;)
Monday
Jun112018
The Commentariat -- June 11, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Another Summit Where Trump Expects to Be the Big Loser. Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump has decided to leave his historic summit with Kim Jong-un 15 hours earlier than expected, flying back to Washington on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning. The White House says that this change of plans is a product of talks moving more quickly than expected. But there's reason to suspect that it is because they are barely moving at all. On Monday evening in Singapore, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that complete denuclearization 'is the only outcome that the United States will accept' from Pyongyang, and that the latter will enjoy no economic relief until it has met that demand. By contrast, Pompeo did suggest that the U.S. was prepared to make unspecified concessions to North Korean security concerns before the total dismantling of its nuclear program was achieved.... The summit will open at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Singapore (which is 9 p.m. tonight in Washington) with Kim and Trump shaking hands and taking a walk in the view of the media, according to an official who spoke with Bloomberg News. The two leaders will then meet one on one (with only translators listening in), before being joined by their top aides. Among those flanking Trump will be Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, whose belligerent rhetoric toward North Korea briefly derailed the summit last month."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio's aggressive efforts to purge its voting rolls. The court ruled that a state may kick people off the rolls if they skip a few elections and fail to respond to a notice from state election officials. The vote was 5 to 4, with the more conservative justices in the majority.... Federal laws prohibit states from removing people from voter rolls 'by reason of the person's failure to vote.' But they allow election officials who suspect that a voter has moved to send a confirmation notice. The central question in the case was whether a failure to vote could be the reason to send out the notice. Ohio is more aggressive than any other state in purging its voter rolls. After skipping a single federal election cycle, voters are sent a notice. If they fail to respond and do not vote in the next four years, their names are purged from the rolls.... A Reuters study in 2016 found that at least 144,000 people were removed from the voting rolls in recent years in Ohio's three largest counties, which are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus." Thanks to Ken W. for the lead.
Lisa France of CNN: Robert De Niro "ended up getting bleeped Sunday night at the Tony Awards when he dropped some f-bombs about ... Donald Trump while introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen. 'First, I wanna say, "f**k Trump,'" De Niro said. 'It's no longer "Down with Trump," it's 'f**k Trump.'" The comments, which were not censored in the Australian telecast, earned De Niro a standing ovation from the crowd at New York's Radio City Music Hall...." Watch the standing O:
Greg Sargent: Trump's behavior at & after the G-6+1 summit "was about salvaging a bit of face for Trump, and about laying the groundwork for a further escalation of Trump's trade war. And if that trade war does escalate, it is likely to cost many more U.S. jobs than it saves. Trump's conduct this weekend was rooted in fabrications, and nothing whatsoever about it was pro-worker." See also Akhilleus's commentary on this in today's thread.
Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Donald Trump unifies the nation (Canada, that is).... As reporter Paul Wells of Maclean's magazine notes, every major political party in Canada from the social democratic New Democratic Party to the pro-business Conservatives agrees with Trudeau's stance on trade with the United States[.]"
Chuck Todd, et al., of NBC News: "Remember when Republican leaders and prominent GOP politicians criticized an American president for alienating global allies? We sure do -- during the Obama years.... But after a weekend when President Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'very dishonest and weak,' after he refused to sign the joint communique from the G-7 summit, and after a top Trump aide said 'there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door' -- those same Republican leaders have been silent. (What did Trudeau do, by the way, to earn that condemnation from Team Trump? He said that Canada would respond with reciprocal tariffs on the U.S. tariffs the Trump administration imposed on Canada -- nothing he and his government haven't said before, including on 'Meet the Press' a week ago.)... And there's only one explanation for that Republican silence: Trump has bullied the entire party into submission.... Foreign-policy expert Richard Haass says that Kim Jong Un has all of the leverage heading into the Singapore summit with Trump, because the U.S. president can't afford to be seen as blowing up two back-to-back summits."
Trump v. the Law, Ctd. Jonathan Chait: "Anybody who had predicted when Trump took office that the president's lawyers would officially proclaim his right to start or stop any federal investigation would have been dismissed as a paranoid worrywart. Yet here we are. Trump's authoritarian doctrine has not been tested by the courts, and seems unlikely to prevail. Still, the fact that it has gotten as far as it has, without producing any serious blowback from his own party, is a measure of how far the peril has advanced. The rule of law in the United States is like a suspension bridge -- still upright, but with cables snapping, one by one."
*****
Pot to Kettle. Trump Warns Staff Against Making "Fucking Crazy Talk." Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump doesn't want to hear anything inappropriate coming out of his White House and administration, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. 'Mike, you got it?' Trump reported told his vice president, according to one official. 'No f*cking crazy talk from anybody in the administration.' Trump has spent recent months starting online wars with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. In a bizarre twist, he canceled the planned summit, only to then renege on pulling out of the summit when Kim reached out. But in recent weeks, Trump has toned down his typical tough talk and asked members of the administration to do the same. Ironically, Trump then started a trade war with Canada and the European Union during recent G-7 meetings.... Trump tried to reassure the world that he has 'been preparing all my life' for the sit-down with Kim. He did not explain how hotel and condo development prepared him for such peace talks, however." ...
