;)
The Commentariat -- May 15, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea indefinitely postponed high-level talks with South Korea scheduled for Wednesday, citing a joint South Korean-United States air force drill, South Korean officials said. Senior officials from the two Koreas had been scheduled to meet in the 'truce village' of Panmunjom on their border on Wednesday to discuss putting in place an agreement to improve ties between the countries that their leaders signed in a meeting on April 27. But in a move that caught South Korea off guard, North Korea called the South shortly after midnight Tuesday unilaterally announcing that the talks will be 'postponed indefinitely,' the South's Unification Ministry said." Mrs. McC: The joint AF drill is held annually, so not exactly a surprise to the North.
Scott Shane & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "In weekly online posts last year, WikiLeaks released a stolen archive of secret documents about the Central Intelligence Agency's hacking operations, including software exploits designed to take over iPhones and turn smart television sets into surveillance devices. It was the largest loss of classified documents in the agency's history and a huge embarrassment for C.I.A. officials. Now, The New York Times has learned the identity of the prime suspect in the breach: a 29-year-old former C.I.A. software engineer who had designed malware used to break into the computers of terrorism suspects and other targets. F.B.I. agents searched the Manhattan apartment of the suspect, Joshua A. Schulte, one week after WikiLeaks released the first of the C.I.A. documents in March last year, and then stopped him from flying to Mexico on vacation.... But instead of charging Mr. Schulte in the breach, referred to as the Vault 7 leak, prosecutors charged him last August with possessing child pornography, saying agents had found the material on a server he created as a business in 2009 while he was a student at the University of Texas." Schulte received a conditional prison release in September 2017, but re-incarcerated in December for violating the terms of his release.
M.J. Lee of CNN: "A Qatari investor referenced in a series of tweets from Michael Avenatti this week confirmed to CNN through a spokesperson on Tuesday that he did attend meetings at Trump Tower in December 2016. The stated reason: Ahmed Al-Rumaihi wanted face time with Trump transition officials. 'Mr. Al-Rumaihi was at Trump Tower on December 12, 2016. He was there in his then role as head of Qatar Investments, an internal division of QIA, to accompany the Qatari delegation that was meeting with Trump transition officials on that date,' said a spokesperson for Sport Trinity, a company that Al-Rumaihi co-owns. 'He did not participate in any meetings with Michael Flynn, and his involvement in the meetings on that date was limited.'" The story will be updated.
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday said Israel had reacted with restraint in its military response to protesters at the Gaza border, and dismissed suggestions the violence was caused by the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Nikki Haley told the Security Council that Hamas, backed by Iran, had incited the violence by urging protesters over loudspeakers to burst through the fence separating the borders and flying kites into Israel with Molotov cocktails attached."
Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post: "In recent weeks, the Trump administration has announced policy proposals that appear to serve little purpose other than cruelty." Vandel Heuvel makes out a list of some of these policies, a few of which have received little press, like this one: "... the Labor Department is apparently planning to roll back child labor protections that limit the hours that teenagers can spend performing dangerous jobs, such as operating chainsaws and trash compactors. The agency risibly described its proposal as an effort to 'launch more family-sustaining careers by removing current regulatory restrictions.'..."
AP: "The Trump administration is designating the head of Iran's central bank as a terrorist and hitting him with sanctions intended to further isolate Iran from the global financial system. The Treasury Department accuses Valiollah Seif of helping transfer millions of dollars to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. Seif is the governor of the Iranian central bank. He's being named a 'specially designated global terrorist.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hey, Iran, instead of yelling "Death to America" & grousing about the U.S.'s violation of the international nuclear accord, I suggest you spend half a billion backing the Trump Tower Tehran. All will be, as Daddy-o Trump would say, "cool."
No Apologies Genes. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "White House officials reiterated their position on Monday that a morbid joke an aide made about John McCain -- an 81-year-old, six-term Republican senator with brain cancer -- is not the sort of thing that warrants an apology on behalf of this administration. This decision led colleagues and relatives of Mr. McCain to wonder what sort of situation would. It has also drawn consternation from some Republicans, who are waiting for more lawmakers to back up their colleague and demand an apology from the White House. So far, they've heard little.... [The White House's] combative ethos has stood firm amid an assortment of insults and missteps."
Jeremy Herb & Manu Raju of CNN: "Gina Haspel..., Donald Trump's pick to be the next CIA director, says in a new letter that the CIA should not have conducted then-President George W. Bush's interrogation and detention program where waterboarding and other brutal interrogation tactics were used on detainees. In the letter to Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Haspel takes a position she wasn't willing to state publicly last week, writing that the interrogation program 'is not one the CIA should have undertaken.'" ...
... Karoun Demirjian & Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "Gina Haspel appears to have secured enough votes to be confirmed as the country's next CIA director after stating in a letter to a top Democrat that the agency never should have detained terrorist suspects and employed brutal interrogation techniques against them. In announcing his support for Haspel, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said Tuesday that he had asked her to write down her views because he believed that in one-on-one meetings she had expressed greater regret, and more resolute moral opposition to the agency's interrogation program than she had communicated during her confirmation hearing last week."
