;)
The Commentariat -- October 19, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Mnuchin to Schmooze with Assassination, Inc. Damian Paletta & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has decided to take part in an anti-terror finance meeting with Saudi security officials and their Middle Eastern counterparts in Riyadh later this month, opting to attend despite growing global outrage over the suspected murder of a U.S.-based journalist at the hands of Saudi operatives, according to three people familiar with his travel plans. The security gathering next week is separate from a Riyadh financial summit that Mnuchin announced on Thursday he would not attend."
Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "... Donald Trump's critics have spent the past 17 months anticipating what some expect will be among the most thrilling events of their lives: special counsel Robert Mueller's final report on Russian 2016 election interference. They may be in for a disappointment. That's the word Politico got from defense lawyers working on the Russia probe and more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience.... The public, they say, shouldn't expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump -- not to mention an explanation of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller sleuths. Perhaps most unsatisfying: Mueller's findings may never even see the light of day."
Katie Benner of the New York Times: "During his 20 months in office, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has swept in perhaps the most dramatic political shift in memory at the Justice Department, from the civil rights-centered agenda of the Obama era to one that favors his hard-line conservative views on immigration, civil rights and social issues. Now, discontent and infighting have taken hold at the Justice Department, in part because Mr. Sessions was so determined to carry out that transformation that he ignored dissent, at times putting the Trump administration on track to lose in court and prompting high-level departures, according to interviews over several months with two dozen current and former career department lawyers who worked under Mr. Sessions.... President Trump has exacerbated the dynamic, they said, by repeatedly attacking Mr. Sessions and the Justice Department in baldly political and personal terms. And he has castigated rank-and-file employees, which career lawyers said further chilled dissent and debate within the department."
Matthew Choi of Politico: "The White House Correspondents' Association condemned ... Donald Trump Friday after he lauded a lawmaker from Montana a day earlier for body slamming a Guardian reporter. 'All Americans should recoil from the president's praise for a violent assault on a reporter doing his Constitutionally protected job,' White House Correspondents' Association president Olivier Knox said in a statement. 'This amounts to the celebration of a crime by someone sworn to uphold our laws and an attack on the First Amendment by someone who has solemnly pledged to defend it. We should never shrug at the president cheerleading for a violent act targeting a free and independent news media.'" ...
... Jamiles Lartey of the Guardian: "Journalists expressed disgust with Donald Trump's remarks at a rally Thursday night in Montana, where he praised and joked about the unprovoked assault on a Guardian US journalist by the state's congressman, Greg Gianforte. 'Gianforte is a criminal. He pled guilty to [assault]. The president is congratulating a criminal on committing a crime,' said New York Times correspondent Binyamin Appelbaum.... Axios national political reporter Jonathan Swan replied: 'Nothing tough about jumping a reporter for asking you a substantive question. Just unhinged,' before also pointing out that Gianforte and his staff lied about the assault to police and the public. 'Only reason Gianforte got caught is because there was a tape,' Swan said. A spokeswoman for the British prime minister Theresa May said on Friday: 'Any violence or intimidation against a journalist is completely unacceptable.'... CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who was at the rally in Montana, observed: 'The disturbing part of Trump's jokes about Gianforte was the effect on the crowd. I saw one young man in the crowd making body-slam gestures. He looked at me and ran his thumb across his throat. I talked to him after the rally was over. He couldn't stop laughing.' A number of journalists pointed out how Trump's comments are especially troubling this week, coming as evidence mounts that Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is directly linked to the presumed murder of ... Jamal Khashoggi.... 'Tonight [Trump] celebrates an assault on a reporter in Montana at the same time as his Administration tries to minimize the murder of a reporter in Turkey. His words matter, and they reveal his character, said New Yorker and CNN contributor Jeffrey Toobin." ...
