The Commentariat -- December 4, 2017
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Monday that he feels 'very badly' for his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, because his false statements to the FBI have 'ruined his life.' Trump, who tweeted over the weekend that he fired Flynn from his White House job because he had lied to the FBI as well as to Vice President Pence, told reporters Monday morning that Flynn's undoing was 'a shame' and 'very unfair.' 'I feel badly for General Flynn,' Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House, as he boarded Marine One ahead of a trip to Utah [Mrs. McC: to destroy a national monument]. 'I feel very badly. He's led a very strong life, and I feel very badly.'... 'I will say this: Hillary Clinton lied many times to the FBI,' Trump said. 'Nothing happened to her. Flynn lied, and they destroyed his life. I think it's a shame. Hillary Clinton, on the 4th of July weekend, went to the FBI, not under oath. It was the most incredible thing anyone's ever seen. She lied many times. Nothing happened to her. Flynn lied, and it's like they ruined his life. It's very unfair.'... White House spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request to substantiate Trump's allegation that she had 'lied many times' to the FBI." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That might be because there is no evidence to substantiate Trump's allegation, as Jim Comey testified last year. It's just another of those made-up charges that Trump says "people will believe."
Kara Scannell of CNN: "The White House's chief lawyer told ... Donald Trump in January he believed [-- based on his conversations with Acting AG Sally Yates --] then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled the FBI and lied to Vice President Mike Pence and should be fired, a source familiar with the matter said Monday.... Despite McGahn's recommendation that Trump fire Flynn, the retired lieutenant general was kept on. Flynn was forced out in mid-February after news outlets reported about Yates' warning to McGahn." ...
... Greg Sargent: Trump's attorney John "'Dowd is basically arguing that as the chief law enforcement officer, Trump has the authority to block investigations into himself, his allies and into his friends, and nothing he does can be construed as obstruction of justice,' Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman, told me this morning. 'The logical extension of all this is that Trump can try to remove Mueller and it would be entirely legitimate.'... Trump is amplifying a narrative that his media allies have banged away at in recent weeks, one designed to goad Trump into going full authoritarian. The basic idea is that Mueller and the FBI are themselves corrupt -- Clinton is not being investigated, but Trump's campaign is -- so the only way to set things right is to close down Mueller's probe. If Miller is correct, then Dowd's new quote may telegraph an argument that might be used to justify this, and Trump's vow to bring the FBI 'back to greatness' can also be read as a hint at this possibility.... Multiple GOP lawmakers have said Mueller's probe should be allowed to proceed." ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "To be clear, this is a Trump lawyer effectively trying to knock down one of two major pillars of the Russia investigation -- to exempt his client completely from being held liable for his actions in (roughly) half the investigation.... [While some lawyers saw some merits in Dowd's argument], [o]ther wereblunter, arguing that Dowd's case is bogus and entirely self-serving. Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina's School of Law called it 'absurd.' 'The president is obliged to faithfully execute the law, and that includes in circumstances where he or his friends are involved,' Gerhardt said. 'He must also comply like every citizen is obliged to follow the laws in everything else he does...." ...
... Sean Illing of Vox rounds up more Constitutional scholars who write that, just because the president has the power to do something doesn't mean he has the right to commit a corrupt act. That is, he has the power to fire federal officials who serve at his pleasure, but it is unlawful to fire them for a corrupt purpose -- like, um, protecting himself & his friends. Mrs. McC: As MAG points out in today's thread, Trump has already admitted -- to top Russian officials, no less -- that "Firing 'Nut Job' Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation." ...
... Brian Beutler of Crooked: The press had adopted the White House's defense that "there is no evidence Trump & his campaign colluded with Russia." "This framing gets things almost completely backward: There is more than enough evidence to say definitively that the Trump administration colluded with Russia, and there is every reason to believe the plot encompassed criminal activity, even if that activity remains invisible for now.... After repeatedly communicating to Russia (in public and in private) that they welcomed interference in the election, Trump and his aides cast public doubt on whether the saboteurs were Russians at all. When Trump went on to win the election after benefiting from this interference, members of his inner circle, through Michael Flynn, secretly connived with Russia to subvert the countermeasures the American government had undertaken as penalties for Russia's interference." ...
... ** Asha Rangappa in a Hill op-ed, outlines how the Trump transition team crippled U.S. diplomatic power against Russia both before & after the inauguration. "Focusing on whether the Trump campaign and transition team broke the law misses the bigger picture. By secretly sabotaging a measure designed to protect America's sovereignty in the face of a foreign attack, these individuals acted against the interest of the United States and aided our adversary. Now they are the stewards of the country and its institutions. Whatever happens in a court of law, that is what should concern us all."
