;)
The Commentariat -- December 21, 2017
Happy Birthday, Sun Gods. Today is the day many ancient peoples, not to mention a few nutty new ones, celebrated -- or prayed for -- the rebirth of their sun gods. For a more technical explanation of the winter solstice, Justin Grieser of the Washington Post obliges. Those of us skeptical of mythology can only hope that yesterday actually was our darkest day here in the U.S. ...
Afternoon Update:
Jan Wolfe of Reuters: "Democratic-leaning states may take legal action to challenge the cap on deductions of state and local taxes under the sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code, and even though such lawsuits would face long odds they could help galvanize Democrats for next year's mid-term election." ...
... AND Ivanka Trump vouches for Sen. Bob Corker's "real integrity." Mrs. McC: So never mind anything negative I wrote about the Corker Kickback. And never mind that Ivanka & family will make millions on that kickback, too. ...
... P.S. Still looking for a holiday gift for a special lady? Here's a suggestion, (Too pricey? Just tell the clerk you'll pay for it when you big tax cut comes thru.):
Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "The selection of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) as the ranking member on Judiciary was the clearest sign yet of how seriously House Democrats consider the possibility of a full-blown constitutional showdown with Trump. You wouldn't know it from how many of them talk. When it comes to the I-word, most Democrats have walked a tightrope -- with even Nadler hesitant to mention impeachment in interviews before votes were cast Wednesday.... Nadler won [the committee leadership post in] a secret ballot 118 to 72, demonstrating that this caucus wants to be ready to clash with Trump if it vaults into the majority after next year's midterm elections." ...
... Greg Sargent: "This is exactly what Democrats should be doing -- right now. Not just because an impeachment battle might actually happen, but also for another reason: Democrats will need to find a more effective way to talk to the American people about the serial degradation of our democracy we are seeing in the Trump era, for the good of the party, yes, but also for the good of the country.... Trump's ongoing self-dealing and abuses of power, the facts being unearthed in the Russia probes, the obvious efforts earlier this year to hamstring the FBI investigation, the blithe lack of concern about future assaults on our democracy, the uncontrollable contempt for governing norms and the rule of law, and the profound inability to grasp the most basic obligations that come with his office -- both to the public and to the integrity of our system of government -- plainly add up to an aggregate level of degradation that commands a serious effort to determine whether he is fit to continue."
Stephanie Baker & Irina Reznik of Bloomberg: Robert Mueller's team is looking into a sham U.S. foundation "financed by $500,000 in donations, mostly from wealthy Russians with ties to Petr Katsyv, deputy director of Russian Railways and a longtime acquaintance of Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. Rather than a nonprofit helping unite Americans with Russian adoptees, the foundation was a lobbying vehicle against sanctions.... Most of the Russians financing the foundation said in interviews that they knew nothing about U.S. adoptions of Russian children, contradicting the foundation's U.S. disclosure forms.... [Robert] Akhmetshin, a former Soviet intelligence officer [who is a lobbyist for & employee of the 'foundation']..., met with senior officials of the Donald Trump campaign in New York: the candidate's son, son-in-law and campaign manager."
Cold Case Files. Tom Winter, et al., of NBC News: "On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News. The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department's effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said."
Luke Nozicka of the Des Moines Register: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday commuted the prison sentence of former Iowa slaughterhouse executive Sholom Rubashkin, who was sentenced to 27 years for bank fraud and money laundering, the White House said. In a statement, the White House said the decision, which is not a presidential pardon, had bipartisan support from leaders across the political spectrum, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Trump's action does not vacate Rubashkin's conviction and leaves his term of supervised release and a restitution obligation, the White House said." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: For one thing, Trump sees nothing wrong with bank fraud & money laundering.
*****
Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "The House, forced to vote a second time on the $1.5 trillion tax bill, moved swiftly to pass the final version on Wednesday, clearing the way for President Trump to sign into law the most sweeping tax overhaul in decades.... The final House vote was essentially a formality, as the changes, which were made to comply with Senate budget rules, did not significantly alter the overall bill." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Trump Says He & GOP Lied to Sell Tax Bill. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump was so excited about passing his first major piece of legislation Wednesday that he blurted out that the Republican Party had misrepresented the entire bill, handing Democrats some ... talking points for the 2018 midterm elections. Speaking at the White House just before the House prepared to sign off on the tax-cuts bill one last time, Trump reveled extensively in his win before turning things over to Vice President Pence to heap praise upon him continuously for a few minutes. It was a thoroughly unique spectacle, even as victory dances and Trump Cabinet meetings go.... While talking about the corporate tax rate being cut from 35 percent to 21 percent, Trump said, 'That's probably the biggest factor in our plan.'... The problem? Republicans have been selling this legislation as a middle-class tax cut, first and foremost.... [Then Trump] argued that repealing the individual mandate was basically the same as repealing Obamacare. But, he said, he told Republicans not to talk about that. Trump said he told allies to 'be quiet with the fake news media because I don't want them talking too much about it.'" ...
