;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 15, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Mark Landler & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... is the leading contender to be secretary of state in the Trump administration, campaign officials said on Tuesday, as ... Mike Pence plans to join ... Donald J. Trump in New York to accelerate the process of filling out his cabinet." -- CW
... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump's transition operation plunged into disarray on Tuesday with the abrupt resignation of Mike Rogers, who had handled national security matters, the second shake-up in a week on a team that has not yet begun to execute the daunting task of taking over the government.... Mr. Pence took the helm of the effort on Friday after Mr. Trump unceremoniously removed Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had been preparing with Obama administration officials for months to put the complex transition process into motion. Now the effort is frozen, senior White House officials say, because Mr. Pence has yet to sign legally required paperwork to allow his team to begin collaborating with President Obama's aides on the handover." -- CW ...
... Jerry Markon, et al., of the Washington Post: "It was unclear why [Rogers resigned].... Rudy Giuliani appeared to take himself out of the running for attorney general.... In one surprising development, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has been a confidant to Trump since the end of the Republican primaries, is unlikely to join the administration but will remain an informal adviser... Eliot Cohen, a leading voice of opposition to Trump among former national security officials during the campaign, blasted Trump's transition team in a tweet on Tuesday. 'After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly,' tweeted Cohen, who served ...as counselor to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.... Cohen also said the transition official was 'completely dismissive' of concerns raised about Trump's appointment of former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon as chief White House strategist." --CW
"Turn on the Hate." New York Times Editors: "Anyone holding out hope that Donald Trump would govern as a uniter -- that the racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and nativism of his campaign were just poses to pick up votes -- should think again. In an ominous sign of what the Trump presidency will actually look like, the president-elect on Sunday appointed Stephen Bannon as his chief White House strategist and senior counselor, an enormously influential post.... Breitbart News ... under Mr. Bannon became what the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a 'white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill.'... To scroll through Breitbart headlines is to come upon a parallel universe where black people do nothing but commit crimes, immigrants rape native-born daughters, and feminists want to castrate all men." -- CW
Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Donald Trump's dual roles as president-elect of the United States and owner of a large but completely opaque network of privately held companies present unprecedented conflicts of interest that the country heard little about during [the] campaign.... Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wants Congress to start focusing on these problems and has sent a letter to his opposite number, Chair Jason Chaffetz of Utah, requesting hearings into the matter." -- CW ...
... Matt Yglesias: Trump's "opening bid is that companies he owns and whose asset structure is completely opaque should be controlled by his children and heirs who will also serve as high-level informal government advisers with top secret clearances. Cummings's view is that this arrangement is not acceptable, and Congress should work to find an alternate structure. The question is whether Chaffetz -- who didn't defend or endorse Trump when he was a candidate -- will now defend and endorse this massive conflict of interest now that he's won." -- CW
Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Donald Trump is considering naming anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Clare Lopez as his deputy national security adviser, according to a list of possible appointees the Daily Caller published Tuesday. The Daily Caller reported that the list was an internal document put together by the President-elect's transition team.... Lopez, who has also written for far-right sites Breitbart News and World Net Daily, helped popularize the myth that senior Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin was an 'operative' of the Muslim Brotherhood." -- CW
James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "Barack Obama has deluded himself with the misguided hope that Donald Trump will not even try to follow through on many of his biggest campaign promises. He is consoling himself with the hope that, if he does, the new president will be measured, self-restrained and respectful of custom. That he will 'study ... deeply' and 'look at the facts.' That logic and reason, not emotion or ideology, will drive him above all else.... For a little over an hour yesterday afternoon, Americans saw a 55-year-old who has not come to grips with just how big a blow Trump's victory is to his legacy and his party. He rationalized. He downplayed. He justified. He minimized. With all the trappings of the presidency still his, it hasn't fully sunk in yet." -- CW
Paul Waldman: "... for Democrats to regain their focus, they need a specific controversy around which they can organize and potentially notch a win. And it looks like they may have found it. I'm speaking of Paul Ryan's wish to privatize Medicare, or phase it out.... An effort to phase out Medicare will unite liberals and give them one specific thing to direct their energies toward. It'll make the consequences of unified Republican rule vivid and concrete." -- CW
"A Poll Tax by Another Name." Ronald Krotoszynski, in a New York Times op-ed: "... a very small difference in net votes -- around 100,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- would have turned Hillary Clinton's popular vote victory into an Electoral College victory as well. As people try to process what happened on Election Day, we need to consider carefully whether the difficulty of voting in our nation's urban centers, in places like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, might have played a decisive role. This isn't merely idle speculation. Professors Charles Stewart III, of M.I.T., and Stephen Ansolabehere, of Harvard, estimate that long lines at the polls discouraged between 500,000 and 700,000 would-be voters from casting ballots in the 2012 general election." -- CW: BTW, The Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibits Congress and the states from imposing a poll tax "or other tax" as a condition of voting.
