;)
The Commentariat -- October 19, 2017
Betsy Woodruff & others at the Daily Beast have an interesting account of a Trump-Russia confluence, which I just linked below at 10:30 am ET. -- Mrs. McCrabbie
The Saboteurs. Alayna Treene of Axios: "Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) sat down with Mike Allen immediately after getting off the phone with President Trump, who called to encourage him about the bipartisan health care bill he announced yesterday with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Trump told Alexander that he supports the effort, is glad they're trying, but still needs to review the deal to 'reserve his options.'...'Trump completely engineered the plan that we announced yesterday,' by calling me repeatedly and asking Sen. Murray to be a part of it. He wanted a bipartisan bill for the short term.' Yes, but: Minutes later, Trump tweeted: 'I am supportive of Lamar as a person & also of the process, but I can never support bailing out ins co's who have made a fortune w/ O'Care.' House Speaker Paul Ryan's take: 'The speaker does not see anything that changes his view that the Senate should keep its focus on repeal and replace of Obamacare,' Doug Andres, Ryan's press secretary, told Axios." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The Price Americans Pay for Trump's Ignorance. Thomas Kaplan & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "President Trump on Wednesday backed away from his endorsement of a bipartisan Senate proposal to stabilize health insurance markets, throwing the legislative effort into doubt even as the chief architect of the deal predicted that it would become law before the end of the year. The latest actions by the White House confused Republicans on Capitol Hill and irked Democrats -- but in the end, their effect was not clear. The effort to calm roiled insurance markets appears destined for a showdown in December, when supporters of the compromise, drafted by Senators Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, will have the most leverage.... Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later that Mr. Trump did not support the deal in its current form but indicated that changes could win him over. 'We want something that doesn't just bail out the insurance companies but actually provides relief for all Americans,' she said, adding that the deal was 'a good step in the right direction.'... An unavoidable fiscal deadline this year still offers an opportunity for lawmakers to demand that the subsidies be funded, regardless of the president's position." Mrs. McC: As Rex likes to say, Trump is a moron. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: You might think there was a way to drum something into the space between Trump's ears, but apparently there is not. Following her master like a puppy too dense to be housebroken, Sanders claimed that the subsidies "just bail[ed] out the insurance companies." It is really, really easy to explain that isn't true, but Trump just can't get it. The "subsidies," therefore, must be rebranded. Alexander & Murray should get out their find-and-replace word processing tool, and wherever the word "subsidy" or "subsidies" shows up, drop in "Donald Trump's middle-class white people's excellent healthcare deal." Then they can send the bill to Trump, otherwise unchanged, & he'll sign it. ...
We want the money to go to the people. We don't want the money to go into the pockets. I have a list here where it talks about the insurance companies. ... Anthem, big company, from the beginning of Obamacare, 270 percent increase in their stock price. Humana, 420 percent up. Aetna, 470 percent increase from Obamacare. Cigna, 480 percent increase since Obamacare. The insurance companies have absolutely taken advantage of this country and our people. And I stopped it by stopping the CSRs. -- President Trump, responding to a question from Mike Sacks of E.W. Scripps, Oct. 17
... insurance companies do not make money through the cost-sharing provision, estimated to be worth about $7 billion in fiscal 2017. They're being paid back for money they've already spent. If they do not get repaid for doing what is required under law, companies say they will raise premiums to make up the difference.... That in turn will raise the cost to taxpayers, because whatever savings result from eliminating the CSRs will be exceeded by additional costs for higher tax credits to defray the new premiums.... As a one-time business executive, Trump should realize there are many ways that health insurance companies can earn profits, especially in a good economy. But the one place they are not making money is in the Obamacare exchanges. He says they have earned a fortune, but they have actually lost billions, according to company filings and industry analysts. That's why many of the companies he named have left the business. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
As a one-time business executive, Trump realizes only that there are many ways that companies can earn profits, especially by ripping off contractors, investors & customers alike. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Dana Milbank: "So now we know: Free trade causes abortion, wife-beating and infertility. This exciting new discovery was made -- or, rather, made up -- by the Trump White House as it sought to find arguments to justify scuttling the Trans-Pacific Partnership, NAFTA and other vehicles of international trade.... It's true that job loss can lead to social ills, but the Trump White House officials involved in such social-science 'research' made some enormous leaps of logic -- that the social ills are caused specifically by the loss of manufacturing jobs and by nothing else, and that the job losses are caused by free trade rather than, say, productivity, technology or the failure of government policies. To use the technical, social-scientific lingo, [Trump economic advisor Peter] Navarro 'pulled this one out of his butt.' Curiously, [WashPo reporter Damian] Paletta reported that the wackadoodle documents 'alarmed other White House officials, who worried that such unverified information could end up steering White House policy.' Since when is anybody in this White House worried about bad information steering official policy? Trump's policies rely on bad information."
