The Commentariat -- August 21, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

** Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "A jury has found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty after a three-week trial on tax and bank fraud charges -- a major if not complete victory for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as he continues to investigate the president's associates. The jury convicted Manafort on eight of the 18 counts against him. The jury said it was deadlocked on the other 10. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on those other charges. Manafort was convicted on five counts of filing false tax returns, one count of not filing a required IRS form, and two bank fraud counts." ...

... Earlier: MSNBC is reporting that the Manafort jury has sent a note to Judge Ellis asking how that should proceed if they can't come to consensus on one count. No link. Update: There's a possibility there is more than one count on which the jury can't agree. After getting the note from the jury, the judge gave them an "Allen charge," essentially instructing them to try again. ...

... Josh Gerstein, et al., of Politico: "Jurors on Tuesday indicated that they are struggling to reach a unanimous verdict on at least one count against Paul Manafort in his bank- and tax-fraud trial. They asked U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III for help on what to do in this situation. He replied he would urge them to redouble their efforts. The jurors' note inquired about what the group should do if it can't come to a consensus on a single count and asked how they should fill out the verdict form. They also asked what their struggles would mean for the entire verdict. Addressing the court without the jury in the room, Ellis said the request was not unusual in a jury trial. The judge added that he could ask the jury where it was overall on the deliberations, but said he was not inclined to take that step now." ...

     ... Update: According to MSNBC, the jury has reached a verdict on only eight counts. Judge will declare a mistrial on 10 counts. The verdict on the eight counts is to be announced today. No link.

     ... Update: Manafort found guilty of five felony tax fraud charges. Also, two counts of bank fraud. Not sure the nature of the eighth charge on which the jury found Manafort guilty. Mrs. McC: I'll put up links to news stories as they become available.

** Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan courthouse to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws in a federal investigation that scrutinized his business dealings and efforts to silence women with negative stories about Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a bank and two campaign finance violations: making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.... His guilty plea follow a months-long grand-jury investigation into Cohen's activities, including his taxi business, as well as a hush-money payment that Cohen arranged to an adult-film actress, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a tryst with Trump years ago.... Cable television played Cohen's plea in an extraordinary legal split screen, as a Virginia jury convicted Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on eight counts in his bank and tax fraud trial.... Special-counsel investigators have indicated to federal law enforcement officials that the office does not require Cohen's cooperation for its probe, according to two people familiar with their work."

William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen, President Trump's former fixer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to campaign finance and other charges, making the extraordinary admission that he paid a pornographic actress during the 2016 presidential campaign to secure her silence about an affair she said she had with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen also pleaded guilty to multiple counts of bank and tax fraud, bringing to a close a monthslong investigation by Manhattan federal prosecutors who examined his personal business dealings and his role in helping to arrange financial deals with women connected to Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen, dressed in a dark suit and a yellow tie, entered the courtroom in United States District Court in Manhattan at about 4 p.m., nodded his head at reporters and smiled. The plea agreement does not call for Mr. Cohen to cooperate with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, but it does not preclude him from providing information to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining the Trump campaign's possible involvement in Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign." ...

     ... Michael Avenatti said he knew "for a fact" that Cohen has been cooperating with prosecutors. ...

     Update: Cohen has pled guilty to eight counts, two having to do with payments made for Donald Trump.

... Sarah Fitzpatrick, et al., of NBC News: "Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney, is discussing a possible guilty plea with federal prosecutors in Manhattan in connection with tax fraud and banking-related matters, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell NBC News. Those sources stress no deal has been reached but do say the potential deal could be reached as early as today."

     ... ** Update: MSNBC is reporting Michael Cohen (a/k/a "John Doe") will appear for a federal court hearing today at 4 pm ET for the purpose of entering a plea agreement.

Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Since news broke of [White House counsel Don] McGahn's extensive cooperation with Mueller, Trump has been lashing out on Twitter.... Privately, Trump blames his precarious position on the people who work for him. Trump's fury at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, already raging, has been stoked thanks to Sessions's refusal to resign after months of public abuse. 'You can't talk to Trump without him bringing up Sessions,' one adviser said. Trump's frustration with Sessions has even caused him to turn on Giuliani. Over the weekend, Trump blamed Giuliani for the entire Russia probe. According to a person to whom the conversation was described, Trump loudly said to [Giuliani]: 'It's your fault! I offered you attorney general, but you insisted on being secretary of state. Had I picked you none of this would be happening.'... Another theory for what's motivating Trump's increasingly unhinged tweets is that Mueller may be closing in on his son Don Jr."

Jonathan Chait: "Trump's Craziest Climate Speech Ever Explains His New Dirty Energy Policy." Mrs. McC: You just have to read it. Here are the parts where Chait cites Trump's actual remarks: "Coal, Trump told his audience, is 'a tremendous form of energy in the sense that in a military way -- think of it -- coal is indestructible,' he declared....