All in the Family. Justin Sink & Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump nominated Gordon Hartogensis, a self-described entrepreneur who is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao's brother-in-law, to lead the federal agency that pays worker pensions when employers terminate their retirement plans.... In making the announcement, the White House did not provide biographical information about him or answer questions about his relationship to Chao and McConnell, who are married. Hartogensis is married to one of Chao's sisters, according to a person familiar with the matter."
"Not an Onion Story." Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "A month after abruptly resigning from Congress in an apparent effort to avoid more fallout from sexual harassment allegations<, former Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) already has a new job: lobbying his former colleagues on port issues. Farenthold announced Monday on a Corpus Christi radio show that he landed a new gig at the Calhoun Port Authority in Port Lavaca, Texas, as reported by Caller Times. He is now the port's full-time legislative liaison, and his job responsibilities include increasing the port's visibility with federal lawmakers and the Trump administration."
Joe Pinsker in the Atlantic: The University of Pennsylvania will not talk about its most famous graduate: Donald Trump. The school has not invited Trump to give a speech, nor has it granted him an honorary degree, although "Gerald Ford and Joe Biden both delivered commencement speeches while in office, and Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton did while their husbands were.When I reached out to Penn, the school declined to discuss Trump. (Wharton, one of Penn's four undergraduate schools, and the one from which Trump graduated, did the same.)" Before Trump entered politics, the school favored him with awards & mentions & even appointed him to the Board of Overseers in 1987.
Griff Witte of the Washington Post: "A month after [Hungarian PM Viktor] Orban won a crushing electoral victory, the government is moving quickly to make good on his vow of 'revenge' against perceived enemies. The targets of his wrath, meanwhile, are actively preparing for the crackdown to come within this European Union and NATO member. A human rights group expects to be banned from assisting or even speaking about refugees. A progressive university is planning a possible retreat into exile. And the country's foremost advocate for a liberal alternative to Orban's self-proclaimed 'illiberal democracy' -- funded by billionaire George Soros -- is all but conceding defeat.... That will cheer Orban, who has made the Jewish investor his personal nemesis and national boogeyman in recent years."
*****
Today is primary day in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Idado & Oregon. Vox has a rundown of key elections.
... More photos here. ...
... Loveday Morris & Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "Ahead of another day of protests, the death toll for those killed by Israeli forces at the Gaza boundary fence climbed to 61 on Tuesday after an infant died overnight from tear gas inhalation along with two others, according to local health officials." ...
... David Halbfinger, et al., of the New York Times: "Palestinian officials say at least 55 people have been killed in the latest round of protests. More than 2,700 Palestinian demonstrators were wounded on Monday along the border fence with Gaza, the Health Ministry reported. The mass protests began on March 30 and had already left dozens dead. The latest protests took place as the United States Embassy was formally relocated to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, on the 70th anniversary of the formation of Israel. The formality and celebration created an almost surreal contrast to the violence raging barely 40 miles away." (Earlier versions of this report were linked yesterday.) ...
... AND here are Trump's tweets this morning: (2) "Big day for Israel. Congratulations!" This one at 9:36 am ET, after news of the mass killings was public. (1) U.S. Embassy opening in Jerusalem will be covered live on @FoxNews & @FoxBusiness. Lead up to 9:00 A.M. (eastern) event has already begun. A great day for Israel!", three hours earlier. Mrs. McC: I'm just waiting for the pix of smiling Ivanka & Jarad at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Heather Horn of the New Republic: "'What a glorious day,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said from the podium. 'Remember this moment.' As of 11 a.m. EST, The New York Times put the body count from Gaza's protests at 41." ...
... David Smith of the Guardian: "Washington lavished praise on the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem on Monday -- but was mostly silent on the killing of 55 Palestinians and injuring of at least 1,200 by Israeli security forces. Congressional Republicans and Democrats, who last year reaffirmed a 1995 law calling for the embassy in Tel Aviv to be relocated to Jerusalem, granted Donald Trump a victory lap by lauding his historic decision. The White House blamed the violence squarely on Gaza's rulers Hamas. In the eyes of critics, there was little to alter the view of Washington as a bubble of moral indifference. Only a handful broke ranks to condemn Israel's hardline response to the protests by tens of thousands of Palestinians...." ...
... digby: "The image of Kush[n]er and Ivanka with people being shot and killed at the protests is sickening. The Red Cross says that the hospitals are overflowing. I'm sure Trump is enjoying the festivities." ...
... Dana Milbank: "Here's a split-screen for our times: While Israeli troops were killing dozens of Palestinian protesters in Gaza on Monday, Trump administration representatives were 50 miles away in Jerusalem, celebrating with Israeli officials the opening of the U.S. Embassy there and praising their mutual devotion to peace. 'Moving the U.S. embassy,' Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan declared, is 'a step toward advancing peace.' President Trump himself, in a video message, pledged his commitment to a 'lasting peace agreement.' His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said 'peace is within reach.' And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared it 'a great day for peace.'"
