;)
The Commentariat -- November 11, 2017
Afternoon Update:
The Washington Post story by Ashley Parker & David Nakamura, also linked below, has been updated several times. Here are a few additions: "On Saturday, Trump described former FBI director James Comey, who testified to Congress that Trump asked him to drop an investigation into his campaign's ties to Russian officials, as a proven 'liar' and 'leaker.' Trump called the former U.S. intelligence officials who concluded the Russians tampered -- including former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and former CIA director John Brennan -- 'political hacks.'... Of Putin, he added: 'He says that very strongly, he really seems to be insulted by it, and he says he didn't do it. He is very, very strong in the fact that he didn't do it. You have President Putin very strongly, vehemently, says he has nothing to do with that....'... Trump did not answer when asked during the flight to Hanoi whether he believed Putin's denial of the tampering.... Yet a Kremlin spokesman denied that the two leaders discussed election meddling, according to CNN." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump said that Putin spoke so strongly -- "He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did" -- and that our own intelligence agencies were run by liars and hacks. This implies, IMO, that the head of government of an adversarial nation is more believable & trustworthy than is U.S. intelligence. Whatever your political leanings, this is an alarming, anti-American statement. And it's coming from the President of the United States. ...
... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post has Trump's full remarks aboard AF1 to the press, annotated, here. Here's another comment Trump made about Putin: "And there are those that say, if he did do it, he wouldn't have gotten caught, all right? Which is a very interesting statement." ...
... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump has issued two starkly contradictory calls on his trip to Asia this past week: The nations of the world must rally behind the United States to confront the nuclear threat from North Korea, but they should expect America to go its own way on trade. Reconciling those messages will be hard.... The contradictions also reflect a more fundamental disarray in the presidency's policy toward Asia. It seems caught between the geopolitical realism of Mr. Trump's diplomats and the economic nationalism of his political aides. These competing impulses have left allies and adversaries alike confused about America's motives and staying power. Over time, several experts said, the balancing act will be impossible to maintain."
Mark Hosenball & John Walcott of Reuters: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has questioned Sam Clovis, co-chairman of ... Donald Trump's election campaign, to determine if Trump or top aides knew of the extent of the campaign team's contacts with Russia, two sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday.... 'The ultimate question Mueller is after is whether candidate Trump and then President-elect Trump knew of the discussions going on with Russia, and who approved or even directed them,' said one source. 'That is still just a question.'" ...
... Jonathan Chait: "... it certainly appears that Cambridge Analytica was heavily involved with trying to get Clinton's stolen emails, and was aware that Russia had engineered their theft, and played an important role facilitating cooperation between Russia and the Trump campaign." Chait connects the known dots. There are quite a few of them. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... in [Mike] Flynn's case, if the allegations [about his $15MM deal with Turkey] are proved to be true, the scandal would ... resemble ... Teapot Dome (the 1920's scandal that took down former Interior Secretary Albert Fall for selling public oil leases), but with a dash of treason. That a presidential National Security Advisor would sell his influence to a foreign government so quickly and cheaply is a very big deal, which we need to linger over before returning to the rest of the issues Mueller is investigating."
Katie Mettler of the Washington Post: "... the version of Veterans Day we know now wasn't always so. It wasn't always a holiday, it wasn't always on Nov. 11 and, at first, it wasn't even called Veterans Day. The original intent, established in the wake of World War I, was to celebrate world peace. Then the wars never ended, so Veterans Day changed." ...
... Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post: "The body of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four U.S. soldiers killed in an ambush by Islamist militants in Niger last month, was found with his arms tied and a gaping wound at the back of his head, according to two villagers, suggesting that he may have been captured and then executed. Adamou Boubacar, a 23-year-old farmer and trader, said some children tending cattle found the remains of the soldier Oct. 6, two days after the attack outside the remote Niger village of Tongo Tongo, which also left five Nigerien soldiers dead. The children notified him."