You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills. You know, the wind wheels, [mimics windmill noise, mimes shooting gun] 'Bing!' That's the end of that one. If the birds don't kill it first. The birds could kill it first. They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it's like a killing field, the birds. But uh, you know, that's what they were going to, they were going to windmills. And you know, don't worry about wind, when the wind doesn't blow, I said, 'What happens when the wind doesn't blow?' Well, then we have a problem. Okay good. They were putting him in areas where they didn't have much wind, too. And it's a subsidary [sic] -- you need subsidy for windmills. You need subsidy. Who wants to have energy where you need subsidy? So, uh, the coal is doing great.

... Trump Admin Plans to Kill 1,400 Americans a Year. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Tuesday made public the details of its new pollution rules governing coal-burning power plants, and the fine print includes an acknowledgment that the plan would increase carbon emissions and lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths annually. The proposal, the Affordable Clean Energy rule, is a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was an aggressive effort to speed up the closures of coal-burning plants, one of the main producers of greenhouse gases, by setting national targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions and encouraging utilities to use cleaner energy sources like wind and solar."

"Child's Play." River O'Connor in Politico Magazine: "It took me around 10 minutes to crash the upcoming midterm elections. Once I accessed the shockingly simple and vulnerable set of tables that make up the state election board's database, I was able to shut down the website that would tally the votes, bringing the election to a screeching halt. The data were lost completely. And just like that, tens of thousands of votes vanished into thin air, throwing an entire election, and potentially control of the House or Senate -- not to mention our already shaky confidence in the democratic process itself -- into even more confusion, doubt, and finger-pointing. I'm 17. And I'm not even a very good hacker."

She [Natalia Veselnitskaya] didn't represent the Russian government. She's a private citizen. I don't even know if they knew she was Russian at the time. All they had was her name.... They didn't know she was a representative of the Russian government. -- Rudolph W. Giuliani, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," August 19

... Veselnitskaya ... has insisted that she was not representing the Russian government in the meeting, but what's important is what Trump Jr. was told -- that she was working on behalf of the Russian government. Moreover, it later emerged that she worked closely with a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general, to block a Justice Department fraud case against a Russian company.... There's no way to spin the fact that Trump Jr. was told repeatedly that he was meeting with a representative of the Russian government. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

*****

Generalissimo Trumpo Suggests He Could Replace Mueller -- with Himself. Both MSNBC & CNN are reporting that Trump, in an interview with Reuters reporters, said, "I could run the Russia investigation if I wanted to." At 6:30 pm ET Monday, the story is not online. ...

     ... Update. Naomi Lim of the Washington Examiner: "'I've decided to stay out,' Trump said, per Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason. 'Now, I don't have to stay out, as you know. I can go in and I could... do whatever. I could run it if I want.'" ...

... James Oliphant, et al., of Reuters: "In an interview with Reuters, Trump echoed the concerns of his top lawyer..., Rudy Giuliani, who has warned that any sit-down with Mueller could be a 'perjury trap.'... Trump did not comment on whether he would ultimately agree to an interview with Mueller.... Trump also declined to say whether he might strip Mueller of his security clearance...." ...

... Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Under the banner of her 'Be Best' campaign, Melania Trump ... told a group of cyberbullying prevention experts on Monday that social media 'can be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly.' Just after she spoke, President Trump unleashed a barrage of tweets in which he called the former director of the C.I.A. a 'hack' and mocked the effectiveness of the Justice Department, among other digital insults on a day of dissonant messaging from the Trump White House.... The president's tweets were not discussed during the summit the first lady attended.... Another running theme at the cyberbullying summit was the importance of adults understanding how bad behavior on social media could affect children, and how adults can be good digital role models.... Mrs. Trump and her aides have repeatedly acknowledged the conflict between her messages and those of her husband." ...

... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday dared former CIA Director John Brennan to sue him over his decision to revoke his security clearance. In a tweet, Trump [wrote,] 'I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country's history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He won't sue!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump tweeted Monday to ask why his attorney general had not fired a Justice Department official with ties to the firm behind a dossier alleging connections between Trump and Russia. 'Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions "Justice" Department? A total joke!' Trump wrote. It was the closest Trump had come to calling directly for Ohr, whose wife was a contractor for Fusion GPS, to lose his job. Ohr, who was demoted earlier this year, has come under fire from conservatives and now Trump over his connection to Fusion GPS." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday referred to lawyers working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as 'thugs' and accused them of trying to affect this year's elections, further ramping up his rhetoric against prosecutors probing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In morning tweets, Trump called Mueller 'disgraced and discredited' and said his team of prosecutors is 'a National Disgrace!' The tweets were the latest in a spate of complaints in recent days from the president about a probe into whether his campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election and whether Trump has sought to obstruct the investigation. In Monday's outburst, Trump continued to attack a New York Times report over the weekend that White House lawyer Donald McGahn had participated in at least three interviews with Mueller's team that spanned 30 hours." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One would think that a president* who had been on vacation for a couple of weeks would find some work to do when he showed up at the Oval on Monday. Apparently not. ...