Dan Lamothe, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump, in a personal phone call to a grieving military father, offered him $25,000 and said he would direct his staff to establish an online fundraiser for the family, but neither happened, the father said. Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Sgt. Dillon Baldridge, said that Trump called him at his home in Zebulon, N.C., a few weeks after his 22-year-old son and two fellow soldiers were fatally shot by an Afghan police officer on June 10.... In a statement Wednesday afternoon, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said: 'The check has been sent. It's disgusting that the media is taking something that should be recognized as a generous and sincere gesture, made privately by the President, and using it to advance the media's biased agenda.'... Trump said this week that he has 'called every family of somebody that's died, and it's the hardest call to make.' At least 20 Americans have been killed in action since he became commander in chief in January. The Post interviewed the families of 13. About half had received phone calls, they said. The others said they had not heard from the president." Mrs. McC: Gosh, Lindsay, I'm not hearing an apology there. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND there's this from the WashPo story: "It took 18 months for President Barack Obama to fulfill a similar promise made to the family of Kayla Mueller, who was killed in 2015 while she was held captive by the Islamic State in Syria. Obama's undisclosed sum, for a charity set up in Mueller's name, arrived only after a report by ABC News called attention to what the president later described as an oversight." From an ABC News report dated November 1, 2016: "The Obamas' check for the Kayla's Hands Foundation arrived from the first family's Chicago residence shortly after the segment, 'The Girl Left Behind,' aired on ABC News '20/20' in August. It was soon followed by a personal note handwritten by the President on White House stationary apologizing for the 18-month delay in keeping his word, according to Kayla's parents. 'He thought it had already been taken care of,' Kayla's mother, Marsha Mueller, told ABC News." Judging from the tone of Walters' response to the WashPo, I don't think Mr. Baldridge should be sitting by the mailbox waiting for a hand-crayoned apology from Trump. We'll see if the $25K shows up in said mailbox, or if it's perpetually "in the mail." BTW, I'll bet it was somebody besides President Obama who dropped the ball on the Mueller foundation donation, but he was too nice to say so.
Nahal Toosi of Politico: "Staffers at the National Security Council drafted and circulated a statement of condolence for ... Donald Trump to make almost immediately after a deadly ambush of U.S. soldiers in Niger earlier this month. But Trump never publicly issued the statement, and, some two weeks later, is now in hot water over his initial silence on the soldiers' deaths and alleged controversial comments he made to a widow of one of the dead. The draft statement, a copy of which was seen by Politico on Wednesday, was put together on Oct. 5.... The NSC staffer, who apparently wrote the original draft and emailed it first to herself and then others shortly after 10 a.m. on Oct. 5, hung up on a Politico reporter who called to ask about it." ...
... NEW. CBS Miami: "Rep. Frederica Wilson's office claims multiple threatening phone calls directed at congresswoman came into her D.C. office on Wednesday. Her staff told CBS4's Carey Codd the calls were directly related to the phone call from the president to the wife of Army Sgt. La David Johnson. The congresswoman's staff said they alerted the Capital Police, Miami Garden Police and the threat division of the U.S. House of Representatives." ...
... Yamiche Alcindor, et al., of the New York Times: "The mother of a soldier killed in an ambush in Niger said Wednesday that President Trump disrespected her family during a call with the man's widow by saying the soldier 'knew what he signed up for.' President Trump denied he said those words to Sgt. La David T. Johnson's wife during a Tuesday phone call and escalated his dispute with Representative Frederica Wilson, Democrat of Florida, who first described the exchange on Tuesday.... When asked about Ms. Wilson's account of the call on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson's mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, backed the congresswoman's version. 'Yes, he did state that comment,' Ms. Jones-Johnson said of Mr. Trump, corresponding via Facebook.... On Tuesday, Ms. Wilson was in the car with the widow, and said she overheard the phone call from the president, who was on speakerphone." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... This story has several significant updates, & Mark Landler has been added to the byline. "Twelve days after four Americans were killed in an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger, the president called the widow of Sgt. La David T. Johnson, who was among the slain, and said that her husband 'knew what he signed up for,' referring to the soldier only as 'your guy,' according to Sergeant Johnson's mother and a Democratic congresswoman, who both listened to the call. Mr. Trump angrily disputed that account, insisting that he 'had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife, who sounded like a lovely woman.'... By midafternoon, the White House was no longer disputing [Rep. Frederica] Wilson's account of Mr. Trump's choice of words. [Sarah] Sanders said the White House did not tape the call. But she said Ms. Wilson had willfully mischaracterized the spirit of the conversation." Rep. Wilson pointed out that Trump never named Sgt. Johnson in his call, nor did he name Johnson's widow, Myeshia Johnson, in his comments to the press, calling him "your guy" & her "the woman" and "the wife."
