;)
The Commentariat -- November 16, 2017
Afternoon Update:
Thomas Kaplan & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The House passed a sweeping rewrite of the tax code on Thursday, taking a significant leap forward as Republicans seek to enact $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for businesses and individuals and deliver the first major legislative achievement of President Trump's tenure. The House voted to 227 to 205 to approve the bill, shortly after Mr. Trump came to Capitol Hill to address House Republicans. Thirteen Republicans voted against the bill, and zero Democrats voted for it. The Republicans who voted no were from New York, New Jersey, California and North Carolina." ...
... The Rich Get Richer & the Poor Get Poorer. New York Times: "The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's bipartisan referee on tax policy,said on Thursday that the amended Senate's version of the tax bill will raise taxes on low-income Americans beginning in 2021, in what appears to be a side effect of the bill's decision to repeal the so-called individual mandate that requires most people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Because of this decision, the joint committee's analysis showed that taxpayers earning less than $40,000 would see their tax bills go up in the second half of the next decade. The committee also forecast that taxpayers earning $75,000 or less would see, as a group, large tax increases in 2027, if the individual tax cuts in the bill expire as scheduled at the end of 2025.... Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chairman of the finance committee, said that the appearance of a tax increase was a mirage that is the result of arcane scoring rules." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: No doubt people struggling to get by will enjoy their tasty soupe du mirage, will imagine the electricity is still on, & won't even see that illusionary red ink in their bank statement. Or at least the ones who aren't dead from lack of health care will. Ain't we got fun.
Thomas Moriarty of NJ.com: "A hopelessly deadlocked jury brought an end to the corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez Thursday with the declaration of a mistrial, after a contentious 11-week courtroom drama that concluded without a final act. The government now must decide whether to retry the Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey and co-defendant Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, who are accused of swapping lavish gifts for government favors."
Amy Wang, et al., of the Washington Post: "Broadcaster and model Leeann Tweeden said Thursday that Al Franken 'forcibly kissed' and groped her during a USO tour in 2006, two years before the Minnesota Democrat's election to the U.S. Senate -- prompting Franken to apologize and call for a Senate ethics investigation into his actions. 'You knew exactly what you were doing,' Tweeden wrote in a blog post for Los Angeles radio station KABC, for which she works as a morning news anchor. 'You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later and be ashamed.'... Tweeden's blog post included an image of Franken looking into a camera, his hands either over or on Tweeden's chest as she slept.... Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Franken's home state colleague, also didn't immediately respond to inquiries. She is co-sponsor of a bill unanimously approved by the Senate last week that will mandate sexual harassment training for all senators and their staffs.... On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) announced that the House will adopt a policy change to make anti-harassment training mandatory for all members and staff. That announcement followed a congressional hearing during which members publicly came to terms with sexual harassment as a pervasive problem on Capitol Hill. Female lawmakers aired tantalizing details, albeit without naming names, of unwanted sexual comments and advances taking place in their midst." ...
... Esme Cribb of TPM: "Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), accused on Thursday of forcibly kissing and groping a woman on a USO tour in 2006 before he was in office, has made the prevention of sexual assault and violence against women one of his signature issues as a lawmaker. Franken on Thursday said he 'certainly' did not remember the incident 'in the same way' as Leeann Tweeden, who accused Franken of kissing her over her protestations and later groping her in a photograph. Franken offered his 'sincerest apologies.'" ...
... Via Politico, here's the text of Franken's full apology, made after his initial statement. ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post looks at immediate fallout & possible consequences for Franken. ...
... Steve M.: "... if Franken stays, every Alabama Republican voter who's on the fence about Roy Moore receives a Get Out of Moral Quandary Free card. Hey, the lib harasser gets to stay, so hell yeah, I'm voting for Roy Moore. I still think a Doug Jones victory in Alabama is a long shot, though people who are smarter than I am think it's possible. But it won't be possible if Franken hangs on. That's not the main reason he should go. But he should go."
Oliver Darcy of CNN: "U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore published an open letter to Sean Hannity on Wednesday night pushing back against allegations of sexual abuse.... In the letter, which came one night after Hannity said he would give Moore 24 hours to explain inconsistencies in how he has addressed the allegations before calling on him to step aside in the race, Moore [wrote]..., 'I am suffering the same treatment other Republicans have had to endure.'... Moore said in his letter to Hannity that he was 'in the process of investigating' what he characterized as 'false allegations.'... Hannity responded to Moore's letter at the end of his Wednesday night program and said that the allegations against Moore 'are beyond disturbing and serious.' But Hannity declined to drop his support for Moore...."
Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "... Jared Kushner forwarded emails concerning a 'Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite' to Trump campaign officials and failed to produce those emails to the Senate Judiciary Committee, says a letter the senators sent Kushner's lawyer on Thursday. Kushner also failed to produce emails on which he was copied involving communication with WikiLeaks and with a Belarusan-American businessman named Sergei Millian, the senators said. Millian most recently headed a group called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.... The senators also saidKushner had not produced any phone records.... The Wall Street Journal and ABC reported earlier this year that Millian was 'Source E' in the dossier alleging ties between Trump and Russia."
Sean Illing of Vox: "'Politicians lie, but this is different,' says [Robert Dallek] a historian who studies presidential history, and estimates the Trump administration easily ranks among the most corrupt in American history.... Dallek estimates that historical examples of corruption, like that of the Warren G. Harding administration, don't hold a candle to how Trump and his people have conducted themselves in the White House. History will judge Trump, and it will not be kind." Illing interviews Dallek.
*****
AFP/Getty Image by Herika Martinez.... Shame on the USA. You Risked Your Lives for the U.S. Now Get Out. Kristine Phillips of the Washington Post: The men on the Cordova International Bridge between El Paso, Texas, & Juarez, Mexico, are deported U.S. veterans saluting the American flag & a pair of empty boots, on Memorial Day 2017, to pay homage to fallen U.S. soldiers. The photo went viral on Veterans Day.
Trump Has His Marco Moment:
Small Hands, Smaller-Minded. Trump Calls for Tribute. AP: "... Donald Trump is asking whether three UCLA basketball players released from detention in China will thank him. Trump said he raised their case with China's president when he visited Xi Jinping ... in Beijing last week. Freshmen LiAngelo Ball, Jalen Hill and Cody Riley returned to Los Angeles on Tuesday and ignored questions from reporters. Trump returned late Tuesday from a trip through Asia and tweeted Wednesday: 'Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!'" ...
... Even Chris Cillizza, not the sharpest tack on the board, gets this right: "Larry Scott, the PAC-12 commissioner -- the conference that includes UCLA -- quickly issued a statement thanking Trump. "We want to thank the President, the White House and the US State Department for their efforts towards resolution," said Scott. That 'thank you' is apparently not enough for Trump, at least according to his tweet. He wants the actual players -- LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill -- to say 'thank you.' That the three players are all young black men should also not be lost here.... Part of being President is trying to get US citizens out of dicey situations in foreign countries.... Even if you take out the racial element, what Trump is asking for is to be thanked (or, more accurately, thanked by the 'right' people) for doing his job." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Trump's appeal is not just asking for high-profile public praise; it also is meant to suggest that black people expect to get everything handed to them, so if any ever showed gratitude for one of the handouts he's used to getting, it would be unusual for a person of his race. Every president I can remember has worked to get Americans abroad out of trouble, & not a one ever demanded praise for it.
... Update. Adam Raymond of New York: "President Trump got the public praise he was looking for Wednesday after helping to bring home three UCLA basketball players arrested for shoplifting in China. Cody Riley, Jalen Hill, and LiAngelo Ball, brother of Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball, appeared at a press conference Wednesday morning and all three thanked Trump by name.... On Tuesday Trump told reporters he put a word in with Chinese president Xi Jinping. 'The basketball players, by the way -- I know a lot of people are asking -- I will tell you, when I heard about it two days ago, I had a great conversation with President Xi,' he said. 'What they did was unfortunate. You know, you're talking about very long prison sentences. [The Chinese] do not play games.' Neither Trump's suggestion of a 'very long' prison sentence or a full decade in jail is in line with Chinese law, as the Washington Post reports.... The U.S. State Department also assisted in the effort, as did Jack Ma, the billionaire CEO of the Chinese shopping giant Alibaba, a sponsor of the Shanghai game. But Trump was the only one to make a personal plea for gratitude." ...
... China, BTW, is not saying whether or not Trump had anything to do with the men's release: "'I am not aware of the details,' Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said Wednesday, 'But I believe the Chinese police would have handled the case in strict accordance with the law.'" Jen Kirby of Vox has more detail on the saga.
