;)
The Commentariat -- October 16, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Yer Inspirational Quote of the Day:
... Erin Donnelly of Yahoo! News: "Ivanka Trump was up bright and early Tuesday morning to share an inspiring message: 'The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.'... The Socrates Trump is quoting is actually a character who appears in author, self-help coach, and former gymnast Dan Millman's writing. A quick Google search shows the quote -- which has been altered in later editions of the book -- originating from Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior, in which it is uttered by a spiritually minded gas station attendant nicknamed Socrates. Nick Nolte played this Socrates in a 2006 film adaption of the book.... In the spirit of 'building the new,' the first daughter deleted her original tweet and reposted the quote with a note clarifying that it didn't come from that Socrates [by adding, '(note: a fictional character not the philosopher)'].... This isn't the first time the White House adviser has faced fallout after tweeting a quote. In June, she quoted a 'Chinese proverb' that turned out to be fake." Thanks to PD Pepe (note: a real character & something of a philosopher) for the lead. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: In my extensive research on the subject, I found this citation, attributed to just plain Socrates, on quite a number of "inspirational" Websites. For $4.95 + shipping, you can even buy a fridge magnet with the misattribution. Also, see Akhilleus' (note: a pseudonym for a real person not the fictional character) commentary in today's thread.
Fifty years. It's a long time. -- Donald Trump (note: a despicable character not the philosopher)
... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "In what has become a recurring ritual of the fall, President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, traveled [to Lynn Haven, Florida,] on Monday to survey the destruction of another hurricane, this one named Michael, which last week laid waste to the Florida Panhandle. 'This was beyond any winds we've seen for -- I guess -- 50 years,; Mr. Trump said, before he and Mrs. Trump handed out plastic water bottles to storm victims at an aid distribution center in this hard-hit town. 'They say that 50 years ago, there was one that had this kind of power.'... 'We've seen mostly water. And water can be very damaging and scary, when you see water rising 14 or 15 feet. But nobody's ever seen anything like this. This is really incredible.' Still, for someone whose presidency has been interrupted repeatedly by these freakish storms, Mr. Trump remains stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge the threat of climate change."
Carol Morello & Erin Cunningham of the Washington Post: "BREAKING NEWS: President Trump says Saudi's crown prince 'totally denied any knowledge' of what happened at the consulate in Turkey, and promises answers 'shortly' on Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance. This is a developing story and will be updated. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed Saudi leaders Tuesday to move quickly with a 'transparent' investigation of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, even as Turkish officials sifted through possible evidence at the last place the journalist was seen alive.... Pompeo also plans to travel to Turkey's capital, Ankara, on Wednesday to meet with Turkish leaders for an update on the probe." ...
... Ben Hubbard & Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters in Ankara on Tuesday that investigators who searched the [Saudi] consulate on Monday and Tuesday were looking into 'toxic materials, and those materials being removed by painting them over.' Turkish news outlets, citing unnamed sources, have reported that Mr. Khashoggi was drugged, and that parts of the consulate and the nearby consul's residence were repainted after the journalist's disappearance. Later in the day, the Saudi consul, Mohammed al-Otaibi, left the country, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. (This is an update of a story linked this morning.)
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday called adult-film star Stormy Daniels 'Horseface' and threatened to 'go after' her after he won a court victory over his alleged mistress. '"Federal Judge throws out Stormy Danials [sic] lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees." @FoxNews Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con!" he tweeted. The tweet comes one day after a federal judge in California threw out Daniels's defamation lawsuit against Trump and ordered Daniels to repay the president's legal fees."
Tyler Estep of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Voting advocates and civil rights groups have homed in on Gwinnett County[, Georgia,] in a lawsuit filed over what they deem to be its 'excessive rejection of mail ballots because of voters' innocent errors and discrepancies.' The suit, filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, names Secretary of State Brian Kemp, [Mrs. McC: who is also the GOP nominee for governor,] the state elections board and the Gwinnett County elections board as defendants. It ... asks a judge to order that all rejected absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications be reviewed and be reinstated if at all possible. A separate letter sent to Gwinnett County officials by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law made similar suggestions. Both actions come amid media reports, including those by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that found Gwinnett County was throwing out a disproportionate number of such ballots. Through Sunday, Gwinnett County had rejected about 8.5 percent of absentee ballots, an AJC analysis found. Across Georgia, less than 2 percent had been rejected. Gwinnett's 390 rejected ballots accounted for about 37 percent of the total rejected ballots statewide. Analysis by the Lawyers Committee suggested that the rejections affected Asian, black and Latino voters at greater rates than white voters. More than 60 percent of Gwinnett residents are non-white." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: An honorable secretary of state or other official who had any responsibility for election management would have recused himself from overseeing any aspect of an election in which he was a candidate. But a lot of Republicans are just not into "honorable." So it oughtta be a law.
Think Brownshirts. Kelly Weill & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "In a speech at [Manhattan's Metropolitan Republican Club]..., Proud Boys leader Gavin McInnes waved a sword at anti-fascist protesters and celebrated the assassination of a socialist Japanese politician. McInnes, a Vice co-founder, dressed up as the Japanese assassin who killed the politician, complete with glasses that made his eyes into a racist caricature of a Japanese person's eyes.... The Republican club's role hosting the event highlights how the Proud Boys have managed to insinuate themselves with mainstream Republicans, even as they increasingly make the news for their violence. But the New York Republicans aren't alone -- the Proud Boys have already managed to make their way into other mainstream GOP campaign events and conservative media. Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Devin Nunes have posed for pictures with Proud Boys on the campaign trail. Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson posed in a Fox green room with two Proud Boys and Republican operative Roger Stone earlier this year. Stone has himself taken steps to be initiated into the Proud Boys and ... used the Proud Boys as a security force at the Dorchester Conference, a Republican event in Oregon. By then, the Proud Boys were already notorious in Oregon for a series of bloody Portland brawls. But Dorchester board member and former Oregon legislator Patrick Sheehan defended the Proud Boys' attendance...."