James Hohmann of the Washington Post: The president of the FBI Agents Association & Jim Comey are defending the agency on Twitter against Trump's tweeted assertions that the FBI is "in tatters" & the new director must "clean house."
*****
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out at the F.B.I. on Sunday ... by charging that the bureau's reputation was 'in tatters -- worst in history' and denying that he had told his first F.B.I. director to end the Flynn investigation.... In a 6:15 a.m. tweet on Sunday, the president called [James] Comey a liar and said the news media had spread falsehoods.... 'I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!'... In an extraordinary attack on the top law enforcement body in his own government, Mr. Trump accused the F.B.I. and its career investigators of having a bias against him.... 'After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters - worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.'... Mr. Trump's efforts to shift the attention to Mrs. Clinton after Mr. Flynn's guilty plea began Saturday night, when he assailed the Justice Department." And so forth. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It seems obvious that just yesterday, one of his attorneys or some other advisor was able to impress upon Trump that trying to get the FBI to squelch a criminal investigation is obstruction of justice AND is a crime for which a president can be impeached & possibly indicted. This is the first time in lo, these many months since Comey first made the assertion -- under oath -- that Trump has denied he asked Comey to clear Flynn. Of course this is a pattern with Trump: deny, deny, deny. Insist upon his own reality. Pretty soon we'll find out that Flynn's name never even came up in the meeting. Or maybe there was no meeting -- it's just "another Comey lie." ...
... Roberta Rampton & Karen Freifeld of Reuters: "Trump's attorney, John Dowd, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday ... that then-Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates informed White House counsel Don McGahn in January that Flynn told FBI agents the same thing he told Pence, and that McGahn reported his conversation with Yates to Trump. He said Yates did not characterize Flynn's conduct as a legal violation." Dowd said he "took responsibility" for the tweet, which was "a mistake." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is Dowd, supposedly falling on his sword, but actually making matters worse for his client by confirming that McGahn told Trump in January that Flynn had lied to the FBI. Mueller is going to use this. And please don't try to tell us that McGahn & Trump had no idea that lying to the FBI was a crime. Trump was friendly with Martha Stewart at the time Stewart went to jail for lying to the FBI & even went into business with her briefly in an "Apprentice" spin-off during that period. ...
... Update. The WashPo has the story at the top of its online page this morning. Carol Leonnig, et al.: "President Trump;s personal lawyer said on Sunday that the president knew in late January that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had probably given FBI agents the same inaccurate account he provided to Vice President Pence about a call with the Russian ambassador. Trump lawyer John Dowd said the information was passed to Trump by White House counsel Donald McGahn, who had been warned about Flynn's statement to the vice president by a senior Justice Department official. The vice president said publicly at the time that Flynn had told him he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian diplomat -- a statement disproved by a U.S. intelligence intercept of a phone call between Flynn and then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump was aware of the issue a couple of weeks before a conversation with then-FBI Director James B. Comey in which Comey said the president asked him if he could be lenient while investigating Flynn, whom Trump had just fired for misleading Pence about the nature of his conversations with the Russian.... A person close to the White House involved in the case termed the Saturday tweet 'a screw-up of historic proportions' that has 'caused enormous consternation in the White House.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND here's a twist in the WashPo story: "People familiar with Yates' account say she never discussed any part of the FBI investigation with the White House." In other words, Trump found out from someone on his own staff -- likely Flynn -- that Flynn had lied to the FBI. It's equally plausible that Trump ordered Flynn to lie to the FBI. No doubt Flynn has already told the Mueller team how Trump came to know about Flynn's lie to the FBI. Anyhow, keep on digging, Donald. The one & only way you may be saving taxpayer dollars is making Mueller's job easier. ...
... Mike Allen of Axios: "John Dowd, President Trump's outside lawyer, outlined to me a new and highly controversial defense/theory in the Russia probe: A president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice. 'The "President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,' Dowd claims.... Dowd says the ... Trump tweet 'did not admit obstruction. That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion.'... Trump's legal team is clearly setting the stage to say the president cannot be charged with any of the core crimes discussed in the Russia probe: collusion and obstruction. Presumably, you wouldn't preemptively make these arguments unless you felt there was a chance charges are coming.... Remember: The Articles of Impeachment against Nixon began by saying he 'obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One of several problems with Dowd's argument: the obstruction began when Trump was a private citizen; i.e., he did not have the supposed omnipotence of the presidency. mike pence lied on national television about Flynn's conversation with Kislyak on January 15, three days after David Ignatius of the WashPo reported on the actual nature of the Flynn/Kislyak conversation about sanctions & five days before the inauguration. Presuming Trump knew the true nature of the call, Trump had a duty to correct the record. He did not & instead installed the compromised Flynn as his top national security advisor immediately after the inauguration. The I-fired-Flynn-because-he-lied-to-pence story was always a sham. Whether or not pence knew he was lying to the American public, it almost certain (but not proved) that Trump knew.
... Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "... by Sunday, the notoriously hot-headed president had already claimed Flynn was fired earlier this year in part for lying to the FBI and had moved on to accusing the nation's top law-enforcement agency of being 'in tatters.'... The tweets all combined to reignite fears among people close to Trump that the president is not taking the special counsel's investigation seriously enough and is getting bad advice from his legal team.... The tweet [about the reason he fired Flynn] immediately raised questions about whether Trump knew when he fired Flynn that the then-adviser was lying to the FBI.... Trump's personal lawyer, John Dowd, told Politico on Sunday that he drafted it, adding that he believed it was posted online by social media director Dan Scavino. Dowd's confession was met with widespread skepticism.... Peter Zeidenberg, who served on the Justice Department's special prosecution team during the George W. Bush-era Valerie Plame investigation, said Trump's tweets and public statements 'are extremely damaging to him and helpful to Mueller's team.' 'The toughest thing in bringing an obstruction case is proving the state of mind of the defendant,' Zeidenberg said. 'Trump is making their job easy.'" ...
... Marcia Chambers & Charles Kaiser of the Guardian: "The least-noticed sentence in Michael Flynn's plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller may also be the most important one. Section eight of the deal ... specifies that as well as answering questions and submitting to government-administered polygraph tests, Flynn's cooperation 'may include ... participating in covert law enforcement activities'.... Long-time students of federal law enforcement practices agreed, speaking anonymously, that 'covert law enforcement activities' likely refers to the possibility of wearing a concealed wire or recording telephone conversations with other potential suspects. It is not known whether Flynn has worn a wire at any time." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie BTW: It's somewhat surprising to see Jared Kushner come out of the woodwork today (story linked below) inasmuch as Flynn's cooperation puts him in a heap of trouble. Not only was Kushner the guy who told Flynn to round up international opposition to the proposed U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements, (1) Obama was still president, (2) Kushner's move was counter to longstanding U.S. policy, including the Obama administration's, & (3) Kushner was a co-director of a family foundation that funded some of those illegal settlements (see yesterday's links), something (4) he failed to disclose in his financial forms, forms he has had to revise several times because of many other "accidental oversights."
Billy House of Bloomberg: "U.S. House Republicans are drafting a contempt of Congress resolution against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, claiming stonewalling in producing material related to the Russia-Trump probes and other matters. Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes and other committee Republicans, after considering such action for several weeks, decided to move after media including the New York Times reported Saturday on why a top FBI official assigned to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russia-Trump election collusion had been removed from the investigation. Republicans, including the president, pointed to the reports as evidence that the entire probe into Russian meddling has been politically motivated. 'Now it all starts to make sense,' Trump said on Twitter Sunday." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's see: Mueller -- with no outside prodding -- removes an agent who may have left an appearance of bias, which leads Nunes to think the Mueller probe is biased. Like most of Nunes' (and Trump's) bright ideas, this one doesn't make a lick of sense. If you prove you're unbiased, then you're biased. Nitwits. ...
... A Surprise Welcome-Home Committee. Josh Gerstein: "When former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos stepped off a flight from Germany at Dulles Airport outside Washington last July, he had no inkling of the unwelcome surprise in store for him: FBI agents waiting to place him under arrest.... Jail records ... show Papadopoulos was booked in at the Alexandria (Va.) city detention center at 1:45 a.m. the following morning.... [One of Papadopoulos' lawyers] said Papadopoulos arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Munich that touched down at about 7 p.m. on July 27, and the FBI intercepted him as soon as he got off the plane." Another of Papadopoulos' lawyers said his client needing "calming down" as a result of the arrest. Former federal prosecutor Jeff Cramer said, "'I wouldn't underestimate the shock value of that to flip someone.'... It worked."
