The Commentariat -- June 17, 2018

Afternoon Update:

A Bizarre Tale from the Trump Campaign. Manuel Roig-Franzia & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... in late May 2016, Roger Stone ... [met with a Russian] man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, [and who] offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton..., according to Stone who spoke about the previously unreported incident in interviews with The Washington Post. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said. 'You don't understand Donald Trump,' Stone recalled saying before rejecting the offer at a restaurant in the Russian-expat magnet of Sunny Isles, Fla. 'He doesn't pay for anything.' Later, Stone got a text message from Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign communications official who'd arranged the meeting after Greenberg had approached Caputo's Russian-immigrant business partner. 'How crazy is the Russian?' Caputo wrote according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted 'big' money, Stone replied: 'waste of time.'... Caputo said he was asked about the meeting by prosecutors during a sometimes-heated questioning session last month.... Stone and Caputo, who did not previously disclose the meeting to congressional investigators, now say they believe they were the targets of a setup by U.S. law enforcement officials hostile to Trump. They cite records -- independently examined by The Post -- showing that the man who approached Stone is actually a Russian national who has claimed to work as an FBI informant.... There is no evidence that Greenberg was working with the FBI in his interactions with Stone, and in his court filing, Greenberg said that he had stopped his FBI cooperation sometime after 2013. Greenberg, in text messages with The Post, denied that he had been acting on the FBI's behalf when he met with Stone.... [The meeting] came in the same time period as other episodes in which Russian interests approached the Trump campaign." Greenberg now claims there was a third man at the meeting, a Ukrainian called Alexei who said the Clinton Foundation had fired him & he wanted to "tell his story." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Michael Caputo appears to be a regular contributor to CNN. Now it appears that while working for the Trump campaign, he actively sought dirt on Clinton from a shady or "crazy" foreign national. I think he's in trouble. ...

... Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "Just hours after The Washington Post published a bombshell story about a previously undisclosed May 2016 meeting between Roger Stone and a Russian national who promised political dirt about Hillary Clinton, President Trump encouraged Post employees to go on strike. 'Washington Post employees want to go on strike because Bezos isn't paying them enough,' Trump tweeted. 'I think a really long strike would be a great idea. Employees would get more money and we would get rid of Fake News for an extended period of time!..."

Trump & Giuliani Dangle a Pardon in Front of Manafort. Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "White House lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani suggested Sunday that President Trump might pardon his former campaign manager Paul Manafort if he is convicted -- but only after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has completed his investigation. 'When it's over, hey, he's the president of the United States, he retains his pardon power, nobody's taking that away from him,' Giuliani said on CNN's 'State of the Union' when asked whether Trump would pardon Manafort should he be convicted. 'I couldn't and I don't want to take any prerogatives away from him.' But Giuliani stressed that Trump has not issued, would not issue and should not issue any pardons related to the Mueller probe while it is still ongoing, so as not to give the appearance that he has anything to hide."

Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: Cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff says the media are mishandling Trump's lies. Rather, news stories should read like a "truth sandwich": "First, he says, get as close to the overall, big-picture truth as possible right away. (Thus the gist of the Trump-in-Singapore story: Little of substance was accomplished in the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, despite the pageantry.) Then report what Trump is claiming about it: achievement of world peace. And then, in the same story or broadcast, fact-check his claims. That's the truth sandwich -- reality, spin, reality.... Avoid retelling the lies. Avoid putting them in headlines, leads or tweets, he says. Because it is that very amplification that gives them power. That's how propaganda works on the brain: through repetition, even when part of that repetition is fact-checking.... Jay Rosen of New York University sums up one such proposal in three words: 'Send the interns.' White House briefings ... are no place for talented, highly compensated reporters.... They have also become a place where reporters get insulted instead of answered, as Sarah Huckabee Sanders showed last week when she refused to answer reasonable questions and repeated lies about Trump's immigration policy...." ...

... They're Not Lies. They're Not "Alternatives Facts." They're a "Particular Vernacular." Good Grief! Caleb Howe of Mediaite: Steve Bannon, on ABC's "This Week," insisted that Trump had never lied to the American people. "After some back and forth, [host Jon] Karl repeated again, 'he says things that aren't true all the time.' 'I don't believe that,' said Bannon. 'I think he speaks in a particular vernacular that connects to people in this country.'" Mrs. McC: To present this as a truth sandwich: Trump lies; Bannon says he doesn't; fact-check." ...

