;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 10, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
"Real Low Energy." Carol Lee & Kristen Welker of NBC News: "... Donald Trump was scheduled to take a 30-minute helicopter ride from Paris to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France. But a rainy forecast for the city made it too risky for him to safely fly there, the White House.... White House chief of staff John Kelly and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the roughly 50-mile long trip to the cemetery in a small motorcade of vehicles. The drive took about 90 minutes each way. Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled a similar distance by car to a commemorative event in northern France.... Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also participated in armistice events outside the city today, at a battle site about two hours north of Paris by car.... A member of the British Parliament and grandson of legendary British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames ... call[ed] Trump 'pathetic' and 'inadequate' on Twitter because he 'couldn't even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen' who 'died with their face to the foe.'... Kelly Magsamen, who served on the National Security Council under both Republican and a Democratic presidents, said it displayed 'real low energy,' for Trump 'to not bother to honor the sacrifice of American soldiers in WWI due to some rain. Somehow everyone else was able to do so today.'" Thanks to OGJerry for the lead. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'd guess Trump was concerned about having another bad hair day. Or maybe Trump was concerned about umbrella logistics, especially with the problem of his wife's standing beside him. ...
... Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "Trump's announcement sparked skepticism, disbelief, and disdain. Luke Baker, Reuters' Paris bureau chief, questioned the timing of the cancellation, noting that French officials told reporters a day earlier that Trump was unlikely to visit the memorial, which is about 55 miles from Paris.... Unlike Barack Obama, Trump still hasn't visited troops serving in combat zones.... Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser, wrote [on Twitter]: 'I helped plan all of President Obama's trips for 8 years. There is always a rain option. Always.'" Lanard's post includes a photo of John Kelly & Joseph Dunford arriving at the Aisne-Marne cemetery, and there is nary a raindrop in sight. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: President Obama, you may recall, did not let a little rain bother him....
... Neither did this unnamed woman:
Florida. Max Greenwood of the Hill: "Three statewide races in Florida are heading for recounts after a key deadline for county election officials to submit unofficial vote tallies came and went Saturday. The first round of machine recounts, which must be completed by Thursday, sets up a bitter fight to the finish in Florida's races for Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner."
See Patrick's commentary in today's thread on But the Emails! He puts the whole "scandal" is perspective.
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "In the three days after the Democrats captured the House, President Trump fired his attorney general and replaced him with a loyalist critical of both the courts and the Russia investigation. He banned a CNN correspondent from the White House, while threatening he would do the same to other journalists. And he accused election officials in Florida and Arizona of rigging the vote against candidates he had campaigned for. It was a remarkable assault on the nation's institutions, even by a president who has gleefully taken a hammer to the press, to judges and prosecutors he does not like, and to an electoral process he has denounced as fraudulent since the day he took office. Mr. Trump's actions suggested a president lashing out after a midterm election loss that he had initially cast as a victory.... For the most part these days, Mr. Trump speaks less in sorrow than in anger."
Loveday Morris & Louisa Loveluck of the Washington Post: "An audio recording tracking the dying moments of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul has been shared with Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and Germany in addition to the United States, the Turkish president said Saturday. 'We gave it to Saudi Arabia,' said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke at Ankara airport before departing for Paris for commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. 'We gave it to America. To the Germans, French, English, we gave it to all of them.' The tape is a critical piece of evidence that Turkey says backs up its assertion that Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post World Opinions section, was killed by a Saudi hit team after he entered the consulate on Oct. 2."
*****
Maegan Vazquez & Michelle Kosinski of CNN: "... Donald Trump picked a fight with French President Emmanuel Macron over European defense just as Air Force One landed in France on Friday. 'President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly,' Trump tweeted minutes after landing in France. He is set to spend the weekend in Paris to commemorate the centennial of the end of World War I. Tuesday on Europe 1 radio, Macron called for a 'real European army' within the European Union, according to AFP. 'We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,' Macron said. Macron also suggested that since the start of Trump's presidency, the US has been seen as a less reliable ally. 'When I see President Trump announcing that he's quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security,' he said. Macron has been advocating a similar position for months." ...
... Alexander Mallin of ABC News: "... Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to mend fences Saturday just hours after Trump fired off an angry tweet toward his host upon arriving in Paris...."
Say, Let's See How Much Damage Trump Can Do in 20 Minutes of Chopper-Chat:
I know Matt Whitaker. -- Donald Trump, October 10, 2018
I don't know Matt Whitaker. -- Donald Trump, November 9, 2018 ...
