;)
The Commentariat -- January 22, 2019
Afternoon Update:
Trump/Sanders Afraid of Daily Press Briefings. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Tuesday that he directed White House press secretary Sarah Sanders 'not to bother' with press briefings because he believes that reporters are rude to her and that most members of the media will not cover the administration fairly. Press briefings, which used to be a near-daily occurrence, have become a rarity in the Trump White House. Sanders has not provided an on-camera briefing for more than a month, including the duration of the partial government shutdown. 'The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the "podium" much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press,' Trump said on Twitter. 'I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly & hence, the term, Fake News!'"
Greg Sargent: "President Trump and his allies have spent days talking up the idea that his new proposal to reopen the government constitutes a 'compromise.'... But on Monday night, Senate Republicans released the bill text.... Surprise: It has been so loaded up with poison pills that it looks as if it was deliberately constructed to make it impossible for Democrats to support. If so, that would be perfectly in keeping with the M.O. that we've already seen from top adviser Stephen Miller, who appears devoted to scuttling any and all policies that could actually prompt compromises.... The proposal on the dreamers was whittled down to the point where it only undoes the disaster Trump himself is orchestrating.... The new proposal is much worse on asylum seekers than advertised.... There is no way this offer represents a compromise, if we conventionally understand a 'compromise' to be an agreement in which both sides secure meaningful concessions."
Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "... Donald Trump is preparing for two different State of the Union speeches -- one a more traditional address delivered to Congress in the House chamber or some other location in D.C., the other prepared for a political rally at a location outside of Washington, D.C. that has yet to be determined, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.... As part of the ongoing political tit-for-tat between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Republicans are encouraging Trump to force Pelosi to officially disinvite him, by suggesting the president announce he still intends to deliver the State of the Union from the House chamber, according to Republican sources involved in the discussions."
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "A. Wess Mitchell, the top diplomat in charge of European affairs, will resign from the State Department next month, creating a key vacancy at a time when European leaders are questioning President Trump's commitment to historic alliances.... In an interview, Mitchell said his resignation is not a protest of the administration's policies or the direction of foreign policy, and he praised Pompeo's leadership and vision."
Translation: “I just made s**t up.” https://t.co/wpAeC4vRBJ
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) January 21, 2019
... Thanks to unwashed for the link.
Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "The Iowa senator Joni Ernst has stated she turned down the opportunity to be Donald Trump's vice-president because she believed her husband Gail 'hated any successes I have'. In an affidavit filed as part of divorce proceedings with her husband of 26 years, Ernst states: 'in the summer of 2016, I was interviewed by Candidate Trump to be vice president of the United States. I turned Candidate Trump down, knowing it wasn't the right thing for me or my family. 'I continued to make sacrifices and not soar higher out of concern for Gail and our family,' she added."
Stupid Supreme Court Ruling. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived the Trump administration's policy of barring most transgender people from serving in the military. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices temporarily allowed the ban to go into effect while cases challenging i move forward. The vote was 5 to 4, with the court's five conservative members in the majority and its four liberal members in dissent. The administration had also asked the justices to hear immediate appeals from trial court rulings blocking the policy. The court turned down those requests without comment. The policy, announced on Twitter by President Trump and refined by the defense secretary at the time, Jim Mattis, generally prohibits people identifying with a gender different from their biological sex from military service. It makes exceptions for several hundred transgender people already serving openly and for those willing to serve 'in their biological sex.'"
Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court took no action on Tuesday on the Trump administration's plans to shut down a program that shields some 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation. The court's inaction almost certainly means it will not hear the administration's challenge in its current term, which ends in June. The justices' next private conference to consider petitions seeking review is scheduled for Feb. 15. Even were they to agree to hear the case then, it would not be argued until after the next term starts in October. The move left the program in place and denied negotiating leverage to Mr. Trump, who has said he wanted to use a Supreme Court victory in the case in negotiations with Democrats over immigration issues."
Donie O'Sullivan of CNN: "Twitter suspended an account on Monday afternoon that helped spread a controversial encounter between a Native American elder and a group of high school students wearing Make America Great Again hats. The account claimed to belong to a California schoolteacher. Its profile photo was not of a schoolteacher, but of a blogger based in Brazil, CNN Business found. Twitter suspended the account soon after CNN Business asked about it.The account, with the username @2020fight, was set up in December 2016 and appeared to be the tweets of a woman named Talia living in California. 'Teacher & Advocate. Fighting for 2020,' its Twitter bio read. Since the beginning of this year, the account had tweeted on average 130 times a day and had more than 40,000 followers.... Rob McDonagh, an assistant editor at Storyful..., said he found the account suspicious due to its 'high follower count, highly polarized and yet inconsistent political messaging, the unusually high rate of tweets, and the use of someone else's image in the profile photo.'"