... Juan Cole: "[I]f the US proved so feckless with regard to Iran and the G7, why should N. Korea now trust any deal Trump makes? The answer is that N. Korea doesn't trust Trump at all and is not planning to make any deal with him to give up its nuclear weapons entirely. Kim Jong Un wants the prestige that would come from a two-way summit with the world's sole superpower. Even if the talks go nowhere, Pyongyang will have seen a permanent rise in its world standing." --safari ...
... A Fox "News" Gaffe Perfect for the Occasion. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Abby Huntsman, host of the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends, on Sunday said that summit between North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and... Donald Trump is a meeting between 'two dictators.'" Anthony Scaramucci, who was a guest on the show, "agreed that Trump is a 'disruptive' force in the world." Huntsman later apologized for her "dictator" characterization -- um, of both Trump & Kim.
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's strategy for pressuring Mr. Kim to give up his nuclear weapons has depended on isolating North Korea, but he arrived in Singapore looking isolated himself.... Mr. Trump ... weighed in again on Sunday night with a cascade of fresh tweets targeting Canada, Germany and the European Union, accusing them of unfair trade practices and of not spending enough on their security. He cited a series of selective statistics about Canadian-American trade, adding derisively, 'Then Justin acts hurt when called out!' Left unclear was what exactly Mr. Trudeau had said that so offended Mr. Trump. During his Saturday news conference, the prime minister was relatively measured but repeated his position that Canada 'will not be pushed around' and would respond to American tariffs with tariffs of its own.... Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain issued a statement through an aide saying she was 'fully supportive of Justin Trudeau.' The German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, on Sunday called on European nations to stick together following Mr. Trump's announcement. 'It's actually not a real surprise,' Mr. Maas told reporters in Berlin. 'We have seen this with the climate agreement or the Iran deal. In a matter of seconds, you can destroy trust with 280 Twitter characters. To build that up again will take much longer.'... Mr. Trump never really wanted to attend the Group of 7 meeting, but aides pressed him to go even as they feared it would be a disaster because he was being forced to do something he did not want to do. He rebelled by showing up late and leaving early. During closed-door meetings, Mr. Trump largely listened through most issues, firmly crossing his arms and swiveling a bit in his seat, according to people who were in the room.... But he came alive whenever trade was mentioned, mocking and insulting other leaders, particularly Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, according to the witnesses." ...
... Axios: "In a series of Sunday night tweets, President Trump repeated his claims of unfair international trade practices against the United States' closest allies in the G7, saying that 'Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal' -- and singling out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau." ...
... Reality Chek. Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "Behind Mr. Trump's outrage is his belief that the United States is at a disadvantage when it comes to global trade and is on the losing end of tariffs imposed by other nations. But to many of the country's trading partners, the president's criticisms ring hollow given that the United States places its own tariffs on everything from trucks and peanuts to sugar and stilettos.... Instead of viewing trade as a mutually beneficial relationship, the president has described trading relationships as a zero-sum game, in which the United States loses out when other countries have more favorable terms. Mr. Trump has seized on trade policy to prop up industries that he has promised to revitalize, such as manufacturing, by limiting foreign competition.... On average, American tariffs are on par with those of other rich, developed countries, which tend to be low, according to the World Bank and the United Nations. Among the developed nations that make up the Group of 7 that met in a resort town near Quebec City this weekend, the United States has tariffs that are slightly higher, on average, across all its imported products than Canada or Japan and exactly equivalent to the four European nations in the G-7.... The approach risks upending the United States' longstanding embrace of free trade and its use of trading relationships to help power economic growth in the United States and the world economy writ large. Since the Second World War, the United States has cut its tariff rates in step with other developed countries. It also gave some less-developed countries access to its markets, with the idea of increasing wages and improving quality of life." ...
... Michael Nienaber of Reuters: "Europe will implement counter-measures against U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum just like Canada, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, voicing regret about President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to withdraw support for a G7 communique.... 'So we won't let ourselves be ripped off again and again. Instead, we act then too,' Merkel said in an unusually combative tone.... Merkel ... repeated that Europe could no longer rely on its ally and should take its fate into its own hands." --safari ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So sayeth the Leader of the Free World, because the President* of the United States of America relinquished that title in a tweet on Saturday. And it ain't something he can get back by playing nice once in a while.
**Guardian Editors: "The failure of the G7 meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, marks a watershed for the 21st-century democracies. It is the moment when Donald Trump's disruption of the international order moved from annoying threat to damaging reality.... The US is the cornerstone of the post-1945 international order. If Mr Trump wishes to remove that cornerstone everything else is threatened. That has not yet happened.... But a fissure is growing.... Without the US the other G7 nations lack as much clout to make the system work.... But the rest of the G7 must try. If not, Europe, Canada and Japan risk becoming standing invitations to humiliation by Russian disruption, Chinese strategic authoritarianism and Trumpian nativism. This puts the liberal value system of democracy, peace, trade, liberty and the rule of law at risk.... Shockingly, today's threat comes from our wartime ally, the US, in the shape of President Trump." --safari
To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn't. -- Sen. John McCain, in a tweet ...
