;)
The Commentariat -- January 18, 2020
Late Morning Update:
BBC News: "Prince Harry and Meghan will no longer use their HRH titles and will not receive public funds for royal duties, Buckingham Palace has said. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also said they intend to repay £2.4m of taxpayer money for the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage, which will remain their UK family home. The couple will also no longer formally represent The Queen. The new arrangement will come into effect in spring this year. It comes after the couple earlier this month said they wanted to step back as senior royals. A statement from the Queen said following 'many months of conversations and more recent discussions' she was 'pleased that together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family'. 'Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family,' the statement continued."
Edward Moreno of the Hill: "Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he made the call to release to the media hundreds of text messages between two high-ranking FBI employees after they criticized then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, according to new court filings the Justice Department released late Friday night. In the messages, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page insulted Trump as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), expressing a preference for Hillary Clinton in the election. The messages, which were exchanged on government cellphones, also revealed that the two were engaged in an extramarital affair, which has made them the subject of public harassment as well as ridicule from the president."
Shane Dixon Kavanaugh of The Oregonian: "The FBI believes the Saudi Arabian government 'almost certainly' helps its citizens flee the country after they are accused of serious crimes, 'undermining the US judicial process,' according to a newly declassified document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The surreptitious action is done, in part, to spare the wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom embarrassment, the FBI said. Intelligence officials believe the flights from justice will continue without intervention by the American authorities." --s
Breakfast at Cipriani's. Mrs. McCrabbie: Although Donald Trump repeatedly asserts he doesn't know Lev Parnas and has never spoken to him, it has become clear these are lies. There are of course all those two-shots of Trump and Parnas that keep cropping up. But Trump is right that a high-profile person doesn't necessarily "know" many of the people with whom he appears in posed photos. But besides Lev's assertions in his interviews this week, Lev brought receipts. For instance, his day calendar includes a September 2019 entry, "Breakfast with President Trump in NYC." According to Joy Reid of MSNBC, Trump's official schedule showed he had a breakfast at Cipriani's NYC the same day at about the same time. NBC News notes that the breakfast took place "just days before Parnas was indicted." Could Lev have consulted Trump's schedule, then penciled in the breakfast after the fact? Maybe. Also is the latest docudump of Lev's files, there a photo of some other event in which printed place cards for "President Donald Trump" and "Lev Parnas" are placed next to each other at a table. Could Lev have mocked up the table setting? Possibly. But I doubt it.
~~~~~~~~~~
They're trying to impeach the son of a bitch. -- Donald Trump, referring to himself, at an event with Louisiana State football champs yesterday, nearly a month after he was impeached
It's almost as if he's obsessing over something he doesn't understand at all. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Show Trial of the Century. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump plans on adding former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and the defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz to his legal team for his trial by the Senate, a person briefed on the plan said Friday. Mr. Starr, whose investigation into President Bill Clinton's sexual relationships led to his impeachment, will be joined by Robert Ray, who succeeded Mr. Starr as independent counsel and wrote the final report on Mr. Clinton, the person said. Rounding out the team will be Mr. Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor emeritus who became famous as a defense counsel for high-profile defendants like O.J. Simpson. The White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, and Mr. Trump's personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, will lead the legal team." CNN's story is here. No mention of whether or not there will be dogs & ponies. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Emily Shugerman of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump is lawyering up for his impeachment trial with a team that looks surprisingly similar to that of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The president bolstered his legal team Friday with attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, who helped Epstein evade prison time in a now infamously lenient plea deal with Palm Beach prosecutors. Epstein originally faced multiple charges of soliciting and trafficking underage girls, but escaped with just 13 months of house arrest in a deal that caused Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to resign under pressure last year. A suit unveiled by Virgin Islands prosecutors this week alleges Epstein continued to traffic and abuse girls as young as 12 on his private islands until 2018, a decade after Starr and Dershowitz helped him walk free." Read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Dershowitz Tries to Distance Himself from Trump. Aris Folley of the Hill: "Attorney Alan Dershowitz said Friday night that he will not be pocketing any money for his work on President Trump's impeachment defense team. During an appearance on 'Anderson Cooper 360,' the attorney said that the details of his payment arrangement haven't 'been discussed' yet, but added: 'If I were to be paid, all the money would go to charity...,' he said. 'I'm doing this because I strongly believe in the Constitution. I strongly oppose the impeachment. I worry about the weaponization of impeachment and it could be used in other cases.... But I'm not part of the regular team that will be making strategic decisions and participating in questions about whether there should be witnesses or not,' Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who also opposed former President Clinton's impeachment, also clarified. 'That's going to be left to others.'"
