;)
The Commentariat -- December 6, 2018
Afternoon Update:
I write the answers. My lawyers don't write answers. I write answers. I was asked a series of questions. I've answered them very easily, very easily. -- Donald Trump, November 16, on responding to the special counsel's written questions
Answering those questions was a nightmare. It took him about three weeks to do what would normally take two days. -- Rudy Giuliani, to Elaina Plott of the Atlantic, published December 6 ...
... ** The Big Dog Ate Rudy's Homework. Elaina Plott of the Atlantic: "Nobody knows how the White House plans to respond to the Mueller report -- including the people who work at the White House.... According to a half-dozen current and former White House officials, the administration has no plans in place for responding to the special counsel's findings -- save for expecting a Twitter spree.... [Rudy] Giuliani said it's been difficult in the past few months to even consider drafting response plans, or devote time to the 'counter-report' he claimed they were working on this summer.... Giuliani initially pushed back on the prediction that Trump would take center stage after the report drops. 'I don't think following his lead is the right thing. He's the client,' he told me. 'The more controlled a person is, the more intelligent they are, the more they can make the decision. But he's just like every other client. He's not more ... you know, controlled than any other client. In fact, he's a little less.'"
Apparently Donald Trump is fine with having "dangerous, criminal" "illegal immigrants" from Central America make his bed & clean his toilet. My hypocrisy meter done broke:
We are tired of the abuse, the insults, the way he talks about us when he knows that we are here helping him make money. We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation. -- Victorina Morales, Donald Trump's housekeeper at his residence at the Trump golf club in Bedminster ...
... Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "During more than five years as a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Victorina Morales has made Donald J. Trump's bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies. When he visited as president, she was directed to wear a pin in the shape of the American flag adorned with a Secret Service logo. Because of the 'outstanding' support she has provided during Mr. Trump's visits, Ms. Morales [-- who is from rural Guatemala --] in July was given a certificate from the White House Communications Agency inscribed with her name. Quite an achievement for an undocumented immigrant housekeeper.... She said she was not the only worker at the club who was in the country illegally.... Throughout [Trump's] campaign and his administration, Ms. Morales, 45, has been reporting for work at Mr. Trump's golf course in Bedminster, where she is still on the payroll. An employee of the golf course drives her and a group of others to work every day, she says, because it is known that they cannot legally obtain driver's licenses.... Ms. Morales said she has been hurt by Mr. Trump's public comments since he became president, including equating Latin American immigrants with violent criminals."
Rebecca Morin of Politico: "... Donald Trump is blaming special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe for his relatively low approval ratings....'Without the phony Russia Witch Hunt, and with all that we have accomplished in the last almost two years (Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judge's, Military, Vets, etc.) my approval rating would be at 75% rather than the 50% just reported by Rasmussen,' Trump tweeted on Thursday. 'It's called Presidential Harassment!'... The president's average approval rating is 43.3 percent, according to Real Clear Politics."
Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "The Senate narrowly confirmed Kathy Kraninger for a five-year term as the head of the CFPB, putting her in charge of an Obama-era agency that became a lightning rod for Republican attacks over its aggressive enforcement. Kraninger, nominated by ... Donald Trump in June, was approved on a party-line 50-49 vote.... CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney ... muffled the agency ... during his tumultuous year-long tenure -- freezing data collection for six months, dramatically reining in enforcement actions, reorganizing the student loan and fair lending offices, and installing political appointees to run the consumer bureau's day- to-day operations.... Republicans quickly lined up behind Kraninger on the endorsement of Mulvaney -- her boss at OMB -- after she was nominated. Mulvaney's supporters and critics alike see the appointment of one of his lieutenants as a way to ensure he keeps his hand in CFPB operations, especially after Kraninger said she 'cannot identify any actions that [Mulvaney] has taken with which I disagree.'" ...
... Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "Kraninger, currently the associate director of general government at the Office of Management Budget, has no experience in consumer finance but now will become one of the country's most powerful banking regulators.... Without a deep understanding of the history and complexity of consumer finance, Kraninger could become a puppet for influential financial groups, Democrats and consumer groups who oppose her nomination have argued. Democrats have also questioned whether while working in the White House's budget office Kraninger helped craft the administration's 'zero tolerance' immigration policy that separated families of undocumented immigrants. Kraninger told lawmakers in July that she had played no role in 'setting the policy' but repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether she had supported or helped implement it."