*****
Patrick Reis of Politico: "Hillary Clinton has been declared the winner of New Hampshire's presidential race.... New Hampshire is worth 4 Electoral College votes, bringing Clinton's total to 232 votes to Donald Trump's 290. With New Hampshire called, the only state still undecided is Michigan, where Trump boasts a thin lead but the margin remains too small for a definitive call on the state's 16 Electoral College votes." -- CW
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama said on Monday that he had urged ... Donald J. Trump to reach out to minority groups, women and others who were alienated by his campaign, during the president's first news conference since Mr. Trump won the election.... 'There are certain things that make for good sound bites but don't always translate into good policy, and that's something that I think that he and his team will wrestle with,' Mr. Obama said in the White House briefing room." -- CW ...
... Juliet Eilperin & Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "Pressed repeatedly by reporters on how he viewed Trump's character, the president praised him as a politician rather than as policymaker.... 'Do I have concerns? Absolutely,' the president added. 'He and I differ on a whole bunch of issues.' And Obama cautioned that there are 'certain elements of his temperament that will not serve him well, unless he recognizes them and corrects' them":
... "The Prince of Darkness Is a Gentleman." -- Obama. Dana Milbank: "Obama's post-election remarks seemed utterly at odds with the national mood. Half the country is exultant because Donald Trump has promised to undo everything Obama has done over the past eight years. The other half of the country is alarmed that a new age of bigotry and inwardness has seized the country. And here's the outgoing president, reciting what a fine job he has done.... He didn't mention Hillary Clinton's name once in his news conference, and he went out of his way to praise Trump.... If Clinton and Obama had limited the build-on-success theme during the campaign in favor of a more populist vision and policies, they really would have had something to smile about this week." CW: Or, as James S. writes today, "I keep trying to figure out what game Obama is playing here."
Simon Tisdale of the Guardian: "When [President Obama] makes his final visit to Europe this week, in what had been planned as a triumphant farewell tour, Obama's awkward job is to reassure nervous allies that a Trump presidency will not be as bad as they fear." CW: That would be a betrayal of his beliefs -- and of reality. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Holy Crap! Julianna Goldman of CBS News: "... Donald Trump is potentially seeking top secret security clearances for his children, sources tell CBS News.... The issue raises another layer of questions about the unique role his children are playing and conflicts of interest with their running his network of businesses. Mr. Trump's children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., as well as son-in-law Jared Kushner, were named to ... [Trump's] transition team late last week. Though they were an integral part of his campaign team, Mr. Trump's children have all stated that they will not hold formal roles in the government." -- CW ...
... Charley Lanyon of New York: "It now appears that Trump's children will try to work as unofficial -- and unpaid, in order to skirt the rules against nepotism -- policy advisers to their dad while also taking control of his business concerns. While the current White House might resist granting them clearance, as CBS points out the decision will be wholly up to Trump when he takes office in January." -- CW ...