... Dana Milbank: "With those admissions now on tape, Trump has officially claimed full ownership of the health-care system for himself and fellow Republicans. Whatever it is now -- or isn't -- is Trumpcare.... Premiums for the most popular health insurance on the individual market exchanges are estimated to rise 34 percent on average next year.... Employer-based health insurance costs are forecast to rise in 2018 by the most since 2011, at 4.3 percent, according to the human resources consulting firm Mercer, and overall medical costs will be up 6.5 percent, the first increase in the rate in three years...." ...
... Ruth Marcus assesses the bill:
... The Victory of the Kleptocracy. What Massive Corruption Looks Like. Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "The Republicans’ first legislative triumph of 2017 will ensure a financial windfall for the president and his family in a way that is virtually unprecedented in American political history, experts said.... Exactly how much the president could save under the plan is unknown, since Trump has broken with 40 years of White House precedent by refusing to release his tax returns." Mrs. McCrabbie: This corrupt scheme involves not just the President, but about 95 percent of GOP members of Congress. It takes a conspiracy to overthrow traditional democratic norms, & that's what we're seeing: the president, the Congress, the right-wing media, and soon enough, the judiciary.
... ** Charles Pierce: "Paul Ryan dreamed of this day because Paul Ryan dreams of plutocracy. And now, with this bill, he has successfully arranged the first piece of his career-long effort to turn the clock of the American economy back to the 1890s. When he comes for what he calls 'entitlement reform' -- which he will, as soon as this idiot bill explodes the deficit -- that will be the second piece. The Supreme Court (through Citizens United, McCutcheon, and Shelby County) already has cooperated in this great project. The president* is on board because he's basically made of greed and ignorance. The large media conglomerates will go along for the ride because they are conglomerates first, and news-gathering entities second." ...
.. Eric Levitz reports on some of the grotesque compliments Republicans gave Trump yesterday for essentially doing nothing but accepting the huge tax cuts Congress gave him. Mrs. McC: mike pence & Orrin Hatch were the worst, but it was a lively contest among experienced sycophants. ...
... John Wagner of the Washington Post: "... the adulation from the Republican lawmakers signaled an even bigger moment: Many were embracing not only a shared accomplishment with Trump, but also his unorthodox presidency itself." ...
... Say, maybe you're all excited that some big-name corporations -- especially those that currently or often find themselves under the thumbs of federal regulators & legislators -- are indeed promising to pass their windfall on to employees: ...
... Liz Moyer of CNBC: "Fifth Third Bancorp will pay more than 13,500 employees a bonus and raise the minimum wage of its workforce to $15 an hour after the passage of the Republican tax plan that will cut the bank's corporate tax rate.... Wells Fargo ... also said it would be boosting its minimum wage for employees to $15 an hour, which was prompted by the tax plan. The San Francisco-based bank also said it would target $400 million in donations to community and nonprofit organizations next year." ...
... Addy Baird of ThinkProgress: "Well[s] Fargo did announce Wednesday that it will be increasing its minimum wage to $15 an hour -- an actual living wage -- but the money being funneled to stock buybacks far exceeds that being devoted to bonuses or wage increases."
... AT&T: "Once tax reform is signed into law, AT&T* plans to invest an additional $1 billion in the United States in 2018 and pay a special $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 AT&T U.S. employees -- all union-represented, non-management and front-line managers. If the President signs the bill before Christmas, employees will receive the bonus over the holidays." ...
... Kevin Drum: "In the most recent quarter, American companies increased their investments in equipment by 6.3 percent. AT&T appears to be planning an increase of 4.5 percent. I am unimpressed.... There's also this: December 15: 'AT&T today provided details of a tentative agreement reached with the Communications Workers of America in Mobility Orange contract negotiations.... Among provisions of the offer: Retroactive wage increases back to Feb. 12, 2017, and a $1,000 lump sum, if the agreement is ratified by Jan. 12, 2018.'... Why do I have a feeling that this $1,000 bonus was already in the works for everyone, not just Mobility Orange folks? I guess I'm just cynical. In any case, AT&T sure does seem to be going out of its way to suck up to President Trump. I wonder why that could be? It's a mystery...." ...
... Emily Stewart of Vox: "AT&T on Wednesday announced plans to invest an additional $1 billion in the United States after the passage of the Republican tax bill. President Trump read the announcement at a ceremony at the White House celebrating the tax bill on Wednesday afternoon. 'That's pretty good,' he said. It was also pretty good when AT&T made essentially the same announcement in November." ...
... Addy Baird (linked above): "... a Communication Workers of America (CWA) spokesperson told ThinkProgress Wednesday that the $1,000 [AT&T] bonus was 'a drop in the bucket compared to what was promised.'... The move is seen as an olive branch to Trump, who has been hostile to AT&T's proposed takeover of Time Warner, a merger that would be worth $84.5 billion." ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "Based on the passage of tax reform and the FCC's action on broadband,' Comcast is giving 'special $1,000 bonuses to more than 100,000 eligible frontline and non-executive employees.'" ...
