;)
The Commentariat -- November 13, 2019
New York Times reporters are liveblogging the hearing, with commentary. Much of that commentary is useful and/or funny. The Washington Post is live-reporting the hearing here. Politico's liveblog (which seems a little less "live," is here. All three have livestream video of the hearing. ~~~
~~~ Besides the NYT reporters' commentary linked above, Michael Shear of the Times is writing mini-reports of highlights and related developments. "... William B. Taylor Jr., ... testified that he was told that Mr. Trump cared more about 'investigations of Biden' -- former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. -- than he did about Ukraine. The revelation, as Congress began the third set of presidential impeachment hearings in modern history, placed Mr. Trump at the center of what Mr. Taylor described in vivid detail as a 'highly irregular' effort to place the president's political interests at the center of American policy toward Ukraine." ~~~
~~~ From the WashPo live-report: @11:30 am ET: "Taylor added new information to his opening statement Wednesday, describing a July phone call between Trump and U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland overheard by a member of Taylor's staff in which Trump purportedly asked about 'the investigations.'... On July 26..., the aide heard Trump through the phone asking about 'the investigations' and Sondland said the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.... The phone call purportedly took place after Sondland met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelensky, and one day after Trump asked Zelensky to pursue investigations into his political opponents in a controversial phone call. Taylor said that after the call, the aide asked Sondland what Trump thought about Ukraine and Sondland said that Trump cares 'more about the investigations of Biden' that ... Rudolph W. Giuliani, 'was pressing for.' Taylor said he had not provided this account to impeachment investigators during his Oct. 22 deposition because his staff member only told him about the episode last Friday." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ @12:15 pm ET: David Holmes, "the embassy staffer who Taylor said overheard Trump ask ... Gordon Sondland about the status of 'the investigations' via phone just a day after Trump spoke to the Ukrainian leader, will testify behind closed doors Friday in the House's impeachment probe, according to two people familiar with the investigation.... The speed with which Holmes has been added to the deposition list also indicates how quickly investigators want to move forward with their inquiry.... The panels also announced that they expect Mark Sandy, who is in charge of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget, to testify Saturday. No OMB staff member has yet shown up for testimony in the impeachment probe." Mrs. McC: This is a big deal. The NYT currently (at 1:30 pm ET) has it as its headline on the hearing: "Testimony: 'Trump Cares More about the Investigations of Biden.'" ~~~
~~~ @12:35 m ET: "Kent told the House panel Wednesday that there no basis for Trump's assertion that Biden, while vice president, had stopped an investigation into a Ukrainian gas company where his son served on the board of directors. 'None whatsoever,' Kent testified. The issue is a crucial one in the impeachment hearings because Trump and his allies have for months alleged without evidence that Biden was seeking to prevent an investigation that could have affected his son Hunter."
~~~ Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Donald Trump called a top ally [Gordon Sondland] in July for an update on efforts to get the Ukrainian government to launch investigations of his Democratic adversaries..., [William Taylor] revealed Wednesday.... When pressed by Schiff about whether he took Trump's remarks on the call with Sondland to mean that Trump cares more about a Biden investigation that he does about Ukraine, Taylor responded: 'Yes, sir.'... The existence of the call delivered Democrats an explosive new detail as they seek to show Trump's effort to exploit a U.S. ally at war with Russia, all in order to boost his 2020 reelection campaign.... Democrats' case began with veteran State Department hands William Taylor and George Kent, who described efforts by Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to 'gin up' the politically motivated investigations favored by Trump by leaning on high-level Ukrainians. Kent said Giuliani has been aided in this effort by 'some of those same corrupt former prosecutors' that State Department officials spent years trying to sideline. 'They were now peddling false information in order to exact revenge against those who had exposed their misconduct, including U.S. diplomats, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, and reform-minded civil society groups in Ukraine,' Kent said. 'In mid-August, it became clear to me that Giuliani's efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now infecting U.S. engagement with Ukraine.'... Taylor, Trump's current ambassador to Ukraine, said that the irregular channel included Giuliani, as well as Trump's acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former Trump Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker."
Politico: "The public phase of the historic impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump begins Wednesday when two top American diplomats -- strong> William Taylor and George Kent -- are set to testify. Here's a rough schedule of the day's events, per an official working on the impeachment probe."
Jessica Taylor of NPR: "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep during an interview at the Capitol on Tuesday that he thinks there's a clear argument to be made that Trump committed 'bribery' and 'high crimes and misdemeanors' -- both explicitly outlined in the Constitution as impeachable offenses -- when pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son in exchange for long-promised military aid. 'Bribery..., as the founders understood bribery..., connoted the breach of the public trust in a way where you're offering official acts for some personal or political reason, not in the nation's interest.' [Schiff said]. To prove bribery, Schiff said, you have to show that the president was 'soliciting something of value,' which Schiff thinks multiple witnesses before his committee have testified to in private."