... MEANWHILE, maybe New Yorkers shouldn't try to get all folksy and borrow from Texas "vernacular." "All cattle and no hat," Chuck?

*****

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Trump on Saturday repeated his false assertion that Democrats were responsible for his administration's policy of separating migrant families apprehended at the border, sticking to a weekslong refusal to publicly accept responsibility for a widely condemned practice that has become a symbol of his crackdown on illegal immigration. 'Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!' Mr. Trump said in a morning post on Twitter. It came the day after his administration said that it had taken nearly 2,000 children away from their parents in a six-week period ending last month, as part of a new 'zero tolerance' policy that refers for criminal prosecution all immigrants apprehended crossing the border without authorization. The White House defended the practice this week, saying the president was merely enforcing the law. And in recent speeches around the country, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, has made a spirited case for it, arguing that a strict approach is a vital tool for deterrence. But Mr. Trump has steadfastly tried to deflect blame for the separation of children from their parents, consistently dissembling about why it is occurring. His comments are the latest example of his asking the public to discount what it sees with its own eyes and instead believe his own self-serving version of reality. They also reflect how politically poisonous the issue has become...." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "Another day, another front-page NYT story that flat-out says the POTUS* is a big fat liar.

Trump Cozies up to Another Dictator. Benjamin Hart of New York: "On Saturday, Trump offered what sounded like hearty congratulations to Hungary's Viktor Orbán, whose Fidesz party won a a sweeping electoral victory in April.... Orbán is not quite a dictator, but he's the closest thing to one in Europe. Since he began his second stint as prime minister in 2010, Orbán has slowly but surely transformed his country from a model postcommunist democracy to a strongman's paradise.... Once upon a time, like two years ago, an American president would have protested such naked illiberalism in Hungary.... George W. Bush wrote a letter full of complaints about his rule during the Hungarian's first term; when it was ignored, Bush declined to invite him to the White House. During Orbán's second tenure in office, President Obama denied visas for six Hungarian officials over corruption issues.... [Trump's] habit of going out of his way to endorse world leaders inimical to Western democracy never stops being stunning." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's not surprising that Trump made the call on a weekend. It was Trump's day off, so he did things he relishes -- he went golfing & shmoozed a fellow dictator. It's all fun! Update: Turns out the call to Orbán was just a warm-up. Trump will top off his weekend fun with a call to a 100-percent, ruthless, murderous dictator: "Asked by a Fox anchor what he was going to be doing on Father's Day, the president replied, 'I'm going to be actually calling North Korea.'"

... Maureen Dowd: "A new study from Southern Methodist University says the nation's capital has more psychopaths per person than anyplace else in the country. No surprise there.... The study notes that 'psychopaths are likely to be effective in the political sphere' and that 'the occupations that were most disproportionately psychopathic were C.E.O., lawyer, media, salesperson, surgeon, journalist, police officer, clergyperson, chef, and civil servant.' So if a chief executive, salesman and media personality becomes a politician, he's hitting four of the highest-risk categories." Read on. Dowd is having one of her good days.

Caroline Orr of Shareblue: "Russian state TV is celebrating after seeing the recent report that Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea belongs to Russia because the people there speak Russian. Trump's statement, which parrots the Kremlin's talking points on Crimea, was widely interpreted in Russia as an official declaration by the U.S. that Russia was justified when they illegally invaded Crimea and annexed it from Ukraine. The ignorant proclamation made by Trump was quickly turned into propaganda and touted by Russian state TV hosts Olga Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov, who triumphantly reported on the remarks Friday. 'Krym nash, Trump nash!' Skabeeva declared to the audience, which in English means 'Crimea is ours, Trump is ours!'"

