;)
The Commentariat -- November 27, 2017
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Dollars to Doughtnuts. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "On Monday,Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, brought in doughnuts. Around the same time, Leandra English, the agency’s other acting director, sent an all-staff email thanking employees for their service. Awkward. And so it goes in a capital city defined by its dysfunction, at an agency where two public servants are messily and publicly vying to lead a controversial agency under constant political assault by Republicans.... As confusion reigned, Ms. English headed to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers about her plans. Among those lawmakers: Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat of Massachusetts who proposed the bureau and helped set it up.... The two dueling directors embody widely differing visions regarding the future of the agency.... Mr. Mulvaney sent a memo to employees, asking them to 'please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director.'" ...
... David Dayen in the Intercept: "The lawyer who wrote the Office of Legal Counsel memo supporting the Trump administration's viewpoint that the president can appoint Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau represented a payday lender in front of the CFPB last year. Steven A. Engel wrote the memo for OLC, which has been criticized by academics for seeking a conclusion and working backward to justify it. 'Let's be honest, this is an argument where you get the answer, and then you go to the other side of the equation,' said former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a lead author of the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB. Engel was confirmed as an assistant attorney general earlier this month by a voice vote in the Senate." ...
... Margaret Hartmann cites some tweeted commentary on the legal arguments. ...
... Greg Sargent: "In her first interview on this standoff since it erupted, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) -- the agency's creator -- predicted that if Trump installs his own director, its mission could be hollowed out, emboldening further financial elite defrauding of consumers. Warren suggested that this is part of a pattern in which Trump has embraced conventional GOP plutocracy in betrayal of his campaign posture as a kind of working-class avenger delivering tough justice to predatory financial elites.... Warren noted, if Mulvaney takes over -- or if Trump ultimately installs permanent replacement with similar views -- it could cause a backslide into more financial fraud and scams.... 'Dodd-Frank is quite specific: It provides its own succession planning,' she told me. 'There is no vacancy for President Trump to fill.'"
Eric Levitz of New York: "The Senate GOP's plan to overhaul the American tax system has been around for less than two weeks. The party has not held a single hearing on the bill's macroeconomic effects (even as experts warn that these could include a health-care crisis and housing market crash). Large majorities of the public disapprove of the legislation. Even small-business owners -- ostensibly, one of the tax package's chief beneficiaries -- appear to oppose it. And Mitch McConnell plans to pass the bill out of the Senate by week's end. As of this writing, at least nine Republican senators aren't sure that that's a good idea.... Here's how [Republicans plan to win them over:] Make the bill even better for rich business owners, to win over [Ron] Johnson and [Steve] Daines.... Put in a $10,000 property tax deduction ... to win over Susan Collins.... Give Lisa Murkowski some oil.... Let the deficit hawks eat wildly optimistic growth projections...." ...
... E.J. Dionne: "Republicans are lying coming and going. They hold down the sticker price of the bill and minimize its impact on the deficit by having the middle-class tax cuts (but not the corporate reductions) expire. But they insist that future Congresses would keep the middle-class tax cuts in place.... [Paul] Ryan has already burnished his standing as a deficit hypocrite by pushing a comparable tax cut through the House. But don't you worry. As soon as Republicans shovel every dollar they can to the people who pay their party's bills, he'll dust off those old the-sky-is-falling quotes and warn about the deficits he helped to bloat. He'll tell us how urgent it is to slash Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and programs for the needy (although he'll try to bamboozle us again by claiming to be only 'reforming' them)." Also see Akhilleus's commentary on this in today's thread.
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a Maryland law banning the sale of semiautomatic guns with certain military-style features. The justices in the past have passed up the chance to hear challenges to similar laws in a handful of other states. But attorneys generals in 21 states had asked the court to step in. Maryland's ban on so-called assault weapons was passed after the 2012 mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. A district judge had cast doubt on the constitutionality of the law. But the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond upheld the ban in a 10-4 vote. The ruling went further than other appellate courts that have reviewed similar laws in stating that 'assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment.'... The Supreme Court made no comment in declining to review the 4th Circuit ruling." ...
... AP: "The justices also declined an appeal asserting a constitutional right to carry firearms openly in public."
John Hilliard of the Boston Globe: "Tufts University postponed a Monday event featuring Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump White House spokesman, after he threatened to sue a student and the school newspaper for defamation following the publication of an op-ed column criticizing him. Scaramucci, a Tufts graduate, has served on an advisory board at Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy since 2016."
Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "The Democratic majority whip of the California State Assembly on Monday announced that he will immediately resign following allegations of sexual harassment. In a statement obtained by a reporter with The Los Angeles Times, Raul Bocanegra said he has decided to resign right away, as opposed to waiting until September of 2018, as he had originally announced."
