The Commentariat -- April 4, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The House on Thursday gave final passage to a bipartisan resolution forcing an end to United States military involvement in Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, sending President Trump a pointed rebuke over his continued defense of the kingdom after the killing of a dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. The 247-176 vote, with 16 Republicans joining united Democrats, invoked the rarely used War Powers Act to curb the president's executive power to wage war without congressional approval. It likely sets up the second veto of his presidency, this time to publicly defend a four-year conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and inflicted a devastating famine. The Senate passed a parallel resolution in March, 54 to 46."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "The arrest of a Chinese woman who carried a malware-laced device into Mar-a-Lago, President Trump's Florida resort, has exposed porous security at the private club and escalating tensions between Secret Service agents and the resort's staff members, who vet guest lists and allow people onto the sprawling grounds. At times neither side has had full clarity on who was entering Mar-a-Lago. Secret Service agents must rely on club receptionists and other employees to crosscheck visitors, former officials said. Communication breakdowns allow for security breaches.... Some of the Chinese promoters of [Mar-a-Lago] events flaunt their connections to China's ruling Communist Party and the department that promotes its foreign policy abroad, the United Front Work Department.... A former employee who worked at Mar-a-Lago from 2016 to 2018 said that ... people have been caught on the property previously. In one notable example, a woman gained access to the Mar-a-Lago computer system and changed the automatic screen saver to the name of the president, preceded by an expletive, according to the employee.... The president has personally instructed members to pack fund-raisers beyond the ticket limit at Mar-a-Lago, according to one event organizer...."

All the Best People, Ctd. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "A 2017 invoice indicates that David Bernhardt, President Trump's choice to lead the Interior Department, continued to lobby for a major client several months after he filed official papers saying that he had ended his lobbying activities. The bill for Mr. Bernhardt's services, dated March 2017 and labeled 'Federal Lobbying,' shows, along with other documents, Mr. Bernhardt working closely with the Westlands Water District as late as April 2017, the month Mr. Trump nominated him to his current job, deputy interior secretary. In November 2016, Mr. Bernhardt had filed legal notice with the federal government formally ending his status as lobbyist. Westlands, a powerful California agribusiness group, was one of Mr. Bernhardt's main lobbying and legal clients between 2011 and 2016. During that time, Westlands paid Mr. Bernhardt's firm $1.3 million for lobbying services. A New York Times investigation this year revealed how Mr. Bernhardt made it a priority at the Interior Department to promote policies long sought by Westlands, including a weakening of Endangered Species Act protections for an imperiled fish."” ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds a lot like a certain person who continued to lobby for Trump Moscow Tower months after he said, "I have nothing to do with Russia." ...

... So Naturally... Ellen Knickmeyer of the AP: "A Senate panel voted Thursday to put a veteran former lobbyist in charge of the Interior Department, despite a last-minute round of intense debate on allegations that he was using his federal position to benefit former industry clients. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 14-6 to approve David Bernhardt's appointment to oversee the country's public lands and resources. Two Democrats and one independent joined Republicans in voting yes.... Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico voted with Republicans in approving Bernhardt, as did independent Angus King of Maine.... The vote sends ... Donald Trump's nomination to an as yet unscheduled final vote by the full Senate."

Elizabeth Dias of the New York Times: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a remarkable reversal to its policies on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people on Thursday. The decision rolls back a 2015 policy that barred children living with same-sex couples from important religious practices like baby-naming ceremonies and baptisms. That policy also declared that church members in same-sex marriages were apostates and subject to excommunication." Mrs. McC: Progress???

The Stationery Defense. Zachary Basu of Axios: "In a new statement, Department of Justice spokesperson Kerri Kupec defended Attorney General Bill Barr's letter to Congress summarizing his 'principal conclusions' from the Mueller report, reiterating that it was not an attempt to summarize the report itself. 'Every page of the "confidential report" provided to Attorney General Barr on March 22, 2019 was marked "May Contain Material Protected Under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)" - a law that protects confidential grand jury information - and therefore could not be publicly released.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's hilarious. Because the report did contain confidential information, Mueller printed it on what I imagine was stationery (or used a typist's macro) that contains the warning. No doubt all of the DOJ & other federal departments use the same or similar stationery out of an abundance of caution even when there may not be any protected content. Mueller works for Barr; they are reportedly old friends. So in a normal environment (i.e., non-Trumpian), Boss Bill would call Employee Bob & say, "Bob, great report. Say, I want to get out a summary for public consumption ASAP; could you knock one out? ... Oh, it's right here on pages 4, 102, 243 & 389? Excellent. I'll get that right out."