*****
Trump Knocked Himself out to Honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump made a brief appearance Monday at Washington's Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, honoring the civil rights icon with a wreath on the federal holiday bearing his name. The president, accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, spent roughly two minutes at the memorial." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So I'm thinking this is what Trump's daily schedule said for this excursion: "Honor Dr. King at memorial -- 30 minutes; brief remarks, etc." Trump assumed "Dr. King" was Steve King & left the moment he figured out otherwise. It took him two minutes for him to discover his error. ...
... Steve King Knocked Himself out to Honor ... Anonymous. David Moye of the Huffington Post: "... unapologetically racist Iowa Congressman Steve King chose to tweet a tribute to the slain civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. on the day commemorating his birth. To make things more ludicrous, King's tweet of praise included this quote attributed to King: 'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.' Problem is, King never actually said that, according to Snopes.com.... 'Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his all for all. I have long agreed with his speeches and writings. Today I think of this MLK quote, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." May we renew ourselves in his teachings so that he can RIP.' The tweet came less than two weeks after the Republican congressman wondered aloud to The New York Times why being a white supremacist is such a bad thing." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead.
Sam Fulwood of ThinkProgress: "In a largely overlooked August 18, 2016 speech, then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump extemporaneously cited a litany of problems plaguing black Americans. Speaking broadly, as if to encompass nearly every black person in the nation, Trump rattled off a list of shopworn stereotypes on black pathology.... And turning to squarely face reporters' cameras, Trump declared for the first time in his campaign that only he could make life better for African Americans. He then asked for their votes with a haunting and memorable question. 'What the hell do you have to lose?'... Now, two years into his disastrous presidency, black Americans have the same answer as when Trump initially asked the question: Plenty." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "Two years ago, President Donald Trump stood before an inauguration crowd in Washington, D.C. and warned of 'American carnage,' claiming he alone could stop it.... Now, midway through his presidency, it has become increasingly clear that the real danger is one Trump himself has both fomented and chosen to ignore: far-right extremism.... Meanwhile, both the president and the Republican Party have emboldened violent far-right extremists through their inaction; over the last two years, Trump has barely acknowledged the explosion of far-right activity, much less done anything to combat it." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
The Giuliani Two-Step, Step Two. (Step Forward, Step Back.) Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump's personal lawyer on Monday walked back the timeline he had offered a day earlier on when negotiations ended with Russian officials about a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow, calling his comments 'hypothetical' and not intended to convey facts. The latest statement from the lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was described as a clarification of remarks he made to The New York Times in an interview on Sunday, as well as other remarks he made in interviews on Sunday television news shows. Mr. Giuliani originally quoted Mr. Trump as telling him the negotiations over a Moscow skyscraper continued through 'the day I won.' He also said that the president recalled 'fleeting conversations' about the deal after the Trump Organization signed a letter of intent to pursue it.... 'My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow 'project' were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the president,' Mr. Giuliani said [in a statement].... It was not the first time Mr. Giuliani has reversed himself...." ...
... Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews Rudy Giuliani, who claims the New York Times got the story all wrong: "I don't know if they made it up. What I was talking about was, if he had those conversations, they would not be criminal." Rudy is, not surprisingly, fairly hilarious to anyone he doesn't happen to be impugning in this instance. Mrs. McC: The ewww! factor is that the interview took place before he took his shower. I'm guessing the NYT taped their interview of Rudy.
... Pamela Brown & Laura Jarrett of CNN: "... Donald Trump's legal team reached out to special counsel Robert Mueller's office Friday morning after BuzzFeed published an explosive report suggesting Trump directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Moscow, Rudy Giuliani told CNN.... The statement was drafted internally within the special counsel's office, which made the decision to release it, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. The deputy attorney general's office, which oversees the special counsel, was only given a heads up it was coming Friday evening." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Marcy Wheeler pointed out (also linked Saturday), according to the Washington Post, "... lawyers at the special counsel's office discussed the statement internally, rather than conferring with Justice Department leaders, for much of the day. In the advanced stages of those talks, the deputy attorney general's office called to inquire if the special counsel planned any kind of response, and was informed a statement was being prepared...." That's a lot of meddling.
** Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "When the Trump administration announced last month that it was lifting sanctions against a trio of companies controlled by an influential Russian oligarch, it cast the move as tough on Russia and on the oligarch, arguing that he had to make painful concessions to get the sanctions lifted. But a binding confidential document signed by both sides suggests that the agreement the administration negotiated with the companies controlled by the oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska, may have been less punitive than advertised. The deal contains provisions that free him from hundreds of millions of dollars in debt while leaving him and his allies with majority ownership of his most important company, the document shows.... House Democrats won widespread Republican support last week for their efforts to block the sanctions relief deal. Democratic hopes of blocking the administration's decision have been stifled by the Republican-controlled Senate." Emphasis added. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Steve Mnuchin, Mitch McConnell & the majority of Senate Republicans clearly are what used to be called "fellow travelers" during the Red Scare era. (Nixon would have called them "pinkos," and as he said of his against his Senate opponent Helen Gahagan Douglas, "pink right down to her underwear." What about that, Joni Ernst? ...
... ** Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "The Grand Old Party has quietly become the pro-Russia party -- and not only because the party's standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against." Rampell counts the ways.
Kara Scannell of CNN: "Emin Agalarov, the Russian pop star who initiated the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with members of Donald Trump's campaign, canceled his upcoming US tour after failing to reach a deal with the special counsel's office and Congress over the contours of his testimony. Agalarov was set to launch a four-city US tour Saturday in New York. Looming over the impending engagement was the prospect of his being on US soil and subject to US law enforcement. Agalarov attorney Scott Balber said talks broke down at the end of last week and the decision to cancel the tour was made Monday."
Update on Another Trump Campaign Scam. Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Michael Cohen called CNBC to threaten legal action after his attempt to rig an online poll in Donald Trump's favor failed, according to a new report. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen called CNBC in 2014 and threatened that Trump would sue if the network didn't place the then-businessman higher on its list of the top business leaders, arguing it was 'ignoring the will of the people.' Per the Journal, CNBC never responded and Cohen never sued. It was reported last week that Cohen paid tens of thousands to a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump's favor, including the 2014 CNBC poll and a 2015 Drudge Report poll on presidential candidates. Both efforts failed.... Trump made public efforts to drive his supporters to the CNBC poll too. 'Honored to be named as one of business's "Top Leaders, Icons and Rebels" by @CNBC,' he tweeted after making the shortlist. 'Vote Trump!' And then, when he didn't make the official list: 'Stupid poll should be canceled -- no credibility.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Corruption in Plain Sight. Josh Marshall puts one of Rudy's latest admissions into perspective: "During the time Trump was singing Putin's praises on the campaign trail and getting Putin's help with hacking and information campaigns, Putin was dangling a few hundred million dollars in front of Trump." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... John Marshall: "[The Trump Moscow Tower] deal was with sanctioned individuals and sanctioned banks. Whether it was even legal to be entering into the negotiations is not clear to me. But certainly the post-2014 sanctions against Russia had to be lifted before the deal could be finalized. That is the central issue. It's not simply that Trump had 'business' with Russia and deceived the public about it during the campaign and after. It's more specific and direct. Why was Trump so solicitous of Russia and Vladimir Putin during the campaign? Well, a lot of possible reasons. But a major and likely the major reason was because Putin was dangling a multi-hundreds of millions of dollars payday in front of him. That's a big incentive, especially for Donald Trump." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
The Trump Shutdown, Ctd.
Matt Laslo of The Daily Beast: "With true negotiations stalled, some moderate Democrats are now joining the chorus of Republicans calling on Trump to just declare a national emergency, or for their party leaders to capitulate a tad and set up an outside commission to overcome this childish impasse.... Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told The Daily Beast. 'Please do it Mr. President, because we are in a political meltdown.'... Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told The Daily Beast. 'We don't want to build the wall, the wall is stupid and inefficient, but there is some way that he can save face.'" --s
Lemmings of the Senate Unite! Seung Min Kim & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "One month into a historic government shutdown, Republican senators are standing staunchly behind President Trump's demand for money to build a border wall, even as the GOP bears the brunt of the blame for a standoff few in the party agitated for, according to interviews this past week with more than 40 Republican senators and aides. Under pressure from conservatives to help Trump deliver on a signature campaign promise and unable to persuade him to avert the partial government shutdown, these lawmakers have all but surrendered to the president's will. Their comments show how the cracks in the 53-member Republican majority that emerged at the outset of the shutdown have not spread beyond a handful of lawmakers." (Also linked yesterday.)
He's So Vain. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump purports to hate 'fake news' but he seems to have no problem with fake photos. At least that's what Gizmodo discovered when it started carefully looking at the images on Trump's official Facebook and Instagram accounts and discovered photos of the president that make him look thinner and more built. And, yes, the president's infamous obsession with the size of his hands strikes again as the photos also make a point of lengthening the president's fingers. Gizmodo found at least three instances of altered photos published since October 2018, dismissing any possible suggestion that it was a one-off event. Whether the photos were edited using Facetune or Photoshop or any other tool isn't clear, but it does seem obvious they were at least slightly altered." ...
... The original story by Matt Novak of Gizmodo is here. Mrs. McC: I didn't run it yesterday because I thought it was sort of a non-story. But since other media are picking it up, here ya go. I had a professional photo taken when I was 19 & my appearance was fairly, but not entirely, flawless. In the finished photo, it was flawless. That teensy bump on my chin was gone; my eyelashes were way longer & darker. I once read that when Michelle Pfeiffer was a regular cover model, one magazine did 19 "improvements" to her already-beautiful face. So in the scheme of things, faking the corrupt, lying, fat President*'s physique is nothing. (Faking his physical, as White House doctor Ronnie Jackson did, was far more serious. BTW, that was a year ago. Where are the results of Trump's physical this year?)