IRS Building a Safe for Trump's Tax Returns. Michael Grunwald of Politico Magazine: "In an hourlong conversation with Politico Magazine's Michael Grunwald, [retiring IRS Commissioner John] Koskinen ... discussed Democratic concerns that ... Donald Trump and his appointees could breach the independence of the IRS, using the agency to harass or persecute his enemies. Koskinen doesn't share those concerns -- not because of his faith in Trump, but because of his faith in the IRS staff and the strict rules governing the integrity of its audits and investigations.... He hasn't spoken to Trump or anyone in the White House in 2017, even though he's known the president since they negotiated the sale of the Commodore Hotel in New York City in 1975. He's never looked up Trump's tax returns -- legally, he can't, and neither can any other IRS employee who isn't working on them -- and says the agency not only keeps them in a locked cabinet in a locked room, but is replacing the cabinet with a safe." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The expensive safe likely would not be necessary if Trump -- like every other top presidential candidate in the last decades -- had released recent returns to the public.
Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is preparing to interview the woman who's seen it all: Hope Hicks.... As a senior White House adviser and now as communications director, she's been in the room for moments critical to Mueller's probe, which has grown to include the president's response to the Russia investigation itself." ...
... WTF? Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "A lawyer working to get charges against now-infamous Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos dismissed has claimed that special prosecutor Robert Mueller tried to have him killed.... As the New York Times' Adam Goldman noted, this lawyer tried to do the same for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Earlier in the day, legal reporters had expressed confusion after discovering that someone had filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Papadopoulos." --safari: I'm smelling the thick sweat of panicked desperation in the air. ...
... Alex Hern of the Guardian: "It is impossible to accurately estimate the number of Russian state-sponsored accounts operating on Twitter and Facebook. Researchers come up with a wide range of possibilities, suggesting that Russian interference in British political and cultural life could come from anywhere between 50 and 150,000 accounts. The explanation for this is not because the Russians are particularly secretive or expert at covering their tracks, but the attitude of Twitter and Facebook who fight attempts by independent researchers to come up with an answer.... The problem for all the researchers is that only one organisation has the data they need, and Twitter is not willing to share it." --safari ...
... "In Cahoots". Bill Buzenburg in Mother Jones: "On Monday, The Atlantic published private messages from September 2016 in which WikiLeaks gave Donald Trump Jr. the password to a forthcoming site documenting his father's ties to Russia. But there was more to the story of WikiLeaks' apparent effort to conspire with the Trump campaign against PutinTrump.org -- and I had a front-row seat to it, as editorial director of the site. Within just minutes of reaching out to Trump Jr., WikiLeaks also publicized the password, setting off a wave of online harassment, email bombs, and personal threats against people behind the site. Here's the deeper story." --safari...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't see why Buzenburg didn't just change the password -- which wasn't exactly difficult to guess -- & delete all the alt-right crap. ...
Illustration needs weird orange combover.... Even the Intercept Has Turned on Assange. Robert Mackey of the Intercept: "Before his private messages to Trump Jr. were leaked, [Julian] Assange himself had categorically denied that he or WikiLeaks had been attacking Hillary Clinton to help elect Donald Trump. 'This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election,' he wrote in a statement released on November 8 as Americans went to the polls. Even though Assange had by then transformed the WikiLeaks Twitter feed into a vehicle for smearing Clinton, he insisted that his work was journalistic in nature.... While WikiLeaks has undoubtedly facilitated the release of information that is both true and important, it is Assange's Trump-like willingness to traffic in ... unsubstantiated rumors, conspiracy theories, and innuendo not supported by evidence that undermines his claim to be a disinterested publisher, not a political operative."
... ** Luke Harding of the Guardian has a long read on "The inside story of how a former British spy was hired to investigate Russia's influence on Trump -- and uncovered explosive evidence that Moscow had been cultivating Trump for years." --safari ...
... Russians Meddled in Brexit Vote. David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "More than 150,000 Russian-language Twitter accounts posted tens of thousands of messages in English urging Britain to leave the European Union in the days before last year's referendum on the issue, a team of researchers disclosed on Wednesday. More than 400 of the accounts that Twitter has already identified to congressional investigators as tools of the Kremlin, other researchers said, also posted divisive messages about Britain's decision on withdrawing from the bloc, or Brexit, both before and after the vote. Most of the messages sought to inflame fears about Muslims and immigrants to help drive the vote, suggesting parallels to the strategy that Russian propagandists employed in the United States in the 2016 election to try to intensify the polarization of the electorate."
