;)
The Commentariat -- May 7, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
NRA Chooses Former International Arms-Dealing Felon (Convictions Vacated) as New Prez. Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a central figure in the Iran-contra affair in the 1980s, has been named president of the National Rifle Association. The NRA's board of directors chose North to be the organization's president Monday morning after NRA President Pete Brownell decided not to seek a second term. 'This is the most exciting news for our members since Charlton Heston became president of our Association,' said NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre.... North will assume the presidency in the coming weeks and has retired from Fox News, where he was a commentator, effective immediately.... North was convicted in 1989 of charges including obstructing Congress, unlawfully mutilating government documents and taking an illegal gratuity. He was fined $150,000, given a three-year suspended sentence and two years' probation. A federal judge dropped the criminal charges against North in 1991."
Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump intervened Monday in the West Virginia Republican Senate primary, pleading with voters a day before the election to oppose the former mine operator Don Blankenship, and suggesting that Mr. Blankenship's nomination would lead to a replay of the party's embarrassing loss last year in Alabama. Mr. Trump's decision to speak out on the race came after Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whom Mr. Blankenship has targeted in a deeply personal manner, urged the president in a telephone call on Sunday to weigh in against the controversial former coal executive, according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation.... 'Don Blankenship currently running for Senate, can't win the General Election in your State...No way!' Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet. 'Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey.'"
This is a classic. "John Oliver examines [Rudy Giuliani's] turbulent record as a lawyer, a politician, and an enemy to ferrets":
Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday criticized the suggestion that he has obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, saying he is simply 'fighting back.' The Russia Witch Hunt is rapidly losing credibility. House Intelligence Committee found No Collusion, Coordination or anything else with Russia,' the president wrote on Twitter. 'So now the Probe says OK, what else is there? How about Obstruction for a made up, phony crime. There is no O, it's called Fighting Back.'... 'The 13 Angry Democrats in charge of the Russian Witch Hunt are starting to find out that there is a Court System in place that actually protects people from injustice...and just wait 'till the Courts get to see your unrevealed Conflicts of Interest!' Trump added Monday." ...
... Christopher Cadelago & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Trump has increasingly cautioned his party against allowing the House, and even the Senate, to fall into Democratic control, voicing fears about his certain impeachment if that happens. 'We have to keep the House because if we listen to Maxine Waters, she's going around saying, "We will impeach him,"' Trump said at a recent rally in Michigan, referring to the Democratic congresswoman from California.... Trump appears to believe victory in the November midterms depends on turning the contests into a referendum on his leadership, rather than risking a district-by-district slog over conventional messaging about the Republican tax overhaul and the upbeat economy."
Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump issued an online vote of confidence Monday for Gina Haspel, his pick to be the next director of the CIA, and chided Democrats who have been critical of her for her role in waterboarding terrorism suspects at a secret agency prison. 'My highly respected nominee for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, has come under fire because she was too tough on Terrorists,' the president wrote on Twitter. 'Think of that, in these very dangerous times, we have the most qualified person, a woman, who Democrats want OUT because she is too tough on terror. Win Gina!'"
*****
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Mark Landler & Noal Weiland of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, reeling after a chaotic first week as President Trump's lawyer, tried again on Sunday to straighten out his client's story. But Mr. Giuliani raised new questions about whether Mr. Trump had paid hush money to other women and suggested the president might invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying in the special counsel's Russia investigation. Mr. Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor hired by Mr. Trump to smooth communication between the White House and the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, instead painted Mr. Mueller as an out-of-control prosecutor bent on trapping Mr. Trump into committing perjury. The president, he said, could defy a subpoena to testify." ...
... Rudy Continues to Be Very Helpful. Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "Rudy Giuliani on Sunday said while he has no knowledge of President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paying any women in addition to Stormy Daniels, he believes Cohen would have done so if he deemed it 'necessary.' 'I have no knowledge of that. But I would think if it was necessary, yes.' Giuliani, who recently joined Trump's team of lawyers, told ABC's 'This Week' when asked about Cohen making payments to other women." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mallory Shelbourne: "Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that a potential pardon for President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is not a possibility at this point. 'Jay and I have made it clear, and -- and -- and Michael's lawyers all know that that obviously is not on the table,' Giuliani told ABC's 'This Week,' referring to Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and Cohen. 'That's not a decision to be made now, there's no reason to pardon anybody now.'" Mrs. McC: Apparently it's possible to reset the table. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Here's video of Rudy's latest disastrous performance:
... The transcript is here. ...
... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "The overall impression created by Giuliani's appearance ... was more Mr. Magoo than Perry Mason. Giuliani was confused, self-contradictory, and ignorant of key facts.... When a lawyer speaks on behalf of a client, their words typically carry the same legal force as if they'd been spoken by the client him or herself. So when Giuliani stated in Sunday's interview that the $130,000 payment to Daniels 'may have involved the campaign,' or when he suggested that Daniels had greater leverage over Trump because Trump was running for president, those are statements that run counter to the Trump legal team's larger narrative -- that the payment was irrelevant to the campaign. And they potentially could be turned against Trump in court." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Still, Giuliani's repeated assertions that the facts of the matter were irrelevant is a feature, not a bug, of Trump's defense on, well, everything. Contradictory statements sow confusion, and even when the contradictions themselves are unintentional, these contradictions are part of a strategy to hide the truth. Even if you've closely followed Giuliani's ramblings, I'll bet you don't know what his "position" is on the hush-money payments to Daniels & others any more than he does. We're all Mr. Magoo now.
A Teaching Moment for Jim Comey. Martin Cizmar of the Raw Story: "The Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and associated crimes may have to 'go dark' during the mid-term elections or risk being shut down entirely, the Wall Street Journal reports. ...
... Kevin Drum: "Hahahaha. He [Mueller] doesn't want to appear to be trying to sway voters' decisions. Of course not. That would be at odds with DOJ guidelines. So very much at odds. Totally at odds. We can't have that, can we?"
Christopher Carbone of Fox "News": "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is going to push Congress to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress. The Californian Republican's committee has been looking into allegations that the Justice Department and the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in their scrutiny of the Trump campaign. 'On Thursday we discovered that they are not going to comply with our subpoena,' Nunes said on 'Fox and Friends,' adding, 'The only thing left to do is we have to move quickly to hold the attorney general of the United States in contempt and that is what I will press for this week.' Two weeks ago, Nunes sent to Sessions a classified letter, which he said was not acknowledged, and then he sent a subpoena. However, the Justice Department said it responded to Nunes' letter.... 'The Department has determined that, consistent with applicable law and longstanding Executive Branch policy, it is not in a position to provide information responsive to your request regarding a specific individual,' Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote in the signed letter." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It would no doubt be reasonable to assume that the devilish Devin is making this move at the behest of JeffBo's boss.
Nick Visser of the Huffington Post: "Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee reportedly plan to release details about 3,000 Facebook ads linked to the Russian campaign to influence the last presidential election. According to The Wall Street Journal, the files could be released as early as this week and may show images of the promoted material, which demographic groups were targeted and how many people saw them.... In September, Facebook announced that it had been paid $100,000 to promote thousands of ads that were linked to the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency.... Facebook later said more than 126 million people potentially saw the ads purchased by the Russians."
Trump Black Ops
The Weinstein Connection. Josh Marshall: "We have a pretty stunning development about aides to Donald Trump apparently (though they deny it) hiring the same Israeli dirty ops/private intel firm [-- called 'Black Cube' --] that Harvey Weinstein used to cover up his history to mount an operation against public supporters of the Iran deal. We start with this story in The Guardian [also linked here yesterday]. It's very hedged and key details are not included. But the gist is that aides to Donald Trump hired an Israeli security firm to dig up dirt on two prominent supporters of the Iran nuclear deal. They are Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl, both Obama administration national security hands who were involved in the negotiation.... Laura Rozen confirmed with Kahl that the purported firm which reached out to the Kahls [in an approach Kahl & his wife found "fishy"] was 'Reuben Capital Partners'. That's the same name used by Black Cube in the Weinstein operations.... It is very hard to believe that two separate operations would stumble on the same name for a front operation." ...