... Dan Merica, et al., of CNN: "Chief of Staff John Kelly told ... Donald Trump that President Barack Obama never called him after his son's death prior to Trump raising the issue in a Tuesday radio interview, multiple White House officials told CNN. But, according to these sources, Kelly never thought the President would use that information publicly. Kelly and much of the White House were caught off-guard by Trump's comments, one official said, struck by how the President took a story Kelly has tried to keep private -- the death of his son -- and used it to defend his handling of four soldiers killed in Niger.... White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that Kelly might not have been specifically aware Trump was going to raise his son's death during an interview, but slammed the media for, in her words, politicizing Robert Kelly's death.... Kelly 'is disgusted by the way this has been politicized and that the focus has come on the process, and not the fact that American lives were lost. I think he is disgusted and frustrated by that,' Sanders said, pointing the finger at media coverage." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The bad news: Sanders just broke my new hypocrisy meter. The good news: the Hypocrisy Club has crowned her Queen of Hypocrisia. So Trump politicized John Kelly's deceased son to further his on-going war with Obama & make the deaths of four American troops all about Trump instead of about the soldiers. Now, we are supposed to believe Kelly is all upset at the media for reporting Trump's disgusting behavior. See, Sarah, when you and your asshole boss do or say something disgusting, it's you-all who are disgusting, not the reporters who write it down.
... Greg Sargent: "... in an interview with me this morning..., Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) ... shared some new details that will thicken this plot: She said there were other witnesses in the car and also noted that she has known the slain soldier for a long time and 'mentored' him.... When I reiterated that Trump claims to have proof [she was not truthful about the content of his 'condolence' call to Myeshia Johnson], she said, 'How about you go get that proof and call me back?'... Wilson said ... that [La David Johnson] had passed through the mentoring program for boys of color she founded in Miami in 1993." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ben Matthis-Lilley of Slate: Wednesday morning Trump tweeted that he had "proof" Rep. Wilson "totally fabricated" her account of Trump's phone call to Myeshia Johnson. "As others have pointed out, the proof' in this case will no doubt be released on the same day as the explosive evidence that Trump's investigators allegedly uncovered about Barack Obama's birth certificate in 2011 and the 'tapes' that prove James Comey was lying about his and Trump's conversations regarding Michael Flynn. Which is to say that release will take place on the 11th of Never in the year of Two Thousand and He Doesn't Have Any of This Stuff." ...
... Margaret Hartmann: "The ngoing dispute over Trump's treatment of Gold Star families runs the risk of overshadowing a more significant concern: More than two weeks after the attack, we don't really know what happened in Niger. Several lawmakers have called for a fuller explanation, and when asked on Thursday if the Trump administration is being up-front about the attack, which has been attributed to an ISIS-linked group, Senator John McCain said 'no.' He added that as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he intends to get the information the panel 'deserves and needs.'.... Here's a rundown of what we know, and the biggest questions about the attack." ...
... After all this Trump crap, you might want to wash up & read about the life of La David Johnson, who was supposed to be one of four centers of attention after their deaths. Kristine Phillips of the Washington Post has a report memorializing Johnson.
Mrs. McCrabbie: I never read Andrew Sullivan because his opinions are consistently inconsistent & some are downright foolish. But this short essay, titled "Trump's Mindless Nihilism" & published last Friday, makes a valid point: "... it’s the impossible reactionary agenda that is the core problem. And the reason we have a president increasingly isolated, ever more deranged, legislatively impotent, diplomatically catastrophic, and constitutionally dangerous, is not just because he is a fucking moron requiring an adult day-care center to avoid catastrophe daily. It's because he's a reactionary fantasist, whose policies stir the emotions but are stalled in the headwinds of reality.