Junior bags an elephant, poses with severed tail.Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "The Trump administration plans to allow hunters to import trophies of elephants they killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the United States, reversing a ban put in place by the Obama administration in 2014, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official confirmed to ABC News today. Even though elephants are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, a provision in the act allows the government to give permits to import these trophies if there is evidence that the hunting actually benefits conservation for that species. The official said they have new information from officials in Zimbabwe and Zambia to support reversing the ban to allow trophy hunting permits." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Probably Dad's gift to Junior for doing such a great job with the Russia thing.
Stupidest Senator Makes Sense. Alan Rappeport & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: Ron Johnson, (R-Wis.) "became the first senator in his party to declare that he could not vote for the tax bill as written, and other senators expressed serious misgivings over the cost and effect on the middle class. The House is set on Thursday to pass its own version of the tax bill, which would cut taxes by more than $1.4 trillion over 10 years and broadly rewrite the business tax code. But as with the health care debate earlier this year, the Senate emerged as the inconstant ally in President Trump's pursuit of a major legislative accomplishment in his first year. [Johnson] came out against both chambers' tax plans on Wednesday, saying that the bills favored corporations over small businesses and other so-called pass-through entities, whose owners pay taxes on profits through the tax code for individuals." ...
... Paul Waldman sums up the tax "reform" bill: "The Republican tax bill raises taxes on somewhere between 16 million (Senate version) and 47 million (House version) American households; the difference is mostly because the Senate bill doesn't get rid of as many deductions as the House bill. Most of the benefits of the tax bill go to the wealthy and corporations. It may raise taxes on people with large medical expenses, and parents who adopt children, and people with student loans, and graduate students (these provisions are in the House bill, which ends these deductions, but not the Senate bill). It raises taxes on people who live in states with significant state and local taxes, because it does away with this deduction (in both versions). Because it eliminates personal exemptions, it raises taxes on many families with multiple children (in both versions). It will increase insurance premiums and lead to 13 million fewer Americans with health coverage. It could trigger a $25 billion cut to Medicare because of existing budget rules. If you had to sum it up simply..., you could say that Republicans are raising taxes on millions of Americans and taking away health insurance from millions more, all to pay for a huge giveaway to corporations."
Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones: "On Monday, the Senate Banking Committee announced that it struck a rare bipartisan deal to deregulate banks. The deal would gut several of the protections enacted in 2010 in response to the financial crisis as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, most notably a key rule requiring that 'Too Big To Fail' banks -- those with more than $50 billion in assets -- undergo stricter oversight. The deal is backed by nine Democrats.... The total number of financial institutions subject to this highest level of supervision would drop from 40 to about 12. This same deregulation was proposed this summer by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an alum of Goldman Sachs, and a number of the banks that would be excluded have failed stress tests in the past." --safari
Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "After the financial crisis in 2008, the Obama administration turned one of the banking industry's friendliest regulators into one of its toughest. But that agency is now starting to look like its old self -- and becoming a vital player in the Trump administration's campaign to roll back regulations. The regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees the nation's biggest banks, has made it easier for Wall Street to offer high-interest, payday-style loans. It has softened a policy for punishing banks suspected of discriminatory lending. And it has clashed with another federal regulator that pushed to give consumers greater power to sue financial institutions. The shift, detailed in government memos and interviews with current and former regulators, is unfolding without congressional action or a rule-making process. It is happening instead through directives issued at the stroke of a pen by the agency's interim leader, Keith A. Noreika, who -- like the nominee to fill the post going forward -- has deep connections to the industry." ...
... 'Twas Nice While It Lasted. Alan Pyke of ThinkProgress: "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray plans to leave the agency several months shy of the expiration of his five-year term.... Cordray's abrupt departure comes after years of work by Wall Street's allies in Congress to strip the agency of its independence, an effort for which the CFPB's director was a natural lightning rod.... It's unclear who President Donald Trump might turn to as a replacement in the meantime as those efforts continue on Capitol Hill. But if the notoriously distractible administration cares to move quickly here, it has a number of available candidates suited to replace Cordray's pragmatic approach with right-wing economic ideology." --safari: Expect the worst.
