;)
The Commentariat -- May 24, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
It is time to bring back Gilbert AND Sullivan (thanks to unwashed for the link):
(Makes me wonder why there aren't any country AND western songs praising Trump) -- Mrs. McC
Jordan Fabian & Ellen Mitchell of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday announced that the U.S. will send roughly 1,500 troops to the Middle East in order to counter Iran's influence in the region. Trump emphasized that the new deployment will provide force protection for existing troops in the area amid heightened tensions with Tehran."
Rudy Writes His Own Covfefe. Quint Forgey of Politico: Rudy Giuliani "on Thursday evening amplified on Twitter a manipulated version of [Nancy] Pelosi's remarks at a conference earlier in the week. The clip, which has disseminated across social media ... subtly slows Pelosi's speech in a manner that suggests she is physically impaired. 'What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? Her speech pattern is bizarre,' Giuliani tweeted Thursday when he posted the footage. He later deleted the message. Earlier Friday morning, Giuliani appeared to offer Pelosi an apology, tweeting a GIF of professional basketball players and a message that read:' ivesssapology for a video which is allegedly is a caricature of an otherwise halting speech pattern, she should first stop, and apologize for, saying the President needs an "intervention. Are.' Drew Hammill, Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, mocked Giuliani's incoherent tweet, reposting it and writing online: 'No further comment needed.'" But, perhaps with some assistance, Giuliani on Friday appeared to defend tweeting the doctored video: 'Nancy Pelosi wants an apology for a caricature exaggerating her already halting speech pattern. First she should withdraw her charge which hurts our entire nation when she says the President needs an "intervention." People who live in a glass house shouldn't throw stones,'" Giuliani wrote.
Juliegrace Brufke of the Hill: "Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, blocked a disaster relief bill in the House on Friday by objecting to a unanimous consent vote. The Texas Republican who previously worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argued the House should not have recessed before debating the legislation and holding a vote.... The $19.1 billion disaster aid package, which did not include the $4.5 billion in border funding requested by President Trump, passed the Senate in an 85-8 vote on Thursday."
Trump Admin Extends "Be Cruel" Policy. Nathaniel Weixel of the Hill: "A new proposal from the Trump administration would roll back health care protections for transgender people. The proposed regulation, announced Friday, scraps ObamaCare's definition of 'sex discrimination' to remove protections for gender identity. That provision said patients cannot be turned away because they are transgender, nor can they be denied coverage if they need a service that's related to their transgender status. The announcement follows a series of moves that bolster efforts by religious conservatives to narrowly define gender and gender protections. Earlier this month, the administration finalized rules making it easier for health workers and institutions to deny treatment to people if it would violate their religious or moral beliefs."
~~~~~~~~~~
Beginning yesterday, the Washington Post no longer allows private browsing. This is also true of several major media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times. I will no longer be able to link WashPo stories unless the paper changes its policy. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Another Nutty White House Presser: Asawin Suebsaeng & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "Accused of having a temper tantrum at the White House the day before..., Donald Trump did what anyone trying to prove their serenity would do: He put together a press conference during which he asked five aides to attest to his calmness. On Thursday afternoon, Trump hosted a group of American farmers at the White House to tout his administration's $16 billion aid plan for farmers afflicted by his ongoing trade war. But after singing their praises and promising relief to come, he quickly turned to the matter most clearly on his mind -- reports that he'd lost his cool at a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the day before.... The showcase was vintage Trump: the policy push of the day overwhelmed by internal insecurities and grievances with press coverage bursting into public view. And it underscored the degree to which his warfare with Nancy Pelosi has gone from political to psychological." ...
... Here's a funny aside in the Beast's report: In the middle of last year, Trump once sat in the White House and angrily listed various words in headlines and cable-news chyrons he'd seen recently that described his mood -- 'fuming,' 'raged,' 'furious,' and so forth -- decrying them as inaccurate reporting, according to a source who was present for this. The president sounded increasingly irate as he rattled off headline after headline, the source said, noting the irony.
