;)
The Commentariat -- September 12, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Annie Gearan & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump issued a new order Wednesday authorizing additional sanctions against countries or individuals for interfering in upcoming U.S. elections, but lawmakers of both parties immediately said the effort does not go far enough. The order would allow Trump to sanction foreigners who interfere in the midterm elections to be held in less than two months. It covers overt efforts to meddle in election infrastructure, such as vote counts, as well as 'propaganda' and other attempts to influence voting from abroad, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told reporters. The harshest sanctions outlined in the order would be up to the president's discretion. 'This is intended to be a very broad effort to prevent foreign manipulation of the political process,' national security adviser John Bolton said during a briefing Wednesday." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: In other words, "Russia, if you're listening, come on back." What I predict Trump will do is sanction countries or individuals who appear to help Democrats & accidentally forget to notice any who help Republicans. Fox "News" will be guarding the henhouse.
Lisa Friedman, et al., of the New York Times: "Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is in discussions to work as a consultant to the Kentucky coal mining tycoon Joseph W. Craft III, according to two industry executives familiar with the plans.... Mr. Craft, the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners and a major Republican donor, enjoyed a close relationship with the E.P.A. during Mr. Pruitt's tenure. Mr. Craft met with Mr. Pruitt at least seven times in Mr. Pruitt's first 14 months at the agency and in December provided him with courtside seats at a University of Kentucky basketball game, a school where Mr. Craft is a prominent supporter." ...
... Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "Scott Pruitt ... faced mounting financial pressures as he sought to balance his personal obligations in Oklahoma with his new role as a member of President Trump's Cabinet in Washington, new documents show. Pruitt, who made $189,600 a year as EPA administrator, incurred between $115,000 and $300,000 in legal fees last year, according to financial disclosure forms released Wednesday. He sold off tens of thousands in investments during that same period. The documents highlight the financial pressures facing the former administrator, who enlisted the help of staff to help his wife find work and to perform personal tasks for him. The form does not specify what the legal work was for: as Pruitt's spending and management practices came under increasing scrutiny starting last fall he eventually hired private attorneys to represent him and established a legal-defense fund."
Jackson McHenry of New York: "Jeff Fager, the executive producer of 60 Minutes who was accused of promoting a culture of sexual harassment alongside Les Moonves within CBS's news division, is leaving the company.... CBS News [president] David Rhodes ... claims that Fager's departure is 'not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports' though he 'violated company policy.' The investigations into CBS and CBS News, one of which started after allegations against Charlie Rose surfaced and another after reports on Moonves, will continue. Fager initially denied the allegations against him, which included claims that he touched women inappropriately at parties and shielded men beneath him who were accused of misconduct. In The New Yorker's later report, on which Fager declined to comment, Sarah Johansen, a former intern, said Fager groped her at a work party." ...
... Update. The New York Times story is here.
Alexandre Tanzi & Rich Miller of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump's unpopularity is unprecedented given the strength of the economy. That&s according to a Bloomberg analysis of polling data. It shows that Trump is the first U.S. leader dating back to at least Ronald Reagan whose approval rating is consistently low and lagging consumers' favorable assessment of the economy."
Follow the Money. Anthony Cormier & Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News: "... secret documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News reveal a previously undisclosed aspect of the [infamous June 2016 Trump Tower] meeting: a complex web of financial transactions among some of the planners and participants who moved money from Russia and Switzerland to the British Virgin Islands, Bangkok, and a small office park in New Jersey. The documents show Aras Agalarov, a billionaire real estate developer close to both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, at the center of this vast network and how he used accounts overseas to filter money to himself, his son, and at least two people who attended the Trump Tower meeting.... Now, four federal law enforcement officials told BuzzFeed News, investigators are focused on two bursts of transactions that bank examiners deemed suspicious: one a short time after the meeting [on the same day Paul Manafort became Trump's campaign manager] and another immediately after the November 2016 presidential election."
Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Former President George W. Bush is hitting the fundraising circuit for a handful of Republican House and Senate candidates, joining the party's push to maintain its congressional majorities. Bush has maintained a low profile since leaving office in 2009. Yet as the midterm campaign season enters its final weeks and the party braces for the prospect of a Trump-fueled wave, Bush -- who has been critical of the president -- is putting his muscle behind Republicans in heated races." ...
... OR, as Jonathan Chait puts it, "George W. Bush, who declined to endorse Donald Trump (or anybody) in 2016, and made muttered elliptical criticisms of the 45th president, has thrown himself into the task of covering up Trump's many crimes. Bush, reports Politico, is raising money for candidates who are committed to maintaining the cover-ups.... For the most part, the entire party has closed ranks around the no-oversight agenda.... This very much includes the parts of the party that see themselves as quietly resisting Trump."
