;)
The Commentariat -- June 2, 2019
Afternoon Update:
Trump is visiting the U.K. His trip should go well:
... Allan Smith of NBC News: "... Donald Trump is insisting he did not call British royal Meghan Markle 'nasty' during an interview with a British publication. 'I never called Meghan Markle "nasty,'" Trump tweeted Sunday morning. 'Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will @CNN, @nytimes and others apologize? Doubt it!' But an audio recording of Trump's interview with The Sun -- which was tweeted out by a Trump campaign account -- tells a different story." Trump's Official War Room Twitter account tweeted out an audio in which Trump says "... No, I didn't know that she was nasty." accompanying a tweet that reads, "Fake News CNN is at it again, falsely claiming President Trump called Meghan Markle 'nasty.' Here is what he actually said. Listen for yourself!" "Trump's use of "nasty" harkens back to a moment during a 2016 presidential debate when he called his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a "nasty woman." Emphasis added....
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What is the matter with these people? They post an audio of Trump saying Markle is nasty & ask you to listen to it to prove to yourself that he didn't say what he says on the audio. We are a long way through the looking glass. We know Trump is a crazed liar. Has he made all his staff crazy? Or did they start that way? ...
... Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Handlers of the baby blimp that ridicules Donald Trump and thousands of police officers are preparing for the arrival of the U.S. president in London on Monday for a three-day state visit.... London Mayor Sadiq Khan ... has granted permission for the high-profile blimp to fly over London the second day of Trump's visit, according to the Times. The 20-foot-high blimp portrays Trump as a giant baby in a diaper, holding a cell phone and having a temper tantrum. In a scathing op-ed piece in The Observer that ran on Saturday, Khan lashed Trump for supporting white supremacists and called him 'the figurehead of a global far-right movement,' comparing him to 20th-century fascist leaders." (Khan's op-ed also linked below.)
Moving a Battleship to Spare Trump's "Feelings" Is "Not Unreasonable." Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "With the U.S. Navy confirming that a 'request was made' to 'minimize the visibility' of the USS John S. McCain ahead of President Trump's visit to Japan last month, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitted on Sunday that it was a member of the White House advance team that asked for the ship to be moved.... 'That's not an unreasonable thing to ask...,' Mulvaney said on Meet the Press. The White House official added that it's 'silly' to think someone would be fired over this, noting the president's feelings towards [deceased Sen. John] McCain are 'well known.'" Mulvaney suggested the advance person was 23 or 24 years old. ...
... Not Everyone Agrees, Mick. Lolita Baldor of the AP: "The Pentagon has told the White House to stop politicizing the military, amid a furor over a Trump administration order to have the Navy ship named for the late U.S. Sen. John McCain hidden from view during ... Donald Trump's recent visit to Japan.... A U.S. defense official said Patrick Shanahan, Trump's acting defense chief, is also considering sending out formal guidance to military units in order to avoid similar problems in the future.... Shanahan also said that he spoke with McCain's wife, Cindy, a few days ago. He declined to provide any details."
Donica Phifer of Newsweek: "... Rudy Giuliani, jokes about serving special counsel Robert Mueller with a $17 million lawsuit following Mueller's failure to come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice charges against Trump." Mrs. McC: Oh, ha ha. Why not sue your own client, Rudy, inasmuch as it was his criminal & suspicious behavior that necessitated an expensive inquiry. Oh, and why not mention that "the Mueller investigation actually made a profit for the federal government after Manafort was forced to forfeit over $46 million to the feds"? Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor, tweeted that Rudy's "joke" "should be added to the long list of reasons he should be disbarred."
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Ana Swanson, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump pushed ahead with plans to impose tariffs on Mexico over the objections of several top advisers, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner opting to side with hard-line officials who were advocating the move, according to multiple administration officials and people briefed on their plans. For several weeks, Mr. Trump's top economic advisers have been urging the president not to use tariffs to punish Mexico for failing to stop the flow of migrants into the United States. Mr. Kushner, along with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump's top trade negotiator, has warned the move would imperil the president's other priorities, like passage of a revised North American trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.... This week, as headlines about Mr. Trump's attempts to interfere in the special counsel's Russia investigation once again swirled, the president's irritation boiled over. In a meeting Wednesday night in the Oval Office, with Mr. Kushner dialing in from the Middle East, the president lost patience with aides he saw as slow-walking his request and decided tariffs would be going into effect. The idea of punishing Mexico with tariffs had several key proponents, including Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump's chief policy adviser and an immigration hard-liner. Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Peter Navarro, a trade adviser, had also argued that emergency powers gave the president broad authority to impose the tariffs." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not surprisingly, Mueller makes Trump even crazier than usual.