Rachel Bade & Burgess Everett of Politico: "Congress steered clear of a shutdown Thursday, but the parties are no closer to resolving the battle over ... Donald Trump's wall as Democratic leaders prepare to meet with Trump next week. Democrats are urging Republicans to sidestep a Christmastime fight over Trump's wall and simply extend current border security funding -- a proposal the GOP is already panning. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters Wednesday that she would not support Trump's border wall even if he offered up a solution to shield from deportation the thousands of young immigrants brought here as children known as Dreamers. Lawmakers, she argued, should simply punt on wall funding since both sides are in sharp disagreement."
Amy Gardner & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "When GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger lost his primary by a narrow margin in May, he suspected something was amiss.... Pittenger's concern stemmed from the vote tallies in rural Bladen County, where his challenger, a pastor from the Charlotte suburbs named Mark Harris, had won 437 absentee mail-in votes. Pittenger, a three-term incumbent, had received just 17.... Aides to Pittenger told the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party and a regional political director for the National Republican Congressional Committee that they believed fraud had occurred.... GOP officials did little to scrutinize the results, instead turning their attention to Harris's general-election campaign.... [The aides'] accounts provide the first indication that state and national Republican officials received early warnings about voting irregularities in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, now the subject of multiple criminal probes."
*****
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Trump tried to calm global markets and ease concerns that his trade truce with China was already floundering on Wednesday, declaring in a series of tweets that the Chinese government has sent 'very strong signals' since Mr. Trump reached an accord with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina last week. Confusion about what Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi actually agreed to at their meeting, combined with Mr. Trump's declaration on Tuesday that he was a 'Tariff Man,' roiled global markets on Tuesday, ending a brief rally that began on Monday after the two governments announced a 90-day truce." U.S. markets were closed Wednesday. ...
... MEANWHILE. Daisuke Wakabayashi & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "A top executive and daughter of the founder of the Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested on Saturday in Canada at the request of the United States, in a move likely to escalate tensions between the two countries at a delicate moment. The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer, unfolded on the same night that President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China dined together in Buenos Aires and agreed to a 90-day trade truce. The two countries are set to begin tense negotiations in hopes of ending a trade war that has been pummeling both economies. Those talks now face an even steeper challenge.... Ms. Meng's detention raises questions about the Trump administration's overall China strategy. Beijing is now likely to pressure Canada to release her and to press the United States to avoid a trial." More on Huawei linked under Way Beyond.
Presidunce* Executioner. D. Parvaz of ThinkProgress: "Citing the number of people dying from fentanyl overdoses, President Donald Trump on Wednesday gleefully tweeted his support for China to start executing drug dealers. It's worth noting that the United States does not use the death penalty for drug traffickers, and that the policy of funding the 'war on drugs' in countries that do execute traffickers and dealers is as ineffective as it is inhumane.... China already leads the world in the number of executions.... President Trump ... has also mused that executing drug traffickers in the United States might be a good idea[.]" --s
A very short course in how to get away with murder: (1) Send Trump some money. (2) Murder somebody. ...
... Emoluments! The POTUS* Is Bought & Paid for. David A. Fahrenthold & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: "Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump's D.C. hotel within a month of Trump's election in 2016 -- paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by The Washington Post. At the time, these lobbyists were reserving large numbers of D.C.-area hotel rooms as part of an unorthodox campaign that offered U.S. military veterans a free trip to Washington -- then sent them to Capitol Hill to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed, according to veterans and organizers. At first, Saudi lobbyists put the veterans up in Northern Virginia. Then, in December 2016, they switched most of their business to the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. In all, the lobbyists spent more $270,000 to house six groups of visiting veterans at the Trump hotel, which Trump still owns." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The reporters write, "Earlier this year, the Trump Organization donated about $151,000 to the U.S. Treasury, saying that was its amount of profit from foreign governments, without explaining how it arrived at that number." But I'd guess that number does not include any of the $270K the Trump International collected in the veterans scheme because the lobbying firm that put the veterans up at Trump Internation, Qorvis/MSLGroup, is an American company. The lobbying group served as a domestic cutout for the Saudis, who actually picked up the tab.
Asawin Suebsaeng & Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump's aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt. Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn't have to worry about the money owed to America's creditors -- currently about $21 trillion -- because he won't be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Trump's So Ignorant ... Steve M.: "We can regard this as Boomer selfishness, or as a sign of Trump's inability to care about anyone other than himself -- but it's also a sign that Trump is enabling Republicans' big con on the debt without actually being in on it. We know what Republican congressional leaders, right-wing pundits, and GOP donors want to do to federal coffers: By lowering taxes on the rich (and, to some extent, on the non-rich) without reducing spending, they hope to engender a debt crisis, which they'll hang around the necks of Democrats the next time there's a Democrat-dominated federal government. They want to make it impossible for Democrats ever to enact any new federal programs that might cost a significant amount of money.... Trump's belief that Medicare and Social Security are sacrosanct is probably the only political opinion he has that's truly at odds with all forms of conservatism.... Other Republicans pretend to support Medicare and Social Security, but they're just counting the days until they can slash the safety net.... [Trump] didn't understand the purpose of the tax-cut bill. But he signed it anyway, and to the folks who are in on the con, that's all that matters." ...