Sheila Kaplan & Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "Warning that teenage use of electronic cigarettes has reached 'an epidemic proportion,' the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday gave Juul Labs and four other makers of popular vaping devices 60 days to prove they can keep them away from minors. If they fail, the agency said, it may take the flavored products off the market. The order was part of a sweeping action that targeted both makers and sellers of e-cigarettes. The agency said it was sending warning letters to 1,100 retailers -- including 7-Eleven stores, Walgreens, Circle K convenience shops and Shell gas stations -- and issued another 131 fines, for selling e-cigarettes to minors. In addition, the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a briefing that the agency would look closely at the manufacturers' own internet storefronts. He flagged what he called 'straw purchases' -- bulk orders of the devices, which buyers in turn used to sell to minors." Mrs. McC: Yeah, and they could give gun manufacturers 60 days to prove they can keep guns away from minors.
Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "... the scars of the financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession are still with us, just below the surface. The most profound of these is that the uneven nature of the recovery compounded a long-term imbalance in the accumulation of wealth. As a consequence, what it means to be secure has changed. Wealth, real wealth, now comes from investment portfolios, not salaries. Fortunes are made through an initial public offering, a grant of stock options, a buyout or another form of what high-net-worth individuals call a liquidity event.... The proportion of family income from wages has dropped from nearly 70 percent to just under 61 percent. It's an extraordinary shift, driven largely by the investment profits of the very wealthy.... The financial crisis ... also put an end to a fundamental belief of the middle class: that owning a home was always a good idea because prices moved in only one direction -- up.... Bankers, shareholders and investors were ... bailed out [of their financial crisis losses]. For homeowners, there wasn't much of a rescue package from Washington, and eight million succumbed to foreclosure." ...
... See also, linked below, David Dayen's post on that weasel Tim Geithner. Mrs. McC: Among the things he slow-walked was the homeowners' mortgage recovery program. I thought the Obama administration was going to help my friends with underwater mortgages. It didn't, because Geithner.
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Facing an uproar over revelations that he mismanaged past cases of clerical sexual abuse, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, sent a letter informing his priests on Tuesday that he plans to discuss his resignation with Pope Francis in Rome. Cardinal Wuerl has faced calls for his resignation by some of his priests and parishioners since the release of a bombshell grand jury report last month in Pennsylvania. Cardinal Wuerl previously served as the archbishop of Pittsburgh, and the report included accounts of his allowing several priests accused of sexually abusing children to remain in ministry, after relying on the advice of psychologists who had assessed the priests."
Tennis Umps Get Their Fee-Fees Hurt. Des Bieler of the Washington Post: "Stung by what they perceive as a lack of institutional support for the chair umpire who gave Serena Williams a game penalty late in the U.S. Open women's final, which set off a firestorm of criticism, other umpires are reportedly discussing the possibility of boycotting her matches. Top umpires are also considering the formation of a union, according to a report Tuesday, in part because they are not allowed to discuss specific matches. Williams was free to speak her mind after losing, 6-2, 6-4, Saturday to Japan's Naomi Osaka, and she accused chair umpire Carlos Ramos of sexism. He had given her a warning for coaching, then a point penalty for smashing her racket and, after she repeatedly expressed frustration, including calling him a 'thief,' Ramos levied the game penalty for verbal abuse." Mrs. McC: See what happens when you question the authority of authority figures? They really can't take it.
Michael Birnbaum & Griff Witte of the Washington Post: "European lawmakers voted Wednesday to initiate sanctions proceedings against the Hungarian government for what they said was backsliding on democracy, an extraordinary censure for a nation that was once a beacon of post-Communist transformation. The vote, which required a two-thirds supermajority of the European Parliament to pass, declared that there was a 'clear risk of serious breach' of European values by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It was the first step in a process that could ultimately strip Hungary of its voice in decision-making in the European Union. Orban has lost many of his protectors in his ambitious quest to remake the continent in his model of 'illiberal democracy' -- a bloc that would be closer to Russia, less open to migration, and less concerned about independent judiciaries, a free press and minority rights." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, but Trumpy likes him. Of course.
*****
New Hampshire Primary Results. Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "Democratic voters in New Hampshire selected Molly Kelly, a former state senator, as their nominee for governor on Tuesday, as female candidates for governorships continue to show their strength in primary elections this year.... She will face the Republican incumbent, Chris Sununu, who is one of the most popular governors in the country.... Ms. Kelly's victory brings to 15 the number of women who have won governor's nominations in this primary season, a record.... But Democrats rejected the bid of another female candidate, Maura Sullivan, a military veteran who had only moved to the state last year. She fell to Chris Pappas, a local party favorite, the A.P. reported, in a key House district that Republicans hope to target in November.... Should Mr. Pappas win in November, he would be the state’s first openly gay representative in Congress. He will face Eddie Edwards, a Navy veteran and former police chief, who won the Republican primary Tuesday in a close race over Andy Sanborn. Mr. Edwards would become the state's first African-American member of Congress." ...
... Full New Hampshire results are here.
