Ivanka and others at the company to 'express my concern' that the hotel was overcharging for its event spaces, worrying of what would happen 'when this is audited.' If the Trump hotel charged more than the going rate for the venues, it could violate tax law.... 'The fact that the inaugural committee did business with the Trump Organization raises huge ethical questions about the potential for undue enrichment,' said Marcus Owens, the former head of the division of the Internal Revenue Service that oversees nonprofits." ...
... Christina Wilkie of CNBC: "On Thursday..., The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the feds are probing where the record-breaking $107 million the committee raised actually came from, and where it all went.... Yet even before Trump was inaugurated, there were already signs of scattered mistakes and systemic failures in the way the fund's money was being raised and spent.... The first sign that Trump's inaugural fundraising committee was moving into uncharted political waters was the announcement, in late 2016, that it would accept unlimited corporate and personal contributions. This was unprecedented.... Barack Obama's first inaugural committee in 2009 had prohibited corporate money and limited individual gifts to $50,000. George W. Bush's 2001 inaugural committee capped all contributions at $100,000.... The committee then spent nearly all of this money, $104 million, on far fewer official events than Obama or Bush had held.... The first official report that the Trump inaugural committee filed with the Federal Election Commission in April 2017 was riddled with errors.... Despite the committee having filed an amended report to the FEC in the summer of 2017, to this day, there remain dozens of donors to the inaugural committee whose real identities are still shrouded in mystery.... The 990 Form that the nonprofit committee submitted to the IRS in October of last year sheds little light on where the money actually went." ...
... Steve M.: "This seems ... corrupt. And illegal. But as I regularly say, President Trump will probably weather all scandals until his poll numbers start to drop from the levels where they've been for months; they're holding steady despite a wave of recent revelations.... It's self-dealing and palm-greasing. Ordinary people can understand that. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it will strike most Americans as worse than the usual level of corruption (even though it is).... The inaugural isn't one of the patriotic ceremonies we cherish. If Trump were to skim profits off a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, then maybe the national conscience would be shocked. But inaugural corruption doesn't rise to that level." ...
... Yeah, 'Cause All This Inauguration Hoohah Is the Democrats' Fault. Nicole Lafond of TPM: "... Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday evening waved off concern over a new report that President Trump's inauguration committee is under criminal investigation by blaming Democrats for the probe.... 'I think this is a perfect example of Democrats recognizing that all the accusations they made and the information that came out of the Michael Cohen case has nothing to do with the President,' she continued. 'So now they're going to -- I would say plan B, but this is more like plan D or E or F to take this President down.'" ...
... Tom Hamburger & Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Friday that his panel plans to investigate possible 'illicit foreign funding or involvement in the inauguration' of President Trump, an event that was supported by more than $100 million in private donations. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said that the committee has examined allegations about improper inaugural funding and that the topic remains 'a matter of interest and concern,' while declining to provide specifics. 'Whenever a foreign nation uses its financial wealth to violate the laws of our country, it undermines our democracy,' Schiff said in a statement. 'When another country does so in concert with U.S. persons, it carries the additional risk of compromising them and presents a particularly acute counterintelligence risk.'" ...
... Mark Follman & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "The intelligence committee is one of two Senate committees with ongoing investigations into the possibility that additional Russian money flowed through the NRA. Two probes into NRA-Russia matters are also ramping up in the House as Democrats prepare to take control of the chamber in January. The House Intelligence Committee, soon to be chaired by California Rep Adam Schiff, plans to scrutinize 'two major threads' regarding the NRA, a committee aide said. Those include whether [Russians Alexander Torshin and [Maria] Butina were part of efforts to establish a backchannel to the Kremlin, and 'whether Russian money was flowing into the NRA for the purpose of supporting Trump's election.'" --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...
Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "In an interview with the Times in July, 2017, [Donald Trump] asserted that if Robert Mueller, the special counsel, sought to investigate the Trump family's business dealings he would be crossing a 'red line.'... On a recent weekend..., [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.] talked about his plans for conducting an investigation that will be parallel to Mueller's, probing Trump's connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other places around the world. As Schiff described his approach, it became clear that he wasn't just planning to cross Trump's red line -- he intended to obliterate it.... Schiff hypothesizes that Trump went beyond using his campaign and the Presidency as a vehicle for advancing his business interests, speculating that he may have shaped policy with an eye to expanding his fortune." This is a longish profile of Schiff.
