;)
The Commentariat -- March 10, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Kelly Takes Cabinet Members to the Woodshed. Cristina Alesci of CNN: "The White House held private meetings with four Cabinet-level officials last month to scold them for embarrassing stories about questionable ethical behavior at their respective agencies, sources familiar with the sessions tell CNN.... Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt all met with officials from the White House counsel's office and the Cabinet liaison. The meetings, held at chief of staff John Kelly's request, were intended to provide 'a clear message that optics matter,' the sources said. The White House gave the agencies a set of guidelines in a document titled 'creating a culture of compliance,' according to portions of the document obtained by CNN." ...
... Lisa Friedman & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has killed an effort by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency [Scott Pruitt] to stage public debates challenging climate change science, according to three people familiar with the deliberations, thwarting a plan that had intrigued President Trump even as it set off alarm bells among his top advisers.... At a mid-December meeting set up by Mr. Kelly's deputy, Rick Dearborn, to discuss the plan, Mr. Dearborn made it clear that his boss considered the idea 'dead,' and not to be discussed further.... 'The chief doesn't want it,' Mr. Dearborn said, referring to the White House chief of staff, according to one person who attended. E.P.A. officials were taken aback, the person said. While the words 'climate change' have been removed from many federal websites, and Mr. Trump has mocked global warming in tweets, the administration has stopped short of using the power of the federal government to attack the science."
*****
He can't even make a deal with a porn star. -- Mika Brzezinski, on Trump's negotiating skills, yesterday ...
... Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The White House on Friday sent confusing messages about the prospects for a historic meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, raising questions about a summit announced less than 24 hours earlier. White House officials insisted that nothing had changed since Trump said he had accepted an invitation from Kim. But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared to lay out new conditions, demanding 'concrete, verifiable'' actions from Pyongyang.... The remarks left it unclear whether the White House was restating the terms of the meeting, with even the timing of talks appearing to be up in the air. The White House insistence on concrete actions appeared to be a response to criticism that Trump accepted Kim's invitation too quickly, without extracting enough concessions beforehand." Mrs. McC: This report was posted at about 7:30 pm Friday. ...
... "Muddled Message." Mark Landler of the New York Times: "A day after President Trump accepted an invitation to meet Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the White House began planning on Friday a high-level diplomatic encounter so risky and seemingly far-fetched that some of Mr. Trump's aides believe it will never happen. The administration is already deliberating over the logistics and location of the meeting.... Administration officials later clarified that Ms. Sanders was not adding new preconditions to the meeting.... The White House's muddled message underscored the confusion sowed by Mr. Trump's on-the-spot decision on Thursday to meet Mr. Kim." Mrs. McC: This report was posted in the early evening. ...
... Moving the Goal Posts. Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "President Trump will insist on 'concrete, verifiable actions' from North Korea before holding a promised summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House said Friday, adding conditions and a note of skepticism to the buoyant mood that surrounded the surprise announcement the night before. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeated the insistence on 'concrete, verifiable' steps several times, and asserted that the United States had given up no leverage in agreeing to hold the unprecedented meeting." Mrs. McC: This report was posted in the late afternoon Friday. ...
... Winging It. Paul Sonne & John Hudson of the Washington Post: "President Trump's high-wire gambit to accept a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sets off a scramble among U.S. officials to assemble a team capable of supporting a historic summit of longtime adversaries and determine a viable engagement strategy. State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, were playing down the immediacy of talks in the hours before the White House rolled out the South Korean national security adviser, who made the surprise announcement that Trump would meet with Kim. The apparent lack of coordination marked a pattern of mixed messaging that has characterized the Trump administration's North Korea diplomacy since Pyongyang launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile last year, sparking the Trump White House's biggest national security crisis to date. Now the White House has committed to an unprecedented meeting at a time when the administration lacks a fully staffed cadre of diplomats and advisers." ...