... Jonathan Chait has a good take on Trump's praise of violence against journalists. "Trump is telling Republicans everywhere that they can help gain power and esteem through violence against journalists. His crowd's enthusiasm vindicates him." The one thing Chait omits as that even as Trump praises Gianforte & helps MBS craft a cover story, Trump is regaling the same crowd with poetry like, "Democrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs." That is, he is (falsely) accusing Democrats of exactly the same behavior he is advocating in Republicans.
Griff Witte of the Washington Post: "Europe's top court ordered Poland's government on Friday to immediately halt implementation of a controversial law designed to force more than a dozen of the nation's Supreme Court justices into early retirement. The surprise decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) sets up a potential clash between European authorities and the right-wing Polish government, which has been accused of subverting the rule of law with a bid to pack Supreme Court with sympathetic judges. The Polish government had no immediate reaction to the ruling. But Polish officials have earlier suggested they might defy the ECJ's will if the court sought to intervene in what the government sees as a purely domestic matter."
Justin Mack & Holly Hays of the Indianapolis Star: "Many Hoosiers who saw the latest Joe Donnelly ad entitled 'Ax' may have viewed it and thought, 'well, there's a fella who likes to chop his own wood!' But fans of HBO's 'Veep' looked at it and said, 'boy, this sure looks familiar.' That's because the Donnelly ad posted to his YouTube page Wednesday is very similar to a commercial called 'Chopping' that aired on the Julia Louis-Dreyfus led comedy for fictional congressional candidate Jonah Ryan. The similarities, from the location to the close-up shots of wood being chopped on a stump, were pointed out on Twitter by Jerry Dunleavy.... In August, Mike Braun's campaign pulled its campaign ad known as 'Doers' after it was pointed out that shared similarities with a Chevron ad, according to the Indiana Democratic Party. The two shared the tagline 'doers,' as well as similar graphic design elements." Braun is Donnelly's GOP opponent. Mrs. Mc.C: You'd think Sen. Donnelly would be smart enough not to duplicate his opponent's goof. But no. ...
... The Indy Star story includes the ad but not these "Veep" "outtakes," which Chris Hayes aired last night:
... Also pretty funny: a focus group's reaction to the "Veep" campaign ad:
*****
Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Thursday that he believes the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, and he expressed confidence in intelligence reports from multiple sources that strongly suggest a high-level Saudi role in Mr. Khashoggi's assassination. Mr. Trump stopped short of saying the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was responsible for Mr. Khashoggi's death. But the president acknowledged that the allegations that the prince ordered the killing raised deep questions about the American alliance with Saudi Arabia and had ignited one of the most serious foreign policy crises of his presidency.... 'Unless the miracle of all miracles happens, I would acknowledge that he's dead,' Mr. Trump said. 'That's based on everything -- intelligence coming from every side.' A short time later, Mr. Trump reiterated to reporters at Joint Base Andrews that he believed Mr. Khashoggi is dead, and said 'this is bad, bad stuff and the consequences should be severe.' The Times interview occurred after the president was briefed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia and Turkey." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wait. I thought Haberman was "a third rate reporter" whom Trump doesn't speak to & has "nothing to do with." Of course, that would be back when Haberman wrote that Michael Cohen might flip & Trump said that was unpossible. Ah, but perhaps Trump -- uncharacteristically -- has decided to let bygones be bygones. So this should help. ...
... Maggie Haberman: Over the course of 21 months, President Trump has loudly and repeatedly refused to accept a number of seemingly agreed-upon facts, while insisting on the veracity of a variety of demonstrably false claims that happen to suit his political needs. In the process, he has untethered the White House from the burden of objective proof, creating a rich trove for professional fact-checkers, and raising questions about the basis for many of his decisions.... Mr. Trump's refusal to accept some established facts is hardly new. From his belief in the guilt of five young men of color in connection with a savage attack on a white woman in Central Park in the 1980s, to his conviction that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya, he has carried on what amount to personal crusades in the face of established facts for much of his career. The most noticeable new variation of that tendency that Mr. Trump has adopted as president is his penchant for giving the benefit of the doubt to authoritarian leaders with whom he has tried to develop personal or political relationships." Haberman provides many examples. ...