... Michelle Goldberg: "The event was grotesque. It was a consummation of the cynical alliance between hawkish Jews and Zionist evangelicals who believe that the return of Jews to Israel will usher in the apocalypse and the return of Christ, after which Jews who don't convert will burn forever. Religions like 'Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism' lead people 'to an eternity of separation from God in Hell,' Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor, once said. He was chosen to give the opening prayer at the embassy ceremony. John Hagee, one of America's most prominent end-times preachers, once said that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to their ancestral homeland. He gave the closing benediction. This spectacle, geared toward Donald Trump's Christian American base, coincided with a massacre about 40 miles away." ...
... Also, too, Dana Milbank notes in the column linked above, "... Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who spoke at a reception for the U.S. delegation, after which [Jared] Kushner and Ivanka Trump asked for Yosef's blessing. The rabbi made waves recently for comparing black people to monkeys and proposed blessing only 'a person with a white father and mother.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So the only good news coming out of this tragedy is that if in the next two months Kim Jong-un removes every element of nuclear & non-nuclear arms technology & material from North Korea, gives up the throne (or whatever he sits on) to become a penniless monk & reunites the two Koreas in his last act as Dear Leader, Donald Trump is not getting a Nobel Peace Prize.
... If you didn't have time to read Olivia Nuzzi's article on the Trump-Hannity brotherhood (linked here yesterday), Stephen Colbert has the highlights:
"Leakers Are Traitors & Cowards Who Don't Exist." -- DiJiT. Jonathan Chait: "... it has taken Trump to elevate the Republican Party's reality-altering habits to a level that is literally Orwellian. The latest visit to the mind-bending frontier of pseudo-reality comes via this presidential tweet:... 'The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!' Here we learn that the anonymous quotes coming out of the White House are invented 'so-called leaks' by the hostile reporters of the 'Fake News Media.' At the same time, Trump denounces the leakers as 'cowards' and 'traitors.' 'Doublethink,' as George Orwell wrote, 'means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.'" ...
... OR, as contributor Nisky Guy wrote in a prescient aphorism a couple of days ago, "A foolish inconsistency is Standard Operating Procedure when the hobgoblin is in the White House." P.S. to Trump: "Overexaggeration" or "over exaggeration," as you wrote it (probably because it came up on your Twitter spellcheck as a misspelling), is not a word. It's a term people use when they're imitating English-speakers who have poor command of their native language. ...
... Louis Nelson of Politico: "Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Monday that she expects personnel changes in the White House in the wake of ... Donald Trump's latest outburst against leaks that have proven damaging to his administration."
Swalwell Has Trump's Number. Max Greenwood of the Hill: "Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) suggested early Tuesday that President Trump's business interests are driving his policy decisions regarding Russia, China and Turkey. 'I think the reason that he drew himself so closely to the Russians was that the Russians liked him and they invested in him. And he has made decisions that seem to favor them more than what would be our national security interests,' Swalwell said on CNN's 'New Day.' 'With China, they did the same thing,' he added. 'Turkey -- he has projects over there. When you ask, why does he like President Erdogan so much? Well there's a Trump Tower over in Turkey. So it does seem like the simplest explanation is the correct one -- it's money.... HuffPost reported on Monday that just days before Trump announced that he would work to save ZTE, the Chinese government agreed to put as much as $500 million in loans into a theme park and resort in Indonesia. The Trump Organization reportedly has a deal to license the Trump name to the project." ...
... Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress "During Monday's briefing, reporters repeatedly grilled [Deputy Press Secretary Raj] Shah about what prompted Trump's tweet promising to help ZTE -- especially since the tweet came on the heels of a campaign in which Trump accused China of 'the greatest single theft in the history of the world,' saying things like, 'we can't continue to allow China to rape our country.' Shah had no good answers for them." Here's Noah Bierman of the LA Times asking Shah about that Indonesian project:
... Margaret Hartmann: "The exact reason for Trump’s abrupt turn around [on China trade] remains a mystery; there are reports suggesting it's about the midterms, the upcoming negotiations with North Korea, Trump Organization business, or maybe all of the above. Here are the [six] leading theories on why the president developed a soft spot for a sanctions-defying Chinese tech company."
Bob Mueller Keeps on Truckin'. David Stern & Josh Meyer of Politico: "A Ukrainian politician who communicated with Trump associates about a controversial plan to resolve Ukraine's conflict with Kremlin-backed rebels said Monday that he has been called to testify before a grand jury connected to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Andrii Artemenko said ... he assumed he would be asked about the peace plan, about which he communicated with Michael Cohen ... in early 2017." ...
... Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic: "FBI agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller allegedly detained a lawyer with ties to Russia who is closely associated with Joseph Mifsud, the shadowy professor who claimed during the election that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton.... The lawyer allegedly questioned by Mueller’s team, Stephan Roh, is a German multimillionaire with ties to Russia. He hired Mifsud as a 'business-development consultant' in 2015, and is Mifsud's 'partner and best friend' and 'the money behind him,' [George] Papadopoulos's wife, Simona Mangiante, who worked for Mifsud briefly, told me." ...
... Greg Sargent: "... the gap between the real Mueller probe and the one that exists in #Foxlandia — and, as a result, in Trump's head -- has never been wider."
A.J. Vicens of Mother Jones: "Lawyers representing a Russian company indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for supporting meddling in the 2016 US elections accused the US of hypocrisy in a Monday court filing. Concord Management and Consulting LLC is one of the Russian companies indicted by Mueller on February 16 and accused of being used by its owner, Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, to fund the Internet Research Agency, the Russian 'troll farm' that Mueller has accused of having 'a strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system.'... Eric A. Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly of Washington’s Reed Smith LLP law firm claim that Mueller has accused Concord, their client, of engaging 'in the make-believe crime of conspiring to "interfere" in a United States election,' complaining that the charges 'have a strong odor of hypocrisy.' A footnote cites a December 2016 interview NPR conducted with Dov Levin, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, who found that the US interfered in foreign elections more than 80 times between 1946 and 2000.... Concord's lawyers have argued that Mueller is bucking years of US Department of Justice precedent 'to indict a Russian -- any Russian' as a means to 'justify his own existence.'" ...
... They Thought It Was All in Fun! Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Lawyers for Russian nationals accused of pushing online propaganda during the 2016 presidential election say Special Counsel Robert Mueller has not shown their clients knew what they were doing was illegal. The attorneys [for Concord Management] lay out this somewhat unusual argument in a legal filing posted Monday afternoon.... At issue is the question of mens rea -- the mental state of the Russians who put together the social media disinformation campaign that used Facebook and Twitter to spread fake news stories and socially divisive videos and memes. Attorneys for the Russians are saying that Mueller hasn't shown their clients knew what they were doing could have been against U.S. law."
Mrs. McCrabbie: Yesterday, I couldn't make out what purpose & meaning there might be to a December 16, 2017, Trump Tower meeting among Michael Cohen, Qatari businessman Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, & possibly others, as laid out in a Mother Jones report I linked. Jeremy Stahl of Slate offers some context & suggests the meeting may confirm a key claim of the Steele dossier. It's complicated, but Carter Page, Michael Flynn & soon-to-be Energy Secretary Rick Perry figure into the picture.
Steve M.: "America, I'm afraid, is getting used to Trump's bull-in-a-china-shop style. We may have reached the moment I've been afraid we'd reach, when Trump seems like a reassuring Republican presence to much of the white electorate, while the rest of us foresee the disastrous nature of what he's setting in motion but can't get our fellow citizens to see it."
Alexander Burns, et al., of the New York Times: "Republican officials now see [Vice President] Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president's instincts lean in another direction. Even as he laces his public remarks with praise for the president, Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group of Mr. Trump's fierce loyalists who fear they are forging a separate power base." ...
... Lewandowski Sent in to Mind pence. Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: Trump has repeatedly "changed his plans to one-up the veep ... [and has gone] out of his way to make sure Pence stays in his shadow.... The vice president has in recent months taken a starring role on the campaign trail, promoting the Republican tax reform bill for America First Policies, Trump's issue-advocacy group. But on Tuesday, Trump's first campaign manager and frequent adviser Corey Lewandowski announced he'll be joining Pence's own political action committee, Great America."
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Melania Trump underwent a medical procedure on Monday morning to treat what the White House called a 'benign kidney condition' and was reported to be recovering without trouble at a military hospital outside the capital."
As Akhilleus outlined in yesterday's Comments, Evan Osnos of the New Yorker writes a devastating report on Trump's decimation of the the federal civil service, or as Trump calls it, the "deep state." "... Presidents have retained broad latitude to reshuffle civil servants without breaking the law in obvious ways. That would prove indispensable for the Trump Administration as it set out to 'deconstruct the administrative state.'... In Washington, the tactic of marooning civil servants in obscure assignments is known as sending them to the 'turkey farm.'... While the Administration wrestled the civil service into submission, it began introducing Washington to Trump's 'best and most serious people.' He had four thousand jobs to fill, and the White House was determined to subvert the traditional ways of doing so.... Republican think tanks and donors succeeded in installing preferred nominees.... Trump's struggle to attract competent people reflects a broader problem. For decades, Presidents and Congress have created a steadily increasing number of political appointees."