Team of Vipers. Maggie Haberman: "John F. Kelly, as White House chief of staff, presented himself as the man leading a charge of 'country first, president second.' The attorney general suggested administering lie-detector tests to the small group of people with access to transcripts of the president's calls with foreign leaders. And President Trump sought a list of 'enemies' working in the White House communications shop. Those are some of the portraits of the Trump White House sprinkled throughout 'Team of Vipers,' an inside account of working there written by Cliff Sims, a former communications staff member and Trump loyalist who worked on the campaign.... The book, which will be published at the end of January, describes a nest of back-stabbing and duplicity within the West Wing, a narrative by now familiar from other books and news media reports. But Mr. Sims, who left last year after clashing with Mr. Kelly, is one of the few people to attach his name to descriptions of goings-on at the White House that are not always flattering to Mr. Trump, and many of the scenes are not particularly flattering to anyone, including himself." (Also linked yesterday.)
Neri Zilber of The Daily Beast: "For over a decade the strongest pillar of stability in the volatile Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the close cooperation between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority's security forces.... Now these Palestinian forces -- primarily American-trained, -equipped and -funded -- look like they may be the latest casualties of the Trump government shutdown.... U.S. legislation passed by Congress last year and set to go into effect at the end of the month will effectively end all remaining aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), including to the security forces.... Potential amendments to the law that would allow this aid to continue are on hold due to the shutdown.... To make matters worse, a separate Israeli law withholding a major portion of the Palestinian budget will also take effect at the end of the month, further straining the cash-strapped PA government and possibly tipping the Gaza Strip into war. On its own each step would be bad enough; taken together they are a likely recipe for future violence." --s
Pamela Constable of the Washington Post: "Scores of Afghan security forces were killed Monday when a suicide bomber in a Humvee rammed a training compound of the national intelligence agency in Wardak Province, officials there said. Taliban insurgents immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Security officials in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told news agencies that the death toll could reach higher than 120, with a large number wounded. The massive bombing destroyed most of the building in the provincial capital where about 150 counterinsurgency troops are based, officials there said. The bombing was followed by gunmen who entered the compound in a truck and began shooting." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mujib Mashal, et al., of the New York Times: "The attack, early Monday morning, came hours before the Taliban announced they had resumed peace talks with American officials. It was a sign, analysts said, of how violence is likely to grow deadlier even as the sides of the long war have indicated a willingness to seek a negotiated settlement."
Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "After European policymakers adopted a sweeping new data privacy law last year, the big question has been how regulators would use their new powers against the world’s most powerful technology companies. The first major example came on Monday, when the French data protection authority announced that it had fined Google 50 million euros, or about $57 million, for not properly disclosing to users how data is collected across its services, including its search engine, Google Maps and YouTube, in order to present personalized advertisements. The penalty is the largest to date under the European Union privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, that went into effect last May, and it shows that regulators are following through on a pledge to use the new rules to push back against internet companies whose businesses depend on collecting data. Facebook is also the subject of a number of investigations by the data protection authorities in Europe." (Also linked yesterday.)
Presidential Race 2020. Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Senator Kamala Harris, the California Democrat and barrier-breaking prosecutor who became the second black woman to serve in the United States Senate, declared her candidacy for president on Monday, joining an increasingly crowded and diverse field in what promises to be a wide-open nomination process.... Ms. Harris chose to enter the race on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, an overt nod to the historic nature of her candidacy, and her timing was also meant to evoke Shirley Chisholm, the New York congresswoman who became the first woman to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president 47 years ago this week. In addition, Ms. Harris will hold her first campaign event on Friday in South Carolina, where black voters are the dominant force in the Democratic primary, rather than start off by visiting Iowa and New Hampshire, the two predominantly white states that hold their nomination contests first. She will hold a kickoff rally Sunday in Oakland, Calif., her hometown." (Also linked yesterday.)
Mrs. McCrabbie: So everybody is feeling all chastised because there was a little more to the story about the Covington High boys who taunted Native Americans during rallies in Washington, D.C. Saturday. As the New York Times reported (linked yesterday), there was more to the story. Yes, there is: ...
... New York Daily News: "This won't help Kentucky student Nick Sandmann's case. A photo said to be featuring Covington Catholic High School students clad in blackface during a 2015 basketball game made the rounds on Twitter Monday morning amid last week's Indigenous Peoples March controversy. The photo depicts several white students, some in blackface, shouting at an opposing black player. While the photo's origins couldn't be verified, the official Covington Catholic High School YouTube account published a video last January boasting its basketball school spirit, and several clips, including one from 2012, showcase attendees chanting in black face, a mockery of the opposing players. The school took down the video later on Monday." Mrs. McC: I'm sorry, but Covington High is a terrible school. Is it the only one that encourages this type of hate/"school spirit"? I'd say no. ...
... CBS News/AP: "Mr. Trump tweeted his support Monday night for the students from Covington Catholic High in Park Hills, Kentucky, as some news reports questioned whether early criticism of them was warranted: 'Looking like Nick Sandman & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false - smeared by media. Not good, but making big comeback! New footage shows that media was wrong about teen's encounter with Native American' The president added to that on Tuesday morning: 'Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good - maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link. As Ken says, "... if he's on their side, it's a sure sign there must be somthing wrong with them." Isn't it odd Trump didn't have a word of support for the Native Americans the boys surrounded & mocked with tomahawk chops? ...