*****
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday leveled a fresh attack on San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz as he continued to defend his administration's response to the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico last year and asserted readiness for the one now barreling toward the Carolinas. In a morning tweet, Trump called Cruz 'totally incompetent.' She was the local official most vocal about the need for a more robust federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, where researchers have estimated there were nearly 3,000 excess deaths after the storm. In the tweet, Trump also touted his administration's response to other hurricanes last year and doubled down on his insistence Tuesday that his administration's response to Hurricane Maria was 'an incredible, unsung success.'" ...
... "An Incredible, Unsung Success." Eric Levitz of New York: President Trump "did almost nothing in the lead-up to [Hurricane Maria last year] -- and went on a four-day golf vacation in its immediate aftermath. Weeks later -- after his administration's inaction contributed to a humanitarian crisis that condemned millions of U.S. citizens to a preindustrial existence, and cost thousands of them their lives -- Trump paid Puerto Rico a visit. And in between feuding with the island's elected leadership, Trump told Puerto Ricans that they should be very proud of the government's response -- because it had spared them from suffering a 'real catastrophe like Katrina.'... The president never apologized for his comments, or expressed anguish at the revelation that Puerto Rico had suffered a tragedy far greater than he had realized. The president proceeded to deny the catastrophically indebted island any significant relief funds (even while pushing through a $1.5 trillion tax-cut package, which included provisions that directly undermine Puerto Rico's manufacturing sector), warned the island that FEMA could not keep relief workers 'in P.R. forever!' less than a month after the storm had landed, and privileged Texas over Puerto Rico in the distribution of emergency resources, despite the island's far graver conditions. On Tuesday, the president ... said that his administration's response to Hurricane Maria was 'the best job we did,' and that the federal government's relief effort was an 'incredible, unsung success.'" ...
... As you can hear in the video, Trump's remarks Tuesday came in response to a reporter's asking, "How do we apply the lessons of what happened in Puerto Rico?" Cold comfort for the fleeing victims in the Carolinas.
... The lesson Trump learned was the same lesson he learns from every experience: he did a great job, & he didn't get enough credit for it. ...
Trump gets a tremendously big laugh before Colbert even cracks a joke:
... Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "Flanked in the Oval Office by charts showing the path of Hurricane Florence, President Trump on Tuesday issued a warning about the potentially catastrophic storm that at times felt strangely exuberant. 'Tremendously big and tremendously wet -- tremendous amounts of water,' Trump said, expressing something close to admiration at the expected precipitation.... In a range of situations -- from deadly shootings and natural disasters to Tuesday's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- Trump has responded in ways that, at best, seem ill-suited to the somberness of the events." Mrs. McC: Trump explains the weather the way I would if I were trying to express myself in another language: "Big rain make much big water." The "experts" Parker consults find various explanations for Trump's strange enthusiasm for sad or disastrous events, but I'll go with Omarosa's diagnosis: diminished capacity. ...
... Christal Hayes of USA Today: "The Trump administration took nearly $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's budget this summer to help boost U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to budget documents shared with USA Today. The revelation, just ahead of Hurricane Florence's expected landfall in North and South Carolina, was found by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who first shared the documents live on MSNBC late Tuesday." Mrs. McC: By federal standards $10MM ain't much.
Sharon Otterman of the New York Times: "The family members and loved ones of the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks gathered under misty skies at the World Trade Center site on Tuesday to honor and remember the legacies of those lost by reading their names aloud in a somber ritual repeated each year in New York on the anniversary of the attacks." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump paid tribute on Tuesday to the airline passengers and crew members who stormed the cockpit of a hijacked plane and thwarted terrorists in the skies over Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, vowing to follow their example by standing up to evil in the world. In his first trip to Shanksville, Pa., as president, Mr. Trump led a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attacks by honoring the heroes who brought down United Airlines Flight 93 into an unpopulated field rather than allow it to be used as a weapon against the nation's capital." ...
... WTF is wrong with this man?
Donald & Melania Trump arriving in Pennsylvania for ceremony to honor the Shanksville heroes of 9/11.... Tierney McAfee of People: "Donald Trump is facing widespread social media backlash after he was pictured greeting supporters with a triumphant double fist pump as he arrived to a 9/11 memorial service on Tuesday, the 17th anniversary of the terror attacks.... 'We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible,' [Trump tweeted this morning.]... As more than one Twitter critic noted, Trump first marked Tuesday's 9/11 anniversary 'with an angry morning tweet about Russia and Hillary Clinton.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Update: See Akhilleus's commentary yesterday on how Trump behaved in the days following September 11, 2001.