Basically, Russia loaded the gun. The Trump team fired. -- Former FBI agent Clint Watts, on the Trump campaign team's use of Russia-generated "news" content. ...
... NEW. Betsy Woodruff, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Some of the Trump campaign's most prominent names and supporters, including Trump's campaign manager, digital director, and son, pushed tweets from professional trolls paid by the Russian government in the heat of the 2016 election campaign. The Twitter account @Ten_GOP, which called itself the 'Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans,' was operated from the Kremlin-backed 'Russian troll farm,' or Internet Research Agency, a source familiar with the account confirmed with The Daily Beast.... The discovery of the now-unavailable tweets presents the first evidence that several members of the Trump campaign pushed covert Russian propaganda on social media in the run-up to the 2016 election." ...
... Kevin Collier of BuzzFeed: "Twitter took 11 months to close a Russian troll account that claimed to speak for the Tennessee Republican Party even after that state's real GOP notified the social media company that the account was a fake. The account, @TEN_GOP, was enormously popular, amassing at least 136,000 followers between its creation in November 2015 and when Twitter shut it down in August [2017].... The actual Tennessee Republican Party tried unsuccessfully for months to get Twitter to shut @TEN_GOP down." ...
... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Democrats pressed Wednesday for Rep. Trey Gowdy -- the Republican chairman of the powerful House oversight committee -- to subpoena the White House for documents related to former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn has faced questions about payments from foreign governments and business interests that he failed to disclose while he sought a security clearance.... He resigned in February.... But the White House spurned bipartisan requests for details about Flynn's background by the oversight committee in March, when the panel was chaired by then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). Now, the committee's Democrats, led by ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), are asking Gowdy to force the issue. '[T]he White House has been openly defying this Committee's bipartisan request for documents regarding General Flynn for months without any assertion of privilege of any kind,' the Democrats wrote in a 10-page letter to Gowdy sent Wednesday morning." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... John Solomon of the Hill: "The Senate Judiciary Committee has launched a probe into a Russian nuclear bribery case, demanding several federal agencies disclose whether they knew the FBI had uncovered the corruption before the Obama administration in 2010 approved a controversial uranium deal with Moscow. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee chairman, on Wednesday raised the issue in public during questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions during an oversight hearing. The senator cited a series of The Hill stories that showed the FBI had evidence that Russian nuclear officials were involved in a racketeering scheme as early as 2009, well before the uranium deal was approved." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions dodged questions at a Senate hearing Wednesday regarding the firing of FBI Director James Comey, alleged Russia meddling in the 2016 election and the controversial pardoning of an Arizona sheriff, citing the confidentiality of his conversations with ... Donald Trump.... Lawmakers grew frustrated with Sessions on Wednesday, particularly Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who said the attorney general had 'misled' the committee when asked in June if he had had any contacts with the Russians during the 2016 election." Worth reading Clark's full report. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sessions didn't exactly invoke executive privilege; he instead cited "confidentiality." Not sure if that's quite a distinction with a difference; I think in either case, the committee could cite him for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer members' questions. Of course the committee will do no such thing because ... Republicans. ...
... This is amusing:
NEW. Ken Vogel & Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "Senator John McCain and two Democratic senators will move on Thursday to force Facebook, Google and other internet companies to disclose who is purchasing online political advertising, after revelations that Russian-linked operatives bought deceptive ads in the run-up to the 2016 election with no disclosure required. But the tech industry, which has worked to thwart previous efforts to mandate such disclosure, is mobilizing an army of lobbyists and lawyers -- including a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign -- to help shape proposed regulations. Long before the 2016 election, the adviser, Marc E. Elias, helped Facebook and Google request exemptions from the Federal Election Commission to existing disclosure rules, arguing that ads on the respective platforms were too small to fit disclaimers listing their sponsors."
Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "... inside a federal courtroom on Wednesday in Lower Manhattan, with the full force of the Justice Department defending him, Mr. Trump will be the focus, in absentia, of a remarkable legal drama: Is a sitting president -- disinclined to relinquish his gilded empire before taking office -- violating the Constitution by continuing to own and profit from his businesses? At issue is a lawsuit filed this year in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by a legal watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. It has argued that Mr. Trump is violating a constitutional provision that a president may not accept any economic benefit from foreign governments or the United States government beyond a salary."