... Steve M. elaborates. There's even a Cambridge Analytica connection. ...
... Kevin Drum: "The worst part of this is yet to come. That will be when this gets more attention and all the usual slimeballs chime in to say that there was nothing wrong with this at all. Oppo research is a normal part of politics, and checking to see if the Iran negotiators had a personal stake in the deal is perfectly reasonable. Nothing to see here, folks." ...
... Update. Wait, Wait, There's More. Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker: Black Cube tried essentially the same trick they used against the Kahls on Ben Rhodes' wife Ann Norris, a former State Department official. However, one of Farrow's sources said that the campaign against Rhodes & Kahl was 'part of Black Cube's work for a private sector client pursuing commercial interests related to sanctions on Iran'; i.e., not necessarily Trump surrogates. Still, "Rhodes said that the campaign represented a troubling situation in which public servants were being targeted for their work in government. 'This just eviscerates any norm of how governments should operate or treat their predecessors and their families,' he said. 'It crosses a dangerous line.'" Mrs. McC: Yes, it does. ...
... Chas Danner & Margaret Hartmann of New York sum up what's known so far -- and not much is nailed down. Mrs. McC: It's certain possible -- in fact, likely -- that there's at least one degree of separation between Trump & Black Cube, just as, say, a GOTV effort funded by Organizing for America is not specifically President Obama's handiwork. ...
... Treason. Juan Cole: "There is only one word for a sitting US administration that deploys a foreign intelligence firm linked to that of a foreign government with a vested interest in shaping US intelligence to bamboozle Congress and the US public by smearing dedicated (and as it turns out upright) public servants. That word is treason." ...
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.... Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency? -- Attorney Joseph Welch to Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Now ask yourself this: If a person would use a foreign-based black-ops outfit to compromise former federal employees & their families in order to scuttle an international treaty, would he do anything remotely like that for a much bigger prize -- say, the presidency? Would a person who recently wailed "Where's my Roy Cohn?" do such a thing? As for me, I hope we have found our Joseph Welch in Bob Mueller.
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Isabel Kershner & Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "With time running out before the May 12 deadline by which President Trump is to decide whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, the leaders of Israel and Iran weighed in on Sunday, with one calling the agreement 'fatally flawed' and the other warning of 'historic regret' if the United States rips up the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel repeated his call for the agreement to be 'fully fixed or fully nixed,' arguing that while it may have delayed the acquisition of Iran's first bomb, it paves the way for the country to build an entire nuclear arsenal soon after the deal expires. In Iran, President Hassan Rouhani, whose negotiating team reached the nuclear accord with six world powers in 2015, said the Trump administration would come to rue any decision to renounce the agreement."
More White House Chaos. Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to become the next CIA director, sought to withdraw her nomination Friday after some White House officials worried that her role in the interrogation of terrorist suspects could prevent her confirmation by the Senate, according to four senior U.S. officials. Haspel told the White House she was interested in stepping aside if it avoided the spectacle of a brutal confirmation hearing on Wednesday and potential damage to the CIA's reputation and her own, the officials said. She was summoned to the White House on Friday for a meeting on her history in the CIA's controversial interrogation program -- which employed techniques such as waterboarding that are widely seen as torture -- and signaled that she was going to withdraw her nomination. She then returned to CIA headquarters, the officials said.... Senior White House aides, including legislative affairs head Marc Short and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rushed to Langley, Va., to meet with Haspel at her office late Friday afternoon. Trump learned of the drama Friday, calling officials from his trip to Dallas. He decided to push for Haspel to remain as the nominee after initially signaling he would support whatever decision was taken, administration officials said." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What's wrong with this picture? Haspel can repeatedly torture people as a means of interrogation but she can't endure five minutes of Dianne Feinstein's sharp questions?
... digby: "Personally, I think anyone who was involved in that hideous program should have been fired at the very least and in a just world, prosecuted.This was a war crime perpetrated by the United States and people should have been held accountable. I don't care how great a CIA operative any of them were. But my God --- making one of the torturers and a person involved in the destruction of evidence the Director of the CIA? It really could not be more of a signal that the US is no longer a civilized nation." ...
