;)
The Commentariat -- February 1, 2019
Afternoon Update:
** Marie Albiges & Gordon Rago of the Virginian-Pilot: "A photo from Gov. Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook shows two men, one in blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, on the same page as the future governor. The photo, which The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy of Friday from the Eastern Virginia Medical School library, comes from the 1984 yearbook, the year Northam graduated. On the half-page set aside for Northam, there is a headshot of him in a jacket and tie, a photo of him in a cowboy hat and boots and a third of him sitting casually on the ground, leaning against a convertible. The fourth photo on the half-page has two people, one wearing white Ku Klux Klan robes and a hood, the other with his face painted black. The person with the black face is also wearing a white hat, black jacket, white shirt with a bow tie and plaid pants. Both are holding canned drinks. It's unclear who the people in costume are." Mrs. McC: Northam is a Democrat. ...
... Update. According to MSNMC, Northam has issued a statement admitting he is one of the men in the offensive photo, but he didn't say which (as if it matters). Mrs. McC: Virginia is about to get a new governor, and he is black.
David Sanger of the New York Times: "The United States is suspending one of the last major nuclear arms control treaties with Russia after heated conversations between the two powers recently failed to resolve a long-running accusation that Moscow is violating the Reagan-era treaty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the decision on Friday as the Trump administration maintained that the Russian government has been unwilling to admit that a missile it has deployed near European borders violates the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.... But while the United States has insisted Russia's actions sank the treaty, the Trump administration's real aim is to broaden its prohibitions to include China."
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "In an unusual arrangement, the publisher of The Times, A. G. Sulzberger, joined two of the paper's White House correspondents in conducting Thursday's interview [with Donald Trump], and he took the lead in questioning the president about his attacks on the press.... Mr. Sulzberger..., along with the Times journalists Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, repeatedly asked Mr. Trump whether he understood the global effects of his words.... In lengthy and at times contradictory remarks on Thursday about the news media -- which he deemed 'important' and 'beautiful,' but also 'so bad' and 'unfair' -- Mr. Trump called himself 'a victim' of unfair coverage and declined to accept responsibility for a rise in threats against journalists since he took office.... What Mr. Trump considers fair ... is almost always in line with what he considers flattering. When Mr. Sulzberger noted that all presidents had complained about how they were depicted by the news media..., Mr. Trump replied, 'But I think I get it really bad. I mean, let's face it, this is at a level that nobody's ever had before.... I ran, I won, and I'm really doing a good job,' Mr. Trump said, lamenting that his surprise victory did not receive the praise he thought it deserved -- particularly from The Times, a publication that has loomed throughout his life as representing the establishment whose respect he has long sought. 'I came from Jamaica, Queens, Jamaica Estates, and I became president of the United States,' Mr. Trump said. 'I'm sort of entitled to a great story -- just one -- from my newspaper.'"
Christopher Mathias of the Huffington Post: "Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) alerted the House Ethics Committee this week that racist Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) continues to use his official government website to promote a white nationalist blog -- potentially reviving Ryan's effort to censure King or even expel him from Congress. Ryan sent a letter to the Ethics Committee on Tuesday stating he wanted to 'make the Committee aware of the continued use of government resources on the part of Rep. King to promote and advance white nationalism.' 'A HuffPost report published today, January 29, details how King is continuing to use his government website to promote the white nationalist website VDare.com,' the letter reads, referring to this HuffPost report. VDare is an anti-immigrant hate site named after Virginia Dare, said to be the first white baby born in the New World. The site regularly publishes the writing of prominent white supremacists and fascists...."
Presidential Race 2020. Chelsea Janes & Dave Wiegel of the Washington Post: "Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said Friday that he will seek the Democratic nomination for president, adding his name to a growing and increasingly diversified field of 2020 candidates intent on taking on President Trump. Booker made his announcement via an email and video to supporters." ...
... What America Needs are More "Hopeful Aphorisms." David Gutman of the Seattle Times: "With protesters outside, Howard Schultz pitched a hometown Seattle audience on his proposed 'centrist independent' bid for the presidency, calling for the country to 'come together' and move beyond partisan politics. The ex-Starbucks CEO's appearance, technically part of a nationwide book tour to promote [a book he wrote] is one of about a dozen planned as he crisscrosses the nation over the next six weeks, gauging support for a potential presidential run. And Thursday's event ... felt more like a tense book promotion than a campaign event. Schultz made no policy proposals, instead discussing his background and his Starbucks career, offering hopeful aphorisms about the country's ability to come together."
