;)
The Commentariat -- May 11, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Sheldon Silver, the former powerful Democratic speaker of the New York State Assembly, was found guilty of federal corruption charges on Friday, less than a year after his first conviction on the same charges was thrown out. During his two-week trial in Manhattan, prosecutors showed that Mr. Silver, 74, had obtained nearly $4 million in illicit payments in return for taking a series of official actions that benefited a cancer researcher at Columbia University and two real estate developers in New York."
John Santucci, et al., of ABC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has questioned several witnesses about millions of dollars in donations to ... Donald Trump's inauguration committee last year, including questions about donors with connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, sources with direct knowledge told ABC News.... Several donors with those ties contributed large sums to the non-profit fundraising entity -- gifts that topped out at $1 million dollars, according to public records.... Those interviewed included longtime Trump friend and confidant Thomas Barrack, who oversaw the fundraising effort.... Special counsel investigators have also asked witnesses about specific inauguration donors, including American businessmen Leonard Blavatnik, and Andrew Intrater."
Tim Mak of NPR: "The FBI warned four years ago that a foundation controlled by the Russian oligarch who allegedly reimbursed Donald Trump's personal lawyer might have been acting on behalf of Russia's intelligence services. FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Lucia Ziobro wrote an unusual column in the Boston Business Journal in April of 2014 to warn that a foundation controlled by Russian energy baron Viktor Vekselberg might be part of a Moscow spying campaign that sought to siphon up American science and technology. 'The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation's sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications,' Ziobro wrote. 'This analysis is supported by reports coming out of Russia itself.'" Mrs. McC: How long till Devin Nunes to decide to investigate Ziobro.
Heidi Przybyla & Mike Memoli of NBC News: "If Congress can't protect special counsel Robert Mueller's job, perhaps it can protect his work. That's the thinking among several lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who are discussing ways to safeguard the special counsel's investigation into possible ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia amid ... Donald Trump's escalating attacks.... Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who helped draft a bipartisan bill to protect Mueller that passed the Judiciary Committee late last month, confirmed to NBC News on Thursday that talks are underway for a 'Plan B' after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring the original legislation for a floor vote. The discussions 'involve assuring the evidence is preserved and reports are done if the special counsel is fired or other political interference is undertaken by the president,' Blumenthal told NBC News. Notably, Blumenthal added, some GOP senators are participating in the effort."
David Voreacos, et al., of Bloomberg: "Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was informed about allegations of sexual misconduct by then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman around 2013, according to a letter filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday.... In a tweet on Sept. 11, 2013, Trump took aim at Schneiderman while also referring to New York politicians who'd resigned over allegations of sexual misconduct, Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer. 'Weiner is gone, Spitzer is gone -- next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner,' Trump tweeted."
Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "White House chief of staff John Kelly said he believes the vast majority of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border into the US do not assimilate well because they are poorly educated. 'Let me step back and tell you that the vast majority of the people tha move illegally into United States are not bad people. They're not criminals. They're not MS13,' Kelly told NPR in an interview released late Thursday, referring to the criminal gang. 'But they're also not people that would easily assimilate into the United States into our modern society.'... [He] said the undocumented immigrants don't speak English and are 'overwhelmingly rural people' from countries where 'fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Likely the same could be said of Kelly's immigrant ancestors, tho they may have spoken a version of English. ...
... The chairperson of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Michelle Lujan Grisham, is not amused: "The Chief of Staff's bigoted comments about immigrants seeking refuge are a slap in the face to the generations of people who have come from foreign lands to contribute to the richness of our nation. I would like to remind General Kelly that the intolerant and ignorant ideas he espoused from the White House are exactly the same comments and attitudes that were prevalent against all of our families. It wasn't right then, and it isn't right now." ...
... Jennifer Rubin takes Kelly to the woodshed: "Actually, current immigrants assimilate just as well as immigrant in past generations, according to a slew of data-rich studies. The chief of staff chooses either to lie or not to inform himself about basic facts relevant to hugely consequential policies he champions. He aptly reflect the prejudices of his boss and the thinking behind the cruel policies (such as ending protection for 'dreamers' and separating families) that he and Trump doggedly pursue." She has more to say.
