;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 24, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Joshua Partlow & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has won the support of Mexico's incoming government for a plan to remake U.S. border policy by requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims move through U.S. courts, according to Mexican officials and senior members of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador's transition team. The agreement would break with long-standing asylum rules and place a formidable new barrier in the path of Central American migrants attempting to reach the United States.... By reaching the accord, the Trump administration has also overcome Mexico's historic reticence to deepen cooperation with the United States on an issue widely seen here as America's problem.... The prospect of keeping thousands of Central American asylum seekers for months or years in drug cartel-dominated Mexican border states -- some of the most violent in the country -- has troubled human-rights activists and others who worry that such a plan could put migrants at risk and undermine their lawful right to apply for asylum." ...
... Huh? Trump Thinks He Already Shut Down the Border. Or Not. Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "... Donald Trump insisted -- twice -- in an odd exchange with reporters Thursday that he already shut down the border with Mexico and even signed an order to do so. 'Actually two days ago we closed the border,' Trump said at Mar-a-Lago during a meeting with journalists. 'We actually just closed it. We said nobody's coming in because it was out of control.'... Then he walked back what he had just insisted, saying he would shut the border in the future if it's necessary.... But minutes later he returned to his insistence that he had already closed the border. 'I've already shut it down, I've already shut it down -- for short periods,' he said in response to a question to clarify the shutdown. 'I've already shut down parts of the border because it was out of control with the rioting on the other side in Mexico. And I just said, "Shut it down." You see it. I mean, it took place two days ago.' When someone asked if he had to sign an order to shut it down, Trump responded: 'Yeah, they call me up, and I sign an order.' Asked if the media could get a copy, Trump responded: 'You don't need it. Don't worry. It's not that big a deal. Maybe to some people it is.' No order on closing the border has been released by the White House."
Another White House Friday Afternoon Holiday News Dump. Jeremy Barr of the Hollywood Reporter: "Bill Shine received an $8.4 million severance package upon leaving his post as co-president of Fox News Channel in May 2017, according to a financial disclosure form he filed upon entering Donald Trump's White House as deputy chief of staff for communications. The document was released to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, a day after Thanksgiving. Shine, who officially began working in the White House on July 5, will also receive a bonus and options of about $3.5 million from 21st Century Fox both this year and next year. That means that Shine will be paid simultaneously by both the White House and the parent company of Fox News, a network that has had close ties to the Trump administration. The severance agreement expires on May 1, 2019."
She's So White. Ashton Pittman of the Jackson Free Press: "U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith attended and graduated from a segregation academy that was set up so that white parents could avoid having to send their children to schools with black students, a yearbook reveals. A group photo in the 1975 edition of The Rebel -- the Lawrence County Academy Yearbook -- illustrates the point. High-school cheerleaders smile at the camera as they lie on the ground in front of their pom-poms.... In the center, the mascot, dressed in what appears to be an outfit designed to mimic that of a Confederate general, offers a salute as she holds up a large Confederate flag. Third from the right on the ground is ... Cindy Hyde. The photo ... adds historic context to comments she made in recent weeks about a 'public hanging' that drew condemnations from across the political spectrum."
Baraboo Boys Have First-Amendment Right to Be Nazis. AP: "Students who appeared in a photograph that showed several high school boys giving what appears to be a Nazi salute are protected by free-speech rights and are unlikely to face discipline, Baraboo School District officials said."