He was impatient, overly aggressive, overly dramatic. He acted on impulse. He tended to sensationalize the evidence he had -- in order to draw attention to the rock-bottom seriousness of the situation. He would neglect to do important homework and consequently would, on occasion, make challengeable statements... He knew that he could never hope to convince anybody by delivering a dry, general-accounting-office type of presentation. In consequence, he stepped up circumstances a notch or two. -- Roy Cohn on Donald Trump Joe McCarthy ...

... John Avlon of CNN: "'Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby!'... Donald Trump tweeted from the final days of his golfing vacation at Bedminster, New Jersey. 'Rigged Witch Hunt!'... McCarthy and Trump shared an infamous aide, a widely reviled but nonetheless influential lawyer named Roy Cohn.... Cohn ... [saw McCarthy] as essentially a salesman, for whom accuracy was an obstacle to attention." Read on. The parallels Avlon draws between McCarthy & Trump are striking. The difference is that McCarthy failed largely because some Republicans (& the press) showed some backbone in opposing McCarthy & his destructive tactics.

... Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "White House counsel Don McGahn's 30 hours of conversations with special counsel Robert Mueller's team have unnerved ... Donald Trump, who didn't know the full extent of McGahn's discussions, two people familiar with his thinking said.... Trump did not know the conversations stretched for 30 hours or that his legal team didn't conduct a full debriefing with McGahn after the fact. Trump remained agitated for the rest of the weekend, the people said, believing the revelation made him look weak.... His declaration of a 'great relationship' [between McGahn & him] aside, Trump and McGahn have carried out a tortured partnership for more than a year, people familiar with the dynamic say. According to officials, Trump has at times seemed unclear on McGahn's role -- which is not as his personal lawyer, but as a lawyer for the White House and the presidency.... Trump and McGahn went weeks without speaking at the beginning of this year, and months without meeting one-on-one, people familiar with the matter said. During this period, along with telling people McGahn was 'a leaker,' Trump complained about McGahn's good relationship with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel investigation." ...

... Wherein McGahn Leaks to Keep His Job. Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "White House counsel Donald McGahn does not believe that he implicated President Trump in any legal wrongdoing in extensive interviews he has given the special counsel, McGahn's attorney told Trump';s legal team in recent days.... [Attorney Bill] Burck has assured Trump's lawyers that McGahn did not witness Trump engaged in any crime and would have resigned from his White House post if he had, according to people familiar with the conversations."

Youjin Shin of the Washington Post: "On Aug. 15, President Trump revoked former CIA director John Brennan's security clearance.... A bipartisan group of more than a dozen former intelligence directors, plus retired Adm. William H. McRaven, spoke out against the president's move. On Aug. 17, they were joined by another 60 officials, and over 170 added their names on Aug. 20. Here's an non-exhaustive list of major figures who have voiced their support for Brennan."

Jonathan Chait: "While [the media] have dug up an extraordinary amount of incriminating facts about Trump, reporters have also repeatedly leaned into the most exculpatory interpretations of those same facts.... It is striking that, for all the incriminating facts the news media have amassed about Trump, they have repeatedly given him the benefit of the doubt as to what those facts add up to." Chait offers numerous examples. As he points out, sometimes these innocent explanations for incriminating evidence come from "White House officials," but often they appear in the reporter's "voice."

Maegan Vazquez of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani on Monday attempted to clarify his weekend remark that 'truth isn't truth' as part of his explanation for why he doesn't believe that ... Donald Trump should testify with special counsel Robert Mueller. 'My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic "he said,she said" puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn't,' tweeted Giuliani...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Josh Gerstein & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Late Monday, the jury [deliberating criminal charges against Paul Manafort] signaled that it still hadn't reached a verdict after saying that it would discuss the case until at least 6:15 p.m. That is the latest that jurors have deliberated since they began Thursday."

Chuck Todd, et al., of NBC News list the various lies Team Trump has told about the Trump Tower meeting. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"I Miss Richard Nixon." Philip Allen Lacovara, a former president of the D.C. Bar, who served as counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor, in a Washington Post op-ed, contrasts Donald Trump and Richard Nixon, noting the ways in which Nixon was by far the better president.