... Michael Gordon, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "Inside the Oval Office late Thursday..., Donald Trump interrupted a trio of South Korean officials as they analyzed an offer to meet from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and outlined possible diplomatic options. 'OK, OK,' Mr. Trump said, cutting short the discussion. 'Tell them I'll do it.' The South Korean officials looked at each other as if in disbelief, according to a White House official with knowledge of the meeting...." Mrs. McC: The link above is useless unless you have a WSJ subscription, but I was able to read the entire article by Googling a portion of the lede between quotation marks. This works sometimes. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So the bottom line is that, for all the research the South Koreans might have done on Trump, they didn't read the news reports that Donald Trump can't sit through a briefing. And that is why he changed decades of U.S. policy. Feeling safer? ...
... Trumpity-Doo-Dah. "I Alone Can Fix It." Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Shocking and yet somehow not surprising, Mr. Trump's decision to do what no other sitting president has done and meet in person with a North Korean leader reflects an audacious and supremely self-confident approach to international affairs. Whether it is Middle East peace or trade agreements, Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he can achieve what has eluded every other occupant of his office through the force of his own personality. So far, he has little to show for that." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Yesterday, some of us posted predictions in the Comments section on how a Trump-Kim meeting might go. (Periscrope posted one that's actually plausible.) Here's digby's prediction: "Trump will normalize Kim as another one of his favorite strongmen because he 'wants to meet him' and he'll go around talking about how he's a good guy at heart with whom we can deal. Just like Xi. Just like Putin. Just like Duterte. He is telling people everywhere that the strongmen are the good guys --- because they play him like a fiddle. The right wing Daily Caller is now running apologias by Russian oligarchs with strong ties to Vladimir Putin. [Mrs. McC: Yeah, the Daily Crapper published an opinion piece yesterday by Paul Manafort creditor & oligarch Oleg Deripaska.] They are being portrayed as good guys who are being persecuted by the left.... Saddam and Khaddafi both gave up their [nuclear programs] and look what happened. He can hear that Trump and the Republicans want to tear up the Iran deal. So, why would he trust any US president, much less Donald Trump not to overthrow him if he gives up his leverage?"
"I Alone." Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Even before he decided to launch a trade war and roll the nuclear dice by agreeing in the course of a West Wing afternoon to a risky sit-down with Kim Jong Un, Donald Trump was telling friends he was tired of being reined in. 'I'm doing great, but I'm getting all these bad headlines,' Trump told a friend recently. A Republican in frequent contact with the White House told me Trump is 'frustrated by all these people telling him what to do.'... Trump has diagnosed the problem as having the wrong team around him and is looking to replace his senior staff in the coming weeks.... Sources said that the first officials to go will be Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, both of whom Trump has clashed with for months. On Tuesday, Trump met with John Bolton in the Oval Office. When he plans to visit Mar-a-Lago next weekend, Trump is expected to interview more candidates for both positions, according to two sources.... Next on the departure list are Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Both have been sidelined without top-secret security clearances by Kelly, and sources expect them to be leaving at some point in the near future." ...
... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "I am still undecided about how much weight to give Gabriel Sherman's reporting. He relies so much on unnamed sources that I find myself doubting that all his quotes are real. On the other hand, he does seem to have a gift for cultivating sources in right-wing circles.... The basic gist of [Sherman's report linked above] is that Trump has become convinced that he needs to stop listening to moderating and controlling voices and get back to the rhetoric and policies he was advocating on the campaign.... Say what you want about [Trump's] record so far, it would be far worse if people had simply followed his instincts and directives." ...
... David Smith of the Guardian: "There has never been such a rapid turnover of personnel in a US administration in modern times. If anything, the stampede to the exits appears to be accelerating, raising fears of a 'brain drain' that will leave key jobs unfilled and make it ever harder to recruit new talent. 'One of the problems here is the White House is getting hollowed out and the number of people capable of doing things, of doing real things whether you agree or disagree ideologically, is getting smaller and smaller,' Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, told reporters. 'So the mess-ups we've seen this past week, I think we're going to see over and over and over again.' Trump, who spent a decade as host of The Apprentice, has enjoyed pulling back the curtain to allow White House meetings to be televised. But he also appears to be copying the reality TV format of eliminating a member of his administration or cabinet on a weekly basis, leaving the audience in suspense: who's next?"