*****
The Better to Coordinate a Cover-up. Ben Hubbard & Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the crown prince and other top officials in Riyadh on Tuesday to discuss the disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist who Turkish officials say was killed and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul." ...
... Clarissa Ward & Tim Lister of CNN: "The Saudis are preparing a report that will acknowledge that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death was the result of an interrogation that went wrong, one that was intended to lead to his abduction from Turkey, according to two sources. One source says the report will likely conclude that the operation was carried out without clearance and transparency and that those involved will be held responsible. One of the sources acknowledged that the report is still being prepared and cautioned that things could change." ...
... OR, as Eric Levitz puts it, "In other words: The Saudis' official defense is, reportedly, 'We only wanted to torture and kidnap the dissident journalist, but the Crown Prince's friend got a little too enthusiastic, and accidentally killed him. (In a bizarre coincidence, a doctor of forensic science and bone saw just happened to be on the scene at the consulate that day -- and, well, one thing led to another.)' If the Trump administration, K Street, and D.C.'s foreign policy Establishment cares about the reality of the Saudis' actions, this cover story won't fly. But then, if they cared about such realities, the U.S. would have cut off support to the Saudi war in Yemen years ago."
... Levitz also explains the media attention Jamal Khashoggi's murder has received: "... no one in Washington, D.C., has ever been at a cocktail party with a starving Yemeni child, and so Riyadh's offenses against such children did not threaten the U.S.-Saudi alliance. Many in D.C. do, however, rub shoulders with Washington Post columnists -- of which Khashoggi was one -- and thus, his apparent murder has forced many American lobbyists, corporate titans, and public officials to feign shock and concern at the revelation that the totalitarian, Islamist government of Saudi Arabia does not respect the human rights of its dissidents." ...
... BUT What about Trump's New Conspiracy Theory? "Rogue Killers." Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Monday that he spoke with the king of Saudi Arabia and that the ruler denied any knowledge of what happened to a missing Saudi dissident journalist. After the call, Mr. Trump said it was possible that 'rogue killers' were behind the disappearance of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.... 'It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers -- who knows,' Mr. Trump said. In introducing the possibility that another party could have been involved in Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance, the president opened a window for King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to stand by their denials.... The president said the secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was traveling to Saudi Arabia later Monday morning to meet with King Salman.... Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote in a Twitter post on Monday that he had heard the Saudis were pushing a 'rogue killers' theory and called it 'extraordinary' that the kingdom was able to get the president on board." Mrs. McC: A 400-pound man from New Jersey maybe? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... WELL. Josh Lederman of NBC News: "Saudi Arabia's government is discussing a plan to admit that missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, three people with knowledge of the situation tell NBC News.... One ... said he was told by those close to the Saudi leadership that the kingdom will claim that rogue operatives killed Khashoggi during an interrogation or a rendition attempt that went horribly awry." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: As Chris Hayes of MSNBC said, it appears that Trump is colluding with the Saudis to engineer a coverup. That is, the coverup of the assassination of a journalist who is Washington Post contributor. I'm not saying U.S. leadership has never before aided & abetted a murderous criminal regime, but what we're witnessing now really is extraordinary. You know, it's not easy to murder a person in cold blood & get away with it, especially when evidence of your crime abounds AND you keep changing your alibi. But if you can garner a little help from a corrupt POTUS*, evading the consequences of your heinous crime becomes a bit easier, if even more outrageous. ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Two overlapping things of widely divergent importance happened Monday morning that bring into clear relief President Trump's double standard on the proof he demands on political issues. The first was his response to a question about the missing Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.... 'I just spoke with the King of Saudi Arabia, and he denies any knowledge of what took place with regards to, as he said, to Saudi Arabia's citizen,' Trump said while talking to reporters Monday morning. 'He firmly denies that.'... In each case -- Saudi Arabia, Russia, [Roy] Moore, climate change, [Brett] Kavanaugh -- there is reason to believe, if to varying degrees, that the allegations [that Trump finds inconvenient] have merit. Trump, though, seizes on any tiny argument to reject them.... [MEANWHILE.] Trump has increasingly disparaged [Elizabeth] Warren, a likely (if not probable) Democratic candidate. Among the assertions he had made is that Warren -- who[m] he disparagingly calls 'Pocahontas' -- should have to conduct a DNA test to prove her heritage. In July, he even offered to give $1 million to charity were she to do so. When he learned Monday morning that she had, his response was curt: 'Who cares?' He also denied having offered to give $1 million to charity, despite his saying it at a campaign rally.... For Trump's opponents, any offered proof is flawed, incomplete or insufficient. For his allies, any offered evidence is robust and more than enough." Bump invokes the imaginary 400-pound guy, too, as well as Obama's birth certificate. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Warren should be demanding her $1MM loudly & often. She could donate it to Snopes. Update: Madeleine Aggeler of New York: "After the Globe published the results of her test, Warren tweeted at the president asking him to make his donation to the National Indigenous Woman's Resource Center." That's good, too. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
My family (including Fox News-watchers) sat together and talked about what they think of @realDonaldTrump’s attacks on our heritage. And yes, a famous geneticist analyzed my DNA and concluded that it contains Native American ancestry. pic.twitter.com/r3SNzP22f8
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018
... Update 1. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday denied that he offered Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) $1 million to take a test proving her Native American heritage, even though he did just that. Trump spoke after Warren responded to the president's challenge and released the results of a DNA test showing she has a distant Native ancestor. 'I didn't say that. You'd better read it again,' Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about his $1 million offer. During a campaign rally on July 5, Trump taunted Warren for her claims of Native American ancestry, a staple of his campaign stump speeches. 'I will give you a million dollars, to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you're an Indian,' Trump said at the time. 'I have a feeling she will say 'no.'" Mrs. McC: How is it that a veteran TV personality is unaware that there are tapes to disprove his lies? ...