Travels with Pompeo. Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The State Department normally craves elaborate planning and procedures for everything. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 13-hour visit to North Korea had little of that. I had a view of the improvisational quality of his trip because, in a tongue-twister of an adventure, I was one of two reporters who traveled with Pompeo to Pyongyang to pick up three prisoners from North Korea and bring them home to the United States. The degree of uncertainty that hovered over the trip extended to Pompeo himself, just two weeks into his new job as the administration's top diplomat. Pompeo said he had no guarantees when he flew in Wednesday morning whether he would be allowed to leave with the three Americans who had been detained for more than a year on charges of espionage and hostile acts. Neither he nor his staff knew whom he would meet with, or when. An Associated Press reporter and I had little advance notice of our departure time or even day, and no promises we'd be able to see much of anything."
Making Us Safer. Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton. The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer's departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack. Ziemer's last day was Tuesday, the same day a new Ebola outbreak was declared in Congo. He is not being replaced.... The personnel changes, which Morrison and others characterize as a downgrading of global health security, are part of Bolton's previously announced plans to streamline the NSC."
Brian Stelter of CNN: "'AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake,' the company's CEO Randall Stephenson said Friday morning. AT&T paid Cohen ... $600,000 through a contract that ended in December 2017. The payments are now under scrutiny in part because Cohen is under federal investigation. 'To be clear, everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate. But the fact is, our past association with Cohen was a serious misjudgment,' Stephenson wrote in a memo to employees. 'In this instance, our Washington D.C. team's vetting process clearly failed, and I take responsibility for that,' he added. Stephenson announced that Bob Quinn, one of the executives involved in the Cohen deal, 'will be retiring.'"
Senate Race. Sore Loser. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Ex-coal CEO Don Blankenship, who lost the GOP primary bid in West Virginia this week, is actively plotting how to undercut state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's [R] Senate candidacy." Blankenship also dislikes Sen. Joe Manchin (D), whom Morrisey is challenging.
*****
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump announced on Thursda that his meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, will be held on June 12 in Singapore. The announcement came in a tweet...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Do read Patrick's comment in yesterday's thread on why Trump & entourage greeted the Americans freed by North Korea but accidentally forgot to invite their families. Because "protocol." Also, too, I just heard a clip of Trump boasting during the hoopla that the Trump show was breaking all 3 am TV ratings. ...
Katie Rogers: Trump & pence went to Elkhart, Indiana, last night for a rally ostensibly in support of U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun. Trump told some whoppers, took credit for the Obama recovery & bringing "respect" back to the U.S. through his brilliant "America First" strategy, & basked in the adulation of the crowd. "Mr. Trump disparaged a litany of opponents, saving much of his ire for Senator Joe Donnelly, the chamber's most vulnerable Democrat, who will face Mr. Braun in November."
"Let Them Eat Trump Steaks." Paul Krugman: Despite his general disinterest, "there are some policy issues [Trump] really does care about. By all accounts, he really hates the idea of people receiving 'welfare,' by which he means any government program that helps people with low income, and he wants to eliminate such programs wherever possible.... Here we have a man who inherited great wealth, then built a business career largely around duping the gullible -- whether they were naïve investors in his business ventures left holding the bag when those ventures This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd. How creepy is this guy? ... ... George Will -- of all people -- answers the creepy question, in a column on "America's most repulsive public figure." Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Three days after President Trump was sworn into office, the telecom giant AT&T turned to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for help on a wide portfolio of issues pending before the federal government -- including the company's proposed merger with Time Warner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. The internal documents reveal for the first time that Cohen's $600,000 deal with AT&T specified that he would provide advice on the $85 billion merger, which required the approval of federal antitrust regulators. Trump had voiced opposition to the merger during the campaign and his administration ultimately sided against AT&T. The Department of Justice filed suit in November to block the deal, a case that is still pending.... It is unclear what insight Cohen -- a longtime real estate attorney and former taxi cab operator -- could have provided AT&T on complex telecom matters." Emphasis added. David Corn & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "An attorney for [Columbus Nova] released a statement insisting the money [Michael] Cohen had received from Columbus Nova had not originated with the [Russian] oligarch [Viktor Vekselberg.]