Billy Bush, in a New York Times op-ed: "He said it. 'Grab 'em by the pussy.' Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America's highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real. We now know better." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Assuming Billy is being truthful here (and who knows?), this somewhat mitigates his playing along with Trump's boasts about sexually abusing women. I can imagine myself laughing along with-- that is, laughing at -- some nitwit whose boasts were too ridiculous to credit. I would not laugh, however, at someone who bragged about doing violence to anyone or anything. "Ha ha, when I see a dog, I just kick it." "Ha ha, when I go camping, I just leave the mess behind. Campfire still burning? Eh."
... Kevin Drum highlights another graf in Bush's op-ed: "'In the days, weeks and months to follow, I was highly critical of the idea of a Trump presidency. The man who once told me -- ironically, in another off-camera conversation -- after I called him out for inflating his ratings: 'People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,' was, I thought, not a good choice to lead our country.'... In the end, Trump may turn out to be less right than he thinks.... It's not true of everyone, and it's not true all the time, but it's true for an awful lot of people an awful lot of the time." Mrs. McC: This is the future POTUS*, rather than being ashamed of his propensity to lie, boasting about it. Hope Mueller catches this, as it sure goes to Trump's credibility. Bush may get another 15 minutes of fame as a lack-of-character witness.
Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "President Trump has reportedly given staffers direct assignments by calling them secretly to the residence in the evenings, in an attempt to circumvent chief of staff John Kelly. Trump reportedly gives aides tasks and says they should not share them with Kelly, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.... The Wall Street Journal also reported that sometimes, friends of Trump will get a message to the president through first lady Melania Trump." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: digby has a long excerpt from the WSJ report here. safari linked yesterday to a Raw Story piece on the WSJ report. ...
... Chas Danner of New York: "Melania Trump's spokesperson ... called the reports 'more fake news.' But a more accurate categorization would probably be: 'more leaked news that characterizes the president as a mischievous little boy treating the White House as his clubhouse and his advisers like substitute teachers.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump & Dennis have the same hairdos & equally tiny hands. I guess the main difference is that Dennis was nice enough to have a devoted pet.
... in President Donald Trump, I think the United States once again has a President whose vision, energy, and can-do spirit is reminiscent of President Teddy Roosevelt.-- mike pence, August 2017
[Theodore] Roosevelt used his presidential authority to issue executive orders to create 150 new national forests, increasing the amount of protected land from 42 million acres to 172 million acres. The President also created five national parks, eighteen national monuments, and 51 wildlife refuges. -- Miller Center at the University of Virginia ...
... Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: "President Trump is expected to announce a historic reduction to Bears Ears National Monument on Monday, a sprawling region of red rock canyons in Utah that has been at the center of a national fight over how much land a president can legally set aside for protection. The Trump administration plans to announce that he will shrink the monument by between 77 and 92 percent, according to statements from the office of Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah. It would be the largest reduction of a national monument to date, and it comes as the administration pushes for fewer restrictions and more development on public lands. The move is ... expected to trigger a legal battle that could alter the course of American land conservation, possibly opening millions of protected public acres to oil and gas extraction, mining, logging and other commercial activities." ...
Conceptualization.
... Sadly, plans to replace TR on Mount Rushmore with a humungous likeness of DiJiT have been abandoned as Trump unwittingly turned the national park over to a Russian mining conglomerate, which blasted the mountain last week. This news should not diminish Trump's assertion that he belongs on Mount Rushmore.
Karen DeYoung & Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "President Trump's push for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians stems from a belief that his broader goals of stopping Iranian aggression and Islamist extremism will not be possible without it, presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a rare public appearance Sunday. 'If we're going to try to create more stability in the region as a whole, you have to solve this issue,' Kushner told Middle East experts gathered at the Brookings Institution's Saban Forum.... But nearly a year after Trump named Kushner ... as point person for what he called 'the ultimate deal,' there has been no public indication of where the initiative is heading." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What? What? Kushner, & by implication Trump, are telling Middle East experts what to do? Might as well have Beavis & Butthead running the country's nuclear programs. Oh, wait. We kinda do.
Faith Karimi of CNN: "The United States notified the United Nations that it will no longer take part in the global compact on migration, saying it undermines the nation's sovereignty. The US has been a part of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants since it was formed last year. The declaration aims to ensure the rights of migrants, help them resettle and provide them with access to education and jobs. It calls for the negotiation of a global compact on migration, which is expected to be adopted next year." Tillerson & Ambassador Nikki Haley both mumbled something about U.S. sovereignty. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It probably didn't help the U.N. effort on global migration to situate its meeting this week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Whether or not that was an intentional slap in Trump's pouty face, you can be sure he took it that way.
