;)
The Commentariat -- May 30, 2019
Late Morning Update:
Secrets of the Dead. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "Thomas B. Hofeller achieved near-mythic status in the Republican Party as the Michelangelo of gerrymandering, the architect of partisan political maps that cemented the party’s dominance across the country. But after he died last summer, his estranged daughter discovered hard drives in her father’s home that revealed something else: Mr. Hofeller had played a crucial role in the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision. Those documents, cited in a federal court filing Thursday by opponents seeking to block the citizenship question, have emerged only weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the citizenship question.... The disclosures represent the most explicit evidence to date that the Trump administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests." Read on. Mrs. McC: The secrets of dead Republicans are not pretty.
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: “President Trump tweeted on Thursday that Russia helped 'me to get elected,' and then quickly retracted the idea. 'No, Russia did not help me get elected,' Mr. Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Colorado Springs. 'I got me elected.' He spoke less than an hour after his Twitter post. The original comment, a clause in one of several Twitter posts this morning, is an extraordinary admission from Mr. Trump, who has avoided saying publicly that Russia helped him win the presidency in 2016 through its election interference.... Speaking to reporters outside the White House and in a subsequent Twitter post, Mr. Trump revived personal attacks on Mr. Mueller, asserting that the special counsel should never have been chosen for that position — he was 'highly conflicted' — and had failed to get the job he really wanted, F.B.I. director, an allegation addressed and countered in Mr. Mueller’s final report. Mr. Mueller, who had previously served in that role in two administrations, did not go to the White House looking for a job, one of president’s senior advisers, Stephen K. Bannon, told investigators.... 'I think Mueller is a true never Trumper,' Mr. Trump said on Thursday. 'He is somebody that dislikes Donald Trump, he’s somebody that didn’t get a job that he requested that he wanted very badly, and then he was appointed.'” ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Mueller, a Republican, has never publicly expressed his political opinions about Trump. Also, he was not interested in returning as FBI director; he simply met with Trump to give him an idea of the qualities of a good director.
Lying Machine Turned up to High. Elizabeth Thomas & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: Trump told reporters as he left for a trip to Colorado, “'He [Robert Mueller] said, essentially: "You're innocent." There was no crime, there was no charge because he had no information.'... 'The whole thing [the Mueller investigation] is a scam. It's a giant presidential harassment,' Trump said. 'Russia did not help me get elected. You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn’t help me at all,' Trump said, adding that, if anything, Russia helped 'the other side' get elected. 'I believe Russia would rather have Hillary Clinton as president of the United States than Donald Trump,' the president said. 'The reason is nobody has been tougher on Russia than me.... I think it was the same as the report,' Trump said when asked for his reaction to Mueller's statement. 'There's no obstruction. There's no collusion. There's no nothing. It's nothing but a witch hunt.... There was no high crime and there was no misdemeanor,' Trump said when asked about impeachment. 'I don't see how... I can't imagine the courts allowing it,' Trump said. 'To me, it's a dirty word, the word 'impeach.' It's a dirty, filthy, disgusting word, he said.... The president also said that Mueller was 'totally conflicted' because of a business dispute he claimed he had with Mueller, discussions he had with Mueller about the position of FBI director early in the Trump administration and called him a friend with former FBI director James Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017.”
Olivia Messer of the Daily Beast: “President Trump said Thursday that he wasn’t aware of a reported White House request to keep the USS John S. McCain 'out of sight' on his trip to Japan this week.... During a gaggle with reporters on the White House lawn, Trump said, 'I wasn’t a fan, but I would never do a thing like that. Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him. They were well-meaning, I will say.' Minutes later, Trump picked the topic back up again, noting that whoever made the request 'thought they were doing me a favor because they know I am not a fan of John McCain.' He added, 'John McCain killed health care for the Republican Party, and he killed health care for the nation.... I disagreed with John McCain on the Middle East. He helped George Bush to make a very bad decision of going to the Middle East. So I wasn’t a fan of John McCain and I never will be. But certainly I couldn’t care less whether there’s a boat named after his father.'”