Emily Tillett of CBS News: "A Maryland federal judge is the second to rule against the latest version of President Trump's travel ban in the space of two days, putting the brakes on the administration's plans to restrict travel by citizens from eight countries, the Washington Post first reported. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang issued the ruling early Wednesday, citing Mr. Trump's own remarks on the 2016 campaign trail, official campaign statements and his past Tweets were effectively an unconstitutional Muslim ban. 'The evidence offered by Plaintiffs includes numerous statements by President Trump expressing an intent to issue a Muslim ban or otherwise conveying anti-Muslim sentiments,' wrote Chuang."
Ooh! Gossip with the Imprimatur of Substance & Significant Ramifications! MarK Stern of Slate: Legendary Supremes reporter & chronicler Nina Totenberg of NPR said on a podcast Monday, "'My surmise, from what I'm hearing, is that Justice [Elena] Kagan really has taken [Neil Gorsuch] on in conference. And that it's a pretty tough battle and it's going to get tougher. And she is about as tough as they come, and I am not sure he's as tough -- or dare I say it, maybe not as smart. I always thought he was very smart, but he has a tin ear somehow, and he doesn't seem to bring anything new to the conversation.'... It's astonishing that any reporter would hear details from conference.... If rumors leak about a justice's behavior in conference -- and they basically never do -- it is almost certainly a justice who leaked them. And when justices leak -- which again, happens very rarely -- they do so on purpose.... The substance of the leak is also startling since conference is not intended to foster the kind of arguments that Totenberg described." Stern summarizes reports that the justices all dislike Gorsuch, even the conservatives.
AND Here's Some Genuine Fake News. Maria Puente of USA Today: "Soon after a tweet asserting [that Trump had a Melania double by his side] was posted, the reaction tweets were off to the races as jokesters, paranoids, gif-makers and Trump supporters vied with one another to make the case, knock it down or just have a good time posting clever pictures and videos. For the record, there is no Melania Trump body double, but that didn't stop the blathering about it." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Even more stupid, but not fake: a little while back, Melania went out in yard for a photo-op in which she pretended to tend Michelle Obama's garden. Her outfit looked quite appropriate for the occasion, but it wasn't: she was wearing a $1,300 plaid shirt. I can't tell if it's flannel, but I can tell you that you can get a nice one that looks like Melania's shirt for $50 to $60, full price, at L.L. Bean. (The photo of the well-dressed gardener is the 14th in a slideshow at the bottom of the USA Today story linked above.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Crisis in Catalonia. William Booth of the Washington Post: "Spain's central government announced Thursday it would quickly move to take control of the autonomous Catalonia and restore 'constitutional order' after the region's president refused to back away from a push for independence."
Share Article
Reader Comments (14)
Today on juancole.com there is an article, "Volcanic driven climate change defeated Egypt's Ptolemies." The article comes from a website "watchers.news." This website also has a beautiful video of the aurora borealis from 9/17/17.
Finally: news which provides an antidote to today's toxic stew of trumpolitics - a larger perspective which is also interesting and informative. Wanna get away from Trump? Here's a site to escape to for a few moments. It has helped me digest Ms. Bea's news of the day.
F'r instance, right now, I no longer feel homicidal toward SH Sanders.
Yes, she has frightful eye makeup, but I'm good with that.
There are no words to describe the lack of empathy this president displays. This is clearly something that's missing here and we can come up with all the negatives––and we have–-about this man but this particular missing element in his makeup is crucial and perhaps will be the thing that destroys him in the end.
Letter to Fanny McCullough
President Abraham Lincoln wrote this touching letter of condolence to the daughter of his long-time friend, William McCullough. During Lincoln's law circuit days, McCullough was sheriff and clerk of the McLean County Circuit Court in Bloomington, Illinois. Early in the Civil War he helped organize the Fourth Illinois Cavalry, which he served as Lieutenant Colonel. On December 5, 1862, he was killed during a night charge near Coffeeville, Mississippi. When he wrote this letter Lincoln appeared to be recalling his own grief as a nine-year-old child when his mother died after a short illness in 1818. Even more painful was the recent death of his much-loved 11-year-old son Willie, on February 20, 1862.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 23, 1862.
Dear Fanny
It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend
A. Lincoln
@PD Pepe: Thank you. Normal people know how to write condolence letters because they are able to put themselves in the shoes of the bereaved; i.e., they have empathy. They may not be great writers like Lincoln, but they intuitively know how to console their friends.