... Addy Baird (linked above): "... like AT&T's bonuses, the bonuses are only temporary, one-time paycheck increases, not the investments in wages Republicans have promised." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Baird's main point is this: "Share buybacks are a way of enhancing the shareholder wealth, and, facing the prospect of a major tax cut, that's exactly what many large corporations have decided to do. The repurchasing does not create new jobs or increase wages for workers." Among large U.S. corporations that have announced share buyback programs in the run-up to passage of the tax heist: Home Depot, Boeing, pharmaceutical company Pfizer, banking group ANZ, Hyatt Hotels, Jet Blue, T-Mobile, Liberty Global & Wells Fargo. ...
... Josh Marshall: "There's no doubt each of these companies is, corporately, extremely happy with the passage of this bill.... It's just as obvious this is a choreographed effort to validate administration claims that the bill's payoffs to the super wealthy will actually be passed down to ordinary Americans.... Despite the President's behavior and that of his obsequious appointees and confederates, the US is not yet an authoritarian strongman government. But that is clearly what the President aspires to and feels is his right. But it is in the nature of authoritarian government's to secure lockstep alliances with major corporate entities seeking favor and preferment. This can all happen very quickly." --safari ...
... Juan Cole: "The Republican Party did not just overhaul the tax code and they did not cut 'your' taxes. They engineered a coup against the middle and working classes and they threw enormous amounts of public money to private billionaires and multi-millionaires.... Americans' wealth amounts to about $88 trillion. If you divided up all the privately held wealth equally, every household in the US would be worth $698,000.... But needless to say, the wealth isn't divided up equally. The top ten percent of households, 12.6 million households own 76% of the privately held wealth.... This tax bill won't create jobs, won't spur investment, and won't bring companies back home. It will make the 1.26 million households even more fabulously wealthy than they already are, and ensure that the rest of us get poorer." --safari ...
... Corporations Win, Sick Kids Lose. Lachlan Markay, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Shortly before [GOP lawmakers] gathered with Trump to applaud ... passing a major tax package that will, largely, benefit the wealthy and corporations..., news broke that they'd failed to advance a bill that would re-authorize a program providing healthcare to 9 million children.... But that is just one of the many pressing issues that the Congress has left for the next year. The others include protections for undocumented children, money for community health centers, and the funding of the actual government. Sources close to the White House said on Wednesday that they were fully anticipating the possibility that this brew of major items could result in a government shutdown, thereby negating some of the economic gains that the tax cuts would facilitate." ...
... Congress & Amtrak Should Have Prevented the Washington Train Accident. They Didn't. Patrick McGeehan, et al., of the New York Times: "After investigators determined that [a 2008 train] crash could have been prevented by automatic-braking technology, Congress ordered all passenger railroads to install new systems by 2016. Since then, Congress has extended that deadline and trains have kept speeding into preventable disasters, including the Amtrak derailment that killed three people in Western Washington on Monday.... Over the years since the mandate, railroads have continued to spend money on other priorities, including new trains and stations and passenger amenities. Since the Philadelphia accident [in 2015], Amtrak has put the technology into use on the Northeast Corridor, from Boston to Washington. But it is not installed on most other passenger lines, including Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit.... [In this week's deadly derailment in Washington state,] the train was going 80 miles an hour into a curve with a limit of 30 miles an hour, and..., although equipment for the automatic-braking system was in place, it was not yet in use."
Trump Threatens World. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump threatened on Wednesday to cut off American aid to any country that votes in favor of a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly denouncing his recent decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Mr. Trump's statement, delivered at his last Cabinet meeting of the year, followed a letter from the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, in which she warned that the United States would take note of any country that votes in favor of the measure." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So now we know what Donald Grump & his elf Nikki Haley plan to do with her naughty list. In 2017's USA, threatening every nation in the U.N. is called "diplomacy."...
... Juan Cole: "The thuggish Trump and his gun moll Nikki Haley have threatened member countries of the UN General Assembly with a cut-off of US foreign aid if they vote against the US on Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.... The right wing in the United States has long spread around the false story that the US government gives away enormous amounts of money to other countries.... The actual US foreign aid budget is $41.9 billion, about one percent of the Federal budget. Having retailed a ridiculous narrative for decades, the GOP has now been caught in its own trap, making threats on the basis of facts not in evidence.... The US doesn't give out much aid, and therefore can't hold it over the heads of many other countries. The aid it does give out is for establishing US influence, and discontinuing it is an opening for China to get US clients instead. I very much doubt anyone will pay attention to Trump's threats." --safari
The Trump Russia Scandal
** Obstruction. Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Just days after the inauguration, White House Counsel Don McGahn learned -- and warned ... Donald Trump -- that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had probably violated federal laws, according to a new report out Wednesday. Foreign Policy reported that the Special Counsel has obtained 'records' that reveal McGahn ... conclude[d] that Flynn had likely committed a crime.... Most significantly, the records now in the possession of ... Robert Mueller indicate McGahn 'warned Trump about Flynn's possible violations' for holding those discussions and lying about them to the FBI.... Legal experts told TPM that such advance notification about Flynn's potentially criminal acts would significantly bolster the case that the President was trying to obstruct justice when he allegedly asked ... James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn." --safari ...
