;)
The Commentariat -- September 18, 2018
Afternoon Update:
John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The No. 2 Republican in the Senate on Tuesday sharply questioned the credibility of the woman who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, as GOP leaders indicated they will limit witnesses at next week's hearing to just the Supreme Court nominee and his accuser. Speaking to reporters, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said..., 'The problem is, Dr. Ford can't remember when it was, where it was, or how it came to be,' Cornyn told reporters at the Capitol late Tuesday morning. When asked whether he was questioning the accuser's account -- which Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied -- Cornyn said, 'There are some gaps there that need to be filled.' His comments came shortly after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) outlined a plan to limit testimony at Monday's planned hearing to that provided by Kavanaugh and Ford -- which brought cries of protest from Democrats. They insisted that other witnesses also be called, including Mark Judge, a Kavanaugh friend who Ford said witnessed the assault." ...
... Elana Schor, et al., of Politico: "The woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her decades ago has not yet confirmed her appearance at a public hearing the GOP is planning next week as of midday Tuesday, according to top Republican senators. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that his staff has reached out to Christine Blasey Ford's camp several times since the California-based professor came forward with her story of a high-school-era assault by ... Donald Trump's high court pick. Although Ford's lawyer said that her client would be open to 'a fair proceeding,' it remains unclear whether she would agree to a planned hearing on Sept. 24 that Republicans have set up to help save Kavanaugh's nomination." ...
... Blasey Ford Told Her Story to a Friend in 2017. Julia Sulek of the Mercury News: "In an interview Monday with this news organization, [Rebecca] White..., one of Blasey Ford's neighbors and a good friend..., said that Blasey Ford had told her about the alleged assault -- without naming Kavanaugh -- in late 2017 during the height of the #MeToo movement and long before Kavanaugh was a Supreme Court nominee. Last year, White had added her own #MeToo story about being raped as a teenager to a Facebook post. 'She reached out to me afterward, supporting me and my story and that she had something happen to her when she was really young and that the guy was a federal judge,' White said. 'She said she had been assaulted. She said hers had been violent as well, physically scary, fighting for her life.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Since Sen. Upchuck Grossly won't allow other witnesses to come forward, I sure hope Democrats bring up White's attestation during the hearing Monday -- if there is a hearing Monday. ...
... No, It's Not a "He Said/She Said." Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... Georgetown University law professor David Super notes, federal law explicitly says these previous statements are not regarded as hearsay, or unreliable, when they are used 'to rebut an express or implied charge that the declarant recently fabricated it or acted from a recent improper influence or motive in so testifying.' That's exactly what Republicans are implying -- often gently and without expressly calling Ford a liar. 'Calling it "he said, she said" implies that both accounts are uncorroborated,' Super said. 'But these prior consistent statements are corroboration. And with so many complaining about the lateness of the charges, they are at least implying recent fabrication. That makes her prior consistent statements not hearsay. Even a court would consider them.'" ...
... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "Facing the real prospect that their long-sought fifth anti-abortion Supreme Court justice might go unseated, and President Trump's growing legal exposure, the Republican Party is charging into election season with a two-fronted disinformation campaign, in a desperate effort to salvage conservative control not just of the Court, but of Congress and the White House as well. Specifically, they are maximizing confusion about whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a 15 year old girl when he and she were both high school students, and about the legitimacy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. And they are advancing both goals with naked abuses of power. In the Senate, Republicans believe the path to confirming Kavanaugh now runs through preventing the public from reaching consensus about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh assaulted her in high school.... Trump has ordered the Justice Department and the Director of National Intelligence to breach Mueller's investigation by declassifying and disclosing sensitive counterintelligence information...."
Margaret Hartmann of New York: "While President Trump declassifying documents 'at the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency,' may sound like routine presidential behavior, the directive announced by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday afternoon was actually a dramatic escalation of his attempts to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller.... This is the first time a president has released information about an ongoing investigation into members of his campaign and administration over the objections of intelligence officials.... The materials won't immediately be made public. In a classic Trumpian move, the administration made the announcement before giving the Justice Department specific instructions about what it's supposed to release, according to the Washington Post. The department responded with a statement saying it will review the information to ensure it doesn't release anything that would put 'national security interests' at risk."
Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Nearly a dozen lawyers now assist President Trump in contending with two federal investigations, one in Washington and one in New York, that could pose serious threats to his presidency and his businesses. But the expanding legal team is struggling to understand where the investigations could be headed and the extent of Mr. Trump's legal exposure. The lawyers have only a limited sense of what many witnesses -- including senior administration officials and the president's business associates -- have told investigators and what the Justice Department plans to do with any incriminating information it has about Mr. Trump, according to interviews with more than a dozen people close to the president. What is more, it is not clear if Mr. Trump has given his lawyers a full account of some key events in which he has been involved as president or during his decades running the Trump Organization."
Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "In a tell-all memoir, the pornographic actor Stormy Daniels details salacious descriptions of her time with Donald Trump, wonders if he is fit to be president and claims he offered to cheat for her in his reality TV show.... [Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, I'm going there:] She describes Trump's penis as 'smaller than average' but 'not freakishly small'. 'He knows he has an unusual penis,' Daniels writes. 'It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool.... I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.... It may have been the least impressive sex I'd ever had, but clearly, he didn.t share that opinion.'"
*****
Anita Hill in a New York Times op-ed on how to get the Kavanaugh hearing right. ...