... Griff Witte & James McAuley of the Washington Post: "On the day after the Group of Seven summit blew up in spectacular fashion, with Trump using idle time on an airport runway to insult his host and repudiate an agreement he had made with allied leaders only hours earlier, emotions were far easier to divine. Allies were indignant. They were defiant. Yet they were hardly shocked by the outcome of a critical global gathering that had gone worse than any that longtime foreign policy players had seen. 'It was not a surprise,' said Norbert Röttgen, chair of the foreign affairs committee in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag. 'The president acted and reacted in the childish way he could be expected to.' To the U.S.'s closest partners, the pattern has become disturbingly familiar. Trump's abandonment of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear agreement and his decision to impose protectionist tariffs on European steel and aluminum products have established a level of animosity between the United States and Europe that, by many measures, surpasses even the rift over the Iraq War. The depth of exasperation showed in a Sunday afternoon statement from French President Emmanuel Macron's office. 'International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks,' the statement said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Damian Paletta & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "President Trump left America's closest allies in a state of shock and outrage Sunday after a verbal barrage against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had just hosted Trump and other leaders from the Group of Seven industrial nations. Trump's rhetorical assault on Trudeau, characteristically delivered on Twitter, was echoed by two top White House advisers who took to the Sunday talk shows to go after the leader of the United States' neighbor to the north. The bizarre aftermath of the G-7 summit in Quebec was a political calculation, meant to show muscularity in advance of the historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, one of those advisers acknowledged Sunday. There has rarely been such a coordinated and acerbic series of attacks by White House advisers aimed at a U.S. ally, revealing the extent to which Trump possibly felt slighted by Trudeau as he left for his North Korea talks. '"POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around,' Trump's chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on CNN's 'state of the Union.' 'He is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea.'... Another of Trump's top advisers, Peter Navarro, intensified the attack on Trudeau in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,' Navarro said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't think the Twittertantrum was as much about North Korea as it was that Trudeau hurt Trump's feelings by telling the truth -- in a rather measured way, IMO. (As Trudeau himself said at his presser, "Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.") Trump, as we all know, can't handle the truth. ...
... Here's what that nasty Trudeau said to drive Trump & Co. off the deep end:
... Here's the deep end:
... Maia de la Baume of Politico: "France pledged on Sunday to stand by the G7 summit statement disowned by Donald Trump and took a swipe at the U.S. president by declaring that international cooperation could not depend on 'fits of anger' or 'little words.' Apparently incensed by remarks about U.S. tariffs at the closing press conference on Saturday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump -- who had already left the gathering in Quebec -- tweeted that he had instructed U.S. officials not to endorse the final communiqué, which had already been agreed and published. In a statement on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said all of Europe would continue to stand behind the communiqué...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
...Jonathan Swan of Axios: "In their bilateral meeting in the White House's Cabinet Room, on April 24, [Emmanuel ] Macron said to Trump, 'Let's work together, we both have a China problem,' according to a source in the room. The source said Trump responded that the European Union is 'worse than China.'" [Emphasis added] --safari...
... David Frum of the Atlantic: "Whether or not the president's demands made any sense even from the most parochial American point of view, his demands were to a considerable extent accommodated. Trump had issued orders, sent his people out to war, and won victories for his idiosyncratic approach to foreign affairs. As late as 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, all the conferees thought that the facade of Western unity had survived another day, another summit.... Vexed by the criticism [of his ZTE pay-for-play deal], Trump struck back at the readiest targets: America's closest friends and allies. Rule-of-law democracies cannot deliver the emoluments Trump collects from more authoritarian regimes. They cannot expedite Ivanka Trump's trademarks to gain favor. They don't book their national-day celebrations in Washington's Trump International Hotel.... Trump's attacks on Trudeau will only boost the prime minister's popularity. But this is more than a personal story. Trump is day by day abdicating U.S. leadership.... He bullies traditional friends and allies; he cringes to adversaries, dictators, and potential funding sources for Trump enterprises. Bullying the G7 was the weekend's story; cringing to North Korea -- and behind it, China -- will be the story of the week ahead." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... "Debacle in Quebec." Paul Krugman buttresses the fear & dismay I realized yesterday -- and that was before Trump went on his anti-Trudeau TwitterWhine: "... there has never been a disaster like the G7 meeting that just took place. It could herald the beginning of a trade war, maybe even the collapse of the Western alliance. At the very least it will damage America's reputation as a reliable ally for decades to come; even if Trump eventually departs the scene in disgrace, the fact that someone like him could come to power in the first place will always be in the back of everyone's mind.... Maybe he was just acting out because he couldn't stand having to spend hours with powerful people who will neither flatter him nor bribe him by throwing money at his family businesses -- people who, in fact, didn't try very hard to hide the contempt they feel for the man leading what is still, for the moment, a great power." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon. ...
... ** David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "The alliance between the United States and Western Europe has accomplished great things. It won two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Then it expanded to include its former enemies and went on to win the Cold War, help spread democracy and build the highest living standards the world has ever known. President Trump is trying to destroy that alliance.... If a president of the United States were to sketch out a secret, detailed plan to break up the Atlantic alliance, that plan would bear a striking resemblance to Trump's behavior.... For American voters, [Trump's actions mean] understanding the real stakes of this year's midterm elections. They are not merely a referendum on a tax cut, a health care plan or a president's unorthodox style. They are a referendum on American ideals that are older than any of us." ...