*****
Your Classic White House Friday Afternoon Holiday News Dump. Despite his natural instinct for science, everything Donald Trump says is wrong (but we knew that):
... Coral Davenport & Kendra Pierre-Louis of the New York Times: "A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on Friday presents the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change for the United States, predicting that if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century's end. The report, which was mandated by Congress and made public by the White House, is notable not only for the precision of its calculations and bluntness of its conclusions, but also because its findings are directly at odds with President Trump's agenda of environmental deregulation, which he asserts will spur economic growth. Mr. Trump has taken aggressive steps to allow more planet-warming pollution from vehicle tailpipes and power plant smokestacks, and has vowed to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, under which nearly every country in the world pledged to cut carbon emissions. Just this week, he mocked the science of climate change because of a cold snap in the Northeast, tweeting, 'Whatever happened to Global Warming?' But in direct language, the 1,656-page assessment lays out the devastating effects of a changing climate on the economy, health and environment, including record wildfires in California, crop failures in the Midwest and crumbling infrastructure in the South." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "... the famously climate-denying Trump administration decided that newsdump Friday would be the best time to release a damning report about the already horrific effects of climate change worldwide[.]... But there&'s a funny thing about releasing major news on a holiday when almost by definition there's almost no other news: the thing you wanted to be ignored tends to be the most important thing to cover, and people have enough free time and boredom to actually read them. So ... Black Friday became climate change day. Nearly every major newspaper led with the story. Both CNN and MSNBC covered the climate crisis more thoroughly than they have on most any other day. That's partly because the report itself is shocking and terrifying[.]... after hours and hours of being pummeled on the severity of the climate threat coupled with Trump's criminally irresponsible dismissal and neglect of the issue, they put forward a typical cruelty distraction gambit by asking the Supreme Court to uphold their ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Gratefully, few media outlets took the bait." [Story linked below.]
Tim Egan of the New York Times: "Our A-plus president didn't even have enough of a presidential grip to get the name of the ruined town of Paradise right. (He repeatedly called it 'Pleasure.') Nor does he pretend to know the difference between sub-Arctic Finland and arid California. His administration blamed 'radical environmentalists' for the [California] fires. But it wasn't environmentalists who kicked up 50-mile-an hour winds in a state that had seen barely a whisper of rain over the last six months, hot gusts that bounced through canyons thick with man-made combustibles. The national parks, oft-called America's best idea, were created by people who looked beyond their own lives. Those people made great ancestors -- benevolent, farsighted, selfless. What they protected were islands of diversity that humans were fast destroying. Climate change has put these parks in real peril." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Trump's proposed design.A Natural Instinct for Science, Ctd. But the EMALS! Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "President Trump this week renewed his questioning of the military's new system for launching aircraft at sea, underscoring his skepticism about a technology the Navy has put at the center of its future aircraft carrier fleet. In a call to service members on Thursday marking the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump asked the commander of the USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier deployed in the Pacific, whether he supported using electromagnetics rather than the traditional steam system to catapult aircraft off carrier decks and land them safely back on board. 'Steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic -- I mean, unfortunately, you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly,' Trump said. 'What would you do?' Trump has repeatedly criticized General Atomics' Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), installed on the Navy's newest carrier and slated to be used on other new ships. The debut of that system, the culmination of years of testing and development, has been plagued by delays and technical problems. Capt. Pat Hannifin, articulating the Navy's view, responded by telling Trump that EMALS would lessen the burden that steam-powered systems exact on carriers and was within sailors' power to operate successfully. 'You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plants that we have here as well, but we're doing that very well,' Hannifin said."
Kate Sullivan & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday accused ... Donald Trump of lying about the CIA's report that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump said Thursday that the CIA 'did not come to a conclusion' about the crown prince's involvement in the murder. 'They have feelings certain ways, but they didn't -- I have the report,' Trump said. When asked if the President was lying about the CIA's conclusion, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Jack Reed said, 'Yes. The CIA concluded that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the assassination of Khashoggi.... They did it, as has been reported to the press, with high confidence, which is the highest level of accuracy that they will vouch for,' Reed said. 'It's based on facts, it's based on analysis. The notion that they didn't reach a conclusion is just unsubstantiated. The CIA has made that clear.'"