After two days of not showing up to work until noon, Trump got to work "early" Friday: 11:43 am. Mrs. McC: If President Obama had kept the kind of "work" schedule Trump has been keeping for weeks, Republicans would have impeached him for dereliction of duty. (In fairness to Trump, Obama probably didn't spend two hours a day fixing his hair. Plus Obama's tan came naturally; he didn't have to lie around in a machine. So, you know, Trump has unusually time-consuming grooming needs. BTW, women who have to primp daily just get up early.)
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday named White House budget director Mick Mulvaney as his Acting chief of staff. Trump said in a pair of Twitter posts that Mulvaney would begin at the beginning of next year after outgoing chief of staff John Kelly leaves his post." Mrs. McC: This makes zero sense according to Trump's rationale: supposedly the reason he couldn't come to an agreement with Nick Ayers was that Ayers would commit to serving only a number of months. So now, after Trump claimed he had bunches of fabulous willing candidates, he settles on someone who will serve in an "acting" -- that is, temporary -- chief. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Michael Tackett & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "'For the record,' the president tweeted later Friday evening, 'there were MANY people who wanted to be the White House Chief of Staff. Mick M will do a GREAT job!' At the beginning of the week, the president said there were 10 to 12 candidates actively vying for the position, but that list seemed to shrink by the day during what was often a highly public audition. Mr. Trump met with members of his family and one of his top political advisers, Brad Parscale, before making his decision on Mr. Mulvaney.... Mr. Mulvaney was one of the few prospects for the chief of staff job who was seen as openly campaigning for it over most of the year.... Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... said Mr. Mulvaney was not resigning from his job at the budget office, but would spend all of his time as chief of staff. He will turn over running the department to Russ Vought, the office's deputy director, at a somewhat precarious time.... A senior administration official ... said there would be no end date to Mr. Mulvaney's role despite his 'acting' title." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: No end date? Really? Then why is Mulvaney's title "acting"? Is this Trump's way of keeping his thumb on Mulvaney or a means of diminishing his effectiveness & perceived importance? Or is it just another Trumpy lie & that Trump will continue to look for a "real" chief? The entire firing of Kelly & search for his replacement has been another Trumpy fiasco.
... Hope Trump enjoys watching his new chief of staff dissing him:
... Jackie Kucinich & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "During a debate with his then-congressional challenger, Democrat Fran Person, on Nov. 2 of 2016, less than a week before Trump was elected president, then- congressman Mulvaney was blunt with those gathered at York Middle School in York, South Carolina."
... Thanks But No Thanks. Nancy Cook & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday that he doesn't want to be Donald Trump's next chief of staff, leaving the president with a dwindling list of candidates and underscoring the chaos of the search for the top West Wing aide. Christie, an early Trump supporter who led the White House transition effort before being ousted, made the announcement just a day after he met with the president to discuss possibly taking the role. Christie's firm statement also came shortly after reports emerged that he was the front-runner for the job, showing how quickly contenders' odds can rise and fall." Mrs. McC: As I wrote yesterday, Christie's "job interview" with Trump was a ruse to bolster Trump's claim that he was interviewing multiple willing candidates. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Twenty-seven hours before she died at an El Paso children's hospital, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal walked across the U.S. border with her father and 161 other migrants outside Antelope Wells, N.M. It was 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6, and the small, remote U.S. border crossing was closed for the night. There were four Border Patrol agents on duty, and no medical staff.... That night..., U.S. agents ... radioed the nearest Border Patrol station in Lordsburg, 90 minutes away, to request a bus, the only one available along that barren desert span of the New Mexico boot heel. What unfolded over the next eight hours, as Jakelin's condition deteriorated but went unnoticed by agents and perhaps her father, is now the subject of an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security, and congressional Democrats are demanding a full accounting and meetings with Customs and Border Protection officials." ...
... Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded Thursday night to a Washington Post story about a 7-year-old immigrant child who had died of severe dehydration while in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol. The statement, which invokes 'drug cartels' and 'human smugglers,' effectively blamed the child and her father for making the dangerous journey to the United States in the first place. It did not address the fact that the pair may have been trying to enter the country legally through a border port of entry and that the girl was apparently denied care for hours before her death.... DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen [on Friday] ... also expressed sympathy for DHS itself — and not the girl's family -- saying that her 'heart goes out to [the agency].'" --s
Aris Folley of The Hill: "The Education Department on Thursday announced that it will be canceling $150 million in student loans, upholding an Obama-era policy that Secretary Betsy DeVos has long fought to overhaul.... [A] federal judge ruled in September that DeVos's efforts to nix the 2016 regulations from taking effect was illegal.... Out of the $150 million in student loans the department has announced will be automatically discharged, $80 million is attributable to loans taken out by borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges -- which was a for-profit educational chain that closed its schools back in 2015." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Confederate VA Secretary Wilkie Misled Senate in Confirmation Hearings. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie gave inaccurate answers to senators during his confirmation process about pro-Confederate speeches he delivered in 2009. In response to questions about remarks he made at Confederate memorial events, Wilkie downplayed his participation in a June 2009 event at the Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery as simply introducing a keynote speaker. He also said he didn't have copies of remarks because he had not delivered a speech to such groups in '15-20 years.' But Wilkie's comments stand in contradiction to what his spokesman told CNN's KFile team last week, when he confirmed that Wilkie delivered a speech extolling the legacy of Robert E. Lee at that June 2009 ceremony at the Confederate memorial. The speech was the same one that he gave to another group in December 2009, which was also published in the Confederate Veteran magazine."