... David Kirkpatrick & Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "The rulers of Saudi Arabia are considering blaming a top intelligence official close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, three people with knowledge of the Saudi plans said Thursday. The plan to assign blame to Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, a high-ranking adviser to the crown prince, would be an extraordinary recognition of the magnitude of international backlash to hit the kingdom since the death of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi dissident.... Blaming General Assiri could also provide a plausible explanation for the killing and help deflect blame from the crown prince, who American intelligence agencies are increasingly convinced was behind Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance.... Jared Kushner ... has been urging the president to stand by Prince Mohammed, according to a person close to the White House and a former official with knowledge of the discussions." ...
... Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "A frequent companion of Saudi Arabia's crown prince entered the country's consulate in Istanbul just hours before Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident writer, disappeared inside, according to a time-stamped photograph published on Thursday by a pro-government Turkish newspaper. The photograph of the companion, who has been previously identified as Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, is one of the most striking pieces of evidence to date linking Mr. Khashoggi's Oct. 2 disappearance and possible death to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.... The Turkish newspaper, Sabah, also showed photographs of Mr. Mutreb outside the Saudi consul general's home, leaving a Turkish hotel with a large suitcase, and leaving the country from Istanbul's international airport -- all later that day." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
Ian Pannell & Engin Bas of ABC News: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has heard an alleged audio recording of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to a senior Turkish official.... Separately, ABC News has also learned that Turkish officials believe that Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate following a struggle that lasted eight minutes and that they believe he died of strangulation. The White House referred questions to the State Department which denied Pompeo had heard the recording.... President Trump has been publicly asking to hear the recording. Pompeo met with the president at the White House on Thursday morning to brief him on his visit to Turkey and Saudi Arabia...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If the recording, the existence of which has been widely reported, does exist, why didn't Pompeo demand to hear it, & examine other evidence, when he was in Istanbul? Pompeo's trip seems to have been much more a PR excursion for the Saudi regime than a fact-finding mission. He must have been a great CIA director.
... Alan Rappeport & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has withdrawn from the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh next week after facing bipartisan backlash over his plans to attend despite the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.... It was uncertain as of Thursday morning whether he would still travel to Riyadh, where he was also planning to visit the Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center, a joint initiative between the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations unveiled a year ago.... Mr. Mnuchin's withdrawal was announced less than an hour after [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo told journalists that he had made clear to Saudi Arabia's royal leaders ... that the United States was taking the circumstances surrounding Mr. Khashoggi seriously. Mr. Pompeo, the former C.I.A. director, described the matter as 'the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi' -- a striking contrast to a growing assessment among American intelligence agencies that the Washington Post columnist was killed, and that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia was culpable in the death." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: These guys really know how to stand up to murderous thugs, don't they? ...
... Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker warned the Trump administration on Thursday that its information 'clampdown' on the alleged killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi can't go on.... The Trump administration's decision to withhold its most recent intelligence from Corker, an occasional Trump critic, underscores the president's desire to keep close information that could harm the Saudis' position among members of Congress." ...
... David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "... the Senate and House intelligence committees should begin an urgent oversight investigation of what U.S. spy agencies knew about threats against Khashoggi -- and also into their broader reporting and analysis on Saudi Arabia and its headstrong crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. This congressional inquiry should focus first on the intelligence agencies' 'duty to warn' Khashoggi about any lethal threat, because his U.S. residency qualified him as a 'U.S. person' for whom such a warning was required. It should look, too, for any hint that U.S. intelligence about MBS ... has been skewed by the Trump White House for political reasons. And the investigation should examine the larger problem of U.S. visibility into the kingdom, which has too often been a black hole for our spy agencies." ...