... There was one big problem with that statement: Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show Columbus Nova has had a close organizational association with Vekselberg's Renova Group.... [Before Vekselberg's corporation Renova Group took down its Website in the wake of U.S. sanctions against Velselberg & Renova,] the firm's site listed Columbus Nova as part of the larger Renova Group, suggesting it was a subsidiary.... Consequently, it would be reasonable for any investigation of Trump-Russia contacts to scrutinize the large payments from Intrater and Columbus Nova to Cohen, Trumps's inauguration committee, the Trump campaign, and the GOP." Margaret Hartmann wrote a very good summary of the Cohen slush fund scam -- on what we knew as of yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Yo, Rudy, Get Out! Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "...Rudolph W. Giuliani, abruptly resigned from his law firm, Greenberg Traurig, the firm announced on Thursday, then promptly undercut his recent statements defending the president.... Firm partners had chafed over Mr. Giuliani's public comments about payments that ... Michael D. Cohen made to secure the silence of a pornographic film actress.... Mr. Giuliani suggested that such payments were common at his firm.... 'Speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client[,' a spokesperson for the law firm said.]... Firm members bristled in 2016 when Mr. Giuliani played an aggressive, pit-bull-style surrogate role on Mr. Trump's behalf during the presidential campaign. After Mr. Trump's inauguration, when it became clear that Mr. Giuliani would not get the job he wanted -- secretary of state -- he kept a relatively low profile at the request of his colleagues." Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "A prominent House Republican plans to ask a federal financial watchdog to audit the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, opening a new front of GOP attack on the secretive probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to President Trump's campaign. The pending request -- from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), an outspoken Trump defender who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus as well as a House oversight subcommittee -- appears to be mainly calibrated to force the disclosure of a three-page Justice Department memo spelling out the authorized scope of Mueller's investigation. Meadows, speaking Thursday during a taping of C-SPAN's 'Newsmakers' that is to air Sunday, said he believed the audit is required under federal law and could not be completed without an unredacted copy of the memo written in August 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein." Emphasis added. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released about 3,400 Facebook ads purchased by Russian agents around the 2016 presidential election on issues from immigration to gun control, a reminder of the complexity of the manipulation that Facebook is trying to contain ahead of the midterm elections. The ads, from mid-2015 to mid-2017, illustrate the extent to which Kremlin-aligned forces sought to stoke social, cultural and political unrest on one of the Web's most powerful platforms. With the help of Facebook's targeting tools, Russia's online army reached at least 146 million people on Facebook and Instagram, its photo-sharing service, with ads and other posts, including events promoting protests around the country." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ... ... Olivia Solon & Julie Wong of the Guardian provide numerous examples of the scope of the ads. For instance, "In one particularly brazen example, ads were run promoting both a 'Pro-Beyonce Protest Rally' and an 'Anti-Beyonce Protest Rally' scheduled for the same time time and place following the controversy over the artist's performance at the 2016 Super Bowl. The pro-Beyoncé ad was targeted at users designated as having African American behaviors. The anti-Beyoncé ad was targeted narrowly at people who had studied to become a police officer or whose job title matched a list of law enforcement or military titles, including officer, colonel, major general (United States), master sergeant, commander (United States), sergeant, brigadier general, petty officer, chief petty officer, lieutenant commander, squadron leader, 911 dispatcher or rear admiral." ... Links to the ads, grouped by date, are here. The Democrats' statement, which is worth reading, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) RealDonaldTrump. Paul Campos, in New York, makes a compelling case that the real "David Denniston" in a $1.6MM settlement of a paternity settlement was not Elliott Broidy but Donald Trump. "If it turns out that Trump had an affair with [Playboy model Shera] Bechard, and that Broidy paid a massive bribe to the president to help cover the affair up, this will prove to be another instance of the administration's perverse ability to generate fake news about a scandal, in order to obscure the even more scandalous truth." Mrs. McC: This is not a new rumor, but Campos' dissection of the body of evidence gives it some credibility. Wonder if Trump's evangelical fan base would reject him if he had paid a woman a bundle to have an abortion. ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. Nielsen can't handle a little Trumpertantrum. But she's good with this: ... ... ** Richard Gonzales & John Burnett of CNN: "Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen defended the administration's 'zero tolerance' policy that calls for separating families who cross the border illegally, saying the undocumented immigrants shouldn't get special treatment.... 'Illegal aliens should not get just different rights because they happen to be illegal aliens,' she said].... The administration had been separating families for months before the recent policy.... Also on her watch, DHS has canceled temporary protected status for immigrants from a number of countries...." ... ... Mrs. McCrabbie: On the other hand, Nielsen is blonde. ... ... Josh Dawsey & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "President Trump berated Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in a dispiriting Cabinet meeting on immigration Wednesday, according to three administration officials, but her colleagues denied reports that she has threatened to quit.... [Trump's] blowup lasted more than 30 minutes, according to a person with knowledge of what transpired, as Trump's face reddened and he raised his voice, saying Nielsen needed to 'close down' the border." ... ** Masha Gessen of the New Yorker, an immigrant from Russia, knows whereof she speaks: "The American government has unleashed terror on immigrants, and in doing so has naturally reached for the most effective tools" -- separating families." Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: "A Defense Department investigation of a Special Forces mission in Niger released Thursday found widespread problems across all levels of the military operation, but concludes that 'no single failure or deficiency' led to the deaths of four American soldiers who were among a team of Green Berets ambushed last fall by fighters aligned with the Islamic State. The unclassified executive summary of the investigation offers only a glimpse of the decisions and actions that led to the firefight on Oct. 4 after the 11-man team searched, unsuccessfully, for a local militant leader in western Niger." Chris Mooney & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "Internal changes to a draft Defense Department report de-emphasized the threats climate change poses to military bases and installations, muting or removing references to climate-driven changes in the Arctic and potential risks from rising seas, an unpublished draft obtained by The Washington Post reveals. The earlier version of the document, dated December 2016, contains numerous references to 'climate change' that were omitted or altered to 'extreme weather' or simply 'climate' in the final report, which was submitted to Congress in January 2018. While the phrase 'climate change' appears 23 separate times in the draft report, the final version used it just once." Mrs. McC: Reminds me of a two-year-old who covers her eyes & says, "You can't see me." (Also linked yesterday.) Jonathan Easley & Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "A White House official mocked Sen. John McCain's brain cancer diagnosis at an internal meeting on Thursday, a day after the Arizona Republican announced his opposition to President Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel. Special assistant Kelly Sadler made the derisive comments during a closed-door White House meeting of about two-dozen communications staffers on Thursday morning. 'It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway,' Sadler said, according to a source familiar with the remarks at the meeting.... Sadler is a former opinion editor for The Washington Times. At the White House, she focuses on illegal immigration...." ... ... Eli Okun of Politico: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney said the U.S. should restart its enhanced interrogation techniques -- often considered torture -- after the issue was thrust to the forefront during Gina Haspel's confirmation fight to become CIA director. 'If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs,' he said in an interview that aired Thursday morning on Fox Business. 'I'd have them active and ready to go, and I'd go back and study them and learn.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ... ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As David Smith of the Guardian noted (linked yesterday), during his Senate confirmation hearing, Haspel said she didn't believe Trump would ask her to waterboard prisoners. "This prompted scornful laughter from the public gallery. During his presidential election campaign, Trump vowed to authorise waterboarding and 'a hell of a lot worse'." Darth Vader reminds us that Trump is hardly isolated in his preference for torture. Haspel's "it won't be a problem" assertion is either naive (I doubt that) or an admission that all she needs is a green light to go back into full-torture mode. ... ... Media Matters: Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a military analyst appearing on Fox Business "News," in arguing that the U.S. should torture prisoners, said, "The fact is, is John McCain -- it worked on John. That's why they call him 'Songbird John.' The fact is those methods can work, and they are effective, as former Vice President Cheney said. And if we have to use them to save a million American lives, we will do whatever we have to." The host of the show, Charles Payne, later apologized, & Fox said McInerney had not been a paid Fox analyst for nearly a year. ... Washington Post Editors: Gina Haspel "has a