He's in the Navy Now. CBS/AP: "President Trump's first chief of staff is on track to join the Navy Reserve, buoyed by a recommendation from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Reince Priebus, 46, served as chief of staff for about six months, beginning at the start of the Trump administration in January 2017. Priebus also was chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017." Mrs. McC: I feel safer already, knowing that Prince Rebus is protecting me.
Chavie Lieber of Vox: "CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabinoid of marijuana ... just got a big boost thanks to US lawmakers. On Wednesday, Congress voted to pass the US Farm Bill, legalizing hemp, a species of cannabis that CBD can be extracted from but that isn't psychoactive. Historically, hemp has been illegal to sell or grow in the US, although it's legal to buy from international sources.... With the growing and selling of hemp now legal, greater access to CBD could mean more substantial trials and more definitive research into its purported health benefits. And it will certainly be a boon to the CBD industry." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jordan Barab of D.C.Report: "In one of the first moves of the soon-to-be Democratic Majority in the House of Representatives, Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott has been elected chair of the newly christened House Education and Labor Committee. Yes, you read that right: (Re)Introducing the House Education and Labor Committee. The House Education and Workforce Committee is no more. What's in a name? A lot. It means that the committee will once again be addressing the needs of working people rather than just their employers." --s
Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl will resign from the U.S. Senate on Dec. 31, The Arizona Republic has confirmed, setting up a second appointment by Gov. Doug Ducey to the seat once occupied by the late John McCain. Ducey is required under law to name another Republican to the seat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Casey Michel of ThinkProgress: "A former head of a Texas nonprofit [Kemal Oksuz] pleaded guilty this week to concealing the funding behind a scandal-plagued Congressional trip to Azerbaijan in 2013.... The trip ... became a case study in how foreign governments seek to influence American legislators without disclosing their role, including using nonprofits to mask the actual funding, and then lying about who is bankrolling the travel.... There remains no indication that any Congressional representatives on the trip -- which included Reps. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), Ted Poe (R-TX), and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) -- committed any wrongdoing.... The trip is a clear example of post-Soviet kleptocracies seeking to influence American politics, long before Russia decided to throw its weight behind Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. After the Congressional representatives returned to the U.S., for instance, many of them began advocating for Azerbaijan's interests in Washington." --s
Peter Granitz of NPR: "Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned party leaders that what she sees as the GOP's focus on conservative, white, male voters harms its electoral prospects. In an interview with Morning Edition host Rachel Martin, Ros-Lehtinen said Republicans would 'lose this whole generation' if it did not 'aggressively pursue' young voters.... Ros-Lehtinen has had a historic career, as the first Latina and first Cuban-American in Congress, as well as being the first woman to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee.... However, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in Ros-Lehtinen's district by nearly 20 points in 2016, and her House seat flipped to Democrats in 2018." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
"I Speak for the Trees." Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "A federal judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals quoted Dr. Seuss' beloved environmental warrior [the Lorax] in a decision calling for the U.S. Forest Service to revisit its approval for a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast to go forward. 'We trust the United States Forest Service to "speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'" Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote, quoting Dr. Seuss' 1971 book 'The Lorax.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
"Annals of Journalism," Ctd. Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently promoting its recent environmental rollback using an op-ed published in a news outlet owned by a Republican megadonor. The column, published by The Las Vegas Review-Journal Editorial Board with the headline 'There goes another one,' was sent around to journalists by the EPA press office on Thursday.... The Review-Journal is owned by American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who, with his wife ... also had a close relationship with the agency during former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's tenure. As Politico reported in March, Pruitt met with Israeli company Water-Gen at the 'request of Adelson.' Shortly after, the agency signed a research agreement with the company." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Lisa Girion of Reuters: "[Johnson & Johnson] has been compelled to share thousands of pages of company memos, internal reports and other confidential documents with lawyers for some of the 11,700 plaintiffs now claiming that the company's talc caused their cancers -- including thousands of women with ovarian cancer.... A Reuters examination of many of those documents ... shows that from at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the company's raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos, and that company executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it while failing to disclose it to regulators or the public.... The earliest mentions of tainted J&J talc that Reuters found come from 1957 and 1958 reports by a consulting lab." --s