Trump U Spite. Edwin Rios of Mother Jones: "For-profit college magnates Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute shuttered operations in recent years after facing state and federal investigations into fraudulent and predatory practices.... The Department of Education under President Barack Obama made it easier for students to submit 'borrower defense claims' to try and recoup the funds. By January 2017, the administration announced it had granted more than $650 million in relief.... Since Donald Trump took office, the approval of such claims has ground to a halt.... In 10 months, the Trump administration has yet to approve a single claim." --safari...
Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "The number of leak probes run out of the Justice Department has increased 800%, according to testimony Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered [Tuesday] on Capitol Hill.... Sessions said the Justice Department currently has 27 open investigations into these matters. He added that in the previous three years, there have been a total of nine such investigations -- just three last year. A nine-fold increase, in other words.... 'In the whole history of the country, there have only been about a dozen prosecutions for leaks,' said Ben Wizner, an attorney with the ACLU who also represents Edward Snowden. 'So the 27 number, if it's real, is staggering.'" --safari
Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: Louis Gohmert "Brought This Chart To An Important Hearing And Everyone Is Very Confused." Mrs. McC: This report is starred not because the post is insightful or important, but because it is hilarious. Before linking to Geidner's post, you might want to read Akhilleus' analysis in yesterday's thread, which is what brought this moment of levity to my attention. I can't stop laughing. (Also linked late yesterday morning.)
The AP in the Guardian: "Papa John's has apologized for comments made by CEO John Schnatter blaming sluggish pizza sales on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.... Schnatter donated to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Papa John's added that it is 'open to ideas from all. Except neo-nazis.' It has previously tried to distance itself from white supremacists who praised Schnatter's comments, saying it does not want those groups to buy its pizza. The company's stock has fallen by nearly 13% since Schnatter's comments." --safari
Senate Race
Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Alabama's increasingly bizarre Senate race was convulsed again on Wednesday as four more women came forward to describe encounters with the Republican candidate, Roy S. Moore, and Mr. Moore's campaign sharply questioned the credibility of another accuser."
Stephanie McCrummen, et al., of the Washington Post: Another woman, Gena Richardson, gives a detailed account of Roy Moore's pursuing her when she was about 18 years old & working at the Gadsden Mall. When she turned him down for a date, he called her at her high school. Later, he lured her into his car & gave her a "forceful," unwanted kiss. Richardson said she was afraid of Moore, & a friend & co-worker -- who today backs up her report -- would warn her when Moore came into the store so Richardson could escape to a back room. Others say that Moore trolled young women & girls working at the mall. Becky Gray, who also worked at the mall & was 22 at the time "says Moore kept asking her out and she kept saying no." Moore's persistence made her uncomfortable, & when she complained to the store manager, he told her that hers was not the first complaint about Moore. ...
... Anna Vollers of AL.com: "A Gadsden woman [-- Tina Johnson --] says Roy Moore groped her while she was in his law office on legal business with her mother in 1991. Moore was married at that time." Johnson was 28. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Like most sexual predators, Moore picked on vulnerable women. These young women were working in capacities (store clerks, a waitress) in which they were required to be nice to customers. If a well-dressed man walked into the socks department in 1980 & asked the clerk for a date or flattered her in an inappropriate way, she couldn't just tell him to fuck off. ...
... AND Moore Continues to Try to Intimidate. Nicole Lafond of TPM: "An attorney for Alabama Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore's wife and his Foundation for Moral Law has sent a letter to a local news outlet asking the newspaper to retract stories about allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore and threatening to sue, according to several reports.... AL.com's publisher, Alabama Media Group, is standing by its reporting." ...
... Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans turned to President Trump on Wednesday in hopes he would join their urgent attempt to force GOP nominee Roy Moore out of the Senate race in Alabama following allegations of sexual misconduct -- but Trump did not oblige. Instead, back in Washington after a 12-day Asia trip, Trump was silent on Moore.... His daughter Ivanka Trump, however, voiced confidence in Moore's accusers and said there is 'a special place in hell for people who prey on children' in comments to the Associated Press. She did not call for Moore to step aside." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Is there "a special place in hell" for a man who says publicly that he'd like to date his own daughter because she's so hot? BTW, the headline on the WashPo story is hilarious: "Senate Republicans look to Trump to restore order amid Alabama upheaval." Good luck to anybody who wants President Chaos to "restore order" to anything as complicated as his sock drawer. ...