... All the Best People, Ctd. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Friday that he has not yet spoken to the new acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, about the special counsel investigation.... Mr. Whitaker, who now oversees the investigation, has visited the Oval Office several times and is said to have an easy chemistry with the president, according to people familiar with the relationship. 'I don't know Matt Whitaker,' Mr. Trump told reporters as he left Washington for a weekend trip to Paris. 'Matt Whitaker is a very highly respected man.'... Mr. Trump on Friday said Mr. Whitaker 'was confirmed at the highest level' when he served as the United States attorney for the Southern District of Iowa during the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Trump incorrectly asserted that [Robert] Mueller had not been confirmed by the Senate.... Mr. Mueller has been confirmed by the Senate several times -- to become the head of the F.B.I.; to serve as the United States attorney for the Northern District of California; and to serve as the assistant attorney general at the Justice Department in 1990. The special counsel position is not one that requires Senate confirmation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Two days after he hired a transparent political hack to run the Justice Department, President Trump has failed to come up with a remotely plausible cover story. 'I didn't speak to Matt Whitaker about' the Russia investigation, Trump told reporters this morning, 'I don't know Matt Whitaker. Matt Whitaker has a great reputation and that's what I wanted.' None of those things are [Mrs.McC: IS!] true. Whitaker does not have a 'great reputation.' He lost a race to be the Iowa Republican Senate nominee in 2014, and spent the next few years working for a scam patent company that was shut down as a fraud while getting Trump's attention by engaging in low-rent pro-Trump punditry that he leveraged into a chief of staff job. Trump does know Whitaker, and has spoken about the Russia investigation with him." Chait elaborates on this last point, then goes on to mention this:
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Chait doesn't say so, but I will: It's not because Phillip works for CNN that Trump attacks her; it's not because the question she asked was impertinent or irrelevant; it wasn't; it's because (a) she's a woman & (b) she's a black woman. Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story reports that in the same chopper-presser: "... Trump insulted well-respected White House correspondent [April] Ryan as a 'loser' who 'doesn't know what the hell she is doing.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "President Trump has made no secret of his contempt for reporters... He's also had unkind things to say about women and people who are African American. This week, he hit a trifecta, singling out three African American women who are journalists. The women -- Abby Phillip, April Ryan and Yamiche Alcindor -- earned his contempt apparently just for asking him questions. Trump called one of Phillip's questions 'stupid,' described Ryan as 'a loser' and brushed off Alcindor, saying her question was 'racist.'... He suggested he was considering pulling other reporters' press credentials to cover the White House, as he did with CNN reporter Jim Acosta on Wednesday. Among those he brought up in that context was Ryan. 'You talk about someone who's a loser,' Trump said of Ryan, a reporter for American Urban Radio Networks and a contributor to CNN. 'She doesn't know what the hell she's doing. She gets publicity and then she gets a pay raise, or she gets a contract with, I think, CNN. But she's very nasty and she shouldn't be. You've got to treat the White House and the office of the presidency with respect.' Trump's 'loser' comment came two days after he admonished Ryan at a White House news conference." ...
... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump's verbal assaults against black reporters, candidates and lawmakers has renewed criticism that the president employs insults rooted in racist tropes aimed at making his African American targets appear unintelligent, untrustworthy and unqualified.... 'His supporters are right, he does attack everyone...,' said Adia Harvey Wingfield, a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis.... 'But there's also a clear commonality in the attacks he levels against people of color and black professionals. These are straight out of historic playbooks about black workers and professionals in particular -- not being qualified, not being intelligent or having what it takes to succeed in a predominantly white environment.'" ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox lists more reports of the "close" relationship between Trump & Whitaker -- the guy Trump suddenly claims he "doesn't know" -- and the irregular way Trump appointed Whiteaker. "All of this stinks to high heaven. And Trump's comments did nothing to clear up that stink." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "People close to Mr. Trump believe that he sent Mr. Whitaker to the department in part to limit the fallout from the Mueller investigation, one presidential adviser said. White House aides and other people close to Mr. Trump anticipate that Mr. Whitaker will rein in any report summarizing Mr. Mueller's investigation and will not allow the president to be subpoenaed." ...
... Winger Bret Stephens of the New York Times: "Of all the ways in which Donald Trump's presidency has made America worse, nothing epitomizes it quite so fully as the elevation of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general of the United States. Intellectually honest conservatives -- the six or seven who remain, at any rate -- need to say this, loudly. His appointment represents an unprecedented assault on the integrity and reputation of the Justice Department, the advice and consent function of the Senate, and the rule of law in the United States." Stephens elaborates on each of the following qualities that define Whitaker & his appointment: "Unqualified. Shady. A hack. A crackpot. Barely legal. Dangerous. It's quite a good summary. "It says something about how atrocious this appointment is that even Trump is now distancing himself from Whitaker, falsely claiming not to know him despite the latter's repeated Oval Office visits. It's the Michael Cohen treatment. When a rat smells a rat, it's a rat. Only a Republican in 2018 could fail to notice." ...
... Washington Post Editors: "From approximately the second President Trump ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and tapped Mr. Whitaker to temporarily exercise the office's vast authority, legal experts have sparred over whether Mr. Trump can unilaterally elevate someone from a role that does not require Senate confirmation to one that does. But regardless of whether the promotion is legal, it is very clear that it is unwise. Mr. Whitaker is unfit for the job.... It took less than 24 hours for material to emerge suggesting he could not survive even a rudimentary vetting." ...
... See also safari's commentary at the top of today's thread. ...
... Another Winger Whitaker Idea. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Matthew Whitaker ... has said that states have the right to nullify federal law, but that they need the political courage to do so. Whitaker ... made the comments during a failed 2014 run for the Republican Senate nomination in Iowa. 'As a principle, it has been turned down by the courts and our federal government has not recognized it,' Whitaker said while taking questions during a September 2013 campaign speech. 'Now we need to remember that the states set up the federal government and not vice versa. And so the question is, do we have the political courage in the state of Iowa or some other state to nullify Obamacare and pay the consequences for that?'" He has made similar comments elsewhere. ...