dark chapter in her past: her supervision of a secret prison in Thailand where al-Qaeda suspects were tortured, and her subsequent involvement in the destruction of videotapes of that shameful episode. As Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, made clear from the outset, Ms. Haspel needs to clearly repudiate that record. She must confirm that techniques such as waterboarding -- now banned by law -- were and are unacceptable, and she must make clear that she herself will never again accept orders to carry out acts that so clearly violate American moral standards, even if they are ordered by the president and certified by administration lawyers as legal. Ms. Haspel did not meet that test ... [which] makes it impossible for us, and others for whom the repudiation of torture is a priority, to support Ms. Haspel's nomination." Pruitt Watch. Mrs. McCrabbie: I heard on the teevee that Scott Pruitt is to have a "routine" meeting with Donald Trump today. Is this the Friday Pruitt will have to pack his office paraphernalia in a cardboard box? Rebecca Shabad & Alex Moe of NBC News: "Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday dismissed an effort by a group of House Republicans to circumvent the normal legislative process and force floor votes on a pack of immigration proposals. 'We never want to turn the floor over to the minority. What I don't want to do is have a process that just ends up with a veto,' Ryan said at his weekly news conference, after being asked about the discharge petition -- a maneuver that can be used to force votes on the House floor -- filed a day earlier by a group of moderate House Republicans. The Wisconsin Republican added that he doesn't want to have a 'spectacle on the floor.'" Mrs. McC: There's a good reason for Ryan's refusal to help DACA-eligible young people: he is fundamentally evil. This is harder to see in Ryan than in Trump & other firebrands, because Ryan effects a choir boy's good manners instead of snarling & sniping, but the fact is that he's meaner than a junkyard dog. Naked Politics. Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Thursday encouraged Supreme Court justices flirting with retirement to immediately step down, saying he would like to push through a nominee before the midterm elections." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Aaron Davis & Shawn Boberg of the Washington Post: "For years, Fox News host Sean Hannity has poured his fortune into a surprising side venture: a vast portfolio of rental properties in working-class neighborhoods. He described those holdings in compassionate terms when they came to light last month, saying he invests in places that 'otherwise might struggle to receive such support.' But a Washington Post analysis shows that managers at Hannity's four largest apartment complexes in Georgia have taken an unusually aggressive approach to rent collection. They have sought court-ordered evictions at twice the statewide rate -- in a state known for high numbers of evictions and landlord-friendly laws -- and frequently have done so less than two weeks after a missed payment. Property managers at the complexes sought to evict tenants more than 230 times in 2017, court records show. At one, a 112-unit subdivision in a suburb west of Atlanta, 94 eviction actions were filed last year...."
Michael Shear & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Trump berated her on Wednesday in front of the entire cabinet for what he said was her failure to adequately secure the nation's borders, according to several current and former officials familiar with the incident. Ms. Nielsen, who is a protégée of John F. Kelly..., has drafted a resignation letter but has not submitted it, according to two of the people.... Mr. Trump's anger toward Ms. Nielsen at the cabinet meeting was part of a lengthy tirade in which the president railed at his entire cabinet about what he said was their lack of progress toward sealing the country's borders against illegal immigrants, according to one person who was present at the meeting.... One persistent issue has been Mr. Trump's belief that Ms. Nielsen and other officials in the department were resisting his direction that parents should be separated from their children when families cross illegally into the United States, the people said." Emphasis added. ...
Argumentum ad nigrum Americanus. Bryan Schatz of Mother Jones: In a Washington Times interview, Oliver North, the new president of the NRA, "claimed that the NRA's leaders are the victims of 'civil terrorism' at the hands of gun safety advocates. He referenced unspecified 'threats' and noted that vandals splashed fake blood on a NRA official's Virginia home. He likened this treatment to that of black Americans during the era of legally sanctioned racial segregation."
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In some sort of "interview" by NPR, John Kelly (and yes, I detest him) says Dolt45 is "supersmart" and a "quick study." I am beginning to think there IS a black ops program in place in the USA; it is, apparently, a general brainwashing of heretofor-thought-intelligent-enough people, either through their fillings or when they are sleeping. What stretch of imagination does it require to decide that one-third to one-half of the populace has swallowed magical dust?? As they say in PA Dutchland, it wonders me.
Another black mark for Pruitt, a heartless remark by some idiot named Kelly Sadler-- and both are still employed! Trumpism: an essence so foul it can't be properly described. Hateful trolls.