... Sheryl Stolberg & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, under mounting pressure from senators of his own party, will call ... Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault before the committee on Monday for extraordinary public hearings just weeks before the midterm elections. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, told reporters Monday afternoon that the chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, told senators there would be an 'opportunity' for senators to hear from Judge Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, in a public setting where senators would be able to ask questions. Both have said they are willing to testify.... [The move] effectively delay[ed] a planned committee vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, which had been scheduled for this Thursday.... Mr. Trump on Monday vigorously defended his nominee, calling him an 'outstanding' judge with an unblemished record, and dismissing as 'ridiculous' the prospect that Judge Kavanaugh might withdraw his nomination. Nevertheless, he told reporters that he was willing to accept a delay in the judge's path to confirmation in order to air the new information.... Senator Susan Collins of Maine ... told reporters that if Judge Kavanaugh lied, it would disqualify him." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Sen. Orrin Hatch (Troglodyte-Utah) told reporters he does not believe Ford. He said, "this woman, whoever she is, is mixed up." ...
... Babysitting Donald. Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump’s routine reaction to allegations of sexual assault is to deny, retaliate and repeat. He has dismissed accusations against himself as 'phony' and 'false,' and when presented with claims against other men, the #MeToo-era president tends to side instinctually with the accused. But in the case of federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh -- whose Supreme Court nomination is suddenly endangered after a woman accused him of sexual assault when they were in high school -- Trump on Monday was uncharacteristically muted. White House aides said they persuaded the president to refrain from tweeting a defense of Kavanaugh in the accusation's immediate aftermath and deliberately worked to keep him from meeting personally with the nominee, even though the two men spent most of the day in proximity. Kavanaugh was hunkered down in the West Wing office of White House Counsel Donald McGahn, strategizing to save his nomination and calling senators to deny the claim against him.... Trump's advisers calmed him by giving him space to vent privately about Senate Democrats...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The best part of the story is how Mitch McConnell was all upset that no one in the White House had briefed Fox "News" on the messaging the Trump network should push. I'd say the message is "I'll dump Brett in a New York minute if that's what works best for me." ...
... Chris Strohm & Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg: "The White House hasn't asked the FBI to investigate the allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a woman when they were in high school, a request required for the bureau to take further action, according to two people familiar with the matter.... Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have said they want the FBI to investigate the allegation. But FBI background investigations are conducted under specific procedures and through requests from government agencies -- which in Kavanaugh's case would come from the White House, said the two people...." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Although neither the conservative federal judge nor the White House has given any indication that Kavanaugh intends to drop out, the path to his confirmation now looks much more challenging, and it is one that contains great peril for the Republican Party.... The real question is: Will the White House and Republican leaders actually allow a potentially sensational set of hearings, with all the political risks that would entail, just weeks before the midterm elections in which they are already struggling mightily to attract women's votes in key suburban districts? Or will they decide to cut their losses and withdraw the Kavanaugh nomination? We'll find out soon." --safari ...
... ** There's More. Ryan Grim of The Intercept: "The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee were both approached in July by an attorney claiming to have information relevant to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The attorney claimed in his letter that multiple employees of the federal judiciary would be willing to speak to investigators, but received no reply to multiple attempts to make contact, he told The Intercept. Cyrus Sanai made his first attempt to reach out to Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in a letter dated July 24.... Sanai said that he did not hold Kavanaugh responsible for Kozinski's behavior, but rather that his claim of ignorance was not credible and could be contradicted by witnesses." Read on. --safari...
... ** Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "This will be a story about Alex Kozinski, the disgraced former federal judge that Supreme Court nominee for whom Brett Kavanaugh clerked. Yet it is also a story about Kavanaugh himself. It is a story about Kavanuagh's repeated denials that he ever witnessed Kozinski 'engaging in inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature.' It's a story about why these denials are almost certainly lies.... Kavanaugh's repeated claims that he has no recollection of Kozinski making sexually inappropriate comments to a law clerk -- or that he never even heard anyone raise concerns about such behavior by Kozinski -- are quite literally unbelievable." --safari ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: To read Grim & Millhiser is to know that the Liar-in-Chief has nominated another practiced liar to the Supreme Court. There cannot be any question about it. Brett Kavanaugh has no moral compass, and his false sworn testimony is all the evidence necessary to disqualify him from the job he holds now & the one he aspires to hold. ...
... Mark Stern of Slate: "It is entirely reasonable to feel uncomfortable holding 17-year-olds strictly liable for their misdeeds for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, that is not what's happening here, which makes this argument around age a red herring. Kavanaugh is not asking for absolution; he is denying Ford's allegations outright. The real question, then, is ... whether he is telling the truth about those actions all these years later.... It is perfectly consistent to believe that nobody's life should be ruined for committing a crime at age 17 -- and that any adult who lies about that crime should not be elevated to the Supreme Court. Rejecting Kavanaugh's confirmation on this basis wouldn't be dolling it punishment, but rather withholding a privilege." ...
... Charles Pierce: "The Categorical Denial is a two-edged sword, which is why politicians and those nominated for seats on the Supreme Court avoid the Categorical Denial.... Throughout his hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brett Kavanaugh ... managed to dodge the Categorical Denial. He was not as slick at it as was Neil Gorsuch. He stammered and blathered and came off like someone who hadn't learned his lines very well.... Here's the thing about Categorical Denials.... If you're mistaken, or you've forgotten, or you did it but you were too sockless hammered to recall the events, you're just as done as if you were flat-out lying about the whole matter.... Brett Kavanaugh is standing by his Categorical Denial because that's another thing about Categorical Denials. You can't walk them back." ...