Jonathan Chait: "Last evening, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that reporters and House Democrats were smearing Attorney General William Barr by implying that his summary of the Mueller report was anything other than completely faithful and representative.... The editorial was published at 7:24 p.m. Minutes before..., the New York Times broke the news that Barr was in fact contradicted.'... The Times, apparently relying on Justice Department sources, reports that Mueller's summaries could not be published, because they 'contain sensitive information....' But the special counsel flatly contradicts this in its leak to the Post. The summaries, says a special counsel source, were deliberately written 'so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately -- or very quickly ... It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.'... Republican messaging in recent days has made it blindingly obvious the Mueller report is not a document Trump fans would enjoy reading around the fireplace.... Devin Nunes, who has largely directed Trump's defense in Congress and the right-wing media, appeared on Fox News last night and introduced a new term: 'Mueller dossier.'... Nunes nonetheless used the term 'dossier' three times in the span of a minute to describe Mueller's conclusion. He is obviously priming the Trump fan base to disregard adverse findings."

But the E-Mails! Kurt Bardella in a USA Today op-ed: "Every single person who lives in this country and claims to care about our national security should be terrified by the idea that people who are trusted with our nation's most sensitive secrets were initially rejected to receive a security clearance. This concern with keeping our secrets safe was one of the primary justifications for the House Republicans' prolonged multiyear investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server and the creation of the Benghazi Select Committee. As someone who spent five years working for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee during the Obama presidency, I can tell you that what Trump has done with these security clearances is a far bigger scandal than 'Hillary's emails,' Benghazi, Fast & Furious, IRS 'targeting' of conservative groups or any of the other so-called scandals Republicans obsessed over under the guise of transparency and security."

Congressmen Look in Mirror, See President ...

... Axios: "Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who unsuccessfully tried to knock House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi from her leadership post in 2016, announced his bid for a 2020 presidency online during an appearance on ABC's 'The View.'... As a moderate, midwestern Democrat, Ryan has flipped on several high-pressure partisan issues. He switched from pro-life to pro-choice in 2015, and in 2017, decided to drop NRA funding in response to the organization's refusal to support universal background checks after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting."...

... Edward-Isaac Dovere of the Atlantic: "... Eric Swalwell..., the California congressman and frequent cable-news guest on all things related to ... Donald Trump and Russia, will announce his presidential plans in an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Low Barr Edition

** Whitewash! Nicholas Fandos, et al., of the New York Times: "Some of Robert S. Mueller III's investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations.... Some members of Mr. Mueller's team are concerned that, because Mr. Barr created the first narrative of the special counsel's findings, Americans' views will have hardened before the investigation's conclusions become public.... The special counsel's investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report, and some team members believe that Mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions.... The special counsel's office never asked Mr. Barr to release the summaries soon after he received the report, a person familiar with the investigation said.... The report is believed to examine Mr. Trump's efforts to thwart the investigation.... Mr. Barr and other Justice Department officials believe the special counsel's investigators fell short of their task by declining to decide whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed the inquiry...." ...

... Coverup! Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "... members of Mueller's team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant.... Some members of the office were particularly disappointed that Barr did not release summary information the special counsel team had prepared.... Summaries were prepared for different sections of the report, with a view that they could made public, the official said. The report was prepared 'so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately -- or very quickly,' the official said. 'It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.' Mueller's team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, 'and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words -- and not in the attorney general's summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.'" Emphasis added. ...

... Kevin Drum: "Apparently Barr's team says that even the summaries contain classified information and have to be scrubbed. I doubt there's very much of that, and anyway, the whole point of a summary is that it's short. That means it can be scrubbed quickly even if it does have some classified bits and pieces. So why are even the summaries being held up while the entire report is reviewed? It's almost as if Barr just isn't very eager to let the public know what's in there." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Drum wrote the above before publication of the WashPo report. I imagine he based his assumption on this from the NYT report: "And the Justice Department quickly determined that the summaries contain sensitive information, like classified material, secret grand-jury testimony and information related to current federal investigations that must remain confidential, according to two government officials." If the WashPo report is correct, the "two government officials" at the DOJ lied thru their teeth to credulous Times reporters. Quelle surprise! ...