Andrew Restuccia of Politico ruminates on Trump's weird obsession with IQs.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Mueller Talks! Edition
Trump held a chopper conference this morning in which he piled on the lies:
A Freudian Slip? A Gaffe? Or Just Garbled Grammar? Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax...And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media -- Donald Trump, in a tweet this morning ...
In case you didn't notice, Trump admits here that "Russia help[ed] me to get elected." -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Update: In his chopper-chatter, Trump walked back his admission. Update update: Trump has since deleted the tweet. -- Mrs. McCrabbie
Mueller Delivers His Own Exit Interview. Says Congress Need Not Do One. Sharon LaFraniere & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: “Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, on Wednesday characterized for the first time his investigation of whether President Trump obstructed justice, saying 'if we had confidence the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so.' In what he said would be his only comments on his nearly two-year inquiry, he said that while Justice Department policy prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime, the Constitution provides for another process — a clear reference to the ability of Congress to impeach the president. He suggested that he was reluctant to testify before Congress. 'The report is my testimony,' he said.” ...
... Here's the full transcript of Mueller's remarks, as prepared by Politico. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The New York Times Editors translate Mueller's remarks into unambiguous English. Mrs. McC: It would be great to hear Robert De Niro reading a version of the editors' translation, but alas, the SNL season is over, so we'll have to be satisfied with this:
... Robert De Niro in a New York Times op-ed: “While I and so many Americans have admired your quiet, confident, dignified response in ignoring that assault, it allowed the administration to use its own voice to control the narrative.... In your news conference, you said that your investigation’s work 'speaks for itself.' It doesn’t.... You’ve characterized the report as your testimony, but you wouldn’t accept that reason from anyone your office interviewed.... The country needs to hear your voice. Your actual voice. And not just because you don’t want them to think that your actual voice sounds like Robert De Niro reading from cue cards, but because this is the report your country asked you to do, and now you must give it authority and clarity without, if I may use the term, obstruction.... You are the voice of the Mueller report. Let the country hear that voice.”
Dominique Jackson of the Raw Story: “On Wednesday, the editorial board at The Washington Post called [on] Robert Mueller to testify before Congress.... However, the editorial board explained that Mueller spoke to[o] late.... 'Mr. Mueller could have avoided much confusion and short-circuited the administration’s attempt to manipulate public opinion if he had made his statement weeks ago, in conjunction with the release of a lightly redacted version of his report,' the editorial board wrote. Adding, 'That may be a principled decision, but Mr. Mueller should not resist appearing before Congress, even if it is to explain why he will not answer certain questions.'” The WashPo editorial is here. ...
... Mrs McCrabbie Conspiracy Theory: The reason Mueller waited till this week to deliver his swan song: SNL is done for the year, so Robert De Niro won't satirize his speech. Okay, I'm not serious. After all, who wouldn't be proud to have De Niro play him on teevee?