*****
A Hermit Haunts the White House. Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "Shortly after 7 A.M. on Thursday, President Trump began doing what increasingly passes for his workday: looking at the television and tweeting about it.... Those tweets on Thursday morning were among dozens that Trump has sent out since last week, a period of time in which he was confined inside the White House, making no public appearances beyond a few photo-ops and leaving the building only once, for a private fund-raiser at his Trump International Hotel. This is, even by the President's standards, an epic stretch of brooding, and no wonder: the truth at the moment is pretty terrible for President Trump. Of course he is waging war on it. Trump suffered the worst defeat of his Presidency when, after single-handedly shutting down a large part of the federal government for more than a month in order to demand billions of dollars in funding for his border wall, he was forced to end the shutdown without getting a single dollar.... The same day, the F.B.I. arrested Roger Stone.... For Trump, the fake world is much better than the real one.... In the cocoon of the Oval Office, there are only invited guests and staff who, while they may be secretly leaking unflattering accounts, at least have the good sense to be nice to Trump&'s face. In recent days..., Nancy Pelosi has compared Trump to a petulant toddler and openly wondered what Russia has on him. Why would Trump want to spend his time negotiating with her? Much better, from Trump's point of view, to simply announce, as he did to reporters on Thursday, that 'Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall,' and spend the day with his own press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who this week told an interviewer that God 'wanted Donald Trump to become President.'" Read on. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As usual, the gulf between what Trump does & what he says is wider than the Pacific. According to the NYT's Haberman & Baker (report linked below), Trump says he loves his job. But he doesn't do it. Glasser frames Trump's behavior this week as a situational funk, but Trump has been goofing off by watching Fox "News" or golfing from the git-go. You might argue all he likes is the pomp & circumstance, but even there he is mighty selective: two minutes at the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial a half-mile or so from his office & a no-show at a scheduled memorial in France for World War I veterans.
Are You Going to Believe Your Lyin' Eyes & Ears -- or Trump? Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump claimed Thursday that his top intelligence officials were 'misquoted' and 'taken out of context' when they publicly broke with some of his core foreign policy views during congressional testimony earlier this week. CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on Tuesday shared assessments that were at odds with Trump's talking points on sensitive issues such as North Korea and ISIS, prompting Trump to lash out at his intelligence officials, calling them 'naive' and that they should 'go back to school.' When asked by reporters Thursday morning if he still has confidence in Haspel and Coats to give him good advice, Trump replied: 'No. I disagree with certain things that they said. I think I'm right. Time will prove me right, probably.' But later Thursday afternoon, after meeting with Haspel and Coats in the Oval Office, Trump ... argued the comments were taken out of context -- though a full report and recordings are publicly available -- and that his intelligence team actually agrees with his world view.... 'They said they were totally misquoted and they were totally -- it was taken out of context,' Trump told reporters. 'So what I do, I suggested you call them. They said it was fake news.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ramsey Touchberry of Newsweek: "After the public chastising ... Donald Trump unleashed against his own intelligence chiefs on Twitter this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that he 'just doesn't have the attention span or the desire' to listen to the intelligence community. 'I think what the public saw this week was the fact that the president has not paid attention to the intelligence that has been given to him,' Pelosi said.... Pelosi called the intelligence community's remarks 'courageous' while classifying Trump's public bashing of the officials as 'cause for concern.'" Mrs. McC: Like Chuck Schumer (see yesterday's Commentariat), Pelosi wants you to know that Trump is too ignorant & childish to be president*. ...
... Betsy Woodruff & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "The White House abruptly canceled the President's daily intelligence briefing on Wednesday, the morning after top intelligence officials testified before Congress..., as Trump lambasted his intelligence chiefs on Twitter over their congressional testimony.... By Thursday, Trump's tone had changed, at least publicly. He met with Haspel, Coats, and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Edward Gistaro in the Oval Office that afternoon, tweeting a picture of their conversation. He also blamed the media for making it appear that they had contradicted him in their congressional testimony." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's briefers should start their days by giving him his briefings on "Fox & Friends." Admittedly, the briefers would have to forego the parts of the briefings that were secret, but still -- especially if they used audio-visual aids -- Trump would probably get more out of the Fox briefings than he gets from the real ones. Of course the TV briefings would confuse Foxbots, who no doubt hold worldviews more in line with the hokum Fox & Trump regularly disseminate.
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The Senate, in a bipartisan rebuke to President Trump's foreign policy, voted overwhelmingly to advance legislation drafted by the Senate majority leader to express strong opposition to the president's withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria and Afghanistan. The 68-to-23 vote to cut off debate ensures that the amendment, written by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and backed by virtually every Senate Republican, will be added to a broader bipartisan Middle East policy bill expected to easily pass the Senate next week.... Senate liberals, many of them exploring presidential runs in 2020, including Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted against the measure, signaling a growing willingness in the party to question long-running conflicts." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mitch McConnell Has Had Enough. Alexander Bolton & Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "Frustrated Republicans say it's time for the Senate to reclaim more power over foreign policy and are planning to move a measure Thursday that would be a stunning rebuke to a president of their own party. GOP lawmakers are deeply concerned over President Trump's reluctance to listen to his senior military and intelligence advisers, fearing it could erode national security. They say the Senate has lost too much of its constitutional power over shaping the nation's foreign policy and argue that it's time to begin clawing some of it back.... They plan to send Trump a stern admonishment by voting Thursday afternoon on an amendment sponsored by [Mitch] McConnell warning 'the precipitous withdrawal' of U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan 'could put at risk hard-won gains and United States national security.'... It's a pointed rebuttal to the claim Trump made on Twitter in December that 'we have defeated ISIS in Syria.' Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said his amendment 'simply re-emphasizes the expertise and counsel offered by experts who have served presidents of both parties,' a subtle rebuff of Trump's tweets from earlier in the day mocking his intelligence advisers as 'naive.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Trump Shutdown, Month Two, Ctd.
Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A defiant President Trump declared on Thursday that he has all but given up on negotiating with Congress over his border wall and will build it on his own even as he dismissed any suggestions of wrongdoing in the investigations that have ensnared his associates. In an interview in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump called the talks 'a waste of time' and indicated he will most likely take action on his own when they officially end in two weeks.... 'I'll continue to build the wall and we'll get the wall finished,' he said. 'Now whether or not I declare a national emergency -- that you'll see.'" Read the whole report. The interviewers covered a lot of ground, and Trump had stupid things to say on a number of topics. ...
... Annie Karni, et al., of the New York Times list five takeaways from the interview.
Jonathan Chait: "For a brief period of time, The Wall was transformed into a fence, or a barrier, or perhaps some nice, tasteful slats. As of 7:16 a.m. ET [Thursday], it has officially returned to being a Wall. 'Lets just call them WALLS from now on and stop playing political games! A WALL is a WALL!' -- Donald J. Trump.... The cause of this terminological metamorphosis is perfectly obvious. Trump has finally realized the prospects for getting funding through Congress are nil."
Anita Snow of the AP: "U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced Thursday their biggest fentanyl bust ever, saying they captured nearly 254 pounds (114 kilograms) of the synthetic drug that is fueling a national epidemic of fatal opioid overdoses from a secret compartment inside a load of Mexican produce heading into Arizona. The drug was found hidden Saturday morning in a compartment under the rear floor of a tractor-trailer after a scan during a secondary inspection indicated 'some anomalies' in the load, and the agency's police dog team alerted officers to the presence of drugs, Nogales CBP Port Director Michael Humphries said." ...
... Elvia Diaz of the Arizona Republic: "... guess where federal officials carried out this huge fentanyl bust? At the Nogales border-crossing in Arizona. Yes, a port of entry, not somewhere over a border fence in the barren desert.... The bust of the drugs, valued at $4.6 million, shows the ineffectual crime-fighting abilities of a border wall that ... Donald Trump insists he must have or else he'd be ready to shut down the federal government once again. The bust undermines Trump's argument that a physical barrier along the 2000-mile borderline with Mexico is the way to stop human and drug trafficking. But that doesn't really matter. Not to Trump anyway, who's made the border wall the symbol of his presidency. It doesn't matter to his supporters either, who view the wall as a symbol of America's physical divide between north and south. A divide between the more European part of the continent and the mostly brown folks of Latin America."
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Pamela Brown, et al., of CNN: "Senate investigators have obtained new information showing Donald Trump Jr.'s mysterious phone calls ahead of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were not with his father, three sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. Records provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee show the calls were between Trump Jr. and two of his business associates, the sources said, and appear to contradict Democrats' long-held suspicions that the blocked number was from then-candidate Donald Trump."
Julia Ainsley & Charlie Gile of NBC News: "Federal investigators probing Roger Stone ... have seized multiple hard drives containing years of communication records from cellphones and email accounts, the special counsel's office said Thursday. Robert Mueller's prosecutors, in a new court filing, described the evidence as 'voluminous and complex' in asking a judge to delay< his trial to give them more time to sift through the seized devices. The court papers said investigators grabbed hard drives containing several terabytes of information, including 'FBI case reports, search warrant applications and results (e.g., Apple iCloud accounts and email accounts), bank and financial records, and the contents of numerous physical devices (e.g., cellular phones, computers, and hard drives).' The FBI is doing what it calls a "filter review" of the devices, setting aside any evidence that cannot be admissible in court because it is considered privileged. During a press conference Thursday, Stone agreed that evidence is voluminous and complex, and said both parties had agreed to the language in the government's filing."
Julia Manchester of the Hill: "Roger Stone ... on Thursday claimed that he believes special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russia's election meddling is a partisan plot to make Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and possibly even Hillary Clinton president. Speaking about his indictment last week on charges in the Mueller probe, Stone said he thinks the investigation is about finding a way to 'void the 2016 election' in an attempt to get Pelosi or Clinton into the White House. 'I don't think this is about Roger Stone. I think this is about finding some allegation of Russian collusion to void the 2016 election so that both President Trump and Vice President Pence can be removed, making Nancy Pelosi president,' Stone told Hill.TV's Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: No, no, that's not Mueller's objective. It's mine.
** Masha Gessen of the New Yorker: "What we are observing is not most accurately described as the subversion of American democracy by a hostile power. Instead, it is an attempt at state capture by an international crime syndicate. What unites [Ukraine's Viktor] Yanukovych, [Natalia] Veselnitskaya, [Paul] Manafort, [Roger] Stone, Wikileaks's Julian Assange, the Russian troll factory, the Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos and his partners in crime, the 'Professor' (whose academic credentials are in doubt), and the 'Female Russian National (who appears to have fraudulently presented herself as Putin's niece) is that they are all crooks and frauds. This is not a moral assessment, or an attempt to downplay their importance. It is an attempt to stop talking in terms of states and geopolitics and begin looking at Mafias and profits.... The Mafia state is efficient in its own way. It does not take over all state institutions, but absorbs only the ones necessary for extracting profit.... By the measure of national interest, the Trump Presidency has been disappointing for Russia.... By the metrics of a Mafia state, though, the Trump Presidency has yielded great results for Russia.... The story, it appears, is that the Russian Mafia state is cultivating profit-yielding relationships with the aspiring Mafia boss of the U.S. and his band of crooks, subverting democratic institutions in the process." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Abigail Williams & Josh Lederman of NBC News: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to announce the U.S. intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty as soon as Friday, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the decision. Russia has been in violation of the Cold War era arms control agreement for more than five years. The U.S. gave Russia 60 days to return to compliance in December when Pompeo announced at a NATO Foreign Ministers meeting that Russia was in 'material breach' of the treaty.... The INF Treaty prevents the U.S. and Russia from possessing any land-based cruise missiles that can strike within a 500 to 5,500 kilometers -- 310 to 3,410 miles -- range. The deal signed in 1987 by President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev was primarily designed to keep ground-based nuclear weapons out of Europe. The announcement was not unexpected but some arms control experts have expressed concerns U.S. withdrawal could lead to a new arms race."