... Yes, But Trump Is Consulting with All the Right People. Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "On Monday night..., Donald Trump ... was joined for dinner in the White House residence by Fox News personalities, including host Jesse Watters and [Sebastian] Gorka.... According to a White House official and two other sources familiar with the meeting, President Trump invited Gorka and Watters because 'he couldn't get enough of them on TV,' as one source put it, and wanted to confab with them about what he'd seen on Fox News, politics, gossip, and his administration." ...
MEANWHILE, Everything Is Going So Smoothly. Annie Karni & Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "... the search to take over [Hope Hicks'] job has become something an internal free-for-all, with aides campaigning for the job, Trump soliciting advice directly from Hicks about who should take over when she's gone, and chief of staff John Kelly trying to broaden the search to include some outside candidates. The top candidates emerging from inside the White House, multiple officials said, are director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration who has become a Kelly ally in his battle against ... Jared Kushner; and Tony Sayegh, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Treasury Department."
The President & the Porn Star
Matthew Mosk & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "... Donald Trump has added yet another lawyer in his outside legal team -- New York attorney Lawrence S. Rosen, multiple sources tell ABC News. Rosen has been brought in by Trump's longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to handle the legal issues surrounding the so-called 'hush' agreement that Cohen negotiated with the adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels.... Rosen, a partner in the firm LaRocca, Hornick, Rosen, Greenberg & Blaha, is a 'pit bull' who will 'aggressively fight and use his rhetorical and writing skills to get you a win,' according to the firm's website." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Tom Llamas, et al., of ABC News: "When asked where the $130,000 sent to Daniels' attorney came from, Cohen told ABC News 'the funds were taken from my home equity line and transferred internally to my LLC account in the same bank.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Say what? Would you jeopardize ownership of your own home to make a secret hush-money payment for a guy who notoriously defaults on his known debts? I didn't think so.
... The E-Mails! Sarah Fitzgerald & Tracy Connor of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's personal attorney used his Trump Organization email while arranging to transfer money into an account at a Manhattan bank before he wired $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence. The lawyer, Michael Cohen, also regularly used the same email account during 2016 negotiations with the actress -- whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford -- before she signed a nondisclosure agreement, a source familiar with the discussions told NBC News. And Clifford's attorney at the time addressed correspondence to Cohen in his capacity at the Trump Organization and as 'Special Counsel to Donald J. Trump,' the source said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "That means that federal election law was almost certainly violated.... [According to an assertion in Daniel's lawsuit against Trump,] hearing that she might tell her story, too, Trump 'sought to silence' her, 'thus helping to ensure he won the Presidential Election.' Those two things together -- that a Trump Organization email address was used to facilitate the payment and that the payment was linked to the campaign -- would constitute a legal violation.... Paying someone to be quiet so they do not damage a political effort is an in-kind contribution to that campaign, covering a cost meant to aid efforts to win the election."
... It's the Cover-up. Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... the Daniels story is germane to the overriding scandal of the Trump administration, the one involving Trump's relationship with Russia. Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who compiled an infamous dossier of opposition research on Trump, wrote that Russia could blackmail Trump with evidence of his 'sexual perversion.' Nothing we know of Daniels confirms the dossier's outré claims about what such perversion entailed. The [nondiscloser agreement] does, however, show that Trump was susceptible to blackmail.... The scandal will lie less in the details of Trump's degeneracy than in the steps he and his lawyers took to cover it up." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
This Russia Thing, Ctd.