... Chas Danner: "... Sarah Huckabee Sanders was out defending Haspel over the weekend and trying to reframe her nomination along feminist -- rather than moral -- grounds: 'There is no one more qualified to be the first woman to lead the CIA than 30+ year CIA veteran Gina Haspel. Any Democrat who claims to support women's empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: While Mrs. Huckleberry knows how to be a "total hypocrite," I'm not sure she really understands the concept of hypocrisy. So let's respond in a way she might find helpful: "Any Republican who claims to support women's empowerment and our national security but opposes Hillary Clinton's presidency is a total hypocrite." No, that doesn't make sense, either, but it follows Mrs. Huckleberry's "logic."
Jonathan Swan of Axios: "President Trump is unhappy about a report in The Atlantic [linked here last week] which says a member of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's press team has been shopping negative stories about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to multiple outlets.... Trump has been souring on Pruitt as the negative press about him piles up.... Trump's draining supply of goodwill towards Pruitt is the EPA administrator's lifeline. Most everyone else in the building wants him gone.... Pruitt has grown paranoid and isolated.... Over the last few months, Pruitt has walled himself off from all but five EPA political appointees: Millan Hupp, Sarah Greenwalt, Hayley Ford, Lincoln Ferguson, and [Jahan] Wilcox. Of those five, only Wilcox is over 30. Hupp, Greenwalt and Ferguson came with Pruitt from Oklahoma.... Pruitt's chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, runs the agency's operations but rarely knows where his boss is. Pruitt has frozen Jackson out of his inner circle.... Since his April 26 congressional testimony, senior staff outside his inner circle have had virtually no idea of his whereabouts...." ...
... Alex Guillen of Politico: "Top [political] aides to Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency are screening public records requests related to the embattled administrator, slowing the flow of information released under the Freedom of Information Act -- at times beyond what the law allows. Internal emails obtained by Politico show that Pruitt's political appointees reviewed documents collected for most or all FOIA requests regarding his activities, even as he's drawn scrutiny for his use of first-class flights and undisclosed dealings with lobbyists.... The emails also show Pruitt's aides chastising career employees who released documents about the administrator without letting them screen the records first."
Haley Boasts She Tells off Trump. Luis Sanchez of the Hill: "U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday that she won't defend President Trump's 'communication style.' 'First of all, he has his communication style,' Haley told CBS's 'Sunday Morning.' 'But you're not hearing me defend that.' 'What I will tell you is if there is anything that he communicates in a way that I'm uncomfortable with, I pick up the phone and call him, and I tell him that. And I think that's something that he deserves from me,' the former South Carolina governor said." ...
... MEANWHILE, It Appears Jim Mattis Is Not Heeding Putin's Puppet. Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North Atlantic -- an escalation of the Pentagon's focus on a resurgent Russia and its expanding military presence.... Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson ... invoked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis's national-defense strategy as key guidance to reestablish the fleet, which will extend halfway across the Atlantic until it meets the area of responsibility for the Italy-based 6th Fleet."
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "At a rally in Michigan a little over a week ago, President Trump assured his supporters that he had kept his promise to abolish the Affordable Care Act -- even though Congress had failed to repeal the Obama-era health law. But ... many parts of the Affordable Care Act remain in place. And the Trump administration is even enforcing some of its provisions more aggressively than President Barack Obama did -- a reality that has enraged business groups and Republicans in Congress who still want the law officially repealed. While the individual mandate may be dead, the employer mandate -- the requirement that many companies offer health insurance to their workers or pay a penalty -- is very much alive. Under Mr. Trump, the Internal Revenue Service has been pursuing companies that fail to comply with the mandate and, according to the agency, was sending penalty notices to more than 30,000 businesses around the country." ...