... Update 2. Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg (via Time): "... Donald Trump said he won't make good on a bet on Senator Elizabeth Warren's Native American heritage unless he can personally test her DNA." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What a sleazy, lying turd. Imagine having to work with this guy.
Jonathan Chait: "In his interview with 60 Minutes last night, President Trump made a number of self-incriminating comments about Russia. He downplayed Russia's certain role in conducting assassinations to a mere 'probability,' defending his skepticism by saying, weirdly, 'I rely on them, it's not in our country.'... The most revealing statement he made was when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election.... The question [was] about Russian election interference in 2016. Trump turn[ed] it into a diatribe about China.... [An] official rollout of the new Cold War posture [highlighted by a mike pence speech & a Wall Street Journal feature story] was supposed to give Trump's hard-line stance the patina of legitimacy. But the 60 Minutes interview gives the game away. Trump is bringing up China in response to questions about Russia. The whole point of the exercise is to supply his supporters with a talking point they can use to wave away the ever-growing pile of damning evidence. The answer is to the Russia story is now, 'What about China?'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
This Blimp, videotaped yesterday, sure doesn't look like the svelte guy pictured in Andy Thomas's painting, posted in yesterday's Commentariat, a copy of which is now on display in the White House.
Someone Left the Wife Out in the Rain. Erika Harwood of Vanity Fair: "As the Trumps headed out for Georgia and Florida on Monday..., [Donald] was holding a large umbrella, which he never attempted to share with [Melanie]." ...
... On a somewhat more consequential note ...
A New York Times video op-ed by Jason Stanley:
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's fair to look at most of TrumpNews -- and GOPNews -- as of a piece with fascism. Climate denial, the support for assassins, the silly contretemps with Elizabeth Warren, the devastating tax cut, whatever -- these are all predicated on obvious & audacious lies. That's what fascists do; that's how they ram through their corrupt, counterproductive measures. What remains stunning to me is that millions of people, almost all with at least decent public school educations, are willing to let the fascists lead them by their noses. Not long ago, I thought that education was the antidote to most of the world's political ills. Obviously, I was wrong about that. The triumph of fascism -- and it is currently triumphant in the former Land of the Free & Home of the Brave -- is a vast cultural disorder. (Three weeks from now we'll find out just how triumphant.) The evils of the world are as close as your next-door neighbor and your crazy Uncle Fred.
Paul Krugman: "... the Trump administration and its allies -- put on the defensive by yet another deadly climate change-enhanced hurricane and an ominous United Nations report -- have been making [various] bad arguments over the past few days.... It was a reminder that we're now ruled by people who are willing to endanger civilization for the sake of political expediency, not to mention increased profits for their fossil-fuel friends.... The new strategy is to downplay what has happened.... Why, it's as if Trump were to suggest that the Saudis had nothing to do with the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, who vanished after entering a Saudi embassy -- that he was killed by some mysterious third party. Oh, wait.... While the arguments of climate deniers were always weak, they've gotten much weaker.... One way to think about what's happening here is that it's the ultimate example of Trumpian corruption."
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "The federal budget deficit swelled to $779 billion in fiscal year 2018, the Treasury Department said on Monday, driven in large part by a sharp decline in corporate tax revenues after the Trump tax cuts took effect. The deficit rose nearly 17 percent year over year, from $666 billion in 2017. It is now on pace to top $1 trillion a year before the next presidential election, according to forecasts from the Trump administration and outside analysts. The deficit for the 2018 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, was the largest since 2012, when the economy and federal revenues were still recovering from the depths of the recession. Administration officials attributed the deficit's rise to greater federal spending, including the military and domestic budget increases that President Trump approved this year, not the $1.5 trillion tax cut.... But the numbers ... suggest falling revenues were a far larger contributor to the rising deficit than higher spending."
Alex Wayne & Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump said that Sears Holdings Corp. had been mismanaged for years before it declared bankruptcy. Among those responsible for its management: his Treasury secretary. Steven Mnuchin was a member of Sears's board from 2005 until December 2016, and before that was a director for K-Mart Corp., which was acquired by Sears in 2005." Mrs. McC: Mnuchin is using the same method to manage your money. See ballooning deficit story, linked above.
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The adult-film actress Stormy Daniels' libel suit against ... Donald Trump was thrown out Monday by a federal judge, who also ordered Daniels to pay Trump's legal fees in the case. U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles said Trump was engaged in 'rhetorical hyperbole' in April when he sent a tweet casting doubt on threats that Daniels claimed to have received in 2011 as she debated whether to go public with her claim of a sexual encounter with Trump. 'A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the fake news media for fools (but they know it),' Trump on Twitter. In a 14-page order, Otero noted that the tweet was a one-time statement by Trump and said it failed to meet the standard of a clear factual claim that Daniels had lied.... Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, immediately appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals."
Sarah Okeson of DCReport: "Trump health officials plan to rewrite guidelines for a federally funded family planning program to make it harder for low-income women to obtain birth control. The 32-page proposed regulation mentions contraception three times aside from the footnotes and proposes removing the requirement that family planning services be medically approved, saying it could cause confusion.... 'This policy is straight out of The Handmaid's Tale,' said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America..." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is about powerful white men maintaining control over some of the most powerless women in the U.S. To put it as delicately as possible, the "health officials" who dreamed up this anti-contraception policy are sick fucks.