Abigail Weinberg of Mother Jones gathered tweeted responses from Members of Congress: Rep. Justin Amish (R-Michigan) tweeted, "The ball is in our court, Congress." Jerry Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee: "Given that Special Counsel Mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the President, it falls to Congress to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump – and we will do so. No one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law." From presidential candidates: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.): "Mueller’s statement makes clear what those who have read his report know: It is an impeachment referral, and it’s up to Congress to act. They should." Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.): "What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable. We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation." Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): "Robert Mueller’s statement makes it clear: Congress has a legal and moral obligation to begin impeachment proceedings immediately." (Oh, and then there was this: Donald Trump: "Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.") (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Andrew Clark of the Indianapolis Star: "South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller's remarks during a press conference earlier in the day were 'as close to an impeachment referral as it gets.' 'Robert Mueller could not clear the president, nor could he charge him — so he has handed the matter to Congress, which alone can act to deliver due process and accountability,' Buttigieg tweeted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jack Crosbie of Splinter: “If only there were strong party leaders who could bring all of these viewpoints together! Alas, we are left with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Pelosi responded to Mueller’s conference with a continuation of the same thing she’s been saying for months: that Congress would 'continue to investigate.' And Schumer made impotent promises about 'following the facts wherever they lead' (they have led to an explicit case for impeachment).” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "... there was something markedly different about the atmosphere in Washington on Wednesday. It was more charged, more combustible. For the first time — and perhaps the last time — Mueller spoke publicly and firmly, if in limited fashion, about what his investigation meant. And, for the trained ear, it was unmistakable. 'He was virtually announcing "Congress, do your job,'" NBC News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said on MSNBC. That might make him the catalyst for a Democratic caucus that has been deeply ambivalent about the politics of impeaching the president." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Richard Hasen in Slate: "Special counsel Robert Mueller issued a final statement on Wednesday before resigning from the Department of Justice, which clearly appeared aimed at one person: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mueller’s simple message to Pelosi is that it is the constitutional duty of Congress — and her sworn duty as speaker of the House — to begin an investigation of the president and seriously consider impeaching him." Mrs. McC: If you missed that in Mueller's remarks, Hasen lays it out. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ken White in the Atlantic: "Wednesday’s press conference was consistent with Mueller’s image as a classic just-the-facts-ma’am G-man, a persona that frustrates anti-Trump partisans who dreamed of him as an avenging superhero. But a bit of passion shone through in two areas. First, Mueller was adamant that his team had not exonerated the president of obstruction of justice.... Second, Mueller seemed concerned that Americans have focused on what Trump did rather than on what Russia did.... Mueller is a man out of time. This is the age of alternatively factual tweets and sound bites; he’s a by-the-book throwback who expects Americans to read and absorb carefully worded 400-page reports. Has he met us?" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Nonpartisan to a Fault. Michael Tomasky in the New York Times: "What we saw on display in Mr. Mueller’s nine-minute statement was his often discussed sense of rectitude and propriety. These are admirable attributes, normally. But we might well wonder whether those attributes are what is needed in the age of Donald Trump, or whether the preservation of our democratic institutions demands more.... Mr. Mueller was the product of an era and a social class to whom the kind of flesh-ripping partisanship we have today was absolutely anathema." Tomasky wonders what a man of Mueller's blue-blood, blue-nosed sensibilities really thinks of Donald Trump. ...
Alex Roarty & Michael Wilner of McClatchy News: “Leading Democrats remain fearful that impeaching ... Donald Trump will bolster his re-election campaign. But if Robert Mueller’s brief, unexpected statement did anything Wednesday, it clarified that a Democratic Party that does not embrace impeachment still faces a potentially sizable political risk — especially from core supporters demanding more loudly than ever before that the House try to remove Trump from office. 'There is a real danger if Democrats fail to have message clarity and moral clarity when it comes to this,' said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the influential liberal activist group Indivisible. 'There will be a real question of how they’ll ever motivate people to vote for them.'... 'The dam has burst,' said Markos Moulitsas, a longtime progressive leader who founded the blog DailyKos.”
David Corn of Mother Jones: “... Mueller’s remarks were also a reminder of the core elements of the Trump-Russia scandal: Moscow attacked the 2016 election to help Trump, and Trump assisted Vladimir Putin’s assault by claiming at the time (and afterward) that it wasn’t real. That is, whether or not Trump had criminally colluded with Russian operatives, he did side with a foreign adversary that attacked American democracy—and that’s treachery.... Trump put his own interests ahead of the security of the nation. And by insisting there was no Russian attack, he helped Putin pull off this caper and made it more difficult for President Barack Obama to enlist Republicans in a united front against Moscow’s attack.... 'I will close,' [Mueller] said, 'by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments: That there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election, and that allegation deserves the attention of every American.' That was certainly a dig at Trump, who has refused to recognize this central allegation.”