Local News: The Connecticut state Senate granted final legislation approval to a bill allowing CT. to join an interstate compact that would ensure that state's electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular election, provided enough other states join the agreement. The naysayers say, oh, golly, what will that do to the long standing tradition of that nifty thing called the electoral college––the thing that gave us both Bush and Trump. The yeas say hey––the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the notion of one person, one vote since the 1960's and the Electoral College has become an outlier and an anachronism. Isn't that part of what Democracy is all about? Then a faint voice from one of Hannity's shoved out tenants: "We have a democracy?" how's that?"
I think, since it's Friday and lately it's "Let's dump some shit at the end of the week when everyone has their eye on the weekend," that Pruitt might be packing his bags and saying bye, bye.
Just the thought of immigrant children being separated from their parents makes me sick with fury: This morning Marie described Paul Ryan as "fundamentally evil"––this separation is also, without any equivocation, fundamentally evil.
"Conduct and work grow coarse and coarse the soul" (Yeats)
Criminal gun runner to right wing death squads and convicted felon Oliver North has completed the NRA’s move to full on wingnut victimization. It’s not enough that they can piss on the parents of murdered children by waving one half of the Second Amendment in their faces and calling them liars and members of a conspiracy to make them look bad, now they demand that everyone recognize how downtrodden and abused they are.
But Untrue North doesn’t just want to compare himself and the other gun knobbers to black Americans during the Jim Crow era (an era that many NRA members are still trying to maintain). According to Untrue, they have it worse.
Yup. He said that.
“You go back to the terrible days of Jim Crow and those kinds of things—even there you didn’t have this kind of thing.”
Got that? NRA members are treated worse than black Americans at the height of Jim Crow atrocities.
So...have any of them been denied jobs or housing because of who they are? Had dogs sent to attack them? Been beaten, reaped, or murdered? Been lynched?
This is some atrocious snowflake weenie-ass lying bullshit. I want Untrue to tell John Lewis that his being beaten and clubbed in the head for being black in America was nothing compared to what NRA snowflakes have to go through.
Never say you’ve seen the bottom of the swamp with these people. Their evil has no bottom.
Almost a day after one of his aides told not one but two major news outlets that it didn't matter what John McCain says because he's going to die soon, the little dictator has yet to say a word about it.
The White House has confirmed that Kelly Sadler, a disgusting person, former "writer" for the right wing rag Washington Times, made that truly insulting and vicious comment, but no disavowal of her sentiment, no apology to the McCain family (supposedly Sadler made a phone call), no statements to the effect that "We don't go along with or approve of that sort of thing in this White House".
That's because that sort of thing is standard fare in this White House. I'm betting Trump will give her a raise for her terrible manners.
Sadler, who is known for writing obsequious puff pieces about Trump is right out of Fox Bimbo casting, and she clearly has the sort of mindset that would have made her perfect for Fox.
Once again, never say you've seen the bottom with these people.
By the way, a Trumpbot commenting on a Newsweek article about this stupid and disgusting affair ripped John McCain for being a "POS traitor".
You can be sure that should her hero's treason be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, she'll find some way to blame someone else.
Stupid, ignorant, and insulting. The lot of them.
And Sadler should remember that death comes to us all.
Though my impulses are not always of the highest order, I won't follow up on Bea's remark about Kirstjen Nielsen's hair color, but will say this:
There is something fundamentally wrong with any person, male or female, black or blonde, who puts up with being bullied and/or publicly humiliated, and since the Pretender eventually treats everyone around him that way, there's something deeply wrong with any and all who stick with him, even those who would present themselves as the proudest of the proud, like General Kelly.
Neilsen's case is particularly illustrative of a secondary consequence of an absence of self-respect, of such constant knee-bending and kowtowing. People who tolerate it often practice it. What could be more natural than a berated Director of Homeland Security taking her bruised feelings out on others? And who would be in a better position to do so? If we're looking for pathology, it all fits together.
I've mentioned Kelly and disposed of Neilsen; then there's Mike Pence, whom George Will properly excoriated yesterday. This little man oozes sanctimony but lies on behalf of, publicly allies himself with and kisses the feet of the worst and meanest characters on our national political stage.
Are those who accept abuse also eager to dish out some of their own?
I'm thinking some kind of compensatory pathology does describe the behavior of the whole sick, evil bunch.