... Jeremy Diamond & Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Behind the scenes, the President and his advisers are closely watching the developments in Alabama's special election.... That includes, in particular, the reaction of influential conservative supporters such as Fox News host Sean Hannity.... Trump, one source said, believes the allegations of child sexual abuse and sexual assault against Moore are bad for the Republican brand.... In conversations in the West Wing on Wednesday, Trump expressed apprehension about being dragged into the topic of sexual assault or harassment if he weighs in.... [T]he President believes his accusers were unfair and some of Moore's may be, too." -- safari: This entire article is outrageous in the callousness and absolute cowardice of the entire Trump administration, from its rotten head to its fetid feet. ...
... Rick Hasen explains why a couple of Republicans ideas to get themselves out of the Moore Mess violate the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. McC: So far, it appears there are no good options for Republicans. For Alabama & the nation, of course, the best option would be for Alabama's voters to choose Democrat Doug Jones. ...
... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "An attorney for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore seemed to suggest Wednesday that MSNBC host Ali Velshi's 'background' might help the journalist understand why the Republican nominee would date underage women." When Velshi's co-host Stephanie Ruhle challenged him, attorney Trenton Garmon said, something something, Kenya, something, arranged marriages. Because you can't say Muslim, Muslim, Muslim on the teevee. Mrs. McC: BTW, I have no idea if Velshi is Muslim, but I found out from the segment that he's a Canadian. I'm pretty sure Garmon -- who says he checked up on Velshi's "background" -- thinks Velshi is Muslim so he should be good with sexually assaulting young teens. Or else he thinks Canadians are into pedophilia. They are foreigners, after all.
Beyond the Beltway
Thomas Fuller of the New York Times: "The death toll in a Northern California shooting rampage rose to five on Wednesday after the authorities said they found the body of the gunman's wife hidden under the floor of the couple’s house.... Phil Johnston, assistant sheriff of Tehama County ... said investigators believed that the rampage started with the killing of [Kevin] Neal’s wife, possibly on Monday night. The police believe that Mr. Neal shot and killed his wife, cut a hole in the floor of their house and placed her body inside."
Way Beyond
David Agren of the Guardian: "Violence in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero ... has shut down the state's overcrowded morgues as workers walked off the job, saying the stench of hundreds of decomposing bodies had become unbearable.... Bodies have arrived in such numbers that morgues in the state have neither the space to store them nor the personnel to carry out autopsies, workers told local media.... 2017 looks set to be the country's most murderous year since such statistics were first compiled in 1997." --safari
Way, Way, Way Beyond
Stuart Clark of the Guardian: "A potentially habitable world, termed Ross 128 b, has been discovered just 11 light years away. It is roughly Earth-sized and orbits its parent star once every 9.9 days. Astronomers calculate that its surface temperature could lie somewhere between -- 60° and 20°, making it temperate and possibly capable of supporting oceans, and life." --safari
Share Article
Reader Comments (17)
NyTimes header:
"Russia May Make All Outside News Media Register as ‘Foreign Agents"
Can Putin sycophant, our very own Pretender, be far behind requiring the same of all the fake news outlets here at home?
After all, they are residents of another country--called Reality.
LITTLE HOUSE, SMALL GOVERNMENT:
How Laura Ingall's frontier vision of freedom and survival lives on in Trump's America: by Vivian Gornick:
In the 1930's, populists like the Wilders were a minority voice in America, unlike Steinbeck's "Grape's of Wrath" characters who reflected the mood of the country––-who greeted Roosevelt as a savior. Today the Wilders among us now occupy an influential position. They have elected someone of their persuasion to the American presidency. "The frontier mentality they still embody is less likely to shore up a potentially failing democracy than to wreck it altogether."
https://newrepublic.com/article/145410/little-house-small-government-laura-ingalls-wilder-frontier-vision-freedom-survival-lives-trump-america
If you are looking for some real live drama watch the tax reform hearings––riveting! Democrats are yelling in frustration at this asinine attempt at a tax bill. Orrin Hatch, chairman, looks like he wants to be anywhere but there trying to keep the lid on the boisterous dem senators who are fit to be tied. And here we have CEO's in lockstep with some of those Dem's arguments:
TRUMP'S CORPORATE TAX CUTS WON'T SPUR CEO'S TO INVEST–––say–––CEO's!!!!!!