Pompeo Speaks. Matthew Lee of the AP: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Friday broke nearly 72 hours of silence over alleged surveillance and threats to the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, saying he believed the allegations would prove to be wrong but that he had an obligation to evaluate and investigate the matter. In interviews with conservative radio hosts, Pompeo said he had no knowledge of the allegations until earlier this week when congressional Democrats released documents from an associate of ... Donald Trump's personal attorney suggesting that Marie Yovanovitch was being watched. He also said he did not know and had never met Lev Parnas...." Mrs. McC: I suspect Pompeo chose these venues because (a) no tough questions and (b) harder to tell someone is lying if you can't see his face. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Also, nice work, Mikey, in predicting the outcome of your fake investigation. No doubt the fake investigators who report to you will know on Day 1 what their "findings" will be. ~~~
~~~ Kate Riga of TPM: "Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, demanded Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's presence at an Iran hearing on Jan. 29 after America's top diplomat skipped the last one.... Engel wrote to Pompeo in a letter dated Thursday. '... I consider your testimony to be of extremely high importance and am prepared to use all legal means to ensure your attendance. I trust, however, that this will not be necessary.'" --s
Jeremy Herb & Manu Raju of CNN: "House Democrats on Friday released new documents from ... Lev Parnas ahead of the Senate trial that includes new information about the apparent surveillance of former US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and additional contacts between Parnas and an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes of California.... The new documents include screenshots of undated text messages that appear to show Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut, messaging with a foreign number from Belgium, which appear to describe efforts to surveil Yovanovitch.... The Belgian country-code number sends Hyde a screenshot of an official photo of Yovanovitch. The Belgium number, whose identity is not known, writes 'My contacts are checking,' adding, 'I will give you the address next week.'... In another series of texts, the Belgian number tells Hyde..., 'Nothing has changed she is still not moving they check today again,' shortly adding, 'It's confirmed we have a person inside.' 'She had visitors,' the Belgian number texted in another exchange. The messages come after an earlier document release showed Hyde texting with Parnas about the apparent surveillance." The story contains more info on Parnas' interactions with Derek Harvey, an aide to Nunes. ~~~
~~~ Devin Nunes Must Be Having Another Cow. Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "House impeachment investigators sought Friday to pull Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, deeper into the Ukraine scandal at the center of ... Donald Trump's upcoming impeachment trial. A set of text messages released Friday evening by the Intelligence Committee show a top Nunes aide, Derek Harvey [Mrs. McC: who earlier worked in Trump's White House], in frequent contact with Lev Parnas.... The text messages, provided to investigators by Parnas, show Harvey in contact with Parnas throughout the spring of 2019 -- the same time Parnas was working with [Rudy] Giuliani and other Trump allies to remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.... The newly released text messages show Harvey asking Parnas to pursue several lines of inquiry with his Ukrainian contacts, including one regarding what Harvey calls 'rumors' about coordination between the 2016 campaign of Hillary Clinton and the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort.... The new text messages add another layer to Nunes' potential involvement in the Giuliani-led effort to oust Yovanovitch and push the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation targeting Biden." ~~~
~~~ Take This Suit & Shove It. Marisa Iati of the Washington Post: "Rep. Ted Lieu (D) alleged in December that fellow California Rep. Devin Nunes (R) conspired with Lev Parnas ... to undermine the United States. Parnas has pleaded not guilty to violating campaign finance laws. Then a lawyer for Nunes, who is the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, sent a multi-page missive threatening to sue for damage to Nunes's reputation, Lieu tweeted. The Democratic congressman replied with a letter of his own and posted a photo of the document online. 'I welcome any lawsuit from your client and look forward to taking discovery of Congressman Nunes,' he wrote. 'Or, you can take your letter and shove it.' On MSNBC's 'Hardball' on Friday, Lieu doubled down. 'It turns out that based on text messages in the record and the amazing interview on [MSNBC's] Rachel Maddow Show that I'm right,' he said. 'Truth is a defense.'"~~~