... Yeah But. Here's how Trudeau really upset Trump -- by posing with him & other leaders for the Girther photo seen 'round the world:
... Nathan Francis of the Inquisitr: "Donald Trump's official White House physical claims that he is 6-foot-3, one full inch taller than Canadian leader Justin Trudeau. But a photo of the two men together this weekend says otherwise. In the picture, taking from the G7 summit, Trump is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Canadian prime minister, with Trudeau appearing to be at least an inch taller than Trump. Trudeau is listed as 6-foot-2. The picture has also helped to reignite the controversy over Donald Trump's official physical, which many critics said purposely overestimated the president's height and underestimated his weight to save Trump the embarrassment of admitting that he was obese. Had Trump been one inch shorter, he would have been classified as obese rather than overweight." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Safari has found the original picture of Merkel, Abe, Macron, et al., v. Trump & Bolton before Merkel politely doctored it. Special thanks to Mark Kermode & his contributors. Trouble is, I'm not sure which is the original. So you decide. It could be this one:
... Maggie Haberman & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "... back home, [President Trump] left behind a West Wing where burned-out aides are eyeing the exits, as the mood in the White House is one of numbness and resignation that the president is growing only more emboldened to act on instinct alone. Mr. Trump ... may soon be working with a thinned-out cast in the middle of Season 2, well before the midterm elections. Several high-profile aides, including John F. Kelly, the president's chief of staff, and Joe Hagin, a deputy of Mr. Kelly's, are said to be thinking about how much longer they can stay. Last week, Mr. Kelly told visiting senators that the White House was 'a miserable place to work,' according to a person with direct knowledge of the comment. The turnover, which is expected to become an exodus after the November elections, does not worry the president, several people close to him said. He has grown comfortable with removing any barriers that might challenge him -- including, in some cases, people who have the wrong chemistry or too frequently say no to him." ...
... MEANWHILE, on the Other Side of the Globe. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Sunday during a visit to China that he would meet President Trump 'as soon as the American side is ready' but insisted Russia was in no hurry to win readmission to the Group of 7 nations because it already belongs to a Chinese-led grouping that he described as more important. Putting a brave face on a failed effort by Mr. Trump to have Russia readmitted to the world's most exclusive diplomatic club, Mr. Putin said the G-7 ... represented fewer people and had less economic heft than the Shanghai Cooperation Organization." ...
... Steve Levine of Axios: "Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin are strategizing how to reposition themselves for a new, more powerful future amid a rapid deterioration of the U.S.-led global order.... Such spectacles [as Trump's Twittertantrum Saturday] feed Xi's and Putin's conviction that 'the West is in free fall,' says Mathew Burrows, former counselor at the National Intelligence Council, and now at the Atlantic Council. He tells Axios, 'Both Xi and Putin have been surprised and shocked by the rapidity of the U.S. decline.'" ...
... Trump Really Hates the E.U. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "In their bilateral meeting in the White House's Cabinet Room, on April 24, Macron said to Trump, 'Let's work together, we both have a China problem,' according to a source in the room. The source said Trump responded that the European Union is 'worse than China.' 'He then went on a rant about Germany and cars,' the source added."
Trump v. the Law. Annie Karni of Politico: "Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records. But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn't violating the law. Staffers had the fragments of paper collected from the Oval Office as well as the private residence and send it over to records management across the street from the White House for Larkey and his colleagues to reassemble.... [Records management analysts Solomon Lartey and Reginald Young, Jr.] described a system that stands in stark contrast to how records management was conducted under the Obama administration, which ran a structured paperwork process.... Lartey, 54, and Young, 48, were career government officials who worked together in records management until this spring, when both were abruptly terminated from their jobs. Both are now unemployed and still full of questions about why they were stripped of their badges with no explanation and marched off of the White House grounds by Secret Service." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The fact that these guys were fired for obeying the law makes me wonder if the same happened to the White House employees who were feeding them the torn-up documents. There's no reason to assume that presidential documents have been preserved since the White House fired Lartey & Young. Congress must investigate, & Bob Mueller should add "destruction of evidence" to his list of questions for Trump. And I'll just add that this is another instance in which "The Emails!" look ridiculous. P.S. What do you suppose happened to all those Russia docs Trump got his hands on? ...
... Scott Lemieux agrees: "Sounds like the habits of a scrupulously ethical individual who has never had any shady practices to hide! What's funny about this is that the media decided the most important issue facing the country in 2016 was Hillary Clinton's compliance with information security best practices. Well, not ha-ha funny." ...
... So does David Atkins: "It is not clear if anyone is now preserving the President's paper as the law requires. It's worth noting that destroying documents in violation of the Records Act and firing the only people who were trying to preserve them is also an impeachable offense -- certainly a more problematic offense than sending work emails on a private server. But in Trumpworld where every day is a struggle to contain the burgeoning messes and historic scandals of an overgrown petulant child, something like this barely merits a wry also-ran piece on a lazy Sunday. Still, it's a perfect metaphor for this presidency."