... ** The Two Faces of Matt Whitaker. Murray Waas of Vox: "Matthew Whitaker ... privately provided advice to the president last year on how the White House might be able to pressure the Justice Department to investigate the president's political adversaries, Vox has learned.... [N]ew information suggests that Whitaker -- while working for Sessions -- advocated on behalf of, and attempted to facilitate, Trump's desire to exploit the Justice Department and FBI to investigate the president's enemies.... Whitaker was the chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and in that role was advising Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on how to counter the president's demands. But according to one former and one current administration official, Whitaker was simultaneously counseling the White House on how the president and his aides might successfully pressure Sessions and Rosenstein to give in to Trump's demands." --s ...
Erin Banco of The Daily Beast: "Inside the Department of Justice ..., Whitaker is seen as a rogue and under-qualified new leader whose impact won't just be felt on the Mueller probe but throughout the federal government. 'He's a fucking fool,' one trial attorney inside the department said of the new AG.... 'We've seen this over and over again with the Trump administration. They never vet these people,' said one former official from the department.... Inside DOJ, Whitaker's political views are known to be similar to Sessions'. But officials there said that his unpredictability, and lack of institutional experience, could lead the department in a more conservative direction." --s ...
... Jon Swaine in the Guardian: "... Matthew Whitaker was involved in a company that scammed US military veterans out of their life savings, according to court filings and interviews. Whitaker ... was paid to work as an advisory board member for World Patent Marketing (WPM).... Earlier this year, it was ordered to pay authorities $26m.... In particular, WPM promoted itself as a champion of those who served in the military." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Whitaker's association with the patent scam has been widely reported, but this is the first article I've seen that emphasized the company's targeting military veterans. Also, too, we learn this from Bret Stephens' column, linked above. (The link in the cited material is to the WSJ story that broke this): "Now it turns out that the Miami office of the F.B.I. is conducting a criminal investigation of World Patent Marketing. This would be the same F.B.I. that Whitaker oversees in his new job." ...
... The Worst Laid Scheme. David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "The president knew that Democrats would likely take over the House.... He knew that Special Counsel's investigation would likely soon ensnare even more of his top lieutenants, even his eldest son. And he was incensed at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to use the Justice Department as a blast shield to protect him from the explosive consequences of his crimes. So he needed to have a plan prepared for the day after the election. He had to fire Sessions and try to constrain Mueller. The plan, apparently, was to replace Sessions with a wholly unvetted scam artist and wackadoo legal extremist because Trump likes his football player's physique, enjoyed his articles defending the president on far-right websites, and lauded his laughably aggressive performances on television. Just a day's worth of media scrutiny after the appointment has led to a cavalcade of embarrassment.... But what's even more shocking is that the furor seemed to come as a surprise to the Trump Administration[.]... It appears that they sort of knew what they were getting, but not entirely, because they didn't bother to vet or investigate the guy they were counting on to protect the president from possible impeachment and criminal indictment." ...
... Steve Benen of NBC News: "Trump may not rely on intelligence reports, but he does rely heavily on his remote control. In this administration, the key to acquiring power and influence is appearing on the president's television -- and saying what Trump wants to hear. Indeed, much of the pushback against Whitaker is predicated on the obvious fact that he's not qualified to oversee the Justice Department.... But in this White House, qualifications are irrelevant -- a fact Trump has made clear over and over again. It's very easy to believe the White House did no meaningful vetting of Whitaker before the president made him acting attorney general because this White House doesn't seem to do meaningful vetting of practically anyone. The result is a series of fiascos like this one." ...
... Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "As expected the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have begun to strategically leak negative information about Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.... Whitaker will continue to suffer a death of a thousand cuts until the DOJ and FBI gets what it wants, which is, at least a recusal, if not an outright resignation." ...