... Washington Post Editors: "... the effects of the president's underinformed instincts, enabled by the ideologues in his administration, are beginning to show up.... The Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation focused on health-care issues, announced last week that the rate of working-age Americans without health insurance in the group's annual survey rose to 15.5 percent, up about three percentage points since 2016. Things are worse in the 19 holdout states ... that have refused to expand their Medicaid programs: The rate of uninsured working-age Americans hit 21.9 percent in those areas, up nearly six percentage points over two years.... Obamacare critics regularly describe all problems as the inevitable result of a poorly designed law. But the numbers suggest that the critics' sabotage efforts are to blame.... During the campaign, Mr. Trump regularly complained that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) left too many Americans uncovered. The result of nearly a year and a half of Mr. Trump's leadership is 4 million people added to that group."
Amy Sorkin of the New Yorker argues that even if Trump is an idiot who doesn't understand DACA, as John Kelly has reportedly asserted, Democrats need to step up their game. "Trump turned his attention to the midterms last week, at a rally in Michigan [Mrs. McC: paid for by taxpayers], where he made it clear that he thinks border demagoguery will provide the Republican Party with another path to victory. 'Our laws are so corrupt and so stupid,' he said. 'I call them the dumbest immigration laws anywhere on earth.' He told the crowd, 'The liberal politicians who support criminal aliens, and they support them far over American citizens -- Nancy Pelosi and her gang -- they've got to be voted out of office!' The 2016 election showed that, if not adequately countered, bigotry and fearmongering can yield crowds, votes, and the power of high office. In that sense, Trump understands DACA very well."
Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "Little more than fifteen months into his Presidency, the attention-seeking President has the rest of the world right where he wants it: hanging on his every word.... He is the indispensable man. Soon he will meet Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, in an unprecedented nuclear summit. Next week, in advance of a May 12th deadline, he may single-handedly decide whether to blow up the Iran nuclear deal.... The smart betting is that he will, but he may not. Nobody knows, and that's the point: all roads now lead through Trump.... L'état, c'est Trump.... There is one nation conspicuously missing from Trump's long list of upcoming deadlines and deals...: Russia.... Several former U.S. officials who follow Russia closely told me the believed that the President remained committed to [inviting Putin to the White House], despite little enthusiasm on his team." (Also linked yesterday.)
God called King David a man after God's own heart even though he was an adulterer and a murderer. I think evangelicals have found their dream president. -- Jerry Falwell, Jr. ...
... ** John Ehrenreich, in Slate, explains the psychology of white evangelical support for Trump.
Sheera Frenkel in the New York Times: "For more than a decade, professors, doctoral candidates and researchers from academic institutions around the world have harvested information from Facebook.... They have compiled hundreds of Facebook data sets that captured the behavior of a few thousand to hundreds of millions of individuals, according to interviews with more than a dozen scholars.... In many cases, the data was [sic.!] used for research or scholarly articles. The information was then sometimes left unsecured and stored on open servers that offered access to anyone. Some academics said the data could have been easily copied and sold to marketers or political consulting firms.... The Facebook data was [sic.!] typically amassed through scraper programs that crawled the social network to document what was posted, or through quiz apps that requested access to people's profiles. The results included users' locations, interests, political affiliations, Facebook interactions and even music preferences."
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Reader Comments (13)
I wonder if tabloid trump will renew the JCPOA on May 12. He loves all this attention, and having this "show" come around regularly, where various leaders from important countries come in procession to genuflect and cajole - addictive for such a narcissist. This is a soap opera that he might want to keep going, with all the "will he or won't he?" headlines. If he abandons the agreement he loses the merry-go-round. Of course, he might not be capable of that kind of sophisticated planning.
Gloria,
My thoughts exactly. Just as he does with pretty much all other issues before his lowness, the little king's decision making hinges not on what's best for the nation but what's best for the trumpish ego.
Look at the tariff situation. Putting off the decision on whether or not to stick it to European allies does no one any favors. The many industries that could (will) be affected by Trump's protectionism, both here and abroad, need to have some idea what's going on in order to make arrangements. These are decisions with billions of dollars on the line, but all he really cares about is looking like the king.
The Iran deal is no different. He loves that the whole world is watching and waiting. It never enters the lizard brain that there are much more dangerous outcomes and plans being constructed as he sits on his throne and looks lovingly into all the mirrors surrounding him, waiting for the next round of obsequious fawning from his courtiers at Fox.