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Nico Hines of The Daily Beast: "The extent of Russia's interference in the 2016 votes for Trump and Brexit has been investigated by intelligence agencies, congressional and parliamentary inquiries, the FBI and ... Robert Mueller's office for more than a year. For much of that time, a reporter in England [Isabel Oakeshott] has been in possession of extraordinary details about Russia's cultivation and handling of Brexit's biggest bankroller [Arron Banks].... Banks, who ran the Leave.EU campaign group, was one of the first foreign political figures to visit Donald Trump -- accompanying Nigel Farage to Trump Tower -- soon after the shock presidential election of 2016.... Oakeshott says she did not discover the stunning extent of Banks' true dealings with Russia until last year. Even then, she decided not to publish saying she wanted to wait until the publication of her next book White Flag? in August." --safari
** Brazen. Lachlan Markay of The Daily Beast: "A Russian government adviser who aims to wage an 'information war' in the U.S. and Europe is running a new media venture a block from the White House that cybersecurity experts say has ties to the country's infamous disinformation apparatus.... In April, Russia's Federal News Agency (FAN) announced the creation of an American outlet called 'USA Really.'... At the helm of the project is Alexander Malkevich, a Russian media executive and a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, a body created by President Vladimir Putin in 2005 to advise government policymaking.... According to security researchers, the FAN has ties to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Russian social media office that the Justice Department indicted in February for its role in Kremlin efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election [and] once operated out of the same St. Petersburg office building as the IRA." Read on. --safari
Lesley Stahl interviewed Trump campaign chair Brad Parscale for "60 Minutes." Big takeaway: during the 2016 campaign, Parscale's digital operation had employees of Facebook, Twitter & Google "embedded inside our offices." These tech employees self-identified as Trump supporters. Facebook made a similar offer to the Clinton campaign, but Clinton turned down the offer.
Weaponizing Children. Franco Ordoñez of McClatchy DC: "The Trump administration will now fingerprint and run immigration checks on the mothers and fathers who come forward to claim custody of unaccompanied migrant children stopped at the border under a new policy that is stoking new fears in immigrant communities nationwide.... Under the new policy, the government would no longer provide exceptions to the parents or any other relatives. But some migrant advocates worry it could deter families from claiming children, and migrant parents already appear less willing to do so. The percentage of unaccompanied youths claimed by parents has dropped from 60 percent four years ago to 41 percent in 2017 after increasing crackdowns, including raids.... Last year, Health and Human Services assumed custody of more than 40,000 immigrant children and released more than 93 percent to sponsors. Of those, 49 percent were parents and 41 percent were close relatives." --safari ...
... Trump's "Animals". Steph Solis of USA Today: "[Cloyd] Edralin, 47, [father of four] who has lived legally in the United States for three decades, was leaving his house to go to work on Monday morning when he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. They told Edralin, a green card holder, that he was being detained over an 11-year-old firearms conviction.... He was convicted of unlawful possession of an airsoft pistol, which fires plastic pellets.... Edralin isn't the first green card holder to be detained years after a criminal conviction. In January, a Polish doctor who has lived in the United States for 40 years was detained over two 26-year-old misdemeanors." --safari
Arnold Isaacs of Tom's Dispatch, via Juan Cole, documents the takeover of xenophobic and anti-Islam bigots crowding into the Trump administration. --safari ...
... Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "A group of lawmakers and public officials in Washington state denounced the Trump administration Saturday for its policy of separating immigrant families at the Mexican border, accusing the administration of causing undue trauma to children and parents who might be legally seeking asylum in the United States. Although Seattle is some 1,500 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the debate over family separations hit closer to home for the Evergreen State after dozens of immigrants were transferred last week to the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Nearly all of those immigrants -- 174 out of 206 -- were women, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who spent about three hours Saturday morning meeting with the recently moved detainees at the SeaTac facility. Most of them were from Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, she said, but there were also immigrants from as far away as Eritrea. Many spoke of fleeing threats of rape, gang violence and political persecution, Jayapal said.... Jayapal said detainees relayed disturbing accounts of being held at Border Patrol facilities in fenced cages (referred to as the 'dog pound') or in the 'ice box,' so nicknamed for the facilities' cold temperatures and lack of blankets or sleeping mats. She also said many women spoke of being deprived of clean water and experiencing verbal abuse while in Border Patrol custody.... On Saturday afternoon, Jayapal issued a withering statement describing her visit -- 'The mothers could not stop crying when they spoke about their children,' she wrote -- and called for the Trump administration to reunite the detained and separated families."
Slo Movies. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Two pivotal developments this week could dramatically expand the power and footprint of major telecom companies, altering how Americans access everything from political news to 'Game of Thrones' on the Internet. Monday marks the official end of the U.S. government's net neutrality rules, which had required broadband providers such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon to treat all Web traffic equally. The repeal is part of a campaign by Ajit Pai, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to deregulate the telecom industry in a bid to boost its investments -- particularly in rural areas.... One day after the net neutrality changes, a federal judge is set to rule on Tuesday on whether AT&T can buy Time Warner. AT&T, already the country's second-largest wireless network, stands to gain a content trove from Time Warner that includes HBO and CNN -- leading the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit, to argue that the company could harm its rivals.... The expiring net neutrality protections, adopted at the FCC under President Barack Obama in 2015, for years prevented the likes of AT&T and Comcast from slowing Web connections, blocking access to sites and services, or charging content companies for faster delivery of streaming movies or videos." ...