... What Mazie Knew. Mrs. McCrabbie: Pierce -- not to mention Grim & Millhiser -- reminds me that this is more out there on Kavanaugh: "The strange questions from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse about gambling. And a line of inquiry from Senator Maizie Hirono...: 'Since you became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature?'... All of these curious questions were a direct result of those documents that the committee members have seen that are nonetheless kept secret from the rest of us. They know what's in there, and Kavanaugh knows that they know, but they can only vaguely hint at the material in open session.... Kavanaugh took full advantage of the protection this policy offered him." Maybe this week's delay will give reporters a chance to ferret out some of the stories behind the "curious questions." ...
... I'll See Your 65 & Raise You 200. Amanda Terkel & Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post: "A group of women who went to Christine Blasey Ford's high school are circulating a letter to show support for the woman who has alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tried to sexually assault her while they were in high school. 'We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story,' says a draft letter from alumnae of Holton-Arms, a private girls school in Bethesda, Maryland.... The women also say that what Ford is alleging 'is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves.'... More than 200 women had signed the letter as of late Monday morning, said Sarah Burgess, a member of the class of 2005. Burgess said she and some of her schoolmates wrote the letter because hearing Ford's story felt 'personal.'... Susanna Jones, the Holton-Arms head of school, put out a statement Sunday night in support of Ford. 'In these cases, it is imperative that all voices are heard,' Jones said. 'As a school that empowers women to use their voices, we are proud of this alumna for using hers.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ariane de Vogue & Eli Watkins of CNN: "... Brett Kavanaugh said Monday that he would be willing to speak with lawmakers to refute an allegation of physical and sexual assault.... Kavanaugh's statement came shortly after his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, said through her attorney that she would be willing to speak with Congress to tell her side of the story.... According to multiple sources, Kavanaugh has hired Beth Wilkinson, of the law firm Wilkinson Walsh and Eskovitz, to be his attorney.... Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, one of the chamber's most closely watched votes, said on Twitter that she wanted both Ford and Kavanaugh to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... John Wagner & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement early Monday afternoon that Ford 'deserves to be heard' but stopped short of committing to a public airing that would likely force a delay of a planned committee vote on Thursday.... Democrats are insisting that the FBI handle the matter by reopening Kavanaugh's background investigation rather having committee staff make calls.... Underscoring the uncertainty Kavanaugh faces, four senators considered swing votes on the nomination issued statements Monday calling for a thorough review of the allegations by Ford, a professor in California": Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) & Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Megan Garber of The Atlantic: "What [Christine Blasey] Ford is talking about -- what she has been talking about, for years -- is not the behavior of kids simply being kids, boys simply being boys. What she is alleging, instead, is cruelty; it is entitlement; it is violence; it is assault.... Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court was already, in the profoundest of ways, a matter of norms: It will determine, almost inevitably, whether the women of America maintain autonomy over their bodies. Here, though, in Christine Blasey Ford's claim that a young Brett Kavanaugh compromised her autonomy in another way, another norm is being litigated: the way we talk about sexual violence. Whether such violence will be considered an outrage, or simply a sad inevitability. Whether it will be treated as morally intolerable ... or as something that, boys being boys and men being men, just happens." ...
... Paul Krugman: "The very process that brought Kavanaugh to the brink of a lifetime Supreme Court appointment was saturated in bad faith.... Republicans wouldn't even give President Barack Obama's nominee a hearing, claiming that because Obama was late in his second term the process should wait, leaving a court seat vacant for more than a year, to let voters weigh in.... Why the rush [now]? Because there's a chance the G.O.P. will lose the Senate soon. That whole thing about letting the voters have their say was dishonest from the beginning.... Bad faith takes a moral toll on Republican politicians, too. We keep seeing people who once appeared to have some sense of decency turn into abject apparatchiks.... Instead of attacking those activists back in Maine, [Susan Collins] should be thanking them, for giving her one last chance to save her political soul." ...
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "Over the years, Republicans have reminded women over and over again that they don't take sexual assault seriously. Regardless of what you think about Brett Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford's allegations, we're getting a good reminder of the fact that they still don't.... What we are about to witness when it comes to Kavanaugh is a lot of pearl-clutching that is not only dismissive of the trauma of sexual assault, it is about how boys make 'mistakes' when they're young and grow up to be men of fine character. The problem is that all too often that kind of compassion is only extended to white boys who went to fancy prep schools." ...
... What Republicans Mean by "Law & Order." Eric Levitz: "In the United States, juvenile drug offenders are routinely tried as adults, 13-year-old murderers can be (and have been) sentenced to life without parole, and teenagers who text naked pictures of themselves regularly get arrested for child pornography, and forced to spend the rest of their lives as registered sex offenders.... The American right played a central role in bringing [these laws] into being.... The president regularly refers to teenage gang members as 'animals,' and has, in the past, called for imposing the death penalty on alleged teen rapists. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, meanwhile, has actively made the criminal justice system more punitive toward juvenile offenders.... But in the past 24 hours, the right's thinking on juvenile justice appears to have radically changed: Where conservatives once believed that people who commit violent crimes as teenagers do not necessarily deserve the opportunity to ever reenter free society, many now contend that such people should not (necessarily) be denied the chance to serve on the nation's highest court.... One 'outside Trump adviser,'... suggested that Kavanaugh's behavior was such a relatable example of boys beings boys, Democrats could suffer politically for stigmatizing it.... [But it seems likely] that conservatives are merely clarifying, yet again, that 'law and order' means 'using the law to reinforce a social order that protects those at the top of class, race, and gender hierarchies, while suppressing those at the bottom.'" ...
... Michelle Goldberg: "If the Kavanaugh nomination goes forward, it's because Trump and his allies believe that a certain class of men accused of sexual assault deserve impunity. The question now is whether any Republican senators believe otherwise." ...
... Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel: "I'm all in favor of having [Christine Blasey] Ford testify. After all, Brett Kavanaugh thinks a 17-year old must jump through extraordinary hoops before she can terminate an unwanted pregnancy; surely he thinks young men should similarly bear the consequences of their actions? But she shouldn't testify alone. Mark Judge should testify along with her. After all, according to her letter and the WaPo account, he was a witness to the event.... And while he currently claims he doesn't recall the event, she says that the one time they crossed paths afterwards, he exhibited discomfort upon seeing her.... Virtually all the people attacking Ford's story are utterly silent on Judge's presence as a witness. I suspect that's because both his own descriptions of his social life at the time, and his professed inability to recall the event, might suggest that Kavanaugh, too, was simply too drunk to remember this attempted rape." --safari
... Here's what "Kavanaugh character witness" Mark Judge wrote in the Washingtonian about his family's reaction to his 1997 memoir, and what his brother Michael Judge wrote in response. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Were You Wondering What Donnie Jr. Thinks about All This? Tasneem Nashrulla of BuzzFeed News: "Donald Trump Jr. posted an image on his Instagram account that appeared to mock the woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by the president's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.... The image — titled 'Judge Kavanaughs sexual assault letter found by Dems...' -- was that of a note scrawled in childish handwriting which read, 'Hi Cindy will you be my girlfreind [sic]?" The note had two checkboxes marked 'yes' and 'no' and was signed 'Love Bret [sic].' In his Instagram caption, Trump Jr. wrote: 'Oh boy... the Dems and their usual nonsense games really have him on the ropes now. Finestein [sic] had the letter in July and saved it for the eve of his vote... honorable as always. I believe this is a copy for full transparency.'" Mrs. McC: Besides three misspellings in this short but grate wirk of litterchur, Donnie calls the recipient of the letter "Cindy," which is not a common nickname for "Christine." The nut doesn't fall far from the tree. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... MEANWHILE. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Right-wing media personality Matt Drudge on Monday completely crashed and burned in his latest attempt to smear Christine Blasey Ford.... Specifically, Drudge promoted an article at Grabien News claiming to show that Ford got poor ratings from her students, some of whom purportedly described her as having a 'dark personality' on the Rate My Professors website.... In fact, the RateMyProfessors page refers to a Christine A. Ford, who taught at the social work department at California State University Fullerton, and who actually received only five reviews -- two of which rated her as 'awesome,' two of which rated her as 'average,' and only one of which rated her as 'awful.' Christine Blasey Ford, meanwhile, is a professor of clinical psychology at Palo Alto University who has never worked at Fullerton. In addition to Drudge, Trump-loving conservative pundits Mark Levin and Kurt Schlichter also shared the false claim that Ford's students gave her extremely negative ratings on RateMyProfessors." Mrs. McC: Grabien has since retracted its fake story.
** Warning. Ian Millhiser: "'People don't have to believe in the judiciary,' Justice Elena Kagan warned at an event styled as a conversation between her and Slate's Dahlia Lithwick. 'You can lose that belief,' the justice warned. And then she made what may be her most important point -- that it is up to Supreme Court itself to prevent this outcome. 'I think that, on the Court, it's incumbent upon us to be aware of that,' Kagan said. 'And to not do the things that where people will reject the Court and say, you know, we don't view it as legitimate anymore.'.... Such a public and explicit warning that the Court may be an imminent threat to its own legitimacy is unusual from any justice, but it is especially alarming from Justice Kagan. As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan earned praise from conservatives for brokering a compromise between liberal and conservative factions within her faculty that led to three prominent conservatives being hired. She is widely viewed as one of the Court's deal-makers. --safari ...
... Matt Ford of the New Republic: "The Supreme Court's only real power is its legitimacy in the eyes of the American public, and forcing through another justice who's been accused of sexual misconduct is a surefire way to damage it. The Senate, meanwhile, could claim that voters gave them a mandate in 2016 to confirm judges like Kavanaugh, but the message it would send to many Americans is that women's traumatic stories still don't matter to them."
Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday ordered the Justice Department to declassify significant materials from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, threatening to spur a high-stakes showdown with federal law enforcement officials resistant to publicizing information from an ongoing probe. In a statement, the White House said Trump was ordering the department to immediately declassify portions of the secret court order to monitor former campaign adviser Carter Page, along with all interviews they conducted as officials applied for the order. Trump also instructed the department to publicly released the unredacted text messages of several former high-level Justice Department and FBI officials, including former FBI director James B. Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe. For months, conservative lawmakers have been calling on the department to release Russia-related and other materials, many of them believing law enforcement was hiding information that might discredit the investigation now led by ... Robert S. Mueller III." ...
... Sonam Sheth of Business Insider: "Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, slammed ... Donald Trump's decision Monday to order the release of a slew of sensitive documents related to the Russia investigation.... Schiff called the president's move a 'clear abuse of power' meant to 'intervene in a pending law enforcement investigation by ordering the selective release of materials he believes are helpful to his defense team and thinks will advance a false narrative.' Schiff also revealed that the FBI and DOJ had previously told him that they would consider the release of some of the materials Trump wants declassified a 'red line that must not be crossed as they may compromise sources and methods.'" Schiff said on MSNBC that top officials should resign if Trump releases the sensitive documents.