... ** Chaos at Justice. Evan Perez, et al. of CNN: "On Wednesday, the attorney general [Jeff Sessions] received the call [from] ... John Kelly ... to submit his resignation.... Sessions agreed..., but he wanted a few more days before the resignation would become effective. Kelly said he'd consult the President. Soon ... top Justice officials convened on the 5th floor suite of offices for the attorney general. Eventually, there were two huddles in separate offices. Among those in Sessions' office was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, his deputy Ed O'Callaghan, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and Steven Engel, who heads the Office of Legal Counsel. A few yards away, [Matt] Whitaker strategized with other aides, including Gary Barnett, now his chief of staff.... The rival huddles ... laid bare a break in the relationship between Sessions and Whitaker that had emerged in recent weeks.... A source close to Sessions says that the former attorney general realized that Whitaker was 'self-dealing' after reports surfaced in September that Whitaker had spoken with Kelly and had discussed plans to become the No. 2 at the Justice Department if Rosenstein was forced to resign.... Soon, Whitaker strode into Sessions' office and asked to speak one-on-one [with Sessions].... Shortly after, Sessions told his huddle that his resignation would be effective that day.... O'Callaghan had tried to appeal to Sessions.... Someone also reminded Sessions that the last time Whitaker played a role in a purported resignation -- a few weeks earlier in September, with Rosenstein -- the plan collapsed." --s
Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday called the delay in tallying ballots in Florida 'a disgrace' and sought to tie the ongoing vote count to a conspiracy he claimed exists to undermine Republicans by Democratic operatives. Speaking to reporters before he left for Paris for a World War I commemoration, Trump slammed the hold-up in Democratic-leaning Broward and Palm Beach counties that's thrown the state's gubernatorial and Senate races into flux.... 'If you look at Broward, and Palm Beach to a lesser extent, if you look at Broward County, they have had a horrible history and if you look at the person, in this case the woman, involved, she has had a horrible history,' Trump said, referring to Brenda Snipes, Broward's election supervisor who Gov. Rick Scott ... sued this week for access to ballot information. 'All of a sudden they're finding votes out of nowhere,' Trump claimed Friday, noting that Scott's lead in the Senate race has been narrowing with each batch of votes reported by the two heavily Democratic counties. Trump said that the situation should be 'cautiously' examined because of what he said was a suspect hiring by Scott's opponent, Sen. Bill Nelson. As part of the recount effort, Nelson retained attorney Marc Elias, who has ties to ... Hillary Clinton.... In a tweet aboard Air Force One, Trump called Elias Democrats' 'best Election stealing lawyer,' and claimed that it was only after Elias arrived that Broward 'miraculously started finding Democrat votes,' while offering no proof to support either accusation.... In a subsequent Twitter post, Trump ... wrote, 'I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I guess I should mention Dr. Snipes is a black woman. (But it is true she runs a very loose ship.) There's more 2018 election news linked below. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Greg Sargent is thinking what I was thinking: "In the run-up to Election Day in 2016, Donald Trump repeatedly and flatly declared that the outcome of the election would be legitimate only if he won.... In retrospect, this previewed much of what we are seeing right now, in the biggest stories of the moment: The battles underway over the vote-counting in the Florida and Georgia contests; the appointment of a Trump loyalist as the new acting attorney general; the White House's promotion of an apparently doctored video to justify punishing a reporter; and the tactics Trump employed to try to retain the GOP congressional majority. On Thursday night, Trump tweeted: 'Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!'... This 'big corruption scandal ...' is that Democrats want the votes to be fully counted in Democratic areas." Read on. As Sargent writes, "All of this is likely to get much, much worse." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "... Donald Trump pushed back at former first lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama over a forthcoming memoir in which the former first lady said she would 'never forgive' Trump for his role in the 'birther' movement. 'She got paid a lot of money to write a book and they always expect a little controversy,' Trump said [during the chopper-chat]. 'I'll give you a little controversy back, I'll never forgive (President Barack Obama) for what he did to our US military. It was depleted, and I had to fix it,' Trump said. 'What he did to our military made this country very unsafe for you and you and you.' The former first lady writes in her new memoir that she will never forgive Trump for his role in promoting the 'birther' conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that her husband was not born in the United States. She writes that Trump's central role in pushing the falsehood put her family at risk." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I guess I should mention here that Michelle Obama is a black woman. Also too, here's NPR's Philip Ewing's 2016 response to Trump's oft-repeated charge that President Obama "depleted the military." AND if Trump was watching anything besides Barack Obama's birth certificate during the Obama administration, he would know that Michelle Obama & Jill Biden worked tirelessly to help military families, so hitting President Obama on the military as a means of criticizing his wife is remarkably stupid.
Michael Shear & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump proclaimed on Friday that the illegal entry of immigrants across the southern border of the United States is detrimental to the national interest, triggering tough changes that will deny asylum to all migrants who do not enter through official border crossings. The proclamation, issued just moments before Mr. Trump left the White House for a weekend trip to Paris, suspends asylum rights for all immigrants who attempt to cross into the United States illegally, though officials said it was aimed primarily at several thousand migrants traveling north through Mexico in caravans.... Mr. Trump's proclamation drew on the same powers to control the nation's borders that he cited when he banned travel from several predominantly Muslim nations shortly after becoming president. The Supreme Court upheld a later version of that ban after a nearly year-and-a-half legal fight. The new proclamation is certain to spark a similar legal battle." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "Trump's proclamation flouts the plain text of US immigration law, which states that migrants are eligible for asylum 'whether or not' they arrive 'at a designated port of arrival.' But, as with his travel ban last year, Trump is using a section of US law that gives him broad power to temporarily ban groups of people from coming to the United States if he deems their entry to be 'detrimental' to the national interest." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jeet Heer: "In a blockbuster investigative article, The Wall Street Journal reports that on two previously undisclosed occasions in 2015 and 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump met with David Pecker, chief executive of the firm that owns The National Enquirer, to plot out strategies for hush money payments to women that Trump had allegedly had extra-marital affairs with. These meetings led to the dispersal of money from The National Enquirer to the model Karen McDougal. If accurate, The Wall Street Journal's account contradicts Trump's frequent denials of involvement in the payouts. They also underscore the possibility the president is vulnerable to possible charges of violating federal campaign-finance laws. The Journal report also indicates further evidence of a parallel arrangement, made by the president's former lawyer Michael Cohen, with the actress Stormy Daniels." ...