... David McCabe of Axios: "Net neutrality backers describe a multi-pronged strategy to restore the strong rules they prefer.... On Capitol Hill, Democrats in the House are trying to get enough Republican signatures to force a vote on a resolution that would restore the FCC's rules. The measure already passed in the Senate, but the House is more difficult.... Public interest groups and Silicon Valley companies are among those who are suing over the repeal of the rules. Oral arguments in the case could come later this year in federal court, they say.... Democrats hope to make net neutrality a campaign-trail issue in the months before the midterm election, and state officials have tried to institute their own rules.... The end of the rules is far from the end of this story. Additional consolidation in the telecom space ... and developments over the court case will keep advocates and opponents of net neutrality regulations busy."
"Grab Bag o' Excuses". Jeremy Miller in the Guardian: "A January Gallup poll found that Trump's approval among Mormons had risen to 61%, higher than any other religious group surveyed, and 13 points higher than among the next group, comprised of Protestants and others.... Utah has become the epicenter of Trump's public lands policies.... [A conservative political operative named Don] Peay, who is Mormon] thinks that support for the president is on the rise among Utah's Mormon Republicans, despite the administration's growing list of scandals, because of Trump's policies on public lands and monuments.... As for Stormy Daniels, Peay said that Mormons were not puritans." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: And you were wondering why formerly Never-Trump Romney has suddenly embraced the Worse President* Ever.
Masha Gessen of the New Yorker seeks ways to counter George Orwell's prediction that totalitarianism would kill literature of all kinds, save perhaps poetry. (Also linked yesterday.)
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Thou art off to hell, so sayeth the lord god in his too tighty whities.
It appears that, not only is Trump a king, and immune to error and failure, he is also a god, capable, according to his awestruck acolytes, of creating a special ring of hell to punish any who incur his wrath, and who will propel them there for all eternity, even for the most mild and predictable comments.
Any students of ancient history who have ever wondered how first century Romans (some, anyway) were able to accommodate the ontological transmogrification of young Gaius Octavius from well off, well placed Roman citizen into Caesar Augustus, the god, are about to get a first hand look at the necessary mechanism and process for such a startling transition.
But Augustus, already a canny, ruthless, precocious political actor, hand picked by Julius Caesar, and a highly successful battlefield commander, had a bit more of a, shall we say elevated launch pad for his ascension.
Had he been a snarling, cheating, lying, atrabilious victualer and seller of insulae and the occasional fancy domus, chances of making the leap from confidence schemer to godhead might not have been so good.
But then Augustus never had Vulpes News to help with his non-stop propaganda.
The Vestal Virgins better hide.
Last night during the Tony awards, Robert DeNiro said he only wanted to say one thing: Fuck Trump! He said it twice. The crowd went wild. Warmed my heart.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robert-deniro-tony-awards-donald-trump_us_5b1de148e4b09d7a3d742f93
The story today about the violation of the Records Act was infuriating. Trump can't even follow these rules? And I too, wonder, as Marie does, whether the persons who tried to put together the papers they could salvage and deliver them to their proper place were "let go" along with the persons who actually keep the records. Again, information here that few would be privy to but information that exemplifies the shoddy practices in this White House: "Rules, be damned, I do what I want to do" says the big bully baby (love that photo, by the way–-Merkel, our new leader, feeding the big fat pig of a man) while operating the role of president like a mafia boss. On the campaign trail Trump told his audience over and over that he was not a politician, feeding them the idea that this was a good thing. What we are witnessing here and now is not only is Trump not a politician, he isn't even a president. Operation deadly day after day–-running the country like a private business and bringing along his putrid pond people to help him deliver exactly what Putin hoped would happen to this country; now that he has Trump in his pocket he doesn't have to try so hard.
I also found the Isabel Oakeshott story most interesting–-that she has "information of extraordinary details about Russia's cultivation and handling of Brexit's biggest bankroller, Arron Banks" who is hand in hand with Nigel Farage who stood aside Trump at one of his campaign stomps. Trump praised Farage telling the crowd this was an important man but I said at the time I imagined the crowd had no idea who this guy was and why was he on the stage with Trump. All these ties, all these connections that will one day be put together will prove once and for all that the cards in Trump's house have a Russian stamp on the back in the shape of a hand in a pocket–-it's their way of saying, thank you.
From yesterday: I want thank Marie for responding to my brother's friend's chain letter. It's too good to not send back so I'd like your permission, Marie, to do so.
The administration's apologists are floating a line that DiJiT did not need to study up for the Kim meeting, because he's been preparing for this all his life, as a child of the cold war, attuned to the imperatives of nuclear threat management.
No, really. Read this silly article from WaPo last year, about NYMA classmates of DiJiT and their recollections of 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis.
Just to demonstrate that DiJiT is not the only addlepate to have attended that military school, get this quote from near the end of the article:
"Adding to the fear was the expectation that cadets, particularly older students such as Trump, could be called upon in the case of nuclear war.
“We weren’t just kids,” said Ticktin. “We were kids who had M-1 [rifles]. We were kids in uniform.”