All the Best People, Ctd. Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News: "Herman Cain, the former pizza company executive who ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, is being considered by ... Donald Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. Cain, 73, was in the White House on Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter. Two seats on the Fed board are vacant, but nominating Cain raises the prospect of a Senate confirmation hearing focused on the sexual harassment and infidelity accusations that ended his presidential campaign." ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "On first glance, nominating a pizza magnate with a history of sexual harassment -- who once assured voters that he was 'not a reader' -- to one of the most powerful technocratic posts in the U.S. government might seem crazy. But upon reflection, it's actually totally nuts." Levitz reprises some of Cain's greatest hits & explains his brief tenure, in the 1990s, on the Kansas Federal Reserve board.
April Glaser of Slate: "The best remaining chance for restoring net neutrality has a key day in court Friday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's 2017 repeal of the open-internet rules. As of right now, there's nothing stopping internet service providers, like Comcast and Verizon, from slowing down access to blocking certain websites, or charging websites to reach users at faster speeds.... The Obama-era net neutrality protections were barely two years old when Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai began taking a 'weed whacker' to the rules. The agency's repeal officially went into effect last June, and two months later, Verizon was caught throttling the internet service of the Santa Clara Fire Department while it was responding to a massive wildfire in Northern California, forcing the emergency responders to pay twice as much to lift their data restrictions. (Verizon claims that it was a customer service error.)"
Presidential Race 2020
Rafi Schwartz of Splinter: "Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist turned Never Trumper TV pundit, has broken ties with MSNBC while he works on Dumb Starbucks Man Howard Schultz possible 2020 presidential bid.... Schmidt -- whose whose vocal opposition to the current president will never erase the fact that he foisted Sarah Fucking Palin onto an unsuspecting nation -- joins former Democratic consultant and former Obama White House official Bill Burton as advisers to Schultz, who has spent the past few days getting brutally ratioed on Twitter for his endless stream of soporific platitudes in the place of any actual policy stances beyond his assertion that having an ungodly amount of money is good, actually.... Still, despite the fact that Schultz's potential run could syphon off enough anti-Trump voters to ensure the president is re-elected (a scenario which co-advisor Burton explicitly warned against during the 2016 election), Schmidt insisted to MSNBC host (and fellow Republican-turned-media figure) Nichole Wallace on Wednesday that Schultz 'has said unequivocally he will not be a spoiler in this race.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Okay, I feel way better now, since Schultz, who knows nothing about policy, is probably the Nate Silver of presidential* candidates. Unless Schultz & Burton have made it their task to convince Schultz to run as a Democrat or, failing that, will sabotage his "independent, centrist" bullshit campaign by accidentally forgetting to register him as a candidate in any state but Wyoming, they can each go screw themselves.
** Paul Krugman: "Over the past few days we've been treated to the ludicrous yet potentially destructive spectacle of Howard Schultz, the Starbucks billionaire, insisting that he's the president we need despite his demonstrable policy ignorance. Schultz obviously thinks he knows a lot of things that just aren't so.... First, there's the obsession with public debt ... [which Schultz] ... declares debt our biggest problem. Yet true to centrist form, his deficit concerns are oddly selective. Schultz is all into cutting Social Security, but opposes any tax hike on the wealthy.... In general, centrists are furiously opposed to any proposal that would ease the lives of ordinary Americans. Universal health coverage, says Schultz, would be 'free health care for all, which the country cannot afford.'... Finally, the hallmark of fanatical centrism is the determination to see America's left and right as equally extreme, no matter what they actually propose.... Now, with Democrats taking a turn that is more progressive but hardly radical, centrist rhetoric has become downright hysterical." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: In case you missed it, let's emphasize that universal health care is indeed "affordable." As Krugman points out, "every advanced country besides America has some form of universal health coverage, and manages to afford it..., [AND] the taxes needed to pay for it would almost surely be less than what Americans now pay in insurance premiums." What Selfish Schultz objects to is the fact that universal health care would necessarily be a redistribution of wealth downward. Just as Obamacare was partially paid for by a surtax on the wealthy & just as income taxes are (in theory) progressive now, federal taxes for universal healthcare coverage -- which would be hefty -- necessarily would be progressive. If you make only $10K a year, you're not going to pay for your own coverage, and if you make $250K/year, you're going to help pay for the $10K guy's care. That has not been "un-American" since 1913 when the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment. Schultz & Bloomberg & Republican politicians beholden to the donor class will always oppose programs that benefit the poor more than they directly benefit the wealthy.