@Ken Winkes: Points well taken. Do you think Nielsen should have quit?
According to the WashPo, Trump berated Nielsen for half-an-hour. I'm pretty sure I would not have sat through a half-hour dressing-down in front of my colleagues without sticking up for myself, and it's unclear if Nielsen did much to defend herself once Trump got going. There's no indication that any other Cabinet secretary stepped in, either. At the least, I would have requested an apology right around the time Trump started repeating himself, as I'm sure he did. (If it were a private meeting, I would have told him off, but in a meeting with others, I'd have been more polite. Or polite-ish.) Trump's diatribe -- if the WashPo report is correct -- sounds like harassment. And, as you say, Nielsen is spreading the maltreatment down, tho she started doing it before Trump's outburst, not as a result of it.
The incident sounds like that Hitler film clip that people dub with funny English "translations." Only Hitler spreads the blame around, and the clip is only a few minutes long.
And another thing...
The White House's vicious condemnation of John McCain as irrelevant is more than just a nasty bit of Trumpish ejecta. Dismissing the experience and career of the only (as far as I know) member of Congress to actually know what he's talking about when it comes to torture is one more index of how little this White House cares for knowledge and experience. All they care about is what Trump wants and what he thinks will make him look good. Trump wants Haspel, and that's that. It doesn't matter that, should she piss him off in a few months, he'd drop her in the trash like so many before her. It's what he wants and he wants it (a successful nomination) now.
Who cares that the issue of torture is a bellwether for the moral fortitude of this country, of our society? Who cares that McCain, not Lindsey Graham or John Cornyn or Tom Fucking Cotton, who have no idea what they're talking about, is the only one who has actually undergone torture?
Clearly not Trump or any of his vulgar vipers.
They could just agree to disagree and let it go, but not this White House. Despicable assholes.
While I detest John Kelly, I do not entirely disagree with his assessment. I live in a rural agricultural community and have noted that the better the education level of the immigrant, AT THE TIME THEY IMMIGRATE, the better chance of success they have here. Children, of course, are the exception, and they learn to speak English fairly quickly while attending school in the U.S. and become the interpreters for their parents. Many of these immigrants, especially undocumented ones, do not come here to "assimilate". They come here for the work.
Bea,
Don't want to say that psychology is fate, but I don't believe "should have" applies to Neilsen. Yes, a decent human being with an active moral compass would have quit, but to appearances Neilsen doesn't qualify on either point.
I know I'm making long-distance judgments about people I don't really know and have no idea what it would be like to be in the shoes of any of the Pretender's coterie. In that limited sense my opinions are bound to miss at least some of the mark, but I am certain that had I been there in the first place (not likely), I would not have stayed.
My psychological and moral aversion to taking or dishing out the sheer nastiness that animates this entire administration, top to bottom, person to policy, runs deep.
"...Kirstjen Nielsen defended the administration's 'zero tolerance' policy that calls for separating families who cross the border illegally, saying the undocumented immigrants shouldn't get special treatment.... 'Illegal aliens should not get just different rights because they happen to be illegal...'"
Our Homeland Security Secretary has no understanding of what a right is or from whom they come. She needs to read the Declaration of Independence, which tells us we are endowed by our Creator with our inalienable rights. Neither she nor Cheeto Jesus bestows rights upon us; they can only take them away.
And, boy oh boy, are they ever doing that.
With reference to Nielsen's anxiety at being ripped by DiJiT during a cabinet meeting -- keep in mind that she is relatively inexperienced. She was a WH Homeland Security Council Director under W 10 years ago, and now major-agency cabinet secretary with not much heavyweight work in between. To my mind, too inexperienced for that job.
She has been in jobs where her relationship to her sponsors is what gives her authority and power ... those do not come from her earned status. Two effects therefore show up:
-- she is dependent on the patronage of those for whom she works, and potential loss of favor from those patrons can be paralyzing
-- she has not been shot at and wounded often enough to develop the emotional scar tissue that comes with escalating experience.
On the first point, she's done for if she loses the confidence of DiJiT, but on the second point she's already starting to scar over her heart. The trick is not to develop scarred brains too.
As for DiJiT, the trick is to never agree to work for him in the first place. After you sign on you deserve whatever he does to you. He is a user, not a builder.