... Paul Campos, in LG&$, publishes a long excerpt of the WSJ story. ...
... Rafi Schwartz of Splinter: "After years of denying he played any role in doling out hush money to several women with whom he'd had extramarital affairs in exchange for their silence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that ... Donald Trump was not only aware of the potentially illegal payments, he was intimately involved in nearly every step of the process. Citing a whopping three dozen 'people who have direct knowledge of the events or who have been briefed on them,' the Journal's report seemingly corroborates testimony given by former Trump attorney/lackey Michael Cohen, who named the president as a co-conspirator when he pled guilty to a series of campaign finance charges in August." ...
... Ronn Blitzer of Law & Crime: "The most damning evidence of all, however, isn't just regarding Trump's involvement in the payments, but the details of discussions of a cover-up.... Campaign finance violations, such as illegal corporate contributions or donations that exceed the maximum allowable amount, require willful violation of federal law. Trump's denials and discussion of how to keep his name out of it would help support allegations that he knew the payments were illegal."
Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "Talks between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have grown increasingly tense over Manafort's apparent lack of cooperation with the investigation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Prosecutors from Mueller's office have been asking Manafort about a wide range of topics in nearly a dozen meetings since Manafort agreed to cooperate in September, sources said, but the Mueller team is 'not getting what they want,' said one source with knowledge of the discussions. The consequences of failing to fully cooperate could be dire when it comes time for Manafort to be sentenced."
** But the Emails! Marisa Schultz of the New York Post: "Fired FBI chief James Comey used his private Gmail account hundreds of times to conduct government business -- and at least seven of those messages were deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that they declined to release them. The former top G-man repeatedly claimed he only used his private account for 'incidental' purposes and never for anything that was classified -- and that appears to be true. But Justice acknowledged in response to a Freedom of Information request that Comey and his chief of staff discussed government business on about 1,200 pages of messages, 156 of which were obtained by The Post. The Cause of Action Institute, a conservative watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit for Comey's Gmail correspondence involving his work for the bureau.... Justice released 156 [emails] but refused to hand over seven emails because they would 'disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.' And another 363 pages of emails were withheld because they discussed privileged agency communications or out of personal privacy concerns.... In one email on Oct. 7, 2015, Comey seems to recognize the hypocrisy of the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton's email practices while he's exchanging FBI info on his own private account because his government account was down.... The inspector general at Justice previously slammed Comey for using his personal account for FBI business, saying it was 'inconsistent' with government policy." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course it isn't just Comey's hypocrisy, but the effect it had, which is so stunning. As everyone recalls, Comey bucked the long-standing FBI tradition of making no comment on investigations of matters on which no charges are brought. He held a grand press conference, contra the wishes to the sitting Attorney General, & excoriated Clinton & her correspondents for being "extremely careless" with sensitive and secret information. Now it turns out that the sanctimonious Comey was doing in real time exactly what Clinton was doing: using a personal account (in Comey's case, a very public g-mail account, no less, not one that connected to only a private, protected server) to conduct sensitive government business. I know Hillary Clinton was an awful candidate on many levels, but I feel certain she would have won the 2016 election without Comey's interference, first with his irregular press briefing & then with his October surprise of unnecessarily re-opening, then closing, the Clinton e-mail investigation.
Donald Kirk of The Daily Beast: "North Korea postponed key nuclear talks with the United States this week.... Ignored during campaigning for the midterm elections, North Korea is returning like a ghost from the past. If Trump still fantasizes about his friend in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un, ever giving up his nukes, the signs are unmistakable that the vaunted peace process is winding down. The U.S. and North Korea have reached an impasse.... In fact, while North Korea clings to its nuclear warheads and the U.S. sticks to 'complete denuclearization,' Trump is adopting a bargaining position that is sure to upset the North Koreans.... North Korea, however, is not yielding to pressure. The North's party newspaper Rodong Sinmun has said the North will resume making and testing nukes and missiles [if sanctions aren't lifted].... Seoul views the impasse with considerable alarm." --s
Reuters: "The United States is halting refueling of aircraft from the Saudi-led coalition engaged in Yemen, the United States and Saudi Arabia has said, ending one of the most divisive aspects of US assistance to the Saudi war effort. Saudi Arabia, in a statement released by its embassy in Washington, said it had decided to request an end to US aerial refuelling for its operations in Yemen because it could now handle it by itself." --s
Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic: "The Trump administration is breaking with 75 years of precedent by attempting to interfere in how science is practiced by the U.S. government, according to three experts who issued a dire warning to their profession in the journal Science on Thursday. The administration is empowering political staff to meddle with the scientific process by pushing through reforms disguised to look as though they boost transparency and integrity, the experts say. 'It is tempting to conclude that recent proposals for reforming regulatory science are similar to what has occurred in the past,' they write. 'The are not.'" --s
More 2018 Election News
Gail Collins discusses the stupidity of voting for third-party candidates. "... people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they'd least like to see win."