You have to have some confidence in the integrity of the president.... I don't think there's any real fear or suspicion that he's seeking to enrich himself by being president. If he wanted to enrich himself, he wouldn't have run for president. -- Rudy Giuliani, Sunday, on CNN
... Eric Lipton & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "The Trump International [Hotel in Washington, D.C.,] operates out of the Old Post Office Building, which the federal government owns. That means Mr. Trump will be appointing the head of the General Services Administration, which manages the property, while his children will be running a hotel that has tens of millions of dollars in ties with the agency. He also will oversee the National Labor Relations Board while it decides union disputes involving any of his hotels. A week before the election, the board ruled against Mr. Trump's hotel in a case in Las Vegas.... Further complicating matters are Mr. Trump's decision to name his children to his transition team, and what is likely to be their informal advisory role in his administration. His daughter Ivanka Trump joined an official transition meeting on Thursday, the day before Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was removed from his post leading the effort." -- CW ...
(... Ken Vogel, et al., of Politico (Nov. 11): Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner has never liked Christie. "Kushner's father was prosecuted and convicted for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering by Christie during his time as a U.S. attorney. 'Jared ... always held that against Christie.' [a person familiar with the transition] said." -- CW)
Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and ... Donald J. Trump spoke by telephone for the first time on Monday, agreeing to review what both consider the poor state of relations between the two countries, according to a statement from the Kremlin. The two agreed 'on the absolutely unsatisfactory state of bilateral relations,' said the statement, and they both endorsed the idea of undertaking joint efforts 'to normalize relations and pursue constructive cooperation on the broadest possible range of issues.'" -- CW
Filling the Swamp. New York Times Editors: "Mr. Trump's layering of its [transition] team with family, friends and hacks is worrying. The inclusion of lobbyists flies in the face of his 'Drain the Swamp' refrain. The big donors on the team, like Rebekah Mercer, are also unnerving, a sign that the new government may be further in debt to superwealthy backers." --CW ...
... What Hacks? Charles Pierce: "... there is talk that Dr. Ben Carson will be named Secretary of Education.... Dr. Ben, of course, is a creationist with some interesting theories in the field of Egyptology. More recently, Dr. Ben, crusader against the evils of 'political correctness,' has proposed that the federal government monitor the nation's universities for evidence of ideas of which Dr. Ben does not approve.... There also is talk that the Department of Homeland Security will be entrusted to Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, who already has said that the outbreak of protests against the election of Donald Trump is overdue to be crushed. It's possible that Clarke has muted his ravin ... er ... rhetoric because he's preoccupied with finding out how an inmate died of thirst, in 2016, in his jail." -- CW ...
... Driftglass: Joe Scarborough is all upset that crazy John Bolton is reputedly Trump's fave for Secretary of State. 'John Bolton's ties to Pamela Geller would only further inflame charges that Donald Trump is pandering to the Alt-Right.' -- Joe Scarborough [in a tweet] Golly, Joe, they're not 'charges'. They're facts. With a song in their hearts and their eyes wide open, your party finally got it's wish and elected their very own American Mussolini. Your party did that. And yet now, shockingly, many of your caste seem to be getting all nervous and sweaty and apprehensive about the decisions ... [Trump] is making. Of course, John Bolton is not my dream date, nor is a Neo-nazi like Steve Bannon, nor any of the other con men. jackbooted lunatics, perverts and freaks that Don the Con has lined up to run his government, but they sure as shit are a hit with your people, Joe, so why the long face?" -- CW ...
... Daniel Victor & Liam Stack of the New York Times assemble some things Steve Bannon has said & some articles Breitbart has published under his leadership. -- CW ...
... Ben Shapiro in the Daily Wire (late of Breitbart "News"): "... what will [Steve Bannon] do with [his newfound] power? He'll target enemies. Bannon is one of the most vicious people in politics.... He likes to destroy people. But more importantly, Bannon's interested in turning the Republican Party into a far-right European party.... Bannon has always wanted to burn down the GOP.... It's hard to tell from the outside what's happening, but here's a ... theory: Reince is the bagman for Trump, and Bannon's whispering in Trump's ear. That would fit the fact pattern here...." -- CW ...