~~~ David Knowles of Yahoo! News: "... Lev Parnas said he was giving media interviews about his role in President Trump's attempts to convince Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden because he wanted to protect himself from Attorney General William Barr.... Trump, Parnas said [to Rachel Maddow], was made more powerful 'when he got William Barr.'... On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also criticized Barr in harsh terms. 'Does anyone think that the rogue AG is going to appoint a special prosecutor?' Pelosi said in Washington in reference to the revelations stemming from Maddow's interview with Barr. 'No, because he's implicated in all of this. This is an example of all of the president's henchmen. And I hope that the senators do not become part of the president's henchmen.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's easy to think of Parnas as Rudy's goon or Trump's goon. But in fact, especially in understanding the structure of power, he is -- in his own way -- just as smart about it as Jonathan Chait, and Chait, IMO, is a very smart guy. ~~~
~~~ Betsy Swan of the Daily Beast: Lev "Parnas told The Daily Beast that his former friends' reaction to his arrest has strengthened his resolve to speak out. Parnas said that after he and his associate Igor Fruman were arrested at Dulles Airport on Oct. 9 and charged with campaign-finance violations, he was disappointed with [Rudy] Giuliani's silence. He said Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing -- a Trump-friendly husband-and-wife legal team with deep and longstanding ties in Washington's conservative legal world -- also kept mum about their relationship with him. That silence, he said, left him feeling betrayed.... He noted that the trio rarely shy away from defending controversial clients and allies on TV. But in his case, Parnas said, they were silent." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Betsy Swan: "A dinner with Jared and Ivanka about cannabis, a phone call from Trump Hotel with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and a whole lot of theorizing about George Soros. Lev Parnas' interactions with Trumpworld, in his words, went way beyond the Ukraine influence effort. The former ally of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani spent more than a year embedded with some of the president's close outside allies.... He described several of them in an interview with The Daily Beast from his lawyer's office in Midtown Manhattan." --s
Michelle Goldberg: "One good thing about surrounding yourself with tawdry gangsters and grifters is that if they flip on you, you can claim they have no credibility because they're criminals.... A willingness to associate with Trump is a sign of moral turpitude, so most witnesses to his venal schemes will necessarily be compromised.... [Lev] Parnas is worth paying attention to because he's shown us, once again, what Trumpism looks like from the inside. It's part 'The Sopranos' and part, as he put it to [Rachel] Maddow, a 'cult.' The qualities that discredit Parnas are the same ones that let him fit right in."
Josh Kovensky of TPM: "One of Paul Manafort's clients in Ukraine appears to have laid the foundation for theories of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election that are now at the heart of President Trump's pressure campaign on Kyiv, according to an FBI interview released on Friday. The interview notes say that Ukrainian politician Serhiy Lyovochkin -- Manafort's longtime client in Kyiv -- told the former Trump campaign chairman that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had demanded information about Manafort from a specialized anti-corruption law enforcement body. The notes came out in FOIA litigation pursued by Buzzfeed and CNN...." --s
Evan Perez & David Shortell of CNN: "Attorney General William Barr briefly attended a meeting at the Justice Department last fall between top criminal prosecutors and ... Rudy Giuliani, a department official said Friday. The meeting reveals a previously undisclosed interaction between two men the President depends on to defend him. Justice officials have sought to distance the department and Barr from Giuliani since it became clear in recent months that the former New York mayor is the subject of an investigation by Manhattan federal prosecutors. Giuliani was a part of a team of defense attorneys representing a Venezuelan client when they met with Justice Department officials."