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "As politicians and others went on Twitter on Tuesday morning to mark the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Trump used the platform to launch a fresh round of assaults on the FBI and Justice Department. Trump -- apparently seizing on allegations leveled the night before by one of his conservative allies in Congress -- referred in particular two former FBI officials who have become infamous for trading anti-Trump texts: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The president repeated a claim from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) that the pair employed a 'media leak strategy' to undermine his administration.... The claim from Meadows is debatable; Strzok's attorney said his client's reference to a 'media leak strategy' was an effort to stem unauthorized disclosures of information. Both Strzok and Page have left the FBI, Strzok because he was fired over his anti-Trump texts. 'New Strzok-Page texts reveal "Media Leak Strategy." @FoxNews So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI - but the world is watching, and they get it completely,' Trump wrote." (Also linked yesterday.)"
** Greg Sargent: Today Bob Woodward's book gets released, and much coverage of it is framed around revelations of President Trump's raging, volatile temperament, his erratic mind-changing, and his startling lack of knowledge or curiosity about complex domestic and global policy problems. But there are other key revelations in 'Fear' that illuminate a different set of traits -- Trump's nonstop lying, his utter contempt for legal and governing process, and his bottomless bad faith in developing rationales for extremely consequential decisions. These sorts of traits -- unlike Trump's temperament and incuriosity -- are not usually looked at as evidence of his unfitness for this office. But they should be. Woodward's book adds texture and context to two glaring examples of misconduct during the Trump presidency: his firing of then-FBI Director James B. Comey, and his rage at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to protect him from the Russia investigation." Read on. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Sargent is right. A person with a bad temper can govern, but one who can neither accept facts nor apply logic & reason to them cannot govern. ...
... Fiat Unlimited Is Not a Car; It's Professor Plump's Balanced Budget "Plan." John Schoen of CNBC: "As a candidate, Donald Trump pledged to balance the federal budget and lower the national debt.... Once he won..., according to ... Bob Woodward..., [Trump's solution was,] 'Just run the presses -- print money.'... Cohn was 'astounded at Trump's lack of basic understanding,' Woodward writes." Mrs. McC: This sounds like a joke, but it probably isn't. ...
Oops, misprint. ... Stef Kight of Axios: "The CBO now says the deficit will approach $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, but in April the agency didn't expect the deficit to reach $1 trillion until 2020." Mrs. Mcc: Yeah, so? Just tell Steve Mnuchin & his lovely wife to print 1,000,000.000,00 dollar bills. They could put Trump's picture on them for fun. But legal tender and all.
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Bob Woodward's book is now officially out, and so is a growing series of statements from White House officials taking issue with how they are portrayed and quoted in it. But ... not all denials are created equal. And some might as well be admissions. Two denials, in particular -- from former top White House aides Gary Cohn and Rob Porter -- are conspicuously incomplete. Both men are accused in the book of effectively removing things from Trump's desk to prevent him from taking certain actions. And both have now issued statements that are rather similar, both for what they say and what they don't say.... Cohn says Woodward's book 'does not accurately portray my experience.' Porter cites the 'selective and often misleading portrait it paints.'... Neither of them says specific details or quotes offered by Woodward are wrong, mind you; they say only that the overall picture is flawed."
Jonathan Stempel of Reuters: "... Donald Trump on Tuesday won dismissal of a lawsuit in which three protesters accused him of 'inciting to riot,' after they were roughed up at a March 2016 campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky during Trump's White House run. By a 3-0 vote, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said ... Trump's speech was protected by the First Amendment because he did not specifically advocate violence.... [The planintffs] claimed they were assaulted, pushed and shoved, with Brousseau punched in the stomach, and unceremoniously removed after Trump repeatedly exhorted supporters to 'get 'em out of here.' But in ordering the dismissal of the incitement-to-riot claim, a misdemeanor, Circuit Judge David McKeague noted that Trump said 'don't hurt 'em.' McKeague said this amounted to an 'express disavowal and discouragement' of violence...."
Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Days before in-person jury selection is set to begin in his second trial, President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is in talks with the special counsel’s office about a possible plea deal, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the conversations, cautioned that the negotiations may not result in a deal.... The specifics of Manafort's current negotiations with prosecutors were unclear, including whether he would provide any information about the president.... Jury selection for Manafort's second trial is set to begin Monday, with opening statements scheduled for Sept. 24."
Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "Members of an American-backed coalition said Tuesday that they had begun a final push to oust the militants from Hajin, the remaining sliver of territory under the group's control in the region where it was born. The assault is the final chapter of a war that began more than four years ago after the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, seized enormous tracts of land in Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate. The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led militia that has been fighting the Islamic State in Syria with the United States and its allies, said in a statement that its forces had launched an offensive on the area from four sides on Monday evening.... Even if it is defeated in Hajin, however, the Islamic State is likely to remain a powerful terrorist force."
Above the Law. Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker: John Bolton's policy speech against the International Criminal Court was another instance -- like Trump's attempts to weaken the special counsel -- of disempowering the prosecutor."