     ... What with Mueller's own summaries of his report sitting on Barr's desk, who decided Barr would scrap them & write his on fake summary? Barr? Rosenstein? Trump? I said a while back I thought Barr should be impeached for obstruction. I was half-kidding then. But Wednesday's reports suggest I was on the right track. ...

     ... And another thing. Though the leaks to the NYT & WashPo are two times removed from Mueller -- (2) friends of (1) prosecutors -- it's hard not to believe that the first leaks our of the Mueller team in nearly two years were at least wink-wink-authorized "at the highest level." ...

     ... Also, too, I don't think we can be sure the Mueller report even clears Trump & campaign staffers of "collusion." Barr wrote in his non-summary summary, "... the report states: '[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.'" But, as the brackets indicate, this is the second part of a full sentence. What if the predicate is something like, "Although investigators uncovered a great deal of circumstantial evidence pointing to coordination between Trump associates and Russian state operatives, the investigation did not establish...."

They are a bunch of sneaky, unethical leakers. And they are rabid Democrats who hate the president of United States. I am absolutely confident that the report will bear out the conclusions. The conclusions: no obstruction, no Russian collusion of any kind. It will bear that out. -- Rudy Giuliani, on Fox "News" Wednesday night

... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "What are they hiding?... After briefly pretending to support complete transparency, based on a dishonest assertion that Mueller had exonerated him, Trump has backpedaled almost all the way. He has even suggested that the Justice Department should shelve the Mueller report, and ignore congressional demands for any further disclosure.... The Justice Department now rests behind the view that presidential campaigns can partner tacitly with hostile foreign intelligence services to sabotage their opponents, then try to conceal the relationship, and face no legal consequences for it. What that really means in practice is that Trump and future Republican candidates, contemptuous of the rule-based international order, can undermine U.S. sovereignty to get themselves elected by encouraging authoritarian regimes to play in our campaigns, and do so with complete impunity."

Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to authorize a subpoena to compel the Justice Department to hand over special counsel Robert Mueller's full report [with no redactions] to Congress. The committee voted 24-17 to approve a resolution authorizing subpoenas for Mueller's report, including accompanying exhibits and other attachments, as well as its underlying evidence at a business meeting Wednesday morning. The Justice Department did not comply with an April 2 deadline set by six Democrats chairing committees in the House for sending the full Mueller report to Congress." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Nicholas Fandos: "The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, using a little-known provision in the federal tax code, formally requested on Wednesday that the I.R.S. hand over six years of President Trump's personal and business tax returns, starting what is likely to be a momentous fight with his administration. Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, hand-delivered a two-page letter laying out the request to Charles P. Rettig, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, ending months of speculation about when he would do so and almost certainly prompting a legal challenge from the Trump administration. Responding to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump suggested that he would fight the request because, he said, he was being audited. 'I guess when you have a name, you are audited, but until such time as I'm not under audit I would not be inclined to do that,' he said. The move by Mr. Neal came as other panels controlled by House Democrats were flexing their muscles." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In public testimony, Michael Cohen cast doubt on Trump's audit claim. In addition, the IRS does not prohibit publication of a return under audit. In any event, it appears Trump has no say in the matter. According to Fandos' report:

     ... "Mr. Neal ... is invoking an authority enshrined in the tax code granted only to the tax-writing committees in Congress that gives the chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee the power to request tax information on any filer.... The provision, which dates in some form to the Teapot Dome scandal of Warren G. Harding's administration, at least on its face gives the Trump administration little room to decline a request like Mr. Neal's. It only says that the Treasury secretary 'shall' furnish the information." According to Rachel Maddow, there's plenty of precedent for Ways & Means to obtain tax returns of presidents under the law. ...

     ... Update: If The IRS was not auditing Trump's returns in 2016, he might be accidentally telling the truth about their being audited now. According to a statement from Rep. Neal's office, "The IRS has a policy of auditing the tax returns of all sitting presidents and vice-presidents....."

... Here's a pdf of Neal's letter to the IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, via Neal's office.

"Senior White House Official 1." Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "The senior White House official whose security clearance was denied last year because of concerns about foreign influence, private business interests and personal conduct is presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with documents and testimony provided to the House Oversight Committee. Kushner was identified only as 'Senior White House Official 1' in committee documents released this week describing the testimony of Tricia Newbold, a whistleblower in the White House's personnel security office who said she and another career employee determined that Kushner had too many 'significant disqualifying factors' to receive a clearance. Their decision was overruled by Carl Kline, the political appointee who then headed the office, according to Newbold's interview with committee staff.... Last year, President Trump directed his then-chief of staff, John F. Kelly, to give Kushner a top-secret security clearance, despite concerns expressed by career intelligence officers.... Kushner's legal team issued a statement in February saying that 'White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner's security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone.'"