"White Power" Priorities. Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump's Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has 'quietly' spent millions of dollars on private security for Confederate cemeteries since the violent 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.... [A]ccording to a new report from the Associated Press..., the VA has already spent almost $3 million on round-the-clock private security for at least eight Confederate cemeteries." --s
Election 2018
Florida. Mark Stern of Slate: "Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, will not be able to name three new justices to the Florida Supreme Court after his term has ended, that court ruled on Monday. Its decision denies Scott the ability to shift the court rightward for a generation, thwarting his plan to make 'midnight appointments.' Instead, it ensures that the next governor will be able to fill those seats. The stakes of the Florida gubernatorial race, in other words, just got even higher: Whoever wins the election will enter office with three vacancies to fill on the state's highest court." --s
Minnesota. Meet Your Racist GOP. Danielle McLean of ThinkProgress: "Karin Housely, a Republican running for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota, once compared Michelle Obama to a chimp on Facebook in 2009, according to the Huffington Post.... White people comparing black people to monkeys, apes, or chimps has a long racist history, and one that has commonly been made by Republicans when discussing the Obama family or other African American Democrats. Most recently, in August, Ron DeSantis, a Republican running for governor in Florida, told voters not to 'monkey this up' by electing his African American challenger Andrew Gillum. And in May, ABC abruptly cancelled its successful reboot of the show 'Roseanne,' after actress Roseanne Barr compared former Obama administration senior adviser Valerie Jarrett to an ape on Twitter.... Housley is a state Senator" --s...
Jamelle Bouie of Slate: No, it isn't true that the Founding Fathers favored "minority rule" & baked it into the Constitution for the good of future wingers. "... key voices [like James Madison & Benjamin Franklin] anticipated the problems the Senate might pose for governance and democratic representation. That future Americans, to whom the Framers entrusted the republic and its maintenance, might seek reform to solve those problems is not an attack on the intent of the Constitution. It is in keeping with the debates around its creation.... Calls to transform the Senate, or create new states, or even 'pack the court' aren't attacks on norms; they are Americans doing the hard work of crafting a democracy that works for them, of taking seriously the idea that the Constitution exists for us, not us for the Constitution." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link. See also David Leonhardt's column, linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Michael Klarman in Take Care: "Even before the appointment of Justice Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court -- which has always been a political institution -- had become an adjunct of the Republican Party.... When progressives win back political power at the national level, which will happen one day, we will be confronted with the most conservative Supreme Court in nearly a century. It is easy to imagine that Court concocting constitutional arguments against virtually every measure a progressive administration might pursue.... [One] solution -- expanding the size of the Court once Democrats regain control of Congress and the presidency -- will inevitably appear partisan (though, rightly understood, it is not).... Figuring out how to behave in a world where one party no longer adheres to the basic norms of democracy is extremely challenging.... However, on this occasion, there is an obvious response to the concern that if Democrats pack the Court, Republicans will just pack in further in their favor at the next opportunity: Republicans are already packing the courts.... In that political context, for Democrats not to respond in kind is to commit political suicide." Read the whole post. --s ...
** "The Rigging of American Politics." Ezra Klein of Vox: "American politics is edging into an era of crisis. A constitutional system built to calm the tensions of America's founding era is distorting the political competition between parties, making the country both less democratic and less Democratic.... It is not difficult to imagine an America where Republicans consistently win the presidency despite rarely winning the popular vote, where they control both the House and the Senate despite rarely winning more votes than the Democrats, where their dominance of the Supreme Court is unquestioned, and where all of this power is used to buttress a system of partisan gerrymandering and pro-corporate campaign finance laws and strict voter ID requirements and anti-union legislation that further weakens Democrats' electoral performance.... If this seems outlandish, well, it simply describes the world we live in now, and assumes it continues forward.... How long will a Democratic coalition that has more numbers but less political power accept this system? And what will happen when they fight back?" safari: Very interesting article.
Donald Daters Doxes Doofuses. Zack Whittaker of Tech Crunch: "A new dating app for Trump supporters that wants to 'make America date again' has leaked its entire database of users -- on the day of its launch. The app, called 'Donald Daters,' is aimed at 'American-based singles community connecting lovers friends, and Trump supporters alike' and has already received rave reviews and coverage in Fox News, Daily Mail and The Hill. On its launch day alone, the app had a little over 1,600 users and counting.... Elliot Alderson, a French security researcher, shared the database with TechCrunch, which included users' names, profile pictures, device type, their private messages -- and access tokens, which can be used to take over accounts." Mrs. McC: My heart is not breaking.
Heather Murphy of the New York Times: "Curtis Rogers, 80, a retired businessman..., and John Olson, 67, a transportation engineer from Texas ... began [a genealogical database] as a side project, [which] has unintentionally upended how investigators across the country are trying to solve the coldest of cold cases. Within three years, the DNA of nearly every American of Northern European descent -- the primary users of the site -- will be identifiable through cousins in GEDmatch's database, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science.... [So far,] GEDmatch had provided essential clues leading to a suspect in a murder or sexual assault case [in 15 cold cases], starting with the arrest in April of Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer, for the rapes and murders committed across California in the 1970s and 1980s by the notorious Golden State Killer." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Kelly Weill & Pervaiz Shallwani of the Daily Beast: "The New York Police Department announced Monday that it has enough evidence to charge nine members of the right-wing group Proud Boys and three protesters with various counts of rioting, assault, and attempted assault. The brawl between the two sides erupted a few blocks from the Metropolitan Republican Club after a speech by Proud Boys leader Gavin McInnes on Friday. NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said Monday that police recovered multiple videos of the incident and have spoken to witnesses and sources as they work to put together what took place in the moments after Proud Boys and associates left the Manhattan club." ...