Thinking about the Haspel nomination.
It looks like she'll be back to torture as usual (or "much worse" as the Orange Baboon would have it) when confirmed but I've noticed that the littlest invertebrate is making "No" vote sounds. How much will you bet that, should he be the one holdout, a call from king trumpy will change that to a yes faster than you can set fire to a copy of "Atlas Shrugged".
Li'l Randy's ethical stands last only until the first wispy breeze comes along.
From the top on down, Trump, Ryan, Nielsen, Mnuchin, Carson, DeVos, Pruitt, Sanders, Hannity, and all the pinched, blackened little souls in between, there's not enough heart among the lot to raise any to the level of the worst Dickens villain. These swinish pecksniffs make Bill Sikes look like Albert Schweitzer.
The Kentucky Krapweasel only dissents if he has already done the math and knows it will make no difference. He's not (He snot is what I wrote first-- how Freudian!)brave enough to REALLY take a stand. He merely grandstands to make it appear he is quality folks... I spent from fifth grade through college in Kentucky. Now I wouldn't even set foot over its border. Reading what Malicious Mitch did yesterday (filling a judgeship that he kept vacant for four years-- just like he did to advance Nasty Neal--)puts me in such a rage I could really be at risk. Kentucky used to be a so-called border state, but it's bright, ignorant red state now, baby...
Jen Rubin (is that other Jen Rubin tied up in a room somewhere in the WaPo basement?) apprises readers, by way of her assessment of the little dictator's chief of staff, of the essential operating process for Trumpists: "The chief of staff chooses either to lie or not to inform himself about basic facts relevant to hugely consequential policies he champions."
That, in the proverbial nutshell, is how it works in TrumpWorld. Lie or make it up, but whatever you do, don't ever let facts or truth get in the way of what the Donald desires. It doesn't matter if it's Ebola, golf scores, war, immigration, healthcare, the Constitution, porn star payoffs, pussy grabbing, how much the new tax scam will "hurt" him, Korea, Iran, China, Europe, Mexico, DACA, collusion, voter fraud, crowd sizes, other sizes, whatever.
Lie and/or make it up and forget facts.
His cabinet has learned the lesson.
(And if that other Jen Rubin is out there somewhere, I hope you're comfortable, but we're liking New Jen a whole lot better, thanks.)
Jeanne,
"Kentucky Krapweasel"...I think that's the name on his birth certificate. And you're right. He does seem to make these "principled" stands when the issue is no longer in doubt. When he miscalculates, as with the tax scam vote, and the Mike Pompeo nomination, he quickly folds his tent when he gets a boot up the backside and moves on to the next cynical grandstand play.
Imagine an entire career built on bullshit like that?
But this is how assholes like Paul Ryan come to be known as deep thinkers and Rand Paul as a Man of Principle.
Akhilleus,
Re: Rubin Re-born
You piqued my curiosity. The old Rubin's major weakness was her lockstep agreement with the Israeli right's party line, which often led her into the land of make believe, so I checked what she had to say about the Pretender's exit from the Iran deal.
Lo! she had nothing good to say about it regardless of all Bibi't loud sideline cheering.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/05/09/the-skepticism-is-widespread-over-leaving-the-iran-deal
Maybe she has been re-born...or maybe the Pretender was just more than even the old Right Turn Rubin could take...or maybe the WAPO leadership whispered something in her ear.
In any case, think her "Right Turn" column header might need a change.
Re Rubin: I think she is one of those folks who thinks that she is a true conservative and all the R's in Washington have betrayed the true faith. Also, for many such as her, BiBi is no longer "Israel" and a lot of what you see now is criticism of BiBi, not so much of Israel.
Confusing times for such people. It is hard for them to admit (or even see) that their basic philosophy IS charlatanism, not that it has been take over by charlatans.
I know I am blabby today, but I just wanted to weigh in on Jen Rubin-- I used to be quite fed up with her, but now when she is on MSNBC, she says acidic things I agree with, accompanied by a huge smile-- somehow she decided she likes the libs better than the slow-learners (or maybe NO-learners?)on the right who only know what they know and not what they don't know, and it's all right with them. Keep the former Jen fed and pampered in the dungeon so she never comes out!