Peter Goodman, et al., of the New York Times: "As the Trump administration imposes tariffs on allies and rivals alike, provoking broad retaliation, global commerce is suffering disruption, flashing signs of strains that could hamper economic growth. The latest escalation came on Friday, when President Trump announced fresh tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, prompting swift retribution from Beijing. As the conflict broadens, shipments are slowing at ports and airfreight terminals around the world. Prices for crucial raw materials are rising. At factories from Germany to Mexico, orders are being cut and investments delayed. American farmers are losing sales as trading partners hit back with duties of their own.... History has proved that trade wars are costly while escalating risks of broader hostilities. Fears are deepening that the current outbreak of antagonism could drag down the rest of the world."

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: "The Northern Neck Regional Jail, where Paul Manafort will spend at least the next three months while awaiting trial..., houses federal prisoners awaiting trial -- including a member of the Taliban and a feared Colombian drug lord. It held NFL star Michael Vick and musician Chris Brown, too. The jail is notable for another reason -- four inmates have died there since 2011. In one of those deaths, a 32-year-old female inmate who suffered a stroke in 2016 was denied medical care for more than 10 hours and was declared brain dead later that night.... Jail records show Manafort was booked into the 'VIP' section of the jail at 8:22 p.m. Friday." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Meant to embed this yesterday. Beginning with the set-up at about 4:30 minutes in, Rachel Maddow reads the court transcript (sadly, absent sock puppets) of the exchange among the judge & lawyers in Manfort's bail revocation hearing. Sort of fun, unless you're Manafort:

This Was Always the Plan. Julie Davis & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Almost immediately after President Trump took office, his administration began weighing what for years had been regarded as the nuclear option in the effort to discourage immigrants from unlawfully entering the United States. Children would be separated from their parents if the families had been apprehended entering the country illegally, John F. Kelly, then the homeland security secretary, said in March 2017, 'in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network.'... for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the idea of crying children torn from their parents' arms was simply too inhumane -- and too politically perilous -- to embrace as policy, and Mr. Trump, though he had made an immigration crackdown one of the central issues of his campaign, succumbed to the same reality, publicly dropping the idea after Mr. Kelly's comments touched off a swift backlash. But advocates inside the administration, most prominently Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump's senior policy adviser, never gave up on the idea. Last month, facing a sharp uptick in illegal border crossings, Mr. Trump ordered a new effort to criminally prosecute anyone who crossed the border unlawfully -- with few exceptions for parents traveling with their minor children.... [While Trump has blamed Democrats for his decision (because why wouldn't he?)] Kirstjen Nielsen, the current homeland security secretary, has clashed privately with Mr. Trump over the practice, sometimes inviting furious lectures from the president that have pushed her to the brink of resignation."

Donald Trump says it's "very unfair" that Paul Manafort has to sit in jail after allegedly repeatedly breaking the law AND the terms of his parole, but Trump is still good with this:

Tom Dart of the Guardian: "The Trump administration has been accused of illegally rejecting potential immigration judges for being too liberal, amid outrage over families being forcibly separated at the southern US border and a harsh crackdown on migrants seeking asylum.... The attorney general has the power to hire and fire immigration judges.... Four Democratic members of Congress wrote to [Jeff] Sessions in April expressing concern after whistleblower allegations that the Department of Justice 'may be using ideological and political considerations to improperly -- and illegally -- block the hiring of immigration judges and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals'." The DOJ has responded, but "two congressmen, Lloyd Doggett and Elijah Cummings, issued a joint statement which said that the response did not fully address their concerns, and called for an independent investigation by the ... inspector general."

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director and acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has picked a deputy at the budget office, Kathy Kraninger, to succeed him at the consumer watchdog agency, a White House spokeswoman confirmed on Saturday. Ms. Kraninger, who oversees the preparation of the budgets for cabinet departments, was selected over the objection of some officials inside the White House, who argued that her relative inexperience -- and association with Mr. Mulvaney -- could scuttle her nomination.... On Saturday, White House officials played down the fact that she has never held a job as a regulator or worked in the financial services industry.... Last week, Mr. Mulvaney told reporters that he was not participating in the selection process for his new deputy. White House officials disputed that account and said Ms. Kraninger was his clear preference."