Ashley Parker & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin again denied his nation tampered in the U.S. presidential election last year, during brief conversations on the sidelines of an international summit. Trump told reporters that he and Putin had more than one informal discussion after crossing paths at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Danang, Vietnam, before Trump flew to Hanoi for a bilateral meeting Sunday with Vietnamese leaders. The conversations mostly centered on the war in Syria, Trump said, but he added that he pressed Putin on Moscow's role in attempting to tamper in the elections. 'He said he didn't meddle,' Trump said. 'I asked him again. You can only ask so many times.... He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.'" Mrs. McC: Okay then, that's settled. When two autocrats agree that something didn't happen, then it didn't happen, no matter what "they are saying." Or what a mountain of evidence reveals. ...
... Read on. The story has been expanded since first published. Trump says "people will die" because Putin is so put out by the Russia investigations....
...Poor Vlady! BBC: "President Vladimir Putin felt insulted by allegations of Russian interference in the US election, Donald Trump has said after meeting him briefly at an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam.... Mr Putin later dismissed the allegations as 'political infighting'.... The US intelligence community has already concluded that Russia tried to sway the poll in favour of Mr Trump." --safari ...
... Guardian: "Vladimir Putin and Donald Trumphave said they see no military solution to the conflict in Syria and a political resolution was needed, according to a joint statement issued by Russia on Saturday.... 'We spoke intermittently during that roundtable. We seem to have a very good feeling for each other and a good relationship considering we don't know each other well,' Trump said, adding that he and Putin had two or three very short conversations." --safari ...
...Suspicious. Alec Luhn of the Telegraph: "The US embassy in Moscow is to be guarded by a company owned by a former head of KGB counter-intelligence who worked with British double agent Kim Philby and young Vladimir Putin, after cuts to US staff demanded by Russia. Elite Security, a private company ... was founded in 1997 by Viktor Budanov and his son Dmitry.... A 2002 article posted on the site of Russia's foreign intelligence service identified Mr Budanov as a major general in the agency who became a Soviet spy in 1966 and retired a year after the collapse of the USSR. His long work in Soviet and Russian intelligence could raise questions about whether the guard services contract poses a security or intelligence risk to the US mission.... Before his work in foreign intelligence Mr Budanov was the director of the KGB's counter-intelligence division, he has told Russian media." --safari
Ashley Parker: "President Trump delivered a fiery speech on trade [in Da Nang, Vietnam] Friday, declaring that he would not allow the United States to be 'taken advantage of anymore' and planned to place 'America first.' And then, less than 24 hours later, 11 Pacific Rim countries collectively shrugged and moved on without the U.S. On Saturday, the countries announced they had reached a deal to move ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact that Trump threw into question when he withdrew from it earlier this year. The agreement represents something of a rebuke of Trump, coming near the end of his five-country, 12-day swing through Asia, and reflects the willingness of other nations to proceed without the buy-in of the United States.... The decision to move ahead with the TPP agreement, minus the United States, reflects how Trump's decision to withdraw from the deal created a vacuum other nations are now moving to fill, with or without the president." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Yes, but remember, Trump really showed President Obama.