Greg Sargent: "President Trump has again brushed off the horrifying murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, blithely claiming that the Saudi crown prince 'vehemently denied' any role in the killing. Trump again appears to be contradicting the CIA, which has reportedly determined that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did, in fact, order the assassination.... But, while in some ways Trump's latest comments ... reiterate his reprehensible statement from earlier this week, this time Trump went further, both in taking a cavalier stance toward the murder and in casting doubt on the CIA's reported conclusion.... This raises the questions: What did the intelligence conclude, and is Trump deliberately downplaying it, which would constitute active participation in covering up the truth...? In an interview with me, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) -- the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- confirmed that the committee will be examining these and other questions related to Trump's response to the Khashoggi murder and its broader implications." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Another Trump Suck-up Gets a Trump Thumbs-down. Marilyn Haigh of CNBC: "... Donald Trump has expressed dissatisfaction with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, blaming him for the appointment of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Trump, who nominated Powell a year ago to succeed Janet Yellen, has repeatedly criticized the Fed chairman for increasing interest rates. Trump fears rising rates could trigger an economic downturn that would jeopardize his 2020 re-election campaign, the Journal reported.... Trump criticized Mnuchin, pointing to recent stock market volatility.... In meetings with advisors, Trump has also expressed unhappiness with the Treasury Department's lack of support for tariffs against China, the newspaper said.... Later Friday, Trump responded to the report with a tweet criticizing the story and insisting that he supports Mnuchin. 'I am extremely happy and proud of the job being done' by Mnuchin, the president tweeted. 'The FAKE NEWS likes to write stories to the contrary, quoting phony sources or jealous people, but they aren't true. They never like to ask me for a quote b/c it would kill their story.'... The Journal did indeed reach out to the White House for comment.
The Trials of Trump
David Goodman of the New York Times: "A [New York] state judge ruled on Friday that a lawsuit by the New York State attorney general could proceed against President Trump and the Trump Foundation over allegations of misused charitable assets, self-dealing and campaign finance violations during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump's lawyers had argued that the court did not have jurisdiction over Mr. Trump, as president, and that the statutes of limitations had expired in the case of some of the actions at issue. They also contended the attorney general's office suffered from a 'pervasive bias' against Mr. Trump. In her 27-page ruling, Justice Saliann Scarpulla [wrote,] 'I find I have jurisdiction over Mr. Trump.'..."
Ewww! Page Six of the New York Post: "The National Enquirer's long-held secrets about Donald Trump may be about to get substantially less secret. Page Six is told that the longtime executive editor of the tabloid, Barry Levine, is penning a book for Hachette about the president. A source says that the book will look into 'Trump and his women,' although other insiders tell us that it could be more wide-ranging, even looking at the formerly cozy relationship between the Enquirer's owner, David Pecker, and Trump. That said, it's unclear exactly what Levine's contract with the Enquirer would allow him to reveal about Pecker. Of course, Pecker has been at the center of an investigation into alleged hush money payouts made to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels -- who both claim to have had affairs with Trump while he was married to First Lady Melania Trump. In August, Pecker was granted immunity in the probe." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi is in plea negotiations with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to a person with knowledge of the talks. The talks with Corsi -- an associate of both President Trump and GOP operative Roger Stone -- could bring Mueller's team closer to determining whether Trump or his advisers were linked to WikiLeaks' release of hacked Democratic emails in 2016, a key part of his long-running inquiry. Corsi provided research on Democratic figures during the campaign to Stone, a longtime Trump adviser." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Alberto Luperon of Law & Crime has a short take on why Corsi's cooperation would be bad news for Roger Stone & the Trump No-Collusion Team. ...
... Both Martin Longman here and Marcy Wheeler here suggest Corsi has a direct line to Trump.