... Trump Calls Himself "Very Stable Genius." Ella Nilsen of Vox: "... Donald Trump questioned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's mental fitness on Thursday, just a few hours after Pelosi said she wished the president's family or staff would 'have an intervention, for the good of the country.'... 'They sort of feel she's disintegrating before their eyes,' Trump said at one point -- saying Pelosi didn't understand an impending trade deal between the US, Canada, and Mexico.... The president seemed especially fixated on Democrats' characterization of him after Wednesday's infrastructure meeting. Trump called himself a 'very stable genius' during the Thursday press conference, introducing members of his staff one by one to come up and talk about how calm he was at the meeting." ...
... Trump Says Pelosi Is "Crazy." Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "... Donald Trump repeatedly called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 'crazy,' said former FBI Director James Comey and former acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, were guilty of treason, and declined to commit to raising the nation's debt ceiling during a sprawling interaction with reporters at the White House on Thursday.... He took issue with Pelosi's characterization of his abrupt departure from the room, saying he kept his cool. 'I was so calm,' he said. 'Cryin' Chuck, Crazy Nancy -- I tell you what, I've been watching her. I have been watching her for a long period of time. She is not the same person. She has lost it.'... Asked whether his self-imposed ban on legislative action extends to budget matters, including an increase in the statutory debt limit, Trump hedged. 'We'll see what happens,' Trump said, calling himself a 'very capable' person. 'Let them get this angst out of their belt.'... He was asked Thursday to provide the names of people who should be held accountable for a crime punishable by death. Trump answered with a list of names: McCabe, Comey, former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former Justice Department official Lisa Page." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, real presidents don't do this stuff.
... John Bowden of the Hill: "President Trump shared an edited video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday, mocking the Democratic leader for various moments during a press conference earlier in the day where Pelosi appeared to misspeak. Trump tweeted the video with the caption: 'PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE.' The video, which first appeared on Fox Business's 'Lou Dobbs Tonight,' cut together a number of Pelosi's apparent flubs in quick succession, but did not appear to be altered in any other way. Earlier Thursday, a number of videos shared by conservative accounts went viral -- those clips were falsely edited to make Pelosi appear as if she was slurring her words due to intoxication. The video Trump shared did not appear to have the same alterations.... [Trump's] tweet came hours after YouTube removed altered videos of Pelosi following requests for comment from The Hill and other news outlets, though falsely edited videos of the speaker remained on Facebook into Thursday evening." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, real presidents don't do this stuff. ...
... Kate Riga of TPM: "A video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), with the audio slowed to make her speech sound drunkenly slurred, is permeating the social media landscape, already infiltrating Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The video is from Pelosi's Wednesday speech at the Center for American Progress. The Washington Post reported on the spread of the video."
Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "If Mr. Trump's preplanned Rose Garden explosion proved anything, it is that the president is willing to sacrifice his own stated policy agenda [link fixed] to keep 'presidential harassment' front and center, and that the speaker, who wants to focus on policy, is leveraging decades of hard-won political capital to keep her party from pursuing an impeachment path that she believes could cost House Democrats their majority in 2020 and keep Mr. Trump in the White House.... For now, she is guided by two political goals: protecting the 40 newly elected Democratic members, who largely come from moderate or conservative districts, and avoiding Mr. Trump's traps. And Wednesday was a good day for her.... But even Ms. Pelosi's closest allies wonder how long she can hold the line against impeachment if the president continues to ignore the House's demands." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "Calls for President Trump to resign began circulating on Twitter on Thursday morning, mocking the president for throwing a '#TrumpTantrum' and walking out of a meeting with Democratic leadership this week.... The official Twitter account for The Democratic Coalition, an anti-Trump super PAC that targets Republican officials and candidates, began circulating calls for Trump to resign over the incident.... The #TrumpMustResign hashtag quickly gained momentum online, with more than 60,000 people ;using it on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Pelosi's Maid. David Edwards of the Raw Story: “White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Thursday frantically defended her attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who she alleged is anti-woman.... 'I said, respectfully, would you like to address some of the specifics the president talked about?' she explained. 'I talked to the president, I don't talk to staff,'* Conway recalled Pelosi saying. 'She treats everybody like they're her staff,' the president's counselor complained. 'She treats me like I';m either her maid or her driver or her pilot or her makeup artist and I'm not. And I said to her, "How very pro-woman" of you. Because she's not pro-woman, she's pro-some woman, a few woman [sic].'"
... * Mrs. McCrabbie: According to Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill, Pelosi said to Conway, "I'm responding to the president, not staff."