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/corporate-tax-cuts-wont-spur-ceos-to-invest-say-ceos.html
PD,
Interesting article in TNR about Laura Ingalls Wilder. I don't see Trump, however, as in any way a descendant of the semi-mythic plains individualism of which Wilder was so enamored. Trump is a product of wealth and easy living. He had everything handed to him. Any fighting he had to do was of his own making, often in an attempt to take something from someone else. I do see that he has been able to co-opt people with a similar mindset to Wilder's daughter, haters of regulation and government who nonetheless benefit from government at every turn.
I have no doubt that the Ingalls, as many other frontier families must have done, had to cope with Native American tribes. Very early in American history there was cooperation between the European settlers/invaders and the natives. The experience of the colonists at Plimoth Plantation is a good example. But such alliances were fragile. Once it became clear to leaders of the various tribes that their land was being taken from them, by force if necessary, they rebelled. King Philip's War, begun 55 years after the Mayflower reached the New World, was a bloodier affair, by far, than either the Revolution or the Civil War. By the end of the war, the Indian population in southern New England was reduced by more than half.
Settlers relied on the support of official armed forces, supported by taxes, to finally end the fighting. The same is true out in the plains states. Were it not for government troops, Laura and her family might not have survived for very long. Instead of raiding homesteads, many tribes were busy fighting US Army Cavalry troops.
And not to take anything away from the Ingalls' relative success (ie, they weren't killed), many others died, from a variety of causes, until the government, through armed intervention and, essentially, genocide, made the entire region safe for further European incursion and settlement.
Like Cliven Bundy, Wilder's daughter and many Trump voters envision themselves as tough, hardy frontier stock who did it all on their own.
Most of them didn't.
History, as life, is much more complicated than stories in books. I've never read the Little House books but my wife read them all and loved them. But narrative reductions of real world vicissitudes too often overly simplify at the expense of a truer picture of things. This sort of simplification is a bedrock of Confederate ideology, which promotes simplistic solutions that too often exacerbate bad situations, thus delaying or entirely disallowing any better responses.
And in the same way that the railroad barons, the mining corporations, and wealthy eastern interests used settlers in covered wagons to do the dirty work of opening up the plains and west so they could move in and extract natural resources and pile up the money transporting goods and travelers by rail, Trump voters are being used by the Kochs and Mercers to maintain further control and increase their already enormous bank accounts and political power.
The fact that Trump, of all people, could be considered a tough, hard nosed individualist who did it all by himself is proof of the power of mythology.
What's really going on?
It's crystal clear by now that Russia has been working overtime to fuck with Western democracies. They had a hand in Brexit and they helped to whip up frenzied separatists in Catalonia. Very likely they're involved in screwing with many other EU countries.
The goal, very likely, is simple. Putin bristles at the idea that his beloved Soviet Union has been reduced in the eyes of so many in the West from super power status to also ran. He wants the Bear to be as feared as it was under Khrushchev. Waving guns at other countries is expensive and potentially counter productive, but cyber warfare is cheap and effective. Hire a few hundred hackers, equip them with high end computers and plenty of processing power, bounce their connections all over the map (literally) to make it hard to trace interference back to the Kremlin (so you can pull a hurt face when a simpleton like Trump comes calling) and you can not only make life miserable for Western governments, but actually affect policy and the direction, and ultimately the fate, of the West. England, historically, has been as much an enemy of Russia as the US. Why not stick a few Matryoshka dolls up their asses? EU has dreams of glory? Fuck them too. We'll use morons like Boris Johnson to help tear it apart. They used to fear us. They will again. And those smug bastards in Spain? We'll show them too. Ukraine? Ditto.
As an added benefit, screwing with the West is a perfect way to undermine any at home who yearn for democracy. By showing the weaknesses of open societies and using those weaknesses to bring them to heel, or at least to stifle them, Putin and his pals can effectively stomp on any nascent movements looking for free and open elections in Mother Russia, because fuck that for a game of soldiers.
So now, if that's the intention (and seriously, what else would it be? for laughs? cuz he's bored?) why would Russia NOT go after the biggest fish in the western seas, the United States? And Putin may have succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, because now he has installed his puppet in the White House and so far the puppet has been doing a creditable Cossack Dance for his masters. Maybe he's not as low energy as I thought. Those Cossack dances are murder on the quads.
But the big question is why? What exactly do the Russians have on Trump? It's gotta be something big, something that makes Trump jump whenever Putin says "go". Until we find out, we may be moving toward satellite nation status.
If we're not already there.
And Julian Assange? Another useful idiot. More on that asshole later.