Tim Geithner Was Obama's Gary Cohn. David Dayen in the New Republic: "... early in [President] Obama's first term, as he struggled to prevent further [economic] collapse, he faced similar insubordination from a key official: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. According to credible accounts, Geithner slow-walked a direct presidential order to prepare the breakup of Citigroup, instead undertaking other measures to nurse the insolvent bank back to health.... Any objective look at Geithner's actions in response to the financial crisis confirms that he would maximize his power on behalf of big banks, even if it meant going around his colleagues and his president.... Failing to hold anyone accountable for causing the Great Recession as the economy struggled to regain its footing generated significant public resentment, from the Tea Party on the right to Occupy Wall Street on the left.... Geithner's actions to protect banks from the president he served, and the anger it bred at a 'rigged' system, diminished the public's faith in government intervention and helped install Trump in the White House."
Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post: "Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wants to know if Judge Brett Kavanaugh ... has a gambling problem. 'Have you ever sought treatment for a gambling addiction?' Whitehouse asks pointedly as part of a series of questions submitted this week about Kavanaugh's unexplained personal debts. In 2016, Kavanaugh reported credit card and personal loan debts of between $60,000 and $200,000. The Trump White House said these debts were the result of Kavanaugh buying baseball tickets for friends who later paid him back, as well as some spending on home improvements. The 2016 debts did not appear on Kavanaugh's 2017 disclosure form because they were either entirely paid off or fell below the reporting threshold. Kavanaugh also reported between $60,000 and $200,000 in debt in 2006. The fact that Kavanaugh accrued such high debts through baseball tickets attracted notice, but surprisingly, not a single senator asked him about the issue during his televised judiciary committee hearings last week. 'Senators have limited time for questioning,' Rich Davidson, Whitehouse's spokesman, said in an email. 'Senator Whitehouse would have touched on many of these issues if he had additional time.'"
Ballooning Deficit? Let's Have Another Round of Tax Cuts for the Rich. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "House Republicans bracing for November's midterm elections unveiled a second round of tax cuts on Monday that could add more than $2 trillion to the federal deficit over a decade, aiming to cement the steep cuts they passed last fall despite criticisms of fiscal profligacy and tailoring their policies to help the rich. The GOP's 'tax reform 2.0' aims to make permanent the tax cuts for individuals that President Trump signed into law in December 2017, including the law's temporary reductions in individual filers' rates, a doubling of the Child Tax Credit, and cuts to the estate tax paid by a small fraction of the wealthiest families."
McConnell to Deprive Democrats of Campaign Time. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to keep the [Senate] in session for a significant portion of October if not four entire weeks, costing Democrats key campaign trail days and allowing the Senate to continue its work into the fall, according to five Republican officials. The Kentucky Republican wants to keep cranking through as many lifetime judicial nominations and executive nominations as he can with his majority in the balance and the GOP still with the unilateral ability to confirm ... Donald Trump's picks. Moreover, the Senate GOP has only two members who are considered vulnerable in the election: Ted Cruz of Texas and Dean Heller of Nevada. Democrats, meanwhile, are defending 10 seats total in states that Trump won in 2016, with at least four considered extremely competitive."
Lindsey's New Amigo. Ed Kilgore: "With [Joe] Lieberman's retirement from the Senate in 2013, and [John] McCain's recent death, [Lindsey] Graham is now the last of the 'Amigos.' And given the atmosphere of partisan and ideological polarization, and the enormous pressure on Republicans to bend the knee to Donald Trump, it's probably inevitable that the South Carolinian's main mission is to encourage Donald Trump to listen to his inner War Hawk.... Graham appears to have worked hard to counteract the advice of conflict-shy civilian aides and cautious military advisors to encourage Trump to indulge his blood lust and fear of looking weak[.]"
Gubernatorial Races
New York. Anna Sanders & Bruce Golding of the New York Post: "Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was blindsided by an 'inappropriate' political mailer tying Cynthia Nixon to anti-Semitism -- but just a day before the inflammatory literature surfaced, one of his top campaign aides pitched a story about the primary challenger's opposition to Israeli settlements. The attempt to tar the former 'Sex and the City' star over the divisive issue was made in an email to a Post reporter that casts doubt about Cuomo's repeated claims he had nothing to do with the 11th-hour hit job. The smoking-gun email, sent Friday afternoon from an official 'andrewcuomo.com' account, suggested that The Post publish a story about Nixon's support of the pro-Palestinian 'Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions' movement against Israel.... Nixon's support of the BDS movement is among three points raised in the pro-Cuomo mailer, sent out by the state Democratic committee just days before Thursday's primary, which warns, 'With anti-Semitism and bigotry on the rise, we can't take a chance with inexperienced Cynthia Nixon, who won't stand strong for our Jewish communities.'"
Kansas. Hunter Woodall of the Kansas City Star: "Kris Kobach may be the chosen standard-bearer for the Kansas Republican Party, but elected GOP officials are less than unified behind him in his run for governor. Almost 40 percent of Republicans in the Kansas Legislature, when asked whether they will support Kobach in November, either would not say or did not respond to repeated inquiries. Four moderate Republicans, all from Johnson County, have said they will not support Kobach."