Useful Idiots. Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast: "[B]efore Manafort enters a new phase of his criminal career, Mueller filed a new superseding criminal information document in federal court listing new details of the man in the ostrich skin jacket's infamous political resume.... [O]ne of his tactics ... was to get what Manafort described 'in a contemporaneous communication [as] "[O]bama jews"' to pressure the Obama administration in October 2012. The scheme was to tie [Yulia] Tymoshenko to antisemitism through association. Manafort got 'a senior Israeli government official to issue a written statement publicizing this story.' That's a reference to a statement from then-Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, a hardliner who is now defense minister.... The story was published by Ben Shapiro at Breitbart[.]" --safari ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's Friday plea agreement with Paul Manafort took unusual and possibly unprecedented steps to undercut President Donald Trump's ability to pardon his former campaign chairman. The plea deal Mueller struck with the former Trump campaign chairman contains several provisions that appear intended to discourage the former Trump aide both from seeking a pardon and to rein in the impact of any pardon Trump might grant. Legal experts with sweeping views of executive power and attorneys who advocate for broad use of clemency criticized what they call an effort by Mueller's team to tie the president's hands." --safari
Tom Winter & Adiel Kaplan of NBC News: "Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to set a late November sentencing date for ... Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, according to a court document filed Monday by federal prosecutors. In a joint filing to the court, special counsel Robert Mueller's team and Flynn's attorneys requested that sentencing be set for November 28, or any of the following seven business days after that date. Flynn pleaded guilty last December to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian officials and agreed to cooperate in the special counsel's investigation."
David Lynch & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump threw his biggest punch yet at China, imposing tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and gambling that American consumers are willing to pay more for popular products to wring trade concessions from Beijing. With Monday's announcement, roughly half of the $505 billion in goods that Americans buy annually from Chinese firms will face new import levies. Unlike the $50 billion in Chinese products that Trump hit in the first tariff wave in July -- which fell mainly on industrial goods -- Monday's action will affect consumer products such as air conditioners, spark plugs, furniture and lamps. Starting Sept. 24, American importers will pay an extra 10 percent tariff for the affected items, rising to 25 percent at the end of the year, according to senior administration officials, who briefed reporters on the condition that they not be identified by name. China has vowed to retaliate for the latest U.S. tariffs with new import taxes on $60 billion in American products. If that happens, the president said he would immediately begin the process of approving tariffs on a further $267 billion in Chinese imports — effectively taxing everything Americans buy from China." ...
... Stuart Leavenworth of McClatchy DC: "The tariffs President Trump has slapped on imports from foreign countries -- including duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods announced Monday -- are almost certain to raise costs on homeowners in the Carolinas hoping to rebuild and refurnish after Hurricane Florence. While prices naturally rise after a natural disaster, given the spike in demand for building materials, Trump's trade war has already boosted costs for imported plywood and lumber, which jumped 30 percent in the six months after the Trump administration announced tariffs on Canadian softwood timber in December." --safari
Julie Davis: "President Trump plans to cap the number of refugees that can be resettled in the United States next year at 30,000, his administration announced on Monday, further cutting an already drastically scaled-back program that offers protection to foreigners fleeing violence and persecution.... The number represents the lowest ceiling a president has placed on the refugee program since its creation in 1980, and a reduction of a third from the 45,000-person limit that Mr. Trump set for 2018.... It is ... the culmination of a quiet but successful effort by Stephen Miller, the president's senior policy adviser, to severely restrict the number of refugees offered protection inside the country."
Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "Some undocumented immigrants living in the United States have received fake documents, ordering them to arrive at the courthouse at midnight, on weekends, or on dates that don't exist, such as September 31, according to a report by The Dallas Morning News.... According to the Morning News, reports of fake court dates have sprung up in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami. Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, nor the Justice Department have offered a clear explanation for why undocumented immigrants are being handed fake court dates." --safari
Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "In a rare moment of bipartisanship, the Senate overwhelmingly passed on Monday evening a sweeping package of bills aimed at addressing the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. The vote was 99 to 1 with only Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) dissenting.... The House passed a similar measure in June, and the two chambers will need to negotiate a few differences before sending the package to Trump's desk."
Election 2018
New York. Shane Goldmacher & Lisa W. Foderaro of the New York Times: "Representative Chris Collins, the New York Republican indicted on insider trading charges last month, reversed course on Monday and planned to announce he would seek another term, according to two Republicans familiar with his plans. Mr. Collins opted to stay on the ballot on the advice of lawyers who said his removal -- a Byzantine procedure governed by New York's complex election laws -- would most likely face a Democratic lawsuit, and would muddle the election for his replacement, ultimately leaving the Western New York seat vulnerable to Democrats, according to one of the Republicans." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)"
E.A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "A second breach was reported at a coal ash landfill site in North Carolina on Monday according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the latest impact from Hurricane Florence's heavy rains. That update comes amid a state of emergency declared at a nuclear power plant overseen by the landfill's operator, Duke Energy, as the extent of the damage from Florence — now a tropical depression — slowly becomes apparent.... Coal ash ... landfill sites can contain toxic mercury, arsenic and lead, among others, and pose a danger to human health as well as the environment. The initial breach over the weekend spilled roughly 2,000 cubic yards of coal ash...." --safari
Way Beyond the Beltway
AFP: "Germany has rolled out the world's first hydrogen-powered train, signalling the start of a push to challenge the might of polluting diesel trains with costlier but more eco-friendly technology. Two bright blue Coradia iLint trains, built by French TGV-maker Alstom, on Monday began running a 62 mile (100km) route...in northern Germany -- a stretch normally plied by diesel trains.... Hydrogen trains are equipped with fuel cells that produce electricity through a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, a process that leaves steam and water as the only emissions. Excess energy is stored in ion lithium batteries on board the train. The Coradia iLint trains can run for about 600 miles (1,000km) on a single tank of hydrogen, similar to the range of diesel trains." --safari
New Lede
Weather Channel: "Hurricane Florence, now a post-tropical cyclone, began its second week of impacts Monday with much of the same -- flooding that cut off entire towns, water rescues in parts of the Carolinas that have been inundated, and more death. The storm is responsible for at least 32 deaths -- 25 in North Carolina, six in South Carolina, and one in Virginia when a building collapsed during a tornado near Richmond on Monday afternoon." ...