... The Trump Russia Scandal, GOP Edition. Kyle Cheney & John Bresnahan of Politico: "A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly -- and perhaps criminally -- mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between ... Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans. A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.... GOP lawmakers have become increasingly fixated on the FBI's use of the dossier describing sometimes salacious allegations of Trump's ties to the Kremlin.... [Rep. Adam Schiff, (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the committee,] said committee rules require consultation between Republicans and Democrats, but House Speaker Paul Ryan must enforce bipartisan cooperation if he wants it to occur. 'And at this point, you have to conclude that he doesn't,' Schiff said. Ryan's office declined to comment." ...
… Mrs. McCrabbie: So, in other words, Paul Ryan, among his many other glaring failings, is part of a plot to undermine the DOJ & FBI in furtherance of his support for the corrupt foreign activities of an unfit president. On a more humorous level, Nunes & his whack-job friends must be having great fun "studying" the "salacious details" of the Steele report. We have a two-party system, one that's populated by greedy lunatics & the other that's run by well-meaning incompetents. What an exceptional country! ...
... ** Yascha Mounk in a New York Times op-ed: "The Republican Party is no longer just obfuscating the truth or defending the president when he is accused of wrongdoing. Rather, Mr. Trump, Fox News and Republicans in Congress seem to be actively using falsehoods to prepare an assault on the institutions that allow American democracy to function.... The most puzzling thing about these claims [against the Mueller investigation & the FBI] is how patently ridiculous they are.... The construction of an alternate reality that obviates the very possibility of conducting politics on the basis of truth is a novelty in this country. And it is increasingly becoming obvious that it will serve a clear purpose: to prepare the ground for egregious violations of basic democratic norms.... The pundits and politicians who have helped to delegitimize Mr. Mueller and his investigation over the past weeks are making themselves active accomplices in a deliberate assault on our democracy. But it is also why those who have failed to condemn these attacks -- like Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader -- are equally to blame." ...
... Murdoch Covers for the Mafia. Bob Brigham of RawStory: "Billionaire right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal delayed and then killed an editorial revealing Donald Trump's mob ties, Esquire reported. WSJ editor Paul Gigot, delayed an editorial by Ted Cruz supporter James Freeman until after Trump was the presumed nominee. Freeman's article supposedly detailed ties between Trump and organized crime. The piece was never published and Freeman became a Trump supporter." --safari...
... Sam Tanenhaus, in Esquire, has a long piece on the bitter battle being waged within the GOP: "'Conservatives have decided they are a tribe,' says Jennifer Rubin, the conservative Washington Post writer who has declared war on both Trump and his GOP. 'They're not Americans first. They're Trump defenders first.' It is ideological groupthink, the Right's own political correctness.... But in truth, 'Conservatism, Inc.' was never the luxury gravy train its critics depicted. It was closer to a Soviet-style nomenklatura, with a good deal of ideological policing." --safari
Juliet Eilperin & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is waging a linguistic battle across official Washington, seeking to shift public perception of key policies by changing the way the federal government talks about climate change, scientific evidence and disadvantaged communities.... Multiple references to [climate change] have been purged repeatedly at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. In late summer, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention issued a document to employees and contractors bearing a column of words and phrases to be avoided, alongside a column of acceptable alternatives.... The chasm between President Trump's top deputies and the federal workers charged with carrying out government policies appears particularly wide."
Senate Race. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R-Moore) is "investigating voter fraud" in the recent Senate race R-Moore lost. Charles Pierce explains Merrill's plans as only Pierce can. "Chances are this will come to nothing, but, if we've learned nothing else this year, 'chances are' is a phrase best left to Johnny Mathis. In the United States of 2017, every day is Anything Can Happen Day."
Another Senate Seat May Be about to Open. John Bresnahan of Politico: Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, has not done any committee business in the last several months. "The 80-year-old's feeble performance has fueled expectations -- among senators and aides who've witnessed his physical and mental decline firsthand -- that Cochran will step down from the Appropriations chairmanship early next year, or resign from the Senate altogether. 'The understanding is that he will leave after Jan. 1,' said a Republican senator who serves on the Appropriations Committee.... A spokesman for the Mississippi Republican said Cochran hasn't divulged his plans."
Elana Schor of Politico: "The congressional office that handles sexual harassment complaints, along with a top Republican senator, have refused to divulge information about taxpayer dollars doled out to settle harassment claims [against senators] -- and pressure is mounting on them to come clean. Congress' Office of Compliance, which oversees payments to resolve sexual harassment claims and other workplace disputes, has given data on the Senate's taxpayer-funded settlements to Senate Rules Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). The House has already released the compliance office's settlement totals for that chamber going back a decade. But the compliance office has ... reject[ed] a request from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) to divulge the numbers. And Shelby ... is in talks with his Democratic counterpart on releasing the data as Kaine vows to 'start raising hell' to shake it loose." ...