Alex Hurn of the Guardian: "A Facebook bug let app developers see photos users had uploaded but never posted, the social network has disclosed." --s
Stefan Nicola et al., of Bloomberg: "The U.S. has been pushing governments for months to block Huawei Technologies Co. from telecom networks. That strategy is now taking hold in Europe, where the Chinese technology giant is losing allies by the day.... While there have been no outright bans, the outlook is dimming for Huawei in its biggest market outside China.... In France, Orange SA said Wednesday it won't use Huawei gear to build fifth-generation wireless networks, after BT Group Plc in the U.K. pledged to rip out some of the company's equipment. In Germany on Thursday, Deutsche Telekom AG raised the prospect of dropping Huawei. Then Friday, the Norwegian government said it's weighing concerns with using suppliers from countries with which there's no security policy cooperation -- an oblique reference to China.... Troubles in Europe for Huawei come on top of bans of its equipment in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S." --s
R.I.P. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of ... Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, Clarity Media Group, the owner of its publisher announced Friday morning. It will publish its final issue on December 17." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
California. AP: "California moved Friday to eliminate climate-changing fossil fuels from its fleet of 12,000 transit buses, enacting a first-in-the-nation mandate that will vastly increase the number of electric buses on the road. The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to require that all new buses be carbon-free by 2029. Environmental advocates project that the last buses emitting greenhouse gases will be phased out by 2040." --s
Washington. Meet your GOP, Ctd. Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "A Washington state lawmaker who wrote a manifesto justifying murder in 'biblical warfare' is accused of violating campaign finance law to donate to an anti-Muslim group and promote his radio show on a conspiracy website associated with a far-right secessionist movement. Republican Rep. Matt Shea is a conspiracy-peddling religious fundamentalist with ties to the extremist Christian Identity movement, fringe militias, and secessionist groups. Years of minor notoriety in Washington lead to national headlines last month when he was revealed to have published document outlining apocalyptic Christian warfare. Days after the document circulated, Shea won reelection. But watchdogs in the state say he may have violated campaign finance law with payments to a number of fringe groups." --s
** Wisconsin. Scott Walker Is Still a Jerk. Mitch Smith & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "Scott Walker, the outgoing Republican governor of Wisconsin, on Friday signed into law measures that diminish the power of his Democratic successor and expand the authority of Republican lawmakers who teamed up with him over the last eight years to move the state firmly to the right. Mr. Walker approved the measures over the vehement objections of the incoming governor and despite fierce protest in the State Capitol as Republican lawmakers rushed the bills through in a hastily-called session last week. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Mr. Walker in the November election, has suggested that he may file suit over the changes and said that Mr. Walker had chosen 'to ignore and override the will of the people of Wisconsin.'... Participating in what many Democrats consider a legally dubious power grab also cemented another widely held view: that Mr. Walker is a bruising partisan willing to break precedent and ignore protests for political gain." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Powder Keg. AP: "Serbia has talked up the possibility of an armed intervention in Kosovo after the parliament in Pristina overwhelmingly approved the formation of an army. Belgrade called the move the 'most direct threat to peace and stability in the region', while Nato's chief said it was 'ill-timed' and urged dialogue.... Serbia insists the new army violates a UN resolution that ended Kosovo's 1998-99 war of independence. It has warned bluntly that it may respond with an armed intervention in the former province.... Russia's foreign ministry denounced the Kosovan move and said the army must be disbanded. Any Serbian armed intervention in Kosovo would mean a direct confrontation with thousands of Nato-led peacekeepers, including US soldiers, stationed in Kosovo since 1999 ... Nato and the European Union ... expressed regret that Kosovo had decided to go ahead with the army formation." --safari: How are we going to explain this clusterfuck to Donny with crayons and construction paper?