The Gray Lady Regrets. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "'We regret the degree to which the piece offended so many readers,' New York Times national editor Marc Lacey wrote in a carefully drafted response to the social-media backlash against [its profile of an Ohio Nazi].... 'Our reporter and his editors agonized over the tone and content of the article,' he writes. Such agony wasn't reflected in the piece." More on this story below under Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "... it appears that Mr. Trump and the Saudis have helped the [Iranian] government achieve what years of repression could never accomplish: widespread public support for the hard-line view that the United States and Riyadh cannot be trusted and that Iran is now a strong and capable state capable of staring down its enemies." Mrs. McC: Both Patrick & Ken W. discuss this story in today's Comments. As Patrick sums it up, our new, aggressive, thoughtless foreign policy is "Simpler. Stupider. Worser. Dangerouser. Trumpier." ...
... Lucia Graves of the Guardian on the Koch brothers' financial backing of the Time, Inc. buyout. The boys are effecting a pretense now that they'll have nothing to do with editorial content, but several observers note that the Koch boys play the long game, so it might not be long before the "Person of the Year" becomes nothing more than the Kochs' favorite guy. Thanks to CaptRuss for the link. Mrs. McC: Graves' observers are looking at mike pence; I'm seeing Scott Pruitt!
*****
Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "The leadership standoff between President Trump and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent government agency, is headed to court. Leandra English, the bureau's deputy director, filed a lawsuit on Sunday night to block Mr. Trump's choice of a temporary chief from taking control of the agency on Monday morning. Ms. English, an agency veteran, was appointed to the deputy director position on Friday by the consumer bureau's outgoing director, Richard Cordray, who abruptly resigned that day. Under the terms of the law that created the agency, Ms. English should succeed him as its temporary leader, Mr. Cordray told the staff." ...
... Update. Lorraine Woellert of Politico: "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's top lawyer sided with the Justice Department over ... Donald Trump's appointment of Mick Mulvaney to lead the CFPB as a leadership battle over the controversial watchdog agency escalated. In a memorandum obtained by Politico, CFPB general counsel Mary McLeod said Trump had the legal authority to name an acting director to the bureau under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. 'It is my legal opinion that the president possesses the authority to designate an acting director for the bureau,' McLeod wrote in the Nov. 25 memo to the CFPB leadership team. 'I advise all bureau personnel to act consistently with the understanding that Director Mulvaney is the acting director of the CFPB.'"
Russia, Russia, Russia. Harriet Sinclair of Newsweek: "Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to make his feelings about what he dubbed the 'phony' Russia probe perfectly clear.... The president has previously suggested he isn't convinced there is any reason for a probe into Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. election; and doubled down on his view ... amid reports Mike Flynn is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. 'Since the first day I took office, all you hear is the phony Democrat excuse for losing the election, Russia, Russia, Russia,' Trump wrote. 'Despite this I have the economy booming and have possibly done more than any 10 month President. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' he added, in a demonstration of why the site previously opted to allow fewer characters." ...
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! The President of the United States is Jan Brady. -- Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney, whom Trump-Sessions fired after Trump promised him he would keep him in his job
... Susan Glasser of Politico Magazine interviewed Ambassador Kurt Volker, "the Trump administration's special envoy charged with ending the war in Ukraine." After speaking with him & other administration officials, Glasser concluded that "There are two approaches to the Kremlin inside this administration: the president's and everyone else's.... To spend time with Volker is to confront the essential schizophrenia of the Trump administration's Russia policy. His version is what just about any U.S. administration's view of Russia and the Ukraine conflict would have been. And it's pretty much consistent with that of others inside the Trump administration with whom I've spoken recently: deeply critical of Putin and certainly not swayed by him; concerned that little or no progress can be made on key issues and that the bottom in U.S.-Russia relations has not yet been reached after this past year’s election hacking, tit-for-tat spying accusations, diplomatic expulsions and consulate closure.... But of course, this Russia policy is still not exactly Donald Trump's Russia policy." ...
... Peter Stone & Greg Gordon of McClatchy: "[Paul] Manafort's flight records in and out of Ukraine, which McClatchy obtained from a government source in Kiev, and interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with his activities ... suggest the links between Trump's former campaign manager and Russia sympathizers run deeper than previously thought.... What's now known leads some Russia experts to suspect that the Kremlin's emissaries at times turned Manafort into an asset acting on Russia's behalf.... Several of the trips in Manafort's flight records could draw investigators' interest." --safari
December Is the Cruelest Month? Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "Trump's first year has been different [from that of previous U.S. presidents]. He has a record low approval rating. He is mired in scandal. And he, so far, has no major legislative accomplishments.... All of this makes December crucial for the White House. From now until the New Year, Congress will be jammed with legislative activity that may make or break Trump's first year in office. Most of the attention has focussed on Trump's tax-cut legislation, which is deeply unpopular according to public-opinion polls but which Republicans believe is essential to pass in order for them to have something to show for the year. But there are many other politically consequential bills that must be passed in the weeks ahead. On December 8th, the money to fund the federal government runs out.... There are three major pieces of legislation that Democrats want: a bipartisan fix for Obamacare, a legislative fix for the Obama-era DACA program that Trump recently ended, and the extension of a popular health-care program for children -- SCHIP -- that recently expired."