Bill Barr's Very Bad Day
Mark Mazzetti & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “Attorney General William P. Barr stood at the Justice Department lectern six weeks ago and put the best possible spin on the Mueller report for his boss, declaring that the special counsel had amassed insufficient evidence to accuse President Trump of a crime. Robert S. Mueller III delivered a starkly different presentation on Wednesday from the same lectern, saying that charging a sitting president was never an option, no matter the evidence. Instead, his investigators asked another question: Could they clear the president? On potential obstruction of justice, the answer was no. 'If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime,' Mr. Mueller said, 'we would have said so.'... His carefully chosen phrases stood in sharp contrast to Mr. Barr’s portrayal of the investigation as vindicating Mr. Trump from accusations of the crime of obstruction.” ...
... Zack Budryk of the Hill: “Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Wednesday said that special counsel Robert Mueller contradicted Attorney General William Barr in comments earlier that morning. 'Those comments by Bob Mueller about the other processes — obviously impeachment being the only constitutional way — definitely contradicts what the attorney general said when he summarized Mueller’s report and said he then had to draw the conclusion on that,' Christie said in a phone call to ABC News. 'Mueller clearly contradicts that today in a very concise way.' Christie, a former U.S. attorney and longtime political ally of President Trump’s, agreed with host George Stephanoupolous that the comments, in which Mueller reaffirmed that his probe did not exonerate Trump, move the discussion 'from the legal processes and put it right back into the political arena.'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... Jonathan Chait: “Famously taciturn prosecutor Robert Mueller decided to address the public to make it very clear that he did not exonerate President Trump of committing obstruction of justice. 'If we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime we would have said so,' he said. Mueller cited a Department of Justice policy prohibiting a special prosecutor from charging sitting presidents: 'Charging the president with a crime,' he said, 'was therefore not an option we could consider.' This banal point is important because it pithily clarifies something Trump and his allies have labored, with quite a bit of success, to obscure.” [William Barr misled the public.] Mueller was not failing to draw a conclusion about the conduct. He was concluding decisively that he did not have the power to define Trump’s conduct as a crime." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Bill Barr, Big Fat Liar. Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: “In the month before Robert Mueller’s report was released, Attorney General Barr painted a picture of a special counsel who couldn’t decide whether to charge the president with obstruction of justice, so he simply thew up his hands and left the decision up to the attorney general. During testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the report had been released, Barr acknowledged that Mueller explained his position, but suggested that he was 'not really sure of' Mueller’s reasoning on the issue.... [During] the press conference just prior to the release of the report, [and] without Mueller present, Barr took a question from a reporter who asked whether Mueller’s non-decision on obstruction 'had anything to do with the department’s long-standing guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel on not indicting a sitting president.' Barr responded that he had a private conversation with Mueller, who told him that he 'was not saying that but for the OLC opinion, he would have found a crime.' During his remarks at the Justice Department this morning, Mueller demonstrated that Barr has been lying in an attempt to mislead all along.... While he left the conclusions up to us, he just made three things very clear: (1) the attorney general lied about his position, (2) if Trump were not president, they would have charged him with obstruction of justice, and (3) impeachment is the Constitutional remedy.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Napolitano Stuns Foxbots. Eric Dolan of the Raw Story: “Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller had indicated that he found evidence that Donald Trump committed a crime — but was unable to indict him because Trump is a sitting president. 'Effectively what Bob Mueller said is we had evidence that he committed a crime but we couldn’t charge him because he’s the president of the United States,' Napolitano explained. 'This is even stronger than the language in his report. This is also a parting shot at his soon-to-be former boss, the attorney general, because this statement is 180 degrees from the four-page statement that Bill Barr issued at the time he first saw the report.' 'Is it that bad?' host Stuart Varney remarked. 'I think so,' Napolitano replied.... Napolitano also said that the evidence that Mueller provided was 'remarkably similar' to the evidence used against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... MEANWHILE. Jane Coaston of Vox: “Trump-supportive conservatives saw in Mueller’s press conference what they’ve seen since he submitted his full report to Attorney General William Barr back in April: the end of any future investigations into the president. Sen. Lindsey Graham ... tweeted that Congress should move past the Mueller investigation, echoing White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who said (mistakenly) that the special counsel’s report showed 'no obstruction' and that 'everyone else' should move on as well.... Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) argued the same, saying that Democrats should move on to 'work in good faith' with the same president who repeatedly insults Democrats. (Other Trump-supportive commentators simply slammed Mueller instead).”