New Defense: Trump Is as Pure as the Driven Snow. Mike Allen, et al., of Axios have more-or-less updated an earlier post, linked yesterday, to explain the GOP's "defense" of Trump: "Confronted with a mountain of damaging facts heading into tomorrow's opening of the public phase of impeachment, House Republicans plan to argue that 'the President's state of mind' was exculpatory." Mrs. McC: Sure he shot a guy in cold blood on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, but he was thinking of the American flag waving in a blue sky when he did it. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
... Update: Democrats released a response, titled "Debunked," to the GOP's supposed defense of Trump, hitting all four GOP claims. CNN has republished the Democrats' response here. ~~~
~~~ "The GOP’s Impeachment Strategy Is Self-Refuting." William Saletan of Slate: “... Donald Trump and his congressional allies have a bizarre game plan for this week’s impeachment hearings. First, they’re going to argue that when Trump pressed Ukraine to investigate his Democratic opponents — in particular, former Vice President Joe Biden — Trump’s goal was to fight corruption, not to hurt Biden or the Democrats. Then, to prove that it wasn’t about smearing Biden or the Democrats, Trump and his allies will use the hearings to smear Biden and the Democrats.... Every time Trump opens his mouth, he gives away the game: 'Corruption' is his code for smearing Democrats.” Saletan points out numerous instances where Trump & his GOP allies disprove their own assertions. Saletan also knocks down the argument that "you can't get into the mind of Trump and his advisors"; that is, there's no way of proving intent. ~~~
~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: “... the House Republicans who are actually involved in the hearings seem set to go all in on the fantasy of Ukrainian election interference. To exonerate Trump, they are ready to help cover for Russia.” Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intel Committee wrote to chairman Adam Schiff Saturday, “of Trump’s 'documented belief that the Ukrainian government meddled in the 2016 election,' which 'forms the basis for a reasonable desire for Ukraine to investigate the circumstances surrounding the election.' The conspiracy theories that undergird the president’s 'documented belief' aren’t really coherent, but they don’t have to be to serve their purpose, which is sowing confusion about the well-established fact that Russia assisted Trump’s campaign.... 'George Soros was behind it. George Soros’s company was funding it,' [Rudy] Giuliani said on ABC in September, spinning tales of Hillary Clinton’s collusion with Ukraine. Speaking to The Post, Giuliani accused Marie Yovanovtich, the former ambassador to Ukraine, of 'working for Soros.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The Rogue Rudy Defense. Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "Top House Republican sources tell Axios that one impeachment survival strategy will be to try to distance President Trump from any Ukraine quid pro quo, with Rudy Giuliani potentially going under the bus.... An uber-connected Republican added: 'Rudy will be cut loose because he was rogue.'" Mrs. McC: This should go well, because everything we know about Rudy is that he will go gentle into that good night. Speaking of Rudy, ~~~
~~~ Rudy Giuliani has an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal "defending" Trump. Oh darn, it's firewalled. Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: “'The focus was on Ukrainian corruption broadly speaking and out of a five-page transcript Mr. Trump spent only six lines on Joe Biden,' Giuliani offered as a defense.... Trump never mentioned 'corruption' on the call, but did mention 'Biden' three times. [Mrs. McC: Maybe more; all we have is an at-least-somewhat abbreviated summary of the call.]... [Giuliani] was quickly ridiculed for his legal defense. Here’s some of what people were saying[.]” Many of the Twitter responses run along the lines of this one from Krister Johnson: "Out of a whole lifetime, John Wilkes Booth spent only six seconds assassinating Abraham Lincoln" & this from Brian Klaas: "Out of all the days he was president, Nixon only spent a handful orchestrating a burglary and cover-up". And this from Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is good: "That’s all ya got? A word count is NOT a good defense to a crime."