... AND let us not forget the part played by the GOP's masters:
... Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "In the lead-up to the enactment of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act ... a coalition of powerful business interests formed with one major priority in mind: slashing the corporate tax rate. The Reforming America's Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition comprised dozens of companies and trade groups that all insisted lowering corporate taxes would mean more jobs. A ThinkProgress review found that about half of RATE Coalition's members have made layoffs since the law's enactment. In other words, not only did the expensive tax cut not bring more jobs, it couldn't even forestall significant job losses." --s
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The nation bade farewell on Wednesday to George Herbert Walker Bush, the patriarch of one of the most consequential political dynasties of modern times and the president who presided over the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era of American dominance in the world. As bells tolled and choirs sang and an honor guard accompanied the coffin, the nation's 41st president was remembered as a 'kinder and gentler' leader at a tumultuous moment whose fortitude steered the country through storms at home and abroad and whose essential decency set a standard for others to meet." ...
... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker (who is married to Peter Baker): "What does it tell you that the feel-good events in Washington these days are funerals?... Trump had to sit there knowing that every statement praising Bush's decency and modesty and courage would be taken as an implicit rebuke of him -- of course, many of them were a lot more explicit than implicit.... Alan Simpson, the former senator from Wyoming, brought an acute understanding of Washington's foibles, and a reputation for lancing humor, to the task of remembering his friend. 'Those who travel the high road of humility in Washington, D.C., are not bothered by heavy traffic,' Simpson observed, to knowing laughs. Later in his talk, standing at a lectern placed just a few feet in front of Trump, Simpson quoted his mother in observing that 'hatred corrodes the container it's carried in.' Trump, a man of seething hatreds, stared at him with arms folded. Meanwhile, Simpson observed of Bush, 'He never hated anyone.'" ...
... Presidents' Club Shuts Out President*. John Wagner & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "... mourners from across the nation gathered in Washington to pay their respects and celebrate the life of former president George H.W. Bush at a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral. With President Trump and four living former U.S. presidents in attendance, Bush was remembered as 'America's last great soldier-statesman' by biographer Jon Meacham, one of four people delivering eulogies." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Joe Concha of the Hill: "Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said he was 'struck' by the reception of President Trump and first lady Melania Trump upon their arrival at the funeral for George H.W. Bush on Wednesday.... 'I have to say I was struck when President Trump and Melania Trump came to the front row, that it was as if a chill had descended on that front row,' Wallace said on Fox's 'America's Newsroom' during live coverage of the Bush state funeral.... 'You had seen a lot of chatty talk between the Clintons and the Obamas, the Carters. But when Donald Trump sat down, the greeting that he was given by Barack Obama and Michelle Obama was about as cool as it could have been.... Trump and the first lady greeted the Obamas and shook hands when sitting down next to them in the front row of the service for Bush, who passed away last Friday at the age of 94. There was no greeting between the Trumps and Clintons, who sat farther down the row." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, Chris, so unfair. They made Trump sit with all the Dimocrats (because the Bush family can't stand him). I'm sure the cold shoulders had nothing to do with a few points Aaron Blake of the Washington Post made: "The Trumps are seated next to: 1) The president Trump said was illegitimate (Obama) 2) The president he said assaulted women (Clinton) 3) The first lady/SoS he said should be in jail (Hillary) 4) The president he said was the second-worst, behind Obama (Carter)." ...
;)
By the Daily Show. To read the tweets, click on the picture to increase the size to a full screen.
... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "From the moment he crossed the transept of the soaring Washington National Cathedral, tore off his overcoat and took his seat in the front pew, President Trump was an outsider. When the others sang an opening hymn, his mouth did not move. When the others read the Apostles' Creed, he stood stoically. And when one eulogist after another testified to George H.W. Bush's integrity and character and honesty and bravery and compassion, Trump sat and listened, often with his lips pursed and his arms crossed over his chest. Wednesday's state funeral was carefully orchestrated to be about one man and his milestones -- Bush.... But inevitably it became about Trump, too, for it was impossible to pay tribute to the 41st president without drawing implicit contrasts with the 45th.... Despite being crafted to honor Bush's legacy, their words also served to underscore the singular nature of Trump's presidency."