“We knew they would use us to keep order,” he added. “If we weren’t all dead.”
Most people lose their adolescent fantasies by their mid-twenties. Some never lose them. And some, I suppose, are real idiots.
@PD Pepe: Feel free. Your brother's friend can send my responses to all his friends in the e-mail chain, too. If he tells them where to find me, however, expect to see a lot of trolling here.
@BeaMcCrab: The G-7 lineup photo is quite telling about
height/girth comparatives. Another great photo of "vive la difference." with Trump and Trudeau accompanies this NYTimes magazine article.
Reminds me of Trump's pre-election debate performance when he felt the need to proclaim about the size of his hands as compared to other areas. Hmm, they do actually appear on the smallish side...if one uses such visual sizing as a benchmark for other body appendages! The snipe (wink! wink!)used to be that one should check shoe size to get an idea about package.
Well, here things gets even funnier. Looks like Blondie has small feet, too!
What isn't funny is how this despicable idiot is damaging America with his childish outbursts, incomprehensible actions, and disruptive polices. Such as today's repeal of Net Neutrality.
Lost in Translation
This morning NPR offered a look at one of the more inside baseball aspects of meetings between heads of state, even, no doubt, between "two dictators". Interpreters provide not just the service of translation from one language to another, but must understand context, detail, and nuance if a meeting is to be successful. In 2000, when then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Kim Jong Il to discuss a North Korean weapons systems, the translation on the American side was handled by Tong Kim, the senior Korean language interpreter at the State Department.
"Albright was trying to persuade the regime to abandon its long-range missile program. To prepare, Tong Kim needed to learn the jargon of arms control. He reviewed top-secret briefs and read a dozen books on nuclear bombs.
'I kept reading and reading,' he says. 'Reading every article in newspapers and academic journals — it was total immersion, in the task of preparing myself.'"
Translators can often make or (nearly) break (or should that be brake?) a summit. Mistakes are not unknown, but so also are moments in which an interpreter, faced with an odd word or problematic translation has been able to effectively sidestep awkward situations. When Reagan invited Gorbachev to the White House in 1987, he used the word "adversaries" to describe the post-war US-Soviet relationship but the word posed a problem.
"The Russian word for 'adversaries,' protivniki, sounds similar to a word that means 'disgusting,' protivniy...So instead of repeating the word 'adversaries,' [the translator] used a Russian word for 'competitors.'" Potentially embarrassing situation avoided.
Advocacy for this form of translation (not literal, but true to spirit) has been around for thousands of years. Cicero once wrote of his support for "interpres" as opposed to "orators", the latter of whom translated literally word for word (wonder how the Singapore translators will handle "yuuuuuuge", "believe me" and "fucking crazy talk", never mind "covfefe" or "the cyber").
But now we have president* Lost in Translation in Singapore. And, given the sort of preparation that good interpreters must have for such meetings, we're faced with a situation in which the guy translating the words knows far more about the topic at hand than the president. This is not unusual when talking about the little dictator. In a room full of girl scouts, he'd be the least informed on just about any topic except grifting and groping.
Harry Obst, a former White House interpreter who has written a book on the subject notes that a president might need a little reminder of the salient details now and then. "'For example, Reagan in his last years in office had a touch of Alzheimer's. Sometimes I would whisper in his ear if he got mixed up about some point of policy. 'It's not SALT I we are talking about, Mr. President, it's SALT II' — that sort of thing.'"
At least it was likely that Reagan, even with the onset of dementia, unlike the current occupant, knew that either variety of SALT had nothing to do with a Big Mac.
Protivniy.
Loser Whine
Over the weekend, after the little dictator blew up the G7 meeting, he sent his little weenies out to defend his initial childish tantrum and his secondary immature outbursts in response to Justin Trudeau saying simply that Canada would not be pushed around. Their primary defense? The Glorious Leader had been "stabbed in the back".
The Stabbed in the Back defense has a long and sordid history as a catch-all right-wing excuse machine. It began in Germany after the wars. We tried X (WWI). We failed. We would have succeeded, but we were stabbed in the back. We tried Y (genocide, WWII) We tried to kill all those dirty Jews but we couldn't get them all. We were stabbed in the back.
This trick was gleefully adopted by the right in this country. After Joe McCarthy's excesses were trounced, his minions described their failure to properly hollow out the government as a stabbing in the back.
In short, it's an excuse for failure, so it's interesting that Trump's whiners have so readily picked it up as a shield against potential blowback for his own excesses and incompetence.
Besides, since when can standing up for your country against an ignorant fool be described as a stab in the back?
Of course the Stabbed in the Back conceit also fits in perfectly with the renewed sense of winger victimization at the hands of the mongrel races, liberals, uppity women, and the media.
Still and all, it's the chosen excuse of losers.
@Akhilleus: An excellent point re: the stabbed-in-the-back "defense." Of course the back-stabber-in-chief is Trump who decided, based on cherry-picked "statistics" that other countries were "so unfair" to the U.S., to impose punishing tariffs on our biggest trading partners.
But I'm all confused as to why loser Trump & his lackeys have to complain about being stabbed in the back. It seems to me somebody said, "Trade wars are easy to win." Weren't we all sure that by now we'd be sick & tired of so much winning? How is it that the Cheese stands alone?