Alex Guillen of Politico: "The federal government's top ethics official suggested Friday he is considering a 'formal corrective action proceeding' regarding alleged improper behavior by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a perhaps unprecedented step against a sitting member of the president's Cabinet. The head of the independent Office of Government Ethics urged EPA's in-house watchdog to expand its ongoing investigations to review the latest allegations about Pruitt, including that he used EPA resources to find a job for his wife. OGE will look into the findings of that probe to decide how to proceed, acting OGE Director David Apol wrote in a letter to EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins on Friday.... Donald Trump said earlier Friday that he was 'not happy about certain things' with his embattled administrator, although he praised the 'fantastic job' Pruitt is doing at EPA.... An OGE spokesperson told Politico the office is unaware of the agency ever before initiating a formal corrective action proceeding against any federal official, let alone a Cabinet member." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: An appropriate "corrective action" would be to fire Pruitt, bring criminal charges against him & make him pay out-of-pocket for all the taxpayer money he wasted. ...

... How Scotty Keeps His Job. Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "Over the past year, Trump has removed members of his Cabinet for far fewer and less serious infractions [than Pruitt has committed].... In the case of both [Tom] Price and [David] Shulkin, however, Trump had become frustrated with their inability to achieve some of his top priorities. Pruitt, on the other hand, has doggedly pursued the president's objectives while heaping praise on the commander in chief. He has also commiserated privately with him about two of Trump's favored grievances: the probe into Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election and the problem of aides who leak." Here's one of several examples the writers cite: "At one point during the weeks-long discussions about whether to exit the Paris accord, Pruitt sought to circumvent the decision-making process in a meeting with the president. Without consulting others, he gave Trump a plan to pull out of the deal, even as discussions were underway among other senior officials. [Gary] Cohn and ... Rex Tillerson said Pruitt gave the president inaccurate data to support his argument, and he was widely excoriated for doing it secretly. 'It was total bulls[hit],' one person present for the discussions said. But Trump sided with Pruitt...."

Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "A neighbor of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was sentenced Friday to 30 days in prison after pleading guilty to felony assault for tackling the lawmaker last year, a spokesman for federal prosecutors said. The attack was fueled by irritation over a pile of debris. The neighbor, Rene A. Boucher, 60, of Bowling Green, Ky., was also sentenced to one year of probation and a $10,000 fine, said Tim Horty, a spokesman for the United States attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, in a phone interview. In a statement, Mr. Paul said that he believed a conviction with prison time was 'appropriate,' and he hoped it would deter Mr. Boucher from any future violence."

Beyond the Beltway

North Carolina GOP Cooks up a Full Menu of Voter Suppression Measures. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "The last time Republicans in the North Carolina Legislature enacted a law making it harder for some of the state's residents to vote, a federal court said the statute targeted African-American voters 'with almost surgical precision,' and threw it out. That was last year. Now the legislators are back with a new set of election proposals, and an unconventional plan to make them stick. Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Republican senators unveiled legislation that would eliminate the final Saturday of early voting in state elections, a day that typically draws a large share of black voters to the polls. That followed a Republican proposal last week to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would require all voters to display a photo ID before casting votes. In addition, party leaders say they are preparing a constitutional amendment that would curb the power of the Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, over the state board that controls election procedures.... Gerry Cohen, a longtime counsel to the Legislature..., said the Republicans were very likely to lose their supermajority in the statehouse. 'So they're trying to pass as much as they can before December 31.'..."

News Lede

NJ.com: "Gunfire blasted through a celebrated community event in Trenton early Sunday morning leaving one person dead and 22 injured, police said. The 24-hour Art All Night event is meant to honor local artists and held at the historic Roebling Wire Works building on South Clinton Avenue. The shooting erupted shortly before 3 a.m. Authorities said the shooting did not appear to be a targeted incident but a dispute between individuals that eventually led to an exchange of gunfire with police.... One of the suspected shooters is dead, according to Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri. The 33-year-old man is believed to be shot and killed by police, Onofri said. A second suspect is in police custody. Neither has been identified."

Comments

[safari]

When the Democrats finally hold the White House again and start putting out the many dumpster fires left by the GOP, I've got a pretty good idea of some policy action.

Seeing that the Republican party is hell-bent on suppressing votes nationwide since their plutocratic agenda actually serves no one but the plutocrats, how about setting up a federal program that delivers a brand spanking new photo ID to each and every American citizen, and said ID must be accepted in each state as a valid ID to vote.