... AND Paul Ryan says sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump are "other stuff... I'm not focussed on." As a bonus, he tried to shame NBC "Today" host Savannah Guthrie, who was interviewing him, by pointing out that her former co-host Matt Lauer was a serial sexual harasser, too: "... it happened in your industry, in your studio...." ...
... NYT Bars Sexual Harasser from Covering Sexual Abuser. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "The New York Times said it will suspend, rather than fire, political reporter Glenn Thrush, who was accused of harassing women when he worked for another publication. Following a lengthy internal investigation, the newspaper said Thursday that Thrush would be given a two-month suspension and then stripped of his prestigious beat covering the White House. He will be reassigned once his suspension is up next month, Executive Editor Dean Baquet said in a statement.... Baquet declined to explain the Times's reasoning for Thrush's suspension or why he is being removed from covering the White House, where he was among the most prominent beat reporters. But his continued presence on the beat could have raised questions about his impartiality, given that both he and President Trump have been accused of sexual harassment."
Ben Collins of The Daily Beast: "The Twitter bot @CongressEdits tracks every change made on Wikipedia from the U.S. Capitol building. Any edit made with a Capitol IP address is preserved with a screenshot and posted instantly, which has won it an avid following of 60,000 Beltway obsessives.... Days later, [intern Kate] Kohn, in a conversation with The Daily Beast, became the first member of what she says is a secret society of interns editing Wikipedia pages with political messages they know will reach some of the biggest names in Washington to out herself." --safari
Linda Greenhouse has a terrific piece on why judges matter & how the Trump administration's white, male, conservative, incompetent nominees will undermine the judiciary, which for decades had been growing more diverse.
Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "Life expectancy in the US has declined for the second year in a row as the opioid crisis continues to ravage the nation. It is the first time in half a century that there have been two consecutive years of declining life expectancy. Drug overdoses killed 63,600 Americans in 2016, an increase of 21% over the previous year, researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics found. Americans can now expect to live 78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 years. The US last experienced two years' decline in a row in 1963, during the height of the tobacco epidemic and amid a wave of flu." --safari: Good thing we have Kellyanne Conjob on the case.
Celeste Katz of Newsweek: "Students ripped off by for-profit college loan programs may face a painful lesson in the workings of government thanks to the federal Education Department's decision to change the rules about forgiving their debt. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Wednesday that the department is altering the Obama Administration's promise of completely erasing loans taken out by students defrauded by the Corinthian Colleges chain. DeVos said under the new standards, forgiveness will now be tied to students' income as a way of measuring whether they did enjoy some benefit from their educations -- even if they were deceived about the worth of their diplomas." --safari
Beyond the Beltway
Ryan Poe of USA Today: "The city of Memphis sold two public parks containing Confederate monuments to a nonprofit Wednesday in a massive, months-in-the-planning operation to take the statues down overnight.The City Council unanimously approved the sale of Health Science Park, home of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and its easement on Fourth Bluff Park, home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, for $1,000 each to Memphis Greenspace Inc. Fourth Bluff, or Memphis Park, is owned by a group called The Overton Heirs. The sale -- which is almost certain to result in a lawsuit from statue supporters -- allows Greenspace to legally do what the city of Memphis cannot: Remove the statues from their visible perches in the parks." --safari
Corrupt Republican Judges Overturn Virginia Recount. Jim Morrison, et al., of the Washington Post: "Control of Virginia's legislature hung in limbo Wednesday after a three-judge panel declined to certify the recount of a key House race, saying that a questionable ballot should be counted in favor of the Republican and tying a race that Democrats thought they had won by a single vote. 'The court declares there is no winner in this election,' Newport News Circuit Court Judge Bryant L. Sugg said after the panel deliberated for more than two hours.... All of [the judges] were elected by a Republican-controlled legislature.... James Alcorn, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said the winner will likely be chosen by placing names on slips of papers into two film canisters and then drawing the canisters from a glass bowl (or his bowler hat). He said he is conferring with staff to figure out the date and method.... If the loser of the coin toss is unhappy with that result, he or she can seek a second recount." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Republicans argued that the voter, because s/he voted for other Republicans, intended to vote for Yancey, the Republican. Really? Take a look at the ballot, a copy of which is included in the report. The voter filled in the bubble for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie AND put an "X" over the Gillespie bubble. The House of Delegates part of the ballot says, "Vote for only one." The voter filled in the bubbles for both Yancey & the Democrat Simonds, but also appears to have put an X over the bubble for Simonds. There is no logical way you can read this ballot as a vote for Republican Gillespie (bubble + X) but not for Democrat Simonds (bubble + X). The instructions are clear. Whatever the voter's intention, s/he tried to vote for two candidates for Delegate where only one was allowed. That part of this ballot must be disregarded. These Republican judges are not stupid. They are corrupt.