Booze, Women & Movies. Grassley Finds a Swell Way to Justify Tax Breaks for the Super-Rich. Prynard of Iowa Starting Line: "... Senator Chuck Grassley made clear his disdain for those not benefiting under the new tax law. 'I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,' Grassley told the Register in a story posted yesterday. It's difficult to think of a more condescending, elitist worldview.... That's also an interesting assumption that perhaps only the men in a household make and spend money." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: Did Chuck go to the Country Music School of Philosophy? ...
... Erik Loomis of LG&$ recalls Orrin Hatch's remarks on the Senate floor suggesting that the parents of poor kids "are leeches on the plutocrats who deserve all the money," & throws in Grassley's musings. "This is an attitude of robbing the poor to give to the rich and then blaming the poor for their own poverty. What could be more New Gilded Age?... This is full-fledged late 19th century elite Robber Baron governance."
Senate Races, Trump Edition
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday offered his most explicit endorsement to date of Roy Moore, the embattled Republican Senate candidate in Alabama who stands accused of making unwanted sexual advances on teenagers when he was in his 30s. 'We need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama,' Trump declared in an early morning tweet, leaving no question that he was supporting a Senate nominee that many other Republican leaders have repudiated and called upon to quit the race." The special election is next Tuesday, December 12.
Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Donald Trump is going all out to persuade seven-term Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch to seek reelection -- a push aimed in no small part at keeping the president's longtime nemesis, Mitt Romney, out of the Senate. Romney has been preparing to run for Hatch's seat on the long-held assumption that the 83-year-old would retire. Yet Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, is now refusing to rule out another campaign -- a circumstance Romney's infuriated inner circle blames squarely on the president. Their suspicions are warranted: Trump has sounded off to friends about how he doesn't like the idea of a Senator Romney."
AND Fox Business commentator Lou Dobbs, a/k/a Bigoted Old Coot, thinks President Obama should be arrested for saying that a person (any person) should think before he tweets. Mrs. McC: Even tho Orrin Hatch says the federal government doesn't have any money any more, he may still want to propose a bill charging the CDC with searching for a cure for ODS --the debilitating, as-yet incurable Obama Derangement Syndrome. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "The Metropolitan Opera suspended James Levine, its revered conductor and former music director, on Sunday after three men came forward with accusations that Mr. Levine sexually abused them decades ago, when the men were teenagers. Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, announced that the company was suspending its four-decade relationship with Mr. Levine, 74, and canceling his upcoming conducting engagements after learning from The New York Times on Sunday about the accounts of the three men, who described a series of similar sexual encounters beginning in the late 1960s. The Met has also asked an outside law firm to investigate Mr. Levine's behavior."
Michael de la Merced & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "CVS Health said on Sunday that it had agreed to buy Aetna for about $69 billion in a deal that would combine the drugstore giant with one of the biggest health insurers in the United States and has the potential to reshape the nation's health care industry. The transaction, one of the largest of the year, reflects the increasingly blurred lines between the traditionally separate spheres of a rapidly changing industry and represents an effort to make both companies more appealing to consumers as health care that was once delivered in a doctor's office more often reaches consumers over the phone, at a retail clinic or via an app."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Washington Post: "Ali Abdullah Saleh, the autocratic president who ruled Yemen for more than three decades, has died in the latest outbreak of violence in the country's civil war, according to members of his political party as well as a Yemeni rebel group. The Associated Press also confirmed the death." This is a breaking story at 8:50 am ET.
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Reader Comments (18)
It's time for hard-working poor Americans to have a "Take Your Senator to Work" day. For many people, that will be a work and work and work day.
Maybe this is a job for local television stations, at least the ones not owned by SINclair Broadcasting. Send a camera crew to follow people stuck in minimum wage jobs for a day, edit it down to the attention span of a Republican Senator, and send it out into the world.
Little Donnie announces that he plans to shrink all national monuments and parks to the size of a dollar store parking lot. National Park Service visitors centers will be replaced by concession stands selling MAGA caps (made in China) and pictures of the Glorious Leader, perfect for framing.
I read this morning that the shrinking of the National Park in Utah (first of many) is being undertaken after an “exhaustive” three minute study conducted by Trump’s Interior Secretary, ol’ Strip-Mine Zinke. Isn’t that a little like commissioning a vivisectionist to handle the problem of stray animals?
MASTERPIECE THEATER: LET THEM EAT CAKE
This week the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that marks religious right's latest assault on LGBT people. Featured in this play of plays is one Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, Colorado. This cake maker isn't keen on all them homosexuals and whatnots–-it ain't normal and it certainly is NOT Christian and so he refuses to make those masterpieces for THOSE people.