... David Corn of Mother Jones: "Whatever he might believe,Bannon is a self-proclaimed ally of the alt-right.... And the alt-right promotes white nationalism (if not white supremacism). So journalists who do not report that Trump has selected for a top spot in the White House an enabler of white nationalists -- which certainly could qualify Bannon as a white nationalist himself -- are doing the public and the truth a disservice. Thanks to Trump, a comrade of racists -- many of whom are now cheering his appointment -- is slated to help run the US government. This fact should be front and center, as the nation heads toward the Trump era." -- CW ...
... Give 'Em Hell, Harry. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Harry Reid will continue railing against Donald Trump and his political team all the way into retirement, telling Politico in an interview Monday morning that he will give a speech on Tuesday about Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and former executive at Breitbart. On Sunday, Reid's spokesman Adam Jentleson said Bannon's elevation 'signals that White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump's White House.' ... 'I've already issued a statement last night. I'm going to say something on the floor tomorrow,' Reid said." -- CW ...
... Well, Some People Like the Bannon Pick! Andrew Kaczynski & Christopher Massie of CNN: "White nationalist leaders are praising Donald Trump's decision to name former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, telling CNN in interviews they view Bannon as an advocate in the White House for policies they favor. The leaders of the white nationalist and so-called 'alt-right' movement -- all of whom vehemently oppose multiculturalism and share the belief in the supremacy of the white race and Western civilization -- publicly backed Trump during his campaign.... 'I think that's excellent,' former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told CNN's KFile.... 'You have an individual, Mr. Bannon, who's basically creating the ideological aspects of where we're going,' added Duke.... Peter Brimelow, who runs the white nationalist site VDARE, praised Bannon's hiring, saying it gives Trump a connection to the alt-right movement online. 'I think it's amazing," Brimelow said of Trump's decision to tap Bannon. "... It's almost like Trump cares about ideas!'" -- CW ...
... Charles Pierce: "... appointing Steve Bannon to an important position within the White House is precisely the same as appointing David Duke to an important position within the White House. (If you want to quibble that I'm wrong because Bannon doesn't wear a hood to work, have at it.)... Bannon is being considered a kind of quota hire, a sop to the mindless wolverine Right, whose worst impulses will somehow be checked by Reince Priebus, the political powerhouse who couldn't stop Trump's hijacking of the party and who decided that his real job was to be the Trump campaign's Marshal Petain in Vichy Republicanism." Read Pierce's takedown of NPR's, the WashPo's & the NYT's "reporting" on the Bannon choice. ...
... From Mussolini to Vichy to Nazi Germany, "Blowing Past Godwin's Law" ...
... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "Maybe a lot of people are overwrought since they weren't emotionally or intellectually prepared to deal with a Trump presidency, but there really are a lot of commonalities between Bannon and [Joseph] Goebbels." -- CW ...
... Nothing to Worry about Here, Folks. Move Along, Please ...
... ** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. "Major Newspapers Normalize Trump's Selection of White Nationalist." Judd Legum of Think Progress: "The Anti-Defamation League condemned Bannon's selection, saying he presided over a 'group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists.' But if you picked up any copies of the nation's major newspapers, everything seems normal. USA Today describes Bannon as an 'ally' and 'loyalist.'... The Wall Street Journal describes Bannon as an 'outsider.'... The Washington Post also describes Bannon as an 'outsider,' while devoting most of the front page to the local NFL team.'... The New York Times describes Bannon as a 'firebrand' in the headline.” -- CW ...
... CW: AND let me just add this NYT headline: "Trump's Choice of Stephen Bannon Is Nod to Anti-Washington Base." Oh, Bannon is just "anti-Washington." Okay then, nothing wrong with that. The story itself, by Jeremy Peters, does delve into Bannon's egregious past & doesn't mention the "anti-Washington nod" till Para. 10. Fire the headline writer. ...