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
The Inquisition/Witch Hunt Begins. Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt: "President Trump took extraordinary steps on Thursday to give Attorney General William P. Barr sweeping new authorities to conduct a review into how the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Russia were investigated, significantly escalating the administration's efforts to place those who investigated the campaign under scrutiny. In a directive, Mr. Trump ordered the C.I.A. and the country's 15 other intelligence agencies to cooperate with the review and granted Mr. Barr the authority to unilaterally declassify their documents. The move gave Mr. Barr immense leverage over the intelligence community and enormous power over what the public learns about the roots of the Russia investigation.... Mr. Barr, who has used the word 'spying' to describe how the Trump campaign was investigated, has been deeply involved in the department's review of how the intelligence was collected on it." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, real presidents don't (usually) do this stuff. I'm thinking Trump issued this memorandum because Barr told him the agency heads were not being "cooperative" enough; i.e., they weren't sharing the names of sources. ...
... David Frum of the Atlantic: "... Donald Trump can only escalate.... On Thursday night, he spread from his own presidential account a video of the speaker of the House, edited to splice together moments when she stumbled over her words, in an apparent effort to deceive people into thinking her drunk or ill. In 2016, Trump's Russian supporters performed this service for him with faked videos of Hillary Clinton. Now he seems to have decided that if you want a dirty-tricks campaign done right, you must do it yourself. At the same time, he has put the declassification powers of the presidency to work as part of a larger campaign of cover-up.... The declassification process will be selective, of course, in service to a predetermined narrative.... Who will trust or credit in any way the integrity of a Barr-led investigation?" ...
... Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "... it is now being reported that Attorney General Barr wants to know about the CIA's sources in Russia and what they know about the origins of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference.... One of the first thing authoritarians try to do once they feel they have consolidated enough power is to ferret out the human sources who were working against them prior to their attaining power. In this case it appears that AG Barr wants to start with the human sources that the CIA's National Clandestine Service has cultivated and established in Russia.... Barr is very likely to use this new authority to selectively [weaponize] the information he declassifies to try to ratfuck the 2020 election. Remember, it was Barr who was leaning on the US Attorney in Little Rock to investigate then Governor Clinton regarding the Whitewater Savings & Loan scam in order to dirty Clinton up in advance of his general election campaign against Barr's boss, President George H. W. Bush." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The more we look at Bill Barr, the more we realize or recall what a bad president George H. W. Bush was.
Owen Daugherty of the Hill: "House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said special counsel Robert Mueller wants to testify privately about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Nadler, appearing on 'The Rachel Maddow Show' on MSNBC Thursday night, said ... 'He is willing to make an opening statement but he wants to testify in private.... We're saying we think it's important for the American people to hear from him and to hear his answers to questions about the report. Nadler noted that a private Mueller testimony would still come with a transcript that would be publicly made available.... 'He envisions himself, correctly, as a man of great rectitude and apolitical and he doesn't want to participate in anything that he might regard as a political spectacle,' Nadler said." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: We paid you, Bob. Now we want to hear you sing, if belatedly, for your supper.
Get Out! Former Rep. Tom Coleman (R-Mo.), in a Kansas City Star op-ed, urges the Congress to impeach & remove both Trump & Pence. "There is a trove of evidence in the Mueller report indicating Trump has committed multiple impeachable offenses, including abuse of power and lying to the American public. Both were part of the articles of impeachment brought against President Richard Nixon.... [Trump's] illegitimacy would survive through Vice President Mike Pence's succession to the presidency. Because the misdeeds were conducted to assure the entire Trump-Pence ticket was elected, both former candidates -- Pence as well as Trump -- have been disgraced and discredited. To hand the presidency to an illegitimate vice president would be to approve and reward the wrongdoing while the lingering stench of corruption would trail any Pence administration, guaranteeing an untenable presidency.... Failure to pursue impeachment is to condone wrongdoing.... To give up on the rule of law and democracy invites autocracy and eventually dictatorship."