Noor Al-Sibai of the Raw Story: "Lawyers representing ... Donald Trump are seeking a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller to end his investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and obstruction of justice for the firing of ex-FBI director James Comey. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump's lawyers may negotiate a meeting between the president and the special counsel 'as leverage to spur a conclusion to the Russia investigation.' According to a source close to the investigation who spoke with the Journal, the president's legal team is considering potentially using a sit-down meeting with Mueller in exchange for a number of factors, 'including that the special counsel commit to a date for concluding at least the Trump-related portion of the investigation.' One deadline they floated was 60 days after said meeting, the source told the Journal." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: As you might suspect, several teevee pundits have explained that this is not the kind of deal a special counsel is likely to make with the principal target of his investigation.
Josh Gerstein & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg, who threatened earlier this week to defy a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller, showed up Friday morning at the federal courthouse in Washington, where he appeared set to answer prosecutors' questions in the ongoing probe of alleged collusion between Trump aides and Russia." (Also linked yesterday.)
Shane Harris, et al., of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump was so eager to have Vladimir Putin attend the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow that he wrote a personal letter to the Russian president inviting him to the event, according to multiple people familiar with the document. At the bottom of the typed letter, Trump scrawled a postscript adding that he looked forward to seeing 'beautiful' women during his trip.... The letter, the first known attempt at direct outreach by Trump to Putin, has been turned over to investigators probing Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign."
Mother Jones publishes "the second of two excerpts adapted from Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump..., by Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, and David Corn, Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones. The book will be released on March 13." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ben Protess & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "Travelers trying to book a stay at the Trump International Hotel & Tower Panama on Thursday found no rooms available on TrumpHotels.com. But the website for the Bahia Grand Panama had several luxurious options, at the very same oceanfront hotel. The dueling websites ... are the latest twist in the oft-bizarre battle between President Trump's family business and the majority owner of the Panama City property, who has spent months trying to oust the Trumps as both the managers and the branders of the hotel.... By Thursday, a statement was released that said the hotel had a new name, Bahia Grand Panama; a new website; and even new social media accounts. The statement ... declared, 'As of today, the former Trump International Hotel & Tower Panama is no longer managed by or affiliated with Trump brand.' Don't tell that to the Trumps, who continue to make their case in various legal venues. In a statement, the Trump Organization's chief legal officer, Alan Garten, noted that the management contract 'mandates that all disputes be resolved through binding arbitration' and that 'Trump Hotels has filed a $50 million lawsuit against Mr. Fintiklis,' [the majority owner.]" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Say, maybe the U.S. ambassador to Panama could step in & clear all this up. You know, try some diplomacy. Oh, wait ...
... Joshua Partlow & Carol Morello of the Washington Post: John Feeley, the (now former) U.S. Ambassador to Panama, "flew home from Panama on Friday, capping almost three decades as a diplomat under Republican and Democratic administrations. In the past year, he said, he realized he was working for a president whose policies and tone he could no longer promote or even explain.... With Feeley's departure, however, the department loses one of its leading Latin Americanists. And because of the leaked resignation letter, he has come to symbolize a string of diplomats who have left their posts saying they feel marginalized and unwilling to represent an administration whose values they reject." ...
... John Feeley in a Washington Post op-ed: "Shortly after the Charlottesville riots last August, I made the private decision to step down as President Trump's personal representative and ambassador to the government of Panama. I resigned because the traditional core values of the United States, as manifested in the president's National Security Strategy and his foreign policies, have been warped and betrayed. I could no longer represent him personally and remain faithful to my beliefs about what makes America truly great. The amateurish promulgation of a country-specific travel ban, the push to build a 'big, beautiful wall' and to expel the 'dreamers' beyond it, the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the belligerent renegotiating of the North American Free Trade Agreement and counterproductive steel and aluminum tariffs are all making the United States weaker and less prosperous. America is undoubtedly less welcome in the world today, as the president pursues a unilateral and isolationist path."
Dana Milbank: "The steel industry, shedding workers, shutting plants and bleeding red ink, pleaded with the federal government for tariffs on imports. As the government obliged, a young reporter on the steel beat for the Wall Street Journal cautioned that tariffs could 'ultimately do the industry more harm than good' because the real threat to big steel wasn't foreign competition but changing technology. That was 1992. The administration that imposed the trade barriers was George H.W. Bush's. And the young steel reporter was me. Twenty-six years later, what's old is new again. The industry's fortunes have waxed and waned with the economy and the price of steel. Trade protections came and went. But steel jobs continue to vanish. That's because the job loss has almost nothing to do with imports."