Kristine Phillips of the Washington Post: "Former FBI director James B. Comey's latest tweet was a defense of the press -- a quote from Thomas Jefferson's Jan. 28, 1786, letter from Paris to physician James Currie. 'Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,' Comey tweeted Saturday evening along with a picture of the Capitol.... Comey's tweet was sent at 6:08 p.m. Saturday, about a half-hour after President Trump's attack on CNN International, the latest in his war against the mainstream news media.... Comey, who previously tweeted under a pseudonym, has been somewhat active on the social media platform within the past month.... To those who follow Comey's semiregular Twitter activity, his tweets are subtle jabs at political leaders, particularly at the one who fired him."
Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Trump took to Twitter on Sunday morning to slam [Roy] Moore's opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, as Moore seeks to overcome accusations that he pursued inappropriate relationships with teenagers when he was in his 30s, which have dominated coverage of Alabama's Dec. 12 special election. 'The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY. Jones would be a disaster!' Trump wrote. He added later: 'I endorsed Luther Strange in the Alabama Primary. He shot way up in the polls but it wasm't enough. Can't let Schumer/Pelosi win this race. Liberal Jones would be BAD!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Anthony Cuthbertson of Newsweek: "Donald Trump's motorcade was disrupted on Saturday, Nov. 25, by a driver in a red van who reportedly cut in and made 'obscene gestures and screamed several expletives' at the U.S. president. The incident happened as Trump made his way back to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after spending his morning playing golf at Trump International in West Palm Beach.... The Florida trip also marks the hundredth day he's spent at a property he owns since his inauguration earlier this year.... [A]t his current rate, Trump is on track to triple his predecessor's time spent on the golf course. The president is expected to return to the White House on Sunday." --safari
** Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "In expending all his energy shoring up his base, Trump offers a particular racial vision. Unlike some white nationalists, Trump doesn't want an all-white America. He's willing to tolerate non-whites on a provisional basis, so long as they know their place.... Trump's political role in this racial vision is to be a kind of national sheriff, the authority figure who has the right to stop and frisk non-whites to make sure they are worthy of staying.... The president's repeated calls for expressions of black gratitude echo some of the most disturbing themes of American history.... Trump's eagerness to impugn the loyalty of African-Americans is matched by the wide latitude he gives to whites." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I would add that a similar provisional status applies to women. Especially when we're young, attractive & fairly easily manipulated, we belong on pedestals. This is why Hillary Clinton enjoyed her greatest popularity when she accepted her husband's philandering or when, as a senator, she put her hose to the grindstone & did the hard work a junior senator was supposed to do. It also, of course, explains why she was, at various times, the most reviled woman in the U.S.; when she stepped out of her "place" by taking on policy roles as First Lady & when she had the audacity to think she might be POTUS.
Uri Friedman of the Atlantic: "When critics argue that Donald Trump is an exceptionally reckless commander in chief, they tend to highlight how the American president deviates from the norm.... But if danger is crudely measured by how many people die in military conflicts as the result of a president's policies, the dangers posed by Trump's atypical behavior remain hypothetical at the moment. Leaving aside his genuinely unprecedented moves in trade and diplomacy, the wars that Trump is currently commanding were initiated by his predecessors.... [For instance,] in more aggressively prosecuting the Obama administration's battle against jihadist groups, the Trump administration has helped uproot ISIS from its last strongholds in Syria and Iraq.... As a consequence, however, civilians and U.S. troops in the region are dying in greater numbers. The political scientist Micah Zenko noted this summer that ''in Iraq and Syria, at least 55 percent of all civilians killed by airstrikes since the air war began in August 2014 have died under Mr. Trump's watch.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "James Schultz resigned last week [from his position as White House ethics lawyer] and is returning to private practice.... Asked if he plans to join the public, often-televised debate on alleged conflicts of interest involving Trump administration figures, Schultz said he expects to, but doesn't plan to make it a full-time job." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I had no idea there was a "Trump ethics lawyer." Definitely an oxymoron, it sounds like the punchline to a joke.
Trump Family Values:
... it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. Also, I don’t know a damned thing about politics. -- Jane Wyman, when asked why she never talked about ex-husband Ronald Reagan's politics, 1968 ...
... Back When an Ex-Wife Was a Class Act. Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: "Jane Wyman could have had a bestseller. But the Oscar-winning actress wouldn't dish about her ex-husband. Not when Ronald Reagan was governor of California and not when he made history as the nation's first divorced president. Before Reagan, men with failed marriages were considered too tainted for the White House.... But today, rather than a former film actor, we have an ex-reality-TV star in the White House. And his leading ladies are going at it, reality-show style." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)...