David Sanger & Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times: "The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election appears to have a new target: conservative American think tanks that have broken with President Trump and are seeking continued sanctions against Moscow, exposing oligarchs or pressing for human rights. In a report scheduled for release on Tuesday, Microsoft Corporation said that it detected and seized websites that were created in recent weeks by hackers linked to the Russian unit formerly known as the G.R.U. The sites appeared meant to trick people into thinking they were clicking through links managed by the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute, but were secretly redirected to web pages created by the hackers to steal passwords and other credentials. Microsoft also found websites imitating the United States Senate, but not specific Senate offices or political campaigns. The shift to attacking conservative think tanks underscores the Russian intelligence agency's goals: to disrupt any institutions challengin Moscow and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: That last sentence, as seems obvious, should read, "... any institutions challenging President Trump, Moscow and President Vladimir V. Putin...." I'm not being snide here. And do I think it possible that Trump & Putin "colluded" on this latest hacking plan? Yes. Helsinki was not for nuthin.

Paul Krugman: "Truth isn't truth. Rudy Giuliani's latest bon mot is a reminder, if anyone needed it, that calling the Trump administration Orwellian isn’t hyperbole, it's just a statement of fact. Like the ruling party in '1984,' Donald Trump operates on the principle that truth -- whether it involves inauguration crowd sizes, immigrant crime or economic performance -- is what he says it is. And that truth can change at a moment's notice.... The Orwellification of the G.O.P. didn't start with Trump. On the contrary, the party has been moving in that direction for years.... Where have we seen something like that before? In Republican attacks on the evidence for climate change. Fifteen years have passed since Senator James Inhofe suggested that global warming is 'the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.' This was ... not far short of Pizzagate or QAnon territory.... Yet this paranoid fantasy has in effect become the official position of the G.O.P.... For Republicans, ignorance has been strength for a long time."

Jim Tankersley & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump complained to wealthy donors at a fund-raiser in the Hamptons last week that the man he chose as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, has disappointed him by raising interest rates, according to people who attended the event. In the midst of a long riff on the economy, Mr. Trump said that he had expected Mr. Powell to adhere to an easy-money monetary policy, by keeping interest rates low, when he nominated Mr. Powell in November to succeed Janet L. Yellen. Instead, Mr. Powell has continued Ms. Yellen's pace of gradual return to historically normal rates, by raising rates twice this year." ...

... Trump said the same thing to Reuters reporters Jeff Mason & Steve Holland: "'I'm not thrilled with his raising of interest rates, no. I'm not thrilled,' Trump said in the interview, referring to Powell.... American presidents have rarely criticized the Fed in recent decades because the independence of the Fed is seen as important for economic stability. U.S. stocks dipped after Trump's comments to Reuters and the dollar .DXY edged down against a basket of currencies."

Benjamin Hart of New York: "During a demagoguery-heavy White House event on Monday titled the 'Salute to the Heroes of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection' President Trump invited a Latino CBP officer to the podium and told the assembled crowd that he 'speaks perfect English.'... Trump's apparent surprise that a nonwhite officer could possibly master this skill was the most cringeworthy moment of the proceedings, but it wasn't the only extremely weird one.... The president also repeatedly referred to Customs and Border Protection as 'the CBC' -- which is the common abbreviation for the Congressional Black Caucus, a group with whom he does not have the world's greatest working relationship. Trump's repeated error came despite the fact that the teleprompter he was reading off clearly read 'CBP..'... The rest of the event ... featured the standard fearmongering Trump rhetoric." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It would be an even biglier surprise if Trump spoke perfect English, which apparently he can't do even with the (mostly-perfect) English all typed out in big letters scrolling on a teleprompter.

Steve Holland & Jeff Mason: "... Donald Trump said on Monday that it is 'very dangerous' for social media companies like Twitter Inc ... and Facebook Inc ... to silence voices on their services.... 'I won't mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they're making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow,' said Trump.... Trump previously criticized the social media industry on Aug. 18, claiming without evidence in a series of tweets that unnamed companies were 'totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices.'... Those tweets followed actions taken by Apple Inc..., Alphabet Inc's ... YouTube and Facebook to remove some content posted by Infowars, a website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones' own Twitter account was temporarily suspended on Aug. 15."

Maybe Melanie Really Has Joined the Resistance. Darlene Superville of the AP: "Melania Trump is planning her first big solo international swing with a trip through several African countries in October. The first lady told The Associated Press in a written statement Monday that she's looking forward to learning about the issues that children living on the continent face, as well as appreciating Africa's history and culture. She recently launched a U.S.-based effort focused on the well-being of children. Mrs. Trump plans to travel without ... Donald Trump, who was roundly criticized earlier this year after his private comment about 'shithole countries' in Africa was leaked to journalists.... Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said the first lady chose Africa ... after she learned about some of the development programs that are underway in many of its countries."