MEANWHILE, at the White House, Everything Is Going Very Smoothly ~~~
~~~ ** Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Trump has discussed dismissing the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, because Mr. Atkinson reported a whistle-blower’s complaint about Mr. Trump’s interactions with Ukraine to Congress after concluding it was credible, according to four people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Trump first expressed his dismay about Mr. Atkinson around the time the whistle-blower’s complaint became public in September. In recent weeks, he has continued to raise with aides the possibility of firing him, one of the people said.... He has said he believes Mr. Atkinson, whom he appointed in 2017, has been disloyal, one of the people said.... Inspectors general are supposed to be insulated from politics so they can follow the facts and provide oversight of the executive branch. While presidents have the authority to remove them, they are supposed to take that action only in cases of misconduct or failure to fulfill duties." (Also linked yesterday.) The Hill has a summary report here. ~~~
~~~ Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Two Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), are warning President Trump not to fire intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. ~~~
~~~ Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump has been threatening for weeks to fire acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, but senior advisers have counseled him to hold off on such a drastic step amid a high-stakes impeachment probe, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Trump has expressed particular anger over Mulvaney’s performance in an Oct. 17 news conference in which Mulvaney stunned White House aides by saying military aid to Ukraine was withheld to pressure its government to launch investigations that could politically benefit Trump...." ~~~
~~~ Nancy Cook & Gabby Orr of Politico: "Mick Mulvaney is isolated, marginalized and growing more irrelevant to the West Wing staff he’s meant to lead during one of the most consequential moments of the Trump presidency. Though the White House’s acting chief of staff is still participating in impeachment meetings and working out of the White House, the strategy is increasingly being driven by White House lawyers, legislative affairs team and top officials from the press and communications shops who spent the week setting up a rapid-response team and developing plans to push back on witnesses’ testimony in real time.... [Mulvaney] ended up in this tenuous position after four days of back-and-forth federal court proceedings after his attorneys tried to join a lawsuit that asked a judge to rule on whether or not top officials should be forced to testify on Capitol Hill after Democrats subpoenaed them. Mulvaney decided to drop the lawsuit entirely on Tuesday morning, after his allies said he was surprised by the political blow-back and internal sniping his own court filing created." ~~~
~~~ Sideshow, Ctd. Say, remember that lawsuit Mick Mulvaney (1) tried to join last Friday? Well, he (2) withdrew from that effort yesterday. Then he said he (3) would file his own damned lawsuit. Then (4) ... Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: “Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Tuesday reversed plans to file a lawsuit regarding his compliance with a subpoena for congressional testimony in the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump. His attorneys notified a federal court that Mulvaney, after further consideration, 'does not intend to pursue litigation regarding the deposition subpoena issued to him by the U.S. House of Representatives' and will instead obey directions from Trump to ignore the subpoena altogether.” Mrs. McC: Maybe now you'll be a little less stunned & amazed by all those stories titled, "White House in Chaos." (Also linked yesterday.)
Neal Katyal in a New York Times op-ed: "Mr. Trump’s effort to hinder the House investigation of him is at least as great a threat to the rule of law [as the allegation of misconduct in regard to Ukraine]. It strikes at the heart of American democracy — and it is itself the essence of an impeachable offense.... Mr. Trump’s stonewalling is a grave problem because it means there is no way to police executive branch wrongdoing.... For impeachment to have meaning in our constitutional system, there must be a way for Congress to ferret out the facts.... The president now claims that, despite the call memo and other evidence, he never intended to do anything wrong. But the only way to test that claim is to permit witnesses to testify about what the president said at the time, and what he knew and asked about.... The stonewalling is particularly pernicious here because Mr. Trump’s party controls the Senate.... Why is the president afraid of letting his own White House officials tell the truth in a process ultimately controlled by Senate Republicans?"
** Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "... the current moment of reckoning ... is the collision of a president who has absolutely no regard for professionalism and those who try to embody it, the battle between an arrogant, unscrupulous yahoo and his humble, principled opposites.... Trump’s war on professionalism and professionals is also its own distinct theme in his business career, which is rife with cheating, and his political life, which is greased with lies.... Trump slyly markets his anti-professionalism as anti-elitism and a rejection of staid, cautious thinking. But it’s really his way of excusing his ignorance, costuming his incompetence and greenlighting his hooliganism.... Professionalism involves credentials, benchmarks, all sorts of yardsticks by which a person can be judged, sometimes unkindly. Trump wants only affirmation. And professionalism is a reality-based enterprise. Trump prefers fiction[.]" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't usually credit Bruni as being insightful, but I think the point of this column is exactly right and does help explain many of Trump's debilitating foibles.