Trump's Enemies List Is Bill Barr's To-Do List. Jonathan Chait: "No single case is egregious enough to prove bias on its own. The pattern of selective prosecution under Trump's Department of Justice, and his fanatically partisan Attorney General William Barr, has become evident in a series of cases that all resemble [the probe of Jim Comey's possible leaks, NYT story linked below]. The connecting thread is that Trump's enemies are scoured for any violation that can be found, and held to the strictest letter of the law, while his allies are given broad latitude.... In theory, there would be nothing wrong with the Department of Justice tightening up its standards of conduct. But all the evidence points to the conclusion those standards are being raised only for Trump's political enemies.... The flagrant nature of the 2016 anti-Clinton [emails!] leaks show just how unseriously the bureau has taken its rules on leaking.... The message Trump has sent to his bureaucracy is unmistakable. Political loyalists will be granted broad latitude, and displays of troublesome independence will be held to the strictest accountability." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jason Leopold, et al. of Buzzfeed: "BuzzFeed News has obtained another set of secret FBI documents from former special counsel Robert Mueller's probe that reveals what key Trump administration officials and other witnesses told investigators about Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the president's attempts to obstruct the inquiry.... Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chair, said he had his lawyer speak with Fox News host Sean Hannity in January 2018 because he saw Hannity as an 'outlet to the public and the White House.'... Denis Klimentov, who is associated with the New Economic School in Russia, said that when Russians learned that Carter Page ... was involved 'in the Trump campaign in July 2016, the excitement was palpable.'... Interviewing Anatoli Samochornov, the Russian translator at the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, an FBI agent asked 'if he noticed anything odd with the Russian linguists working at' the United Nations or US State Department. Samochornov 'mentioned a few individuals.' Their names are redacted." --s
Trump Cares Deeply about Your Healthcare Costs (to the Extent they Affect His Polling Numbers). Josh Dawsey & Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out at Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar for not doing enough on health care and drug pricing during a campaign meeting this week after he was briefed on polling that showed the public trusted Democrats more than Republicans on the issue, according to four people present at or briefed about the meeting." ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Swan & Caitlin Owens of Axios: "President Trump told his health secretary yesterday that he regrets getting involved in the administration's policy on vaping, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. "I should never have done that f[uck]ing vaping thing," Trump said during an impromptu call on speakerphone in an Oval Office meeting.... The administration's ban on flavored vapes is one of its most prominent health policy decisions, but trying to find a compromise between public health groups and the pro-vaping community caused massive political headaches.... The administration hasn't accomplished much on health care. Congress did not repeal the Affordable Care Act -- Trump's top priority -- and it did not address surprise medical bills, either. The administration has done very little on drug prices, and is urging the courts to throw out protections for pre-existing conditions." A New York Times story is here.
Make a Big Donation, Get a Debriefing. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "President Trump recounted minute-by-minute details of the US strike that killed Iran's top military commander during remarks to high-dollar Republican donors at his South Florida estate, according to audio obtained by CNN. Trump, speaking at a GOP fundraising dinner Friday evening, offered new details about the strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani.... In his speech -- held inside the gilded ballroom on his Mar-a-Lago property -- he claimed that Soleimani was 'saying bad things about our country' before the strike, which led to his decision to authorize his killing. 'How much of this shit do we have to listen to?' Trump asked.... Trump did not describe an 'imminent threat' that led to his decision to kill Soleimani, the justification used by administration officials in the aftermath of the attack.... Trump described in detail watching remotely as Soleimani arrived at Baghdad International Airport, where he was met by Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of Kata'ib Hezbollah. Trump claimed erroneously that Soleimani was meeting "the head of Hezbollah" (the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group is separate from group led by ... al-Muhandis)." Mrs. McC: There were a lot of "sir"s in Trump's description, so we know he made up those parts.
Elizabeth McLaughlin & Mark Osborne of ABC News: "The U.S. military confirmed late Thursday that some American troops were evacuated for blast injuries sustained in Iran's ballistic missile attacks on bases in Iraq last week. Ten service members injured at Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq were flown out of the country on Wednesday, and another service member was flown out on Jan. 10. 'While no U.S. service members were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Al Asad Air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed,' said Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.... In the wake of the attack, which was done in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani..., Donald Trump said no one was injured.... TBI [traumatic brain injury] would not meet the threshold for the Pentagon to be notified of the injuries, and that's why the department was only told on Thursday [about the injuries], officials said." Mrs. McC: So one of the few times Trump has made an untrue statement that wasn't his fault. (Also linked yesterday.)
Lola Fadulu of the New York Times: "The Trump administration moved on Friday to roll back school nutrition standards championed by Michelle Obama, an effort long sought by food manufacturers and some school districts that have chafed at the cost of Mrs. Obama's prescriptions for fresh fruit and vegetables. The proposed rule by the Agriculture Department, coming on the former first lady's birthday, would give schools more latitude to decide how much fruit to offer during breakfast and what types of vegetables to include in meals. It would also broaden what counts as a snack." The Hill's story is here. Mrs. McC: Having wrecked nearly everything President Obama did, they're going after his wife now. Anyhow, Happy Birthday, Michelle! Can I treat you to a Big Mac & fries with a sugary drink to wash 'em down?