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Reader Comments (26)
Juan Cole does a good job (linked above) of illustrating why UN votes won't be swayed much by DiJiT's and Haley's threat to withhold US aid if those countries don't vote right on the Jerusalem resolution. But he missed a big one: you can only kill a hostage once. Let's say that Country A votes against the US, and the US takes away the aid $. What will the US do next, when Country A persists in refusing vote compliance? Will it bow to US pressure and become compliant in order to get $? Or will it offer China a chance to make a new friend? (China is in the business of buying new friends; Russia, not so much).
Also -- how many issues can we use this tactic for? UN votes (how often?) Airport inspections? Immunity for U.S. military operators in-country? Etc. We have a l-o-n-g list of things we want other countries to do, which they don't particularly want to do. They don't see these kinds of threats (Haley's name-taking) as one-off, but just one among many. So they really have no choice but to tell us to piss off.
I doubt that DiJiT will ever understand that foreign relations is a two way street (actually, 2 to the 236th power).
Does anyone understand the 'billionaire brain'. I'm pretty sure if I won the national lottery, I would still be buying at Kohl's and Costco.
'Conservatives have decided they are a tribe,' I think that line says a lot.
Ah, gee, what a surprise! A spunky journalist went on an asking spree to see how many GOPeerers knew how many tax brackets were in their tax bill. He found only one that did. With video:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/house-republicans-dont-know-tax-basics_us_5a3ab764e4b02b494c5267b4?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Re: the Amtrak disaster– See story linked above: Will Elaine Chao, head of transportation, speak to us re: this failure?
@Patrick: Yes. you don't bully your allies––something this buffoon and his gal Sunday ignore––are ignorant of–-again, shoot from the hip and pay for it afterwards. We have novices and numskulls running our country and other countries are going to reap the benefits.
" Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Wednesday that the department is altering the Obama Administration’s promise of completely erasing loans taken out by students defrauded by the Corinthian Colleges chain. DeVos said under the new standards, forgiveness will now be tied to students’ income as a way of measuring whether they did enjoy some benefit from their educations — even if they were deceived about the worth of their diplomas."
I had to read this twice just to make sure I understood that those students who managed to make some gain in their lives, despite the fact they were deceived and ripped off by the fraudulent Corinthian colleges, will be punished.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????
Regarding "Presidential Incapacity: a Holiday Gift Guide" in today's NYT:
When the president* goes to the hospital in the new year as promised, I would recommend that he get an MRI of his head. It would be standard medical practice for possible new onset of a neurological condition, slurred speech. However, he also has been showing signs of confabulation: fluid speech about impossible things. This would be the speech that has been called lies that the president* does not think or know he lies about. Small strokes can injure specific areas of the brain which cause these signs and which are identifiable on MRI.
And the lack of mental initiative, the inability to sustain attention, etc., sound like prefrontal functions, which might also show signs of atrophy on MRI.
My point is that if, after a spell of slurred speech, the doctors at the hospital do NOT get an MRI, they would not be meeting standard of care (malpractice). I am curious to see how they handle this.
If the ballot from the Virginia election shown in the Wash Po story is the one the three Gross Old Plutocrat judges passed judgment on, then the GOP has just proven their case that election fraud is a problem in the USA.
Your morning's statistics:
Opioid deaths 2016: >42,000.
Deaths by gunshot 2016: 38,000.
OD deaths from fentanyl: 19,143, up from 9,580 in 2015. Talk about skyrocketing!
sources: today's WaPo and the googles.
And the reason this is not a national public health emergency is.....?
So the Confederate schemers in Virginia are going to do a "coin toss" to decide the election? I guess plain old democracy isn't good enough. Then again, Confederates tossed out democracy a long time ago. You can bet your Ovaltine Captain Midnight secret decoder ring that if the coin lands in favor of the Democrat, they'll decide that it was the wrong kind of coin.
Or maybe they'll take the Chico Marx approach to deciding important issues (from "Duck Soup")
Chico: [trying to decide if himself, Groucho, Harpo, or Zeppo will make a suicidal run into no-mans-land to get help during a battle scene]
I gots an idea. We have a runspot to see who we choose to go. Rrrrrrringspot! One-sa, two-sa, zig-zag-zav, poptie, gimmega, tin-lie, tav, harem, scarem, moychan, tarem, tare, tore...
[realizes that he's about to land on himself]
Chico: I did it wrong. Wait, wait, wait... I start here! Rrrrrrringspot! One-sa, two-sa, zig-zag-zav, poptie, gimmega, tin-lie, tav, harem, scarem, moychan, tarem, tare, tore...
[realizes he's about to land on himself again]
Chico: That's a-no good too! Oh, I got it! Rrrringspot, BUCK!
[points to Harpo]
Chico: Good luck!
By the way, Groucho's corrupt, womanizing, completely unqualified, gleefully nihilistic Rufus T. Firefly, president of Freedonia, looks like Abraham Lincoln compared to Trump.
@PD Pepe
When I linked that piece, I was thinking about adding some comment about the "whether they did enjoy some benefit from their educations", but then I thought "Fuck it, what's the point?"
With the onslaught of bullshit coming at us these days I no longer know when or how to get worked up. Admittedly, it's a brilliant strategy.