Jay Weaver, et al., of the Miami Herald: "Federal authorities are investigating possible Chinese intelligence operations targeting ... Donald Trump and his private Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago.... The federal counterintelligence probe was turbo-charged on Saturday when U.S. Secret Service agents arrested a Chinese woman, Yujing Zhang, after they said she tried to enter the club with a bevy of electronic devices, including a thumb drive infected with 'malicious malware.' The ongoing investigation has also recently focused on Li 'Cindy' Yang, the sources told the Herald. Yang is a South Florida massage parlor entrepreneur who has promoted events at Mar-a-Lago with ads targeting Chinese business executives hoping to gain access to Trump and his family. The investigation -- spearheaded by the FBI -- began before the Herald revealed Yang' business of selling access last month and focused on other Chinese nationals doing business in the region.... Now, investigators with the FBI Counterintelligence Division in South Florida are trying to figure out who Zhang is, whether she is involved in a possible Chinese intelligence mission and whether there are links to Yang's social events at Trump's Mar-a-Lago."...

... What Could Possibly Go Wrong? David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: Donald Trump's "decision -- to use his Palm Beach, Fla., club as both a presidential retreat and a moneymaking resort -- brings hundreds of members, overnight guests and partygoing strangers into the president's 'Winter White House' every weekend. To protect the president, that requires the Secret Service to screen hundreds of would-be visitors against preapproved lists. But to protect his business, it has also required the Secret Service to defer to Mar-a-Lago staffers and allow in some visitors who are not on the list. Last weekend, that complex system of lists and exceptions broke down.... On Wednesday, three top Senate Democrats asked FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to investigate whether foreign spies could exploit weaknesses at Mar-a-Lago to steal classified information.... Said another White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity..., 'You pay and you get in.'... 'Usually it's the Mar-a-Lago people that are giving the go-ahead,' said one person familiar with the property.... The Secret Service confirmed as much.... 'The Mar-a-Lago Club's management determines which members and guests are granted access to the property,' the agency said.... Intelligence officials have said, a foreign spy might find Mar-a-Lago a gold mine -- even if the spy never laid eyes on Trump. The club is full of Trump's friends, aides and hangers-on; it could be bugged, or its computers hacked...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So here national security is likely compromised here because millions of Americans thought it was a good idea to pick a greedy bastard as president. On the other hand, as the White-Supremacist-in-Chief said Tuesday, his primary concern is protecting Americans -- uh, from non-white poor people seeking asylum.

Amy Russo of the Huffington Post: "... former FBI Director James Comey said he remains troubled by his potential role in the rise of Donald Trump, questioning the impact of the bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. In October 2016, just one month before Election Day, Comey reopened a probe into then-candidate Clinton's use of a private server to conduct government business when she was secretary of state, meaning she may have violated security regulations. The scandal tarnished her reputation and indelibly marked her campaign.... Two days before the election, Comey announced that the FBI stood by its previous conclusion that Clinton committed no criminal acts. 'I hope we had no impact ... but all it does is increase the pain,' he told Amanpour. [BUT WAIT!] 'It doesn't change how I think about the decision.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Get that? Hope I didn't, but if I did, I still did the right thing.

Brianne Pfannenstiel of the Des Moines Register: "Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley -- a champion of the wind energy tax credit -- said ... Donald Trump's comments that wind turbines cause cancer were 'idiotic' in a call with reporters Wednesday.... Speaking at a Republican fundraiser Tuesday night, Trump ... [said,] 'If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value... And they say the noise causes cancer....' There is no evidence showing the sound from wind turbines causes cancer. Iowa is a national leader in wind energy, and it was the first state to generate more than 30 percent of its electricity through wind power, according to the Iowa Environmental Council."

Jennifer Rubin: Donald Trump "is increasingly incoherent.... Even when attempting to defend himself, he emits spurts of disconnected thoughts.... If you had a relative who spoke [the] way [Trump does], you would urge him to get checked out or advise him to slow down (although Trump's schedule, with its hours of 'executive time,' is already lighter than the schedules of many retirees).... Collectively, we need to stop treating his conduct as normal. Politicians should start saying aloud what we all intuitively understand: Trump is unraveling before our eyes. There is reason to be concerned about how he'll make it through the rest of his term. Giving him another four years is unimaginable." Emphasis original. ...