...Another Sad! Melania Story. Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair: "[Donald] Trump declared his candidacy, and the decision ultimately thrust Melania Trump into a role she had never sought.... Taking stock of her role as First Lady is an exercise in subtraction. What she does not do is almost as telling as what she does. Her East Wing remains sparsely inhabited. There may never have been a First Lady less prepared for or suited to the role." --safari
Oliver Milman of Mother Jones: "The Trump administration's dismantling of environmental regulations has intensified a growing civil rights battle over the deadly burden of pollution on minorities and low-income people. Black, Latino, and disadvantaged people have long been disproportionately afflicted by toxins from industrial plants, cars, hazardous housing conditions and other sources. But political leaders, academics and activists spoke of a growing urgency around the struggle for environmental justice as the Trump administration peels away rules designed to protect clean air and water. 'What we are seeing is the institutionalization of discrimination again, the thing we've fought for 40 years,' said Robert Bullard, an academic widely considered the father of the environmental justice movement." --safari
More Racist Morons. Carlos Bellestros of Newsweek, via RawStory: "Rex Tillerson is ousting many of the State Department's high-ranking women diplomats and diplomats of color. On Friday, the New York Times revealed how Tillerson's State Department is pushing out scores of career diplomats from the agency, offering them buyouts and early retirement in the hopes of getting them out the door.... Senior non-male and non-white diplomats have been among those targeted by Tillerson. The State Department's level of diversity has historically been low: In 2016, 5.4 percent of career diplomats were black, 6.9 percent were Asian, and 5.6 percent Hispanic, according to Foreign Policy. The Obama administration made an effort to increase the number of diplomats of color in order to create a Foreign Service that 'looked more like America.' But Tillerson's plans are much different." --safari
Raphael Satter, et al., of the AP: "The FBI failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin's crosshairs, The Associated Press has found. Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting.... Previous AP investigations based on the list have shown how Fancy Bear worked in close alignment with the Kremlin's interests to steal tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Yamiche Alcindor & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Representative John Conyers Jr., the House's longest-serving lawmaker, is stepping aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee amid an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed former aides.... The announcement came five days after the revelation that Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, had settled a complaint in 2015 by a former employee who had said she was fired because she rejected his sexual advances. The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into the matter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Travis Andrews of the Washington Post: "Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) spoke to a handful of Minnesota media outlets on Sunday in response to the four allegations of sexual misconduct against him, saying he is 'embarrassed and ashamed' and that he doesn't know if more accusations are forthcoming. While saying he 'respected' the feelings of the women who have accused him of groping their buttocks, he also said he had no memory of doing so. 'I take photographs at the State Fair with thousands of people,' he told Minnesota Public Radio, among other outlets, and 'I would never intentionally' grope anyone. But 'we have to listen to women and respect what they say.' They were Franken's first extended comments in interviews since his original statement in response to the accusations. ...
... Jennifer Brooks of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Sen. Al Franken is embarrassed, ashamed ... and ready to get back to work. For days, Franken has been out of sight -- reflecting, he said, on his behavior and the accounts of women who say he groped and demeaned them. 'I've let a lot of people down and I'm hoping I can make it up to them and gradually regain their trust,' said Franken, who broke an eight-day silence Sunday to talk by phone about what he's done and what he'll be doing next. For starters, he said [Sunday], 'I'm looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.'"
Sheryl Stolberg & Yamiche Alcindor: "Lawmakers are facing mounting pressure to end Capitol Hill's culture of secrecy over sexual harassment as they return from a holiday break, with members of both parties calling for Congress to overhaul its handling of misconduct claims and to unmask lawmakers who have paid settlements using taxpayer money.... Under a 1995 law, complaints are handled confidentially. Lawyers for the House and the Senate have required that settlements be kept confidential as well.... The House is expected this week to adopt a bipartisan resolution mandating that all members and their staffs participate in anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training; the Senate has already adopted such a resolution. The more difficult task will be passing legislation that overhauls the way sexual harassment claims are handled. In the House, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, and Representative Barbara Comstock, Republican of Virginia, is pushing for legislation that would require claims to be handled in public. In the Senate, Senator Kirstin Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, has put forth similar legislation."