How Cruel Is the Trump Administration? Liz Robbins of the New York Times: "Dozens of young immigrants mailed [DACA] renewal forms weeks before they were due. But their paperwork was delayed in the mail and [their applications were] denied for being late.... On Thursday, in a rare admission from a federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service took the blame..... But the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency said nothing more could be done; the decisions were final. Because DACA is an executive order, signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, and not a statute, applicants cannot appeal the decision.... Still, immigrants and their advocates viewed the agency's unwillingness to revisit their applications as harsh and unfair.... On Sept. 5..., Jeff Sessions announced after months of speculation that the Trump administration was canceling the program. Recipients were allowed to keep their permits until they expired at the end of the current two-year term. The administration also offered a brief renewal window for recipients whose permits were expiring before March 5, which set off a scramble across the country from legal service providers to assist applicants." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Wherein Bob Mueller Moves from the Trump Campaign into the White House & Congress:
Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: Robert "Mueller's investigators are seeking to determine who -- if anyone -- in the Trump campaign [George] Papadopoulos told about the stolen [Clinton campaign] emails. Although there is no evidence that Mr. Papadopoulos emailed that information to the campaign, Mr. Papadopoulos was in regular contact that spring with top campaign officials, including Stephen Miller, now a senior adviser to President Trump.... The day before he learned about the hacked emails, Mr. Papadopoulos emailed Mr. Miller, then a senior policy adviser to the campaign, saying Mr. Trump had an 'open invitation' from Mr. Putin to visit Russia. The day after, he wrote Mr. Miller that he had 'some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right.' Those emails were described in court papers unsealed Oct. 30.... But the documents did not identify Mr. Miller by name, citing only a 'senior policy adviser.' During interviews with Mr. Mueller's investigators, former campaign officials now working at the White House have denied having advance knowledge of the stolen emails, according to an official familiar with those discussions. Mr. Miller was among those recently interviewed."...
... Josh Marshall: "Miller's hands are all over the Comey firing. Now that we know he was in the loop for the Russia contacts, we know that in seeking to fire Comey he was at least in part seeking to kill an investigation into himself.... Miller came to Trump via Jeff Sessions.... We still don't have a terribly good explanation of how Jeff Sessions ... ended up having as multiple private conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak over the course of 2016, including one private meeting in Sessions' senate office in September. Miller seems like at least one likely conduit. At a minimum, Miller getting updated on Papadopoulos' adventures makes it much less credible that Sessions knew nothing about the channels opening up between the campaign and Russia." ...
... Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The chief executive of Cambridge Analytica has confirmed that the UK data research firm contacted Julian Assange to ask WikiLeaks to share hacked emails related to Hillary Clinton at about the time it started working for the Trump campaign in summer 2016. Speaking at a digital conference in Lisbon, Alexander Nix said he had read a newspaper report about WikiLeaks' threat to publish a trove of hacked Democratic party emails, and said he asked his aides to approach Assange in early June 2016 to ask 'if he might share that information with us', according to remarks published by the Wall Street Journal. Assange, WikiLeaks's founder, has already acknowledged the approach by Cambridge Analytica and said WikiLeaks rejected the request. In Lisbon, Nix reportedly agreed that the overture had been rebuffed.... Robert Mercer, a Trump mega-donor, and his daughter, Rebekah, are major investors in Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon was a vice-president of the company before joining the Trump campaign...." ...
... Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "Investigators for Special Counsel Robert Mueller are questioning witnesses about an alleged September 2016 meeting between Mike Flynn, who later briefly served as ... Donald Trump's national security adviser, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a staunch advocate of policies that would help Russia, two sources with knowledge of the investigation told NBC News. The meeting allegedly took place in Washington the evening of Sept. 20, while Flynn was working as an adviser to Trump's presidential campaign. It was arranged by his lobbying firm, the Flynn Intel Group. Also in attendance were Flynn's business partners, Bijan Kian and Brian McCauley, and Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, who worked closely with his father, the sources said. ...
... Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Mike Flynn and his son's alleged plot to kidnap a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and hand him over to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars. The former national security adviser to ... Donald Trump and his son, Mike Flynn Jr., would have been paid up to $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke to the Wall Street Journal." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So congratulations, folks! You are residents of a country in which the top national security advisor to the president is being investigated for kidnapping & rendition to a harsh foreign government. Unless, that is, your DACA renewal app was lost in the mail. In which case, you can't be a resident any more. ...
... Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, attended a breakfast meeting in January that Michael Flynn, then the incoming national security adviser, and Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, also attended.... Nunes' attendance at the event is newly relevant amid revelations that ... Robert Mueller is investigating a meeting that another congressman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, took with Flynn in September 2016. Flynn had begun lobbying on behalf of Turkish government interests one month earlier. That lobbying work continued into the presidential transition and through December, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Friday. Mueller is scrutinizing an alleged plot involving Flynn to return an exiled Turkish cleric to the country, the report said.... On January 10, Flynn reportedly met with the national security adviser at the time, Susan Rice, and asked her to hold off on implementing an anti-ISIS plan that involved arming the Syrian Kurds. The Turkish government vehemently opposes any plan that would empower the Kurds...."
Noor Al-Sibai of the Raw Story: "In February..., Jared Kushner told an executive at CNN's parent company Time Warner that they should fire 20 percent of the cable news agency's staff. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kushner told Gary Ginsburg, Time Warner's executive vice president of corporate marketing and a former lawyer for the Clinton White House that 'CNN should fire [20] percent of its staff because they were so wrong in their analysis of the election and how it would turn out, people familiar with the matter say.' The White House now claims Kushner made the comments in jest -- but at 'Time Warner, it wasn't taken lightly.' The revelation of those comments came days after reports that the Department of Justice was pressuring Time Warner to sell CNN before approving the telecom giant's merger with AT&T."
Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "On pesticides, chemical solvents and air pollutants, [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt and his deputies are using industry figures to challenge past findings and recommendations of the agency's own scientists.... During his confirmation hearing before Congress in January, Pruitt testified at length about the need for credible science to guide the EPA's decision-making. 'If confirmed, it will be my privilege to work with EPA scientists,' he wrote in response to questions from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). Independent peer review 'is critical to ensuring the integrity of scientific research,' and 'sound, objective science must serve as 'the backbone' of EPA actions.' Detractors say his actions tell a different story." Mrs. McC: Obviously, "detractors" are right. ...
... Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "William Wehrum, an industry lawyer and lobbyist, has represented companies who regularly filed legal challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency's clean air regulations. Nonetheless, President Donald Trump nominated him to head the office at the EPA responsible for ensuring Americans have clean air. Senate Republicans agreed with the Trump administration that Wehrum was the right person for the job. On a party-line vote of 49 to 47, the Senate approved Wehrum on Thursday to lead the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.... Wehrum 'has an astounding number of conflicts of interest given that he has regularly represented industry in their efforts to undermine clean air standards,' the Sierra Club said in response to his nomination ... Wehrum has spent his career ... working to roll back the EPA's clean air protections." --safari
Devin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "The FBI's background-check system is missing millions of records of criminal convictions, mental illness diagnoses and other flags that would keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands, a gap that contributed to the shooting deaths of 26 people in a Texas church this week. Experts who study the data say government agencies responsible for maintaining such records have long failed to forward them into federal databases used for gun background checks -- systemic breakdowns that have lingered for decades as officials decided they were too costly and time-consuming to fix."
Jim Tankersley & Bel Casselman of the New York Times: "Mitch McConnell ... acknowledged on Friday that the Republican tax plan might result in a tax hike for some working Americans, saying he 'misspoke' days earlier when he said that 'nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase' under the Senate bill.... The Senate bill unveiled on Thursday would raise taxes on millions of middle-class families, according to a preliminary New York Times analysis. The plan would also disproportionately benefit high earners and corporations. Still, middle-class earners would fare better under the Senate proposal than its counterpart in the House, the analysis found.... The Times analysis, using the open-source software TaxBrain, found that roughly one-quarter of families in the middle class would see their taxes increase in 2018, by about $1,000 on average. By 2026, the share seeing an increase would rise slightly, to about one-third, and the average increase would rise to about $1,600."...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "Typically, the majority party in Congress will take pains to shield their most vulnerable members from difficult votes.... But the Trump-era GOP has done the opposite.... Now, with their tax bill, Republicans have found a way to hammer their at-risk House members even harder. Twenty-three House Republicans represent districts that went for Clinton. The bulk of these are heavily upper-middle-class suburbs in high-income states.... Republicans are constantly saying that they need to pass their tax plan in order to retain control of Congress next year. But when one looks at what their plan would actually do, it's hard not to reach the opposite conclusion." --safari
David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "Brett J. Talley, President Trump's nominee to be a federal judge in Alabama, has never tried a case, was unanimously rated 'not qualified' by the American Bar Assn.'s judicial rating committee, has practiced law for only three years and, as a blogger last year, displayed a degree of partisanship unusual for a judicial nominee, denouncing 'Hillary Rotten Clinton' and pledging support for the National Rifle Assn. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, approved him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Talley, 36, is part of what Trump has called the 'untold story' of his success in filling the courts with young conservatives.... Civil rights groups and liberal advocates ... denounced Thursday's vote, calling it 'laughable' that none of the committee Republicans objected to confirming a lawyer with as little experience as Talley to preside over federal trials." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Always look on the bright side. I see this as a great opportunity for young Reality Chex readers. Take some community college class on business law or whatever, say something bad about Clinton or Obama & get a prestigious lifetime job. (I think you have to buy the robe, but then you can get away with wearing cheap outfits under it.) BTW, if the plan doesn't work out, try for Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court. They'll take anybody. ...