      ... Rubin writes a good summary of Trump's "decisions" on ObamaCare over the past week or so: "Even Republicans realize that his decisions are more erratic and illogical than ever. He doubled down on his intention to invalidate the Affordable Care Act in the courts, then insisted he had a terrific replacement, next said he would assign others to figure out the plan and take a vote before the 2020 election, and finally declared that they would vote on such a (nonexistent) bill after the 2020 election. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was compelled to stage an intervention...." Mrs. McC BTW: Trump then claimed it was his idea to ditch the nonexistent replacement bill till after the election; in fact, "his idea" came at Mitch's insistence.

All the Best People, Ctd. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General is reviewing allegations that acting secretary David Bernhardt may have violated his ethics pledge by weighing in on issues affecting a former client, the office confirmed Tuesday. The move comes as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is preparing to vote Thursday on whether to confirm Bernhardt as the next interior secretary, after which his nomination is expected to advance to the Senate floor. At least two outside groups and two Democratic senators asked the agency watchdog to look into Bernhardt's effort to weaken protections for imperiled fish species and to expand California farmers' access to water, even though he once lobbied on behalf of a massive agricultural water district that stood to benefit from the changes." (Also linked yesterday.)

Oink Oink. Be Careful What You Eat. Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration plans to shift much of the power and responsibility for food safety inspections in hog plants to the pork industry as early as May, cutting the number of federal inspectors by about 40 percent and replacing them with plant employees. Under the proposed new inspection system, the responsibility for identifying diseased and contaminated pork would be shared with plant employees, whose training would be at the discretion of plant owners. There would be no limits on slaughter-line speeds. The new pork inspection system would accelerate the federal government's move toward delegating inspections to the livestock industry. During the Obama administration, poultry plant owners were given more power over safety inspections, although that administration canceled plans to increase line speeds. The Trump administration in September allowed some poultry plants to increase line speeds." Mrs. McC: Come back, Upton Sinclair. (Also linked yesterday.)

Mitch Goes Nuclear. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "For the third time in six years, the majority party in the Senate detonated the so-called nuclear option on Wednesday to unilaterally change years-old rules of the chamber with a simple-majority vote. This time, to work through a backlog of President Trump's judicial and administration nominations, Republicans cut the time between ending debate and a final confirmation vote on executive-branch nominees and district court judges from 30 hours to two. The change was a provocative step that reignited a bitter partisan fight over presidential nominations that has raged for a decade and spanned presidencies from both parties. Democrats dwelled at length over the blockade that stopped Judge Merrick B. Garland from ascending to the Supreme Court in the final year of Barack Obama's presidency to angrily question how Republicans could complain about the handling of Mr. Trump's nominees. 'There's no other word but "hypocrisy,"' said Senator Chuck Schumer [D-NY]...." ...

... Dana Milbank: “... Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in his latest move to seize power by dismantling the chamber's centuries-old safeguards, was about to push through another vote to break another rule. But first he gave a speech blaming the other side.... McConnell has now significantly escalated, reducing the right to delay consideration of judicial or low-level executive nominees to two hours from the current 30. It's clearly just a matter of time -- a few years, perhaps -- until this leads to the complete abolition of the filibuster for everything, including legislation. This will further destabilize a federal government that has suffered many such blows during the past two years.... He did it even though the Senate has confirmed more appellate-level judges for Trump than for any president during his first two years in office going back to at least Harry S. Truman.... He assured his Republican colleagues that 'I don't think anybody ought to be seized with guilt over any institutional damage being done to the United States Senate.' McConnell then read out a 42-word parliamentary maneuver that jettisoned 213 years of wisdom."

Presidential Race 2020

Elise Viebeck, et al., of the Washington Post: "Former vice president Joe Biden promised on Wednesday to adjust his physical behavior toward women, an effort to quell controversy over whether his intimate style is appropriate in the era of the #MeToo movement. Biden addressed critics in a video posted to Twitter as three additional women told The Washington Post on Wednesday about encounters with him that made them feel uncomfortable. Their stories bring the total number of people who have expressed concerns about alleged interactions with Biden to seven. Other women defended Biden, who has been seen by many women as an advocate for them.... In a party energized by millennials, women and people of color, Biden has faced criticism over a host of positions and decisions from his nearly five decades in public life, including his handling of Anita Hill's testimony during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing. Even on Wednesday, as Biden acknowledged shifting social norms and promised to be 'more respectful of people's personal space,' he defended his style of interacting and did not offer an apology." ...