The Kids Are Alright. Jason Linkins of ThinkProgress: "It's a perennial concern among Democrats: The youth vote, will it come through? And will this cohort reveal themselves as liberal-minded as political folklore often suggests? Well, in the 2018 midterms, anyway, the answer to both questions turned out to be a resounding yes -- and this single factor may have saved the Democratic Party's 'blue wave' bacon. As the Center For Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) reported on the day after the midterm elections, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 turned out in their highest number of the past quarter century.... And in many of the races where Democrats needed to eke out victories, they were borne aloft on this tidal wave of young blood." --s
Arizona. Yvonne Sanchez & Rob O'Dell of the Arizona Republic: "Republican Martha McSally's path to the U.S. Senate narrowed with Friday's latest tabulation of votes from Tuesday's election, which showed Democrat Kyrsten Sinema widening her lead in a race that remains in a tortuous limbo. McSally's path to victory requires picking up votes in rural counties where she did well, limiting losses in Democratic strongholds such as Pima and Coconino counties, and then winning Maricopa County by a large margin. About 266,000 Maricopa County ballots remain uncounted. Statewide, about 360,000 ballots remain uncounted. Sinema's lead over McSally grew to about 20,000 votes as of 7 p.m. Friday. Sinema is winning the Republican-leaning Maricopa County. When ballots hav been tabulated, McSally has not won any batch of votes in Maricopa County, including early votes posted on Election Day, votes cast at polling places on Election Day, and early ballots counted since."
Florida, Florida, Florida. Remember "Butterfly Ballots"? It's Déjà Vu All Over Again. Nate Cohn & Kevin Quealy of the New York Times: "As the initial count concludes, one issue will loom over the result: a substantial undervote in Broward County, the state's most Democratic county, and the possibility that the ballot design, which might have made it harder to find the Senate choice, will ultimately cost the Democrats a Senate seat. An undervote is when a voter casts a ballot but doesn't vote in one of the contests on the ballot. At the moment, there are a lot undervotes in the Senate race in Broward. If [Rick] Scott [R] ultimately prevails by a margin of 10,000 votes or less, the undervotes in Broward County could be what cost [Sen. Bill] Nelson [D] the race. Broward County has reported about 25,000 fewer votes cast for Senate than for governor, a difference of about 3.7 percent. That means voters left their Senate choice blank, or the choice was not counted because of a tabulation error.... This is highly unusual, and there's nothing like this discrepancy elsewhere in the state.... In Broward County, the Senate contest appeared in the lower left section of the first page, under a set of instructions rendered in several languages. This design could explain the undervote if even a small fraction of voters, thinking it was part of the instructions, overlooked the Senate race.... The only other race that appeared in the lower-left hand section of the ballot was the race for Congress. It seems there was a similar undervote in those contests." ...
... AP: "A judge ordered Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes to allow immediate inspection of voter records during an emergency hearing Friday. The court was asked to intervene in the tight U.S. Senate race between Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott as the two sides prepare for a possible recount. Judge Carol-Lisa Phillip said Snipes must allow inspections on or before 7 p.m. Friday evening. Phillips found that Snipes violated that law by failing to turn over the information to attorneys for Scott's Senate campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee." ...
... Steve Bousquet & Nicholas Nehamas of the Tampa Bay Times: "Standing on the front porch of the Governor's Mansion, Candidate Rick Scott accused 'unethical liberals' of plotting to steal a U.S. Senate seat from him and keep safe for his Democratic opponent, Bill Nelson. But it was clearly Governor Rick Scott who moments later asked the state law enforcement agency under his control to investigate Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes' operation, though he did not offer additional specifics. As it turns out, there is no investigation. Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said Scott did not submit his request in writing, and that no allegation of voter fraud in Broward has been sent to the Florida Department of State, which oversees elections.... But the episode underscored the lack of a clear dividing line between his dual roles as candidate for higher office and his current job as governor. The alert calling reporters to Thursday night's news conference came from Scott's Senate campaign -- not his state office. He held the presser at the official state residence, a taxpayer-funded site traditionally off-limits to all partisan political activity."
Texas. Tom Dart of the Guardian: "While Beto O'Rourke's bid to oust Ted Cruz for a US Senate seat may have stolen midterms headlines this week, another 'Texas miracle' was under way in Harris county, where 19 African American women ran for judge -- and all won.... Their victories marked an unprecedented level of success for black female judicial candidates in the county, which includes Houston.... According to figures from The Gavel Gap, an analysis by a progressive legal group, the American Constitution Society found white men make up 30% of the Texas population but 58% of state court judges." --s
Alex Ward of Vox: "A House Democrat will soon introduce legislation to punish Saudi Arabia over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi -- by trying to halt an impending nuclear deal with the country. Obtained exclusively by Vox, the bill -- nicknamed the 'No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act of 2018' -- if passed would be the strongest rebuke to Saudi Arabia yet since the uproar over Khashoggi's fate.... It would come as a big blow to Saudi Arabia: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ... launched a project on Monday to build his country's first nuclear research reactor. There's also some bipartisan support to stop nuclear talks with Riyadh in the Senate." --s
AP: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from the hospital Friday [link fixed] after having been admitted for treatment and observation after fracturing three ribs in a fall. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the 85-year-old justice is 'doing well' and working from home." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "A federal jury in Tennessee on Wednesday sided with a group of workers and their families that alleged a contractor did not take the necessary steps to protect the health of the workers assigned to clean up a massive 2008 coal ash spill. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), owner of the coal-fired Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee, paid Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. millions of dollars to clean up the massive coal ash spill. During the cleanup, however, workers started getting sick. More than 30 workers assigned to cleanup work at the Kingston site have died and more than 250 are sick or dying." --s
News Ledes
Los Angeles Times: "... after a fast-moving wildfire ravaged [a] community of 27,000 people [in California's Sierra Nevada foothills], forcing thousands to flee by car and on foot, Paradise ... has joined the growing list of California towns and cities devastated by one of the worst fire seasons on record. Officials said at least nine people died and more than 6,700 homes and commercial buildings were lost -- making it the most destructive fire to property in state history."