How to Get a Presidential Pardon. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "A former Navy sailor who pleaded guilty to a felony count of unauthorized possession and retention of national defense information for snapping photos on a nuclear attack submarine has received a pardon from ... Donald Trump -- and his attorney says Fox News deserves the credit. The legal team for Kristian Saucier compared his case to the handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. That grabbed Trump's interest, and it's now paid off in the form of a presidential pardon, announced Friday. Last week, Saucier appeared on 'Fox & Friends,' a program that the president records and watches during his morning 'executive time.'... In 2016, shortly after then-FBI Director James Comey announced the results of the Clinton email investigation, Saucier's legal team began comparing the submariner's case to Clinton's. The Justice Department responded that Saucier was 'grasping at highly imaginative and speculative straws.'..." ...
... Mrs. McC: So, (1) commit a potentially treasonous act. (2) Get convicted. (3) Appear on "Fox & Friends." (4) Contrast your "unfair" conviction with Hillary Clinton's exoneration. (5) Check mailbox for letter stamped with presidential seal. Piece o' cake.
Trump Loves a Parade. Ryan Browne of CNN: "... Donald Trump will get his military parade, but it is unlikely to mirror the Paris Bastille Day event which inspired him as it will not involve any heavy military vehicles like tanks to avoid doing damage to the streets of Washington, according to a Pentagon planning memo shown to CNN.... The memo says the parade will integrate with the annual DC Veterans Day parade and focus on the contributions of US veterans from the Revolutionary War to today 'with an emphasis on the price of freedom.'... It will, however, involve 'a heavy air component' with military aircraft flying overhead at the end of parade, including older aircraft 'as available,' the memo said.... The parade route will run from the White House to the Capitol, with the memo saying that veterans and Medal of Honor recipients will surround Trump in the reviewing area of the Capitol during the event."
John Bowden of the Hill: "Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) joined several other Democrats on Friday demanding information from two companies on their business dealings with President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In two letters obtained by Politico, the Massachusetts Democrat, alongside Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), called for Citigroup and Apollo Global Management to release details of loans they provided Kushner Companies after meeting with Kushner in the White House." ...
... Bess Levin of Vanity Fair: "Luckily for Kushner, the requests will probably go as far as those sent last summer by Representative Maxine Waters to Deutsche Bank asking for information about the president's finances -- which is to say, nowhere. While a subpoena would likely get people talking, Warren would need to have the cooperation of her Republican colleagues, who apparently believe it's Kushner (and the Trump family)'s God-given right to profit off the presidency." Mrs. McC: Here's Levin's intro graf, which is mighty fine:
Earlier this month, we learned that Jared Kushner's family just happened to receive a pair of nine-figure loans shortly after the First Son-in-Law met with the lenders' executives at the White House. It wasn't a great look, particularly as it came on the heels of news that Ivanka's husband had supported a blockade of Qatar just weeks after his father unsuccessfully attempted to get the country's finance minister to invest in Kushner Cos' doomed Midtown tower, and that at least four countries had discussed ways to take advantage of Kushner's massive financial debts and political inexperience. In fact, one might get the sense that young Jared, who has held few jobs that were not given to him by his father or his father-in-law, has no business working in the White House, where he's accomplished approximately none of the goals he set out to tick off last year. And while we would never suggest the only thing Kushner appears qualified to do in the West Wing is use his position to improve his family's financial situation, Senator Elizabeth Warren isn't so sure!
"Inadequate." Cameron Joseph of TPM: The White House blew off Rep. Trey Gowdy's (R-S.C.) request for info from the White House on the reason Rob Porter was allowed to stay on the job without any chance he would receive a permanent security clearance. Gowdy's staff on the House Intelligence Committee replied, "The Chairman finds the White House's response inadequate, and we have communicated to the White House that we expect full compliance." Gowdy's follow-up "falls far short of Democrats’ demands that he subpoena the information the White House is refusing to provide, as well as call in White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and White House Counsel Don McGahn to explain what they knew and when."