While Sen. [Mazie] Hirono [D-Hawaii] was talking to reporters about Joe Biden's video and policy, a male senator walked up, put his hands on a reporter's shoulders and told Hirono she didn't have to talk. Hirono said she wanted to talk and could defend herself, thank you very much. -- Natalie Andrews of the Wall Street Journal, in a tweet Wednesday

C'mon, Natalie. Name that male senator. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

David Kerley & Jeffrey Cook of ABC News: "The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX, which crashed in March and killed 157 people, suffered a damaged angle-of-attack sensor upon takeoff from a bird or foreign object, triggering erroneous data and the activation an anti-stall system -- called MCAS -- sending the pitch of the plane downward and ultimately crashing into the ground, two aviation sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.As the jet was nose diving, the Boeing 737 MAX pilots did not try to electronically pull the nose of the plane up before following Boeing's emergency procedures of disengaging power to the horizontal stabilizer on the rear of the aircraft, according to the sources. One source told ABC News that they manually attempted to bring the nose of the plane back up by using the trim wheel. Soon after, the pilots restored power to the horizontal stabilizer. With power restored, the MCAS was re-engaged..., and the pilots were unable to regain control and the plane crashed. The preliminary findings in the crash investigation are expected to be released by transportation officials in Ethiopia on Thursday morning."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Jonathan Mahler & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times take a really long, three-part dive into Rupert Murdoch's ignominious career. The first part linked here, links to the second & third parts. The first part has quite a bit about the Murdoch family's relationship with Trump & Co.

Beyond the Beltway

Tennessee. Doha Madani of NBC News: "A Tennessee social justice center that has hosted iconic civil rights leaders was destroyed in a fire and a 'white power' symbol was found on the site, the center said. The symbol, which officials did not describe but said was connected to the white power movement, was discovered after the main office was completely destroyed in a fire last week, the Highlander Research and Education Center said in a news release Tuesday. It was spray-painted on the parking lot connected to the main office. No one was hurt in Friday's blaze." (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas. Jake Bleiberg of the AP: "Texas prisons will no longer allow clergy in the death chamber after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the scheduled execution of a man who argued his religious freedom would be violated if his Buddhist spiritual adviser couldn't accompany him. Effective immediately, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will only permit prison security staff into the death chamber, a spokesman said Wednesday. The policy change comes in response to the high court's ruling staying the execution of Patrick Murphy, a member of the 'Texas 7' gang of escaped prisoners. Texas previously allowed state-employed clergy to accompany inmates into the execution chamber, but its prison staff included only Christian and Muslim clerics. In light of this policy, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas couldn't move forward with Murphy's punishment unless his Buddhist adviser or another Buddhist reverend of the state's choosing accompanying him."

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

I'm seeing a parallel between the behavior of formerly red states' Republican legislatures following a blue victory, who use their last few weeks in power changing the rules, snatching sour victory from from the jaws of their recent defeat, generally doing what they can to hold the future at bay, and McConnel's latest embrace of the senatorial nuclear option.

Hypocrisy aside (what's new?), and the reversed timeline, I see the explanation for McConnell's Senate leadership in his perception that the R's days are numbered, that the future will bring them only more unpopularity and more lost elections, so he naturally sees packing the courts with right-wing ideologues as an anticipatory bulwark against the democracy he and his party greatly fear.

A rose-tinged view of a black, wizened heart at work?

[safari]

@ Ken. I think you're right on point.

The supposed Democratic demographic silver bullet has and will be a fantasy until the feared "brown" crowd mobilizes (votes!) enough to overcome the hurdles laid out before them and begin to dismantle the Old White Man governance system we've had in place since times of yore.

That said, the GOP has become increasingly more insular and frankly lazy at even fake outreach outside their aging white base, basically having delegated their entire party's operation to their elite fat cat donors, "think" tanks, and of course all comms to their Faux News rage machine.

That's not sustainable, and then came bloated Agent Orange to snatch the reins of an outsourced political operation, domineering the comms and the rest falling into line. Now most Americans with functioning brains see through the scam, and the future generations are fleeing the party in droves.