Jay Weaver, et al., of the Miami Herald: “Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., this week sent subpoenas to Mar-a-Lago..., Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, and Trump Victory, a political fundraising committee, demanding they turn over all records relating to Republican Party donor Li 'Cindy' Yang and several of her associates and companies, the Miami Herald has learned. Yang, a South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur, is the target of a public corruption investigation seeking to determine if she funneled money from China to the president’s re-election campaign or otherwise violated campaign-finance laws. She became a GOP donor in the 2016 election cycle and opened a consulting company that promised Chinese businesspeople the chance to attend events at Mar-a-Lago and gain access to Trump and his inner circle. Some of those events were campaign fundraisers that required guests to buy tickets for entry, payments that are considered political contributions. Foreign nationals are prohibited from donating to U.S. political campaigns.”
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "An associate of Roger Stone has agreed to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury on Friday morning, his attorney and a Mueller prosecutor said in a court hearing before a federal judge.The development shows parts of the Mueller investigation related to interference in the 2016 presidential election -- and the grand jury's work -- may still be alive. Andrew Miller, Stone's associate, has fought testifying as he has challenged Mueller's authority since last summer after Mueller's team requested information from him about Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. Miller was held in contempt by Chief Judge Beryl Howell in Washington but will not be sent to jail at this time, the judge said. He lost his attempts at appeal. He did not attend the hearing Wednesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday strongly rebuked Facebook, saying the company’s refusal to take down altered videos of her demonstrated how the social network contributed to misinformation and enabled Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 'We have said all along, poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians,' Ms. Pelosi said in an interview with the public radio station KQED. 'I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false.' Ms. Pelosi, a Democrat, is the most powerful politician to accuse Facebook of knowingly allowing disinformation to spread through its service during the last presidential election. Many other politicians have stopped short of that, saying only that the company should have acted faster to stop it.” More on Facebook linked below ...
... ** Annals of “Journalism,” Ctd. Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times: “Whatever Facebook decides to do with this weird little video [of Nancy Pelosi appearing to slur her speech] is a big meh, because if you were to rank the monsters of misinformation that American society now faces, amateurishly doctored viral videos would clock in as mere houseflies in our midst. Worry about them, sure, but not at the risk of overlooking a more clear and present danger, the million-pound, forked-tongue colossus that dominates our misinformation menagerie: Fox News and the far-flung, cross-platform lie machine that it commands.... In going after Facebook, many observers forgot about Rupert Murdoch’s empire, whose Fox Business spinoff aired a similarly misleading Pelosi hit job on 'Lou Dobbs Tonight.'... Fox’s editing technique was not novel; this sort of montage is a common feature on Fox and much of cable news.... Pelosi 'STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE,' the chyron read. While Facebook moved quickly to limit the spread of the doctored Pelosi clip, Fox is neither apologizing for airing its montage nor taking it down, because this sort of manipulated video fits within the network’s ethical bounds.... To focus on Facebook instead of Fox News is to mistake the symptom for the disease.”
Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: “On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that on the president’s latest trip to Japan, he demanded the Navy move the U.S.S. John McCain 'out of sight.' Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan personally approved the order to obscure the warship so that it would not be visible to the president when he arrived by helicopter — even though he would have only seen it in passing during touchdown and immediately transported to the U.S.S. Wasp, nowhere near the John McCain. While the warship was not actually moved, a tarpaulin was used to cover its name, a barge was used to partially obscure it, and any sailors wearing a cap with the ship’s name were given the day off.” The WSJ report is here. (Surprisingly, I was able to call up the story via the link.) ...
... Elliot Hannon of Slate: "A tarp. Hiding a warship. That’s a real thing that happened. Just a 100-percent normal president doing normal president things." ...