... Kelly Weill & Will Sommer of The Daily Beast: "The Republican club's role hosting the event highlights how the Proud Boys have managed to insinuate themselves with mainstream Republicans, even as they increasingly make news for violence. But the New York Republicans aren't alone -- the Proud Boys have already managed to make their way into other mainstream GOP campaign events and conservative media.... Fascist skinhead groups have wreaked havoc in the U.S. for decades, but scholars of fascism have noted that those groups pose limited political threats -- unless a mainstream political party embraces them." --s
Armed & Dangerous ... But Totally Legal. Gordon Friedman of the Oregonian: "Members of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer stationed themselves on a downtown Portland rooftop with a cache of guns prior to a summer protest, city officials announced for the first time Monday -- the same day Mayor Ted Wheeler learned about it, his aides said.... Berk Nelson, a senior mayoral aide, later said the weapons included 'long guns.'... Police officers seized the weapons found on the rooftop that day, but they were later given back. No arrests were made because the protesters had not broken any laws and all had licenses to carry concealed weapons, [a police official] said."
Tony Marrero of the Tampa Bay Times: Police in Lakeland, Florida, released surveillance video that shows Lakeland City Commissioner Michael Dunn, 47, shooting dead Christobal Lopez, 50. "According to police, Lopez tried to pocket a hatchet inside the store. Dunn, a co-owner of the business, confronted him, asking if he was going to pay for the item.... 'Just from the video it doesn’t look like Mr. Dunn was in fear and wasn't justified in shooting Mr. Lopez as he was leaving,' said Bill Loughery, a former prosecutor with the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office. 'It appeared that, because he had his gun, Mr. Dunn was in charge of the situation from the standpoint he was directing Mr. Lopez what to do.' [Tim] Hessinger, [a] Tampa defense attorney who is also is a former Pinellas-Pasco prosecutor, said it appears Lopez was trying to flee when he was shot and there's no evidence in the video that he tried to use the hatchet as a weapon or gain control of Dunn's gun. 'It appears in the video that all the force is being used by the commissioner,' Hessinger said.... Dunn, an adamant supporter of gun ownership, hosted a July rally at his store to counter a nearby March for our Lives rally on the same day. March for our Lives is an advocacy group formed by Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students seeking stricter gun-control laws."
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Reader Comments (27)
Trumpspeak continued:
"I have the best words"
(Weasel words)
Trump continues picking the worst possible people to head agencies.
"Portland Press Herald." Mary Mayhew, opponent of Medicaid expansion in Maine, named head of national Medicaid program"...uneffing believable"
Of the more than 100 comments posted so far, don't believe that Mary aka Mayhem got a single favorable post.
How long before Floridians are told they're a drain on the treasury and that FEMA can't stay forever? Pity Puerto Rican refugees...they get that treatment twice.
A big story is being made of Rick Scott suspending his senate campaign following the storm. Excuse me, but as governor it is his job to oversee rescue and recovery efforts.
@Bobby Lee: Thanks. I don't think Scott is "suspending his Senate campaign" if he's appearing on the news every day twice a day pretending to rescue Floridians from the ravages of a hurricane. I'd call that "free campaign advertising."
And what a joke that Florida's climate-denier-in-chief is now trying to garner votes on the back of a storm made worse by his wilful neglect.
Going through junior high and high school, I vividly remember the constant narrative of the coming merits of globalization, bringing world communities better and making us all better off in the end.
Looking in the rearview mirror, one major concept that nearly everyone overlooked was the persisting quality of intolerance in the human race. As intolerance grows stronger with each passing day in today's toxic political environment, I've come to see simple tolerance of differences, of the "other", as an increasingly valuable object; its cultivation and spread achieving status as a national security issue.
Reading history books demonstrate a timeline of intolerance and xenophobia in our country, so today's manifestation is nothing new. But it does feel like we're coming to a head of sorts here. Never before have the masses of xenophobic bigots already hellbent on the virtues of the Aryan race been given a live megaphone in the Oval Office while coordinating with their own national television channel.
I'd like to add this Bloomberg piece to Tankersly's on federal budget deficits.
TRUMP TAX LAW FAILS TO KILL OFF CORPORATE AMERICA'S DODGE.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-15/trump-tax-law-fails-to-kill-off-corporate-america-s-prized-dodge
As to the story about curtailing access to birth control for low income women I'm scratching my head here. If no birth control these women will get pregnant; if no abortions (the other curtailment) women will bare children and given their lack of income they will have to rely on government subsidies. Republicans hate that! So–––can it be that the reference to "The Handmaid Tale" isn't so far fetched? We know that in the past reformers like Sanger were jailed for their involvement in birth control––horrible treatment of women in that era–-BUT–-holy cow, I find this obsession with women's bodies and business has the taint of the tale of handmaids.
@safari: your above comments–-yes, it does indeed feel like we are coming to some kind of head and when that head of state gets struck with the cudgel that we are waiting for perhaps it will all come to–-can I say head again?
So here are my choices for the three major problems facing the world.
1. Overpopulation. 1910- 2 billion, 2010- 7 billion.
2. Religion
3. The Wright brothers. To be fair, it is the inability of humans to adapt to technology.
I don't know what is wrong with the reporters of this story-- OF COURSE someone happened to have a bone saw when joining the merry band of torturers and kidnappers-- don't most people? I have travel-size bone saws for just such an occasion...TSA-friendly...
I don't think this could be any bigger as a cover-up. The honorable Saudis used trumplips to suggest that maybe it was a rogue band (what, roving the embassy??)who committed this crime they have yet to admit to; now they are crafting a NEW story that boys will be boys, and they just got a bit carried away with the first crime and stretched it into a brand new crime involving the "accidental" use of a bone saw?? And for the sake of guns and bombs and planes, Pompeo is over there to comfort them while they concoct this monster plan to put over on the dumb Yankees??? It's obvious to me that there is no bottom to how low the administration will go with winning...