On another note, concerning "Trumpian linguistics", I honestly don't believe Trump has the time nor the intellectual fortitude of organizing the new "Language Police" department. This is coming from deep within the Movement 'Conservative' swamp, likely another low-life leech owned and operated by "Donors 'R' the US".
I doubt Dementia Donny knows or cares about this shadow campaign, and it sounds eerily like Grover Norquist's declaration that the GOP only needs a warm body to sign their legislation, or in this case, head the government while separate stealth campaigns ratfuck every other agency under his administration's control.
The little king is so fond of trotting out statistics to show his dominance over that horrible nee-groe who used to live in HIS White House.
How's this for a stat?
Victoria points out the rise of the opioid crisis even as Trump and his party of greedy stooges cut healthcare. Well, it shows:
"Life expectancy in the United States has dropped again following last year's decline, which marked the first downturn in more than two decades.
On average, Americans can now expect to live 78.6 years, a statistically significant drop of 0.1 year, according to a report on 2016 data published Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics. Women can now expect to live a full five years longer than men: 81.1 years vs. 76.1 years."
So Trump and his lying pals who have just upped the deficit by trillions in order to hand more money over to themselves and their rich donors, are peeling off weeks and months from the lives of Americans.
They want their money and they don't care if you have to die early for them to get it. This is worse than corruption. This is murder. Can we have a coin toss on that?
@safari's comment made me think that it's to Congress's advantage to have a vulnerable (sorry, word police) president sitting in the Oval Office signing their deplorable bills. Right now they're propping him up, but if he gets testy & doesn't go along with any part of their program, they can break one of the chair legs, & down he goes. And of course all of this beats Putin's grandest dreams.
Quote of the week: "“Christianity now faces an exodus in the Middle East unrivaled since the days of Moses,” -- VP d, in a speech this week.
Those must be the Christians for whom Jesus parted the Red Sea?
Akhilleus, you got the right word: MURDER (for money). The new form of the mafia.
And don't forget, the Republican celebration had a prayer.
When a hat is not just a hat, and other tales from the Confederacy
It's likely, as Safari suggests, that the little king's attempt at language control is not an original idea of his own, as he is no maven of either the spoken or written word, despite having all the best ones. It's more probable that the fascist language control strategy is part of a larger Confederate scheme, cooked up by sniveling scriveners in the bowels of Heritage, down in the lower basement where they torture small animals during lunch breaks. But it's all part of controlling the message. Making it more difficult for government employees to make clear, direct statements about things the Right abhors, like facts, and science, and vulnerable populations, not to mention conversations about fetuses, is an end to be much desired.
With that in mind, I'm thinking of a passage I ran across last night in a wonderful book by the historian Michael Kammen, "Visual Shock" a history of controversial artworks in American culture. Some of you may remember Kammen's exquisite "Mystic Chords of Memory", a study of how culture fashions historical narratives and vice versa, in the American psyche.
The passage in question comes in a chapter on the politicization of art. This is nothing new. Art has always been politicized by those who knew how to do it and what it could do for them. The Greeks did it, the Etruscans, and certainly the Romans did it too. Such efforts didn't always succeed at delivering the intended results however. Caesar's release of brand new coinage featuring his kisser on the front likely got Brutus and Cassius and company sharpening their knives, seeing it as one more brick on the road to tyranny.
Napoleon, once he had asserted control over most of Europe and crowned himself emperor, commissioned a slew of official portraits incorporating all the necessary iconography attendant to such an ascension. He's got the orb (not the Trump orb, a much better one), the scepter, the crown, the ermine robes, the slippers AND the ceremonial laurel wreath reserved by Romans for conquerors, just in case anyone missed that Bonaparte was the New Caesar. Symbolism matters.
During the middle ages, any artist worth their salt was conversant in the iconography of the age. Colors all represented certain qualities and states. Flowers and trees all had their own meanings as well. Viewers could read this sort of imagery and interpret the (to them) not so hidden iconography as easily as we read the NY Times. Saints each had their own collection of symbols, kind of like corporate logos on the suits of NASCAR drivers, except with the unfortunate addition of horrible images of martyrdom. Jesus had a bunch. He was represented by a veritable Noah's Ark of animal types, fish, dolphins, eagles, peacocks, lions, deer, the ostrich, the pelican, the ant (ant?), and the unicorn, which was banned from the stable of Christological symbols during the Counter-Reformation. Not sure why, but it seems it was a combination of tight-assed religious censors and the sudden appearance of spicy taco stands in town squares . But don't quote me on that one.
Official Washington is awash in symbolism. Greek and Roman architectural elements decorate dozens of federal buildings. In fact, Roman iconography is the reason for this comment.
During the early 1860's, as the Capitol dome was being completed, it was decided that some sort of symbolic statuary should top it all off. A kind of iconographic exclamation point. The sculptor Thomas Crawford was commissioned for the job. His initial idea was a representation of Libertas, Roman goddess of liberty. The imagery was predominantly connected to peace and freedom, but that was changed. As is often the case when politicians get involved, the thing became a clusterfuck of competing images. A panoply of classical iconography gave off multiple messages. There's the shield of the United States, but a sword as well, to remind everyone of our warlike potential. A row of stars ringed her head and then, there was the hat.