Andrew Martin of Bloomberg via Yahoo!: "A Chicago banker who lent millions of dollars to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was charged by prosecutors with bribery for seeking a post in the Trump administration in return for $16 million in loans.Stephen Calk was appointed to a post as economic adviser to Donald Trump's campaign in summer 2016, days after his bank approved a $9.5 million loan, federal prosecutors in New York said. Months later, after Trump was elected president, Calk was recommended for a position in the Trump administration while loans worth more than $6 million were awaiting approval at Calk's bank, they said. Calk presented a list of positions he wanted, ranking them from secretary of the Treasury on down to 19 ambassador posts beginning with the U.K. and France, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday. A former U.S. Army helicopter pilot, Calk, 54, faces a single count of financial institution bribery." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "President Trump apparently wants to give [men accused of war crimes] a presidential pardon, timed for Memorial Day.... Current and former military leaders ... have urged the White House to abandon this plan [-- including Martin Dempsey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.]... But Republican lawmakers and conservative television personalities have lobbied in support of accused war criminals.... The president likes 'tough' people and 'tough' action, where 'tough' is a euphemism for violent.... For Trump, this toughness -- this willingness to act cruelly and brutally -- is a virtue. That-s especially true when the targets are racial others.... If Trump goes through with these Memorial Day pardons, it wouldn't be the first time he has used his pardon power to affirm the virtue of racialized brutality. Recall how in 2017 he pardoned Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff ... [who] was notorious for his dehumanizing treatment of prisoners in his care.... The pardon power was meant to correct wrongs, to forgive offenders and show mercy, to promote virtue and affirm the best values of our society. But in Trump&'s hands it has become, like so much of our constitutional system, a tool for vice."
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, real presidents don't (usually) do this stuff.
Imperial President Blows off Congress. Again. Edward Wong, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is preparing to circumvent Congress to allow the export to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of billions of dollars worth of munitions that are now on hold, according to current and former American officials and legislators familiar with the plan. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and some political appointees in the State Department are pushing for the administration to invoke an emergency provision that would allow President Trump to prevent Congress from halting the sales, worth about $7 billion. The transactions, which include precision-guided munitions and combat aircraft, would infuriate lawmakers in both parties.... This spring, both the House and Senate approved bipartisan legislation to cut off military assistance to Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen using the 1973 War Powers Act, only to see it vetoed in April.... No other foreign policy issue has created as large a rift between Mr. Trump and Congress, and the move on the arms sales, which could take place within days, would deepen the divide. Mr. Pompeo would oversee the action, and the State Department is bracing for lawmakers to stall confirmations on all State Department nominees if it is implemented. Within the department, veteran Foreign Service officers have strongly opposed Mr. Pompeo's position." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) spoke out forcefully against gurgled mush in response to the plan. ...
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, has been indicted on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday -- a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues. The new charges were part of an expanded indictment obtained by the Trump administration that significantly raised the stakes of the legal case against Mr. Assange, who is already fighting extradition proceedings in London based on an earlier hacking-related count brought by federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia.... The case has nothing to do with Russia’s election interference in 2016.... [Officials] noted that most of the new charges were related to obtaining the secret document archives, as opposed to publishing them. In the counts that deemed the publication of the files a crime, prosecutors focused on a handful of documents revealing the names of people who provided information to the United States in dangerous places like war zones." ...
There's of course a rain on your wedding day quality to the fact that Assange worked to bring the authoritarian Trump to power on some misguided notion that doing so would strike a blow against the security state. -- Matt Yglesias of Vox, in a tweet ...
As several reports note, the Obama administration considered, and rejected, charging Assange under the Espionage Act, because that pesky First Amendment thing. Would a Clinton administration have been equally careful? Thanks partly to Assange himself, we'll never know. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
... Kevin Poulsen & Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "In a stunning escalation of the Trump administration's war on the press, the Justice Department has indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for revealing government secrets under the Espionage Act. It's the first time a publisher has been charged under the World War I-era law.... The act has no exception for reporters or publishers, but prior administrations have balked at invoking the law against journalists for fear of colliding with the First Amendment. The Justice Department immediately sought to draw a distinction between Assange and the press in a briefing for reporters announcing the new indictment. 'The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it,' said John Demers, head of the department's National Security Division. 'It has not and never has been the department's policy to target them for reporting. But Julian Assange is no journalist.'... 'Any government use of the Espionage Act to criminalize the receipt and publication of classified information poses a dire threat to journalists,' said Bruce Brown ... of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in a statement." ...