... Ruth Graham of Slate: "There's no mistaking the core dynamics of the encounter: [Nick] Sandmann smugly grins in [Nathan] Phillips's face and declines to step backward, and he's backed by dozens of boisterous teens who are jeering and mocking the much smaller group of Native marchers.... The new facts about this small encounter this weekend in Washington are important, and worth clarifying. But they don't change the larger story, the one that caused so many people to react so viscerally to the narrative's first, and simpler draft."
Andrew Roth of the Guardian: "A Russian lawyer for Paul Whelan, the US citizen accused of spying on Russia, has said his client was carrying state secrets when he was arrested in Moscow but may not have realised it. Whelan, an ex-marine, has been accused of an unspecified 'act of espionage', which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.... Since December, anonymously sourced reports in Russian media have said that Whelan received a USB drive with secret information about Russian government employees. But the content of the charges against him have not been made public by officials."
Anand Giridharadas of the Guardian: "[T]he average pretax income of the top 10th of Americans has doubled since 1980, that of the top 1% has more than tripled, and that of the top 0.001% has risen more than sevenfold -- even as the average pretax income of the bottom half of Americans has stayed almost precisely the same. These familiar figures amount to three-and-a-half decades' worth of wondrous, head-spinning change with zero impact on the average pay of 117 million Americans.... There is no denying that today's American elite may be among the more socially concerned elites in history. But it is also, by the cold logic of numbers, among the more predatory.... It is vital that we try to understand the connection between these elites' social concern and predation, between the extraordinary helping and the extraordinar hoarding[.]" A long read. --s
Justine Calma of Mother Jones: "Climate change could take a greater toll on global health than previously estimated. That's according to a new report published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article, along with an editorial published in the same issue, calls on health professionals to lead actions to allay the threat. The World Health Organization previously predicted that the effects of climate change could lead to an additional 250,000 deaths each year by 2030. Authors of the New England Journal article now say that number is a conservative estimate[.]" --s
Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing four-fold since 2003, new research has found." --s
Way Beyond the Beltway
"Annals of Journalism", Brazil Edition. Piero Locatelli & Andrew Fishman of The Intercept: "Last Monday, CNN announced that it will launch a Portuguese-language channel in Brazil.... Principal funding for the venture will come from the new channel's chair of the board, Rubens Menin, a construction magnate who is a vocal cheerleader for far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and whose company has been caught multiple times using modern slave labor.... CNN...will bring on Douglas Tavolaro as its CEO. Tavolaro previously served as vice president for news of Rede Record, a channel that in 2018 earned the nickname 'Fox News Brasil'.... Brazil's corporate media landscape is extremely consolidated and uniformly pro-business." --s
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Reader Comments (23)
The Great Clarifier has spoken, er, tweeted:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-backs-students-from-lincoln-memorial-confrontation/
and if he's on their side, it a sure sign there must be something wrong with them.
At least he didn't say they're nice people, too.
Kamala Harris' announcement that she is running, not walking, toward that position called the presidency is a good thing. She impresses me. But what is even better about this is that women are finally showing up at the table–-not one or two but many and not one is a Carly or a Sarah.
And speaking of female power. I was reading all about blood and came across this:
In Ancient Rome Pliny the Elder wrote in his "Natural History" that when women had their periods they could stop seeds from germinating, cause plants to wither, and make fruit fall from the tree (I especially like this one–-has a poetic feel to it). But their destructive power had its uses and this has to be the best of the bunch:
A menstruating woman was able to kill a swarm of bees or ward off hail and lightening. If she was a wife of a farmer all she had to do was walk naked through the fields of wheat during her periods and the caterpillars, worms, beetles and other vermin will fall from the ears of corn or wherever they may be. Old Pliny figured these ladies of the wheat were natural pesticides.
So––perhaps many (but not all) of our legislative ladies are past their prime blood wise, but they still wield much of that Pliny power and we may just see some of that right wingy vermin fall flat on their pusses ( and you can parse that however you like).
GREAT! PD, I like the way you think. It's the idea that having menses makes you stronger, not weaker, that idea which permeates the history of the way women are treated and periodically (ha!) shunned, becuz childbearing bodies and their accompanying annoyances.
Rachel was on a toot last night, and I decided I'd had it. Am so tired of these Russians in our business-- and the people who apparently love them some Russians, i.e. the trumpster-dumpster party. At one time, there were breakthroughs in relations with them, but once Putin hit the scene, no more. I am simply fed up and don't want to listen to whole hours devoted to their crimes. Save us, Mueller...