But not just any hat. This was a Roman pileus, a soft, conical hat that indicated its wearer was a freedman. It became an important symbol for any slave who had achieved or was granted freedom. The pileus was incorporated into a ceremony celebrating the former slave's welcome into the company of free men and women. It was, to quote Smokin' Joe Biden, "a big fuckin' deal". Too big for some, notably the guy who hijacked the process of imagining this representation of America: the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis. To Davis the pileus was unacceptable. As Kammen puts it, "Davis would not approve of the including the pileus, an ideological symbol of long standing, on the grounds that 'its history renders it inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved'--quite a self-serving assertion from a Mississippi slaveholder soon to become the president of the Confederacy".
Nonetheless, Davis's vision of America, a statue that morphed from the image of Libertas to that of Minerva, the Roman goddess of war, and one that denied that slaves could ever be freed, still stands at the very top of our Capitol building. It's unlikely that all that many visitors to the District or even many who work under the dome can, today, recognize and interpret the competing symbolism of the statue, but that's not the point. The point is control of the message. Today, a whole new generation of Confederates are laboring mightily to paint themselves as populists even as they give the store away to the wealthy who wouldn't spit on an average American if they thought it would cost them a few drops of spittle. Trump and his cohort try to leverage anything they can to control how Americans think and how they interpret the signs and symbols. The symbols of democracy, the voting booth and the ballot, are being hollowed out. Very much like Jeff Davis, contemporary Confederates are loathe to admit that races other than whites have any value or deserve an equal place under the Dome.
Just look at the pictures of the gleeful, smiling, giddy Confederate toadies, with the Glorious Leader, who have just completed an obscene con job, a tax scheme that hands billions to Trump and his pals and special breaks to members of congress, while stepping on average Americans. And yet, they attempt to control the message by continuing to lie about what it all means. Where are Brutus and Cassius when you need them?
One doesn't need to be a semiotics scholar to read the symbols in use by Confederates. Their chapeau of choice, for instance, (at least in their own minds) is the black top hat of rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly Man, but their actual headwear is more in the range of dunce caps and hollow crowns. There's not a pileus in the bunch. And you can be sure they'll try hard, as Davis once did, to make sure no one else wears one either.
No matter how hard Bea, Safari, et. al.work, this blessed site is not long enough to accommodate all the mal- and misfeasance perpetrated by the Pretender and his gang of increasingly repugnant Repugnants.
How about this one from the former EPA, now the B (business) PA?
https://weather.com/en-CA/canada/science/news/2017-12-20-epa-scott-pruitt-lean-superfund-sites
Looks like another Pretender Christmas present to those who have and want more. Will be interested in what my lawyer son who does cleanup site work has to say about this when I see him this weekend.
And this morning's paper reports that, of course, the group that came up with this neat plan left no paper trail.
Government of the Dark by the Dark in the Dark.
@Patrick: Wasn't that right after the transfiguration where Jesus chatted with the burning bush? I think I read it in "Fractured Bible Stories" by mike pence, which is flying off the shelves this Christmas season as if on the wings of seven archangels.
Anyhow, great catch. The reporter missed it.
Can't wait to see trump's mugshot on a U.S. postage stamp. And
maybe ryan and the rest of the posse of robbers.
@forrest morris: The USPS usually releases a former president's commemorative stamp on his birthday in the year following his death. Just saying.
Death being the operative word!
Forrest,
I'm pulling for this picture on the Trump stamp. But I'll settle for this one. Please, Mr. Postmaster, sir, can it be on the one cent stamp?
A picture is worth a thousand words. No, make that 993, since 7
have been banned.
UN: Yes 129
No 9 Micronesia, Nauru, Togo and Tonga, Palau, the Marshall Islands, Guatemala and Honduras, Israel, US.
Hiding: Canada, Poland and mostly unimportant.
NATO: yes!
As I said, we no longer has allies,
Forrest,
Hahahaha. You're a funny guy. Better hold off on your difference in that subtraction; there may be a lot more.
Marvin,
I heard about the UN vote. Lucky for us vital allies like Nauru, Tonga, Guatemala, and the Marshall Islands will be on our side against the entire rest of the world. Sounds like Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" that agreed to his War of Choice, countries like Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands.
Why is it that Confederate "leaders" are such fucking douchebags?
Akhilleus , Trump just seriously embarrassed the USA. Can't wait to hear the response. Turns out that bully threats for 5 year olds don't work for certain adults. The only thing I am sure is it's not his fault.
Unqualified- we need a new word.
Nauru could be a great ally for the trumpies. It has miles of sandy
beaches and no high rise trump towers (yet). It has an international
airport. The unemployment rate is 90% so it would work for trumpies
since they could pay $2 an hour and most of them speak English,
unlike the trumpies, who speak (?). And the donald would fit right in,
since the obesity rate is like 95%.