Senate Race
Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans scrambled on Friday to find a way to block Roy S. Moore's path to the Senate, exploring extraordinary measures to rid themselves of their own nominee in Alabama after accusations emerged that he had made sexual advances on four teenage girls when he was in his 30s.... Republican senators and their advisers, in a flurry of phone calls, emails and text messages, discussed fielding a write-in candidate, pushing Alabama's governor to delay the Dec. 12 special election or even not seating Mr. Moore at all should he be elected. In an interview, Senator Mitch McConnell ... declined to say whether he would agree to seat Mr. Moore should he win.... The Senate Republican campaign arm, which Mr. McConnell effectively oversees, withdrew Friday from a joint fund-raising agreement with Mr. Moore's campaign. And Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Steve Daines of Montana rescinded their endorsements of the candidate."
Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has requested to be removed from Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore's fundraising pitches after a Thursday investigative report from the Washington Post detailed accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct between a 32-year-old Moore and a minor.... The fundraising pitch attempted to discredit the allegations and included pictures of Lee, as well as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.)." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's funny, because back when Lee already knew all the stuff that Alex Shephard mentions in the post linked below, Lee wrote, "Judge Moore's tested reputation of integrity is exactly what we need in Washington, D.C., in order to pass conservative legislation and protect the liberty of all Americans." So, um, kicking Muslims out of Congress would be "conservative legislation"; dating girls half your age is creepy? Making homosexuality illegal is "protecting the liberty of all Americans," but molesting a 14-year-old is over the line? Why don't you tell us where your line is, Mike? ...
... Update: Late yesterday, Lee unendorsed Moore. ...
... Gail Collins: "... as a politician [Mitt] Romney would pander to a guppy. But this week he was a veritable profile in courage by Republican standards. He told his party to drop the 'if true' hedge when they were talking about charges that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore once sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. 'Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections,' Romney said. 'I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.' Simple and straightforward. Election to high office is an honor, not a right.... (John McCain was one of the first to demand that Moore drop out; Jeff Flake was telling the world what a terrible person Moore was even before the sex accusations came up.)" ...
... Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "...Roy Moore (R) pushed back on reports that he pursued sexual relationships with teenagers in a Friday interview on Sean Hannity's radio show, telling the host that he did 'not generally' date women in their teens.... 'I don't know [Leigh] Corfman from anybody,' Moore told Hannity. 'I've never talked to her, never had any contact with her. Allegations of sexual misconduct with her are completely false. I believe they're politically motivated....' He acknowledged knowing and being friendly with the parents of two of the other accusers, Debbie Wesson Gibson and Gloria Thacker Deason. Moore used the phrase 'good girl' to describe both women, who said that he kissed them and took them on dates when they were in their late teens and he was in his early 30s. Moore denied any sort of misconduct and said he didn't 'remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother.'" ...