Katie J.M. Baker of Buzzfeed: "Massage Envy, the first and by far the largest chain of massage franchises in the country, is a billion-dollar business that promises trustworthy services at an affordable price. But BuzzFeed News found that more than 180 people have filed sexual assault lawsuits, police reports, and state board complaints against Massage Envy spas, their employees, and the national company...But a review by BuzzFeed News found the company's policies on reporting improper conduct do more to protect the company brand than to ensure customer complaints are handled appropriately. Customers have been violated in shocking ways, then seen their reports brushed aside, while offending therapists have been allowed to keep their professional standing with no consequences." --safari
Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The Senate Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation's poorest would be worse off, according to a report released Sunday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Republicans are aiming to have the full Senate vote on the tax plan as early as this week, but the new CBO analysis showing large, harmful effects on the poor may complicate those plans. The CBO also said the bill would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, a potential problem for Republican lawmakers worried about America's growing debt. Democrats have repeatedly slammed the bill as a giveaway to the rich..... In addition to lowering taxes for businesses and many individuals, the Senate bill also makes a major change to health insurance that the CBO projects would have a harsh impact on lower-income families." ...
... Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans are seriously considering several last-minute changes to their tax legislation in an effort to mollify wavering members, four people familiar with the discussions said, as GOP leaders seek to keep their members from defecting ahead of crucial votes this week. The lawmakers attracting the most concern from leadership and the White House are Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who say the current version of the bill favors corporations over other businesses. There are numerous members demanding changes, and their desires don't all overlap. Together, the requests put Republican leaders in a difficult position, as they attempt to accommodate individual holdouts on a one-off basis without losing other members or creating a situation in which the bill collapses under the weight of disparate demands.... President Trump late Sunday hinted that significant changes to the tax bill were in the works, saying the legislation was 'getting bigger and better.' But he stopped short of offering specifics." Mrs. McC: Because he has no idea of WTF is going on. ...
...Dynamic Frauds. Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "Kent Smetters was in the trenches in the Newt Gingrich-era Congressional Budget Office, and he's a veteran of George W. Bush's Treasury Department. A new analysis using his well-regarded budget model has concluded the Republican tax plan won't raise nearly as much revenue as its proponents say, or provide a meaningful boost to economic growth.... To comply with the terms of the Byrd Rule that allows Senate Republicans to bypass a Democratic filibuster, the tax plan must ... comply with the budget resolution's mandate to raise the deficit by no more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years [and] it needs to not increase the long-term deficit in the years following. And here's where Penn-Wharton says that there's a problem: 'We estimate that the Senate TCJA continues to reduce revenue in years beyond the 10-year budget window.'... Critically, this conclusion does not change when they attempt a 'dynamic' score that considers the potential growth-boosting effects of tax cuts." --safari (Also linked Saturday.) ...
... Ray Madoff, in a New York Times op-ed, outlines the ways in which the Republican tax 'reform' bills discourage charitable giving. One way is by raising the standard deduction; taxpayers who itemize their deductions of course have a financial incentive to give. A recent report by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy estimates that charities could lose as much as $13 billion in donations if the standard deduction is increased." ...
... God & Mammon. Ken Vogel & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "For years, a coalition of well-funded groups on the religious right have waged an uphill battle to repeal a 1954 law that bans churches and other nonprofit groups from engaging in political activity.... Among the changes in the tax bill that passed the House this month is a provision to roll back the 1954 ban.... The change could turn churches into a well-funded political force, with donors diverting as much as $1.7 billion each year from traditional political committees to churches and other nonprofit groups that could legally engage in partisan politics for the first time, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. The Senate ... leaves the ban untouched, and differs in other key ways from the House version." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: GOP lawmakers might want to think twice about this maneuver, because liberals tend to be on the side of Christian theology, & we're pretty good at giving to nonprofits. Of course the financial incentive applies only to those who itemize deductions -- usually more wealthy people. But the most important thing to understand about this possible change to the tax code: it will diver billions of taxpayer dollars from (1) federal programs (that in theory work for the common good) & (2) actual charitable organizations (that also in theory work for the common good as well as for people with specific needs) -- to politicians, political operatives, and media outlets & other advertisers. That is, it will inevitably take money away from, say, the NIH & SCHIP & give it to Sinclair Broadcasting (a/k/a Trump TV) & Cambridge Analytica.
Buying Supreme Court Seats. Robert Maguire of McClatchy: "When a small nonprofit called the Judicial Crisis Network poured millions into a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick last year, and then spent millions more supporting President Donald Trump's choice for the same seat, political observers assumed conservatives from around the country were showering the group with donations. Not so. Newly obtained tax documents show that JCN’s money came almost entirely from yet another secretive nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee, which flooded JCN with nearly $23.5 million in 2016.Most of Wellspring's funds, in turn, came from a single mysterious donor who gave the organization almost $28.5 million -- nearly 90 percent of its $32.2 million in revenues. Like JCN, Wellspring...is a nonprofit that is supposed to be dedicated to social welfare functions and doesn't have to disclose the names of its benefactors." --safari
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Sydney Ember & Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "A long chapter in media history came to an unlikely close on Sunday night with a sale agreement for Time Inc., the publisher of once-prestigious magazine titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People. The Meredith Corporation — the owner of Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and AllRecipes -- agreed to purchase Time Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The deal was made possible, in part, by an infusion of $650 million from the private equity arm of Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes. The deal could represent the beginning of the end for one of the country’s most celebrated magazine publishers...." Meridith said that Koch Equity Development "would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would 'have no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations.'" A spokesman for Koch Industries called it 'a passive financial investment.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, get over it. Time has always been right-wingy. The most influential of its founders, Henry Luce, was a staunch, old-guard Republican, who slanted the "news" in that direction, & it didn't change much after he left the job in 1964, as far as I could see.