Brady Dennis & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "Scott Pruitt began receiving round-the-clock security from the moment he stepped foot inside the Environmental Protection Agency in February 2017 at the behest of a Trump administration political appointee, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.... The ... emails ... show that the decision to provide Pruitt with 24/7 coverage was made by Don Benton, a Washington State GOP senator who served as the agency's senior White House adviser in the first weeks of the new administration.... The inspector general's office, which investigates threats made against any EPA employees, 'played no role in this decision,' [EPA Inspector General Arthur] Elkins [said].... Elkins made clear in his letter Monday that his office 'has never conducted a "threat assessment"' for Pruitt.... Grilled about the need for such extensive security at a hearing on Capitol Hill last month, Pruitt read directly from a list of alleged threats the inspector general had compiled last summer.... [Democratic Sens. Sheldon ] Whitehouse and [Tom] Carper, who requested the information that Elkins ultimately provided Monday, said in a statement..., 'This letter raises troubling questions about whether Administrator Pruitt told the truth during his testimony before the House.'"
Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Harry Reid, the former Senate Democratic leader from Nevada, underwent surgery on Monday to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. 'His doctors caught the problem early during a routine screening, and his surgeons are confident that the surgery was a success and that the prognosis for his recovery is good,' Mr. Reid's family said in a statement."
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that kept most states from authorizing sports betting, a ruling that is sure to set off a scramble among the states to find a way into a billion-dollar business. The challenge was brought by New Jersey, which had said it could be ready within weeks of a favorable decision to offer sports betting at its racetracks and casinos. Other states are expected to act quickly as well. The court's 6-3 decision struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which Congress passed in the early 1990s to protect the integrity of sports, according to its sponsors. Only Nevada's sports wagering industry was protected, and the measure said it was unlawful for other states to authorize such gambling." (Also linked yesterday.)
Ed Kilgore: "Unlike the original Poor People's Campaign headed up (in the days soon after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination) by Ralph David Abernathy, its revival a half-century later is by design not focused on Washington, D.C. As co-organizer Reverend William Barber II (already famed for the Moral Mondays movement he led in North Carolina) told the Los Angeles Times last week, a truly national movement is needed to reverse the many measures against poor people that have intensified in the last several years[.]... But to get the ball rolling Barber and his co-chair, Reverend Liz Theoharis, led a protest near the U.S. Capitol which, predictably, got them and others arrested for not moving away from the adjoining streets.... All told, over a thousand protesters were arrested, according to the Campaign. It begins a 40-day cycle in which participants hold weekly mass meetings on Sundays, 'direct action' protests on Mondays, and educational 'teach-ins' -- another '60s institution -- on Tuesdays."
Beyond the Beltway
AP: "Prosecutors on Monday abruptly dropped an invasion-of-privacy charge against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens but said they still hope to pursue a case against him for allegedly taking a revealing photo of a woman with whom he has acknowledged having an affair. Greitens, who has long denied any criminal wrongdoing, emerged from the courthouse declaring vindication.... The prosecutor's surprise move, announced after the third day of jury selection, came after the judge had granted a request by Greitens' lawyers to call St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner as a witness for the defense. Greitens' defense team has repeatedly criticized Gardner's handling of the case...."
Laura Vozzella & Ted Mellnik of the Washington Post: "Last year's race for state delegate in Newport News went down in Virginia history for its razor-thin margin. Republican David E. Yancey won on Election Day by 10 votes; Democrat Shelly Simonds beat him by a single vote in a recount. Then, a judicial panel declared a tie, so officials picked a name out of a bowl to determine a winner, and it was Yancey. Now, a review of voter registration records and district maps by The Washington Post has found more than two dozen voters -- enough to swing the outcome of that race — cast ballots in the wrong district, because of errors by local elections officials. The misassigned voters lived in a predominantly African American precinct that heavily favored Democrats in the fall, raising the possibility that they would have delivered the district to Simonds had they voted in the proper race." [Had Simonds won,] it would have upended the balance of power in the House of Delegates.... Yancey's victory allowed the GOP to maintain control by a 51-to-49 margin, even after Democrats picked up 15 seats in a blue wave widely seen as a rebuke to President Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)
Way Beyond
Tamer El-Ghobashy & Mustafa Salim of the Washington Post: "The surprisingly strong showing of a ticket backed by maverick cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraqi elections over the weekend will force U.S. officials to recalculate how best to pursue American interests in the region at an especially sensitive moment. Sadr is a ferocious critic of American policies in the Middle East, and his unexpected electoral haul immediately calls into question the continuing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. But his spokesman said Sadr supports honoring commitments between Iraq and the United States concerning the training of Iraq's security forces and weapons purchases as long as they serve Iraq's interests and there 'is no interference on the sovereignty of Iraq.'" ...
... Margaret Coker & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "Moktada al-Sadr, a firebrand militi leader whose forces once battled American troops in Iraq and were implicated in widespread atrocities against civilians, has emerged as the surprise front-runner in the Iraqi national elections, according to Iraqi election officials. Mr. Sadr;s soldiers were fierce opponents of American forces on the battlefields of Iraq. And as a political leader, he has strongly condemned the American troop presence here, as well as Iran's interference in the country."
Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: Experts consulted by Australia's "60 Minutes" have developed a theory of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah depressureized the passenger cabins, knocking out the passengers, made a detour over Penang, Malaysia, the home town, then purposedly crashed the plane.
News Lede
New York Times: "Tom Wolfe, an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattan’s moneyed status-seekers in works like 'The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,' 'The Right Stuff' and 'Bonfire of the Vanities,' died on Monday in a Manhattan hospital. He was 88."
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Reader Comments (19)
The Emoluments Clause is as much of a joke as federal corruption charges ever since the brilliant Supreme Court precedent of "quid pro quo". If there aren't bags of money sitting in a dark, dank corner, than apparently nothing happened.
This naive view of corruption is set for a world in the 1950s when international wire transactions, bountiful shell companies and plentiful fiscal paradises still didn't exist.
So the Trump Org is benefiting from a $500 million loan from the Chinese government for a new project in Indonesia, without which the project could be jeopardized. Could this violate the Emolument Clause by giving China undue influence over Donny's decision-making in his upcoming trade negotiations? Or rather, can anyone see the Trump kids stacking bags of money in a dark corner somewhere? No? Well I guess all's good then, nothing to see here.
www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contributing-500-million-trump-linked-project-indonesia/amp/
I just finished a novel about the Lodz ghetto. One of the more effective techniques of the writer was to describe what happens to people who are made more and more cramped, as people are put there from all over Europe. All occupants, of course, have been made stateless and homeless. The constant state of disorientation and loss is well communicated. Seeing the juxtaposition of the jews and the palestinians yesterday was a grotesque reversal of the victims and perpetrators of Lodz. What have the Israeli jews come to?
@Victoria: The test of a society is not how it behaves when it is oppressed, but how that society treats the downtrodden when it becomes powerful. The U.S. has a long history of failing that test; Israel has failed, too. The noble endeavor that once was Israel is a disaster.
Victoria,
I have often wondered about the singular and glaring irony that Israeli Jews, who historically, and not all that long ago, were themselves stateless, homeless, and sorely oppressed, should visit a similar fate upon Palestinians. If there is any group on the planet who should be able to sympathize with the plight of Palestinians, it’s the Israeli Jews.
And I know that there are those who do see this irony clearly. But they are not in power. They are not the ones strutting about talking about some some chimerical joke of a peace process while soldiers under their command are massacring unarmed men, women, and children an hour away.
And it didn’t have to be this way. Had Trump talked directly to Palestinian leaders and recognized their claim to their own capital in East Jerusalem, told them that the US would work with them, then given everyone a little more time to process this move, it is likely that yesterday’s violence could have been averted or dramatically decreased. But that would take a little extra effort, something Trump has an aversion to on a par with giving press conferences and answering the questions of the American people. Besides, it’s so much more gratifying to tell the Palestinians to fuck off then collect the high fives and adulation from the mouth-breathers and the Evangelical end time dead enders.
On the other hand, it’s more than plausible that Trump, like Bibi, has never been interested in peace. They both thrive on chaos, hatred, and fear, presenting themselves as their country’s bulwark against the dark forces (“Only I can fix it!”).
Not to mention that most of the dead enders who voted for him wouldn’t wipe their shoes on a Palestinian, dead or alive.
As Marie suggests, the true measure of a people is how they respond to the plight of others over whom they have control. They can respond with compassion, humanity, and respect, or they can go the other way. Trump always goes the other way.
He always will.
Are we great again now?
Listening to the "ambassador" to Israel on NPR yesterday turned my stomach. And then watching the Kushners (what a creepy little snotnose he is, and she, Lady Oblivious, isn't much better--)was surreal. Why the word "peace" doesn't turn to gravel in their mouths is a mystery... Apparently we are all supposed to run and hide whenever the word Hamas is uttered. And yeah, there is no "peace document" after a year of "working..." There never will be with the crime family involved.
Marie's response to Victoria is exactly what FDR said about how a country is judged––"we need to care for the poor, the rich can take care of themselves." It's such irony that Israel was founded on the premise of sheltering Jews from oppression and death; a place of their own, yet in the process of getting that place they, right from the beginning, fought other peoples ––a land grab, if you will––to get what they wanted. Today Gaza is operating as an apartheid country with Hamas making it even worse. Yesterday's split screen photos show this separation brilliantly.
Yesterday I was thinking about Michael Cohen and remembered the story of Eddie Antar (Fast Eddie whose "prices are insane!") and his cousin Sam, two scam artists that bilked millions off of appliance manufacturers–-two mob-like figures straight out of "Good Fellas." I recalled that Trump was involved in some way but couldn't remember how. Doing some research discovered that the lawyer who took on the Antar case was Trump's brother-in-law and that after the case was closed (Eddie vamoosed to places unknown, but Sam turned face witness and was given a lighter sentence because of it.) It was after the case closed that Trump then hired his brother-in-law to be his lawyer. When I looked up his sisters saw that the eldest, Maryanne, the federal judge, was married to a John J. Barry (now deceased) a lawyer, who indeed became Trump's lawyer. Barry was also involved in the New Jersey kerfuffle representing certain Republicans who tried to stop a large swath of democrats from voting.