... The Weather Channel has numerous Florence-related stories linked on its front page.
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Reader Comments (22)
In the same way that Trump is an example of a virulent right wing perfidy and poisonous ideology based on racism, lies, and craven power grabbing, Kavanaugh is no one off, no outlier from the judicial swamp of right wing world.
If Trump decides Blowjob Brett is more trouble than he’s worth, he’ll pick another name out of the half-cocked hat full of Kavanaugh clones. There is little to no chance that he would be able, even if he were so inclined, to find a decent, responsible, and respectable jurist untainted by the various winger pathogens that have warped every candidate who might be deemed acceptable to a hopelessly corrupt and contemptible congress.
Any candidates able to think for themselves, who are not bound heart and soul to Confederate tenets have long since departed the party or have made themselves anathema by refusing the Kool-Aid.
At this point, anyone of value to Confederates is, by definition, beholden to party over country in every way that truly matters, including, and especially, the oversight of a decent and fair administration of justice.
There are two things at work for me on the Kavanaugh-Ford impasse: first, "I believe the woman." Therefore, that renders Kavanaugh's "categorical denial" to be "categorically" false. In my mind. But there's more to it than my judgment or my opinion.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. This is an old legal standard that may be applied to Kavanaugh. Not only does Ford's claim seem credible to me, we already know Kavanaugh has lied about other things. And he has lied under oath. He has done so to advance his career. Here's former Sen. Russ Feingold on Kavanaugh's lying. And here is Sen. Patrick Leahy: "Time and again, Kavanaugh appears to have misled the Senate under oath." Here are some tippy-top Senate aides making the same point. So "false in one thing (okay a lot of things), false is everything.
Kavanaugh's strong tendency to ignore inconvenient facts that apply to him suggests he would ignore inconvenient facts in the cases he hears. I haven't exactly followed Kavanaugh's brilliant career but I do know he was able to discount the fairly specific inconvenient fact of a teenaged immigrant's pregnancy. While the Supremes are not triers of fact, they have to at least acknowledge & begin with the facts of the cases they hear.
As to the argument that Kavanaugh should not be punished for life for something he did when he was a teenager, I agree. But Kavanaugh is reportedly a religious man & he therefore should know the Christian (and legal) principle of mercy: it comes only on the heels of repentance. Obviously, Donald Trump, who is not a Christian, doesn't understand that (Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D'Souza). Kavanaugh, rather than repent, apologize & own his youthful crime, is denying it & thereby causing his victim even more pain. And he is happy to let others -- from his pal Mark Judge to the despicable Orrin Hatch -- aid in the cover-up. He deserves no mercy because he has not even applied for it. Rather, he joins Trump & Hatch, et al., in the premise that privileged white men have a "droit du seigneur," a get-out-of-jail card that is not issued to us lesser beings.
"Equal Justice Under Law" is carved into the facade of the Supreme Court building. It's about time we had justices who demonstrated that principle.
I found Michael Judge's words in response to his brother, Mark, most compelling, especially these sentences:
"Mark claims in his book that we all lived in terror of my father’s drunken outbursts. I can only say that he is right in one thing; my family did come to fear one of its members. As another member of our family commented during one of many meetings about Mark’s behavior, “Mark went to Markland a long time ago.” He still lives there. Sadly for my mother, that still means home.
And that’s it, that’s the real problem—not alcoholism or a lousy childhood or an abusive father. Mark is a solipsist: spoiled as a child, gazing always inward, unable to recognize any pain but his own. That is why he could not come to understand or forgive my father, in the way that all adult sons must eventually understand and forgive. Mark never left home long enough to see my father not as the ogre snoring in the other room but as a human being."
So Mark, being the other member in the room that night when Brett tried to rape Christine, needs to be heard at the hearing. As Christine attests, Mark jumped on top of them which caused them to fall off the bed, thus making it easy for her to escape. I would think that the person whose house where this pool party took place would remember if both these guys attended–-maybe–-but certainly recall that they indeed had that particular party.
It will be up to the Democrats during this upcoming hearing to ferret out the particulars––Mazie and Kamala front and center. Some of the same dudes that questioned Anita Hill will be questioning Christine. Orin Hatch and Grassley, both too long at the fair, will have the opportunity to show us once again what prejudice and pertinacious looks like.
The mystery of the undocumented immigrant fake court documents is a crazy story–-could slippery Steve's reptilian arms try something as desperate as this?
And I think what we have been going through ever since Trump landed his big fat ass in the White House will be written up in the history books as a definite Constitutional Crisis and we're only halfway through.
PD: agree so much with everything you said and thanks for that new word for me: pertinacious! It is delicious...
Heights of Infamy
The Turtle Man is whining. Whine, whine, whine, goes the turtle. "Those mean Demycraps. They're not playing by the rules. This whole thing with this 11th hour revelation is being done in an irregular manner."
Seriously, Mitchy? You--the biggest rule breaker in Senate history--are complaining about other people not abiding by a standard?
The fact is, the Democrats are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing, getting the facts so they can determine the fitness of Trump's nominee for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. If any group is acting in an irregular, non-standard manner, it's Republicans for trying to put this nomination on a rocket sled and shoot by any inconvenient facts.
I'm tempted to say that these people couldn't get worse if they tried, but we all know that's not true. They could get a lot worse, and they wouldn't have to try at all. It comes naturally to them.
Best lede of the day out here in RC land: What Maizie Knew. In addition to referencing a great book, it points out the undercurrent of dirty deeds and questionable actions that lie just beneath the sordid surface of this Potemkin nomination process. This guy is damaged goods, and a serial liar (no wonder Trump likes him). He has no place on the bench of night court in Jackpot, NV, never mind a federal bench or the Supreme Court.