Whitey is Still on the Moon
Aside from the botched "tributes" to Martin Luther King, Jr. over the last couple of days, the attempt by the halfpence to use King's words to bolster a racist scheme, and white supremacist Steve King's eye-popping claim that he has "long agreed with [Dr. King's] speeches and writings..." followed by a quote that is not a quote, the worst has to be the NRA's commending King for looking to buy guns, guns, guns (after his house was bombed by white supremacists). Maybe they forgot that King was killed by a gun.
In fact, as his daughter pointed out, King quickly evolved to a position of non-violence which included eschewing the ownership and use of weapons, but hey, what's an important fact like that when you have a chance to push guns for everyone. I'm surprised the NRA didn't post a picture of a Remington 760 Gamemaster .30-06 as a way of "honoring" King (the weapon used by James Earl Ray).
Then, of course, what would a day in wingnut paradise be without some words of wisdom from Liarbee Sanders who sniffed that King "gave his life" blah, blah, blah.
Um, no, Liarbee. He didn't. It was taken from him. By a man with a gun. Good try though. Next time, pick up a history book. And not one written by some winger hack for Regnery Publishing.
Of course, nothing beats Fatty's "tribute". Tossing a wreath on the ground then racing back to the car to get the hell out before spending more than 120 seconds at the MLK memorial. Must have been late for his 10 o'clock feeding.
There was a total eclipse of the moon the other night. Too bad these fools can't be permanently eclipsed.
(Can I just go back, for a second to racist white supremacist Steve King claiming that he has "long agreed with" MLK's writings? He must really think people are stupid beyond belief. It's like Heinrich Himmler claiming to be a Talmudic scholar.)
PD,
Someone should have informed Pliny the Elder that without menstruation, there would have been no Pliny the Younger.
Years ago I had a book of cartoons by the great Roz Chast. I was looking online, without luck, for a copy of one she did in which she poked fun at Pliny the Tiny.
As I mentioned the other day about James Watson, you can be a genius of sorts in a particular field and still be an asshole.
@Akhilleus. Thanks for the heads-up on Steve King. I read yesterday that Steve tried to pretend he cared about black people, & I decided to skip it till you pointed out that the MLK "quote" was a fake. The fact that MLK made a thousand quotable remarks & Steve King came up with a fake one is kinda perfect.
The Fates forbid we should ever hear Steve King's "I have a dream" speech. We pretty much know what that dream is.
Doin' the AOC Boogie
I'm really enjoying all the exploding heads around AOC. Even the initialized cognomen expresses the instant fascination she seems to hold for those on both sides of the aisle.
For the right, she is a winger wet dream incarnate, holding in a single vessel so much of what they despise. 1. A minority (and not just any minority, but one of the three most hated minorities at the moment for Confederates), 2. a woman (and uppity as all get-out), 3. a socialist of sorts (it don't matter which as long as they can cram "soshulist" in there somewhere, 4. she calls Fatty a racist (for SHAME!), 5. she doesn't bow down to the rich (horrors!) because 6. she thinks they should pay their fair share, not to mention 7. she knows how to DANCE! Fuckin' hell! and 8. have fun that doesn't involve shooting things.
And the media is delighting in pointing out how "worried" Democrats are about her, as well as communicating the horrible prognostications promoted on the right by having such a terrible person in CONGRESS! for god's sake. MAKING LAWS!!!
Okay, everyone just calm the fuck down.
First, I love her. I think we are in desperate need of someone with a D after her name who isn't in thrall to banks and isn't afraid of being a liberal (yes, I know we have Elizabeth Warren, but...). What a relief! And she is unapologetic about it. Another huge relief.
This morning I heard an interview with Rick Perlstein ("Nixonland", "The Invisible Bridge") on NPR.
Perlstein is a serious historian, not some historian-lite like a Jon Meacham, who lives to spout on the Sunday morning shows. He pointed out to everyone warning AOC to sit down and shut up that parties don't run with a single type. Parties need all kinds. They need show horses, workhorses, legislative technicians, communicators, strategists, and operatives in between to formulate cohesive policy ideas, get things done, and get their candidates elected.
If AOC can serve to re-energize the party in the face of Confederate hatred, incompetence, intransigence, gun knobbery, and racism, then I'm all for it.
R's try to take her down and belittle her, but she comes right back and gets in their face. But unlike them, she can do it with humor and authenticity.
Dance away, girl.
Oops...
Check out the interview transcript
of Isaac Chotiner's conversation with Rudy (Hey, I'm still relevant! I think...) Giuliani.
It will make you swear off celebrity lawyers forever. He may have been a big-name prosecutor at one time, but that was a looooong time and lots of brain cells ago.
Chotiner calls him up and at first, Rudy sez he only has a second because he has to take a shower (whoa...too much information), then he goes on to give what must have been a half hour interview.
You can read the whole thing, but here's snippet that made me howl. (Slightly edited)
IC: So, this Buzzfeed thing, did you or the president*'s lawyers call the special counsel's office about that?
RG: The president* didn't do that. Maybe the lawyers did. I dunno. I can't talk about that. [you already did, idiot] Anyway, it's all wrong.
IC: And you know this because...?
RG: Because I listened to all the tapes.