... Allan Smith of Business Insider: "Moore began the interview by saying the allegations were 'completely false and misleading.' But he seemed to waver throughout the interview.... Moore ... said [dating teenagers] 'would be out of my customary behavior' and that he 'never' would have dated a teen without her mother's permission." Mrs. McC: In case you didn't notice, Moore is admitting here that he did date teenaged girls, but he claims that then 14-year-old Leigh Corfman was not one of them. Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out last night that at one point in the interview, Moore uses two of the girls cited in the WashPo story as character witnesses -- he noted that they both said he did not go beyond kissing them. ...
... Michael Scherer & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "When asked about [Gloria Thacker] Deason's claim that he provided her wine on dates when she was 18, Moore said: 'In this county, it's a dry county. We never would have had liquor.' Alcohol sales began in Etowah County in 1972, years before the alleged encounter, and The Post confirmed that wine was for sale at the time at the pizzeria where Deason remembered Moore taking her when she was under the legal drinking age of 19.... After a Friday event with military veterans, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) told reporters that 'the people of Alabama deserve to know the truth,' but she didn't hint at any particular actions she could take. One reporter followed up, asking if the word of the women could be trusted. 'Why wouldn't it be?' she asked." ...
...Ed Kilgore: "Moore is clearly digging in, and only time will tell if he's digging his own political grave. At this point it's mostly a question of whether you believe Leigh Corfman made the whole thing up, or that Moore is hiding something. He's clearly hoping Alabama voters trust him enough to believe he may be a fanatic and a hate-monger but not a sexual predator. But his evasiveness and the creepy habits he's not denying very convincingly make him vulnerable, particularly with so many national Republicans giving him a wide berth." --safari." --safari ...
... Luckily, Some Alabama Lawmakers Are Sensitive & Sensible. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Republican Alabama State Representative Ed Henry said on Friday that he wanted someone to bring charges against the women who accused GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of making sexual advances on them when they were teenagers.... 'If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years,' Henry fumed. 'I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You can't be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe we should mention here that Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress, under pressure from Democrats -- including Nancy Pelosi & Barack Obama -- and he is now in jail, serving time for doing virtually what Roy Moore (allegedly) did person-to-person. ...
... Here's a lesson from Steve M. that we all know by heart: "Don't believe Republicans when they sound reasonable. They inevitably defer to those on their side who aren't. That's how we got our president." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times: "The comedian Louis C.K. admitted on Friday that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with several women. His acknowledgment came as a film distributor canceled the release of his forthcoming comedy and as media companies cut ties with him in response to a New York Times report in which the women detailed his behavior toward them. In a statement on Friday, Louis C.K. said, 'I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.... These stories are true.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Even tho Louis waited till after his career started to tank, at least he has more guts than Trump, Weinstein, Ailes, O'Reilly, Spacey, Moore, et al., who variously lied, "forgot," threatened, intimidated, hushed up, paid off, demeaned or implicitly blamed the gay for sexually abusing women & young men. The POTUS doesn't have the decency of a crude comedian.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica in the Atlantic: "At a time when Russian intelligence and criminal activities have become an urgent concern in the United States and Europe, the Spanish investigations of [Gennady] Petrov and other Russians offer a remarkable view of the way that some of the most powerful mafia bosses have operated, both in Russia and abroad.... But the blurring lines between state and criminal activities have taken on new significance as Russia has worked more aggressively to undermine its adversaries in Europe and the United States.... Interviews with more than 20 Western law-enforcement and intelligence officials -- including Spanish investigators who spoke publicly and in detail about the Russian cases for the first time -- as well as a review of thousands of pages of court files and investigative documents, show the interplay of gangsters, spies, magnates, and politicians in Russian power networks at home and abroad. The mafias' ties to the Russian government, and particularly to the security services, have led Spanish officials to fear for their national security as well as law and order." A long read. --safari
Peter Beaumont of the Guardian: "Israel[s political and military leadership appears to have concluded that a conflict with Lebanon's Hezbollah is becoming increasingly likely, despite months of growing warnings that a third Lebanese war would be more dangerous and deadly than the last war in 2006.... Amid threats by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel would intervene rather than allow Iran or Iranian-backed groups to establish themselves on Israel's border, the sense of growing risk of conflict has been given added impetus in the recent convergence of Israeli, Saudi Arabian and US rhetoric against Iran." --safari
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President* Can’t Do
Whenever Donaldo brags about doing something “other administrations” (wink, wink) couldn’t do or should have done, in his highly knowledgeable opinion, I have to laugh. It reminds me of the old joke about Ben Cartwright, the dad on “Bonanza”. He had three sons by three different wives because they all died off. This guy was the kiss of death.