Just wondering how long it will take, when a next Democrat resides in the White House, for the likes of Devin Nunes to begin insisting that every syllable of the law be followed scrupulously, with the slightest perceived deviation cause for a barrage of congressional investigations and hearings.
Amy Sorkin (linked above) is exactly right. Democrats cannot sit back and let Trump run roughshod over decency and the rule of law as he did in 2016, assuming that everyone except his diehard 33% or whatever it is today, will see him as the bigoted moron he is and vote accordingly. That strategy is what gave us Trump in the first place. And they can't just say "Vote Against Trump". They have to offer something more. Forget Trump. Put something on the table that will provide a new direction, a new hope. People are finding out what it's like--again--not to have healthcare. Make that an issue. Do something.
Tick, tick, tick...
Trumpy declares that the Russia Thing, if it continues, "could affect the midterm elections!!!" Really? Wow. Well, he'd be the one to know. But I guess his ratfucking of the last election, including collusion with an antagonistic foreign power had no effect at all.
It's still astounding all the crap this guy gets away with. Now it comes out that he hired foreign spies to dig up dirt on Americans to help him ratfuck another Obama initiative. Nothing will come of this. Nothing. At this point, the Party of Traitors holds all the cards and when you have them looking to derail any investigations into the many criminal activities of this administration and instead put those looking into the plethora of allegations of fraud, treason, malfeasance, and obstruction on trial, that will remain the outcome.
All my life I've had nightmares where I have some vital task to do & I just can't get it done because obstacles keep popping up. I usually wake up with my goal still unmet. I think this kind of nightmare is pretty common.
This morning's dream was that I couldn't access any news sites, so I couldn't post links on Reality Chex. When I finally got to the NYT, I discovered that the problem was serious -- Trump had unexpectedly resigned hours before & I had not posted anything about it. This was probably the first time one of these nightmares turned into a dream. Unfortunately, it was only a dream. The real nightmare continues.
I wish things were clearer to me. A remark that applies to so much in Trumpland, but let's consider only one thing: the Pretender's foreign policy. What does he have in mind?
Is he working toward a corporate white world state? Is the American First rhetoric mere window dressing on a policy directed toward the establishment of some kind of united white oligarich-directed and organized world government?
In the Pretender's mind, what's Syrian really about? Does he think an autocratic Israel will succeed in absorbing and governing Lebanon and the Palestinians? Has he cast his (and our) lot with the Sunni Arabs and dismissed the Shiites from consideration (except for the time being in Iraq)?
Is there any thinking going on here now that Bolton is aboard? Is it all just anti-Iran and pro- Right wing Israel?
Or just transactional, getting through one day at a time, with a dim eye on the poll numbers?
Too many questions. Too few answers.
Just before I looked at WaPo and saw the article by James Hohmann (The Daily 202: "Rudy Giuliani is repeating seven mistakes that brought down previous Trump advisers"), I had a thought for Guiliani's epitaph "I lasted Longer than Scaramucci "
...it's a-coming!
Ken,
You're overthinking it. Trump's motivation has nothing to do with ideology or some master plan. He traffics in chaos and misdirection, but typically it's not plotted out, there's no genius to it. The other night, the Celtics beat the vaunted Philadelphia 76'ers by using a misdirection play. They used the same type of play twice, and twice, the Sixers fell for it and, consequently, lost a must win playoff game in their own buiilding. It was absolutely brilliant.
There is none of that in Trumpy's seat of the pants thinking. It's usually as simple as "What makes me look good today?" That's not to say that there aren't ideological warriors working for the little dictator, just look at Bolton and Pompeo. These guys each have an agenda. But their agendas can easily be tossed overboard by whoever gets the last little whisper into Trump's cauliflower ears.
Chaos suits him because it keeps everyone guessing. Here again, Trump benefits from the past. Since we've never had such an ignorant, narcissistic windbag in the White House, too many in the media (and probably Congress) believe there's some plan afoot. The basic outline of anything resembling a plan is usually "Do I look better than Obama?"