McConnell is cynically installing his judicial stooges to perpetuate the dominant Old White Man governance system as the status quo (he's a dinosaur stuck in Kentucky's Confederate glory days), sees the writing on the wall and thus his spastic, destabilizing panics since Obama's election. He tries to exude the "stable hand" of the GOP, but actions speak louder than words. That look in his dead eyes is existential terror.

I'm just hoping all his nuclear bombs he keeps dropping on the Capital will finally burn down his bullshit "legacy" as an "instituitionalist", unless that institution is advancing white supremacy.

[Victoria]

Regarding Jennifer Rubin's comments that Herr Orange is demented, please read "paraphasic errors" in wikipedia. It will allow you to decide if the "orange" of his errors in speech could be related to dementia. (spoiler alert: oh yes they are)

[PD Pepe]

Yesterday watched some of the House Judiciary Committee's antics: It was as if you were seeing unruly children being schooled by a slew of Mary Poppins–-without the magic. Oh, how these republicans squawked and beat their fists–-"how dare democrats tell us what to do–-we are used to riding roughshod in this House and resent like hell that we are being overrode." And in unison they played the part and all voted the same–-so afraid that finally "their" president will be found to be what they know he is but pretend he isn't.

Word has it that reading Trump's tweets on a daily basis will eventually cause brain tumors while refuting any such malady from wind turbines: the former breaks wind repeatedly; the latter turns on lights.

[Akhilleus]

In some ways Trump's tax returns could be more damaging than the Mueller report R's are desperately trying to keep under wraps. First, it's looking like anything in the report that paints Trump and his people in a bad light will be pooh-poohed by his supporters and Fox State Media. But trickery in his tax returns could be a different story. Seeing how much he gives to charity (likely nothing), and the ways he finds to make it look like he has had no actual income in years, AND pays no or very little taxes, not to mention exactly how rich he is, would all be harder to spin in a direction that doesn't make him look like a lying sleazebag.

Then again, Trump lies about everything. I betting he treats tax returns no differently than he treats one of his "I Am the King" rallies. In order to see where and how much he lies on his taxes, we'd have to be able to examine his financials, and those we will never see.

Still and all, having a gander at those returns should be therapeutic in many ways. He has already admitted (in one of the 2016 debates) that he pays no taxes ("That makes me smart"), but it would be instructive to see how he accomplishes this particular bit of fraudulence. He lies to banks when applying for loans, and he demonstrates a serial disdain for the rules of government and his role as a citizen of the United States. Why wouldn't he lie on his taxes?

And about that audit bullshit...according to Trump, the IRS has been continually auditing him for about 15 years at this point. The latest one (remember, he promised, in 2016, to release his returns as soon as the audit was completed) has been going on for well over three years now. And if you believe that, I'll show you an Education Secretary who knows nothing about education and a guy put in charge of developing a healthcare plan who once paid the largest fine in history for defrauding the government, insurers, and patients over his own healthcare business.

Oh, wait...

[Akhilleus]

Has it occurred to any in Trump's exalted circle of genius advisors that threatening to close the border would dramatically increase the numbers of immigrants trying to get into the US? And has it further penetrated those lofty domes that pretty much everything he does and says has the exact opposite effect to what was intended?

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: I don't think Trumpbots would give a rat's ass about Trump's cheating on his taxes. He came close to admitting he did so during the 2016 campaign when he repeatedly boasted he paid as little as possible because he was so smart. The Times ran a long investigative piece a month or two back about how Trump & his father (the one born in the bucolic German town of Drumpfsylberg) cheated on federal, state & local taxes for decades, using a wide variety of scams. The story garnered nary a blip on the radar & had no effect whatsoever on Trump's very excellent popularity polls.

Trump's tax scams are too difficult for Trumpbots to follow anyway, so unless Democrats are willing to run cartoon ads with Trump & the Trumpets blasting their way into Fort Knox & lugging outs bags full of gold bars in the dead of night, Trumpbots are going to equate his tax crimes with the way middle-class Trumpies write off their man caves & pick-up trucks as business expenses.

[Akhilleus]

Quick! Cover up the cover up!

Now that the stonewalling is well into weeks, it's clear that the backtracking and covering up of the cover up has begun in earnest, and Barr is feeling the heat, methinks.

Why, here he is a few days ago claiming that his summary of the Mueller report was nothing of the kind
:

"I am aware of some media reports and other public statements mischaracterizing my March 24, 2019 supplemental notification as a “summary” of the Special Counsel’s investigation and report."