"He[John J.Barry] was a partner in the law firm of Tompkins, McGuire, Wachenfeld & Barry, based in Newark. His practice areas included commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense. Among his clients were Donald J. Trump, who was one of his brothers-in-law, and Eddie Antar, the electronics retail chain executive known as Crazy Eddie. Mr. Antar eventually pleaded guilty to racketeering after the chain had collapsed, he had disappeared, and it had been determined that he had spirited millions of dollars to foreign countries."
So here we had a brother-in-law that Trump did not hire as his private attorney until after the Antar case. He needed someone like Barry who danced with the artists of ill repute. After Barry died he found Cohen–-another dancer, but this time none too bright.
and by the way: Doing this wee digging discovered a piece about Maryanne: Chain smoking, booze lover, tough on immigrants, "a real ball buster."
Those apples–-rarely fall far from that tree.
Enough with the false equivalence. Israelis are not to the Palestinians what the Germans were to the Jews, and the Palestinians are certainly not to the Israelis what the Jews were to the Germans.
German Jews did not "strive to raise the banner of Allah (David) over every inch of Palestine (Germany)" as the Hamas Charter calls for.
The Hamas charter - in article 13 - states that there is no possibility of a negotiated settlement with the Israelis. It states that "Jihad is the only answer."
The Hamas charter accuses Jews of engineering World War I, and repeats multiple anti-Semitic canards, like Jewish control of banks and news media worldwide.
The Hamas charter includes the quote, "The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' "
I firmly believe in the right of the Palestinians to live in their own country under a government that enjoys their consent. But the government that enjoys their consent has said time and time again that its goal is the destruction of the state of Israel. Nothing in their behavior, including their sabotage of the Oslo Accords, indicates that they are at all interested in reaching a conclusion that leaves Israel in place.
How do you negotiate with that? Who do you negotiate with? Hamas pointedly refuses to deal with the Israeli government and they have sabotaged every agreement the Israelis have concluded with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
European Jews were not committed to the destruction of Germany. The German policy of forcing Jews into Ghettos was for the purpose of genocide. The Israelis are not forcing Palestinians into ghettos. What the Israelis are doing is keeping people committed to the destruction of their country out of the cities and towns they have sworn to destroy.
There's a very big difference.
Schlub,
Thanks for the comment. I am also skeptical of false equivalences even when I indulge in them myself.
I don't wish to debate the degree of fault to assign to Israel or the Palestinians for the insoluble conflict in that part of the world, but my sense is that if we could take religion out of the mix, this problem, like so many others, might just disappear.
That said, even granting the language you cite from the Hamas Charter (which I didn't even know existed, so thanks), I'm thinking that if anyone really wanted to resolve the conflict or at least make a start in that direction, that effort must begin with the West Bank occupation and the significant loss of Palestinian territory since Israel's creation. Religion is not the only thing that separates Palestinians and Israelis. The economic divide that has accompanied and been exacerbated by territorial seizures also has a great effect on Palestinian feelings and attitudes, I would think.
Since I haven't heard any serious talk about Israel returning occupied or seized territory for years now, I don't see any resolution of the conflict in the offing. In fact, even before Jared's designation as negotiator in chief, I would have said hopes had dimmed to near dark.
Today, since Jerusalem is itself divided and contested territory, I don't see how this poke in the Palestinian eye embassy move can do anything but make things worse.
Outside the Pretend Brain, what is gained? And who gains it?
At least the 500 million dollar Indonesian loan makes today's China policy make some sense.
Ken: I agree that the embassy move is a stupid one and does nothing to convince those Palestinians who still believe in compromise that a compromise is possible. I also agree that, if there is to be a peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, it has to start with the Israelis removing themselves from the West Bank and truly allowing the Palestinians to live under the auspices of a government that enjoys their consent.
But my point was that comparing what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians to what the Nazis did to the Jews is going much too far. European Jews didn't threaten the existence of Germany, or Poland, or Russia, and the Israeli response to the "threat" (real or imagined) isn't genocidal.
I thank you for your thoughtful and considered response.
@Schlub: I thank you for your informative comments. It's interesting that you pointed out the Hamas charter's 13 inset because this, I think, can be compared to a people living under a ruler that many do not agree with. I think we Americans can relate to that. Here is a piece by Chris Hedges who talks about the new documentary, "Killing Gaza" that might be of interest to you. The plight of the Palestinians present, perhaps not like a ghetto, but surely one of catastrophic proportions.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/killing-gaza/
Well, I certainly messed up by posting a duplicate on yesterday's Commentariat. Bea, you can zap them away!
...anyhow, third time's the charm!