Darren Samuelsohn & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Roger Stone first told one of Donald Trump’s top aides in April 2016 that WikiLeaks had plans to dump information in the heat of the presidential race, kickstarting a scramble inside the campaign to take advantage of the expected releases. And that plotting included at least one summertime call involving Trump himself, according to Rick Gates, the former Trump deputy campaign chairman, who was testifying Tuesday morning at Stone’s trial over lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks. The revelation means the Trump campaign was aware of WikiLeaks' election-year plans much earlier than previously understood. And it also shows that the president was involved in conversations about the issue, something he has previously denied.... Federal prosecutors rested their case against Stone before lunch on Tuesday, and Stone's lawyers spent a little more than an hour in the afternoon playing aloud portions of their client’s September 2017 deposition before the House Intelligence Committee, during which prosecutors allege Stone lied. After that, Stone's team also rested its case without inviting any witnesses to the stand." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Rick Gates said he overheard a phone call in which [Roger] Stone seemed to make the president aware of a planned WikiLeaks release.... Gates said his boss, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, had told him that Trump would be kept updated on WikiLeaks’ plans to release Democratic campaign emails — which authorities concluded were hacked by Russia.... In written responses last year to questions from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III..., Trump said he did not recall receiving any information about WikiLeaks disclosures in advance, being told that Stone 'or anyone associated with my campaign' had discussions with WikiLeaks about future leaks, or ever discussing WikiLeaks with Stone.” ~~~
~~~ Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “The Roger Stone trial is no longer just about Roger Stone.... It revealed that Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign aides knew more about WikiLeaks’ plans than they have let on, and the president may have later misled Robert Mueller about it.... According to direct testimony and dozens of email and text messages introduced over the last week, the Trump campaign got its first heads up about Julian Assange’s ability to upend U.S. politics as far back as April 2016. The timing is months earlier than any Trump aide has previously described, and months before WikiLeaks published its first cache of damaging materials that would go on to cripple Hillary Clinton’s White House bid. Additionally, a wider cast of Trump aides participated in WikiLeaks strategy sessions than previously known as they mapped out an attack plan to take advantage of the hacked Democratic emails.... [Mueller's] decision to keep private such information left the public confused and more susceptible to the president’s 'no collusion, no obstruction' spin, [legal experts] argued.” ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The Mueller "investigation"/whitewash vis-a-vis Trump, is a scandal within a scandal. I don't know that Mueller always intended to let Trump off the hook, but in the end, that's what he did. Does it make any sense to conceal evidence against the POTUS* in order to make a stronger case that a smallfry like Roger Stone lied to Congress? Nope. Mueller was, indirectly, a Trump appointee, and he showed Trump that "loyalty" Trump demands, even as Trump excoriated Mueller & his staff almost daily.
Stephanie Ruhle & Carol Lee of NBC News: "Former national security adviser John Bolton derided ... Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law during a private speech last week and suggested his former boss’ approach to U.S. policy on Turkey is motivated by personal or financial interests, several people who were present for the remarks told NBC News.... Bolton outlined [a portrait of] of a president who lacks an understanding of the interconnected nature of relationships in foreign policy and the need for consistency, these people said.... Like other former Trump advisers, Bolton said regardless of how much evidence is provided to Trump that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, the president refuses to take any action because he views any move against Moscow as giving credence to the notion that his election is invalid, the people present for Bolton's remarks said." Also, he plugged his upcoming book. (Also linked yesterday.)
Married to the Mob. David Kirkpatrick & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “Behind President Trump’s accommodating attitude toward Turkey is an unusual back channel: a trio of sons-in-law who married into power and now play key roles in connecting Ankara with Washington. One, Turkey’s finance minister, is the son-in-law of its strongman president and oversees his country’s relationship with the United States. Another is the son-in-law of a Turkish tycoon and became a business partner to the Trump Organization. Now he advocates for Turkey with the Trump administration. And the third is Jared Kushner, who as the son-in-law of and senior adviser to Mr. Trump has a vague if expansive foreign policy portfolio.... The three men have developed an informal, next-generation line of communication between Mr. Trump and ... President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who only weeks after his military incursion into northern Syria is scheduled to visit the White House on Wednesday. At a moment when Mr. Trump has come under bipartisan criticism from Congress for a series of stands favorable to Mr. Erdogan, the ties among the three men show how informal and often-unseen connections between the two presidents have helped shape American policy in a volatile part of the world.... 'Trump is replacing formal relations among nations in several cases with family-to-family relationship, or crony-to-crony relationships,' said Eric S. Edelman, who served as under secretary of defense for policy and United States ambassador to Turkey during the George W. Bush administration.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: When there's no handy family connection, Trump has Rudy & his mobster friends execute "U.S." policy. And Congressional Republicans are defending this guy -- the same guy who is defying not just formal diplomats but also the Congress? What is wrong with these people?