AP: "The State Department is now requiring nearly all applicants for U.S visas to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers. It's a vast expansion of the Trump administration's enhanced screening of potential immigrants and visitors. In a move that's just taken effect after approval of the revised application forms, the department says it has updated its immigrant and nonimmigrant visa forms to request the additional information, including 'social media identifiers,' from almost all U.S. applicants. The change, which was proposed in March 2018, is expected to affect about 15 million foreigners who apply for visas to enter the United States each year.... Social media, email and phone number histories had only been sought in the past from applicants who were identified for extra scrutiny, such as people who'd traveled to areas controlled by terrorist organizations. An estimated 65,000 applicants per year had fallen into that category."
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Maureen Dowd: "The twisty saga of Robert Mueller and Bill Barr is a case of an imperfect hero and a perfect villain.... Mueller is as elliptical as Barr is diabolical. The special counsel is clearly frustrated that we don't understand his reasoning. But his reasoning is nonsensical.... Mueller was trying to let himself off the hook by insisting that he couldn't reach a conclusion on the president's obstruction because he was bound by a Department of Justice opinion stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Plus, he layered on some extra 'principles of fairness.'... The ultimate straight arrow decided to remain agnostic even though his job did not require agnosticism. And that made him weirdly complicit in Barr's whitewashing of Trump.... Barr took the knife he had already stuck in his old friend and twisted it.... After indicating that Mueller was derelict and misguided, Barr went ahead and belittled him and his dream team as inept.... Mueller colored inside the lines and Barr seized the narrative. Rectitude was Mueller's Achilles' heel." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The ever-acerbic Dowd is right on here. Dowd mimics Barr by borrowing from Homer, and there is an epic element to the clash between two supposedly old friends who, as that sage of our times Yogi Berra might say, came to a fork in the road & took it. The fact that the fate of a once-great nation hinges upon the outcome of that clash makes the tale more than a study of conflict between two flawed characters Mueller, of course, is the more interesting character, because Barr has no apparent redeeming qualities. He fell off his pedestal early in th first act, and he himself claims to have no interest in trying to climb back up.
John Ziegler of Mediaite: "If you are going to take on a dastardly rule-breaker like Trump in an impeachment fight, you cannot do so shorthanded and in a timid manner. It is quite clear that we no longer remotely have the type of leadership our Founding Fathers counted on to courageously come through in challenging times like these. So, while philosophically I still strongly support Trump's impeachment, perhaps it is time that we accept the sad reality that we are just not the country we once were, and we are no longer capable of doing great or brave things, at least in the political realm. Maybe Trump should remain president, not because he deserves to, but because he is the president that our politically pathetic nation now deserves."
Also see pieces about Trump 's impending invasion of Great Britain linked under Way Beyond.
... ** The Attorney General of the United States Lies to the American People Every Chance He Gets. William Saletan of Slate: "Attorney General William Barr says he's trying to wrap up the Russia investigation with fairness and honesty.... But the 45-minute interview, from which CBS aired excerpts on Friday, is full of falsehoods and smears. It exposes Barr as an agent of ... Donald Trump." Saletan does a yeoman's job of identifying "the worst smears and falsehoods" in Barr's CBS news interview. See also Jonathan Chait's takedown of Barr's latest stop on his Fake Trump Exoneration Tour, linked yesterday.
Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Emmet T. Flood, the White House lawyer who oversaw the administration's response to the special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, will step down from the job this month, President Trump said on Saturday. The departure of Mr. Flood, who first rose to prominence when he defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment in the 1990s, was always expected. Though Mr. Trump had considered Mr. Flood for other positions in the administration -- including as White House counsel -- Mr. Flood had always made it clear he wanted his purview limited to the Mueller investigation. 'He has done an outstanding job -- NO COLLUSION - NO OBSTRUCTION! Case Closed!' Mr. Trump said on Twitter from his golf club in Sterling, Va. 'Emmet is my friend, and I thank him for the GREAT JOB he has done.' The president added that Mr. Flood would leave his post on June 14."