The Trump administration ––because why not–––has filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the bakery––the first time in history––let me repeat that–––the first time in history that the solicitor general has supported a constitutional exemption from an anti-discrimination law.
Tickets for this play are in short supply so get them while you may and since we don't pray, let us just say loud and clear that anti-discrimination laws are there by their very nature designed to ensure equal treatment for all. Period.
https://newrepublic.com/article/146092/masterpiece-cakeshop-isnt-free-speech-case
Since McConnell has said he will welcome a baby rapist to the Senate if the voters of Alabama send one, it is difficult to imagine any level of turpitude that would cause the impeachment of Filthy McNasty.
So the FBI is in 'tatters'. Makes sense to piss on the people investigating you. So Flynn, Comey, Billy Bush (and seven other people in the room) are liars. 16 women are liars. All claimed by someone who lies every day. How does this country put up with this?
It goes beyond the word 'obvious'. I wish I knew how to avoid reality.
@carlyle: Peter Beinart of the Atlantic agrees with you. Even if Democrats were to take over the House & Senate, making impeachment itself a possibility, conviction is mathematically impossible (without GOP votes) because it takes 2/3rds of the Senate to convict. Even if Democrats sweep the 2018 Senate elections (not likely), they won't have a 2/3rds majority. To get a conviction, the person Trump shoots in the middle of Fifth (or Pennsylvania) Avenue would probably have to be a conservative icon in good standing.
As for Moore, the Senate by law almost certainly has to seat him if he wins the election. Even expelling him, without proof of additional unlawful acts by Moore, is iffy. If the people choose to elect a criminal or other genre of reprobate after knowledge of his past has become widespread, there's really no cause to expel that elected official. The Senate could censure Moore, the leadership could refuse to assign him to committees & otherwise ostracize him, but I think the American people are pretty much stuck with Roy Moore unless masses of Alabama Republicans decide to vote Democratic.
And Now a Word from Your Gatekeepers...
Let me deviate (very useful word lately) from the baleful and quotidian Trumpian gobsmacking to bring up a technical point.
While Trump and his goons hijack decency, the rule of law, democracy, and the very concept of fairness, most of which is being accomplished by jack hammers and bulldozers, at least one Trump appointee has realized great success in a far smoother fashion. Ajit Pai, the new FCC chairman, unlike most of the little king's other hoodlums and their thuggish abettors in congress (lookin' at you Chuck Assley and Orrin "I used to be poor!" Hatch), comes across as a slick, smart operator. No bug-eyed zealot, he. But his work has all the effects of zealotry. And is accomplished with the usual exhausting lies and easily disproved assertions.
There are many popular scenarios currently abroad that paint the demise of net neutrality as the path to corporate skullduggery and mustache twirling villainy. Of course it's entirely possible that the loss of net neutrality, which effectively makes giant corporations gatekeepers to not just the internet, but to cable services, telephone, and most modern forms of communication as well, which could, at some future time, take on political castes such as that now tainting the viewership of Sinclair Broadcasting and Fox News. But in the short run, control (and piles more cash) has already been ceded by Trump's man at the FCC who, like so many tedious wingers are doing, complains that regulation stifled, and continues to stifle, investment and innovation.
It's a lie. Quite a big one.And an easily disproved lie, at that.
Not to get overly technical, let me put it this way (feel free to drill down with the links provided in the linked article), corporate internet providers like Comcast "...have already been granted a more insidious form of gatekeeper power, one that gives their own video services an unfair advantage." The advantage involves what's called data caps, which control how much a consumer can, well, consume (datawise) without having to pay through the nose. A practice called "zero-rating" allows ISP's to remove their own products and services from data cap charges. Under Obama FCC chair, Tom Wheeler, this practice was regulated and investigated as the anti-consumer, anti-choice technique it is. Under Trump? Anything that fucks consumers and hands more money to corporations is a great thing.
The idea, basically, is that consumers are forced to choose the services offered by their ISP. And that's it. Anything else, if they can get it, they pay for heavily. And most of these services, as this article mentions, are "inferior". The entire program is so heavily anti-consumer, the idea of "increased competition", as promised by Confederates, is like a mirage in the desert. But Pai and his cronies portray this as, in the oh so tiresome manner of all other rat bastard Confederate schemes to fuck average Americans for the benefit of the rich and powerful, as FREEEDOM. Please, guys, can you develop a new come-on? This one lost any veneer of conviction around the time Dick Cheney was using it to sell a war that cost trillions and is still going on.