... BUT. Robert Costa & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a dark whisper campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist's alleged murder by Saudi Arabian operatives -- and support Trump's continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom. In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood during his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials.... The smears have escalated. Donald Trump Jr. ... shared a tweet last week with his millions of followers that included a line that Khashoggi was 'tooling around Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden' in the 1980s, even though the context was a feature story on bin Laden's activities." ...
... Frank Rich: "When the music stopped with Khashoggi's murder and embarrassed CEOs started bailing from the crown prince's 'Davos in the Desert' jamboree, the revelations of American deference to a criminal despot were a searing indictment of our own elites. The indictment found its meme when the current secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, shuttled off to Riyadh on a supposed fact-finding mission that yielded no facts but plenty of images of him toadying and yukking it up before the Saudi royals. Don't underestimate the ability of the Saudis to use its economic and political power to make this story go away, as it has with so many others in the course of its oil-greased relationship with America." Rich adds nice zingers on Tom Friedman, the Clintons & Elizabeth Warren, too. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: A NYT opinion editor with any guts would have fired Tom Friedman a long time ago. He usually writes on subjects most Americans don't know much about -- the details of Middle East politics -- so Times readers, trusting the paper, often are willing to assume he's right. Usually, he is not. ...
... Christopher Dickey of The Daily Beast: "The notion of a creepy, creeping Islamist takeover of America was a histrionic refrain from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and others throughout the 2016 elections, but it started before, and has continued since. The Sharia 'threat' was a great distraction. At the same time that Republican-controlled state legislatures were gerrymandering and vote suppressing, they were scrambling to pass legislation banning 'foreign laws,' meaning 'Sharia.' By the beginning of this year, 201 such bills had been introduced in 43 states, and 14 legislatures actually passed them [according to the SPLC].... To be sure, in the aberrant Age of Trump, irony has just about died.... But to watch the frantic efforts of the administration to cover for a murderous Saudi prince -- this from a president who came to power Muslim-baiting and harping on the 'threat' of Sharia -- adds a particularly gruesome note to the narrative, and an irony that should not be ignored." --s ...
... Jonathan Chait: "The saga of Khashoggi's apparent murder touches on the U.S.'s relationship with a gulf kingdom whose value has gone unscrutinized for a long time, and on Trump's evident lack of any public ethics whatsoever. But it is also a story about the Republican Congress's refusal to conduct oversight -- a refusal embedded so deeply in the party's mind that it is impossible to find Republicans even mulling an alternative.... The most benign explanation [for the U.S. part in the cover-up] at this point is that Trump's administration is simply too dedicated to preserving the alliance to allow its valued partner to suffer the public-relations debacle of blame for the murder; the worst-case scenario is that Trump is accepting bribes from the Saudis.... Only a wave large enough to flip at least one chamber of Congress will create some mechanism of accountability and oversight to ensure American foreign policy is not being grotesquely corrupted." ...
... Springtime for Dictators. Max Boot of the Washington Post: "If the Saudis carried out this grisly crime with high-level authorization, as the evidence would indicate, they did so at least in part because they anticipated that the American president wouldn't care about the disappearance of another 'enemy of the people.' Trump has given every despot on the planet a license to kill without worrying about the U.S. reaction. Because, in all likelihood, there will be none." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mark Moore of the New York Post: "One of the 15 Saudis who arrived in Turkey the same day Jamal Khashoggi disappeared has died in a 'suspicious traffic accident' and the Saudi consul in Istanbul could be the 'next execution,' according to Turkish media reports. Mashal Saad al-Bostani, 31, a lieutenant in the Saudi Royal Air Forces, was among the 15-member 'hit team' that landed in Istanbul in two private jets from Riyadh on Oct. 2 and headed to the Saudi consulate. He died in a car crash in Riyadh, but few details have emerged, the newspaper Yeni Safak reported, adding that his role in the 'murder' was not clear." Mrs. McC: Don't know if this is true, but I've posted it for what it's worth. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
John Wagner & Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "President Trump threatened Thursday to summon the military to close the U.S.-Mexico border and upend a trade deal, expressing mounting frustration with a large caravan of migrants from Honduras making its way toward the United States. In morning tweets, Trump repeated vows to stop U.S. aid to Central American countries that do not disband the caravan and issued a fresh threat to the Mexican government, which said Wednesday that it would treat those in the caravan no differently than it does other migrants." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is why no country should enter into an agreement with Trump. His word means less than nothing. ...
... Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump's chief of staff and his national security adviser engaged in a heated argument outside the Oval Office on Thursday, according to three people.... The chief of staff, John Kelly, and the national security adviser, John Bolton, fought over immigration and border crossings, including the performance of the Homeland Security Department under Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, one person familiar with the matter said.... Bolton criticized DHS, and Kelly defended Nielsen, a former deputy whom he supported to replace him at the department.... The shouting match was so intense that other White House aides worried one of the two men might immediately resign.... Kelly then stormed away, so upset that he uttered some profanities." ...
... Arelis Hernández of the Washington Post: "Nearly four months after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite families separated at the border, 245 children remain in government custody, according to a new analysis of government data by the American Civil Liberties Union. The parents of 175 of the children have been deported, the report says, and 125 of them so far have decided to remain in the United States and pursue asylum on their own. The report was released this week, as President Trump is promising a renewed crackdown on the record number of migrant families entering the United States and weighing whether to launch a modified version of the family separation effort to deter migrants from crossing the border."
Lauren Fox of CNN: "... Donald Trump was more instrumental than previously known in scrapping plans to move the FBI headquarters out of Washington to the DC suburbs, according to newly released internal government emails. The decision could have financial benefits for the President, whose own hotel is located a block away, critics say. The documents were released Thursday by House Democrats in a letter to General Services Administrator Emily Murphy that suggests she misled Congress about the President's involvement. 'New documents provided to the Oversight Committee indicate that President Trump met personally with you, the FBI, and White House officials on January 24, 2018, where he was directly involved with the decision to abandon the long-term relocation plan and instead move ahead with the more expensive proposal to construct a new building on the same site, and thereby prevent Trump Hotel competitors from acquiring the land,' states the letter by Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.... White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that ... 'The President wanted to save the government money and also the FBI leadership did not want to move its headquarters,' she told CNN in a statement. A financial analysis conducted by the GSA's inspector general, however, concluded that constructing a new FBI building in downtown DC 'would actually be more costly' than relocating the bureau." The story outlines the content of e-mails that implicate Trump & is accompanied by a photo of Murphy's meeting with Trump, John Kelly, Rod Rosenstein & others. ...
... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: tells the same story in greater detail. "... the degree to which [Donald] Trump influenced decisions about the [Washington, D.C.,] F.B.I. building has emerged as another flashpoint in the running debate over whether his business holdings create conflicts of interest with his duties as president." Mrs. McCrabbie: The lies & deceit around the FBI project are perfectly consistent with the conclusion that ...
... Trump's Business Model Is Fraud. Adam Davidson of the New Yorker: "What, exactly, is Donald Trump's business? The Trump Organization is unusual in that it doesn't appear to do the same thing for very long. It was a builder of apartments for the lower middle class, then a builder of luxury buildings and hotels, then a casino company, and, most recently, a brand-licensing firm, selling its name to anybody who wanted 'TRUMP' emblazoned on a building, bottled water, or whatever else. These are wildly different businesses.... It is becoming increasingly clear that, in the language of business schools, the Trump Organization's core competency is in profiting from misrepresentation and deceit and, potentially, fraud.... The Times published a remarkable report, on October 2nd, that showed that much of the profit the Trump Organization made came not from successful real-estate investment but from defrauding state and federal governments through tax fraud. This week, ProPublica and WNYC co-published a stunning story and a 'Trump, Inc.' podcast that can be seen as the international companion to the Times piece. They show that many of the Trump Organization's international deals also bore the hallmarks of financial fraud, including money laundering, deceptive borrowing, outright lying to investors, and other potential crimes."
Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Early this week, the writers' coalition, PEN America, sued President Trump in federal court.... [The suit] recalled Trump's view 'that it is "frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write" and that "people should look into that."' PEN wants the court to block the president from using his office to retaliate against media criticism. The suit cites Trump's reported meddling in the proposed merger of AT&T and CNN and his reported pressuring of the U.S. postmaster general to double Amazon's postal rates. (Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) But the same president who calls the media disgusting -- and thinks it would be a good idea 'loosen up' libel laws so plaintiffs can win lots of money -- would be lost without free-speech protections." Sullivan cites Trump's attacks on Stormy Daniels & Trump's First Amendment defense in a suit over his procurement of stolen DNC emails. "As he blasts, daily, far beyond civility into the ugly territory of insult and threat, he is well aware that the laws he disses are very likely to protect him."
Bloody Battle in Affghanistan," Ctd. Taimoor Shah & Mujib Mashal of the New York Times: "One of the most devastating Taliban assassination strikes of the long Afghan war killed top leaders of Kandahar Province on Thursday, in an attack that missed the top American commander in the country, Gen. Austin S. Miller. In the provincial governor's compound in Kandahar City, at least one attacker fatally shot the region's powerful police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, as well as the provincial governor and the intelligence chief, and wounded three Americans, Afghan officials said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke violated the department's policy on travel, the agency's watchdog concluded. The Interior Department's watchdog found that Zinke violated department policy by allowing his wife to travel in government vehicles and instructing his security detail to drive an associate to the airport. The decision to take an unarmed security detail on his overseas vacation cost taxpayers $25,000, the report found. This is a developing story. It will be updated. Interior Department officials said Thursday that they did not approve the hiring of a political appointee as the agency's acting watchdog, calling the announcement of her move by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson '100 percent false information.' The backtracking on Suzanne Israel Tufts's move two days after it drew widespread scrutiny deepened questions about how and why she was supposedly chosen to lead Interior's inspector general's office, which is currently conducting at least four investigations into Secretary Ryan Zinke." ...
... Ari Natter of Bloomberg News: "The Interior Department's longtime acting inspector general, whose aggressive investigations have been a thorn in the side of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, will keep her job. Mary Kendall, the Interior Department's deputy inspector general, has overseen a record number of investigations of Zinke, including one that concluded the secretary could have avoided spending $12,375 on a charter flight to a hockey team owned by a former campaign contributor. Ben Carson, Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, told staff in an Oct. 12 email that Suzanne Israel Tufts, a political appointee who serves as assistant secretary of HUD's Office of Administration, would be leaving the agency to become the acting inspector general at the Interior Department.... Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department's funding, complained about the reported move in a letter to Zinke. 'There is no precedent for putting a political appointee in the position of Acting Inspector General,' McCollum said. 'This appointment has every appearance of a blatant attempt to stifle the Office of the Inspector General's investigations that could determine actions you have taken as Secretary are unethical.'... Heather Swift, a senior adviser to Zinke, said in a statement Thursday that Kendall remains in her post and there'd never been a decision to move Tufts into the job." ...
... Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "Contradicting Carson's email, Swift said Tufts was merely considered 'as a potential candidate for a position' in the Inspector General's office, not offered the top job.... Swift's attempt at a clarification has not quieted the outrage. 'This administration can't stop embarrassing itself or keep its story straight for five minutes,' Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, told Politico. 'Nobody is buying this explanation and we're not going to stop pressing for answers.' What this latest scandal has done, however, is shine a much-needed light on the messy state of agency Inspector General offices -- particularly the Interior Department's.... The Interior Department has not had a confirmed inspector general for almost a decade. If it had, there never would have been a question about whether Zinke fired her, because he wouldn't have had that power[, one that is reserved for the White House & requires Senate confirmation].... Fourteen other agencies ... don't have Senate-confirmed inspectors general."