Some while back, the brother of a woman I knew died in a small plane accident. I didn't know the woman well, & I had met her brother only once, and briefly. But I liked the woman, & I knew she was close to her brother, so I wanted to say something to acknowledge her grief. So I told her about what I knew -- I had met the brother at a charity event, and he was a major contributor -- and how much I admired his generosity.
Weeks later, when I saw the woman again, she thanked me for my letter and told me that she had received many letters of condolence, but that mine had moved her more than any. (Maybe she said the same thing to 50 people; I don't know.)
It's not hard to grieve for strangers, even if you know very little about them, whether the stranger is a relative of an acquaintance or a soldier killed in battle. But you can't put yourself first. And P.S., it's a really good idea to know the name of the deceased & of the grieving relative.
Does anyone know where Michael Flynn is these days? He has been singularly and eerily absent from the national scene. Witness protection?
@NJC: Good question, funny supposition. According to a July CBS story, Flynn had returned to his roots -- a beach town in Rhode Island. But that was a while back, & now that the leaves are turning perhaps Mike has moved on. Or, as you suggest, he may be in hiding in Dick Cheney's old undisclosed location, playing video war games & using the now-available dried cornstalks to make voodoo dolls of Bob Mueller, Hillary Clinton or whoever.
PD,
This is the Lincoln letter I was reminded of by Rachael's coverage last night.
Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864.
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts:
DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln.
I remembered it from my "Adventures in American Literature" text, already ratty around the edges, when I read it in high school. Who could forget " I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming," a line whole galaxies removed from "they knew what they signed up for."
Just another very black mark on the nation Lincoln himself gave his life to save.
1
PD,
Abraham Lincoln knew whereof he spoke. It's a sad reminder of how narcissistic and brain dead the current occupant of the White House is that he considers himself the greatest president ever with the exception (maybe) of Lincoln. Trump knows only Trump and that's all he cares about (except his "hot" daughter, whom he once called a "nice piece of ass"). If Bush and Obama didn't call or write to the families of every service member who died on their watches, it's because there was far more of that sort of thing. A handful (thankfully) have died since this pretentious snake slithered into the Oval Office and yet he hasn't bothered with at least half of them and STILL lied about it. And when harried into finally having to call the wife of a Green Beret killed in action, he didn't know his name, or hers, insulted her and the military, then lied about that as well.
A craven disgrace of a human being.
But as Lincoln suggests to Fanny McCullough, when referring to her deceased father (not "your guy"), we can partially assuage our current grief at having such an inept, self-obsessed dolt for a "leader" by recalling the memory of truly great ones, like the sixteenth president. A fine man and a revered leader. We can still aspire to greatness. The greatness of America (or any country) isn't in trucker caps, fear, and empty braggadocio, but in honest virtue and a respect for human dignity.
Thanks for that reminder.
Ken,
I thought of that letter as well. And comparing the two, it's instructive to note that Lincoln, who must have written hundreds, if not thousands of such letters, did not rely on stale boilerplate as, I'm sure, Trump does (when he can be bothered--likely he doesn't write anything. It's probably beneath him to write to regular people--takes too much time from his golfing).
Here is a wonderful reading of that letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston.
The actor with the great voice and excellent delivery, playing General George Marshall, is Harve Presnell. You may remember him as the stentorian, domineering father in the Coen Brothers' masterpiece "Fargo", itself a bit of American genius.
As a sidenote, I have to say what a pleasure and a relief it is to be able to think and write about decent, good people for a change, and a bona fide leader who could reach out in honest concern for his people without keeping one eye on the papers to see if they're all still fawning over him and shooting out angry, incoherent fusillades at those who don't.
Here, also, is a brief look back at how real presidents attempted to console those who had lost loved ones in combat. The letter from Lyndon Johnson is of particular interest as it demonstrates, through his edits, his stops and starts, a process that is respectful and thoughtful. Qualities severely lacking in the pretender.
What Cleopatra Could Teach Trump
(and no, it's not what you're thinking: why asps make good pets...)
A couple of days ago someone (sorry, I forget who now) mentioned a new paleoclimatological study of how volcanic activity affected the politics of ancient Egypt.
The results seem to suggest that far off volcanic eruptions, disturbances in the world wide ecosystem, corresponded with political uprisings, unrest, and outright revolt over several hundred years, from the reign of the Ptolemies to Cleopatra. The connections aren't hard to make once the dots are properly illuminated.