Wow! Thanks, Ivanka! Jonathan Chait: "At a speech to the Economic Club of New York [Tuesday], President Trump declared that his daughter, Ivanka, has personally created 14 million new jobs. The president announced this figure ... and then repeated it twice more as the crowd applauded politely.... The entire U.S. economy has created fewer than 6 million new jobs since Trump took office. So Trump is crediting his daughter with having personally created more than 200 percent of all new jobs in the United States. This is like supply-side economics but for authoritarian nepotism.... You can read about [Ivanka's] program at its official White House page, but the details are sparse even by the standards of a White House messaging site. There truly does not seem to be any policy here other than Ivanka asking businesspeople to promise to create jobs. Last October, Ivanka claimed this initiative had created 6.3 million jobs. Lydia DePillis interviewed some of the companies that contributed to this number, and several admitted they had simply credited all real (or, in some cases, hypothetical) job openings to the Ivanka initiative."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Tuesday appeared ready to side with the Trump administration in its efforts to shut down a program protecting about 700,000 young immigrants known as 'Dreamers.' The court’s liberal justices probed the administration’s justifications for ending the program, expressing skepticism about its rationales for doing so. But other justices indicated that they would not second-guess the administration’s reasoning and, in any event, considered its explanations sufficient.” A USA Today story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mark Stern of Slate, despite some of CJ John Roberts' remarks Liptak cites, is convinced Roberts doesn't get it, and Stern explains why. Stern also hits at the real reason for the Trump administration's recision of DACA: “Shortly before the justices heard arguments on Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center published a horrific exposé of Stephen Miller’s deep ties to the white nationalist movement [SPLC story linked below]. The article detailed Miller’s affinity for outwardly racist websites, literature, and conspiracy theories, as well as immigrant laws rooted in eugenics. This animus, not some deep concern for 'the rule of law,' is what lies behind the Trump administration’s push to end DACA. It was racism, too, that motivated the administration’s quest to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census — racism papered over with lies so brazen that Roberts could not accept them. This time around, however, the chief justice seems unwilling to peer beyond the government’s pretext. And so his court could soon condemn 700,000 Dreamers to fear deportation from the only home they’ve ever known.” ~~~
~~~ Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: “President Trump unleashed on former President Obama and so-called Dreamers hours before the Supreme Court will hear arguments about Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. 'Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from “angels.” Some are very tough, hardened criminals,' Trump claimed in a tweet early Tuesday without providing details. 'President Obama said he had no legal right to sign order, but would anyway. If Supreme Court remedies with overturn, a deal will be made with Dems for them to stay!'... Obama used an executive action in 2012 to establish DACA, something the Trump administration has called 'an unconstitutional exercise of authority.'” Mrs. McC: Kind of ironic, inasmuch as Trump issues executive orders as often as Reagan passed around the jellybean jar. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Klar of the Hill: “Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a combat veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she celebrated Veterans Day in Tijuana, Mexico, with U.S. veterans who have been deported since fighting for the country. 'I am ashamed of and heartbroken by how our nation is treating the deported Veterans I met with today,' [Duckworth] said in a statement after her Monday trip. The senator said the veterans are 'Americans all but on paper.' Many enlisted after President George W. Bush signed an executive order fast-tracking citizenship for 'for those willing to serve — but who, because of things like lost paperwork, fell through the cracks, never officially became citizens, she said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ ** Michael E. Hayden of the Southern Poverty Law Center: "In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch. The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Dan De Luce, et al., of NBC News: "A senior Trump administration official has embellished her résumé with misleading claims about her professional background — even creating a fake Time magazine cover with her face on it — raising questions about her qualifications to hold a top position at the State Department. An NBC News investigation found that Mina Chang, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stability Operations, has inflated her educational achievements and exaggerated the scope of her nonprofit's work.... Chang, who assumed her post in April, also invented a role on a U.N. panel, claimed she had addressed both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and implied she had testified before Congress. She was being considered for an even bigger government job, one with a budget of more than $1 billion, until Congress started asking questions about her résumé. The gap between Chang's actual qualifications and her claims appears to be the latest example of lax vetting by the Trump administration, which has become known for its many job vacancies and appointments made without thorough screening." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I once attended a lecture my husband gave at Harvard. I didn't realize till I read Chang's résumé that showing up at a seminar in Cambridge made me a "Harvard alumna." In fairness, I've known ever since Trump began picking his Cabinet that I'm overqualified for a top job in the Trump administration. And so are you.
Presidential Race 2020
Quint Forgey of Politico: "Pete Buttigieg, whose presidential campaign has been steadily gaining ground in Iowa over recent weeks, now sits narrowly atop the 2020 Democratic field in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, according to a new survey. A Monmouth University poll published Tuesday shows that the South Bend, Ind., mayor is the first choice of 22 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers — outrunning all other rivals in Iowa for the party’s nomination to challenge ... Donald Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden ranks in second place with 19 percent support, followed closely by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts with 18 percent and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont with 13 percent." (Also linked yesterday.)
Caitlin Byrd of the Charleston, S.C., Post & Courier: Mark Sanford ended his presidential bid outside the state capitol building in Concord, N.H. "Sanford had originally planned to be inside a Statehouse office on Friday, to have his name added to the ballot in the first-in-the-nation primary. Instead, it is where his run ended days after he vowed to spend all of November campaigning here." (Also linked yesterday.)
Congressional Race 2020. Luke Broadwater of the Baltimore Sun: "Maryland Democratic Party Chairwoman Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the widow of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, is running for her husband’s seat, arguing Monday she is the best option to carry out his legacy and continue his vision.... Rockeymoore Cummings, a public policy consultant who is founder of the Washington consulting firm Global Policy Solutions LLC and a former 2018 candidate for governor, said her husband told her months before he died he would like for her to succeed him.... Candidates must file by Nov. 20 to run in a special Feb. 4 primary for Cummings’ 7th District seat, which includes parts of the city of Baltimore and areas of Baltimore and Howard counties. The special election will be April 28, the same day as a regular primary for all of Maryland’s U.S. House seats.... Eight Democrats ... and three Republicans have filed to run in the special primary. Five candidates have filed to run in the regular GOP primary, along with seven Democrats." (Also linked yesterday.)