Small Favors. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "... after two deeply destabilizing and in fact traumatic years of soaking in the president's ugliness and invective..., there is much to be thankful for this year. Because this year, by dint of miracle or magic or human endeavor, Donald Trump has been reduced to his actual size.... He becomes smaller every single day, and for that, we have America to thank.... Trump ... is sliding further and further off the rails. The tweets are cruder and materially less coherent, and the public performances are more frightening still. The White House staff is in turmoil, and the president seems to have aligned himself with the Saudi murderers of a Washington Post reporter.... As support for the president peels off among members of the military, conservative lawyers, and women, he finds himself ever more shrilly attacking them all. And as the president finds himself shunned and largely ignored internationally, he is left more and more alone to watch television, tweet hectically, and attempt to rewrite his own story to his satisfaction. At least we can, as Matt Yglesias smartly observes, be grateful that he can't manage to be effective and pissed off at the same time." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to leapfrog federal appeals courts in several cases concerning the president's decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military. Federal district courts have entered injunctions against the new policy, but no appeals court has yet ruled on it. The Supreme Court does not ordinarily intercede until at least one appeals court has considered an issue, and it typically awaits a disagreement among appeals courts before adding a case to its docket.... The Supreme Court's rules say that it will review a federal trial court's ruling before an appeals court has spoken 'only upon a showing that the case is of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this court.'. In a brief filed Friday, [Solicitor General Noel] Francisco said, 'This case satisfies that standard.'" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Really? You have to let me discriminate against soldiers right this minute? This is so Trumpian, you have to figure the command came from on high. I'm not sure even the Kavanaugh Court will be bullied by a bully who insists he can bully trans servicepeople any more than the New York state courts cowered when that same bully said, "Nah, nah, nah, you can't touch me; I'm president."
DeVos to Strike Again. Laura Meckler of the Washington Post: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has led a rescue squad for the nation's for-profit colleges. Step by step, she has dismantled an Obama-era crackdown on the industry, and she plans to deliver a set of regulations next year that many expect to again boost the industry. Critics say these schools, which enroll 2.3 million students and range from small trade schools to large multistate enterprises such as the University of Phoenix, prey on vulnerable students, leaving them with huge debts and questionable credentials.... DeVos's systematic rollback of regulations on these schools reflects the broader Trump administration agenda.... DeVos has long believed the federal government should exercise as little control as possible over the nation's schools, and she has spent a large chunk of her tenure undoing the work of her predecessors."
Lomi Kriel of the Houston Chronicle: There are "a record 14,030 immigrant children in shelters across the country as of Nov. 15, including more than 5,600 in Texas, according to new federal and state statistics released this week. It is almost three times the number of children in federal detention a year ago, and more than during the Central American child crisis in 2014 that marked the beginning of the exodus from the so-called Northern Triangle countries.... The shelters aren't near capacity because more children are arriving. They are instead being detained longer.... Advocates largely fault a new government requirement, implemented this summer, that requires all adults in a household seeking to care for an immigrant child to submit their fingerprints for a background check. That information is shared with the Department of Homeland Security and at least 41 so-called sponsors lacking legal status have been arrested, according to testimony Matthew Albence, acting deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gave to Congress in September. Previous administrations didn't look into people's immigration status when deciding whether to release children to them." (Also linked yesterday.)
Election 2018. Senator Cindy Still Fighting for Slavery Southern "Heritage." Or Something. Matt Viser of the Washington Post: Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (Rebel-Miss.) has in "several instances ... embrace[d] a pride in the Confederacy and its aftermath.... The U.S. Senate runoff on Tuesday between Hyde-Smith, the appointed Republican incumbent, and Democratic former congressman Mike Espy, who is seeking to become the first African American senator from the state since just after the Civil War, has exploded beyond the boundaries of ideology and politics. The election has turned into a contest pitting the Old South -- marked by pride in the Confederacy and resistance to tearing down monuments commemorating the Civil War -- against the New South, which has sought greater racial harmony, toppled past Confederate icons and taken pride in the surprisingly strong races run this year by several black candidates in the region, even as their contests were marred by racial epithets." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Paul Duggan of the Washington Post: "Fifteen months after an angry demonstration by white supremacists in Charlottesville erupted in deadly mayhem, a self-professed neo-Nazi is set to go on trial Monday, charged with killing a counterprotester and injuring 35 others by intentionally ramming his car into another vehicle on a crowded street. The alleged act of automotive rage by James Alex Fields Jr. on Aug. 12, 2017 -- which climaxed a day of violent clashes involving hundreds of white supremacists and their opponents -- helped make 'Charlottesville' a shorthand term for the emergence of emboldened ethno-fascists in the era of President Trump.... The counterprotester who was killed, Heather D. Heyer, 32, worked for a local law firm and was remembered by friends as a committed advocate of social justice."