David Swerdlick in a Washington Post op-ed: Howard Schultz's "effort has started looking like another outsider's run -- the one by neurosurgeon Ben Carson in 2016: Each rightly touts his rise from modest beginnings to the heights of his chosen profession as an example of the American Dream. Carson ... grew up in working-class Detroit and became the first physician to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head. Schultz grew up in working-class Brooklyn and earned billions heading up the chain that turned coffee from a beverage into an event. Neither previously held political office. They're both fond of gauzy phrases like 'imagining a better America.' Carson was and Schultz is, so far, fuzzy on policy specifics. Carson was sure that private-sector brilliance would mean political success. Schultz appears confident that he has answers no one else has. We've seen this before.... 'Career politician' has become an epithet, but politics really is a career.... Selling coffee, performing brain surgery and running for office are all worthy enterprises. They aren't the same." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's face it; coffee-seller is rather less "worthy" than brain surgery or public service. Moreover, Carson had more sense than Schultz in this respect: he ran for office as a Republican, not as a spoiler.
Beyond the Beltway
Texas. Cassie Smith of the Waco Tribune-Herald: "By the time local elections officials downloaded a list of 366 registered voters the Texas Secretary of State's Office initially said may not be citizens, the office had called to tell them to disregard the list, Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe said. The state told her office by phone Monday that the citizenship of everyone on the list is not in question, Van Wolfe said. The office was informed Friday it would get the list and need to contact each voter for proof of citizenship, she said.... A similar scenario played out statewide.... Texas Secretary of State David Whitley said last week that about 95,000 voters matched records of noncitizens who had obtained state IDs. Republicans seized on the announcement to renew claims of widespread voter fraud." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: As you may recall, Donald Trump tweeted out the fake voter fraud claims: "58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote." He added, "just the tip of the iceberg" and "voter fraud is rampant" around the country. "Must be stopped." It doesn't appear Trump corrected his false claim when the story quickly fell apart.
News Ledes
USA Today: "Hiring began 2019 on a strong note as employers added 304,000 jobs in January, marking a 100th straight month of payroll growth and defying the 35-day government shutdown, the U.S. trade war with China and a slowing global economy. The milestone extended the labor market's record streak of job gains."
New York Times: "At least 21 deaths are believed to be related to the bitter weather system [that paralyzed the Midwest & has spread to the Northeast], government officials say, including that of a University of Iowa student who was found behind an academic hall several hours before dawn on Wednesday. A weather observer in Mount Carroll, Ill., recorded a temperature of minus 38 on Thursday morning. If confirmed by state officials, that would become Illinois's record low, supplanting the previous record of minus 36. The sustained cold taxed energy systems across the Midwest, leading to some power failures and urgent calls to customers to reduce the heat in their homes. Many schools, businesses and restaurants remained shuttered on Thursday, though some offices were reopening and many more were expected to reopen Friday."
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Reader Comments (24)
I think I found the breakthrough to get Donny Diapers to listen to the daily intelligence briefing. Instead of sending them to Faux N Friends to cheese with other morons and slip in important info in between swipes at liburals, the State Dept should set up in a room adjacent to wherever Drumpy watches all his teevee and host their own "Fox" show, with all the distracting banners and sparkles that adorn the channel. Every morning they can cut his feed from Faux to a "special report" and then zoom to a pretty blond who runs down the big intel news with colorful charts and graphs.
Of course, the big risk here is that DD then starts leaking out the intel hastagging @FoxNFrauds. But an obvious runaround of this is to just dumb down the intel to anything you could find in investigative journalism. The presidunce* can't understand complex info anyway, and wouldn't know how to act on it properly, and is a walking national security risk himself, so just leave that info to the spooks. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised they're already withholding major intel from DD and his 30 illegitimate security clearance holders. They'll never say so, but we'll find out in 25 years or so...
@safari: Your idea is so much better than mine! And it could actually work.
Also, I do agree that the intel people likely are holding back info they think is super-sensitive & highly highly vulnerable to Trump leaks -- like something they have on Putin or U.S. spy movements in Russia. These people are tasked with keeping the U.S.'s secrets & assessing the potential for leaks. That would mean holding back info from partners (like Five eyes) & individuals (like Trump) who are likely to misuse (or are the subjects of) that info.
From someone (can't remember whom) who has knowledge of how the last five presidents operated re: daily briefs: Every one of these presidents would get their daily briefing first thing in the morning. Trump, on the other hand is given this briefing around two in the afternoon. This of course makes no sense and is actually dangerous but hey––what the heck. We aren't dealing with a full deck here so safari's idea sounds plausible. It's Show and Tell Time with a blond bomber with big boobs and a killer smile that holds up pictures with large letters–-not too many–-describing whatever.
And Herman Caine????? Our U-becccabecca becca stand idiot. Can't wait to watch his confirmation hearing.
Rafi Schwartz on Schmidt and Schultz––sounds like a vaudeville act or a German law firm–-was a depressing read. I thought Steve was reborn a bit but evidently not. Very disappointed.
But I have a question–-in this piece there was this word in reference to Schultz: [He was] "brutally ratioed"––what does this mean? Don't reckon I know that word.
@PD Pepe: re: "ratioed." I've only recently seen "ratio" used as a verb & the best I could figure out was it wasn't a good thing. So I consulted an urban dictionary & now I get it: "Being revealed as an idiot on twitter by having a high ratio of comments to likes and retweets."
@PD: More to the point, Herman Caine of 9-9-9 fame, his “brilliant” tax plan that showed he knows absolutely nothing about large-scale economics. Nein nein nein!