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos: "Top Democrats are requesting information from the White House on the security clearance of Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who crossed paths with an indicted Russian spy while serving on the National Rifle Association's international affairs subcommittee. The ranking members of the House Oversight and Subcommittee on National Security, Reps. Elijah Cummings and Stephen Lynch, wrote to White House chief of staff John Kelly Monday: 'We are writing regarding recent reports that National Security Advisor John Bolton, in his former capacity as a top official with the National Rifle Association (NRA), worked directly with a Russian citizen who has now been charged by federal prosecutors with infiltrating that organization and spying against the United States for years.... We request that you produce documents relating to whether Mr. Bolton reported his previous work with this alleged Russian spy on his security clearance forms or other White House vetting materials prior to President Trump appointing him to his current position'... The Russian citizen referenced in the letter is Maria Butina, who was arrested for acting as a Russian agent in July."

You're No Scott Pruitt If -- you've never made a $43,000 phone call to a place down the street. Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "The $43,000 phone booth that then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt installed in his office may not have been worth all the headaches it caused him. He placed only one phone call to the White House, newly released records from the agency show. It lasted five minutes.... He made the five-minute call on Jan. 29, according to Verizon phone logs released in response to litigation filed by the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group.... The Government Accountability Office concluded that Pruitt violated federal spending laws when he built the phone booth, because he spent more than $5,000 without providing advance notice to Congress." The logs don't show whether or not Pruitt received incoming calls on the super-secret lines.

Michael Sisak, et al., of the AP: "The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. was taken from his New York City home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, following years of efforts to remove him from the United States. The deportation of the 95-year-old former Nazi camp guard, Jakiw Palij, came 25 years after investigators first confronted him about his World War II past and he admitted lying to get into the U.S., claimin he spent the war as a farmer and factory worker.... Because Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.... The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.... German prosecutors have previously said it does not appear that there's enough evidence to charge Palij with wartime crimes. Now that he is in Germany, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case."

Henry Mance & Jim Brunsden of the Financial Times: Britain's Foreign Secretary "Jeremy Hunt has called for EU sanctions on Russia over the Salisbury nerve agent attack, a move likely to be met with resistance from Brussels. [Hunt] said the EU should 'ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive' and should stand 'shoulder to shoulder with the US', which imposed sweeping sanctions in response to the attack that killed one British woman and put four other people in hospital. The US sanctions, which could limit Russia's access to some technologies, come into force on Wednesday.... Mr Hunt's call for joint EU action is juxtaposed with an attempt to press the European Commission to give ground in Brexit negotiations."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, urged prosecutors investigating President Bill Clinton to question him in graphic detail about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, according to a memorandum released on Monday by the National Archives. Mr. Kavanaugh spent more than three years working for Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated a series of scandals during Mr. Clinton's presidency, and he worked on the report that led the House of Representatives to impeach Mr. Clinton.... The release of the two-page memo, dated August 15, 1998, adds details to earlier reports.... The memo confirms that Mr. Kavanaugh took a hard line that seemed driven by disgust with Mr. Clinton's behavior and the animosity that had developed between the White House and Mr. Starr's team." ...

     ... Here's the memo. World a read. "... it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear -- piece by painful piece...." Kavanaugh wrote. Evidently, he's less touchy about Donald Trump's revolting behavior. ...

Christamighty, it's a good thing he's a Really Nice Guy, or else I'd think he was a bed-sniffing hypocrite and a sanctimonious yahoo who's spent his entire career as a Republican hack. -- Charles Pierce

Lauren Clason of Roll Call: "Top Republican lawmakers have no plans to examine the alleged influence that a trio of ... Donald Trump's friends have at the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as Democrats call for an investigation.... On Monday, a handful of Senate Democrats on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, petitioned Chairman Johnny Isakson of Georgia to hold a hearing on the matter.... House Veterans' Affairs Committee Ranking Member Tim Walz is also seeking details of correspondence from the department. But Republican leaders of both the House and Senate veterans committees don't agree the issue warrants congressional intervention.... The controversy peaked in recent weeks after reports that Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, Palm Beach doctor Bruce Moskowitz and D.C. lawyer Marc Sherman hold undue sway with VA leadership, including senior adviser Peter O'Rourke, who formerly served as acting secretary.... Isakson said the problem was largely solved after [Robert] Wilkie was sworn in [as VA Secretary] last month.... Liberal veterans group VoteVets filed a lawsuit against the administration last week, claiming the VA is violating federal protocol related to private influence in matters of federal policy."

Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race. Scott Bauer of the AP: "A second former top official with Gov. Scott Walker's administration has endorsed his Democratic opponent and cut a video criticizing the Republican incumbent. The latest online ad, released Monday, features former Department of Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten blasting Walker as only caring about pleasing donors and calling for administration officials to dodge the open records law. The spot comes after former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall also recorded a video backing Democrat Tony Evers and wrote a tell-all book making numerous allegations of mismanagement against Walker's administratio and others. Evers and Walker face off in the Nov. 6 election."