Mrs. McCrabbie: I haven't been following the hoohah over a New York Times story that profiles a nice, Midwestern Nazi. The Times & other major media, caught off guard by No. 1 Neo-Nazi Donald Trump's 2016 victory, have been doing this kind of navel-gazing/"outreach" to the Forgotten White Man ever since they got over their initial shock at the outcome of the election. I'll leave it to Steve: ...
... Steve M: "The New York Times is being criticized and mocked for a profile of Tony Hovater, an Ohio welder who makes pasta, likes Seinfeld -- and is a Nazi. The Times and the author of the profile, Richard Fausset, are being accused of normalizing Nazism, and of publishing this profile while the mainstream media continues to ignore liberals, Democrats, and non-whites when deciding which ordinary Americans illuminate the way we live now. I agree wholeheartedly with the latter critique.... Maybe ... the reason Fausset couldn't find a Rosebud ... [is that] within-the-pale conservative political thought is so close to Nazi thinking that moving from one to the other doesn't require a drastic change of perspective. Ron Paul's libertarianism was a cesspool of bigotry and paranoia ... The real mystery is why conservative avowals of full-fledged Nazism are relatively rare. The line has been blurred for years..., as when Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise was promoted to a leadership position in the House of Representatives and it was revealed that he'd once spoken before an organization connected to David Duke.... If you're like Hovater, you can easily blend in if you're reasonably well behaved most of the time and you're a quiet neighbor. And if you're lucky, a New York Times anthropologist-wannabe will come looking for you, to find out what makes you tick." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here again, you'll want to read Adam Serwer of the Atlantic on white nationalism, linked here a week or so ago. AND I see that the Atlantic has jumped on the American Nazi bandwagon, leading with a piece by Luke O'Brien on someone named Andrew Anglin, who, according to the blurb went "from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll and propagandist -- and how might he be stopped?" I won't be reading that, either. If you do read the story, it may not be lost on you that Anglin lives in Whitefish, Montana, the same small town as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke & the owners of that electrical contractor who have been gouging Puerto Rico. Must be a nice place.
Beyond the Beltway
Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: A U.S. district court judge "has ordered the [Golden State Warriors] to trial over its smartphone app, which allegedly recorded fans' conversations.... [F]ans were watching the game, the app was watching them,fan LaTisha Satchell claims in a lawsuit. One of the app’s promotional tools allegedly turns a user's phone microphone on and keeps it on, recording everything within earshot and relaying data back to the Warriors and a tech company, possibly in violation of wiretap laws.... But the app allegedly didn't stop when fans left the arena. Instead, it constantly listened in and recorded conversations, even when fans weren't directly using the app." --safari
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Reader Comments (12)
Great to see Leandra English sticking it to the bullies. No doubt the little king and his anti-consumer lackey hack (hackey?), Mulvaney, figured it would be no problem to bulldoze “the girl”. Trump has made a career of bullying and abusing women. Except the ones who stand up to him. Those tiny fists must be clenched in impotent rage at the thought that he might lose yet another battle.
Uppity broads, uppity poors, and uppity blacks, the bane of his misogynistic rich boy Nazi existence. Hollywood writers of pot-boiler serials from the thirties could not have invented a more loathsome cartoon villain. With luck, Dale Arden will kick Emperor Ming’s fat ass back to the planet Mongo.
In Shimon Peres's memoir "No Room for Small Dreams..." David Shulman who wrote a review in the NYRB says:
"Perhaps the most bitter irony in Peres's book is its disingenuous dedication: 'To the next generation of leaders, in Israel and around the world.'
Israel has never had so contemptible, so morally corrupt, and so shortsighted a leadership, and sadly in this respect it is far from alone in today's world."
Shulman points out that for all its selfless idealists, Israel is maintaining one of the last true colonial regimes in the world: that its public spaces are poisoned by an atavistic racism, its leaders driven by a mean-spirited, self-righteous tribalism,that its minister of justice has recently announced that the paltry excuse of elementary human rights will never be allowed to get in the way of the nation's maximalist goals...
And today I happened to come upon a piece that answered my question about why the heck the ZOA ( Zionist Org, of America) feted someone like that smarmy Sebastion Gorka (who by the way is on Fox all the time) alongside Bannon and Spicer. It appears Gorka's attachment to a fascist order does not trouble supporters of Israel's right-wing government. Here's why:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/shocking-continuing-alliance-zionism-anti-semitism/
I worry about Israel–-I worry about our attachment to their leader who came over to this country and got more applause on the Senate floor than our, at the time, own president–-Obama. Bibi is a nasty piece of work–-we should not trust him and I worry that we are.