And because the goal isn't to make America great again, or anything remotely like it, as opposed to making Trump richer and more glorious, there is likewise no apparent rhyme or reason to the hiring beyond who will prove to be the most obsequiously loyal to the little dictator. Skill, experience, sagacity, ability, none of that matters. Just look at the current carny sideshow with Giuliani. Might as well put the guy in the dunk tank and let the rubes gawk at each new soaking (every five minutes or so). When that gets old, he'll be gone and, as MAG suggests, some new jabroni will climb into the ring to distract the paying customers from the ongoing larceny at the ticket windows and the jiggering of the carnival books and worrying about how the Russians helped usher the whole boob show into town in the first place.
Even when it appears he has every chance of doing something good (the Korea mess), he can fuck it up in an instant because he's not anywhere near as smart as his opponent and he never thinks things through past where he decides "This next move will make me look great".
I'm teaching my 7 year old to play chess. The thing that intrigues him the most so far (I haven't told him about en passant and castling just yet) is how important it is to think four or five moves out before making a decision.
In a couple of weeks he'll be kicking Trump's ass all over the board. Christ, he could probably do it right now.
News from the land of Javanka. Is it cold or is it hot?
We haven't heard much from the posh, self-absorbed inhabitants of the island nation of Javanka, but here's an interesting detail.
You kids may recall that co-ruler of Javanka, Young Jared, has been trying for what seems a decade to get his security clearance squared away so he can go about using his lofty position to properly enrich himself, none of this dilly-dallying around.
Well, his latest filing has more problems.
It appears that YJ has "...misstated the financials on two Brooklyn loans, the latest in a long series of errors and omissions on the form.
A Kushner representative confirmed the errors, attributing them to data entry and accounting mistakes...The form has been updated at least 40 times since Kushner first submitted it in March 2017. Each update can contain multiple revisions...Kushner’s disclosure suggests that these loans could have generated more income from interest in a roughly yearlong period than the entire value of the loans themselves."
D'ja get that? The interest on these loans is worth more than the actual loans. What the hell is going on there?
Moreover...40 "corrections" to his security clearance filing? Forty? As in four-oh? When do they say "Sorry son. Go home. No clearance for you"? How many do-overs do you get? Isn't the mere fact of 40 (four-oh) "corrections" (or maybe "data entry" and "accounting" mistakes) a strong, as in S T R O N G indicator of a lack of, shall we say, candor? As in sneaky bastard SERIOUS SECURITY RISK?
But check out these revisions to his filing. (And while you ogle these "corrections" check out how many things Jared has weaseled his way into...he's president of this, managing partner of that, vice president, manager, investment board member, chief cook and bottle washer...and I'm not talking six or seven businesses, this thing runs to dozens and dozens. Not to mention dozens of pages of small type single spaced listings of assets and income. This kid is pulling serious money from a lot of places and he still can't make ends meet. That's a problem for anyone looking for security risks, or should be.) Some were made almost daily. "Oops. I forgot something". Next day, "Oh-oh, another couple of things..." Day after that, "You'll never believe this guys, but..."
No, Jared, we don't believe it. You are a lying, scheming piece of shit, angling to use your position to fix your terrible business decisions on our dime.
But this is standard in Trump World. The other day during one of his dunk tank appearances, after he was caught lying, Giulani threw his hands up in frustration, after being bagged, and asked "How can you tell fact from opinion?" as if anyone would nod their head in dim agreement to such a stupid statement.
Pro tip, Rudy. Facts are provable. Opinions are just that. So, a guy from Brazzaville says "A bit chilly today, in'it?" and a lady from Novosibirsk says "Wow. Pretty warm out, don't you think?" Those are opinions. A fact is "It's 62 degrees."
These people are all fucking crooks and liars.
As they say, "Opinions are assholes, everybody has one but nobody else wants to listen to it."
And in NRA news: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/oliver-north-named-president-of-the-national-rifle-association/2018/05/07
Great. An acknowledged crook, who lied to congress, is responsible for untold numbers of Nicaraguan deaths, and as I remember used government money to erect a security gate on his own property.
But he was in the big time gun business, so no stain on the NRA's escutcheon.
Why am I not surprised?
Oops, meant say "...are like..."