Gubernatorial Race 2019. Kentucky. Joe Sonda of the Louisville Courier Journal: "As the final votes trickled in during last week's Kentucky gubernatorial election, a network of automated Twitter accounts suddenly sprang into action. They spread misinformation about the election being rigged, according to the CEO of a company that tracks political misinformation on social media. Gideon Blocq, the founder and CEO of VineSight, told The Courier Journal his company witnessed thousands of accounts with 'bot-like' automated behavior spreading misinformation about the race, including a screenshot of a tweet by one account claiming to have destroyed ballots with votes for incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin. 'Immediately at the end of the counting of the votes, these stories started popping up in parallel, all about the election being rigged,' Blocq said.... Blocq said he could not determine the origin of the bot network pushing tweets about the Kentucky race...."
Mark Sherman & Dave Collins of the AP: "The Supreme Court said Tuesday that a survivor and relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting can pursue their lawsuit against the maker of the rifle used to kill 26 people. The justices rejected an appeal from Remington Arms, which argued it should be shielded by a 2005 federal law preventing most lawsuits against firearms manufacturers when their products are used in crimes. The case is being watched by gun control advocates, gun rights supporters and gun manufacturers across the country because it has the potential to provide a roadmap for victims of other mass shootings to circumvent the federal law and sue the makers of firearms."
Ali Breland of Mother Jones: "The government can no longer search international travelers’ cell phones and other personal devices at whim, a federal court ruled Tuesday. The ruling followed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology civil liberties group, on behalf 11 travelers (10 US citizens and one permanent resident) whose phones and laptops were searched as they were coming into the United States. The searches were conducted without warrants and without suspicion of the travelers. Customs and Border Protection and US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement had previously been operating, in at least some cases, as though they did not have to obtain warrants or have reasonable cause for suspicion of travelers coming back into the country before searching their devices. Advocacy groups called that a violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.... The searches are a part of the Department of Homeland Security’s broader recent pattern of encroaching on civil liberties. The agency has also begun searching the social media profiles of travelers entering the United States."
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Reader Comments (13)
Court watchers are increasingly of the opinion that Little Johnny and the Dwarfs will go full nativist, aligning themselves squarely with Fatty, his white supremacist followers (or are they his leaders?) and pretty much the entirety of the bigots and benighted haters in their party over the DACA case now before them. They will, of course, try to cloak their racist urgings with the usual confederate casuistries.
Yesterday I listened, angry and appalled, to a clip of the vicious and unctuous evil elf, Confederate officer wannabe, Jeffbo, as he wagged his finger in a clip from his days as Fatty’s sycophantic door mat and in-house bigot, sniffing that DACA was an affront to decent ‘mericans, especially, no doubt, those millions of red staters living on government assistance who would, for sure, put down the meth if those cheating DACA kids could be yanked out of their jobs as teachers, lawyers, scientists, artists, and entrepreneurs. Because, as he put it, the Trump administration wasn’t gonna take that shit anymore. Also because Trump was all about the rule of law and the sanctity of the Constitution.
I almost had to pull over. Next time you need some ipecac, forget running to CVS. Just play this clip. A small, slimy twerp of a racist, working diligently for a lying crook whose every action and word helps to deny the essence of America’s constitutional government, braying about rule of law.
We shall see whether Johnny and his winger cohort are for the United States or for Trump racists. I know where to put my money.
@Akhilleus: Since President Obama created DACA by executive order, I think Trump has a right to rescind it by executive order, at least for young people who have not previously been accepted into the program. However, Trump's usual lying creates a problem, IMO. By repeatedly pretending he wanted to help the kids, he caused hundreds of thousands of young people to rely on that pretense.
From Liptak's report (linked above): "Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the DACA recipients were justified in relying on Mr. Trump’s earlier statements. Mr. Trump, she said, had been 'telling DACA-eligible people that they were safe under him and that he would find a way to keep them here.'... Justice Stephen G. Breyer said that many people and groups had indeed relied on the program to continue indefinitely, judging by the supporting briefs filed in the three cases before the court....”
CJ Roberts appeared to agree with Sotomayor & Breyer on this point: "... he said the Supreme Court could rule in a humane way, minimizing the hardships people participating in the program would face if it were ended. 'It’s not always the case when the government acts illegally in a way that affects other people,' he said, 'that we go back and untangle all of the consequences of that.' The program, he suggested, could be wound down in measured steps. Chief Justice Roberts added that both the Obama and Trump administrations have said they would not deport people eligible for the program, meaning that the main practical questions if the program is ended would be their ability to work legally, obtain driver’s licenses and the like."
Despite universal reporting that the Supremes will rule for Trump, it looks to me as if Roberts will craft a decision, with the more liberal justices, that will find the Trump administration had a right to rescind DACA -- even tho they did so in their usual Trumpy ham-fisted "arbitrary & capricious" way -- but will give some relief to DACA recipients. Even pretend-compassionate Kavanaugh might sign onto something like that.