Another Facebook Flub. Mark Stern of Slate: "In the wake of the 2016 election, to combat the rampant dissemination of disinformation, Facebook brought on five third-party fact-checkers to referee stories posted to the website. If any one fact-checker contests the accuracy of a story, it is flagged by Facebook as potential 'false news,' and this 'false rating' has a dire chilling effect on readership. This system thus gives a handful of outlets immense power over the articles that show up in your news feed. Four of Facebook's chosen fact-checkers -- the Associated Press, Factcheck.org, PolitiFact, and Snopes -- are widely trusted and nonpartisan. The fifth, the Weekly Standard, has generally high-quality editorial content with a conservative ideological bent. This week, the Weekly Standard used its gatekeeping role in an incredibly troubling way, declaring that a story written by Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress was false, essentially preventing Facebook users from accessing the article.... There's no sound defense of the Weekly Standard's effort to suppress Millhiser's piece.... My colleague Dahlia Lithwick and I made this exact point in an article published three days before Millhiser's. But his piece boasted a more striking headline...: 'Brett Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no one noticed' -- which is apparently what triggered the Weekly Standard's ire." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Right-wing screamers like Jim Jordan & Mark Meadows do all that screaming because it works. As a result of their screaming, Facebook chose only one partisan "fact-checker," and it's a winger outfit.
Delia Gallagher & Livia Borghes of CNN: "Pope Francis has taken the unprecedented step of summoning the top officials of the Catholic church to discuss the escalating sexual abuse scandal that has plagued the church. he Pope will meet with the presidents of the Catholic Bishops conferences from around the world in the Vatican from February 21-24, the Vatican press office said Wednesday."
News Ledes
Weather Channel: "Hurricane Florence is forecast to move slowly through the Carolinas and Southeast through this weekend and will cause catastrophic inland rainfall flooding, life-threatening storm surge and destructive winds. As of Wednesday morning, Florence was centered more than 500 miles southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, moving west-northwestward. 'This will likely be the storm of a lifetime for portions of the Carolina coast," the National Weather Service in Wilmington, North Carolina, wrote in its Tuesday evening area forecast discussion."
"The [Washington] Post has removed article limits on coverage of Hurricane Florence to make these stories available without a subscription." The Post has links to several Florence-related stories on its front page. The (South Carolina) State home page is here. The State is granting free access to its site during the storm. The Raleigh News & Observer home page is here.
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Reader Comments (16)
I can't wait to hear Lyin' Ryan and his cabal of callousness explain how they managed to explode the deficit under the careful watch of the Fiscal Hawks. Isn't Lyin' Ryan the wonkiest of Wonka, the GOP boy genius who lives his life to crunch numbers?
It's all baked in and The Frauds know exactly what they're doing. This is a master step in the drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub strategy. As I've mentioned earlier, these tax cuts and opening up the pass-through income loophole is a mirror image of the Bownbackistan tax cuts that cut the knees off of Kansas' economy. Way more people than initially believed ended up finagling their income to avoid taxes and the deficit exploded, leading to crumbling infrastructure, deteriorating services and a strangle on education. Year after year, the outlook grew worse. Pundits thought the disasterous outcome would steer any credible policymaker away from the Brownback model. Jokes on us. Instead of ignoring it, the national donor class called it in and sent their Washington sherpas scurrying the hollowed halls of Congress to create a country-scale model of a state disaster.
They only people surprised are Useful Idiots who will stick their floating domes in front of a teevee camera in the coming days and weeks and, with a curious regard, continue the mythical fraud bestowed upon the American people by repeating the misnomer: "Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility."
Repeatedly floating this idea on the airwaves ingrains it into the mind of the public, and gives them reason to believe that THIS time (like every time, apparently) deserves an asterisk because [insert excuse].
The only way I can see the irresponsible and pompously greedy donor class and their Washington henchmen break this strangle cycle of the "middle class" would be the collapse of the American consumer, buried under a mountain of unpayable credit card debt and no public assistance in sight. Only then will the rich realize they're not actually alone in this world.
Homeland Security shifted $10million from FEMA for immigrant crackdown. Here's Rachel who reported this last night:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dhs-fema-funding-hurricane-jeff-merkley_us_5b9880fee4b0162f4731ee03
I am sure that the so-called POTUS never saw a photo of PR devastation or read a news piece on the true number of deaths.
He never lies because he makes sure he never knows anything.
And a hurricane is wonderful because it provides an opportunity for the Trump to show he is wonderful.
The "WTF is wrong with this man?" above the picture of Trump with clenched fist in the air as he arrived for a 9/11 memorial service is like asking the same question about a bloke who is busily setting fire to his own house and laughing about it. Too crazy an analogy you say? I don't think so. The difference, of course, is the bloke will be hauled away, charged and perhaps put in a facility for the mentally impaired. What is wrong HERE is what has been wrong from the beginning and yet the same question persists. How long do we have to wait before the "what is wrong" can be made right. Like the fictitious bloke's house burned to the ground, it's going to take years to restore a semblance of sanity here and abroad–––out of the ashes comes....