@Nisky Guy: The Bank Jobs. Decades ago, when I worked for a TV network on the West Coast, the network instituted a "voluntary" affirmative action policy, where executives were required to at least interview women & minorities when they had job openings. More than once I heard my boss call up some pal/rival at another network & ask if he could put her or his name down as someone he had interviewed for an open job. Then he'd hire a white guy. One suspects that's what Trump is doing with Herman (or "Herb" as Sarah Palin liked to call him) Cain & able Heidi Cruz (Cruz for the World Bank job).
Thanks Marie for the "ratioed" explanation. Guess this will be another new word to add to our lexicon. Would this be something like rat-fucked I wonder, but not as dire?
Here's something else I have been schooled in:
THE FETID RIGHT-WING ORIGINS OF "LEARN TO CODE".
https://newrepublic.com/article/153019/fetid-right-wing-origins-learn-code
One more thing: After reading my above linked piece I again despair at the cruelty and hatred of those that foment their twisted, sick hatred. Learning about the destruction that was done at Joshua Tree National Park it destroys completely the idea of "embracing all Americans–-we are One––we all want the same things––we are in this together" ––There is a big divide as wide as that canyon in Colorado and the sooner we deal with that the better if indeed we can deal with it.
On a much smaller scale but a significant one: Every Monday on my walk I take a plastic bag and pick up the trash that people throw out of their vehicles onto the wooded area along the road. What kind of people throw beer cans, liquor bottles, food boxes, and anything else they deem it's just fine and dandy to dump. And to understand that is to understand some big differences I would think.
@PD Pepe: Mostly they're teenagers who think throwing trash on the road for others to pick up is some kind of act of devil-may-care "rebellion." Most of them grow out of it. Some don't. They have the idea they're showing the rest of us how "superior" they are to those of us who follow golden-rule type conventions. On the other hand, they do perform a certain service in that they give those of us who pick up after them the same sense that we are "superior" to them.
The I Tried but They Screwed Me presidency
It's looking like Fatty's only way out from the corner into which he has painted himself re: the Great Wall of Trump (which Mexico was supposed to pay for) is to go the national emergency route. As soon as he does, there'll be a spate of law suits (probably from both sides) and he'll be forced to cave. Again.
But at that point, he can go to the knuckledraggers and racists and haters and say "See? I tried to keep those dirty messicans out, but they wouldn't let me."
Win!
It goes along with the "I tried to take their healthcare away, but... and "I tried to end immigration altogether, but..." and "I tried to get Mexico to pay for the wall, but..." and "I tried to MAGA, but..."
Too much winning.
Relatives in Canada advise rumor has it that Canada is planting a
privacy fence along their whole southern border. I checked it out
on Snopes and the story is false. So if anyone reads about it, it's not
happening.
However, Denmark actually is constructing a fence along their
border with Germany. The excuse used is to keep out wild boars.
Friends from Denmark say the right wing politicians are pushing
this and wanted it to be about 10 feet with barbed wire on top.
Can pigs fly?
Marie,
I don't feel superior to these people. But I do think they're unmitigated, irredeemable assholes. Here in my red state that prides itself on its superiority to all liberal enclaves, when I walk the dog, I'd need half a dozen extra large yard waste bags to pick up all the crap I see thrown out of vehicles onto the side of the road. Beer cans, Coke cans, McDonald's boxes, half-eaten food, personal hygiene objects, filthy rags, motor oil containers, cigarettes by the gross.
At one point, I started to try to pick up the stuff right on the road, but I had no way to carry it all. But kudos to PD for trying.
Iron Eyes Cody, is still shedding those tears.
Forrest,
Sounds like those Danish wingers are the wild bores.
Another Block Tower Knocked Over
So Fatty and his sidekick Mike Pompeo (he's not an actual Secretary of State, he just plays one on Fox), are kicking the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to the curb.
This latest bit of destruction does a number of things for Fatty. First, it lets him pretend to be getting tough with Russia (tee-tee, tee-hee). Second, and more importantly, it let's Russia off the hook completely. Now they can do whatever they want in terms of deploying nuclear weapons systems. So it's looking much more like Fatty is doing yet another favor for his boss, Vlad ("Siri, call Vlad"....hahahahaha...can't stop laughing at that one, then I realize that it's probably true and the laughing grinds to a halt).
It also places NATO in a bind. They have to give at least lip service to supporting the Orange Monster, but they must be having fits over this. Fatty doesn't have to worry about a build up of Russian troops and weapons on his border. European countries do. But what does he care? He hates Europe anyway, and he despises NATO.
But not to worry, Trumpbots see the knocking down of treaties and norms and the destruction of long-term relationships with allies as Fatty being "tough".
Well, it's a lot easier to knock things over than it is to build them up. Ask any toddler who just kicked over dad's block tower and ran away laughing.
Regarding intelligence briefings for Fatty (now there's an oxymoron), I have no doubt these people are smart enough to keep truly sensitive information far away from these meetings.
They all know by now that Trump cannot be trusted with sensitive information and I also don't doubt that they are doubly distrustful of handing him any information about active operations connected to Russia. If he heard about some agent trying to work his or her way into the circle of Russian oligarchs connected to Putin, he would be on the phone to Moscow minutes after the meeting ended hoping for brownie points from his boss.