So is Trump. He fucks up everything he touches. A couple of examples. He likes Comey, then he doesn’t like him. He hires a psycho like Mike Flynn but then Flynn gets him in hot water lying about Russia. He had to go. Then people start looking into all these weird Russian connections. Trump calls in Comey and tells him to go easy on Flynn and do what he’s told. Comey balks. Trump fires him. Enter Mueller. Confederates are worried. Trump hires a little weasel like Jeffbo as AG. But he’s tainted too. Russian investigation escalates. Then because Jeffbo’s seat in the Senate needs to be filled, enter Roy Moore. Trump backs Strange, Moore wins, party in disarray. Then it comes out that Moore is s child molester. Party freaks. On top of that, Trump is so toxic, because he’s an idiot who can’t tie his own shoes without tying one lace to a chair leg and can’t pass a single piece of legislation, Republicans get voted out en masse in off year election. Then the child molester says he ain’t quittin’. Republicans announce they’re throwing in the towel, because enough already. Mid terms are coming and now there’s a good chance Trump will lose the Senate AND the House.
He kills the TPP and brags that he’ll negotiate separate deals with each of those countries individually. Best deals evah! But those countries need to move. Enter China. No one cares about Trump’s bullshit promises. Besides they look at Trump’s record in the US and see that he can’t even hire a White House parking attendant who doesn’t have Russian ties. China takes over. He pulls out of the Paris Accords. Even war torn, dysfunctional Syria joins, along with every other country in the world except for maybe some postage stamp country on the side of a volcano in the South Pacific. America loses again.
He’s the kiss of death. And this is only in the first 10 months!
President* Can’t Do.
Akhilleus, excellent summary! And not only are we no longer the world leader, I expect that this my be Trump's last foreign trip. Nobody will invite him.
@Akhilleus: Add to all that the fact that much of the stuff you mention he did to defy the Kenyan guy. He hired Flynn the moment Obama told him not to. He pulled out of the TPP -- which Obama negotiated -- three days after he took the oath (you know, the one he violates every day), & now the Pacific Rim nations are moving on without him. He pulled out of the Paris Accords -- which every other nation in the world belongs to -- because Obama was in on it. He did something something -- passed it off to Congress -- with the Iran nuclear deal because Obama (via Kerry & Munoz) negotiated it. He rescinded DACA because Obama initiated it. He is trying to ruin ObamaCare because it's called ObamaCare. He restricted travel to Cuba -- even tho he'd been interested in building hotels there -- because Obama opened up relations with Cuba. He dismantled the State Department because Obama & Clinton built it up. He is undoing all of Obama's EPA rules. He nuzzled up to Duterte because Obama gave Duterte the cold shoulder. And sometime we're going to find out that Trump's friendship with Putin has as much to do with Obama's distancing himself from Putin as it does with Trump's hopes to build Trump Kremlin Towers with a golden onion on top.
I had sort of lost track of the fact that Roy Moore is Trump's fault, too. And Moore is a special Alabama version of Trump's Miss Teenage Universe Pageant adventures in ogling. So thanks for reminding us.