Los Angeles Times: "After forcing 200,000 people to flee and burning scores of homes in Ventura County and Malibu, the Woolsey fire early Saturday morning pushed in several directions and created new dangers. The fire continued to menace Malibu, approaching the beach in several spots and getting closer to Pepperdine University, where some students and staff remain on campus.... Fueled by dry conditions and extreme winds, the blaze charred 35,000 acres and left a path of destruction and chaos as it burned through Oak Park, Thousand Oaks and other Ventura County communities before barreling into Malibu and burning to the water's edge."
Share Article
Reader Comments (11)
You smell that swampy stench burning your nostrils blowing in from Washington D.C.? That's actually the flop sweat of Mr. Donny Diapers as his world gets smaller and his pressures grow bigger.
This attorney general clusterfuck is going to build to a rage all weekend as DD left his safe space to escape to Paris for the weekend. He can try to distract with a few tweets, but without his gooney face on the teevee taking up the airtime, all news will be on the mounting disqualifications of Mr. Whitaker. With all we know now about their extensive contacts, his role as a mole at Justice, encouraging siccing the FBI on political adversaries purely for fan fiction...no way can he stay put. And just the fact that DD tried this blatant power play to cover his ass means the next white guy to show up will HAVE to promise to leave Mueller be. Evil genius or fucking moron? Hard to choose, but I'll go for the latter here.
And I'm sure the Obama's sat on their couch and had a good laugh as DD went all "schoolyard bully" on Barack, literally acting like a fucking BABY, which is his own ultimate insult to others. A way too transparent self-projection right there, in front of the White House with all the cameras rolling. To call him an embarrassment is an understatement. He's literally making up everything as he goes. It's astonishing.
But ironically, I'm now starting to see that this glaring impotence, on his face, in his wounded voice, in his fidgety finger pointing, probably even his shitty hairdo, is actually something that his deplorable base actually likes about him. That's one of the visceral, unexplainable connections they feel with his empty, damaged soul. The same connection liberals feel when Obama played with little spiderman at the White House, or when the Obamas danced with the 106 year old lady during black history month.
It's the inward-looking pity party versus the outward-looking sympathy party.
We really are worlds apart.
@safari: Michael Gerson, another Republican "Never Trumper" said he watched with dismay as conservative (Gerson is an evangelical) Christians took Trump as a hero. Trump appealed to their sense of victimization by elites while encouraging their latent bigotries. Gerson is one of a long list of Republicans who have either exited their party or, in the case of Max Boot has had to admit and come to terms with his party's nefarious underplays: apocalyptic thinking, conspiracy theories, and bigotry haunted the movement from the start. He faults himself from not seeing what was happening.
and then of course we have the Jeff Flakes–-the ones in congress that could have stood for something rather than standing on the senate floor saying they stood for something but never delivered the something they stood for. These Flakes want to rescue conservatism from Trumpism and purify it; they fail to grasp that the modern conservative movement always carried the seeds of their own destruction.
Robinson Meyer's piece on Trump's interference with Science was most disturbing:
"In the paper, the experts provide a short summary of the use of science in government, demonstrating why the Trump interference is so unprecedented. Wagner told me that the best comparison to the new proposals is an erroneous effort by the Indiana state legislature at the end of the 19th century to establish the value of pi as 3.2: “It’s politics going to a place that should be off-limits. They’re in a place that it shouldn’t be.”
How many people understand how dangerous this is––how many would care? As I've said before––what concerned me was the absence of climate change on the list of voter's priorities. Yet California fires keep burning and destroying and hurricanes have become the norm.
But––good news! I didn't know this and am so pleased: 19 black women ran for judgeships in Harris county, Texas, and ALL OF THEM WON.
and back to you, safari: I hate this bastard so much I begin to itch all over when I hear him open his trap. When you say he's making everything up as he goes along reminds me of actors in workshops whose training involves improvisation. "Fly by the seat of your pants" a director once told me––"just make up some crazy shit."
Soon––the curtain is coming down––BAM! the clapping will be thunderous.
Safari, very nice analysis. Your point about a major difference between liberals and Confederates extends the nurturing mother vs Stern father distinction made by George Lakoff in his study of how metaphors shape and inform our understanding of the world. In this case, it’s more than just the sternness of the father, it’s the inheritance of bitterness, hatred, and the sense of outrage that although they believe themselves eternally victimized, they consider themselves far superior to their enemies.
It’s a tragedy of galactic (or I should say, Biblical) proportions that anyone should oppose them, especially a group that welcomes the infidels, the mongrel races, uppity women who don’t accept the place god has ordained for them, and smartass, godless liberals.