IC: Wait. There are tapes?
RG: Oops. I shouldn't have said that. [no shit]
IC: So there are tapes??
RG: No. Well, yeah. There are tapes. But nothing about this.
Okay...what about that conversation would possess you to hire this idiot to help you out with a traffic ticket?
Fatty deserves what he gets. At this point, it's likely that no lawyer concerned with his or her reputation wants to get near this cauldron of flaming sewage.
But then there's Rudy! Hey-ho!
You know it's a bad sign when your personal lawyer, the guy you rely on to keep you from being impeached and landing in the clink concludes interviews like this...
@AK: and that "dancing girl" still has periods so she be more powerful than....
Your mention of Roz: Interesting that you cotton to her humor –-I have never been a fan. But since I find YOU especially hilarious, may I be missing something in Chast? Booth always made me laugh–-loved his drawings. I have a collection of what I think are very clever and funny cartoons but these are from old New Yorkers. Lately I'm hard pressed to find cartoons in that magazine that tickle my fancy–-in fact, some I don't even understand.
And your mention of Perlstein–-loved "Nixonland" –-have a slew of notes from that book. Here's what he said about that "Checker"s Speech:
"There goes my actor" his high school drama teacher said in disgust after watching his performance. [Nixon had been in many H.S. drama productions in H.S.] Though this wasn't an act. And it wasn't just sincere. It was a hustle and it was from the heart. It was all those things, all at the same time. And it worked."
Like Nixon Trump convinced his crowd that he was in their corner, that he was really just like them, that he alone could fix what ailed them–-that he was in their corner, that he understood their needs.
and it worked.
PD-- my parents took the New Yorker all through my childhood and that was the first thing I looked at-- cartoons, then the little squibs at the ends of columns, then back to the Talk of the Town. I loved Booth too-- those animals sprawled/squashed out and facing outward with disgusted looks on their faces and the little old ladies were priceless...
So Kamala Harris has thrown her hat into the ring. Love it. Let's have a great debate about the future direction of the party and find the best person to kick fat orange, racist, misogynistic butt.
But wait...what's that I hear? Oh NOES!
Loofah Boy Bill O'Reilly sez he won't vote for her. She was not nice to his guy, Rape Boy Kavanaugh. Oh, the humanity!
Hilarity ensues. Twitter, predictably, has a few choice words for Loofah Boy (can you picture him voting for a black woman in any possible universe?).
My favorite so far:
"Well, you know the old saying: as @BillOReilly goes, so goes the sexual assault defense attorney voting bloc of the electorate."
Turn the lights out before you leave, Billy. There's no one else here.
Strikes me that Rudy has borrowed his conflicting posturing and behaviors from a former mafioso nemesis, Vincent Gigante. I woudn't be surprise to see old Rudy wandering in and around the White House in his 'jama. (Maybe he could borrow a pair from Blake Farenthold).
The continual so-called missteps are intentional, the confusion is created for some future argument that goes along the lines..."well, you can't believe anything, it's all such a lies." Yep! That Rudy & Co are creating the lies appears to me to be the game plan to get so much conflicting garbage out there in hopes that it will all go away.
PD,
Yeah, Roz is a bit of an acquired taste. Not for everyone, I suppose. But since you and Jeanne both mentioned Booth (another favorite), I am recalling a trip made with my brother to the New York Public Library on Fifth Ave. to see a collection of New Yorker cartoons. As a kid I was completely enthralled with the work of Charles Addams, and not just his Addams Family cartoons. I loved the surrealistic ones as well, such as the man on a ski slope looking behind him at a skier just gone by. His skis make tracks that approach a tree, then split, one on either side of the tree, then come back together again. Love stuff like that.
But at that NYPL show, my favorite was one from the forties (I forget the artist). Two birdwatchers equipped with foraging clothing, binoculars, and guidebooks, spy a crazy looking bird up in a tree. The bird has whacky plumage and bulging eyes. As the birders consult their books the bird looks down and says "Give up?"
That's what Trump is saying now.
I'm not thrilled by the current crop of New Yorker cartoons either. Even when I do get the jokes. But the cartoonists who should be having a field day are those of the political persuasion. The problem is, how do you satirize someone who is already a joke?
The Pulitzer Prize winning former Boston Globe political cartoonist, Paul Szep once remarked wistfully that he was sorry to see Richard Nixon depart. After the highly mockable Tricky Dick and his band of crooks and thugs, the rather anodyne Gerald Ford offered far less interesting (read: crooked) qualities to jump on.
My favorite cartoonist during the Bush Debacle was the always scathing Ted Rall (remember Generalissimo El Busho?). Obama must have been a big let down after the horrors of The Decider.
I myself will gladly opt for anodyne after the current crook plummets off the stage.
@Ak,
And better yet, AOC relishes a good fight and dishes out burns like Melanie's cooking. The more she concentrates faux outrage on herself with that smile on her face, the more constipation she inspires in the MAGA crowd.