... Michael Grynbaum & Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Journalists and press freedom groups reacted with alarm on Thursday after the Trump administration announced new charges against Julian Assange ... for publishing classified information, in a case that legal experts say takes direct aim at previously sacrosanct protections for the news media.... The Assange indictment could amount to the pursuit of a publisher for making [leaked] material available to the public.... The American Civil Liberties Union called the indictment 'a direct assault on the First Amendment.' The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press described it as 'a dire threat.'... 'It is one thing to charge a government official who has sworn an oath not to disclose classified information,' said Matthew Miller, who served as the Justice Department's chief spokesman under Mr. Obama's attorney general.... 'It's another thing to charge someone outside the government who published information or solicited information, which is something that reporters do all the time.'... Mr. Miller said prosecutors had now skated to the edge of criminalizing journalistic practices.... 'The calculation by the Department of Justice is that here's someone who people don't like,' [Theodore] Boutrous[, a media lawyer,] said. 'There's a real element of picking the weakest of the herd, or the most unpopular figure, to try to blunt the outcry.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It is almost fanciful to think Bill Barr's DOJ -- at the behest of Barr's master -- would not go after traditional media or online media like Daily Kos. Or me. Remember that Melania Trump sued a young American blogger, who had previously retracted a defamatory, unsubstantiated rumor about her. The blogger paid her "a substantial sum" in settlement. That was the last day I had any sympathy for whatever hell Melania endures in her marriage to a nasty old slob.
Pay for Play. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump has pressured the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a border wall contract to [North Dakotan Tommy Fisher,] a Republican donor and frequent Fox News guest. Four administration officials and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said the president has aggressively pushed Fisher Industries in meetings with Department of Homeland Security officials and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, who heads the Army Corps, reported the Washington Post." ...
Alison Durkee of Vanity Fair: "Per the Post, [Tommy] Fisher has been lobbying for his company to be awarded the border wall contract via conservative media appearances, in which he argues that the firm could do the work cheaply and quickly, and even claim they can build 200 miles of wall in less than a year. Fisher has also joined with the nonprofit organization We Build the Wall -- whose advisors include such Trump allies as Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach -- to start building a wall on private land in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The C.E.O. reportedly believes his privately-funded wall will win over the Army Corps, the agency with contracting authority for the border project, and show off just what his company can do.... According to the Army Corps, Fisher and his firm aren't actually up to the job.... The Post reported that Army Corps of Engineers officials found Fisher's border wall proposal didn't meet the project's requirements -- and that the firm's low costs came at the expense of their wall's quality and sophistication.... The Army Corps has apparently added Fisher to the pool of border wall competitors at the White House's urging, but they've been clear about their misgivings, meeting [Jared] Kushner [-- also a Fisher fan --] several times to argue against Fisher."
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, real presidents don't do this stuff.
Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue Uses More Cash to Paper over Trump's Disastrous Trade Wars. Jeff Daniels & Christina Wilkie of CNBC: "The Trump administration announced a $16 billion trade aid program for American farmers that includes a three-prong trade aid package for American farmers who have been hurt by the U.S. trade war with China. The centerpiece of the program is cash payments totaling $14.5 billion to producers of a variety of crops as well as dairy and pork producers impacted by retaliatory tariffs. U.S. tariff revenue collected by the Treasury would be used to support the payment program, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Presidential Race 2020
Mayor Pete Takes on Cadet Bone Spurs. Scott Bixby of the Daily Beast: "... on Thursday morning, [Pete] Buttigieg brought up his own military service in a newly aggressive way, telling a reporter during a live event that ... Donald Trump faked a disability to avoid serving in the Vietnam War -- a pointed reference to the long-disputed diagnosis of bone spurs that kept Trump from serving. Buttigieg, himself a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was responding to a question from The Washington Post's Robert Costa about potentially debating the president.... 'I have a pretty dim view of his decision to use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in Vietnam,' Buttigieg replied.... '... this is somebody who, I think it's fairly obvious to most of us took advantage of the fact that he was the child of a multi-millionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Congressional Race 2020. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "A top Democratic official on Wednesday canceled a planned fund-raiser for an anti-abortion congressman [Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.)] that had prompted an outcry among progressives, raising the question of whether there is room left in the party for lawmakers who oppose abortion at a moment when numerous Republican-controlled states are trying to effectively outlaw the procedure. The decision by Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, underscored the extent to which support for abortion rights has become a central litmus test for Democrats in the aftermath of President Trump's two appointments to the Supreme Court." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Brooks Barnes of the New York Times: "Harvey Weinstein and his former studio's board members have reached a tentative $44 million deal to resolve lawsuits by women who accused him of sexual misconduct and the New York State attorney general, according to two people briefed on the matter. Under the proposed terms, about $30 million would go to a pool of plaintiffs that includes alleged victims, creditors of Mr. Weinstein's former studio and some former employees, according to the people briefed on the matter.... The balance would go to legal fees for associates of Mr. Weinstein, including board members named as defendants in lawsuits. Insurance policies would cover the $44 million if the deal is finalized. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the tentative deal, which must be approved by advisers in charge of the former Weinstein Company's bankruptcy proceedings."
Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "Four in 10 American adults wouldn't be able to cover an unexpected $400 expense with cash, savings or a credit-card charge that could be quickly paid off, a new Federal Reserve survey finds. About 27 percent of people surveyed would need to borrow or sell something to pay for such a bill, and 12 percent would not be able to cover it at all, according to the Fed's 2018 report on the economic well-being of households, which was released Thursday." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This, as more & more municipalities are using minor traffic & housing code violations, larded with high fees, to fund their basic operations. Partly because of more intense policing in higher-crime areas, these fees are falling more often on those who can least afford them.
Way Beyond the Beltway
India. Sasha Ingber & Lauren Frayer of NPR: "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been reelected and his party is poised to take more seats than the 2014 election, signaling India's support of the strongman leader and his Hindu nationalist ideology. The voting lasted almost six weeks to accommodate nearly 900 million people who were eligible to cast their votes. On Thursday, the ballots were counted and results showed Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, winning more seats than any other party."
U.K. Heather Stewart of the Guardian: "Theresa May has bowed to intense pressure from her own party and named 7 June as the day she will step aside as Conservative leader, drawing her turbulent three-year premiership to a close. Speaking in Downing Street, May said it had been the honour of my life' to serve as Britain's second female prime minister. Her voice breaking, she said she would leave 'with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love'.... But she admitted: 'It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.' May's announcement came after a meeting with Graham Brady, the chair of the backbench Tory 1922 Committee, which was prepared to trigger a second vote of no confidence in her leadership if she refused to resign. Her fate was sealed after a 10-point 'new Brexit deal', announced in a speech on Tuesday, infuriated Tory backbenchers and many of her own cabinet -- while falling flat with the Labour MPs it was meant to persuade."
Share Article
Reader Comments (13)
From the CNBC report above:
"U.S. tariff revenue collected by the Treasury would be used to support the (farmer) payment program, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Not Quite.
CNN explains the payment provisions, not tariffs, certainly not tariffs paid by China, so even this unstable dumkopf can understand. Wonder if Secretary Sonny does.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/tariffs-bailout-china/index.html
SONG SUNG BY SOMEONE WHO'S DUMB AS A ROCK:
I am a very, very stable genius (with an extra large mushroom penis)
destroying nearly everything I touch–-
Watch how I fake the presidency
the role I love so much!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lucy done got the football and she's gonna keep it.
Trump calling Pelosi crazy and suggesting she’s “lost it” is just more obvious and sad projection on his part, as is this selectively edited video that purports to show her slurring her words (with the help of slowing down the clip).
Does he really think such juvenile tricks work? I guess with his base of trumpbots it might. But he should be careful. A compilation of the plethora of instances of him slurring his words, mispronunciations, mumbling, stumbling, and fumbling as he tries desperately to show he’s a stable genius and not an addled chump would make him look like a drooling idiot. With no editing trickery required.
Just what we need in these troubled times. A president whose best comeback is “I know you are, but what am I?”
@Akhilleus: Correct on all counts. Nobody has to doctor videos of Trump slurring his words. And not just slurring, but also not able to recall common words, even after repeated attempts, like, um "origins" (sounds like "oranges"), as in "the oranges of the investigation." This clearly is why Trump invents words like "bigly"; he can't think of common words like "largely" or "enormously."