We've been bombarded by exposures of sexual abuse by men, but the Buzzfeed article I linked today really is mind-blowing with some of the concrete examples it lays out. Perverts have always and will always exist, but some of the things outlined in the article are so outrageous I can hardly fathom how a stranger could do such things to another person thinking that it'd be just fine afterwards. And that the company didn't explicitly clamp down on such behavior, being in the MASSAGE business, is equally reprehensible. With nearly 200 women on record claiming sexual assault, it's hard to fathom how many more women were similarly assaulted and walking around with that experience weighing on their shoulders.
The company is essentially a conveyor belt of sexual assault and didn't lift a finger, besides countering the complaints by proposing another free massage so the women could come back in and relive the experience.
The NYT has an article about how DiJiT's Iran policy has achieved something the mullahs could not, getting the more progressive elements of Iran to support the theocracy.
Iran poses one of those dilemmas that require patience and diplomacy, as well as opposition by force. But in dealing with all totalitarian countries, the U.S. has had some success by showing the people of those countries that we care about them, but that their governments are problematic. In most cases, the people of those countries have assumed the U.S. is a force for good. Even while chanting "Death to America" at home as required, Iranians used to line up for blocks in places like Istanbul to apply for U.S. visas.
When our own leadership pisses away the goodwill of people in problem countries, and feeds their nationalistic spirit, we resolve our dilemma in a bad way. Dealing with such countries no longer requires politesse and balance, just aggressiveness.
Simpler. Stupider. Worser. Dangerouser. Trumpier.
Effing morons.
More on the Middle East and our own Man Who Would Be King.
Among the many disturbing items in today's news is this NYTimes header, "Long Divided, Iran Unites Against Trump and Saudis"
First Bush II, to even an imagined personal score and to make all that oil safe for democracy kills hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and (duh!) in so doing expands Iran's influence over the Iraq that used to be its enemy.
Now the Pretender, the guy who was handed that big gold sword, allies us more tightly with Iran's regional rival, and in so doing turns his back on the one country in the region that, despite its theocratic underpinnings, does actually hold elections and have an educated middle class.
I wonder what effect our stance is intended to have on the emerging Iraq-Iran axis? Or if there's any intentional policy at all?
Is it simply a matter of who sucks up and who doesn't?
Boy, we sure do know what we're doing out there in the world.
Ryan Lizza, in his New Yorker piece on Trump's December, states that it could be a make or break month. So, wait...if Trump, who has complete control of the government, but hasn't done a bloody thing in a year, gets a sleazy tax cut giveaway to the ultra-rich, with, again, full control of the House and Senate, his first year can be considered a success?
No. Sorry, but no. That's like saying that your nasty neighbor who has been trying to develop the best show-off lawn in the neighborhood, who has had the benefit of expensive high tech tools, the best soil, bags of seed specifically germinated for his zone, and a battery of lawn care people working around the clock, and with all that, has produced a clump of sickly looking weeds, and that passes as a successful yard.
No. Trumpado has been an unmitigated disaster. Oh, he has accomplishments, but they're almost all negative. Tearing shit down and kicking over things put in place by your far more accomplished predecessor does not count as positive triumphs.
And speaking of this tax "overhaul", I see that Orrin Hatch is looking at this as the "capstone" of his career and will not take no for an answer. Lindsey Graham says that Republicans HAVE to pass it. What they're talking about is a bill created in secret, by Confederate machers, with no input from anyone but rich donors. There's been no debate, no public commentary, nothing to intrude on the single minded goal of giving more money to the already wealthy--despite overwhelming negative public sentiment--sending the deficit skyrocketing, (by the way, Hatch is against any sort of "handouts" to the poor because that would be bad for the deficit. I guess ballooning the deficit for the benefit of the rich is okay), and making the middle class pay for it.
This is leadership? No. This is banana republic connivance. This is the sort of three card monte scam that hustlers on New York City streets used to run on tourists dumb enough to put their hard earned shekels in jeopardy. Except in this instance, the hustlers are reaching into your pockets and yanking the money out whether you like it or not. It's robbery. It doesn't even count as a con because there's no attempt at deception. It's just "Hey you. Empty your pockets, the Donald needs a new pair of shoes."
This is Hatch's capstone? May I remind Senator Hatch, that capstones were frequently used to top off tombs.
So, accomplishment? I think not. You might as well say Charles Ponzi's scheme was an accomplishment.
(Did you hear that? Trump just said "Hey, I thought Ponzi's idea was great!")