** In a History Exhibit, National Archives Erases Women's History. Joe Heim of the Washington Post: "The large color photograph that greets visitors to a National Archives exhibit celebrating the centennial of women's suffrage shows a massive crowd filling Pennsylvania Avenue NW for the Women's March on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after President Trump's inauguration.... Viewed from one perspective, it shows the 2017 march. Viewed from another angle, it shifts to show a 1913 black-and-white image of a women's suffrage march also on Pennsylvania Avenue. The display links momentous demonstrations for women's rights more than a century apart on the same stretch of pavement. But a closer look reveals a different story. The Archives acknowledged in a statement this week that it made multiple alterations to the photo of the 2017 Women's March showcased at the museum, blurring signs held by marchers that were critical of Trump. Words on signs that referenced women's anatomy were also blurred." Mrs. McC: I find this reprehensible. No sex words. No negativity about our Dear Leader. You girls should be more ladylike. How's "Fuck you, Archives!"? ~~~
~~~ Update. Here's a Hill story.
Another Trumpie Goes to Jail. Caroline Kelly & Sheena Jones of CNN: "Former New York [Congressman] Chris Collins [R] was sentenced to 26 months in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to federal charges in an insider trading case. The sentence from Judge Vernon Broderick in a New York federal court comes after Collins pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making false statements in October. Federal prosecutors on Monday recommended that Collins be sentenced to nearly five years in prison. 'You had a duty and you betrayed that duty,' Broderick said, additionally slapping Collins with a $200,000 fine and a year of supervised probation upon his release.... Collins, who was the first sitting congressman to support ... Donald Trump's bid for the White House, resigned from Congress ahead of the guilty plea. By pleading guilty, Collins avoided a broader set of charges from the superseding indictment, including securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud."
Presidential Election
Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday accused Democrats of trying to sabotage Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bid, echoing allegations from Sanders supporters during the 2016 primary. 'They are rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders, just like last time, only even more obviously,' Trump said in a pair of tweets, claiming that Democrats were using his impeachment trial beginning next week to keep Sanders off the campaign trail in the critical final weeks before the Iowa caucuses. 'They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial,' he continued, using derisive nicknames to accuse House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- without evidence -- of orchestrating the timing of the trial to give former Vice President Joe Biden a boost. 'Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong edge to Sleepy Joe Biden, and Bernie is shut out again. Very unfair, but that's the way the Democrats play the game. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch!'" ~~~
~~~ Annie Karni & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The first version of the conspiracy theory was hatched on Twitter last Friday, Jan. 10. 'Don't rule out that the reason Pelosi hasn't sent impeachment to the Senate is to hurt Warren and Sanders, and to help Biden,' Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, tapped out on his iPad. 'By timing the trial so it takes place during the Iowa lead-up, she has leverage over the liberals.'... Seven days later, Mr. Fleischer's theory ... -- for which there is no evidence -- was being promulgated by President Trump.... The evolution from online conspiracy theory to Fox News fodder to presidential talking point demonstrated how a world of conservative influencers, Republican lawmakers and online media outlets can drive disinformation through repetition and amplification. Two days after Mr. Fleischer's tweet, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, repeated it" on Fox News twice.... "His television commentary was then written up by Breitbart News' and the confederate Website the Federalist ran an article touting it. Then Trump tweeted it out.
Pete Williams of NBC News: "The Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up an issue that could change a key element of the system America uses to elect its president, with a decision likely in the spring just as the campaign heats up. The answer to the question could be a decisive one: Are the electors who cast the actual Electoral College ballots for president and vice president required to follow the results of the popular vote in their states? Or are they free to vote as they wish?... 'It's not hard to imagine how a single "faithless elector," voting differently than his or her state did, could swing a close presidential election,' said Mark Murray, NBC News senior political editor.... The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in ... said electors can vote for any legitimate candidate.... States are free to choose their electors however they want, the court said, and can even require electors to pledge their loyalty to their political parties. But once the electors are chosen and report in December to cast their votes as members of the electoral college, they are fulfilling a federal function, and a state's authority has ended." The New York Times story, by Adam Liptak, is here.
Susannah Luthi of Politico: "The Supreme Court on Friday said it will revisit whether employers must guarantee free birth control coverage for their workers. It marks the third high court review of the contraception mandate stemming from Obamacare -- and the first since Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court. The provision requires employer-sponsored health plans to provide their enrollees with contraceptive coverage at no extra personal cost. Both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh considered similar cases while appellate court judges, and both showed sympathy for religious groups seeking exemptions from the requirement on moral grounds. Justices this time will review whether the birth control mandate violates religious freedom laws and whether proposed exemptions pushed by the Trump administration that have so far been blocked by lower courts can stand."
Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "... a Washington Post-Ipsos poll of African Americans nationwide ... [found that] while personally optimistic about their own lives, [they] today offer a bleaker view about their community as a whole. They also express determination to try to limit Trump to a single term in office. More than 8 in 10 black Americans say they believe Trump is a racist and that he has made racism a bigger problem in the country. Nine in 10 disapprove of his job performance overall. The pessimism goes well beyond assessments of the president. A 65 percent majority of African Americans say it is a 'bad time' to be a black person in America." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Michael Balsamo & Jeff Martin of the AP: "Three men linked to a violent white supremacist group known as The Base were charged with conspiring to kill members of a militant anti-fascist group, police in Georgia announced Friday, a day after three other members were arrested on federal charges in Maryland and Delaware. A senior FBI national security official said police and federal agents intentionally moved to arrest the men ahead of Monday's rally because they believed some of them intended to commit violence there. It was unknown if the men arrested in Georgia planned to attend the rally in Richmond. The Base, a collective of hardcore neo-Nazis that operate as a paramilitary organization, has proclaimed war against minority communities within the United States and abroad, the FBI has said. Unlike other extremist groups, it's not focused on promulgating propaganda -- instead the group aims to bring together highly skilled members to train them for acts of violence."
Beyond the Beltway
Georgia. AP: "A computer security expert says he found that a forensic image of the election server central to a legal battle over the integrity of Georgia elections showed signs that the original server was hacked. The server was left exposed to the open internet for at least six months, a problem the same expert discovered in August 2016. It was subsequently wiped clean in mid-2017 with no notice, just days after election integrity activists filed a lawsuit seeking an overhaul of what they called the state's unreliable and negligently run election system. In late December 2019, the plaintiffs were finally able to obtain a copy of the server's contents that the FBI made in March 2017 and retained. State officials have said they've seen no evidence that any election-related data was compromised. But they also long refused to submit the server image for an independent examination." Mrs. McC: So this is Republican election officials trying to hide a hack or hacks of their system. If you're still thinking maybe Stacey Abrams really got more votes in the 2018 gubernatorial election -- an election in which her opponent Brian Kemp was "managing" the vote count -- keep on thinking. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Kansas. Steve Vockrodt of The Kansas City Star: "A Kansas City area radio station can broadcast Russian state-owned media programming, the type that U.S. intelligence called a 'propaganda machine,' for six hours a day through a lease agreement struck by a local radio operator. RM Broadcasting LLC, a Florida-based company that has agreements to broadcast the Russian state media program Radio Sputnik, reached a deal on Jan. 1...The lease agreement lets RM Broadcasting air its programming from 6 to 9 a.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. seven days a week. KCXL's website, which says that it's the radio station that will 'tell you the things that the liberal media wont (sic) tell you,' lists Radio Sputnik in its morning programming." --s
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Reader Comments (10)
Maybe time for a memory refresher. This from 2017.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/24/16194086/bernie-trump-voters-study
My fear is that Bernie supporters might have forgotten what they did to the rest of us four years ago.
The R's certainly have not.
True Believers if any stripe are stupid.
Of course he did. (from the Reuter's side bar)
"Trump gives dramatic account of Soleimani's last minutes before death: CNN"
Except it's all bullshit. He used the "Sir" tell again.
@ Ken
from the article you cited: "...More voters went from Hillary Clinton to John McCain in 2008 than went from Sanders to Trump in 2016; about 13 percent of Trump’s 2016 voters also voted for Barack Obama in 2012..."
Perhaps grouping people into "stupid...true believers" is a gross generalization. It might be that there were 125 million reasons why the population voted for candidates in 2016, and I'd bet a many of them made up or changed their minds at the last minute. I'd venture to guess that the majority were conflicted and based their votes on some degree of misinformation and spin promoted by party loyalists and party national committees.
I would suggest that the seething anger and underlying dissatisfaction with the neoliberal status quo from the losers of the 2009 bailouts and the offshoring of manufacturing jobs before that cuts across party lines and doesn't reside firmly in any political group. Growing wealth inequality and the unresponsiveness, if not outright corruption of governments in dealing with this problem, is a global problem. I suspect the issue many of us wrestle with is whether just, equitable, and democratic changes to the current paradigm can be brought about incrementally or whether they need to be brought into being with bold disruptive structural reforms. There is a whole spectrum of possibilities and decisions in that space.