BTW, Mark Stern of Slate disagrees with me (linked above); he believes Roberts will let the Trumpies get away with their "rule of law" pretext for ending DACA. I won't be surprised if Stern is right and I'm wrong, but I hope not.
We won't know for months, Bea, but I read much the same message between the lines of yesterday's SCOTUS DACA session as you did.
We'll know next spring if the court's majority still deserves the name of justice.
I'd guess (tho' I have not had a Justice whispering into my ear for years now) that this is a difficult time for the Court. The cases designed to extend corporate rights and defend corporate greed have easy solutions. Business always wins. But when the more common issues of outright law-breaking and simple human justice come before them as they must with a criminal and inhumane administration running the country, it's not an easy call of GM over Joe the Plumber.
It's a choice of siding with a guy who has bragged he is wholly above the law, who defies laws daily, whose corruption is in plains sight, which calls into direct question all those fine speeches justices make about this being a nation of laws, not of men--or of siding with the institution on which they have built their variously distingued careers.
I have little sympathy for the likes of Alito and Kavanaugh, privileged white Catholic guys, whose jurisprudence, if nothing else, should have kept them off the Court, but I do have some because of the problems the Pretender's lawlessness have and will lob their way.
Here is a PBS interview on the DACA situation: Amna Nawaz talks with Marcia Coyle and another person who were both privy to the Court proceedings. At the very end when Amna asked Marcia how she thought the court was leaning she said this:
"Well, I never like to predict but my sense was that there is not a fifth vote for the dreamers in this case."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-supreme-court-takes-up-daca-dreamers-hope-for-another-temporary-reprieve
Presidunce Chubs has not had a clean "win" in the column headed immigration-- he is playing with DACA because it is an easy win. So it won't matter if he doesn't see a material wall across the entire southern border, and he still has people in cages and people waiting in Mexico and people in the shadows, particularly in the western states. Delicious stories of people deported to countries they don't know and forced to make a living there, with no language skills or money, and no family ties and no degrees finished will no doubt make his day. Remember: sociopath and narcissist supreme-- none of it will affect his life. Nor the lives of the mouthbreathers, as long as the veggies get picked and the pools cleaned...
Sitting on his throne in the far away kingdom of "Let's Make a Deal" the King, this early chilly November morning, appeared despondent.
"What ails thee, my Lord?" asked the King's faithful Fool.
The King looking puffy and petulant grunted something about witches and hunts.
"What's that. my lord? As usual it's hard to follow your stream of sinuous screeds."
"I fear, my faithful Fool that those witches have finally figured out my perfect plan to scam the whole goddamn populace and benefit greatly. It's crunch time––the hunt is over––fetch me my slaves and knaves, tell them to arm themselves to the hilt and be prepared to take flight."
"Exactly where can we go, my Lord?"
"To the Tower of Trump, of course,"
"Oh, my Lord, did you forget? Your Tower has fallen and is now in shambles."
The King put down his heavy head, sobbed and whispered:
"Shit––I am found Flagrante delicto and it's tick tock for me and thee and my henchmen three––or four or more or...."
The End or the Beginning––take your pick.
The Limits of Reason:
Neal Katyal has it right in his op-ed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/opinion/trump-impeachment-hearings.html?
Katyal says that what the Pretender is hiding is at least as criminal, likely more so, as what has so far been revealed in the impeachment hearings. Good guess, I'd say.
But when might makes right, being right is not enough, and with the claimed presidential cloak of invulnerability, his attorney general running interference for him, and the craven Republican Senate so far solidly behind him, the Pretender, while a little shaken, is still standing--and it pisses me off.
I expressed it this way:
"The nation's grave problem is that the charges of collusion and obstruction of justice that Trump escaped with a little help from Attorney General Barr now apply equally to the whole of the Republican leadership.
Barr continues to obstruct and collude. He has colluded with the president to manufacture alternate universe theories of the Mueller investigation's origins and he has provided both direct and tacit support to Mr. Trump's stonewalling tactics, shamelessly sticking his complicit finger in the eye of the Constitution while doing so.
Most House and Senate Republicans are no less to blame for the mess we're in. Their questionable 'my country right or wrong' defintion of patriotism has morphed into a narrower, even more self-serving 'my party right or wrong.' Their goosestepping adherence to their criminal leader has led them to a sackful of absurd excuses for his unpardonable behavior, which now includes claims that he is too incompetent or too 'innocent' to know what he is doing.
That could be true if Trump's behavior rises from the same childishness he exhibits every day. But if Republicans really believe that, they should hop on the impeachment bandwagon post haste.
If not, the party leaders who like to wave selected (and often misconstrued or misunderstood) parts of the Constitution in the face of their political opponents should be subject to criminal penalties themselves for ignorning it and the duties they have sworn to perform."