In this segment, Rachel Maddow demonstrates just how corrupt the Republican party is, from Trump on down:
Congressional Race. James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "If Republican congressional candidate Rick Saccone wins an unexpectedly close special election [in Pittsburgh] next Tuesday, it will be onDonald Trump's coattails.... This race should be a gimme for the GOP. Democrats didn't even bother to field a candidate in 2016 or 2014. But public and private polls show the contest in the 18th district is now a toss-up, even after Republicans have poured in more than $10 million -- about five times what Democrats have spent.... The White House is sending the cavalry.... White House officials have said over the past week that they think the new tariffs could help tip the race their way." Mrs. McC: Thanks, Capt Russ! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Gail Collins: "Last week, as the [Pennsylvania] race got tighter and tighter, Trump suddenly announced he was imposing a ginormous tariff on imported steel and aluminum, triggering the resignation of his chief economic adviser and something as close to a rebellion as you could imagine among the little weenies who make up the Republican members of Congress. Do you think it could possibly have all been for western Pennsylvania? Duh." Mrs. McC: If you'd like to know something about the candidates, Collins does a better job than do "real reporters." ...
... BUT Collins doesn't mention this. Benjamin Haas & Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "A television advertisement features moody shots of a missile launch and goose-stepping North Korean soldiers -- and [GOP candidate Rick] Saccone's claim that his career as 'a diplomat in North Korea' makes him uniquely placed to deal with the looming crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear programme. Saccone's campaign website says that he 'spent one year on a diplomatic mission in North Korea' and describes him as 'the only United States citizen living in North Korea that negotiated with the North Korean regime on a daily basis'. But the four-term state legislator may be overstating his role. According to former colleagues, although Saccone is one of the few Americans to have dealt with North Korean officials, he was not a diplomat, and was not engaged in traditional diplomacy."
Paul LaMonica of CNN: "Bankrupt retailer Toys 'R' Us may shut all its US stores as soon as next week, according to several reports. That's terrible news for the two biggest publicly traded toy companies. Investors are clearly preparing for the worst. Shares of Hasbro ... fell 3.5% Friday morning while Mattel ... plunged 7%.... Toys 'R' Us is the last megastore dedicated to toys. Without it, toymakers will struggle to promote anything but their most popular items." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McC: LaMonica lists several reasons for the Toys 'R' Us failure, but he didn't think of this one: the U.S. has an aging population & low birth rate: the market for toys is shrinking. (Also, too, as inequality increases under GOP tax policies, people can't afford to buy so many toys for the kiddies.) However could we get some more kids into the population? Say, how about young immigrants??? So thanks, GOP!
Stephanie Clifford (no, not likely that Stephanie Clifford) of the New York Times: "Martin Shkreli, a former pharmaceutical executive notorious for sharply increasing drug prices, mounting sneering defenses of his actions and even issuing a bounty for one of Hillary Clinton's hairs, was sentenced on Friday to seven years in prison after being convicted of fraud last year.... Mr. Shkreli, 34, is best known for raising the price of a drug, Daraprim, by 5,000 percent in a move that was widely condemned by the public and politicians. His fraud convictions were unrelated to that episode, stemming instead from his involvement with Retrophin, a pharmaceutical company he founded in 2011, and two hedge funds he ran. In August, a jury convicted Mr. Shkreli, nicknamed Pharma Bro, on three of eight counts, concluding that he had lied to investors about, among other things, how the hedge funds were managed, what they invested in and how much money they had. The jury found that he had also secretly controlled a huge number of Retrophin shares."
Beyond the Beltway
Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "On Friday, in a dramatic turnaround in one of the most gun-friendly states in America, Gov. Rick Scott signed into law an array of gun limits that included raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21 and extending the waiting period to three days. It was the most aggressive action on gun control taken in the state in decades and the first time Mr. Scott, who had an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association, had broken so significantly from the group." ...