Trump is not just an incompetent buffoon; he's a pathetic buffoon. Sure, we've had previous presidents who have undone some of the work of their predecessors, but they did so because they had ideological differences. Trump doesn't have a real ideology, other than racism; he's the first president in my lifetime who has based almost his entire policy prescription on jealousy of his predecessor.
Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, again excellent summary. Note that is isn't just Obama's color driving Trump. It's Obama's success. Trump's full time job is to prove he is the greatest POTUS ever. In other words, a phase we don't hear much any more- NPD.
It was in 2011 when Trump started the birther business. He kept it up until the very end after he was elected when he acknowledged reluctantly that Obama was indeed born in the U.S. But he then blamed Hillary for starting it––she had not. So for all those years the fact that someone like Obama––black, smart, capable, etc. could be a successful president irked him like a raw itch he continued to scratch. Marie's and Ak's assessment of this scenario rings so true it hurts one's ears. To think Trump's obsession is responsible for so many of his chaotic maneuvers is the stuff of Shakespeare who wrote so well about evil and maniacal movements.
Seeking an analogy in history, l'm trying to imagine what our country would be like if FDR had taken Hitler as his model. I fear we might find out.
All the trees in the vast forest of the Pretender's mis-and malfeasance hint at or speak of it, and drawing back, looking at the forest as.a whole, what I see is a Pretender who wishes he were Putin, acting accordingly or as accordingly as he can, constrained as he is by his demonstrable stupidity on the one hand and the troublesome restrictions imposed on him by the fetters of a flagging democracy.
No doubt we are engaged in a titanic struggle to preserve what is good in our mixed history. I don't any longer believe those who speak of a Constitutional crisis are indulging in melodrama.
They have it right.
Jarred a vagrant thought loose when I bumped my head changing out a kitchen faucet.
Maybe Marvin knows.
Can we expect "Putin Envy" (don't know if I made that up) to be soon listed in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?"
Ken, it's already there.
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
@KenW: Like your sly wordplay.
For building up such a persona of beating his chest and screaming America First, Trvmpvs sure has a way to insult and demean his beloved country whenever abroad. His whining speech where he congratulates China of "taking advantage of us" actually shocked me in his condescending words of previous administrations and EVERYONE that's ever worked on economic/trade policy. I didn't think I was capable of being shocked at this point. What a pathetic shitstain little Donny is. It's not even worth playing the "What is Obummer had said that?" game, but for all the flack he took by wingers and his supposed "apology tours" demeaning the US abroad, Trump is kicking Obama's ass in that department, too.
And what is the 4D chess Trump is playing with the Russia media story? He claims he talked to Putin about it and Putin gets pissed when it gets brought up. Then the Kremlin claims it never came up, so it was actually just Trump inventing the conversation in his head, then brining the story back into the media, inevitably "pissing off" ol' Vlad... I'm confused. But after the repeated denials, still going on today, I'm more convinced than ever that Putin has kompromat on Trump. The way he glares at Trump with that wry little smirk seems to tell it all. Nothing changes in Trump's disposition of course because he just has no shame, doesn't think twice about trying to give Vlad whatever it is he wants, or maybe just "convinced himself" that the kompromat is fake news too.
I am with safari when he says he is shocked by the horrible drivel coming out of Crapweasel's mouth. The thing that shocks me the most is that apparently all it takes is one world-class lying moron sitting in the driver's seat for the USA to turn into hamburger. Where are the vaunted "checks and balances" that make sure this kind of thing doesn't lead us into danger? Who has the authority to bring out the men with the butterfly nets? How did we get to this with not one person ringing the bells loud and clear? How is it that the only hope is Robert Mueller saving us from a rotten stinking party of craven cuckoos and its disgusting, degenerate "leader?" More and more I blame the idiots like Lindsey Graham and the tea party bigots.
Good thing it is cocktail time.
@Jeanne, lately for me (the last year) cocktail time on Saturdays starts at 8am. It's 5pm somewhere in the world.