I was not informed about anything having to do with the Navy Ship USS John S. McCain during my recent visit to Japan. -- Donald Trump, in a tweet
That's quasi-believable. Trump has no idea how much his staff & others in the government do to hide things that will set him off. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Laws Are for the Little People. Brett Samuels of the Hill: "White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday scoffed at a government office's findings that she violated a decades-old law barring officials from weighing in on elections in their government capacity as she railed against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's record. Conway tore into the former vice president and senator over his vote on the 1994 crime bill, his role in overseeing the 1991 Anita Hill hearing and his record on immigration as she fielded questions from reporters outside the White House. But she insisted she was not commenting on the 2020 election and that she has a right to size up the record of her boss's potential opponent."
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump’s administration is systematically launching one of the most insidious efforts in American history aimed at not merely ruining our children’s health, but at literally erasing their future entirely.... This includes the announcement that the agency will start taking the position that air pollution does not harm children the way science says it does. At the same time, it is cutting 13 research centers aimed at reducing environmental threats to our children. Meanwhile..., White House appointee running the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) — James Reilly, a former petroleum geologist — is mandating that the agency’s scientific assessments of climate change will only examine climate impacts that may occur between now and 2040. The agency’s standard practice is to look as far ahead as the year 2100." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Luke O'Neil of the Guardian: “Mark W Menezes, the US undersecretary of energy, bestowed a peculiar honorific on our continent’s natural resources, dubbing it 'freedom gas' in a release touting the DoE’s approval of increased exports of natural gas produced by a Freeport LNG terminal off the coast of Texas. 'Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy,' he said.... 'With the US in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world,' said Steven Winberg [of the DOE].”
Michael Calderone of Politico: "The mood in the Pentagon briefing room was tense Friday when officials went on the record for the first time to blame Iran for recent flare-ups in the Middle East.... The Pentagon press corps has chafed for months at what reporters see as a sharp decline in access to information, including limited access to officials during trips.... Friday will be a year since the Pentagon held an on-camera briefing with any department spokesperson." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Shifty Mitch. Carl Hulse of the New York Times writes a make-up article for the paper: “When it came to filling a Supreme Court vacancy during the 2016 presidential election year, Senator Mitch McConnell had a constant refrain: Let the people decide. But should a high court seat become open in 2020, Mr. McConnell has already decided himself. 'Oh, we’d fill it,' Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, gleefully told a friendly Chamber of Commerce audience back home in Paducah on Tuesday. Mr. McConnell regularly celebrates his history-altering 2016 decision to thwart President Barack Obama from filling a vacancy that occurred with 11 months remaining in his term, saying the seat should be kept open until a new president could be elected and inaugurated. But he has been laying the groundwork to change course ever since Donald J. Trump was elected president. Tuesday’s remarks were only his most definitive: He would not be bound by the standard he himself set in preventing Judge Merrick B. Garland from being seated on the high court.” See yesterday's Commentariat for context.
Senate Race 2020. Trip Gabriel & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: “Donald J. Trump is publicly making the case that Roy Moore, the controversial former Alabama judge, could cost Republicans a Senate seat in an overwhelmingly conservative state if he chooses to run again. One person he hasn’t convinced is Mr. Moore himself. 'There’s a lot I have to offer,' Mr. Moore said in an interview Wednesday, adding that he would make up his mind by the end of June whether to challenge Doug Jones, the Democrat who narrowly beat him in 2017. He added, 'Everything seems to be very favorable. President Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday to warn that if Mr. Moore was the Republican nominee in 2020, he would most likely lose again to Mr. Jones, considered the Democratic Party’s most vulnerable incumbent up for Senate re-election next year.”