And after the dust settles and consumers are "freed" to pay more for less, THEN we'll see which former ISP, now news, information, entertainment, and communications gatekeepers, start down the road of controlling the message and focusing attention on political calculations.
The good news just doesn't stop, does it?
I've been on hold with the IRS all morning. Great news for Tom Cotton. He can just ask the IRS what Musak they play for us taxpayers stuck on hold. All other forms of torture unnecessary! The most hardened prisoner will spill everything within 45 minutes.
Interesting that the Trump bozos are nixing the US's commitment to taking part in a global initiative to address the problems of migrants, especially since wars begun by the US have had such an enormous impact on migration.
Not only that, but immigrants coming, especially to the West, from war torn, ravaged parts of the world, are in dire need of humanitarian engagement. Problems stemming from migrating population groups have and will continue to have potentially deleterious effects on the West if these problems are not addressed in serious and cooperative ways, and for America to turn up her nose and say "Fuck off. Americans first, everyone else can go fuck themselves" is, while typical of Trump, yet another abrogation of responsibility for a nation that, for nearly 100 years now, has been a world leader.
Not anymore. Not under Trump. It's back to the 19th century. Back to robber barons and the gilded age and isolationism and virulent racism and closed doors and extremely unfair business practices and rampant cronyism and corruption in the highest seats of power.
It's all well and good to pretend that the world outside our borders is a kind of modern Ultima Thule, but the world moves on and will decide on courses of action with or without us.
Generations of American leaders have decided that engagement on a global scale is good for the security and prosperity of America. But MAGA hat wearing droolers who despise anyone not like themselves are driving the ship of state, captained, idiotically, by a delusional fat man who agrees entirely with those droolers. They lead. He follows.
Now pardon me, I have to get back to blowing my guv'mint check on booze, women, and movies (pssst...don't tell my wife).
By the way, am I off base in hearing Grassley's slur as a somewhat sanitized updating of former Nixon Confederate Ag Sec'y, Earl (Bigot) Butz's complaint about black Americans? Bigot Butz once opined as to why the "coloreds" won't vote Republican:
"I’ll tell you what coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit. That's all!"
Sounds like he's describing Trump.
Cover up? What cover up?
All this babble and covering their butts by Trump's lawyers about WHAT he said/says and WHAT he knew and WHEN he knew things about Flynn, let's go back a bit to May and the meeting in the Oval office with Sergey V. Lavrov and Sergey I. Kislyak:
1.Trump Told Russians That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation
2.Trump Told Russians That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation
3.Trump Told Russians That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation
Ad infinitum....( from the NYT : "...Trumpvs fixed the Problem!"
So the IRS admitted that I didn't owe them, as the bill they sent me claimed, but they owed me.
Meanwhile, unless the IRS Musak made me so crazy I'm seeing things (a possibility), a bear decided not to go out in the woods to shit today but chose a spot a few feet from my front door. I'm betting it's the same bear that ate My Damned Cat in October, then decided to drop off an "in memoriam" message.
@Akhilleus: And speaking of shit: Unlike Bigot Butz's (as I remember, that was his actual name) assertion, Trump would require "a gold-plated warm place to shit).
Marie,
Pleeease tell me the IRS muzak isn't that awful, fakey, you-ess-ay, sort of country music.
Bear scat at the front door is not a good sign. Either he's been pretty acclimated to being around humans (not a good sign either) or he's an iconoclastic bear, just one of those against the grain, doesn't give a shit types.
My brother and I, some years ago, went hiking in the mountains of West Virginia (up to Big Schloss). During an ice storm, we were confined to our tent (talk about crazy). That night, a bear came wandering into our campsite and, because we tied our food up in a tree (SOP in the woods), he was bored and decided to come over and start whacking at us through the sides of the tent. My brother, an outrageous optimist, said "Maybe if we keep quiet, he won't know we're in here and go away." I said "He knows we're here and he doesn't care." He had his fun and went away, but I've always been wary of bears in the wild. Bears in the front yard? That's another kettle of fish. Or barrel of bears. Or something.
Anyway, sheesh...good luck with that one.
George Costanza Explains it All.
Every now and then Chris Cillizza has a decent idea. In trying to figure out why Trump seems to always do the exact opposite of what a decent human being, not to mention decent president, would do, Cillizza has hit on a possible explanation.
George Costanza.
Old Seinfeld fans might remember an episode in which George decides that nothing he does seems to work out, so he might as well do the opposite of whatever his instincts tell him to do. He walks up to a woman and tells her he's unemployed and lives with his parents. He gets a date. Later he yells at people talking during a movie. He gets applause. After landing an interview with the Yankees, he criticizes owner George Steinbrenner...and gets a job!