Beyond the Beltway

Jane Stancill of the Raleigh News & Observer: "Protesters toppled the Silent Sam Confederate statue on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill on Monday night. The monument was ripped down after 9:15 p.m. Earlier in the evening, protesters covered the statue with tall, gray banners, erecting 'an alternative monument' that said, in part, 'For a world without white supremacy.' Protesters were apparently working behind the covering with ropes to bring the statue down, which happened more than two hours into a rally. It fell with a loud clanging sound, and the crowd erupted in cheers.... [The statue] had been erected in 1913 with donations from the United Daughters of the Confederacy.... UNC had installed surveillance cameras and spent $390,000 on security around the statue last year."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

As the little dictator spies enemies, enemies all around, even in his soup, and it looks like his bee-yoo-tee-ful grifter empire could be crashing down, he demands to know “Will Bruce Ohr EVER be fired?!?”

Reminds me of another little dictator who, as his empire was falling down and his enemies were getting the upper hand demanded to know “Is Paris burning?”

[PD Pepe]

Here's a long piece by Timothy Shenk (TNR) that parses the conservative writer Jonah Goldberg's mindset from "liberal fascism" to Trumpian upchuck.

"American democracy might have entered its golden years, but new blood is rejuvenating it every day—including next January 3, when Ocasio-Cortez will become the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress. For all Goldberg’s emphasis on an unchanging human nature, he misses one of its most important features: To each new generation, yesterday’s hard-won victories are just another part of the world as they have always known it. That refusal to be dazzled by old achievements is what makes progress possible. And it just might save democracy. Today, the suicide Goldberg warns against is one potential outcome, even if a remote one; the senility Runciman predicts is an option, too, maybe a likely one. But a third prospect is coming into sight: rebirth."

[PD Pepe]

Here's the link to above piece:
https://newrepublic.com/article/150507/democracy-really-dying

IT'S RAINING RATS AND DOGS

Trump's use of these two words to describe people he disdains happens to be a problem not only with said people but also in Trump's own home town. The city of New York is rife with rats. In Brooklyn a group of rat catchers with trained rat catching dogs go out at night and get hundreds of these furry creatures. In Trump's world perhaps his dogs and rats will turn the tables, bond together to get the REAL rat / dog that lurks among us.
Woof!

[Marie Burns]

@PD Pepe: Yes, & the teensy problem with Trump's calling John Dean a RAT is that Dean was instrumental in saving the nation from the President Gone Wild in the White House. Altho Dean participated in the wild things & went to jail for his efforts, most Americans regarded Dean as a reluctant hero for coming clean in is testimony before the Senate select committee investigating Watergate. There's a big difference between a rat and a whistleblower, but I guess if you're running the country like a Mafia boss, you don't see it that way.

[Akhilleus]

President* Stupid on the Economy

Although it's been years since I took Ec 10 in college (Introduction to Economics) I still recall the basics of how the Fed works and why interest rates go up and down. Clearly Donaldo does not. (Didn't he graduate first in his class at the Wharton School of Business? He must have gone to the Warts n' All School of Funny Business...)

So Stupid goes before a phalanx of wealthy investors and he starts to bloviate about what a disappointment is the guy he appointed as chairman of the Fed. "Waaaah...EZ money is gone! Waaaaahhh..."

It appears that he's doing a sort of mea culpa to his rich pals because the money spigot is being turned in the wrong direction.

I have to believe that there are at least a few in that crowd who understand how things work and are okay with the Fed doing its job.*

Stupid inherited a booming economy from the last real president. He then handed everyone huge tax cuts, especially all those rich guys and the corporations they run. So the economy heats up even more. If it heats up too much, we get inflation. The price of goods goes up. People buy less. Production goes down. Unemployment goes up. Get it? Idiot?

It's a constant battle at the Fed. Interest rates were at rock bottom for years because the last Republican president was an economic moron too and he crashed the economy. It took years for a responsible, sane, knowledgeable president (Democratic, natch) to clean up the mess.

Now Stupid wants his own mess for the next Democratic president to clean up.

This tirade shows just how little this idiot really understands about macroeconomics. He might understand real estate (Rent to Russians, mobsters, and crooks. Don't rent to black people. After you screw enough investors, respectable banks won't loan you money, so go back to the Russian mob), but the workings of the economy on a large scale seem to have eluded him. Not to mention the fact that the Fed is not his personal servant. They operate independently or there could be no trust in the system. If investors thought that the little dictator might wake up with Dorito crumbs in his tighty-whities, have a meltdown and raise or lower interest rates three or four times a day, you couldn't get people to put money into a lemonade stand, during a drought, in 100 degree weather.