Head in Sand. Tarpley Hitt of The Daily Beast: "On Oct. 6, United Nations policy makers approved a report presenting a 'dire' picture of the coming changes to the planet.... But in the nearly two weeks since the report's release, the federal government has avoided the subject or declined to discuss it at length.... A spokesperson from the New York headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told The Daily Beast that she was unaware of the recent report.... 'What report?' she asked. 'I haven't heard of it.'... Representatives from the other nine regional offices either declined to comment, did not respond to requests for comment, or deferred to the D.C. office. In an email to The Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the national office wrote that the agency would not endorse the report's findings.... The EPA declined to discuss the findings by phone. The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, meanwhile, did not respond to requests for comment on the IPCC report." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is remarkable. The EPA spokesperson in New York City has access to, um, the New York Times, where the U.N. report was front-page, top o' the page, news. On her way to work, she no doubt passes kiosks & vending machines where the NYT headline blared. But I suppose she's a Trump appointee, who doesn't deign to read the "fake news" in "the failing New York Times." ...
... Marlowe Hood & Catherine Hours of the AFP: "Energy sector carbon emissions will rise in 2018 after hitting record levels the year before, dimming prospects for meeting Paris climate treaty goals, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday. The energy sector accounts for 80 percent of global CO2 emissions, with most of the rest caused by deforestation and agriculture, so its performance is key to efforts to rein in rising world temperatures." --s
Election 2018
Trump Praises Candidate for Assaulting Journalist. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Trump praised a Republican candidate's assault last year on a reporter ... in a freewheeling rally [In Missoula, Montana,] meant to mobilize his base's support in the coming midterm elections. In urging the crowd to vote for Representative Greg Gianforte, who is running for re-election and who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for assaulting a reporter last spring, Mr. Trump jokingly warned the crowd to 'never wrestle him.' 'I had heard he body-slammed a reporter,' Mr. Trump said, noting that he was initially concerned that Mr. Gianforte would lose in a special election last May. 'I said, "Wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well; I think it might help him." And it did.' 'Anybody that can do a body-slam,' the president added, 'that's my kind of guy.' Mr. Trump made no mention at the rally of Jamal Khashoggi...." ...
Rachel Bade of Politico: "... House Republicans -- and privately, even a few Democrats -- say the GOP could still hang on, if only by a few seats. The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has given GOP voters a badly needed enthusiasm boost, they argue, and several races seen as unwinnable just weeks ago are suddenly back within reach for Republicans. Democrats, meanwhile, have retreated from several battlegrounds once considered prime targets. They've also deserted a Democratic-controlled open seat in Minnesota, creating a new, rare pickup opportunity for Republicans in a cycle where they've consistently been on defense."
Paul Krugman writes about what the news media should have concencrated on instead of Trump's Outrage(s) of the Day & Elizabeth Warren's genetics: Mitch's plans for the future: "... this week Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, after declaring the [soaring budget deficit] 'very disturbing,' called for, you guessed it, cuts in 'Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.' He also suggested that Republicans might repeal the Affordable Care Act -- taking away health care from tens of millions -- if they do well in the midterm elections.... Even I have been surprised by a couple of things about the G.O.P.'s budget bait-and-switch. One is the timing: I would have expected McConnell to hold his tongue until after the midterms. The other is the lying: I knew Donald Trump and his allies would be dishonest, but I didn't expect the lies to be as baldfaced as they are.... They claim [the deficit] is the result of higher spending, not lost revenue. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's budget director, even tried to claim that the deficit is up because of the costs of hurricane relief.... [And] Republicans like Dean Heller, Josh Hawley and even Ted Cruz who voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which protects Americans with pre-existing medical conditions, or supported a lawsuit trying to strip that protection out of the act, and are now running on the claim that they want to ... protect people with pre-existing conditions."