They should probably limit their briefings to "There's a thing happening with a guy at a place. We'll get back to you."
El Chapo vs El Stupido
Guess who wins? The trial of the brutal Sinaloa Cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, is a graduate course in drug smuggling techniques. And guess what? Not a single one of El Chapo's methods would have been stopped by El Stupido's muro fronterizo.
In addition to having trucks and cars filled with product drive through checkpoints at ports of entry, he built a canning plant so cocaine could be enclosed in cans of chili peppers. He used fake bananas filled with drugs loaded on pallets. Trailer trucks and even commercial freight trains. He had secret tunnels and private planes to transport his stuff.
But not once, ever, in this long trial, was there testimony about him having guys run across the border in remote spots where Fatty's wall could be built.
One guy is smart. The other is not.
But never mind all that now. Fatty has to be right. All the evidence in the world will not convince him otherwise. If he has a brainstorm (a Trump brainstorm is probably more like a light sprinkle, over in a few seconds) it must be 100% correct. Facts on the ground be damned.
And for his brilliant insight into a international drug smuggling, all he wants is a measly five or six billion. C'mon, Nancy. Admit that he's smarter than everyone else.
@Akhilleus: Looks as if you (and Trump) answered the question I had yesterday: what happens if Trump declares his fake national emergency before Congress funds the government without the wall. If you can believe what he said yesterday -- and no one can -- he's going to wait till after Congress funds the government without the wall, then declare his fake emergency. But the effect is more or less the same: two conflicting prescriptions: one a law & the other a fake national emergency. Then Trump can spend the rest of his sorry presidency* caterwauling (or caterwalling) about the inevitable court cases and moving real troops to the border as if they were nothing but toy soldiers arranged on his bed when he had the sniffles. Maybe if this monument to xenophobia & racism keeps him busy, we'll be better off than if Trump was out destroying something else but what a sad commentary on who we are.
Maybe when he's gone, some entrepreneurial genius can make an amusement park/climbing wall of it. Better yet, on the Mexican side, I hope Trump's Folly inspires a lot of latter-day Diego Riveras to paint vivid socialist murals & it becomes a grand tourist attraction, luring Americans to Mexico. Of course that will take dollars away from U.S. businesses, but Trump doesn't care. Ivanka & Donnie Junior, once they get out of the slammer, can build some cheesy Trump motels in Tijuana & Ciudad Juarez.
CNN is reporting a Fed Ex worker dead outside a delivery hub. What the hell...yesterday a student... What is wrong with employers and school administrators not impressing upon their workers and students that they should not venture out alone in case someone slips on ice, falls, hits head, dead in no time. And why are students and workers taking chances like this? My guess is that everyone feels he or she is invincible and nothing will happen. These temps are nothing to trifle with. Of course, it's just weather, nothing to see here, folks...
I can no longer keep up with the Orange Obscenity's pronouncements of whatever spews from his idiotic "brain." He may as well declare an "emergency" now, rather than go through two more weeks of people debating what a WALL is. Then we won't have to worry: an emergency is anything he says it is. We need new dictionaries and also an entirely new congress and new major newspapers since NO ONE is recognizing/saying that the Orange Obscenity is completely batshit and should be locked up now.
Marie,
First: "Caterwalling". Very clever.
Second: Diego Rivera style murals on the El Trumpo Muro. LOVE IT! A great idea. Maybe a good old gigantic socialist-type portrait of Fatty with boogers hanging out of his nose, ear plugs in, and blackout sleep mask over his rheumy eyes and rattles clutched in his tiny baby hands. Then they can put Steven Miller in the background wearing a National Socialist costume, goosestepping alongside Steve King and Steve Bannon (all these Steves!--maybe we can dress them all in longershoreman clothing and show them the Steve-a-door. Ba-dum-bum).
Is Schultz just using the Trump playbook to sell more books and get
attention? He is "running" for president and trolling the libs, two
things the media loves to cover.
RAS,
You're correct, the media sure do like them the presydentshul racey stuff. Can't get enough of it (like we won't be inundated with it for the next two years, might as well get a jump on it).
Besides, since Schultz isn't down with providing any information on things like policy, it's a lot easier to cover his "I'm rich, and I deserve it, so elect me" platform.
I'm sure there's a lot of ego at play as well. And given the harsh reception he's been receiving (and rightfully so) he may decide to fuck up the race just to show everyone. So there.
The indispensable Amanda Marcotte had a piece yesterday in which she outlined some useful bits of Schultzian history.
It seems that as his coffee star was rising, old Schultzie decided that the driveway to his Seattle mansion wasn't fancy enough. So he co-opted a public park as part of his own land. Spitting on the locals, he overstepped the agreement he had with the city and did whatever he wanted. Seattle even agreed to waive the $25,000 fee for his use of the park as a construction staging area. He had agreed to pay for improvements to the park, which he then reneged on. As the lawsuits piled up, and after defacing a public park to suit himself, he abruptly moved to a newer, bigger mansion somewhere else.
But the biggest blot on his connection to Seattle is his slap in the face of Seattle sports fans. The Seattle Supersonics, back in the day, one of the jewels of the NBA (even I, not a natural Sonics fan, was impressed with their teams), had been around for almost 40 years when Schultz bought it as an ego project. But then he wanted the city and state to buy him a new half-billion dollar stadium. When they balked at footing the bill for him, he sold the team to investors who moved the team to Oklahoma City. He owned it for less than five years but then sold a beloved franchise out from under Seattle fans in a fit of pique.