This morning I was thinking about the astonishingly low (as in nonexistent) threshold that Trump has for accepting lies about the words and actions of bigots, dictators, murderers, attempted rapists, and child molesters, based on no proof whatsoever over and above their personal guarantees, and his outright rejection of a report on the imminent dangers of climate change by respected scientists from around the world.
So...
Mohammed bin Salman: "I didn't kill that guy."
Trump: "Course not!"
Vladimir Putin: "I didn't help you win that election"
Trump: "I know. You helped Hillary."
Kim Jong Un: "Denuclearization? Sure. Right on it."
Trump: "I believe you." *smooch*
Roy Moore: "I didn't touch those bitches"
Trump: "Lying Democrats."
Bart O'Kavanaugh: "I didn't try to rape that bitch"
Trump: "She made the whole thing up."
But then...
Barack Obama: "Of course I was born in America."
Trump: "Prove it."
Elizabeth Warren: "My family has Native American ancestors."
Trump: "Prove it."
Every Respected Scientist in the World: "Climate change!"
Trump: "Prove it! Political agenda!"
This short list leaves out the many other crooks and cheats and misogynists that Trump supports without asking for any sort of proof and the inverse problem wherein the incontrovertible truth of many other issues, this fat fool denies without a second thought.
If it doesn't fit with his plan or world view, whatever that might be at the moment, it can't be true.
None of this should be cause for astonishment at this late date, but it is.
Reminds me of a tale related in the Gothic novel "Vathek" by William Beckford. A rather dim, but ignorant and pompous potentate believes that whatever he thinks, because he considers himself all-powerful, must be so. Likewise, his presence grants perfect happiness because he himself is perfect. His arrogance irritates a rather dyspeptic Djinn who sends him to a fiery afterlife. The king, instead of realizing he has been condemned to a hellish eternity, convinces himself that this must be heaven, simply because he is there.
A better hell than that I couldn't wish for Trump.
Akhilleus,
Is there no end to your literary delving? Beckford's "Vathek?" Really?
You probably read "Tristram Shandy" beginning to end, too.
More remarkably, you remember them. You blow me away.
Don't know how to turn this into a political remark, Bea, so apologies, but I just had to get this compliment off my chest.
Yesterday commenter Joynone reminded us of what the Lying One (Ryan) has been up to lately, namely, his usual brand of slithering ratfucking, attempting to undermine democracy and working to ensure continued dominance for traitors.
This in turn reminded me that while we've all been so closely focused on Fat Boy and more recently on the canonization of an attempted rapist to the Supreme Court, the rest of the brigands, stooges, crooks, and traitors on the right have been hard at work tearing apart what's left of the American Experiment.
They've been ramming dozens of Nazi judges into lifetime appointments on the federal bench. Making sure no gun safety laws get passed in their lifetimes, handing gigantic tax cuts (and planning another one) for the ultra rich and, of course, white people, which has already sent the deficit out past Jupiter with Neptune locked into the navigational system.
The spread of lies, as Jason Stanley mentions in his NY Times video of the rise of fascism under Trump, continues apace. Republican PACs are funding attack ads that operate using blatant lies against Democratic candidates. This isn't new, but the astounding number of lies and how easy it is to disprove them is. There is no baseline for truth anymore. They say whatever they feel is expedient, a primary ingredient, says Professor Stanley for fascism.
In Georgia, the guy who controls who gets to vote is running for governor. He has decided that tens of thousands of black citizens can't participate because, well, he'd probably lose if they did. A couple of years ago, he instituted blatantly illegal rules to further attack voting rights. The Georgia Supreme Court said so, and ruled against him. The Confederate controlled legislature in Georgia gave the court the finger and passed every one of those illegal measures into law.
Efforts to inject fear and distrust in the system also are on the rise. The right is working not just to undermine democracy but to make it the object of loathing and paranoia.
The US Census is being used as a political tool of the right in the furtherance of fear and immigrant bashing.
A report from several internet researchers is spreading the news that voting data is being sold to shady characters on the Dark Web, news that is sure to improve the faith of voters in the system.
The War on Women has ramped up as uppity women dare to call out powerful (white) men for their attacks. They must be put down. Hard. Orrin Hatch and Trump and Chuck Grassley say so.
As more and more unarmed black men and children are shot down, Trump voters are outraged that African American communities support Black Lives Matter. They're getting behind voter suppression schemes.
And the Supreme Court is now an arm of the RNC. Polls now suggest that there will be no Blue Wave, that Republicans will retain control of everything.
And what are Democrats doing?
We're taking DNA tests.
Because Trump sez so.
Ken,
Well, right back at you there, brother. You know "Vathek" too. It's not a surprise. During my sci-fi phase as a teenager, I wandered into the sword and sorcery and fantasy sections of bookstores. And there, with a wonderfully conceived cover of fantastical Islamic figures was "Vathek". Plus, it was blurbed by H.P. Lovecraft. What's not to like?
And yeah, I did read "Tristram". I opened it up and saw those pages with the weird squiggles, and the crazy pictures, and dots and asterisks, and the chapters with one or two words, and I thought, "Wow. This
is some wild stuff. What is this all about?" Had to read it.
Another republican desperado, Duncan Hunter (R-CA), in a re-election campaign, who has been convicted on charges of of using that campaign money--$250,000 of it–- for personal use–- is gunning for his opponent, 29 yr. old Ammar Campa-Najjar. Read how he does this using the old Hunter sleaze and squeeze ––a method he learned well from his Dad who also graced the halls of congress. But like Warren, Ammar is calling Duncan's bluff which isn't hard at all.
Here's the link: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-congressman-duncan-hunter-ammar-campa-najjar_us_5bc4ab88e4b01a01d68d0109
Calling Akhilleus to please assist poor Ivanka who keeps stumbling when quoting ancient notables––cuz our guy knows Socrates like the back of his hand. So AK, take a gander here and give the little lady a call––you might just get paid in rubles.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ivanka-trump-socrates-quote_us_5bc5bfc3e4b055bc9479dce2
PD,
Like Socrates, I'll offer some free advice to Princess Ivanka: know what the fuck you're talking about before you open your trap. And especially before you tweet it out and demonstrate to the entire world that you're an idiot.