... The Not-Anywhere-Close-to-Ready-for-Primetime Players. Matt Yglesias of Vox: "The extent to which Reince Priebus's appointment as White House chief of staff has been greeted in mainstream quarters as a reassuring sign that Donald Trump is going to govern the country in a responsible way is, itself, a disturbing sign.... Trump landed on Priebus, fairly clearly, because he gets along with him personally and because Priebus also gets along with congressional Republican leaders. That's nice. But for a president with no relevant experience or qualifications to be picking key staff positions largely on the basis of their ability to be nice to Donald Trump is a disaster.... In the Trump/Priebus/Bannon axis that's running the government, there's nobody who has any idea how to run the government." -- CW ...
... Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "The Republican Party has reacted to the systematic incompetence of the Bush administration by installing a White House that consists of nothing but Mike Browns. Personal to Jim Comey: heckuva job!" -- CW ...
... Ezra Klein: "... it looks like Donald Trump's presidency will be a whole lot like Donald Trump's campaign. Same guy. Same staff. Same bizarre tweets. Same policies.... The improbability of his victory is leading to its overestimation. He won the Electoral College, but he lost the popular vote. His party kept the House and the Senate but lost seats in both. He'll take office with the lowest approval rating of any American president since the advent of polling. Trump starts it with unusually severe political challenges and gaping personal weaknesses. It's not at all clear he realizes how hard this is going to be, or how easily it can all go wrong." -- CW ...
... Richard Wolffe of the Guardian: "Like all good Shakespearean tragedies, the Trump presidency is presaging its own collapse at the height of its glory. The Priebus-Bannon-family disputes will corrode the West Wing from within.... The Republican establishment may think they can manage Trump through Priebus. But they are about to discover that this dumpster fire of a campaign just turned into a brushfire of a transition." -- CW
Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "... if you take Trump's campaign promises at his word, Republicans have fundamental disagreements with their incoming president on his proposals to spend billions on infrastructure, deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally and institute more protectionist trade policies. And the cracks on those issues are starting to show. Here are six areas where Republicans have given Trump's agenda a lukewarm response." -- CW
"What's Mike Pence Hiding in His Emails?" Fatima Hussein of the Indianapolis Star: "Now that the presidential campaign and most of the furor over Hillary Clinton's email scandal are behind us, the Pence administration is going to court to argue for its own brand of email secrecy. The administration is fighting to conceal the contents of an email sent to Gov. Mike Pence by a political ally. That email is being sought by a prominent Democratic labor lawyer who says he wants to expose waste in the Republican administration. But legal experts fear the stakes may be much higher than mere politics because the decision could remove a judicial branch check on executive power and limit a citizen's right to know what the government is doing and how it spends taxpayer dollars. 'It comes down to this -- the court is giving up its ability to check another branch of government, and that should worry people,' said Gerry Lanosga, a ...professor specializing in public records law." -- CW
** Dahlia Lithwick implores Senate Democrats "to stand firm and even angry on this one point at least: The current Supreme Court vacancy is not Trump's to fill. This was President Obama's vacancy and President Obama's nomination. Please don't tacitly give up on it because it was stolen by unprecedented obstruction and contempt. Instead, do to them what they have done to us. Sometimes, when they go low, we need to go lower, to protect a thing of great value.... We will lose. But that's not the point now. Democrats need to repeat Ted Cruz's lie that eight justices will suffice. If Democrats can muster the energy to fight about nothing else, it should be this, because even if you believe the election was fair or fair enough, the loss of this Supreme Court seat was not. That seat is Merrick Garland's." -- CW
Ben Protess & Alexandra Stevenson of the New York Times: "Wall Street regulators began an exodus from Washington on Monday as Mary Jo White, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced plans to leave the agency. The decision makes Ms. White, a former federal prosecutor who has served more than two decades in the federal government, the first major Obama administration appointee to step down after Donald J. Trump's upset victory last week. Other financial regulators are expected to follow suit in the coming weeks. The election of Mr. Trump is a game-changer for the S.E.C. -- and for that matter, all financial agencies." -- CW
** Jill Lawrence of USA Today: "... if you want to look at who can't get any respect, there's a good case that it's those of us who happen to live in cities and on coasts.... Democrats won the popular vote in six of the past seven national elections, but got only two presidents out of it instead of four. Al Gore won it by 541,000 in 2000. As of Sunday, Hillary Clinton was more than 700,000 votes ahead of Donald Trump and by some estimates headed toward close to a 2-million-vote 'loss.'... Democrats have held the presidency for 20 years since 1977 but haven't had a high court majority since 1971.... And ... that is the ultimate unfairness -- hobbling a two-term president from Day One." -- CW
Abby Phillip & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Democrats scrambled on Monday to assess the damage after Hillary Clinton's loss, marking the start of a season of jockeying within the party over who will be its next leader. On a conference call with supporters late Monday, President Obama congratulated Clinton on a 'history-making' race, but he called on his party to assess what went wrong and retool at a grass-roots level.... Meanwhile, Clinton addressed congressional lawmakers on a separate conference call, acknowledging the impact of her loss.... Clinton noted that the election is one that should be studied, and she urged lawmakers to fight for the party's values harder than ever." -- CW ...
... Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Rep. Keith Ellison on Monday formally announced his candidacy for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. The Minnesota congressman had been laying the groundwork to run for the post even before the deep losses that Democrats suffered on Election Day.... Ellison, who backed the presidential primary bid of Sen. Bernie Sanders, has already been endorsed for chairman by Sanders and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, as well as Rep. Raúl Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Ellison would make a 'terrific' chairman.... Last week, [Howard] Dean [-- who is running to get back his old job as DNC chair --] argued that Ellison couldn't adequately serve as both DNC chairman and as a member of Congress.... The DNC member vote for the next chair isn't expected to take place until the first quarter of next year, perhaps in February or March...." ...
... CW: Why do we care who Sanders & Schumer, et al., endorse? They don't seem to have the slightest fucking idea of how to help the Democratic party win elections. Considering the state of the party, I would say Democratic elders' endorsements are the kiss of death. The Congresscritter who last ran the DNC also ran it into the ground. My suggestion for DNC chair would be someone like David Plouffe or David Axelrod, guys who know how to find good candidates & run winning campaigns. And I'd look for a co-chair who knew how to wrangle money out of fatcats -- say, Hillary Clinton.
Wherein Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek Tells a Voter to Go Fuck Himself. "A certain kind of liberal makes me sick. These people traffic in false equivalencies, always pretending that both nominees are the same, justifying their apathy and not voting or preening about their narcissistic purity as they cast their ballot for a person they know cannot win. I have no problem with anyone who voted for Trump, because they wanted a Trump presidency. I have an enormous problem with anyone who voted for Trump or Stein or Johnson -- or who didn't vote at all -- and who now expresses horror about the outcome of this election. If you don't like the consequences of your own actions, shut the hell up." The whole post is worth reading. -- CW
Eric Levitz of New York: "Last year, hate crimes against Muslims in the United States surged by 67 percent, reaching their highest levels since the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, according to FBI data released on Monday.... Overall, religious-based hate crimes jumped by 23 percent last year, with attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions accounting for 53 percent of those reported. Crimes against Jews rose 9 percent, relative to 2014." CW: If you think about it really, really hard, you might be able to figure out why this has happened. If you're stumped, Levitz ends his piece with a clue: "Last Tuesday, the candidate who campaigned on barring Muslims from America was elected the nation's president. Reports of racist and anti-religious incidents have proliferated in the six days since."
