The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Thursday
Aug022018
The Commentariat -- August 3, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Trade Wars Are Easy to Win, Ctd. Keith Bradsher & Cao Li of the New York Times: "China threatened on Friday to tax an additional $60 billion a year worth of imports from the United States if the Trump administration imposes its own new levies on Chinese goods. The threat comes just two days after President Trump ordered his administration to consider increasing the rate of tariffs it has already proposed on $200 billion a year of Chinese goods -- everything from chemicals to handbags -- to 25 percent from 10 percent."
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone: "The National Rifle Association warns that it is in grave financial jeopardy, according to a recent court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, and that it could soon 'be unable to exist... or pursue its advocacy mission.'... The gun group has been suing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state's financial regulators since May, claiming the NRA has been subject to a state-led 'blacklisting campaign' that has inflicted 'tens of millions of dollars in damages.' In the new document --
Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post are liveblogging the Manafort trial.
David Brunnstrum of Reuters: "Less than two months after a landmark U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew back to the city state on Friday and said North Korea's continued work on weapons programs was inconsistent with its leader's commitment to denuclearize."
Alice Driver, in a CNN opinion piece: "According to Ivanka Trump in a recent interview with Axios, the issue of family separation 'was a low point' during her tenure as assistant to and daughter of the President. She discussed family separation in the past tense, as if it was over, further reinforcing her father's message that he has ended family separation. That implication does not reflect reality, because family separation continues.... Ivanka Trump waited a full month after her father declared an end to immigrant family separation to voice her disagreement with the policy and has not taken any action aside from tweeting to thank her father for ending family separation at the border.... If Ivanka Trump did care about migrant children separated from their parents, she could do more than call it a 'low point.'...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Loved the way she called it "a low point for me," as if the important thing were how Ivanka felt, not the devastation to thounds of children & their loved ones. Now we're all supposed to have a sad for Ivanka & forget about the kids because This Immigration Thing is so over except in Ivanka's wounded memory.
Meet Your Republican Party. Kate Riga of TPM: "Todd Kincannon, former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, has reportedly killed his dog due to his belief that he is Jesus Christ and needed to perform a sacrifice." Mrs. McC: The bulk of the story is a police report. I sure hope Jeff Sessions gets down there & defends Kincannon's religious freeeedom against those repressive local cops. I mean, you just can't get more Christian than Jesus Christ.
*****
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Trump administration officials on Thursday vowed to defend the United States' elections against threats from Russia and other countries, describing influence campaigns by America's adversaries in blunt terms rarely used by President Trump. The heads of the nation's national security agencies said Russia was still trying to influence and disrupt the midterm elections, and they pledged to help local and state governments counter those efforts in the weeks ahead. 'Russia attempted to interfere with the last election,' Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said, adding that Russian operatives were continuing to operate against the election system in 'malign' ways. He said the United States government must face the threat with 'fierce determination and focus.' Mr. Wray and other top national security officials, who spoke at a White House news briefing, did not describe specific threats to the coming elections, and they were vague in saying how the government was responding to what they called Russia's interference campaign." ...
... Manu Raju of CNN: "Two leading senators are asserting that ... Donald Trump has not focused on the clear threat the Kremlin poses in the 2018 elections, with one Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee contending that Russian hackers may have already targeted most -- if not all -- sitting US senators. Ratcheting up the push for a more robust US response to Russian interference in the midterms and 2020 elections, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are now slated to get a committee vote this month on a bipartisan bill is aimed at shoring up the nation's election system. But the two senators said their plan has run into hurdles for months -- and say the Russian threat is real headed into the midterms." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Karen Yourish & Troy Griggs of the New York Times: "On Thursday, the heads of the national security agencies said that Russia was still trying to influence and disrupt the midterm elections in the United States. Their pointed statements contradicted President Trump, who has continued to cast doubt on the role Russia played in the 2016 presidential election." The reporters contrast the remarks of agency heads & senators with those of the 400-pound man sitting on a bed in the White House.
Nick Hopkins of the Guardian: "US counter-intelligence investigators discovered a suspected Russian spy had been working undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned. The Russian national had been hired by the US Secret Service and is understood to have had access to the agency's intranet and email systems, which gave her a potential window into highly confidential material including the schedules of the president and vice-president. The woman had been working for the Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion in 2016 during a routine security sweep conducted by two investigators from the US Department of State's Regional Security Office (RSO). They established she was having regular and unauthorised meetings with members of the FSB, Russia's principal security agency. The Guardian has been told the RSO sounded the alarm in January 2017, but the Secret Service did not launch a full-scale inquiry of its own. Instead it decided to let her go quietly months later, possibly to contain any potential embarrassment."