The news media prospers by diffracting public political sentiment into partisan groups. This has not served us well.
Periscope,
No argument with you insofar as, yes, discerning the reasons people vote the way they do are simple in some cases and complicated in others. You list some of those complications.
I would only add my experience with local Sanders voters where I live and reports from two country Democratic headquarters in WA state, my local one and the one in Spokane.
Precinct committee chairs who led the caucuses (eliminated here for 2020) and volunteers answering the Democratic headquarter phones in both venues reported that Sanders supporters were often angry when they did not get their way, issued threats and frequently stated they would not vote for Hillary under any circumstances. Instead, they would either stay away or vote for her opponent.
While that made no difference here in WA, in presidential elections an overwhelmingly blue state, a similar reaction among voters in Wisconsin and a few other states the Pretender carried by only a few votes could well have made the difference.
He did after all, win by less than a total of 100,000 votes in the critical states that gave him the electoral victory that is killing the country.
Not sure, but maybe if Melania gets behind Trump's
new school dietary guidelines, she can support it with a
another program titled: Be OBese
Holy shit! Did Soleimani get assassinated because of tweets?
"he claimed that Soleimani was 'saying bad things about our country' before the strike, which led to his decision to authorize his killing. 'How much of this shit do we have to listen to?' Trump asked" -Liptak
Soleimani posted memes antagonizing Trump on social media
MAG,
Good idea. And because poor nutrition has been shown to have deleterious impacts on learning and social behavior, making it more difficult for children to excel academically, you might want to expand Melanie's potential program to "Be Obese + Stupid".
And, if you want to reference the psychosocial behavioral problems, you could make it "Be Obese+Stupid+Sociopathic". In fact, the more you think about it, her husband's obesity, ignorance, and neuroses could be directly related, in part, to his own terrible diet.
A perfect example of what kids will become if the Trump dietary guidelines are strictly followed. A nation of overweight assholes. The Trump Dreamland.
So 65% of Black Americans say it is a "bad time" to be a black in America.
Seriously, when was it a "good time"?
@Bobby Lee: November 4, 2008. In fact, that was a good time to be white in America, too.
Weltanschauung, Weltschmerz, und Schmucks
So I put on a CD of Sinatra songs while working around the house and I glanced at the liner notes on the back, written by Irish rock icon Bono, lead singer and songwriter with U2. Bono's (née Paul David Hewson) name was plaited by friends who appreciated his good voice (Latin: bonavox), thus, one might readily accept his take on another singer's vocal chops.
Commenting on Sinatra's vocal approach on this album of love songs, Bono points out (appropriately, in my opinion) that in order to sing like that, one would have to have lost a few fights. And no one who could sing love songs like he does could do it like that without having his (or her) heart broken a few times.
Bono speaks like a true Irishman. Yeah. We've lost a few fights (more than a few), but we always get up and jump back in the ring.
Which makes me think of the Current Occupant of the White House, the Orange Menace. Fatty has never accepted that he has ever lost any fights. In his mind, he was cheated or screwed. And in love, broken hearts are for losers; he does whatever he wants: cheats, philanders, screws porn stars then lies about it and pays them off, rapes his wife then runs lawyers at her to force her to deny it.
Serendipitously, just after the Sinatra album, I popped in Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte", an opera that, even though it's largely a comic work, takes seriously the journey of the hero. The hero, in traditional mythology and narrative, loses battles and learns the lessons of failure. This is what promotes him or her to the status of hero. They screw up. They learn pain and suffering and learn from it. Their personal strength helps them to overcome all and they enter the realm of heroism.
Trump has never felt pain. Never believed that any downturn in fortune was his own fault. It was always due to some loser or some asshole. Daddy was always there to bail him out. He never LEARNED ANYTHING!
Last night, I took my little guy to a screening of "The Wizard of Oz". The great value of this movie is that the heroes of the film learn from their hard times. They become true heroes. They LEARN.
Trump? He never learns anything. Any problems are always someone else's fault. Never his.
He is the Greatest. No matter what.
Hero?
No. Loser schmuck.
And those who worship this loser schmuck and his weltanschauung?
Lost.