So where to turn? Can we count on the Supremes, an institution that purports to rely on reason in its decisions? So far there are few signs they are even paying attention to the greatest Constitutional crisis the nation has seen since the 1930's--or the Civil War--, a presidency running roughshod over law.
It's my seventy fourth November and while those Novembers have come and gone far too fast, the wait for the next seems interminable.
I hate to say it, but I'm thinking that the all out assault on truth, justice, and the Constitution by the Traitor in Chief and his Party of Treasonous Thugs has a very good chance of succeeding in sidestepping the worst of these hearings.
Fatty escaped the Mueller oven pretty easily. Just keep repeating the lies. Lie about everything, all the time. Send your minions out to lie. Confuse the hell out of people.
He's addressing (or attacking, as the case may be) four distinct groups. First, he's serving up Trump Brand Pablum for the drooling horde. He and his henchmen are providing them with dozens of different excuses for treason and bribery. Mostly it boils down to it's okay because the Dear Leader did it. Had a Democrat been accused of a single one of Trump's myriad crimes, it'd be auto-da-fe time in Washington. The Savonarolas would be out in force, Lindsey Graham right down front.
Second, he's throwing so much shit at the chimerical "independents" and "undecideds" that most of them just throw their hands up and declare a pox on both Republican liars and Democrats looking to maintain the constitutional order. They have other things to worry about anyway, like which Netflix show to binge this weekend.
Third, he's trying to do the same thing to Democrats and progressives, hoping that at some point, many of them just give up.
Finally, he's assaulting the media, night and day. The Trumpbots are on high alert for traitors to the Trump cause. Everyone else gets the Rudy Treatment, appearances everywhere, spreading lies and misdirection in the attempt to sow chaos. Some try to battle back, but many just give up and go along, eager to get it over with.
It worked during the election, it worked during the oversold Mueller investigation, and it could work again. We know, for a fact, that Fatty won't be impeached. Moscow Mitch will not allow Vlad's tool to be tossed. He's a coward and a traitor as well. They all are.
So I'm glad these hearings are underway. I just don't think it will matter much, but I truly hope I'm wrong. Maybe pessimism has set in too deeply.
One way I could be wrong is that a sizable number of voters out there ARE fed up. The question is, with whom? Or with what? If they're finally fed up with Fatty, it will show in 2020 (if they decide to make the effort to vote--a big reason R's make voting more difficult than an Advanced Placement Calculus test). But that's a year away. He can still do a LOT of damage between now and then.
And then we have amoral, opportunistic pathogens like Nikki Haley, floating along with the pond scum to slither onto the presidential stage if and when Fatty is deflated like his balloon baby effigy.
It's fucking exhausting.
In the meantime, what I'm truly hoping is that Fatty himself gets burned out by all of this and suffers some kind of complete mental or physical breakdown. I know it's pretty shitty to wish debilitation on anyone, but look at this way. If we were in a war, would we care if the guy shooting at us had a heart attack and keeled over? Hell no. We'd walk over and shoot him in the head, just to make sure.
Well, Trump IS the enemy. And we ARE at war. A war of his making. His treasonous pals aren't going to do anything to curb his attacks on the United States and the rule of law, so if he was suddenly taken ill, I wouldn't be sending any bouquets to the hospital. People have been noticing for a long time how bad he looks. His diet sucks, he can't be sleeping much, his exercise is limited to golf and screaming at the TV, he stays worked up all the time. But I guess, as we've heard, cockroaches are pretty much the only things left alive after disasters both natural and un.
Hey, a guy can hope, though, right? If classical education has taught us anything, it's that deus ex machinas are not just for EZ plot resolution.
Ain't nothin' easy about this crap.
Oh, I'm not actually hoping that he dies. That'd make him a martyr for all his running dog lackeys and white supremacist supporters.
Maybe just a little public breakdown in which he starts screaming and pointing at things that aren't there. A little "Out damned spot! Out I say!" on national TV.
I'd be cool with that.
(Besides, something worse and we'd get president half-pence who'd work toward his fervent wish for theocracy, and fuck that.)
Shiff's opening statement, and to my ears and eyes a doozy:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/13/politics/adam-schiff-impeachment-hearing-opening-statement/index.html
Akhilleus:
Is it okay to wish that he has a stroke or breaks his jaw?
These are less fatal ways of keeling over...
Just a thought.
@Victoria: I wish no physical harm to come to Trump. I want him safely tucked into a sound-proof padded room with no access to a dangerous Twitter device.
House members are supposedly on their best behavior today in questioning witnesses. Most of them -- on both sides -- are demonstrating their inability to do the job. Their modus operandi is to make a sweeping political statement, then embarrass the witnesses by urging them to agree with whatever their sweeping statement might be.
I'd suggest Nancy Pelosi ask freshmen Congresswomen Katie Porter & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to teach Democratic members how to question witnesses. The grandstanding wins them no points with anyone.