Jamal Greene of Slate: "Last week, the Washington Post published a profile of Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo, focusing in part on a speech he gave to the Council for National Policy in which he warmly predicted the Supreme Court would soon return to the pre–New Deal era of 'limited, constitutional government.' Leo believes, in other words, that the court’s view of the Constitution was better off 85 years ago than it is today.... Leo has had Donald Trump’s ear on judicial appointments and has been the main curator of the president’s list of Supreme Court candidates.... So when Leonard Leo says he wants to return to a pre–New Deal Constitution, you should listen. And you should be alarmed." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Daphné Dupont-Nivet & Nico Schmidt of OpenDemocracy (May 22): "Google and Facebook pressured and 'arm-wrestled' a group of experts to soften European guidelines on online disinformation and fake news, according to new testimony from insiders released to journalists at Investigate Europe today.... [S]ome of these experts say that representatives of Facebook and Google undermined the work of the group, which was convened by the European Commission and comprised leading European researchers, media entrepreneurs and activists.... Another member, Monique Goyens – director-general of BEUC, which is also known as The European Consumer Association – is blunter. 'We were blackmailed,' she says." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Tim Starks of Politico: "Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that they have pulled down a network of accounts spreading disinformation that originated in Iran, including some accounts that impersonated 2018 Republican congressional candidates. Acting on a tip from cybersecurity company FireEye, Facebook said it removed 51 bogus Facebook accounts, 36 pages followed by 21,000 users, seven groups joined by 1,900 users and three Instagram accounts followed by 2,600 people. Twitter said it removed 2,800 accounts. The revelations ... serve as a reminder that other governments and foreign adversaries are taking a page from the Russian playbook that disrupted the 2016 presidential election.... The Iranian campaign also succeeded in tricking U.S. and Israeli publications into publishing fake letters to the editor and blogs, according to the report." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Lisa Richwine of Reuters: “Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Bob Iger told Reuters on Wednesday it would be 'very difficult' for the media company to keep filming in Georgia if a new abortion law takes effect because many people will not want to work in the U.S. state.... Some actors and producers have already said they will no longer work in Georgia because of the abortion law, but many of the large production companies have remained publicly silent on the abortion law. On Tuesday, Netflix Inc said the streaming service would 'rethink' its film and television production investment in Georgia if the law goes into effect.”
Beyond the Beltway
Elliot Hannon: "The Louisiana state legislature, on Wednesday, joined the procession of conservative state legislatures challenging abortion rights, voting to pass a so-called heartbeat abortion bill, severely restricting women’s access to an abortion in the state. The Republican-controlled legislature voted 79-23 in favor of the bill and the state’s Democratic governor John Bel Edwards, who has long-opposed abortion rights, said he will break with his party and sign it into law. The new restrictions will outlaw abortions after a fetus’ heartbeat can be detected, which can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women are even aware they’re pregnant."
Way Beyond
Israel. Where's the Magic? Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a stunning defeat on Thursday after he failed to meet a midnight deadline to form a new government, casting a cloud over his future as prime minister and thrusting Israel into the chaos of a new election. Just seven weeks ago, when Mr. Netanyahu basked in a postelection 'night of tremendous victory,' he seemed invincible, confident that he would serve a fourth consecutive term and a fifth overall. Despite a looming indictment on corruption charges, he appeared set to surpass the nation’s founding leader, David Ben Gurion, as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. But after weeks of negotiations, his plans ran aground on a power struggle between two blocs of his potential right-wing coalition — the secular ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox factions — who refused to compromise on proposed legislation on military service. The dream collapsed in a breathtaking display of political maneuvering in recent days, as Mr. Netanyahu, long nicknamed 'the magician' for the political wizardry that has kept him in office continuously for the past decade, desperately tried to salvage his fortunes.”
Andy Beckett of the Guardian: "Conservatism is the dominant politics of the modern world.... Yet this aura has led to an overconfidence about conservatism’s underlying health. In Britain and the US, once the movement’s most fertile sources of ideas, voters, leaders and governments, a deep crisis of conservatism has been building since the end of the Reagan and Thatcher governments. It is a crisis of competence, of intellectual energy and coherence, of electoral effectiveness, and – perhaps most serious of all – of social relevance.... The right is still winning elections, from India to the European parliament, but transatlantic conservatism as we have known it since the 80s – pro-capitalist, anti-government, controlled by the traditional parties of the right – may be dying." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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