... Linda Greenhouse assesses President Bush's approach to Supreme Court nominations & its effect on future nominations: "Poles apart, the Souter and Thomas nominations offered templates for the presidencies that followed. Democrats have shied from confrontation, while Republicans have generally embraced and even sought it.... Addressing the Federalist Society in Washington last month, Senator [Mitch] McConnell ... was unabashed in describing the current Republican strategy -- to go as far to the right as a bare majority will sustain. Explaining why he abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, he said, 'No Republican president could get the kind of nominee we'd want with 60 votes.' Bipartisan appeal? A sin. The narrowest possible victory? A validation."
Reading between the Redactions. Mark Mazzetti & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors in Virginia are investigating a secret Turkish lobbying effort that once involved Michael T. Flynn..., even as Mr. Flynn's role in the special counsel's investigation winds down, according to people familiar with the inquiry. Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, had been handling the case and at some point referred it back to prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., who had originally opened the investigation, the people said. A veteran national security prosecutor is overseeing the case, and a grand jury has been empaneled to hear evidence. Prosecutors for Mr. Mueller appeared to make reference to the investigation in documents released on Tuesday that enumerated Mr. Flynn's cooperation in the Russia inquiry. The heavily redacted documents created an air of mystery about Mr. Flynn's 'substantial help' in several unspecified but continuing investigations.... The Turkey case appears to fit as one of those inquiries because Mr. Flynn has direct knowledge of aspects under scrutiny. Prosecutors are examining Mr. Flynn's former business partners and clients who financed a campaign against Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in Pennsylvania whom the Turkish government has accused of helping instigate a failed coup."
Joel Clement in Scientific American: "At the Department of the Interior (DOI), with its mission to conserve and manage America's natural and cultural resources, the Trump administration's political appointees are stumbling over one another to earn accolades for disabling agency operations. I should know; I was one of dozens of senior executives targeted by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for reassignment in a staff purge just six months into the new administration.... In a new report, Science Under Siege at the Department of the Interior, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has documented some of the most egregious and anti-science policies and practices at the DOI under Secretary Zinke. The report describes suppression of science, denial of climate change, the silencing and intimidation of agency staff, and attacks on science-based laws that help protect our nation's world-class wildlife and habitats. It is a damning report...." --s
Charlotte Simmonds, et al. of the Guardian: "When Trump took office in 2016, he promised the energy industry a new era of 'American energy dominance'. This would only be possible by exploiting America's 640m acres of public land: mountains, deserts, forests and sites of Native American history that cover more than a quarter of the country.... Two years after Trump came to power, a new study produced by the Wilderness Society, a not-for-profit organization advocating for the protection of public lands, and shared exclusively with the Guardian, reveals the full extent of his government's efforts." A long read. --s
Presidential Election 2020. Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "... nearly two months after [Elizabeth] Warren released the ... results [of a DNA test purporting to prove her Native American heritage] and drew hostile reactions from prominent tribal leaders, the lingering cloud over her likely presidential campaign has only darkened. Conservatives have continued to ridicule her. More worrisome to supporters of Ms. Warren's presidential ambitions, she has yet to allay criticism from grass-roots progressive groups, liberal political operatives and other potential 2020 allies who complain that she put too much emphasis on the controversial field of racial science -- and, in doing so, played into Mr. Trump's hands." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the stupidest non-issue since birtherism. The only reason Warren's ethnic heritage could be a real issue is if she had falsified it to gain employment advantage. But the Boston Globe did extensive reporting (subscriber-firewalled) on this possibility & found she did not do so. So case closed. Some Native Americans have dubbed Warren racist because "genetic testing has historically been used as a weapon against Native communities." That's stupid, too. Although I'm interested in my own genealogy, I haven't taken one of those commercial DNA tests, but if I ever get around to it, it won't be because I want to use it as "a weapon against" whatever ethnic groups may be part of my genetic makeup. White (and to my knowledge, black) Americans often boast of their real or supposed Native American heritage. The purpose of these boasts never seems to be to denigrate authentic, tribally-certified Native Americans. Neither are they claiming they share the Native Americans' experience. My grandmother (who was white and a racist) boasted of our own supposed Native American roots, even though those "roots" -- according to Grandmama -- dated to, um, the 1600s. As further "proof" of this romantic family tale, my grandmother pointed to one of my cousins who "has high cheekbones." (Yes, that's really stupid.) Everybody -- including Warren -- needs to get over her genes. P.S. I don't support Warren's presidential candidacy; I just think this whole brouhaha should go away, and the NYT should not be putting it on the front page along with all the news that's fit to print.
Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "Emails and other internal Facebook documents released by a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday show how the social media giant gave favored companies like Airbnb, Lyft and Netflix special access to users' data.... The committee said the documents show Facebook entering into agreements with select companies to allow them access to data after the company made policy changes that restricted access for others. Other emails show the company debating whether to give app developers that spent money advertising with it more access to its data. In other instances, Facebook discussed shutting off access to companies it viewed as competitors." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "Global carbon emissions will jump to a record high in 2018, according to a report, dashing hopes a plateau of recent years would be maintained. It means emissions are heading in the opposite direction to the deep cuts urgently needed, say scientists, to fight climate change. The rise is due to the growing number of cars on the roads and a renaissance of coal use and means the world remains on the track to catastrophic global warming. However, the report's authors said the emissions trend can still be turned around by 2020, if cuts are made in transport, industry and farming emissions.... Almost all countries are contributing to the rise, with emissions in China up 4.7%, in the US by 2.5% and in India by 6.3% in 2018. The EU's emissions are near flat, but this follows a decade of strong falls." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Minnesota. In the Spirit of the Season. CBS/AP: "The commander of a Minneapolis police precinct has been replaced following uproar over Christmas tree decorations that the mayor said amounted to a 'racist display.' The Christmas tree at the Fourth Precinct station on the city's north side was decorated with items such as Newport cigarettes, police crime tape, a can of malt liquor and a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen cup. Minneapolis Police spokesman John Elder confirmed Monday that inspector Aaron Biard had been removed as commander of the precinct.... Two Minneapolis officers were placed on paid leave Friday for their apparent involvement in the decorations. Mayor Jacob Frey called the decorations 'despicable' and said they amounted to a 'racist display.' A picture of the tree circulated online before the items were removed." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
New Hampshire. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "New Hampshire's longtime secretary of state, Bill Gardner (D), narrowly won his bid for a 22nd term on Wednesday, fending off a challenge amid a wave of anger among state legislators over his participation in President Trump's controversial voter fraud commission. At a joint session of the New Hampshire state Senate and House of Representatives, Gardner won 209 votes to Colin Van Ostern's 205, with one lawmaker casting a 'scatter' vote for neither candidate. Gardner's win came in the second round of voting; the first round ended in a dramatic standoff, with Gardner taking 208 votes to Van Ostern's 207 -- both shy of the majority-plus-one needed for victory. The win means Gardner, 70, will continue serving in the job he has held since 1976."
North Carolina. Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "Over a thousand absentee ballots from likely Democratic voters may have been destroyed in the race for North Carolina's 9th Congressional District last month as allegations of fraud on behalf of the Republican candidate mount. 'You're looking at several thousand, possibly 2,000 absentee ballot requests from this most recent election. About 40 percent of those, it appears, at this point may not have been returned,' Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told CNN." ...
... Cash, Drugs & Wreck the Vote. Brianna Sacks, et al., of BuzzFeed News: "The allegations that Republicans tampered with absentee ballots in a close North Carolina election represent the most serious federal election tampering case in years, one that allegedly stole votes from elderly black voters in the state's rural south. Now two women intimately involved with McCrae Dowless's absentee ballot machine have revealed to BuzzFeed News its grim and chaotic workings, in which Dowless tracked votes on yellow paper and paid his workers, including family members, from stacks of cash, and that some were on opioids while they worked." ...
... Harry Enten of CNN: "The case for election fraud appears to be strong. That's because it's doesn't rely on just one or two pieces of evidence. Rather, it's a slew of evidence. This means that even if one part of the case were to fall apart, there would be still be reason to believe that the election wasn't on the level." Enten runs down the evidence, so far. ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "The man at the center of fraud probe in North Carolina may have been doing this for eight years.... According to campaign finance records and election data from the Federal Election Commission and the state of North Carolina, [Leslie McCrae] Dowless has worked on at least five campaigns since 2010 in which his candidates earned much more of the vote in Bladen County than the candidates earned elsewhere. In three races, the candidate earned less support in Bladen than outside the county. In the three races where the candidates paying Dowless lost, he received much less money in payment." ...
... Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "Dallas Woodhouse, executive chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, spoke with great concern about the issue of election fraud." But that was in 2016, when Republican incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory lost to Democrat Roy Cooper. Now that there is strong evidence of extensive voter fraud by a GOP subcontractor -- under exactly the same circumstance -- "Woodhouse has repeatedly questioned and downplayed the inquiry [into the GOP's fraudulent activity] -- at one point going as far as to complain, without evidence, that it was part of a Democratic conspiracy to steal the election -- and regularly threatening legal action over the official inquiry into the integrity of the race." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND aren't we surprised our Dear Leader is not leading the charge to lock up the GOP crook responsible for the "rigged election"? AND if you're wondering how anyone could justify his own stunning hypocrisy ...