Julia Wong of the Guardian: "The US army corps of engineers has completed its review of the Dakota Access pipeline and is calling for 'additional discussion and analysis', further delaying completion of a project that has faced massive opposition from indigenous and environmental activists.... Donald Trump seems unlikely to side with either Native Americans or environmentalists. He has called climate change a 'bullshit' hoax invented by the Chinese and has a history of conflict with Native American tribes over competition in casinos. Trump's financial disclosure forms show he has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, and $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once it is completed." -- CW
Annals of Fake Journalism. Nick Wingfield, et al., of the New York Times: "Over the last week, two of the world's biggest internet companies have faced mounting criticism over how fake news on their sites may have influenced the presidential election's outcome. On Monday, those companies responded by making it clear that they would not tolerate such misinformation by taking pointed aim at fake news sites' revenue sources. Google ... said it would ban websites that peddle fake news from using its online advertising service. Hours later, Facebook ... updated the language in its Facebook Audience Network policy, which already says it will not display ads in sites that show misleading or illegal content, to include fake news sites.... On Sunday, the site Mediaite reported that the top result on a Google search for 'final election vote count 2016' was a link to a story on a website called 70News that wrongly stated that Mr. Trump, who won the Electoral College, was ahead of ... Hillary Clinton in the popular vote." -- CW
Sam Roberts of the New York Times: "Gwen Ifill, an award-winning television journalist for NBC and PBS, former reporter for The New York Times and author who moderated vice-presidential debates in 2004 and 2008, died on Monday in Washington. She was 61. Her death, at a hospice facility, was announced by Sara Just, executive producer of 'PBS NewsHour.' The cause was cancer, PBS said." A full obituary is to follow. Thanks to NJC for the lead.-- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Trump's America. Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: "A nonprofit group's director and a mayor in a small town in West Virginia have been swept up in a firestorm surrounding comments about Michelle Obama that have been perceived as blatantly racist. After Donald Trump's election as president, Pamela Ramsey Taylor, who was director of Clay County Development Corp. in Clay, a tiny town outside Charleston, reportedly posted about the move from Michelle Obama to Melania Trump on Facebook, saying: 'It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape in heels,' according to NBC affiliate WSAZ. The news station reported that the town's mayor, Beverly Whaling, then replied, 'Just made my day Pam.'... Taylor told the news station that the public response had become a 'hate crime against me,' explaining that she and her children had received death threats. She said she is planning to file a lawsuit against people who have slandered or libeled her...."
Way Beyond
Donald Trump, Making the World Horrible Again. William Booth & Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "Right-wing leaders in the Israeli government have seized on the election of Donald Trump to push forward assertive new legislation that would legalize Jewish settlements in the West Bank built on privately owned Palestinian land. Believing that the time to act is now, as the U.S. president-elect begins to shape his foreign policy, top Israeli ministers voted unanimously Sunday in favor of a bill that would allow Israeli settlements and outposts that were built on property owned by Palestinians to avoid court-ordered demolitions." -- CW
Neil MacFarquhar: "Russia's economy minister was detained overnight on charges of soliciting a $2 million bribe in connection with a huge oil deal, the country's Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday. The minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, 60, was the highest-level official arrested in Russia since a failed coup in 1991. He was detained in the middle of the night, a tactic reminiscent of the Soviet era that has not been seen in recent years.... Analysts have previously said that the campaign to arrest high-level politicians was rooted in fierce competition for illicit gains as the overall pie of the Russian economy shrinks." CW: Meanwhile, the guy who engineered the midnight arrest is on the phone, advising Donald Trump how to do it. Lock her up? Yeah, and some of her friends.
Somini Sengupta & Marlise Simons of the New York Times: "The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday that she had a 'reasonable basis to believe' that American soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan, including torture. The international prosecutor has been considering whether to begin a full-fledged investigation into potential war crimes in Afghanistan for years. In Monday's announcement, the prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, signaled that a full investigation was likely.Still, the prosecutor did not announce a final decision on an investigation, which would have to be approved by judges, and it is unlikely that the United States will cooperate." -- CW
Sewell Chan & Christina Anderson of the New York Times: "Six years after the Swedish authorities opened an investigation into a rape accusation made against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, he faced questioning about the matter on Monday. The questions were prepared by prosecutors in Sweden, where an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange was issued in 2010, but were posed by a prosecutor from Ecuador under an agreement the two countries made in August. Ecuador granted Mr. Assange political asylum in 2012, and the interview occurred at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Mr. Assange has lived in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over the rape accusation." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The Guardian story, by Esther Addley & David Crouch, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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