Britain. Harriet Grant of the Guardian: "Plastic traces in animal feed could pose a risk to human health and urgently need to be the subject of more research, experts have told the Guardian.... More than 650,000 tonnes of unused food, from loaves of bread to Mars bars, are saved from landfill each year in the UK by being turned into animal feed. The system that strips off the plastic wrappings can't capture it all, and so in the UK a limit of 0.15% of plastic is allowed by the Food Standards Agency. The official EU level for plastic permitted in animal feed is zero although in reality many other countries operate within the same 0.15% limit.... Globally, about a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted from the farm to the fork. Food that is ultimately lost or wasted consumes about a quarter of all water used by agriculture, requires a land area the size of China and is responsible for an estimated 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions." --s
Nicaragua. Luis Manuel Galeano of the AP: "Nicaraguan police have raided the offices of five nongovernmental organizations and an independent media outlet, alleging that they participated in seeking the government's overthrow. The raids were the latest strong-arm actions taken by the government of President Daniel Ortega. Since popular street protests destabilized his government in April, Ortega has reconsolidated power and methodically pursued perceived enemies." --s
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Continuing yesterday's discussion of Mulvaney's "temporary" status, I think the real reason why he's not fully committed is two-fold:
First, he's fully versed in the art of the D.C. backstab, so he's aware of the risks of taking the job, especially given the public comments he's made denigrating his low-life boss (if that video gets too much airtime he'll go the way of the 'Mooch). But Mulvaney is a prototype of the small, spiteful Napoleon-complexed confederate that craves the power to hurt those he deems "subaltern" to his ideal white, male-oriented society. So he couldn't say "No" to Fatty McGee.
But secondly, his true love is manipulating budgets to bestow riches on his like-minded white male tribe and undermining the lives of everyone else. That's one of the few pleasures in his spiteful, greasy, decaying heart. It's like Jeff Sessions who took months of public ridicule, embarrassment and reputational damage because his life goal was to jail colored people and kneecap civil rights. So if the Chief of Staff gig goes South, which is very possible given his bashing of the boss, he wants to go back to his true nest egg fucking up public finances.
These evil elves have finally sat set their tiny peckers in the cushy chairs of their dreams, and they're determined to cause as much damage as possible before they get their asses thrown out.
@safari: Love your last paragraph––such punch!
THE CLOSING OF THE WEEKLY STANDARD MAKES NEOCONSERVATISM'S EXILE FROM THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OFFICIAL:
Once upon a time TWS was the house organ of neoconservatism: Twas the leading champions of the Iraq War and the once darling Sarah Palin's rise in national politics. One can still hear William Cristal's sententious murmurings on how Iraq would transform itself into some kind of democracy––good seeds were sown, he said.
and then came Trump.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/the-closing-of-the-weekly-standard-makes-neoconservatisms-exile-from-the-republican-party-official
Bomb threats this week on two schools in my Wallingford, Ct. district and another in my grandson's high school in Ridgefield and one at Sandy Hook school. No word yet as to whom or why.
Weekly Standard Obit.
Likely my inability to appreciate subtlety or notice detail, but I always thought that neoconservatism a bunch of bushwah.
New maybe in the sense that it was expressed in new journals by (some) new writers, but it was still the same old God (tho' not necessarily Christianity--call Him Yahweh) and capitalism will triumph baloney, with an added element of pro-Israel thrown in for seasoning, and as time passed and dimbulb Bush II decided to invade Iraq and solve all the world's problems with one mighty blow, the seasoning took over the dish.
The only difference between that conservatism and the Pretender's is that the Pretender doesn't have the Ivy League patina, and certainly not the education or intellect, to paint a prettier picture of the crude, selfish barbarism of the business-first ethos that has animated American conservatism since the 1930's.
The Pretender may be embarrassing to the Kristol types, but he is just conservatism as ugly as it really is.
Zinke gone.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ryan-zinke-out-interior-secretary_us_5ac228dfe4b0a47437ac7aef
But I fear it will turn out to be another pyrrhic victory for the environment, like the replacement of Pruitt at EPA (who was at least entertaining) with Wheeler, who is likely even more effective at destruction.
Whenever I see the words “Serbia” and “powder keg” in close proximity, there is a minor startle response. Add the word “Trump” to that mix and the response goes to def-con 4 at least. Consideration of Safari’s reminder that the little dictator likely has no understanding of the history of the Balkans serves to modify my alarm, but only just. Unless he sees some opportunity for personally profiting from a foreign adventure (as did the last R in the White House), he may leave it alone. Unless and until his boss Putin gets involved. Hopefully no one will break out the crayons and try to explain anything any time soon because he’s getting to the point where he might decide that blowing shit up would be a good distraction.
Will Zinke get out on the horse he rode in on?
You don't get a shot at an old one like that very often.