Over on Huff-Po there is a juicy story about a Rabbi who excoriates that slimy Steve Miller. There is also a story about Sally Field who in her "tell-all" book calls out some of her past lovers and a step father who sexually abused her. Take your pick––Stevie or Sally or maybe both on this Tuesday when Woodward's book will be read by thousands.
Unsung, incredible success!
Well, thank heavens the Trumpy response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was a success.
Thousands dead, infrastructure in tatters, thousands more without power for over a year, many dead because of an ineffective and anemic recovery plan. Just think of how bad it could have been had the response been carried out by a small-minded, racist demagogue who showed up only long enough to toss out a few rolls of paper towels, insult the populace, attack elected officials, and pat himself on the back before flying off to play some golf.
We're so lucky to have you donnie!
Oh, and P.S., nothing Trump does, or thinks he does, is unsung. He never shuts up about anything he believes he can claim credit for, even stuff that never happened.
It's All Tremendous
Remember that old drinking game "Hi, Bob"? During re-runs of the old Bob Newhart show, players would all take a drink whenever anyone came onscreen and said "Hi, Bob". It happened probably 10 times or more in about 24 minutes of screen time. We need a new game (not that in the Age of Trump anyone needs an excuse to start drinking heavily): The Tremendous Trump drinking game. Someone get this asshole a thesaurus. He uses the word tremendous three or four times in a single sentence, mostly it's about himself.
I listened (against my better judgement) to a short clip of the little dictator, in that thin, whiny voice, shouting at people during a 9/11 event to commemorate the sacrifice of the passengers on United 93 who commandeered an airliner and crashed it into a field.
Trump went on and on about....flags. "There's just a tremendous number of flags here. Look at that. Isn't that great? Tremendous. Just tremendous. People here love our flag!" Because Trump is one of those flag fetishists who believe in flag worship, not what it really stands for. He thinks the flag stands for him.
Also, I have to say, as he was yapping about how Americans can never be beaten, especially by dirty mooslims, and blah, blah, blah, I halfway expected him to claim that he himself was on board flight 93 and that it was his idea to storm the cabin and take over the plane. Of course, because he's the Donald, he was the only one smart enough to bail out before the plane augured in.
After all, he was in New Jersey that morning watching as thousands of Muslims cheered and danced as the towers fell, then he was at Ground Zero picking up whole chunks of demolished buildings with one hand. It was all tremendous. Just tremendous. Why wouldn't he have been on United 93 leading the charge? Tremendous!
Pass the bottle.
@Akhilleus: I was wondering what Dubya's approval rating was after Katrina. Several news sources said it was "dragged down to 42 percent." That's what Trump's approval rating is now. In fact, his overall approval rating is pretty much worse than any other president except Gerald Ford during the first 600 days of his presidency. He's never been above 50 percent.
Bush I's approval rating was well above 50 percent during the same period, and he got beat. I don't do predictions (because I'm wrong half the time), but I'll go out on a limb & guess that Trump is, at best, a one-term president.
I haven't seen Mitch McConnell talk for a while, but chanced to see him just now on MSNBC talking about upcoming senatorial elections.
He seems to have aged a lot in the past several months (since I last saw him speaking on TV) and to have shed some weight. His voice sounded OK, but his changed physical appearance reminded me of cancer patients I have known.
Maybe it was just the lighting.
Marie,
In fact, according to a piece on Vox this morning, the little dictator is averaging a woeful 38.
"Eight polling entities — ABC News/Washington Post, CNN, Gallup, IBD/TIPP, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Quinnipiac University, Grinnell College/Selzer & Co, and Suffolk University — give the president an average approval rating of 38 percent, a drop of 3 points from Trump’s previous approval polling average, 41 percent.
Only Rasmussen gives the president a total approval rating above 45 percent. Unlike other polling services, Rasmussen polls likely voters using automated calls made to landlines, which means those polled tend to be older and more likely to vote for the GOP."
But don't pay any attention to those polls. Those are fake polls. The ones Trump wants everyone to memorize are those showing that he has better polling numbers than Abraham Lincoln. And in fact, he'd have beaten Honest Abe (can you imagine anyone calling Trump "Honest Don"????) by a lot more, except there was something going on then, a war of some kind.
Oh, and the Vox article goes on to suggest that low polling numbers (they reference Bill Clinton in 1994) predict bad news for the president's party. Democrats lost a bundle that year. But they're not taking into account that no matter how low Trumpy's numbers get, Democrats, because of gerrymandering, election rigging, voter suppression, and other assorted sleazy and illegal Confederate maneuvers, will have to win by a much larger margin than Republicans in '94.
@Patrick: Maybe McConnell needs Bill Shine, tho from what I understand, Shine's contribution was to fix the lighting to make Trump look thinner, which wouldn't help McConnell.