Beyond the Beltway
Joel Shannon of USA Today: "A man who formerly worked as a pastor is facing murder, sodomy and kidnapping charges for allegedly attacking three women at a Catholic Supply store in the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin. On Wednesday, St. Louis County authorities charged Thomas Bruce -- 53 of Imperial, Missouri -- in connection with a deadly Monday attack at the religious supply store. Bruce, who had written on social media about his opposition to 'gun-free zones,' allegedly began the attack by retrieving a handgun after shopping in the store. He's accused of forcing three women into a back room at gunpoint. There, he allegedly exposed himself and ordered them to 'perform deviant sexual acts on him,' according to a criminal complaint. When one of the women refused to comply, Bruce allegedly shot her in the head. He allegedly ordered the other women to continue the sexual acts and he later fled the scene."
Way Beyond
Scrooge Lives! Rebecca Mead of the New Yorker: In 2010, Britain's Conservative leadership implemented "a national fiscal policy of austerity ... in response to the financial downturn that began in 2007. Spending on recreation centers, libraries, and services to the elderly and disabled has been dramatically cut back. At the same time, welfare benefits have been restructured.... Last week, a scourging indictment of Britain's austerity policies was issued by Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights for the United Nations.... In a lengthy report, Alston notes that the government's claims about the effectiveness of austerity were contradicted by evidence on a wide range of indices. Local authorities have cut spending on services by almost twenty per cent, resulting in the closure of children's centers and youth clubs that might protect vulnerable young people against recruitment into gangs. The rate of homelessness in England has increased sixty per cent since 2010, and the number of rough sleepers has increased a hundred and thirty-four per cent. The proportion of people relying upon food bank has increased dramatically.... Children in the U.K. have been hit especially hard by a policy that limits child-benefit payments to two children per family."
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Reader Comments (5)
AFTER YEARS OF TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE, TRUMP IS FINALLY TOO SMALL:
by the wonderful Dahlia Lithwick, whose eyes on all court proceedings produces some great reporting. Here she reduces Trump from the large elephant in the room to a shrinking, sniveling beast of burden and gives us the boost we need just in time after all those Thanksgiving thanks for nothings.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/donald-trump-lies-clinton-comey-investigation.html
"It's going to be a long -ass haul to restore what's been dismantled over the past two years. Fear and contempt is contagious and so, apparently are ugliness and violence. But in so many ways resilience and dignity and pride are pushing through the noise. It's hard to see sometimes, but it's surely rattling under the surface of things. Things will turn around the way you eat an elephant–-bite by bite. But recognizing that an elephant was never that enormous in the first instance makes it easier to the work."
The federal appeals court leapfrog? What's the hurry?
There is that bullying and grandstanding of course but I'm thinking the hurry may well be the Pretender eager to find out if he's already sufficiently packed the court with Winger nuts, or if there's more work to be done.
And on the science front, once again thank goodness for the scientists still living in the bowels of the deep state. Nice to hear from them if only late on a Friday.
The presidents'* caravan tweets have gone stale, so now lets get
back to that transgendery thing to keep the base of trumpbots
riled up. What's next? No latinos? No LGBT? No Democrats?
LGBT=Life Gets Better Together.
The Romaine empire has fallen. Caesar is dead. Lettuce pray.
@Forest: Bravo!!!!!!!
Saw a bumper sticker today:
Elect a clown
Expect a circus
So true.