Just the news getting out about Barr on the hunt for the human sources on Russian intel has got to absolutely scare the shit out of anyone dishing to the CIA, especially those filtering Eastern Europe/Russia intel. That's 'trip off a balcony' or 'drink poisoned tea' shit right there. I can't imagine many sources have been coughing up too much info. since Trump arrived and started deriding our intelligence agencies in favor of Putin's "honesty", but now that it's out that Barr is empowered to dig up anything and send top secret names and addresses to the Oval Office, I bet lots of spooks go dark. I know I would.
Barr has so toadied to the Trump line that he likely wouldn't hesitate for a second to share this deep intel with the Pres. or his advisors if so "ordered" by the executive monarch. How much does a Russian mole cost for Vladimir Putin? A Trump Tower condo? A lease extension? This is madness.
I wonder if the heads of the CIA & NSA are freaked out too in their offices as they hear Barr's footsteps rumbling down the hallway. Whose team is that man on, and how much damage is he willing to do to cover up for Agent Orange?
I wouldn't be surprised to hear the CIA has opened up a file on the obstructionist AG himself, blocking and tackling to keep any Russian dirt in the ground.
Marie,
Quite. And as if on cue, the very stable genius, the man with "all the best words" (A phrase which makes one wonder what are the worst words? Don't they all play a role? It's like saying F# is a better note than middle C, which is nonsensical. Is "colloquy" a better word than "discussion"? It all depends on the context and the setting. You probably wouldn't describe a conversation with an eight year old as a colloquy. But I don't think that's what Trump means when he refers to "all the best words". I think he means something like fancy, five dollar, Scripps spelling bee words as opposed to hardworking everyday words like articles and prepositions. And not for nothin' but I would be stunned if "All the Best Words Man" got past the first round of the Scripps bee. He probably thinks "prestidigitation" is a better word than "often" because it sounds more high-falutin'. Just the fact that he uses such an odd, awkward phrasing, "all the best words" gives the immediate lie to his claim to having anything but the most rudimentary facility with words) comes out with this pip when trying to insult the Speaker of the House and the Senate Minority Leader in his usual schoolyard bully idiom:
"Let them get this angst out of their belt."
Wait, what? "Angst out of their belt"? What does that even mean? Is that where angst resides? I wish I had known that. I'd have gotten rid of that angst belt years ago! Damn thing. Oh, but I see now that you can get your angst out of that belt. Really? How? Send it on a cruise? Get it a massage? Crush up some Xanax and rub it all over the belt? C'mon Donnie, give.
And one more thing. Someone who is constantly protesting that they know the best words, are stable, and a genius, and then have to trot out obsequious toadies to testify as to that person's calm demeanor, is having serious problems, such as could be observed at the rest of this weird-ass press conference.
So, two more bits of crazy were peppered about in a typically Trumpy whacko word blast. First, his standard go-to when he has no idea what's going on or what else to say. When asked if his moratorium on doing his job would extend to things like the budget, he mewled "We'll see..." as if that phrase gives him an oracle-like sense of a learned mind which knows all but cannot reveal it too quickly to lesser mortals. It doesn't. It just makes him appear what he is. Clueless and dim, caught off guard about something he hasn't even considered (but should have).
And then he was asked about treason (a topic he knows all too well). He declared, in a press conference (!) that several people, including Comey, McCabe, former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former Justice Department official Lisa Page, all deserved death (punishment for treason) for not liking him.
This shit is long past being funny. When you have the president of the United States condemning people to death because he thinks they don't like him, we are in Never Never Land. A place we should never, never be.
Which reminds me of another word:
Asshole. How's that for a good word, Donnie?
Maybe he'd prefer rectal cavity.
As with all other things Trump, this new "investigation" has its end result already in hand. Barr will be sure to "discover" that Trump's many enemies played a role in the "oranges" of the Russian investigation.
The oranges of it are plain and simple.
Russia wanted to help Trump win a presidential election. He was perfectly fine with that. Dozens of Trump apparatchiks, including his treasonous son, set up meetings with the Russians with just that goal in mind.
That's it.
The origin of the Russia investigation? Trump himself.
There. I just saved us a packet.
But the end result (Trump is blameless and his many enemies are traitors) is in the bag. That is what Barr will "find".