This Brett Samuels idiot, Roy (the Molester) Moore's legal counsel, demonstrates the sort of world promulgated and very much desired by creeps like Mr. Ten Commandments (for thee, but not for me).
The Samuels-Moore connection is also a perfect distillation of the sort of tribalism that results in Alabama Confederates declaring that they don't care if Moore was a baby raper, they'd rather vote for him than the most moral, ethical, smartest, most effective Democrat in the country.
Look at it this way. If your political life, not to mention reputation, was on the line, wouldn't you hire the best lawyer you could afford to help you out? Not, apparently, unless that lawyer were a racist winger just like you. So rather than hire someone competent and effective, Moore hires a good ol' boy bigoted sumbitch. Someone from the tribe who can be counted on to "get" things that need to be perfectly understood. Like people with funny names cain't be trusted. Must be dirty mooslims, or somethin'. Canadian? Just as bad.
Another reason these people love Trump. They all speak Bigotese. Fluently. Plus, Trump speaks Misogynistian equally well. Wha, he's practic'ly one-a us.
And by the way, that picture of Junior posing, like a malevolent little shit wearing a big boy gun belt too big for him, with a severed elephant tail is beyond disgusting. Even worse that he must think that made him look all Alan Quartermain, or like some Great White Hunter (just in case he's not a reader, which I'm guessing he's not). The sooner this brood of reptiles are out of power, the better off the entire universe will be.
PD Pepe: Thanks for the link to the very interesting "little house, small government" essay. As someone who grew up loving the Laura books, I gained a new perspective. Laura's pedestal is tarnished if she would support someone raised in golden luxury, without any trace of empathy, who doesn't give two hoots about hardy pioneer values.
Take it from Bill!
Loofah Boy O'Reilly sez that Roy (The Molester) Moore, if elected, and because of the increasing allegations of sexual assault, will become one of the unclean: "'...he'll be isolated, he'll be a pariah, because his defense against the allegations was weak,' O'Reilly told 'Newsmax Now' host Bill Tucker in an interview."
He should know.
Akhilleus: speaking of Cossacks, here's a recent photo (painted by Repin) of Putin's twitterati writing a tweet to Don Jr. about HRC's perfidy. They are taking great pleasure from helping Don Sr. to the throne.
Patrick,
The guy with the quill pen is thinking "How you spell 'nyet'?"
Certainly looks like the kind of guys Junior would go to for help.
Small Hands, Smaller-Minded. Trump Calls for Tribute.
Be nice and maybe "massa Trump" light a yule log for us.
Indignation meter running high today.
Sent this to Secretary Zinke anent the proposed increase in National Park entrance fees to a whopping $75.
"Perhaps you have not noticed the House and Senate are currently in a tax cutting frenzy which will save the wealthy billions of dollars that they assuredly don't need. That wealth could be far better used to defray National Park costs as well as for many other purposes that would serve the common good.
Wouldn't you, acting in your role as a public servant, think the same?
I certainly do."
And came across this yesterday, an old Dana Milbank piece that (might have been linked here?) I missed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fake-news-comes-to-the-supreme-court/2017/10/03/3a17f86c-a87b-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?
On Alito's use of fake news, just in case anyone here is still likely to confuse "judge" with "justice."
Re: Junior's elephant trophy.
I noticed no blood on the blade, no blood anywhere. I doubt if he even had it in him to do the deed. Probably done by his man-servant.
@DanLowery: You probably couldn't make out Jr's name tag on
his shirt, but I'm sure it reads "Dracula Jr.", so naturally there would
be no blood left untouched (unsucked?). It must be genetic, a
family of bloodsuckers, or is that moneysuckers.
Spell check never likes anything I type lately. Must be Russian bots.
I disagree. Franken was an idiot, but a lot of men are idiots, and in a military zone? Well-- But he should NOT resign. He was honest in his second apology and SHE is a right-wing plant. Franken should not resign when our "chief executive" is a proven liar, and a freaky, crotch-grabbing psychopath. Note he calls the Senator "Frankenstein" and has faced NOT ONE consequence for his own nasty behavior. A reptile rules us and we need every liberal thinker possible. And Moore is a criminal. There is no comparison. Liberals should not fall all over themselves trying to be "fair" and condemn Franken.
Just in case anyone has missed this classic!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lawmaker-wes-goodman-anti-lgbt-resigns-sex-man-office-caught-ohio-republican-christian-family-values-a8060631.html