The effect of volcanic eruptions, especially on fragile ecosystems like that of the Nile delta region could be severe. The slight cooling of the atmosphere created conditions for drought, meaning, the yearly flooding of the Nile which the locals depended on for replenishing food supplies, stopped outright. Sometimes for several years. Food shortages were the cause of riots, migration, uprisings, and general unrest. At one point, Ptolemy III, who was off kicking ass and taking names in Syria and Babylon, had to leave off those fun times and race home to quell food riots. Years later, Cleopatra, reading the runes of history, realized that a couple of years without the floods could spell trouble, so she took preventive measures and opened the royal grain storage to the public. Smart lady. (And no, smarties, she didn't store the grain in pyramids.)
Today, although we are still subject to the whims of nature, modern technology protects most of us from the immediate consequences of things like global warming. Sometimes, that is. The chaos in Puerto Rico right now is, or should be, a warning sign of just how bad things could get. Just imagine a major American metropolis without power for a month. A fucking nightmare, right? But rather than learn from this disaster, Trump sits on his fat ass and bloviates about how Puerto Ricans have to pay their bills and quit bugging him for help. Cleopatra and Ptolemy knew that sort of thinking was a one-way ticket to Palookaville, or wherever ignorant, loser politicians go after getting their bus ticket punched by the public.
But Trump knows it all. He's not worried. Just like this guy.
Just another problem with having a "leader" ignorant of pretty much everything, except his own wants and needs. George W. Bush, not a helluva lot smarter than Trump, at least pretended to be smart. Remember when he was toting around a biography of Dean Acheson? Did he read it? I dunno. But at least he thought it was important to look like he was interested in something besides his golf swing. Trump? He couldn't care less. And unfortunately for us, nature doesn't give a shit about Trump's golf swing. Or what we like or don't like. Technology can only protect us from so much.
With leaders like Trump and his party who pretend natural events, whether catastrophic, like a hurricane, or those that creep along, like ocean levels due to climate change, can be shunted off to the next generation or simply ignored, we kick the can down the road. Cleopatra and Ptolemy knew what a stupid idea that was.
Now that I think of it, Trump really should have a pet. Maybe an asp ain't such a bad idea after all. I'll send it "Love, Cleopatra..." He'll open it in a flash.
A Team of Liars
Remember back a ways when Man of the People, good ol' Steve Mnuchin said "Huge tax cuts for the rich? No fuckin' way. We're only giving tax breaks to Fox watchers. Natch."
Well, now it's a bit of a different story:
"But of COURSE we're giving huge tax cuts to the rich. Are you nuts?"
But Orange Man, President* Boss Baby, continues to say "Huge tax cuts for the rich? No fuckin' way!"
They can't even keep their lies straight.
New Zealand has a new PM, Jacinda Ardern. Oh-oh. A woman. How long before Trump insults her? The last time he talked to a New Zealand PM one of the more important items on his agenda was to instruct the former Prime Minister, John Key, to say "Hey" to New Zealand's golfing legend, Bob Charles.
You have to have priorities.
Trump, who gives himself a "10" in all national and international relations, will have to determine whether or not Ardern is worth his time. If she's not appropriately deferential and cowering to the immensity of his awesomeness, I'm gonna say no.
Looks like Trump isn't the only one in his administration to attack Gold Star families anymore. John Kelly decided that he would take a shot at the Khans during his press conference. Talking about things that are no longer sacred "Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer." This also has echos of Trump's attacks on the NFL protests. Telling minorities to keep their mouths shut and stay in thier lane.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/gen-kelly-the-sacredness-of-gold-star-families-left-in-the-convention-last-summer/
Now we know where 45 got that phrase he used to the soldier's wife-- it seems he was coached by Kelly, who today said the exact same thing about his friend saying such to him... Kelly has totally drunk the kool-aid-- for sure there is no one in the west wing with a brain that is not completely in thrall to this dangerous freak in the White House. Enough with the press saying that Kelly is the one keeping the Toad from burning down the house-- K's handing him the matches.
I hate these people.
Gold Star families are no longer sacred only to Cons. When HRC was bitterly and falsely attacked by a Gold Star mother (Benghazi), she did not retaliate. Kelly is a bum like the rest of them, maybe a grown up bum, but a bum all the same. In fact, of all people, he should know better. No respect.