Bet on it.
The egotism is beyond belief.
Yesterday, at that whack job press conference in which Trump had lackeys come out to testify that, in their learned opinion, he is not a maniac, the Little King bragged that Japan was honoring his junket there as a guest of honor at a dinner.
He said "Of all the countries in the world that will be there, I will be the guest of honor!" He had to point out that there was only one guest of honor, just in case those listening were unsure of the difference between singular and plural cases of the word "guest".
Then he made the claim that he, Donald J. Trumpy, will be the guest of honor at the biggest event in Japan in over 200 years.
200 years! Just think of it! It's not even the biggest event in Japan in the LAST TWO MONTHS (the abdication of the emperor--first time in centuries, is a much bigger deal).
But just consider, for a moment, that Trump believes that he will be the most important person at an event bigger and more historic than all of the following:
1854: Commodore Perry signs a treaty with Japan that is the beginning of the end of centuries of isolation for that country.
1895: Japan wins the first Sino-Japanese War.
1904: Russo-Japanese War in which Russia ceded territory to Japan.
1941: Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into WWII, which would bring an end to the Japanese Empire and change the power structure of the entire planet.
But the event at which Trump will be "guest of honor" (there's only one, ya know...) is far more important than any of these. And I'm not even talking about the atom bombs. What an egotistical asshole.
This will make you feel better. Randy Rainbow outdoes himself with "A Stable Genius".
Do you think that we can convince Robert de Niro to do a reenactment of the Mueller testimony afterwards? Or maybe the coward can ask his buddy Bill Barr for some pointers on public speaking.
@RAS: An excellent idea! Must-see TV. I would chip in to pay De Niro the millions he would expect & deserve for the re-enactment. Might have to call in some of the SNL cast to play the members of Congress.
One of the cable networks -- the old Court TV maybe -- did run daily readings of the O.J. Simpson trial testimony with actors reading from the transcripts against a black screen. I can't recall why they didn't just roll the video of the real thing. For the De Niro hearing show, I propose a Congressional hearing room set. The actors playing Republicans could drink from bottles of Trump Ice Natural Spring Water, perhaps tinted urine-yellow.
Just heard that Jerry Nadler had a slight fainting spell at some meeting he was in. He was hospitalized and is fine–– said it was too warm in the room. I betcha the real warmth that's getting under his skin is the constant blowback from various and sundry who are trying like hell to make some kind of hell for Nadler.
Love the Randy Rainbow–– that's exactly the tune I was humming this morning.
Trump and his Haters are proposing to extirpate rules about discriminating against human beings that certain religious groups don't like (read: hate).
The idea is that human beings should be allowed to suffer without healthcare in order that some providers not have to do anything that doesn't square with their religious beliefs.
Okay....
Whew....
I wanna know this: What fucking religion says "Let that person suffer because we don't like them and their lifestyle choices"?
Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath say "First, do no harm"? Trump proposes a change. "First, don't do anything you're not comfortable with. Your patient can go fuck themselves."
Is this where we are now?
Again: WHAT RELIGION ALLOWS PEOPLE TO SUFFER WITHOUT MEDICAL CARE SO THE HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS CAN PAT THEMSELVES ON THE BACK THAT THEY REFUSED TREATMENT TO THOSE THEY HATE?
Is that what your religion says? If so, then fuck your religion.
OR is that what schemers and haters and bigots twist their religious rules into saying?
This is my single biggest problem with Christianity (and any other religion that runs along these lines). I cannot, in my wildest fantasies, conjure up an omnipotent being who says that only 15% of humans ever born are worthy of eternal joy in heaven with me. Everyone else goes straight to hell. How do you square this? How can you, in church, sing about how god and Jesus are all about love--pure, unqualified love--then say, "Oh, except for you, and you, and you, and you, and those 50 million people over there"?
How?
FUCK.THAT.
And not only that, if you are a healthcare professional and turn your nose up at someone who needs your help because of some warped interpretation of some piece of scripture some bigoted asshole inserted into the Bible 6,000 fucking years ago, then FUCK YOU TOO. You are not worthy of the position you hold. If your mantra is "I only help those who believe what I believe" then what the fuck good are you?
This, on a weekend all about duty and sacrifice for helping others live a good and decent life.