... Jeffrey Schweers of the Tallahassee Democrat: "The National Rifle Association sued in federal court Friday to block a new Florida law, just signed by Gov. Rick Scott, that prohibits gun sales to anyone under 21. 'We filed a lawsuit against the state for violating the constitutional rights of 18- to 21-year-olds,' said Marion Hammer, lobbyist for the NRA in Florida."
I think weapons are too easy to get. Is the price worth it? -- Michael Berg of Yountville ...
... Napa Valley Register: "The all-day standoff between a lone gunman with three hostages at the Veterans Home of California [in Yountville, California,] wrapped up Friday evening, with Bay Area news media reporting shortly before 7:30 p.m. that all are dead. Shortly after 6 p.m., police, fire and medical units began withdrawing from the scene and a robot sent into the building holding the gunman was also pulled out.... A task force of law enforcement agencies descended on the Yountville facility after an armed man with a rifle burst into a farewell party at The Pathway Home, a nonprofit on the Vets Home grounds, and took three staff members hostage while releasing others, law enforcement said. The suspect, who exchanged gunfire with the first Napa County Sheriff's deputies to arrive, is believed to have been a former member of The Pathway Home, a privately run program for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with emotional traumas.... Early reports said the man, 36 years old, had been discharged from the treatment program two weeks ago."
Way Beyond
Ellen Barry of the New York Times: "British authorities investigating the poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughter visited the graves of Mr. Skripal's wife and son in the cathedral town of Salisbury, England, on Friday. Mr. Skripal's wife, Lyudmila, 59, died in 2012 of uterine cancer, according to records from the National Health Service. His son Alexander, 43, died last year. The authorities did not provide details, saying only that they had not exhumed any bodies, but the forensic activities at the London Road Cemetery intensified speculation about the poisonings."
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Reader Comments (11)
Ms. Hammer and the rest of the NRA brass are showing "flop sweat". As President Lincoln remarked; You can't fool all of the people, all of the time."
This post is for all you Realitychex'rs who think you will sleep better when bump-stocks for AR-15s are banned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lREcqc_FxLk
To be serious you really need to ban ALL semi and full auto weapons. Don't give American genius a tool to 'improve'
Cowichan,
I don’t know of anyone who thinks banning bump stocks is the answer. Bump stocks are a problem but they’re not actual guns. A ban on bump stocks would be a very miniscule first step, rather like an aspirin for lung cancer.
Besides, the main problem isn’t automatic or semi-automatic weapons. They are often involved in the more grisly murders involving many people and therefore receive a lot of attention. But they account for only a small percentage of gun violence in this country, the vast majority of which comes from the enormous cache of handguns floating around. Those who claim that gun control wont do anything about all the weapons already out there are largely correct. What we can do is make sure millions more don’t get into the system.
A bump stock ban is a tiny part of the answer. No one thinks it will make anyone sleep better, but the fact that the NRA controlled congress and the coward in the White House refuse even that microscopic step tells us all we need to know about their commitment to keeping everyone up at night.
The US-North Korea “summit” is already a clusterfuck and we’ve only gotten to the “Hello, Mr. President, President Kim is on the phone” part. This guy could fuck up a free ice cream cone.
First, he’d have to claim that Trump Brand ice cream must be used, because BEST, of course. Next, he’d insist that the cone be imported from Russia because American cones were secretly owned by Hillary Clinton. But the Russian cones are all contaminated with nerve agents and the Trump Brand ice cream is full of dangerous bacteria because his “factory” got a special waiver from the FDA allowing him to manufacture the stuff without any health regulations attached to the process. Finally it would come out later, after his “free ice cream cone” victims were all dead or dying, that they weren’t free after all because he had given himself an obscenely enormous tax break for Making Ice Cream Great Again.