First, even if you weren't sure whether this was an actual quote from Socrates, if you knew anything about him, you'd have to be pretty skeptical from the jump. It doesn't sound vaguely like anything he'd say. He was not a "Do this, don't do that" sort of guy. He believed in finding the truth of a situation, but he was not a prescriptive thinker.
Second, this business of fighting the old and looking to the new? Not Socrates either. Socrates (or, Plato's Socrates, as Marie would say--and she's not wrong), believed, as did Plato (big surprise) in universal truths, not making up new shit. Therefore, even the notion of change is problematic. The only change Socrates seems to be in favor of, is for the individual to promote an interest in a virtuous and examined life, with establishing a connection with those universal truths (Plato called them Ideals) that lead one to a more authentic existence.
I don't know anything about this Socrates character from some 80's book whose author is responsible for the quote she pulled out from some dicey website or other, so I won't bother trying to parse this sentiment. Leave us suggest, however, that it's yet another in the looooong, boooooring line of attempts by Trump Spawn (™) to bolster whatever bullshit money making scheme dear old daddy pussy-grabber is on about on that particular day. They probably figure whatever pilfered loot he scarfs, they'll eventually latch onto, so why not help out the old dotard? Sure, out with all that old fashioned democracy. In with fascism!
But trying to pull in Socrates to help in your nefarious schemes?
Socrates himself would have had a good laugh at some bumbling nincompoop thinking they were going to draft him into assisting in their craven, thieving ways, only to be shown up as, well, a bumbling nincompoop.
Authentic to a tee.
Awww...don't feel bad Ivanka. Here. Have a nice cup of hemlock. Socrates insists.
PD,
Like Socrates, I'll offer some free advice to Princess Ivanka: know what the fuck you're talking about before you open your trap. And especially before you tweet it out and demonstrate to the entire world that you're an idiot.
First, even if you weren't sure whether this was an actual quote from Socrates, if you knew anything about him, you'd have to be pretty skeptical from the jump. It doesn't sound vaguely like anything he'd say. He was not a "Do this, don't do that" sort of guy. He believed in finding the truth of a situation, but he was not a prescriptive thinker.
Second, this business of fighting the old and looking to the new? Not Socrates either. Socrates (or, Plato's Socrates, as Marie would say--and she's not wrong), believed, as did Plato (big surprise) in universal truths, not making up new shit. Therefore, even the notion of change is problematic. The only change Socrates seems to be in favor of, is for the individual to promote an interest in a virtuous and examined life, with establishing a connection with those universal truths (Plato called them Ideals) that lead one to a more authentic existence.
I don't know anything about this Socrates character from some 80's book whose author is responsible for the quote she pulled out from some dicey website or other, so I won't bother trying to parse this sentiment. Leave us suggest, however, that it's yet another in the looooong, boooooring line of attempts by Trump Spawn (™) to bolster whatever bullshit money making scheme dear old daddy pussy-grabber is on about on that particular day. They probably figure whatever pilfered loot he scarfs, they'll eventually latch onto, so why not help out the old dotard? Sure, out with all that old fashioned democracy. In with fascism!
But trying to pull in Socrates to help in your nefarious schemes?
Socrates himself would have had a good laugh at some bumbling nincompoop thinking they were going to draft him into assisting in their craven, thieving ways, only to be shown up as, well, a bumbling nincompoop.
Authentic to a tee.
Awww...don't feel bad Ivanka. Here. Have a nice cup of hemlock. Socrates insists.
Another Trump Hits Up the Philosophers
After reading Krugman, it occurred to me that Princess Ivanka is not the only philosophically (sort of) inclined Trump. Mad King Donnie does his own little Aristotelian Mambo when it comes to his ever expanding attempts to explain away inconvenient facts and cover his ass by dreaming up newer and more outrageous explanations ("Rogue Killers", "400 lb Man") to support his fact-free views.
Lest you think I'm defaming Aristotle by connecting him with Fat Boy, let me explain.
As Krugman points out, with every new fact, Trump is forced to add a few more intricate steps to his Bullshit Boogaloo. There's no such thing as climate change. Well, there is climate change, but humans have nothing to do with it. Okay, maybe there is climate change, and it's really bad right now, but it will all get better. Soon. You'll see.
Hopping on our Way Back Machine, we can visit our old pal Aristotle as he considers stuff like planetary motion. Pretty cool, right? You look up in the night sky, "Hey, look, there's Mars. And there's Jupiter. Awesome!" So you make a map of the Solar System. Now here's the important bit of information to remember. Aristotle was not a scientist. His idea of the objects in the night sky had to do with a more, shall we say, aesthetic concept of heavenly spheres.
So he placed the earth at the center, called the soup done, and went on to Metaphysics and other cool stuff. I mean, the guy was so good on so many things, it's unlikely that he was perfect on everything, and astronomy was really not his strong suit.
Fast forward about a thousand years or so to the Middle Ages. Ari's work is rediscovered and there's a vogue for his thinking. He's a hit! And his view of the Solar System becomes adopted by the Church because it puts us at the center of the universe. Naturally, god would not send his son to some third rate, punk ass place like a rock orbiting the sun. That would not be very, well, godlike. So the sun is right out as the center of the universe.
Okay, so now you have a model of the heavens with the earth at the middle. But now you look up at the sky and you see Mars doing a loop de loop. What the hell is that? Retrograde motion? Christ! Now what do we do? So they invent all sorts of clever ideas like deferents and epicycles to explain planets stopping and suddenly doing a jig backwards. The model gets more and more complicated as new stuff shows up.