PD, your mention of how evangelicals have taken to Trump despite (or perhaps because of) his bigoted, racist ways behooves us to recall that religion has rarely (if ever) served as an antidote to bigotry.
Rather, historically, religions have been the primary fuel for hatred and the vicious, often violent animus between factions vying for god’s favor.
I have yet to hear a single evangelical leader come out and condemn the deliverance of pipe bombs sent by a Trump super fan with the intent of murdering or maiming his “enemies” (anyone who pissed him off). No doubt that smiting of enemies bit from the Bible gives them secret comfort that one of their own was busy doing god’s work in protecting their new savior.
And if anyone wonders why none of these holy rollers will ever stand up to Trump’s criminality, it’s right there. He is their new savior, the modern messiah. He’s right up there with Jesus. If one needs to see how debased religion can become, one needs look no further than evangelicals’ belief in the inerrant word of the Orange Monster.
Re Comey e-mail hypocrisy: when he condemned HRC for irresponsible use of non-gov e-mail, he failed to mention that at the time (2015) almost ALL senior USG officials used their personal devices to supplement their USG-issued portable phones for e-mailing official business. Hopefully, few of them tried to sneak classified material onto those communications, but many clearly tried to "talk around" classified bits.
One of the reasons for the prevalence of the practice was that most of the security agencies in the USG at first were reliant on Blackberry for official text-capable cell phones, and when the i-phone revolutionized hand-held capabilities it took the USG security folks (NSA et al) a long time to review and certify i-phone and its many imitators for USG (unclassified) purchase, issue and use. But many USG employees had bought their own personal smartphones and found them much more versatile and easy to use than USG-issues BBs. Although you can't plug your personal i-phone into your USG desktop, you can use various approved methods to swap info by e-mail. Voila, lots of people in all agencies started using personal i-phones for official business.
Now virtually all USG-issued (unclassified) smartphones are as capable as what you can by at Best Buy, and most USG employees are aware of the personal risks of using personal phones (except -- Hill staffers still use theirs a LOT).
But at the time Comey was lecturing HRC, almost everyone was using their personal phones to supplement USG e-mail. But few would have had servers.
Comey had to have known that, so his hypocrisy is huge.
The report of Manafort's reluctance to fulfill his promise of full cooperation with Mueller suggests that the discussions might have entered an area that might have dire consequences for those involved in the 2016 campaign, likely including the Pretender.
I can't imagine Mueller doesn't already know everything about Manafort's shady business dealings and his actions as an unregistered foreign agent, so the only area that might need further clarification is what he knows about any collusion that occurred between Russia and the Trump team, with Roger Stone and Wikileaks as likely intermediaries.
It is this area, after all, that is the crux of the Mueller investigation, its primary target, and I'm guessing Manafort is wriggling in its crosshairs.
He might retain some loyalty to his fellow crooks. More likely he's engaged in some eleventh hour negotiating, hoping for a better deal before he hands over the prize.
On the day after the election (Nov 7), the LA Times ran an obituary for old Orange County, dead at age 129. The obit was written by Gustavo Arellano. An obituary for old Orange County, dead at age 129
Two days ago I posted my short story about life as a liberal aboard a deeply conservative Navy Carrier museum and my effort to humanize our tribe to the other side. This link to a post on the Book of Faces, by Davis Hammet is a testament to that type of effort. Davis' story is way better than mine and is much more a success.
Year 2013: I'm a 22 year old queer who moves to Kansas to paint a rainbow house across from a notorious hate group. I realize the politician...
James Arkin and Alex Isenstadt of Politico explain why they think Martha McSally isn't pushing back on the Arizona Senate race vote as all of the Republican hierarchy is urging her to do.
"Among some senior Republicans, there is suspicion about why McSally has chosen to hold back. Some are convinced that she’s willing to let the race go and instead hope for an appointment to the state’s other Senate seat. Kyl, who was picked to replace the late Sen. John McCain, has yet to commit to serving for a full term."
Sinema expands lead in Arizona Senate race
I'm not trying to outdo Akhilleus but I'm on a roll this morning.
I've disclosed that I'm a retired Army officer and I've spent holidays and entire years on the DMZ in Korea, in Vietnam and on the old Warsaw Pact border between the East and West. But having these troops on the Southwest border for a political stunt has my anger level at an all time high. My sister just said that she is tired of being angry! I know how she feels.
And now Adam L Silverman informs me that the Marmalade Mugube has cancelled a 40 mile trip to the Aisne-Marne Cemetery and Memorial because a little rain is falling.
Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall: Presidential Indifference Edition
I my two years active duty I cannot recall ever staying in barracks due to rain. His disrespect to the fallen is criminal.
It's high time for "Delenda Est" to return to the masthead.
Imagine how Kelly and Mattis, two career Marines, feel about DiJiT skipping out of the Aisne-Marne event. That place celebrates Belleau Wood among other battles, the battle that Marines consider to be the birth of the Corps as a full-fledged armed service and not just a support unit in the Navy. If you choke up when they play the Marine Hymn, you'd bawl when they play it at Aisne-Marne on November 10 (the USMC Birthday -- a BIG deal among jarheads).
Those guys can probably put up with a lot from Cadet Bone Spurs, but something like this must be unforgivable.