He might not be the worst snake in the shithole but he's definitely taxonomically serpentes.
Is Junior the stupidest presidential family member of all time? He retweets a picture of Anderson Cooper standing waist deep in flood waters as "proof" that he was kneeling down to make the water in NC, after Hurricane Florence, look deeper, thereby insulting dear old dad.
Okay, a couple of things. First, the picture was taken 10 years ago during Hurricane Ike. And yes, water levels can vary dramatically during and in the aftermath of storms of this magnitude. Second, how is demonstrating water depth (in order to highlight for viewers the dangers of driving in areas that might look okay but are possibly life threatening) an insult to daddy?
Human suffering, natural disasters, death and destruction, loss of property and lives, it's all nothing compared to the suffering of the Trump Family. Everything is all about them, all the time.
Most weak minded presidential family member ever (although Eric is neck and neck in that race).
These idiots make Billy Carter and Roger Clinton look like Aristotle and Plato.
Inevitably, from now 'til next Monday, at least, the political conversation is going to swirl around three narratives: Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill; Donny Diapers and "pussy grabbing"; and Brett Kavanaugh and alleged attempted rape.
The roosters are roosting at the pinnacles of power.
@Akhilleus: Yeah, I was right proud of that headline. Thanks to Sen. Hirono's parents for making it possible.
My guess is that, should the Ford-Kavanaugh set-to get ugly (and how could it not? Did you read what he did?), too ugly for Grassley and McConnell and that unctuous Orrin Hatch (can you believe this asshole was once considered SCOTUS material himself!) to spin or deflect by blaming Democrats and Ford herself, they'll pull the plug on BlowJob Brett. They may still try to brazen it out, but if Collins and Flake and maybe Corker and Murkowski start to waver (a big if, I know), they might decide not to waste anymore time, especially with midterms looking like they could lose their chance to stick a misogynistic Nazi on the court (sorry....ANOTHER misogynistic Nazi).
As Booker T and MG's once observed, time is tight. If they're going to shiv women's rights in the neck, they might have to pick some other reptile and ram him through in a day and a half.
We'll see how this goes. Weasel Kavanaugh began to wilt pretty good under the razor sharp questioning by a few of the Democrats on the committee. Let's see how he handles being confronted by the woman he tried to rape after lying about the entire incident. If he starts to flutter and gets the jitters, Trump and the other misanthropes might toss him overboard and haul in a more practiced liar. They'll show those uppity women a thing or two about trying to monkey with their phony nomination process.
WHAT MAZIE KNEW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIgiRJmMz1A&frags=pl%2Cwn
A Bargain at Twice the Price!
Yeah...so wingers have been crying into their Breitbart Wheeties that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is costing too much money (this from a bunch of bozos who passed a tax cut that will add almost $4 Trillion (that's "trillion", with a T) to the deficit).
Waaaaaah....too much money.
Well, all you winger "deficit hawks" (*cough-cough*), looks like Mueller will have the last word on that argument.
That nice Paul Manafort has agreed to pay for the whole thing and then some. Yup, rather than face a lifetime in the slammer where he might have to hand himself over to sexual slavery in order to scarf a couple of ciggies, he's giving the United States of America (that country he defrauded and told to go fuck itself for decades) something like $42 Million in assets, forfeited as part of Brave Paul's flip-flop plea deal.
Since the DOJ has estimated the costs of the investigation so far at around $17 or $18 Million, we could spend twice as much and still have enough left over to fund a bunch of Junior's junkets to Africa to kill a few endangered species for rugs in his man cave (until it's jumpsuit time for him too).
A bargain at twice the price. Let's have another one, Bob!
PD,
If you haven't seen that film version of "What Maisie Knew", I recommend it. It's not at all a bad updating of the Henry James novel. And if you haven't read it, do. It's probably his most accessible book after the novellas "Turn of the Screw" and "Daisy Miller".
Funny story. When the film came out, I glanced over a review before we rented it. The reviewer must have been a bit confused because she attributed the original book to Henry Miller. HENRY MILLER!?! Jesus. About as far from Henry James as you can get without broaching the fields of experimental or cult fiction, stuff like "Last Exit to Brooklyn".
But the story, of a sweet little girl tormented and pushed around by her malevolent parents in the middle of a tumultuous divorce, is unexpectedly affecting for such a hard subject. James does such a beautiful job with this little girl. The movie makes some changes that provide a less bittersweet ending than the book, but in every way, both demonstrate the trauma of small children forced to live without parents, in desperate need of someone to love and care for them, something to consider when thinking of Trump's vicious, official policy of tearing children away from their parents, in many cases, for life, and leaving the children to the tender mercies of ICE.
I'm not even sure James (or Miller) would know what to make of such vileness.
Maybe Maisie would know.
Finished reading Woodward's "Fear" last night. He has recently said in interviews that he "...found no collusion." perhaps that's why there little new re the Russia aspect as much as a focus on Trump's erratic behaviors and executive style. While he conducted over one hundred interviews (initially thought it meant he spoke/recorded near that number of different people, but perhaps not)—yet, most of the tales of what has been going on within this White House appear to come from three or four sources. Cohn, Porter, Priebus, and Atty. John Dowd.
It was interesting to try and figure out who else might have been in the room or Oval Office when conversations took place. It narrows the who-told-Bob to a small crowd!
Near the last chapter, Woodward brings in 'conversations' held between Dowd and Mueller on whether Trump will consent to meet with the Special Counsel. It provides a first hearing Mueller speak. Sort of. He's depicted as a bit of a dullard (should make Trump happy to read that—in case he reads!) Of course, the retelling about what was said and how it was said —is all presented from Dowd's side of the table).