Paul Campos in LG&$: "I'm going to extend Alan Dershowitz the backhanded compliment of assuming he's not going senile, and that his recent advocacy is a product of unctuous groveling before his new master, rather than sudden severe cognitive decline. Dershowtiz's argument is that it's up to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to decide whether the House's passage of articles of impeachment warrants a trial of the president in the Senate[.]... He also argues that's it's up to the SCOTUS as a whole, after the Senate convicts an impeached president, to essentially take on the role of an appellate court in a criminal case[.]... This is all complete nonsense.... First..., the Supreme Court has explicitly dealt with the question of what sort of role it has in reviewing impeachment proceedings, and the answer is literally 'none.'... Even more outrageous is Dershowitz's assertion that Congress must prove the president is guilty of a crime to remove him via the impeachment process, and that the Supreme Court should and will review whether the conviction was warranted.... The Supreme Court has ruled specifically that it doesn't have anything remotely like the constitutional authority to do something like that, there's universal agreement among scholars that the constitutional phrase 'high crimes and misdemeanors' did not and does not mean only crimes in the statutory sense.... That Dershowitz has become a shameless hack is not exactly breaking news, but this is egregious even by his non-existent standards."
Max Burman & Courtney Kube of NBC News: "The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that a request was made to hide the USS John S. McCain during ... Donald Trump's recent state visit to Japan. '... however, all ships remained in their normal configuration during the President's visit,' Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, chief of information, said in a statement to NBC News. 'There were also no intentional efforts to explicitly exclude Sailors assigned to USS John S. McCain,' the statement said."
Presidential Race 2020. Fernanda Echavarri of Mother Jones: "Another high-profile Republican has said he will not challenge ... Donald Trump's reelection bid. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan posted on Twitter Saturday that he appreciated the encouragement he had received from people urging him to consider running in 2020. 'However,' he tweeted, 'I will not be a candidate.'... On Friday afternoon, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich suggested he would be unlikely to challenge Trump, even though 'all of my options are on the table.'... Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, the only major Republican politician currently challenging Trump, told CSPAN last week that he'd encouraged Horgan and Kasich to run."
Congressional Races 2020. Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "A move by House Democratic leaders to thwart party members from mounting primary challenges to incumbents, even in safe Democratic districts, could have the unintended consequence of arresting the party's shift toward a more female and racially diverse caucus, one of its most striking achievements of the last election. This past week, a Democratic political consultant with longstanding ties to the party's campaign committees quit a senior-partner position at the firm Deliver Strategies after it, like most dominant campaign outfits, agreed to comply with a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee policy barring it from conducting business with a primary opponent of a sitting Democrat." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the Democratic party acting like the Republican party: undemocratically & jealously guarding against "outsiders." Power corrupts.
Lynn Walsh of KPBS (San Diego): "Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said he probably killed 'hundreds of civilians' while serving as an artillery officer in Fallujah. His comments were made public Monday on the latest episode of the podcast 'Zero Blog Thirty.' 'I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians,' he said. 'Probably killed women and children if there were any left in the city when we invaded. So, do I get judged too?' Hunter recalled this story in response to a question about the actions of Navy SEAL Edward R. Gallagher who is on trial in San Diego accused of war crimes including shooting at civilians. Gallagher has pleaded not guilty. During the podcast, Hunter was asked specifically about one of the individuals Gallagher is accused of killing, a teenage ISIS fighter. According to prosecutors, the SEAL stabbed the teen who was brought in for medical treatment. 'I frankly don't care if he was killed,' Hunter said. 'I just don't care.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hunter seems determined to prove, again & again, that he's a low-life in every aspect of his being. We are convinced.
Tom Paxton wrote this song in (or before) 1964, so at least 55 years ago. Sadly, it's as relevant today as it was then:
... No, These Policemen Are Not Your Friends. Emily Hoerner & Rick Tulsky in BuzzFeed News: "Police officers saying bigoted and racist things online has been an issue since the beginning of social media.... A new review of police behavior on Facebook documents the systemic nature of the conduct across several departments. The Plain View Project, launched by Philadelphia lawyer Emily Baker-White, examined the accounts of about 2,900 officers from eight departments across the country and an additional 600 retired officers from those same departments. She compiled posts that represented troubling conduct in a database that is replete with racist imagery and memes, and in some cases long, vitriolic exchanges involving multiple officers.... Of the pages of officers whom the Plain View researchers could positively identify, about 1 in 5 of the current officers, and 2 in 5 of the retired officers, made public posts or comments ... displaying bias, applauding violence, scoffing at due process, or using dehumanizing language. The officers mocked Mexicans, women, and black people, celebrated the Confederate flag, and showed a man wearing a kaffiyeh scarf in the crosshairs of a gun."
Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "... the main reason that [Mitch] McConnell might push through a Republican nominee to the [Supreme] Court while blocking a Democratic choice is simple: because he can. There's another, less obvious reason that McConnell can game the Supreme Court confirmation process with impunity. The Republican Party has been far more invested in the future of the Supreme Court, and of the judiciary generally, than the Democratic Party has. Judicial appointments, especially to the Supreme Court, are a central pillar of the Republican agenda, and Republican voters will forgive any number of other transgressions if the Party delivers on the courts.... Consider what happened after McConnell blocked the [Merrick ]Garland nomination. After a few days of perfunctory outrage, most Democratic politicians dropped the issue.... [Each Web site] of three leading contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren ... has thousands of words outlining the candidates' positions on the issues -- and none of them mentions Supreme Court nominations, much less nominations for lower-court judges."
Caitlin O'Kane of CBS News: "Russian Twitter trolls have attempted to fuel the anti-vaccination debate in the U.S., posting about the issue far more than the average Twitter user last year, a study out of George Washington University has found. The 'sophisticated' bots shared opinions from both sides of the anti-vaxxer debate, which took the U.S. by storm and prompted tech companies to crack down on the spread of misinformation surrounding vaccinations.... The U.S. is in the midst of the worst measles outbreak in the country in 25 years.... According to Axios..., Russia is focusing on spreading misinformation around health care issues ahead of the 2020 election." --s
Axios: "Of top 10 global carbon emitters, not a single one is hitting its climate goals as outlined under the Paris Agreement, per data from the Climate Action Tracker." --s
Jack Nicas, et al., of the New York Times: "The fatal flaws with Boeing's 737 Max can be traced to a breakdown late in the plane's development, when test pilots, engineers and regulators were left in the dark about a fundamental overhaul to an automated system that would ultimately play a role in two crashes. A year before the plane was finished, Boeing made the system more aggressive and riskier. While the original version relied on data from at least two types of sensors, the ultimate used just one, leaving the system without a critical safeguard. In both doomed flights, pilots struggled as a single damaged sensor sent the planes into irrecoverable nose-dives within minutes, killing 346 people and prompting regulators around the world to ground the Max. But many people involved in building, testing and approving the system, known as MCAS, said they hadn't fully understood the changes."
Beyond the Beltway
Texas. Dylan McGinness of MySA: "Outrage over Texas' voter ID law was reignited in San Antonio on Thursday after the city's 97-year-old former mayor was turned away from a polling site for lack of identification. Lila Cockrell was one of more than 12,000 people who flocked to the polls Wednesday to vote in San Antonio's mayoral runoffs, but she didn't get to cast a ballot when she couldn't present an authorized form of ID.... Jacque Callanen, the elections administrator in Bexar County, said the incident was unfortunate, but officials don't have the same discretion they had in the past.... Texas' controversial voter ID law, first passed in 2011 and then amended after a federal court declared it unlawful, requires residents to bring one of seven forms of identification to the polls. Acceptable forms include a Texas driver's license, passport and Texas Department of Public Safety-issued personal identification card.... Cockrell said she brought her voter registration card to the early voting polling site Wednesday but did not have an ID."
Virginia. GOP Aided & Abetted Virginia Beach Mass Murderer. Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "A state bill seeking to ban sales of large-capacity magazines similar to those used by the >Virginia Beach gunman was rejected in committee in a GOP party-line vote in January, The Washington Post first reported Saturday.... The move against the bill, SB1748, received little public attention because it was seen as a foregone conclusion, according to the Post.... University of Virginia School of Law communications director Mike Fox tweeted a series of gun control bills the GOP had blocked. Gun Violence Prevention Caucus co-chair Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who sponsored SB1748, told the Post a big reason for the bills' failure was 'the political influence of gun rights organizations.'"
Way Beyond
Congo. Axios: "The world's second-largest Ebola outbreak on record is underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.... [T]he longer this Ebola outbreak continues, the greater the likelihood it will spread to other highly populated areas within the country, move to neighboring countries or even internationally." --s
U.K. Aamna Mohdin of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has backed Boris Johnson to be the next prime minister, in an interview with the Sun in which he also described Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, as 'nasty' [over comments she made in 2016 threatening to move to Canada if Trump won the presidency.]... During the state visit, the president, his wife, Melania, and his four adult children are expected to meet Prince Harry as well as Prince William and his wife, Kate. Meghan is expected to stay home with Archie." --s ..
... ** Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in the Observer: "[T]he president of the United States of America ... is a man who tried to exploit Londoners' fears following a horrific terrorist attack on our city, amplified the tweets of a British far-right racist group, denounced as fake news robust scientific evidence warning of the dangers of climate change, and is now trying to interfere shamelessly in the Conservative party leadership race by backing Boris Johnson.... Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world..., using the same divisive tropes of the fascists of the 20th century to garner support, but are using new sinister methods to deliver their message.... They are intentionally pitting their own citizens against one another, regardless of the horrific impact in our communities.... That's why it's so un-British to be rolling out the red carpet this week[.]" Read on. --s
News Lede
New York Times: "Leah Chase, the nation's pre-eminent Creole chef..., died on Saturday at her son’s home near her restaurant in New Orleans, her daughter Stella Reese Chase said. She was 96." An obituary definitely worth the read.
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"History teaches us of the danger of being afraid to speak truth to power and the risk of failing to defend our values from the rise of the far right. At this challenging time in global politics, it’s more important than ever that we remember that lesson."
Sadiq Khan: mayor of London
Dowd's piece about Barr and the Baby has the literary twist of an epic tale of a nation's collapse due to Power's corruptive influence. Curious how we can make these connections in all sorts of ways or as Alice often said, "Things are getting curiouser and curiouser," and we, here, are drowning in its putrid waters.
It's Sunday. Saw the Aretha Franklin "Amazing Grace" movie last night and woke this morning still awestruck at what she could do with her magnificent voice, whether in the service of the gospel or not.
All I can do is write letters to the editor.
"It’s a tough time for sanity.
Last fall a Pennsylvania school board endured a presentation from a lady who believes the earth is flat and the school’s science curriculum should acknowledge that “fact."
Today I see Mr. Trump intends to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Arthur Laffer, the originator of the Laffer Curve which “proved” that any marginal tax rate above thirty-three percent would actually decrease government revenue, a nonsensical notion scribbled on the back of a napkin long since debunked (https://whistlinginthewind.org). Mr. Trump will present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to an economic flat-earther.
But nonsense is a Trump specialty. His tariff talk, back in the headlines because of his threat to impose tariffs on Mexico if they don’t keep those brown people on their side of the border, makes as little sense. "Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China.” he says, but in fact China is not paying. Tariffs are paid by importers, who in turn raise their prices to consumers. Americans, not China, pay for Trump’s tariff wars (politifact.com).
Trump also gleefully perpetuates one of abortion foes’ all-time hits about fetuses being “ripped from their mother’s womb up until the moment of birth.” Sure enough, it’s a disturbingly bloody picture, but it’s also a bloody lie (time.com).
But such silliness is Trump’s stock in trade. Want facts about the health risks associated with air pollution? Don’t ask the Trump administration, which is busily “recalculating” pollution risks to make them seem somehow “safer” (weather.com).
How about the Mueller report, which documented 251 contacts between Russians and Trump’s team (themoscowproject.com). “No collusion.” Maybe. But certainly not for want of trying.
Newspapers used to call the late summer months of July and August the “silly season.”
With Trump in office silly season is year-round."
@Ken: I once read an article written by a "flat earther" claiming
that they had members around the globe. Probably a trumpbot.
@forrest.morris: Hahahahaha. You can buy a T-shirt that says, "The Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe."
Elon Musk wondered on Twitter why there isn't a Flat Mars Society. The Flat Earth Society answered, "Unlike the Earth, Mars has been observed to be round."
I am back from vacation and finding to my consternation that Dumpster Don is still with us...haha. Unfortunately, I did hear most of what transpired last week, except that I didn't know the monster was now gunning for Meghan before his trip across the pond. Is there anyone on earth as petty? My daughter and I were disheartened to see several large boats moored in the NC harbor sporting huge blue TRUMP 2020 flags at the tips of their masts, and quite a few pickup trucks with those words on their bumpers and windows. Can't escape it. But it WAS the no-longer-newly-insane NC...
The other new thing today was the frightening sight of a protester ripping the mic from Kamala Harris' hands and no security in sight--I think he was an animal rights person, but what if he had been a mad trumpist intent on harming a Democrat or Democrats, whom, as we all know, are satanic atheistic beatnik bastards that need to be wiped from the face of the earth?
I have also been reading some strange opinions here and there (none specific enough to quote or give sources--) about impeaching or not impeaching-- if the House Dems don't do it now, hang the fact that the Senate will not, the chance will be lost. And I don't have any confidence that the Dems will do that right any more than they have anything else. ugh. This is all so discouraging. How'd the Little Moron (ha-- remember those jokes when we were kids?) get so lucky in his AG that we detest him even more than Jeff Sessions?? And I am angrier at Mueller now, too-- He WAS a wimp.
I applaud those of you organizing things for us to read-- Marie, PD, AK, safari et al-- you guys rock...
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