Print more money...
Yeah....sure....that's the ticket. Print more money.
I'm wondering if Trump was smiling when he said that. I'm guessing no.
I'm not really surprised if he really thinks that's a solution. He hasn't the foggiest how the Fed works so why should his knowledge of economics and money supply be any more advanced than an average fourth grader?
@AK: Your "... I halfway expected him to claim that he himself was on board flight 93 and that it was his idea to storm the cabin and take over the plane." Reminds me of Reagan who on several occasions cited a particular experience he had had but it turned out these were in his films, not in reality.
Several days ago you mentioned James Baker who kept the Reagan administration running as smoothly as possible for the first four years; when he left, things started to fall apart. Say what you will about this man, but he made the trains run on time here and abroad–he was a superb diplomat. What we had going in those days was a president who could perform but left the nitty gritty to people like Baker (and others) who could tell Ronny when and how and how much. I always loved the story about Baker leaving diplomatic papers on Reagan's desk for a next day conference that was extremely important. The next morning Baker could see the papers hadn't been touched. When he confronted Reagan, he got this response:
"Ah, gee, Jim, "The Sound of Music" was on the T.V. last night and I couldn't pass it up."
The president-of-nothing deserves nothing short of the men in white coats with butterfly nets. Why does the press persist in wondering why such-in-such was said or done, when anyone with half a brain cell can see that Bilgewater is a piece of meat and nothing else? I DO NOT get it. How can half the electorate be stupid and criminal in encouraging themselves to act as if this stuff is normal? While I am in favor of imprisoning the entire Cabinet and the infamous crime family members, there aren't enough prisons for the "base" and the congressidiots. I would like to encourage them all to go to the area featuring a "tremendously big and wet" storm and be swept away. We do not deserve this punishment.
PD,
In Raygun's favor, at least he didn't lie and say he didn't need to read those stupid documents because he knew more than anyone else about whatever was in them, like the current occupant is wont to do.
And Baker was also an avatar of the current Confederate OS, the prime directive of which is don't quit, don't back down, screw facts, screw law, screw morality, screw ethics. And NEVER ever compromise. Good of the country? Fuck that. Good of the party is all that matters. Just win, any way you can.
The Florida vote recount in 2000 was a perfect example of this. Even though they got the Supremes involved to install their guy by fiat, Al Gore threw in the towel "for the good of the country", something Baker and Bush would never have done.
And didn't.
And in the end, it turns out that had Gore held his ground, he'd have won. And we wouldn't have had the Bush Debacle. Might not have had 9/11 and wouldn't have had Iraq.
I'm still not sure Democrats have learned this lesson. There's a good reason to believe they haven't.
It's called Donald Trump.
...and what did I tell you?
Bush learned the lesson. Screw morality, screw ethics, screw law, and screw the United States. Party first, last, and always.
Marie has linked stories about The Decider deciding to throw his support behind the most amoral, ignorant, dangerous fool in presidential history, despite clearly stating previously that Trump had no business being in the White House.
He's backing a guy who savaged his family. But it doesn't matter. He learned the lesson.
Do whatever it takes for your party win.
Confederates do it. They cheat, they steal, they lie, they break the law, and they don't.fucking.care.
Decency, honor, civility, and fealty to country and constitution are not part of their DNA. Winning is. Piling up money, helping the rich, screwing the poor, stealing elections so they can keep the cycle going. That is what they are all about.
Little Dracula Back from the Dead
I've been wondering what happened to Little Dracula. I guess he's been letting Junior have all the stoopid fun. But now he's tired of that, apparently.
So it's time for more TRUMPY WHITE SUPREMACY!
Because what better way to denigrate something, at least for bigots like the Trump boys and dear old dad, than to connect it to African-Americans, Muslims, or JEWS! So here's little Eric Trump whining about the Woodward book:
"You can write some sensational, nonsense book. CNN will definitely have you on there, because they love to trash the president. It'll mean you sell three extra books, you make three extra shekels."
If you haven't been paying attention to your alt-right, anti-Semite, White Supremacists newsletters (I have....I use them to wrap fish), the use of the word "shekel" is short for "tainted by dirty Jews".
I don't think Little Dracula means that Woodward is Jewish (at least I don't think so... but maybe he's even stupider than we think). I think it's a reference to the media which the Nazis believe are controlled by Jews.
Good job there, Eric. They're giving you the Hitler salute today.
And in case you think it was just a random choice of words on his part, the Daily Stormer types are peeing their regulation Nazi panties with glee over having one of their code words adopted and used by a member of the prezidenshul famalee (spelling is not one of their strong points...one idiot spells the word "sheckles").
So, no. It's not random. These guys are not smart enough to simply command a random vocabulary of various world currencies. It was used for a very specific purpose and to give the high sign to the Nazis.
These people are beyond despicable.
Time for your coffin now, Little Dracula. I have some nice garlic soup for you.