Take a peek at some of those medieval orreries, the mechanical devices that demonstrated planetary motion in a geocentric universe. After a while there was so much hippity-hop at the barber shop, that these things started looking pretty Rube Goldbergian.
Then along comes Copernicus. Hurray! We're saved from ass-hat astronomy.
And Trump's thinking is just like that. As new facts come along, more and more outlandish structures based on lies are created to accommodate the latest information. And it's like this for everything.
The Saudis? They didn't kill anyone. I asked my guy there. Well, maybe someone disappeared, but we don't know anything. Oh, he really was killed? Well, it must be Rogue Killers. Oh, not Rogue Killers? Well, then, it must have been a mistake. Yeah, that's it. They only wanted to talk to the guy.
Everything but the obvious, and elegant, truth.
My feeling is that Aristotle, armed with new and more accurate information, would have changed his thinking. Trump? Nah, add a few more ringy-dingies to the model. The medieval Church would have loved him.
@Akhilleus: Yeah, the Church conveniently missed Aristarchus of Samos, who proposed a heliocentric system about a century after Aristotle endorsed geocentric astronomy. A century after Aristarchus proposed his theory, Seleucus of Seleucia nailed down the heliocentric model. The fact that none of these two writers' works has survived suggests to me that the Church found these astronomers' writings to be "inconvenient facts" & destroyed them, as the Church did with many ancient "heretical" texts. Very Trumpian.
The story about the VA spending many U.S. Grants ($100 bills) to pay for security at CSA cemeteries caused me to think that someone in the VA overstepped their funding authority. But no, apparently VA has taken on responsibility for confederate headstones and cemeteries for quite some time now.
I was surprised. Way back when, the feds paid for Union soldiers' pensions, medical and burial and soldiers' homes, but specifically would not do so for the rebs. So many of the ex-CSA states took that responsibility, in the half-ass way we would expect. So when the states quit paying, the job slid over to the feds.
I don't begrudge the USG paying to provide a little respect to the fallen enemy, by looking after their plots. Keeping in mind they were enemy.
But I do wonder about the ex-CSA states, how they could allow the tyrant to tend to their fallen.
Then I remember that they always have been on the cheap side of all civic business, and especially of looking after the lower end of the social spectrum, which certainly includes poor dead rebs. Operative word being poor. Well, dead too.
Marie,
Very Trumpian indeed. Into the medieval shredder goes Aristarchus and Seleucus. In fact, they didn't even really need shredders. When you think about it, during the Middle Ages, practically the only people turning out copies of ancient manuscripts (and contemporary stuff as well) were monks. Monks, controlled by...the Church!
Abbots in charge of manuscripting monks likely got the evil eye from Rome if their guys copied the wrong stuff. We're lucky so many good things survived. Just imagine Frère Donaldo in charge of copy duties. Anything that didn't make him look good would get the Renard News makeover. But there'd probably be plenty of salacious Roman poetry that'd survive.
Don't shred that scroll my friend, palimpsest it!
Fat Boy?!
I like Fat Boy. And Fat Boy likes me (too muchly, according to my wife.)
No, I'm not talking about that orange turd who's pretending to be president*.
My Fat Boy comes in green 16-oz. cans, or as fresh draft at the brewery in pint glasses or 64-oz. growlers.
It's described as:
"Our super hopped Double IPA is bursting at the seams with heaps of piney, citrusy and tropical fruit flavors and aromas. During the brewing process we add a massive amount of hops to give you big bitterness as well as all the flavor of joy. Once fermentation is complete we dry hop this big boy a ton, giving you the awesome hop explosion. We use Citra, Simcoe and other hop varieties to create this monster. We hope you enjoy our FAT BOY! 8% ABV"
I'm there most Saturday afternoons and would be more than willing to share a pint or two with any RCers that happen by.
Coincidentally, while walking through Concourse E at the Charlotte-Douglas airport yesterday morning I saw a tap handle that caught my eye. Another Fat Boy! This one though is a Baltic Porter from The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery. Didn't get to try it because it was too early in the day.
@ AK, although Bart O'Kavanough has already given beer a bad enough reputation it would be nice to not cast further aspersions on the good Fat Boys. Perhaps you could select a different pejorative epithet for the Loser-in-Chief?
Like the rest of you I imagine, I take comfort learning that the Saudis will be investigating Khashoggi's murder. Seems on the mark, right out of our own Pretender's playbook.
Our Pretender wishes he could likewise "investigate" his no collusion or obstruction, an arrangement he certainly has in mind for a re-constituted "Justice" Dept.
In the meantime he has Nunes, unfortunately busy trying to be re-elected in his safe CA district, or the Pretender could deploy him to Saudi Arabia to help with their search for clues. Nunes has had two years of practice.
Back to mowing lawn, here in a summer growing season that just won't quit.
The difference between the smart, capable, knowledgeable women running for Congress and the GOTP morons they are trying to replace could not be made more clear than in the debate between Abigail Spanberger and Dave Brat (been unsuccessfully trying to insert link to C-Span video of debate but can’t seem to make it work, sorry). I don’t live in her district but I wish I did so I could vote for her - I kept thinking that here’s a future presidential candidate waiting in the wings.
Wapo notes an obituary: Dennis Hof, the Nevada brothel owner and Republican candidate for state assembly, died Tuesday at one of his brothels after a birthday party, officials said. He was 72.
...but get a load of the guest list!
"Hof, a candidate for the state Assembly in a district in southern Nevada, died in his sleep in the hours after a celebration that featured pornography star Ron Jeremy, former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, according to his campaign manager Chuck Muth." " whatever happened to the A-list-ers? "
@MAG: Joe Arpaio? Grover Norquist? A brothel? A porn star? Family values fer shure.