Overall Dowd's reflections seem self-serving and trying to have it both ways. He alternates between defending his client and castigating his (former) client. The closing line of the book: "Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president:
"You're a fucking liar."
Oops!
I'd say chatty Dowd's in CYOA mode, else the book might have been sub-titled with (old Hollywood tell-all), "You'll Never Work in this Town Again"
I wonder if "Toadstool" becomes the new Secret Service code name for the president*.
After reading the Stormy Daniels comments above I can't help but think some of our creative types could come up with alternative lyrics to the 60's "itsy bitzy. teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini" song.
The FBI can't look into Kavanaugh anymore unless the white house gives the say so. The other day I heard someone say that Maryland, where this all happened, had no statute of limitations on assault. So, one way to get around the FBI standing around doing nothing would be to give the Maryland police a heads up so they could start asking questions. By all accounts they are better able to deal with sexual crimes than the FBI.
Based on Mazie Hirono's questions in the first Kavanaugh hearing, I think the FBI -- and therefore Trump, White House counsel Don McGahn, other White House staff, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee & some of their staff already know Brett was a serial harasser. Therefore, I think senators should ask Kavanaugh a series of questions like, "So if a woman with the initials G.S. said that you groped her at a 1998 Bar Association meeting, would she be lying?" "What about a woman with the initials J.L. who said you ripped her blouse off at a frat party in 1985 -- would she by lying, too?" (or whatever info they have in their files). Would Chuck Grassley go nuts? Yeah. So?
MAG,
Woodward's post Watergate books, at least those I've read/scanned-in-bookstores, etc. seem to have a Rashomon quality to them. Everyone has their own point of view and Woodward dutifully records those. As you say, there is most definitely a CYA element in people talking to a reporter known to publish voluminous books purporting to get the inside dope on an administration.
But the thing to remember is something Marie mentioned when the first snippets of "Fear" first started raising eyebrows and lowering expectations. Woodward is pretty good at getting the interview, not so much at analyzing the data. He's a reporter, yes, but he's become more of a recorder. I'm about to make a questionable comparison, but I think it could be a useful one.
The emperor Charlmagne was illiterate, but he was an immense figure in the West. Years ago I read two biographies of Charlemagne that, in their own way, demonstrate the bifurcation of biographical writing ever since. Think Thucydides vs Herodotus. Herodotus' stuff is much more fun to read but Thucydides seems a tad (a lot?) more historically accurate throughout much of that work.
The first Charlmagne bio was by a monk named Einhard, a personage privy to the court and blessed with the sort of recall depicted in Frances Yates' wonderful book "The Art of Memory", an historical analysis of how pre-literate peoples and those whose literary abilities were second to their amazing mental feats of memory were able to achieve thanks to various techniques such as mnemonic devices, imagery, and recalled dialogues.
Einhard's work is, to my thinking, similar to Suetonius' history of early Roman emperors, "The Twelve Caesars". It's straightforward. There are anecdotes, naturally, but there's no attempt to whitewash the emperor or those around him, or fog up the picture with pretty clouds of extemporized extenuation.
The other Charles the Great bio was by a jolly sort with the colorful name Notker the Stammerer. Notker indulges himself in what seem to be spurious flights of fancy designed to pump up his subject (although why you'd need to embellish the life of such an enormously important figure, I'm not sure I can say).
I'm not suggesting that Woodward is a Notker-like character, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't make it as a private investigator, whose job is to look at the various statements and decide which are CYA and which might be have the ring of truth, and which are a little of both, and from that variegated Rashomon stew, siphon some form of synthetic, versus
analytic, truth.
Woodward might say, "Geez, I looked for collusion, but I didn't find anything" which prompts me to think about "All the President's Men". Woodward wasn't just writing down what people told him while researching that story. But he also had three major collaborators. One, of course, was Carl Bernstein, and the others were Ben Bradley and Mark Felt, Deep Throat. They pushed Woodward to do more than just interview people and write it down. Deep Throat famously advised him to follow the money. Bradley forced him to get it right. Bernstein was a constant burr under the saddle, demanding more.
He doesn't have those spurs any longer.
I agree with Marie. If Woodward hasn't found collusion, it could be he talked to wrong people, or hasn't been able to properly parse the Trump camp's lies and subterfuge, or he hasn't been able to crack the inner circle of Trumpian mendacity.
None of which means there was no collusion.
Woodward the Stammerer? It has nice ring.
Bobby Lee,
Geez, bro, don't get me going! Itsy-bitsy, indeed. No wonder Trump is constantly on the verge of war with someone. After this revelation, I'm betting he's spinning the globe looking for someone--anyone--to bomb to make up for his, er, mushroomy shortcomings (ewwww...).
Oh, look. Here's a good place: U R Gay. Let's bomb that fucking country.
O.K.: I had planned to do stuffed mushrooms for next weekend
dinner party. I'm thinking the guests would want to know if these
are really mushrooms or copies of that president's cock, the one with
the mushroom head. And, I can't believe we're discussing a
presidents privates. Have we come a long way? Or are digressing.
@Akhillius:
it's true that Charlemagne was illiterate, but he spoke 5 languages and was aware of the limitations that not being able to write caused. what he did to compensate for his own limitations was to bring all the best scholars into his court (Einhard, etc.). He supported all the arts and it looks to me that he caused his own flowering of culture which wasn't matched until the troubadours brought mideastern (arabic) knowledge and culture to Provence and northward.
What is missing in the medieval historical record is what a great genius Charlemagne was.