Here's an exchange (with video) re: the N.Korean issue with Michael Pillsbury of the Hudson Institute who has been advising the Trump administration (really? How's that going?) and Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts U. Notice the difference in tone and delivery between these two–-my bet would be to lean into Lee's messages. He had a lot more to say but Judy cut him off–-politely, of course–-said "we have only a little time left" yet let Pillsbury finish with a flourish–-Sung-yoon looked stung.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/will-potential-u-s-north-korea-talks-lead-anywhere
If, as Pillsbury hopes, Trump would get a Nobel Prize for a successful outcome, I'm going to once again believe in fairy tales as I once did when I was wee. And I'm wondering here what has happened to DACA and gun control––two biggies that HE said would be dealt with–-"You people come up with a bill and I'll sign it." This week it was trade, suddenly it has become the summit with "little Rocket Man" and hovering above all this is Stormy weather and the Mueller probe. One wonders how the guy sleeps at night, if one wonders at all about that.
I am expecting reports of ambulances coming to the WH in the next few weeks. Nothing serious. Just panic attacks from people working and watching Trump prepare for his trip someplace in Korea.
The Bess Levin Vanity Fair piece points out an essential problem with having everything handed to you, as with Trump, his entire brood, and Young Jared. Sinecures, handed out in nepotistic fashion, do the recipients no favor other than providing them with riches they have not earned and do not deserve, and a cushy, privileged lifestyle devoid of any of the real world problems the rest of us face and are forced to solve everyday. And I’m sorry, but deciding which tropical island nation to fly to for your seventh vacation trip that year does not count as a real world problem.
In Kushner’s case, never having had to work very hard at anything, never having had to climb your way up the ladder (Christ, he didn’t even have to work to get into Harvard) does not allow for the development and refinement of the myriad skills, including interpersonal ones, required to build and run a successful business, or really, to do anything well in life outside the bubble of money and privilege.
Being the boss’ son (or daughter) means you never have to make things work on your own. You issue a memo and everyone jumps. The same is true with Trump. You also never develop an appreciation for doing things the right way, or a sense of the real value of things. If you wrap your Maserati around a tree but there are five more at home in the garage, what do you learn from that?
In the case of both Trump and Kushner, they find out that their inability to play by the rules (repaying your loans, for instance, or wildly overspending) leaves them without domestic banking resources. But not to worry, let’s try getting our money from shady foreign sources. Who cares? They never abided by inconvenient things like rules and laws before. Why start now?
But now, both Kushner and Trump are in the real world for the first time in their lives, and they have no idea how to handle it. I will bet you that there are plenty of young men and women in their mid twenties (a lot of Dreamers, for instance) with a state college degree who had to work nights and summers to pay for it who are far better equipped to operate in the real world because it’s all they’ve ever known. If they had a problem, they didn’t have a rich daddy to fix it all for them. They had no mob connections or dodgy pals working for foreign dictators they could run to, or a phalanx of high priced lawyers to protect them from the consequences of their worst moral and ethical failings. They had to develop smarts and skills and they know what’s right and what’s wrong.
Right now we’re being run by people who have none of those abilities.
It’s a roar watching the Trumpies hop around like bugs on a hot plate trying to pretend that, of course we need “concrete and verifiable” something somethings from North Korea. I mean, you don’t think we’d go into this thing cold, clueless, and unencumbered by a plan, do you? Only after actual smart people started wondering why Mr. Art of the Deal had no apparent understanding of his very strong bargaining position, which he tossed aside like a routine porn star non-disclosure agreement, did Liarby start in with this concrete and verifiable bullshit. Also note the big, important, governmenty sounding words: concrete and verifiable. It’s like watching a little kid dressing up in their parent’s clothes.
@PDPepe: Somewhere I spotted a wit who labeled
the possible meeting as:
Little Rocket Man Meets with Man Off His Rocker
Mag, if you leave off the first word, you can't tell who is who.
I have no doubt the trump/kim meeting will happen. How can trump resist shaking hands with a man who executes his rivals by anti-aircraft cannon fire? So powerful!! Way more macho than Duterte or Putin even!