... Adam Peck of ThinkProgress: "It's too early to say definitively, but North Carolina Republicans could very well end up being responsible for the biggest case of election fraud in modern U.S. history. And therein lies an important distinction: what we are watching unravel in slow motion is a textbook case of election fraud. It is not, as many have either carelessly or intentionally claimed, voter fraud.... Republicans don't care about election fraud in North Carolina because they never cared about protecting the integrity of elections in the first place. Their obsession with voter fraud has nothing to do with ensuring ineligible voters don't cast ballots, it has everything to do with ensuring certain eligible voters don't cast ballots.... The deafening silence emanating from the Republican caucus, Fox News, and the halls of the Heritage Foundation are extremely telling, and completely understandable: this one case of fraud in North Carolina is exposing the party's entire election integrity platform as the sham that it is." --s
... Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "A Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is calling for an emergency hearing to examine allegations of election fraud in North Carolina's 9th District race, in which Republican Mark Harris leads by 905 votes. State election officials are investigating charges that a political operative working for the Harris campaign oversaw a crew of workers who illegally collected mail-in absentee ballots from voters. The operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, worked primarily in Bladen County. 'Real election fraud is playing out right before us,' said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a senior oversight committee member." ...
... Charlotte Observer Editors: "In the week since the state Board of Elections declined to certify the results of North Carolina's 9th Congressional District election, journalists and others have begun to fill in the details of a troubling case of apparent ballot fraud. In Bladen County --and perhaps other counties -- individuals have interfered with the voting process by gaining access to others' absentee ballots, according to witnesses and records. Investigators also are looking into the burgeoning scandal. There may be no way, however, to know how widespread the fraud was, or whether it involved enough ballots to potentially change the outcome of the election — a 905-vote victory for Republican Mark Harris over Democrat Dan McCready. But we do know enough. Unless new evidence somehow clears the clouds hanging over this election, the Board of Elections should toss out the 9th District results."
A GOP Screw-Democracy Power Grab in Wisconsin. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "After a rancorous, sleepless night of debate, Republican lawmakers early Wednesday pushed through a sweeping set of bills that will limit the power of Wisconsin's newly elected Democrats, including the incoming governor and attorney general. The legislation, which Democrats vehemently opposed and protesters chanted their anger over, passed through the Republican-held State Legislature after hours of closed-door meetings and some amendments. The votes fell largely along party lines; no Democrats supported the measures." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What you're seeing here, in Michigan & elsewhere (the North Carolina legislature pulled this stunt two years ago just before Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper took office) is the Republican revolution against the peaceful, regular transfer of power. Absent the assumption & fulfillment of peaceful transfer, no form of democratic government can function. Republicans have been chipping away at taking large chunks out of democratic mechanisms since before the century began (Bush v. Gore decision), and they will continue to do so unless voters beat them down to a tiny faction of extremists. Should we have two political parties? Yes. But one of them cannot be what the GOP has become. It is not just their ideology; it is also their methodology. (BTW, if you want to know how the power grab worked out for North Carolina, read the NYT story linked in this paragraph.) ...
... Amanda Terkel of the Huffington Post: "Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate rushed to approve 82 of Gov. Scott Walker's [R] appointees, a month after voters chose not to reelect the Republican.... The appointees include two members of the board that oversees the state's public universities. One of those positions has been vacant for more than a year, but Walker just nominated his choice this week. He also made one of his top aides, Ellen Nowak, who is currently Department of Administration secretary, the new head of the state Public Service Commission.... [Gov.-Elect Tony] Evers' [D] spokeswoman told the Wisconsin State Journal that more than 30 of the nominees have had no public hearing.... Walker no doubt knows what he did is not a good look. In 2010, he urged outgoing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle not to 'finalize any permanent civil service personnel' during his last two months in office." ...