Interesting article today in The Guardian about the Meredith/Koch purchase of Time magazine:
“By 2011, Pence was said to lead Charles Koch’s shortlist of potential presidential candidates. And though the elder Koch presumably had to settle for second best with Pence as VP, it hasn’t worked out so badly so far.
“Whatever happens with the Time deal, the Kochs’ optimism appears warranted. Pence is the one White House official whom a drama-loving president can’t fire.
“ ‘They definitely play the long game and I don’t think that their game is the Trump administration,’ Peterson said. ‘While people watch the Trump circus, the Koch brothers just get stronger.’
“In the end, the Kochs’ return on any move into media will not be measured by Time’s bottom line. It will be measured by that of their own company – and by the progress of their ideological agenda.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/27/koch-brothers-time-magazine-media-power
@safari: I took the time to read the Spa piece after reading your comment. It is indeed "mind-blowing" and infuriating. I have never gone to a spa––have never had a massage other than the ones my husband administers––why? Because the thought of strange hands on my body gives me the creeps–--reading this piece makes me think I was right. Interesting that this piece has come out during all our other sexual harassment cases––-it's as though it's suddenly the age of male deviant exposure except it isn't since it has been going on for ages. Amazing how many have protected these acts and covered their asses and their assets.
Word of the Year (for the Turd of the Year)
Dictionary.com has come out with its word of the year. And no, it isn't "asshole", although that, along with "pernicious" and "dick" would have been perfectly fine choices. I'd have thought it would be "collusion", but no, it's "complicit", which describes the entire Trump clan and everyone on his execrable cabinet of clowns and confidence schemers.
Complicit: "'Choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act' and 'having partnership or involvement in wrongdoing.'"
That pretty much describes Trump World, don't it?
But if that word doesn't suit you, you can go here and try your hand at selecting a word to describe the little king hisself, apart from his milieu. But don't select "arrogant", "idiot", "orange", "asshole", or "president" (yeah, I know, no asterisk). They're the top vote getters, over 10,000 a piece.
Scroll down and you do run across some unusual, but accurate choices:
wazzock: (English, dialect) a foolish or annoying person
bunghole: self explanatory
flaccid: one of my favorites.
And hey, santorum got 16 votes!
Some are just odd: Tomato, prune, wax, lobster, mong? Baka? Dillhole? Enoch?
Two people suggested "word" which I suppose is a bit waggish since the exercise is called "trump in one word". Ha-ha, very clever, kids.
Only two picks for "jejune" which I found surprising.
"Cockgobbler" is in there (which I found not surprising--along with scads of similarly sexual turns of phrase).
"Mugabe" gets a knowing head nod.
Then there's "Pajero", which, I discovered, means 'He who fiddles with himself for sexual gratification'. Check.
"Turdburglar"? Why not?
Twelve selected "savy" which could mean they're not very savvy themselves. But at least they're all Confederate illiterates.
Several people suggested "antidisestablishmentarianism", which tells me they either wanted to show off their spelling chops or haven't read much in the way of 19th C English history.
Things get really interesting when you scroll down to the entries with a single submission.
Arrogantaur, asswipemotherfuckinpieceofrac (that's all that fit), tchump, FartBlossom, and Antechrist (he came before Christ?), onionhead, and Dick-Cheese. Ladyweoutof was good, as was colonscope and Dunderpate; but I liked the comprehensiveness of Omnibuffoon. One anatomically confused entry was VaginaBallsack. Covers the waterfront, I guess.
PIck out your own faves. Open the Thesaurus. It's hard to go wrong.
Eugene Scott in WaPo, also not impressed by the normalization of quiet nazis.
Art, schmart
I don't pretend to be an art scholar by any means, but I have to say that it's still jarring to scroll down the RC page and see, on the Infotainment side, the scowling, spray-tanned, faux tough guy visage of little Donnie with his childish line drawing of, what, some buildings, supposed to be the New York skyline?-- (I'm sure one of them is supposed to be the Trumpy Mausoleum)--with the gigantic signature, the same size as the "artwork", then to scroll a bit further to a mystical Renaissance painting, perhaps by Da Vinci, "Salvator Mundi", with its gorgeous detail and brushwork. I'm sure Trump would be pissed that he is not considered the savior of the world, rather than some guy holding a crystal ball.
Anyway, not a kvetch, just a slight jolt. Kind of like seeing a plugged nickel with a booger on it next to an 18th century Brasher Doubloon.
Night on the Left Coast, so this comment belongs more properly to tomorrow, but just saw the video of the Pretender mocking Senator Warren in the presence of three distinguished Navajos, who served the nation so bravely and well during WWII.
This staged in front of the portrait of Andrew Jackson, author of the Trail of Tears.
The scene literally brought a tear of embarrassment and rage to my eye, and outrage I cannot contain.
What is beyond outrage? I've come to know the answer.
The Pretender--who can't even pretend to act like a human being, let alone a president.