What with all this, I won't be surprised if we find out soon that the "honorable gentleman" murderer/dictator Kim has stabbed Trump in the back, too. Pompeo had better grab Trump's unsecured Twitterphone on the way back from Singapore or a North Korean nuke may get here first. I'm not kidding.
Our SCOTUS (not my) endorses Ohio "use it or lose it" voter purge plan.
Can't wait for their equally fair-minded gerrymandering decision(s).
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/618870982/supreme-court-upholds-controversial-ohio-voter-purge-law
Excellent YAnthony Bourdain encomium by Juan Cole.
Out-Putining Putin
Ratfucker in Chief Trumpado is showing Putin how it's done.
Putin put his digital hound dogs on the trail of Western democracies to try to bring them to bay. He ratfucked the Brexit vote, the DNC, our presidential election, and has interfered with nearly a score of elections in countries not named Russia since 2014. The goal, of course, is to push Russia up while attempting to bring western nations down by sowing discord and chaos. He's had success both here and in Britain (Brexit has been notably disruptive, and here in America? Sheesh...).
In other countries, Norway, Austria, France, Germany, his interference has brought mixed returns.
But stand aside Vladie. Here comes the little dictator, riding in on a wave of stupidity, ignorance, random tantrums and childish implosions that make a dash for the lifeboats on a sinking ship look like a column of graduates proceeding solemnly to "Pomp and Circumstance".
Trump, in just a few months has done more to damage the West than Hitler, Stalin, the Soviet empire, Putin, and Bin Laden were able to accomplish in almost a century of screwing with us.
If he's not Putin's mole, he's something much worse, political anti-matter that destroys because that's all it can do when coming in contact with any other form of matter. But it's not just Trump.
Remember how stunned we were when the Soviet Union collapsed, seemingly overnight? But it wasn't overnight. It started during Stalin's Great Purge, his push to crush dissenting voices in the USSR. It probably started even earlier than that, with his banishment in 1928 of Trotsky who pushed for more democracy within the party. Stalin would have none of it. He started the vogue for secrecy, for viciously enforced discipline, for "alternative facts", and the cult of personality.
Likewise, in this country, the approach to the Moment of Trump began years ago. We could just as easily point to the Powell Memo as to any other event, but Republicans worked mightily to build a political machine that dismantled opposition as easily as it discarded truth. Trump would not have been possible without McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and the alternate facts media empire and well funded think tanks that set the stage for his ignorance and chaos.
In doing so, they have handed our old enemy its greatest victory, one achieved with only the tiniest of expenditures and the loss of life of not one Russian (but many Americans, eventually).
They, and their Russian puppet, have out-Putined Putin.
Say what?
Trump is running away early from the his Singapore Dance of the Dictators because....why? "Talks are progressing so quickly"??
Talks? What talks? They haven't even started yet!
This alternative universe bullshit gets weirder by the hour.
"Well, things are going great. Kim's a great guy and....oh...whoa...look at the time....gotta be goin'. Lot's to do. See ya, Singapore."
He hasn't even had time to do his Carnac the Magnificent touchie-feelie thingy with Kim.
Why bother doing anything at all? Just sit at home in your underwear in front of the TV with a tub of ice cream and have your lackeys release bullshit statements. "Today, president* Trump visited Mars. He reported on the great climate and said that there were no trade problems yet, but if they arose, he'd be on the job."
"Dear Norway. Please send Peace Prize to White House, care of Donald"
Jeeeeesus.
Top Ten Trump excuses for dashing off early from the latest summit.
1. Kim has bad breath.
2. No one told him how hot it was in Singapore. Jeez, Louise!
3. Kim bragged that he grabbed more pussy than Trump. Not cool!
4. Fox comes on at weird times.
5. All these people look Asian!
6. The Quarter Pounders here taste funny.
7. He left his favorite blankie at home.
8. Kim's interpreter makes funny faces at him.
9. No one wears my MAGA hats here!
And the number one reason he's running away?
10. Kim nixes Trump Tower in Pyongyang.
I said in January 2017 that there would be no Presidential elections in 2020--that Trump would suspend them--and I was dismissed as a paranoid worrywart. I'm standing by that one.
Ten bucks says that Kim's English language skills are better than drumpf's Korean (and English, too, for that matter.) Kim probably doesn't even need a translator unless it's to understand Stupid.
MAG,
I suppose we can add another line to Trumpy's resume of repugnance: Leader of the Girther Movement. There's a reason the states with the highest level of obesity all went for Fat Boy. Girthers all. Big Macs for everyone!
Holy crap! :
"But in a sign that Trump is counting on developing a personal rapport with Kim to help bridge differences, aides said that, after their initial greeting, the two leaders would meet one-on-one in private, joined only by their interpreters, for 45 minutes."
45 minutes with no notetaker, no record. Two psychos "dealing."
(Interpreters don't do memos of conversation).
This is a recipe for all sorts of misunderstandings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-meets-with-singaporean-leader-as-us-races-to-finalize-details-for-north-korea-summit/2018/06/11/b70e78f2-6d2c-11e8-bf86-a2351b5ece99_story.html?utm_term=.28041b45e829