... Update. The GOP Fraudsters. Francis Wilkinson in Bloomberg: "The daily crisis that is Trump's presidency often obscures the extended crisis that is the Republican Party. In Michigan and Wisconsin Republican legislators are seeking to steal not votes but their meaning. Having lost statewide elections in November, the Republicans, many representing intricately gerrymandered districts, intend to rob incoming Democrats of the powers of their offices, voters be damned. They are smashing the peaceful transition of power without which democracy instantly fails.... The sick irony of the emerging scandal in North Carolina is that if GOP election fraud is indeed proved to have taken place, Republicans will soon have the evidence they lacked for so long. Future voter suppression will be justified on the grounds that Republicans must protect the sanctity of the vote from themselves.... As Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin are proving, even clear election victories are not guaranteed to secure majority rule or a consensus that the winning candidates have the power to govern." --s
Way Beyond
Britain. Alex Hern of the Guardian & Press Association: "BT [British Telecom] has confirmed it is removing Huawei equipment from key areas of its 4G network as concerns are raised about the Chinese firm's presence in critical telecoms infrastructure. Governments in the US, New Zealand and Australia have already moved to block the use of Huawei's equipment as part of the future rollout of 5G networks. Earlier this week the head of MI6 also suggested the UK needed to decide if it was 'comfortable' with Chinese ownership of the technology being used.... In a statement, the UK telecoms group has confirmed it is in the process of removing Huawei equipment from the key parts of its 3G and 4G networks to meet an existing internal policy not to have the Chinese firm at the centre of its infrastructure." --s
North Korea. Benjamin Haas of the Guardian: "North Korea has significantly expanded and upgraded long-range missile sites, according to satellite images published by CNN, highlighting the lack of progress in negotiations with the US in the months since Kim Jong-un met Donald Trump. The images showed upgrades at the North's Yeongjeo-dong and revealed another site that was previously not publicly known, both in the country's mountainous interior." --s
News Lede
ABC News: "Search and rescue operations are underway off the coast of Japan for a U.S. Marine Corps KC-130 refueling tanker and an F/A-18 fighter jet involved in a mishap, according to the Marines. Two people have been found by Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces, which is leading search and rescue efforts with both surface ships and aircraft, a spokesperson for III Marine Expeditionary Force in Japan. The first person was in good condition, while the second person's condition was unclear and they were taken to a local medical facility for evaluation. There were five personnel on board the KC-130 and two on board the F/A-18 at the time of the incident, a Marine official told ABC News."
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Reader Comments (9)
Once someone called me a "Wasp." How could I be a Wasp, I said when my father was Irish and raised as a Catholic. His reply was it didn't matter since I was not a Catholic and I was white, Anglo Saxon and Protestant on my mother's side. I recall being amused.
Today I read that our cleric columnist, Ross Douthat is using the death of Bush to mourn this caste system–-the Waspy Wise Men who ran this country from their cushy elite seats. Ross argues that Bush was an exemplary member of this group whose rule has been replaced by a grasping and often incompetent meritocracy. Jeet Heer takes up this argument by showing Douthat's article makes no sense as history. It's an interesting piece––see what you think.
https://newrepublic.com/article/152533/death-wasp-elite-greatly-exaggerated
Re: the rat fucking that the lame duck Republicans are doing in Wisconsin and Michigan and elsewhere is sickening. Walter Lippman warned against this kind of thing years ago when he said if ever there would be profound divisions in the two party system the defeated minority would be constantly on the verge of rebellion. An election would be catastrophic, whereas the assumption in every election is that the victors will do nothing to make life intolerable to the vanquished and that the vanquished will endure with good humor policies that they do not approve. Any good humor today is found only on ice cream trucks.
@PD Pepe: Yes, there is definitely something to be said in favor of political moderation; I just favor the "center" to be left of where it is now. But the hard truth is that anti-feminist racists have always had an outsized control of the country, partly because of Constitutional structural issues & partly because they're meaner than junkyard dogs. "Equality under the law" has always been a pleasant American fiction that applies only to, well, male WASPs.
PD,
Funny you should mention Walter Lippmann. I've been taking my time sifting through a collection of his letters and his early ones, in particular, in which he dissects the relationship of news to governance. His views are startlingly prescient, if not entirely original (Jefferson had some of the same complaints 150 years earlier).
Lippmann's concern was the shoddy condition of much journalism abroad in his day. I forget the exact quote, but at one point he says something along the lines of if you posit that the success and effectiveness of a democratic nation resides in the inherent wisdom of the voting populace and that command of the facts is necessary for a promotion of such wisdom, what can be said of a situation in which those providing the "facts" (journalists), are by and large professional liars? Fox, anyone?
Lippmann himself, despite many flaws, tended to be thoughtful to a fault (sometimes overthinking things), and he bemoaned what he saw as the proliferation of Fox-like fake news frauds in his profession.
He should see what's going on today.
As for the Confederate hustles and scams to get around democracy and enforce their own view of the world no matter who wins, it seems that juking the electorate is all they've got now.
I've been hearing a lot these last days about the "remains" of George Herbert Walker Bush. But I'm thinking of his remains as something apart from the physical. What remains of Poppy, especially in his party, is his vision that, if you can't beat them at the polls, kick their asses in the courts.