Farewell Tom Wolfe. Your first book title, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby" could be recycled were you to
writeerr-rr skewer the current inhabitant of the White House. Perhaps you left just such an unfinished manuscript behind.Tho' you might drop Streamline from the title.
It is hard to see how anything good will come from the charade in Israel. Comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to the American Indians is somewhat apt...except I doubt they'll be granted casino rights to 'make up' for the injustices inflicted on them over the years. And today, how many people realize that once upon a time (merely seventy years ago) there was a country called Palestine? There is no good solution.
MAG,
Maybe a trivial seeming source (joke), but I think this offers a decent history of what we call Palestine. And yeah, it's complicated.
https://www.sporcle.com/blog/2013/01/is-palestine-a-country/
Schlub,
I don't know if your comment was referring to my earlier post, but let me assure you I had no intention of comparing the experience of Jews under the Nazis to the current situation of the Palestinians. Such a comparison would be grotesque and repulsive.
Perhaps I should have been clearer. My reference to Jews being stateless had to do with the post-war period in which the modern state of Israel was formed in conjunction with the United Nations Partition Plan. The horrific experience of Jews during the war prompted much deserved international action, cooperation, and support in this regard.
That being said, I do not think that the current leadership of Israel should be given a pass when considering the Palestinian situation. This is not a zero sum footing. Yes, Hamas and militant anti-Semites in that camp create a much different set of circumstances that were not present in pre-war Europe in Jewish communities across the continent. I think, however, that there might have been a better way to handle the current problem of the Embassy move, given an appreciation for how average (read: not Hamas) Palestinians might be feeling (see Ken's comment, above).
My comment had as much to do with the aggressively anti-peace actions of both Netanyahu and Trump. My reference to the irony of the situation was not unmindful of the Hamas problem, but rather a sorry acknowledgement that there are plenty of people in the middle who suffer from the actions of both sides. The way things have played out have given Hamas a great big ace in the hole. If I were a non-aligned Palestinian (non-Hamas, that is), I might be far more inclined in that direction now. Not a good outcome for anyone. Israelis or Palestinians.
There was no equivalence in my thinking, but, there again, as I say, I probably could have been clearer in my exposition.
At the end of 2016, the Huff Post posted a list of things that Palestinians can't do. They're not really second-class citizens. Most are non-citizens with an appalling lack of basic human rights. Of course it's worse in the occupied territories. I don't find it surprising at all that they would revolt. The unemployment rate of young men -- and I've seen vastly different figures, so I'm not sure what's right -- is probably about 50 percent. It's not as if most of those demonstrators yesterday took a day off from work to storm the barricades. And, yeah, as MAG writes, "Israel" -- more or less -- is "Palestine" on old maps.
I think there are peaceful solutions, but they're not going to happen while Bibi & his ilk rule Israel.
The bonfires of the Middle East remind us daily that secularization is a key element of peace. The fact that this country is governed by many people who assume this is "a Christian nation" does not bode well for the U.S.
Last night I was watching a British drama in which teenaged peaceniks were at a retreat, & a Christian girl wearing a small cross on a chain introduced herself to a Muslim girl by asking about her hijab. The Muslim girl answered the hijab question but then protested, "I didn't introduce myself to you by asking why you wear a symbol of torture around your neck." It was a stark reminder that wearing a cross is not just a religious statement; it's a statement of defiance, and when worn by people in majority-Christian countries, a symbol of power.
MAG,
Ave atque vale to Tom Wolfe. His "Bonfire of the Vanities" was set in the period in which a younger Orange Headed Baboon made his mark as an opportunistic idolizer of the vanities. The story line marks the downfall of a bond trader, but in real life, scavenging machers like Trump were never held to account for their misdeeds.
He still isn't.
But "The Right Stuff" was one of the most fun reads I ever embarked upon. My brother and I still batter each other with quotes from it. The only bad thing was that I read it in one day. It was a can't-put-it-down-er, an a capite ad calcem journey through the abstruse, recondite world of test pilots who climbed to the "top of the pyramid", the Mercury space program. A cultural touchstone that generated, in addition to the pyramid metaphor, phrases like "spam in a can", "screw the pooch", "Light this candle!", and "No bucks, no Buck Rogers".
Just imagine a Tom Wolfe going at the Trump Monster with the same ravening sense of detail, clarifying anecdote, exactitude, and colloquial elegance.
There are years of Trumpy books in our future. Pity Wolfe won't be around to do one.
"There are years of Trumpy books in our future. "
What you mean, "our", kemosabe? I'm not reading any, and we prefer Charmin in our house.
Looks like the "very honorable" leader just threw the Pretender "summit" of a pre-summit curve.
Can't wait to see how the great deal maker handles that pitch.
Patrick,
Hahahahahaha.
Too, too apropos.
So who will be squeezing your Charmin. Mr. Zinke?
Ken, You can't use terms like 'honorable' or 'deal maker' when you are just watching children at play.