It's a relatively cheap solution to get around all the bullshit ID roadblocks thrown up across the nation, and have everything be done by mail so the US post office gets some work and people can get their new ID technically without ever leaving their house. Just send your information and a recent photo via email or snail mail to a small office in DC and get your ID in the mail. To please the Freedom Caucus who will inevitably decry the government providing services to its citizens, fill the new ID card with lots of red, white and blue, with a huge waving flag and a giant menacing eagle and a few buffalo and call it the new "American Patriot Card".

It's a small fix to a big problem, but at least we won't hear any more bullshit coming out of Texas that your NRA card is cool, but that student ID isn't.

[Marie Burns]

I'm having trouble figuring out how this "zero tolerance" is supposed to work as a deterrent, over & above being cruel to children & parents.

If history is any indicator, the majority of Central Americans entering the U.S. are men seeking work. They may be planning to stay in the U.S. permanently; they may plan to return to Central America at the end of the work season. So the prospect of being separated from their children is of little or no value as a deterrent, as they aren't bringing with them children from whom they may be separated. There is, of course, the possibility that they were be picked up & thrown in a detention center for months, so to that extent "zero tolerance" may be a deterrent (although 3 squares & a cot might be a good-enough second prize for those who are destitute).

Then there's the gang thing. Donald Trump has tried to conflate gangs (M-13, etc.) with ALL Central American migrants. Yet many of the families who come to the U.S. seeking asylum are claiming they are fleeing areas dominated by these very gang members. I assume that some of these claimants are lying or exaggerating -- a behavior Trump is mighty familiar with -- but certainly many are being truthful. So if these gangs are as bad as Trump says they are, what's wrong with trying to get yourself & your children away from them? Isn't Trump aware that a gang victim is different from a gang member? Maybe not.

Finally, anybody who thinks that when John Kelly & Stephen Miller put their heads together, they're going to come up with sensible, compassionate, workable solutions to any problems -- much less ones in which they get to flex their racism & xenophobia -- has got another think coming.

[Marvin Schwalb]

The Maureen Dowd piece provides entry to the new reality. Radio, TV, internet. It used to be if you want to famous you had to perform in NY or LA. It was important that you looked good. Now all you need is a loud mouth. You pick a political position, you say something really bad and now your famous. Of course, to qualify as POTUS, you need have a non-political TV show proving you are totally unqualified for the job.

[PD Pepe]

"The present treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not understanding the peculiar psychology of a child’s nature. A child can understand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent or guardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by Society. It cannot realize what Society is. With grown people it is, of course, the reverse. Those of us who are either in prison or have been sent there, can understand, and do understand, what that collective force called Society means, and whatever we may think of its methods or claims, we can force ourselves to accept it. Punishment inflicted on us by an individual, on the other hand, is a thing that no grown person endures or is expected to endure...

The child consequently, being taken away from its parents by people whom it has never seen, and of whom it knows nothing, and finding itself in a lonely and unfamiliar cell, waited on by strange faces, and ordered about and punished by the representatives of a system that it cannot understand, becomes an immediate prey to the first and most prominent emotion produced by modern prison life–the emotion of terror."
Oscar Wilde––France, 1897

[Mrs. Bea McCrabbie]

@PD Pepe: Thanks for that. It might have been written this morning, not 120-some years ago.

[Patrick]

A useful Op-Ed by Anne Applebaum (who knows her oligarchic thugocracies) in today's WaPo, about how the Rooskis use "business opportunities" and "business contacts" to buy influence abroad. It shows how western politicians can be (are) corrupted by "legal" money. Its like the wingnut welfare system, but on a higher level and run out of the Kremlin.

[Bobby Lee]

Something I hadn't noticed until I saw it raised over on Crooks & Liars is that no one has reported on detention sites for girls who are separated from their parents at the border. Nothing on where or how they are being confined.

[Gloria]

Bobby Lee, I have had thoughts about girls, and young boys for that matter, being "detained". Especially as we now hear that children are not being returned to their deported parents.
Since e v e r y t h i n g they say is projection, I worry that there are child sex trafficking rings that they loved to talk about before the election. And Podesta and Clinton aren't running them.