The installation of Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court has demonstrated this, in spades (sorry), to R's. The work of the treasonous Mitch McConnell to deny a sitting president his choice for the court in order to allow a despotic, racist lamebrain to shove in a couple of Confederate rubber stamps is the result of Bush's "remains" in this regard. So also is the effort to control every aspect of government from top to bottom. So we see in Wisconsin, that R traitors to democracy have quickly approved 80 or so new appointments favored by outgoing creep, charlatan, liar, and con man, Scott Walker.
And guess what kind of appointees they're ramming in?
Does anyone think a single one of these appointees has the best interests of Wisconsin citizens in mind? Certainly not. Just like all the Trump appointees, they'll be carbon copies of their benefactor, chiseling grifters out for themselves and the party that has provided them with their new cushy, no doubt lucrative, sinecures.
It's no surprise that the Obama administration was free of any indictments and scandals over his eight years. And anyone pointing to Benghazi, Benghazi, BENGHAZI, is faced with the problem that after four years and 758 investigations, no wrongdoing was found by people who dedicated their lives to finding some.
By contrast, every second person appointed by Trump is either under investigation, indicted, already found guilty, in prison, or laboring under multiple scandals.
Why?
It's the person, stupid. Obama=no indictments. Trump=gen pop at Alcatraz.
Same with Scott Walker.
And the right-wing media support these creeps. Lippmann was right to be worried. We're left with some mighty noxious remains.
PD,
Oh, and one more thing (there's always something else, ain't there?)...
Reading the Jeet Heer link you provided, I was brought up short right at the top. Blowup-Doll-Boy Douthat states that "...we feel, at some level, that their more meritocratic and diverse and secular successors rule us neither as wisely nor as well..."
Whoa. First, if he's referring to R's, I wanna know where the meritocracy enters into it. What meritocracy? That they have R's after their names and that they're appropriately crooked, anti-democratic and racist? There's no meritocracy when you rig elections and gerrymander the living shit out of voting districts. Meritocratic is Republican for "reliable goose stepper"
I get what he means though when he says things like "diverse and secular", he means atheist darkies and uppity broads.
You can't read Douthat without looking for the feculent insinuations wrapped around every word, including and, or, he, she, it, and for.
Mini-rant over. We now return you to your normal daily occupations.
Akhilleus,
I'd simplify the Republican definition of "meritocracy" a bit more:
Money. That they mean.
Ken,
More to the point.
North Carolina showed the way to hold on to power when you're voted out, the courts haven't sorted out their mess yet. Wisconsin and Michigan have gleefully jumped in with legislative coups of their own.
I'm certain that had Gillum and Abrams won we'd be talking about Florida and Georgia as well. If they hold all the power now, they sure as hell aren't going to give it away.
I believe in me. Big daddy almighty, creator of condos in Russia, sort of...
Evangelicals' Hee-roe, Friend to Jesus, and Neighbor to the God of Fuck the Liberals, Immigrants, Minorities, and Everyone We Hate, isn't very big on praying.
At the state funeral for 41, Fatty and Melanie stayed closemouthed while that horrible Mooslim president and his wife, and Billary and Jimmy Carter all recited the Apostles' Creed. Even though Fatty and Melanie had the prayer on a piece of paper in front of them (the others really didn't need the paper), they stood there with a puerile puss on their faces, morose as prisoners in the dock with evidence piled a mile high against them (it is).
Just imagine if Barack and Michelle had stood there sullen and silent while one of the central prayers of Christianity was being recited at a funeral for a former Confederate president.
There'd be hundreds, if not thousands of Trumpbots, cleaning the guns and heading to Washington.
But Fatty and Mrs. I Don't Care stand there, churlish, gloomy, and petulant, giving out with not even the sort of vague, half-assed attempt he made to mumble one or two words of the National Anthem at a college football game last year, another standard text he was completely unfamiliar with, and it's All Sir Garnet as far as the righty Nazi douches are concerned.
This is the fat fraud Christianists have chosen to be their Warrior for Jesus. A guy who doesn't know the Apostles' Creed from a baloney sandwich.
The all around hypocrisy on the Right threatens to redefine the word itself into deceit approaching galactic levels.
@Akhilleus: Yeah, I couldn't understand why Trump wouldn't recite the Apostle's Creed when he pretends to be a Christian. I don't say it myself when I'm at a religious service because I don't believe it, but I don't know what Trump's problem was -- maybe the line about believing in the "Holy Catholic church" confused him, tho if he's ever actually been to a Presbyterian service with the little crackers & the grape juice, as he has claimed, he would have heard the language.
On the other hand, as you suggest, the problem was probably that so far there's nothing in the creed about He Trump, the Creator of Condos in Russia, Amen.