On another note, I'm still curious as to why Senate Republicans let the Trump/Derispaska quid pro quo go into effect. Now they all look like Putin's fellow useful idiots, and only Russian interests are served. In this upside down political world (I recommend the article above about the GOP becoming the Soviet Substitutes), how ridiculous would it be to assume that Putin's oligarchs got Republicans (and probably Dems, too) to take dirty money, through the NRA or other venues, and now he's got his thumb on McConnell's deflated ball sack as well? I can't figure out other explications as to why Republicans acquiesce in these instances. Sure Drumpf wants it to please Vladdy so he can have that tower he was promised, but Republican voters wouldn't rebel against Senate Republicans if they voted to keep sanctions on. And notice, too, that with all the confusion about how long Putin was flirting with Trump's tower, no White House official has come out and said that the conversations unequivocally stopped and the project is dead. And if it's dormant, then that gives greed whore Donny all the incentive in the world to break NATO in two for a few million dollars.
Porn of the day! Rep. Gail Griffin (R-Az) introduces House Bill
2444 which would require Arizonians to pay a yearly fee of $20
to unblock porn sites on their computers, phones, etc., money to
be used to fund the border wall.
What's 5.7 billion divided by $20? Gonna take a lot of porn to
get it up (the wall).
https://www.azmirror.com/2019/01/18/lawmaker-wants-to-tax-porn-
users-to-help-fund-the-border-wall/?
I like George Conway's response to Rudy's backtracking.
It makes me wonder what his and Kellyanne's sleeping arrangements are to maintain marital bliss:
1) They sleep in separate beds?
2) They sleep in separate rooms?
3) They sleep at separate residences?
Just wondering, actually knowing would be TMI. (Wouldn't be surprised to hear though that KA sleeps during the day while hanging upside-down in the attic.)
Forrest,
There is just too much to unpack in a proposal to fund Trump's wall with money spent in support of pornography. It's either too nuts or too perfect. Either way, it's selecting a certain population group for extra taxation beyond what other American taxpayers would be forced to pay for Fatty's racist vanity project.
Maybe Arizona will offer a soft core Melanie channel. I'm sure that'd bring in a wad for the wall. So to speak.
And leave us not get into the First Amendment issues here. This proposal suggests that certain types of speech can be put off limits by the state, accessible only by paying a ransom (over and above whatever users are already paying for access to porno-4-me.com, or whatever they're using).
So, a Constitutional breach in support of an unconstitutional presidency*.
I guess it's perfect.
AK!! Loved Charles Addams, long before the teevee invented the Addams family program... and I too remember the skier looking back at the tracks! Surreal was a specialty... Them were the days...cue the opening notes of the soundtrack from All In the Family... Now I have to go home and find my big NewYorker cartoon book and enjoy it for a while...(maybe turn off the teevee??)
So Sarah has been told to cut the press briefings. Does this make her redundant? If so shouldn't Trump thank her for her service and hand her the pink slip?
Rudy is actually in his element. Here he is, the son of a mob enforcer in Brooklyn who grew up to become a guy who put people like his old man in jail. He had a pretty stellar career in law enforcement before becoming mayor of NYC. But he was still that kid from Brooklyn, he still spoke the language, and he probably still enjoyed being an ass. Remember how he dumped his wife on TV? Tough guy. But then he kind of flamed out. He dropped out of a Senate race, and a girl (Hillary Clinton) won. He flamed out as a presidential candidate. Joe Biden made fun of him. He started working for the same kind of shady Wall Street bad guys he used to send to jail. He's still doing that, but now he's also playing the part (poorly) of consigliere to a really big, really incompetent mob boss. He's playing the part of the very mob lawyers he used to fight in court. It's a show. A big show. And it's a return to his roots.
This week he told Isaac Chotiner, "I am afraid it will be on my gravestone. 'Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump.' Somehow, I don’t think that will be it. But, if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead." He's thinking about the end. It will be much like the beginning.
Trump administration has asked SCOTUS for a quick ruling on whether the citizenship question can be on the 2020 ballot. Anybody want to bet against a 5-4 ruling in favor?
@Bobby Lee
I think I get it.
With the departure of the gauzy guardrails, it is the Pretender's show now, top to bottom. He doesn't need any help. He wants to tell his own lies, so no need for Sarah. They're his lies, no one else's, and he's proud of them, that is, until they become uncomfortable.
Then. they're someone else's, like maybe the fake news'...
Bobby Lee,
As for Liarbee, I think it makes her re-dumb-dant.
Oh, but that was already her status.
But seriously, the truly enraging thing is that I don't think Sanders is dumb. But she is surely a sycophantic boot-licking liar par excellence.
I remember watching Ron Ziegler, Tricky Dick's press secretary, point fingers and whine about how the press was trying to blah, blah, blah, the Great Nixon, wondering how this appalling douchebag slept at night.
Sanders makes Ziegler look like the Socrates of the Symposium.
And Trump makes the worst American presidents (including Dubya, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson ) look like figures from Raphael's "School of Athens" painting.