Did you get that? It's NOT a summary.

But then, in an amazing switchback, especially for so eminent a legal mind (tee-hee), a couple of sentences later, he describes his work as just that, a summary:

"As my letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its 'principal conclusions'..."

What's this all about? Is there some weirdness around the word summary we're not aware of, or does Barr think that people don't actually read what he puts out?

The job now, for the DOJ, is to pretend that they're not trying to stonewall, not working to protect Trump rather than providing due judicial diligence to congress and the people who paid for this report (us), and to drag their feet as long as possible all the while putting out statements that claim they're doing no such thing.

First, I'm pretty sure Mueller and his guys wrote this report in a way that would make it easy to redact any sensitive material (they could have included all of it in footnotes and/or addenda that could easily be removed for public viewing). And now we find out that they provided summaries of their own. Summaries Barr found necessary to hide, while writing a summary--oops--not-a-summary of his own.

This could be the usual "confuse the shit out of 'em and they'll go away" tactic so often used by R's in crises, but the fact is that it's usually the coverup that gets you rather than what you're trying to hide. Ask Nixon.

Now they're faced with finding ways of covering up the coverup.

Good luck with that.

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Yeah, I wasn't hoping there'd be a sudden light going on over Trumpbot heads. He could be diddling 12 year olds in the basement of the White House and they wouldn't care.

I was thinking more of the so-called independents who found Clinton so distasteful that they voted for this monster. Or maybe at this point, they don't care either. They might think Joe Biden is a creepy old man but had no problem filling in the little block for a self-admitted pussy grabber.

In any event, I sure would like to see those returns. Pure fiction, no doubt. Hey! He might get a Pulitzer for them. If only they gave them out for fiction.

Dang.

[PD Pepe]

@Marie: I think you are right. I have often wondered what it would take for these cow-tailers to quit their beloved leader. Perhaps a secret video where Trump is referring to them as ignorant slobs or/and some move that would hurt them in a significant way and they could understand that it was because of Trump's mandate––like losing their health care or losing their jobs. But I think I give them too much credit: once so steadfastly in love it's hard to admit you might have been led down a gully instead of a primrose path. Pride is a powerful thing and pride plays such a major role here.

[Akhilleus]

One more thought about Barr's "caution" regarding the Mueller report.

We keep hearing about all the sensitive national security stuff that needs to be "scrubbed". Isn't this a little like hanging out a sign for hackers say, from Russia, that says "SHITLOADS OF GREAT STUFF HERE! COME AND GET IT".

Unless that's all a lie too.

I dunno. But if there is a pile of sensitive intel related to the successful Russian plan to put Trump in the White House, and if I were Brother Vlad, I sure would want to take a peek under the sheets. And if security at the DOJ is anything like that at Mar-a-Lago, it should be a piece of cake.

Everything connected to this administration is a godawful clusterfuck. Even if he has done nothing indictable, Trump's fitness for office is on a par with a subway flasher. As Rubin says, four more years of this Grand Guignol is unimaginable.

[PD Pepe]

SENTENCE OF THE DAY:

"Even if he has done nothing indictable, Trump's fitness for office is on a par with a subway flasher."

[Marie Burns]

@PD Pepe: You're right to compare Trumpbots to lovers, as in "the wife is the last to know." Don't know if you saw the first two episodes of "Mrs. Wilson" on Masterpiece Theater Sunday, but -- spoiler alert -- it's the story -- based on the real-life experience of star series Ruth Wilson's own grandparents -- of a woman who finds out after her husband dies suddenly that he had another wife. And so forth. The drama changes some of the real-life particulars, but at least in the teevee version, grandma at first can't believe the other wife's tale & goes to great lengths to try to disprove it. However, once she accepts the fact that her husband was two-timing her (and more!) for 20 years, she goes digging with a vengeance to learn the truth.

As you write, it will take something equally shocking to shake Trumpbots' belief in their "hero." Otherwise, they will go on believing in "deep-state" & "Democrat" conspiracies.

[Ken Winkes]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/04/donald-trump-considering-herman-cain-federal-reserve-post/3364533002/

Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board?

Sure.

More of the "best" people.
\
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/us/politics/herman-cain-suspends-his-presidential-campaign.html

[Rockygirl]

A Senate with any respect for, well, anything, would say “nein, nein, nein” to Herman Cain.

Which means of course that this Senate won’t.