Cillizza thinks there might be something to this in Trump's behavior. Me? I just think he's a contemptible prick, but there's probably something to the idea that Trump loves to be a bad boy and not do anything he should do, just because.
Of course, seeing him now denying clear evidence, describing anyone who tells the truth about him as liars, and now perhaps listening to his lawyer tell him that nothing he can do is wrong, or illegal, is a fast track to authoritarian tyranny. George is a nebbishy little schlub. Trump might be a schlub, but he also has the nuclear codes, so, not so funny.
But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Anyway, it looks like the character of George Costanza might again play a role in political discussions. You may recall the time Dark Lord Nino Scalia exhumed George's "Moops Defense" in one of his SCOTUS opinions.
The show about nothing might be about something after all.
Then again, if Trump really was doing a George Costanza, he'd have to walk up to a woman and say "I pretend to be incredibly rich and a nice guy, but I'm a miserable prick and whether you agree to go out with me or not, I'll probably sexually abuse you."
Yeah.......prob'ly not.
...and speaking about miserable pricks, how 'bout that Lou Dobbs?
According to Mr. Politenessman, former president (the last real president) Obama's mild criticism of the current president*'s habit of flushing his brain down the Twitter toilet represents "bad manners", is "boorish", and "absurd" AND it should be an offense punishable by arrest and imprisonment for a former president to make any remark not completely obsequious and complimentary about a sitting president.
So, are we to assume that Mr. Politenessman Dobbs considers Trump the opposite of boorish, badly mannered, and absurd?
Wow. I want what he's smoking.
Also... are we to further assume that when the little king has been dethroned and he spouts his usual rank, lying, boorish, absurd, badly mannered bullshit about his successor, that Dobbs will call for him to be tossed in the pokey?
Yeah...prob'ly not.
Can you imagine that ignorant fuckers like Lou Dobbs get paid actual money for opening the shit-holes in their faces?
@Akhilleus re: IRS Musak: Oh no, it's way worse. There are 5 notes that repeat continuously, with no break. Then, every few bars, there a 5- or 6-note "melody" that plays over the 5 notes. The whole cycle is only a few seconds long. Even if you played something as evocative Beethoven's famous four notes from the Fifth -- Dah-Dah-Dah-Duh -- hours on end with no break, the listener would go crazy. I think that's the goal of the IRS Musak -- to get the caller off the line somewhere before or after she goes nuts.
As for the bears, they're ubiquitous around here, even tho I live on the edge of a town & between two heavily-traveled roads. Last year in late winter when there was still snow on the ground, I got a phone call as I was driving home. I continued talking after I got to the house & stayed in the car as we wound down our conversation. That's when I noticed that my cat-carrying cage (large enough for a big dog), which I'd left outside, had been pushed up to a wall & turned on end. I could not figure out why. Then I saw in my rearview mirror, at some distance, a bear. What I think happened is that there were a few morsels of catfood left in a little feeder attached to the front of the cage, & the bear couldn't get at the food. So s/he pushed the carrier up to a wall where she could upend it & cause the catfood to fall out. Smarter than the average bear. But scary.
Marie,
Bears have an incredible sense of smell. On one of our backpacking weeks in upstate Maine (Baxter State Park), a friend forgot about an empty ginger ale can left in his tent. When we got back to camp later that day, the tent had been torn down and the tent poles bent in half (the picture of him forlornly holding up the poles is funny). A bear was attracted by the empty can and tore the tent to pieces trying to get at it. Typically, they don't like hanging around people, but nosing around for food (even teeny little bites of cat food) when people aren't there is a regular thing for some bears.
As for the muzak, yeah, that would be psychosis inducing, constant repetition of five or six notes of the same thing. On the other hand, they could use a loop of Trump's voice saying the same thing over and over...."believe me, believe me, believe me, believe me..." Believe me, I'd hang up after three minutes of that and let them come audit my ass.
MAG,
Good point about Trump's confession. Figuring it out should be easier than a game of Clue.
"Trvmpvs in the Oval Office, with his big mouth."
Game over.
Love it––all then bear stories from M. & A.–– but what I want to say is so sorry to hear of TDC's demise––that bear might well have gobbled up poor pussy but me thinks perhaps that cat ran for it's life and is somewhere near Trump's white palace eating up all the leftover morsels and mice that infest that place and maybe is fat and sassy. Wouldn't that be loverly?