Wisconsin. Molly Beck & Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A fourth former official in Gov. Scott Walker's administration has publicly denounced the governor as he seeks a third term.... Paul Jadin, the first CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., resigned from his $208,000 position as president of the Madison Region Economic Partnership just before he and two other former Walker officials released a letter to the Wisconsin State Journal blasting the governor [and endorsing the democratic candidate Tony Evers].... 'It's hard to think of another instance like this where even one or two cabinet secretaries would come and speak out against a sitting governor. To have four is unprecedented,' said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison." --s
Kansas. Roxana Hegemen of TPM: "Access to the ballot box in November will be more difficult for some people in Dodge City, where Hispanics now make up 60 percent of its population.... [T]he city ... has only one polling site for its 27,000 residents. Since 2002, the lone site was at the civic center just blocks from the local country club -- in the wealthy, white part of town. For this November's election, local officials have moved it outside the city limits to a facility more than a mile from the nearest bus stop, citing road construction that blocked the previous site.... Polling places across the country have also been shuttered since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act. A 2016 research report from the civil rights coalition Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights found local officials had shuttered 868 polling places in the three years after the court's ruling." --s
California. Meg Cunningham of ABC News: "Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who's running to unseat Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter in California, responded Wednesday to a Hunter ad calling him a 'security risk' because of his Palestinian family connections.... 'The first thought that came to mind ... is that Republican John McCain would be rolling in his grave today if he saw this ad,' Campa-Najjar said. 'More than any poll..., that ad shows you that I'm not a threat to national security, but I sure as heck am a threat to Duncan Hunter's seat.' Hunter is fighting to keep his job after being indicted over the summer for charges related to misuse of campaign funds.... Campa-Najjar's grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born, was involved in the 1972 terror plot at the Munich Olympics." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Campa-Najjar, who worked in the Labor Department during the Obama administration, has a security clearance & pointed out on Chris Hayes' show Thursday night that Hunter himself could not get a security clearance because of the indictment & other matters. Campa-Najjar seems very sharp. He's running neck-and-neck with Hunter in a what was a "safe" Republican district. I sent Campa-Najjar's campaign a small donation.
Election 1988. Jim Fallows of the Atlantic on how Lee Atwater may have changed the course of U.S. history by causing Gary Hart's downfall. Turns out Atwater (partner to Roger Stone & Paul Manafort, BTW) set up Hart in the "Monkey Business" misadventure.
Campbell Rogers & Elizabeth Dias of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades, a significant escalation in scrutiny of the church. The inquiry is believed to be the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church's sex abuse problems. And it comes two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general's office released an explosive grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years."
Bloomberg: "Stock-market turbulence and a sharper-than-expected economic slowdown are ratcheting up pressure on China's leaders, just as Donald Trump does the same. A day after the Shanghai Composite Index plunged to a four-year low and Trump took new steps to escalate his trade war with Beijing, third-quarter growth figures showed China's economy expanding at the weakest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009. Faced with a growing panic in the stock market, the chiefs of China's market regulator, central bank and financial watchdog all issued statements calling for investor calm.... China's stock market is still the world's worst performer since January -- losing nearly enough value to wipe out the combined market capitalization of Brazil, India and Russia." --s
Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "The American far-right is falling in line behind Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian presidential candidate who previously praised the country's military dictatorship and who once described a congresswoman as too ugly to rape. Over the weekend, the BBC World Service reported David Duke, former KKK Grand Wizard and a longstanding fixture among white supremacists, had endorsed Bolsonaro.... Bolsonaro, for his part, swiftly rebuked the endorsement, tweeting that he 'refuse[s] any kind of support coming from supremacists groups' and suggested 'they support my adversary, the candidate of the left party, who loves to segregate the society.'... Fringe conservative commentator and film producer Dinesh D'Souza tweeted his support for Bolsonaro Wednesday.... Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, meanwhile, recently met with President Trump's former chief strategist and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, a meeting which the Bolsonaro campaign was later forced to then downplay.... Bolsonaro has promised to shutter the country's Ministry of Environment, withdraw from the Paris climate accord, and open up much of the Amazon for mining." --s
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