This latest Trumpertantrum also demonstrates what a weak sister he is. I can't recall any president in history who spends so much time and effort criticizing the people he himself put in place. Instead of taking action, for instance, in Jeffbo's case, and firing his ass, he sits on the john and cries and moans and groans that everyone is out to get him.

Grow up, whiny boy.

And get an economics textbook while you're at it. Moron.

*As I typed that sentence I realized that in the Age of Trump there are fewer and fewer big money types who give two shits about how things work as long as they get theirs. See Romney, Mittens, and Kushner, Jared.

[Ken Winkes]

Parsing the Pretender could be a full-time job if we didn't have the benefit of Occam and his razor.

(That was true even before mouthpiece Rudy began to display his peculiar use of language on the Pretender's behalf, which has him contradicting himself from day to day, so often it's admittedly sometimes hard to keep up, or philosophical head-scratchers like claiming that things which are true are not.)

Consider "rat." When the Pretender tweeted it, I had no trouble with it. "Ratting" means to reveal something secret kept secret to cover up embarrassing or outright nefarious behavior. Because "ratting" can't occur unless there is some kind of wrongdoing at its root, I took it as simply another Pretender admission of guilt.

If you start with the assumption that the Pretender is lying or stupid, which was the case here, you can't go wrong.

[Akhilleus]

"News" from the Confederacy

I'm sure you guys have noticed, when scrolling through general news sites like Google News, the enormous difference between 90% of the articles and the ones from Fox, the Washington Examiner, and Breitbart, et al. It's like a completely different universe.

So from the real world you'll see a headline like "Trump's Russia Problems Mount" or "Trump is Powerless as his Legal Fate Spins Out of His Control" or "Ethics Problems Increase Dramatically for Pruitt".

But then your eye runs over headlines from the Confederacy and here's what you see:

"Mueller Proven to be Soviet Spy" or "Trump Trounces Critics" or "Pruitt Battles Fake News Liberals!"

It's like notes from a Bizarro Universe. Oh, wait. It IS a Bizarro Universe.

And if there are some attributions in some of these ledes, it's pretty clear where the stories are from and where they're headed. Any story that has a tag like "....says Newt Gingrich" or begins with "According to Ron Johnson..." You know what to expect.

Unadulterated crap.

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

Talk about admissions of guilt...

What can these people (Rudy, especially) be thinking when they say stuff like "But, but....if President* Trump sits down with Mueller, they'll get him for perjury!"

Why not just say "Of COURSE he's gonna lie. Whaddaya think, he's gonna tell the truth? Are you nuts?"

Does it not register to these bozos that when you say something like "My guy will be guilty of perjury if he talks" you're saying that he absolutely will lie?

Go figure.

[Akhilleus]

What a Surprise!

Well, okay, a couple of surprises.

Did you know that Trump......(gulp!).....READS?!?

Well, according to him he does (snicker).

So here's a couple of summer reading lists. One from the country's last real president who really does read, by the way, and one from the guy who slithered into the White House after losing the popular vote, with the help of an antagonistic foreign power, a guy who can't even read gigantic all caps on a teleprompter, but, whatever...

Barack Obama suggests:

"-- 'Educated' by Tara Westover, a memoir about a woman who leaves her survivalist Idaho roots behind.

-- 'Warlight' by Michael Ondaatje, a post-World War II novel that Obama says is 'a meditation on the lingering effects of war on family.'

-- 'An American Marriage' by Tayari Jones, about a newlywed black attorney wrongly convicted of rape.

-- 'Factfulness' a tome by Swedish academic Hans Rosling on the 'secret silent miracle of human progress.' and;

-- 'A House for Mr. Biswas,' considered to be the first, great novel by the late V.S. Naipaul.

Obama also put out a reading list back in June, which included works such as 'The New Geography of Jobs' and 'Why Liberalism Failed.'"

Trumpy the Reeder suggests (the second surprise):

"WITCH HUNT! I'm Being Screwed!"

"Me. Why I'm so Great."

"Why Other People Think I'm so Great"

"How I Fixed the Economy"

Think I'm kidding? Check it out.

[PD Pepe]

@AK: As I mentioned to you yesterday I sent your wonderful baseball analogy to one of my sons–-baseball fan–-who wrote back and said:

"I wonder how Trump ever graduated from Wharton He must have paid off somebody."

And I think we have a brand new word to put in that book called a dictionary: Trumpertantrum–––spell check says, nein, not a word, but I betcha it will be. Years from now mothers will say to their kinder:

"Stop it! If you proceed with this Trumpertantrum I'll make you watch two hours of the campaign rallies of a president who, because of his temper tantrums, went down in disgrace."

A mother clearly at her wits end or as some would say, at the END of her wits.