As Marcotte puts it, these are just a couple of reasons "...many in Seattle see Schultz as an imperious figure who believes that his wealth and success entitles him to behave like an entitled nobleman who is owed fealty by the rest of the city."
Another rich asshole who thinks everyone owes him.
Presidential material? Only in his dreams.
Trump's Debt to Racism
Years ago, I spent some months in the old Soviet Union. I was there as part of an official delegation. My roommate and soon to be pal was a black Methodist minister who was also gay. We had roaring good times together, both on our trip and when we got back to the states.
During our visit to the Soviet Union, we set out one morning, with a student from Moscow University, a kid from Uganda, to find a black woman, a history professor at the university whose father had come to the Soviet Union from America in the thirties, lured by promises of equality and decent treatment.
The larger goal of course, back before the war, was for Soviets to be able to capitalize (if one can employ that term in a discussion of socialists) on American racism, to pretend that racism did not exist in the egalitarian USSR.
We ran into a distinctly different sort of welcome. As we wandered the back streets of Moscow, myself and my companions, everyone we asked for directions, spoke directly to me, the only white guy, even though my Russian was limited to "Yes, I'm an American", "Don't arrest me", "I'll have a vodka", and "Excuse me, but where's the men's room?".
At one point, walking across Red Square, a little boy and his mother walked by us and did a double take. The little boy pointed excitedly in our direction and said something. The mother laughed as they walked off. I asked our Ugandan translator, who spoke Russian, what they said. He looked at me, then at my friend, paused a moment and then told us "He said, 'Mommy, look at the monkeys'".
I relate this story because it's a rare thing for white people to experience what black people in a white society experience almost every day.
We were in Baku a few weeks later and my friend and I found ourselves in a cab in what appeared to be a not so good part of town. A cinder block was thrown out from a window onto the roof of the cab after which the cabbie told us to get out. We walked the five miles back to our hotel and I have to tell you, it wasn't fun, although we did stop at a little shop for some мороженое (ice cream), where we met two funny old guys whom we called Mike and Ike. They knew a little German and a little French, so myself and my pal got along great with them. They didn't appear at all phased that we were both American and one of us was black. Then again, they were Azerbaijani, not Russian. But they helped to break up our walk back to safety.
But this is all to direct your attention to a fascinating article in the Paris Review, written by the Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma, about his experiences in Turkish Cyprus and Turkey itself.
I don't believe Trump, or many of his supporters could ever take much away from a story like this, but if they could, it might be a very different world. As it is, Trump has used racism of the kind described by Chigozie Obioma to propel his fat ass into the White House. He owes hatred a great debt.
Anyway, I hope you find Obioma's story as interesting as I did.
Trump's Debt to Racism
Years ago, I spent some months in the old Soviet Union. I was there as part of an official delegation. My roommate and soon to be pal was a black Methodist minister who was also gay. We had roaring good times together, both on our trip and when we got back to the states.
During our visit to the Soviet Union, we set out one morning, with a student from Moscow University, a kid from Uganda, to find a woman, a history professor at the university whose father had come to the Soviet Union from America in the thirties, lured by promises of equality and decent treatment.
The larger goal of course, back before the war, was for Soviets to be able to capitalize (if one can employ that term in a discussion of socialists) on American racism, to pretend that racism did not exist in the egalitarian USSR.
We ran into a distinctly different sort of welcome. As we wandered the back streets of Moscow, myself and my companions, everyone we asked for directions, spoke directly to me, the only white guy, even though my Russian was limited to "Yes, I'm an American", "Don't arrest me", "I'll have a vodka", and "Excuse me, but where's the men's room?".
At one point, walking across Red Square, a little boy and his mother walked by us and did a double take. The little boy pointed excitedly in our direction and said something. The mother laughed as they walked off. I asked our Ugandan translator, who spoke Russian, what they said. He looked at me, then at my friend, paused a moment and then told us "He said, 'Mommy, look at the monkeys'".
I relate this story because it's a rare thing for white people to experience what black people in a white society experience almost every day.
We were in Baku a few weeks later and my friend and I found ourselves in a cab in what appeared to be a not so good part of town. A cinder block was thrown out from a window onto the roof of the cab after which the cabbie told us to get out. We walked the five miles back to our hotel and I have to tell you, it wasn't fun, although we did stop at a little shop for some мороженое (ice cream), where we met two funny old guys whom we called Mike and Ike. They knew a little German and a little French, so myself and my pal got along great with them. They didn't appear at all phased that we were both American and one of us was black. Then again, they were Azerbaijani, not Russian. But they helped to break up our walk back to safety.
But this is all to direct your attention to a fascinating article in the Paris Review, written by the Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma, about his experiences in Turkish Cyprus and Turkey itself.
I don't believe Trump, or many of his supporters could ever take much away from a story like this, but if they could, it might be a very different world. As it is, Trump has used racism of the kind described by Chigozie Obioma to propel his fat ass into the White House. He owes hatred a great debt.
Anyway, I hope you find Obioma's story as interesting as I did.
@AK: Just finished reading Obioma's story–-like your Russian tale it illustrates that thing that hangs around in this world like a bad virus. And learning a new language only made it more difficult. Thanks for this.