[Rockygirl]

Let’s not forget - much as he would like us not to notice - that the Pretender did NOT go to the well-regarded and prestigious Wharton School of Business at Penn. That is the graduate MBA school generally ranked among the top in the nation. Instead, he went to the Penn undergrad Econ program, which, while it might share a name with he MBA school, has no such prestigious reputation apart from it being a department at the putatively Ivy League UPenn.

I spent my undergrad days at a different “prestige” school in the southwestern suburbs of Philly, and my Econ classmates all looked at the Penn Econ program as being decidedly “less than.”

[forrest morris]

I'm hoping all of 45s reading recommendations are printed on
recycled toilet paper. I'd hate to think that trees had to die for
that list of crap.

[Akhilleus]

Rockygirl,

A-ha. Truth is always a great antiseptic.

I knew he didn't go to the graduate program but I was riffing on Trump's own references. I did not know, however, that the program he did attend was "less than". Appropriate though, a less than program for a less than student and a very much less than president*.

There is still a lot of speculation as to how, in fact, he did get in to Penn in the first place. As a mediocre student at Fordham, how was he able to transfer in for the last two years? Usually transfer students have to be at least as good if not better than the kids who get in as freshmen. His interview was conducted by a good friend of his brother and the thinking is that Dad made a substantial contribution to help things along.

He never made the Dean's List and didn't graduate with honors. Not sure how you end up first in your class without even rating cum laude.

I went to a pretty good school and I knew some kids who were clearly there as legacies, compared to the average, but even those guys were decent students. I never met anyone who was as obviously ignorant as Trump.

I've heard some people claim that he was (or seemed) much brighter earlier in his career. That may be the case (at least it seemed as if he could complete a sentence without repeating himself three or four times). But that makes it all the more evident that he has suffered a serious decline in mental acuity, not something you hope for in a guy with access to nuclear weapons.

[Patrick]

Forrest, they didn't die for nothing. Most of those books go right to remainder and thence to recycle, whether they came from new pulp or recycle. Either way, the carbon remains sequestered.

[Ken Winkes]

Have long thought a name change is in order. Based on her experience Senator Susan Collins might want to change her first name to "Patsy."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/politics/susan-collins-can-tell-you-why-not-to-trust-a-promise-in-washington/index.html

But I fear she hasn't learned her lesson, obvious as it is. Today she announced she took comfort from Mr. Kavanaugh's "promise" not to overturn Roe v. Wade.

https://thinkprogress.org/brett-kavanaugh-susan-collins-roe-0d34a78c453d/

Any Mainelander know what's up with this woman? I sure can't figure it out.

[Marvin Schwalb]

WoPo: Manafort convicted of 8 counts, judge will declare mistrial in 10 others.

[forrest morris]

@Ken Winkes: We must remember that 'truth isn't truth', so Mr.
Kavanaugh's 'promise isn't promise' and his 'lying isn't lying.'

[Marvin Schwalb]

WoPo: Michael Cohen says he worked to silence two women before the 2016 election ‘in coordination’ with Trump.

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

A patsy is one who has been hoodwinked, misled, or taken advantage of; a chump.

I don't think any of this describes Collins. I believe that she knows exactly what she's about. She loves to play the decent, civil lawmaker who opposes indecorous coarseness and unconstitutional shenanigans. the one whom everyone waits upon.

In truth, she doesn't give a shit about any of the above. It's useful for her to pretend to be a good person, but in fact, she'll be happy to fly her flag with the authoritarian Trumpist assholes as long as it will keep her relevant in the Club.

She can say to Turtle Man "See? They all thought I'd vote with decency, but I came down on the side of rat bastard traitorous motherfuckers. Like you and Trump."

As far as I'm concerned, she can go to hell. If she votes against that rat prick Kavanaugh, I'll be happy to eat crow, but I don't think I'll have to check the recipes for grilled Corvus any time soon.

[Ken Winkes]

Skies very smokey here, thanks to no global warming.

Should stay inside, the health authorities say, but don't figure it will do much harm and perhaps a little good to put in some practice for all the coal emissions the Pretender hopes to spew into the air.

So will go back outside and do some more painting, gasping a little maybe, but still chortling at the prospect of the entertaining twitter storm the Cohen plea deal and the Manafort convictions is bound to generate.

Calloo, callay!

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

Oh, frabjous bandersnatch! Mimsy are the borogoves and the mome raths outdid themselves in T.S. Ellis's tumtum tree.

Manafortia has taken the vorpal blade up the reedy rectumius and Mueller's people have gone galumphing back through the tulgey wood with an eye out for the Orangeipithecus, gyreing and gimbling in the wabe.

Beamish boys, awake.

Douchey dildos dodge, dissemble and depart.

That means you, Trumpius.