Kara Swisher of the New York Times: Social media "companies began with a gauzy credo to change the world. But they have done that in ways they did not imagine -- by weaponizing pretty much everything that could be weaponized.... Which is why malevolent actors continue to game the platforms and why there's still no real solution in sight anytime soon, because they were built to work exactly this way.... At least [Mark] Zuckerberg has traveled a long way in admitting the problem and has said more than any other digital C.E.O. that he regrets that he had not taken action sooner.... Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable."
Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Paul Manafort's bookkeeper testified Thursday that she was unaware of more than a dozen offshore accounts the former Trump campaign chairman allegedly controlled in Cyprus. Testifying on the third day of special counsel Robert Mueller's trial against the longtime GOP operative, who is facing bank- and tax-fraud charges, Heather Washkuhn of the Southern California-based accounting firm NKSFB said she handled Manafort’s books from 2011 to 2018.... As his work as a political consultant with the Ukraine dried up, Manafort's international lobbying company was going into the red. Washkuhn testified that the firm lost $630,000 in 2015 and $1.1. million in 2016, the same year Manafort linked up with Donald Trump's presidential campaign.... Prompted by Mueller prosecutors who walked her through dozens of financial documents and email chains, Washkuhn acknowledged that Manafort gave banks several documents without her knowledge, including financial information that did not reflect her understanding of his monetary standing.... A lawyer for Manafort sought to get Washkuhn to concede that Gates sometimes unilaterally instructed her to make transactions related to the finances of Manafort or his political consulting firm, but the bookkeeper ... insisted she never acted without Manafort's direct authorization." ...
... Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Paul Manafort's longtime bookkeeper testified against him Thursday, telling a Virginia jury that his seven-figure lifestyle lasted until about 2015 when the cash ran out, the bills piled up and he and his business partner began trying to fudge numbers to secure loans. The dry but potentially damaging testimony from the bookkeeper, Heather Washkuhn, appeared to undercut Manafort's defense against bank and tax charges, which is that his business partner is responsible for any financial misdeeds. But Washkuhn testified that Manafort approved 'every penny.' Washkuhn spent hours on the witness stand, describing account balances, bills received and payments.... Washkuhn said Manafort's consulting firm, Davis Manafort Partners, took in millions of dollars a year before its revenue cratered in 2015. The firm reported only $388,542 in income in 2015 and a $1.2 million loss in 2016.... As his business was gasping, Manafort was tapped to run Trump's campaign in mid-2016. He received no pay for the job, even though his firm was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, according to election filings and evidence presented to the jury." ...
... Rachel Weiner, et al., liveblogged Thursday's testimony in the Paul Manafort case.
Jeet Heer: "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that [Michael Cohen] ... was set to make as much as $10 million dollars from Trump donor Franklin L. Haney, contingent upon Cohen's helped ensure that a nuclear power plant Haney was promoting in Alabama got built. Cohen would also receive a monthly fee for his lobbying efforts. The deal was made shortly before federal agents raided Cohen's residences and workplaces in April. It is no longer operative.... [From the WSJ:] 'James Thurber, a professor of government at American University, said success fees are 'outside the ethical norms' among Washington lobbyists.... Century-old court rulings deemed fees contingent on lobbyists obtaining public funds or killing legislation unenforceable and counter to public policy, saying they encouraged corruption, he said. Several lobbyists contacted by the Journal said $10 million was an unheard-of sum to pay a consultant for government-related work.'"
Anna Schecter, et al., of NBC News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has requested an interview with Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who helped set up the now infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to Agalarov's lawyer."
Ann E. Marimow & Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "A former aide to ... Roger Stone must testify before the special counsel's grand jury, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday. The judge rejected a challenge from Andrew Miller, a former assistant to Stone who tried to block subpoenas from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The redacted opinion from U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell affirming the legal legitimacy of the special counsel's appointment does not identify Miller by name, but his attorney confirmed that the ruling is in response to Miller's request. Howell's ruling orders Miller to 'appear before the grand jury to provide testimony at the earliest date available' and to provide subpoenaed records.... Miller's attorneys had argued that Mueller 'wields too much power with too little accountability' and was unlawfully appointed, according to Howell's summary of Miller's filing."
Hazel Jones of the Daily Mail: "In an exclusive excerpt [of a new book] obtained by DailyMail.com, Omarosa [Manigault-Newman] ... tells of the dread she felt while watching Trump's interview with Lester Holt last May. 'While watching the interview I realized that something real and serious was going on in Donald's brain. His mental decline could not be denied,' she writes in Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House. 'Many didn't notice it as keenly as I did because I knew him way back when. They thought Trump was being Trump, off the cuff. But I knew something wasn't right.... Donald rambled. He spoke gibberish. He contradicted himself from one sentence to the next. Hope [Hicks, then communications director] had gone over the briefing with him a dozen times hitting the key point that he had fired Comey based on the recommendation by the DOJ which the vice president and other surrogates had been reinforcing for days.' But when questioned by Holt, the president contradicted previous reports about how the senior law-enforcement officer was dispatched from his office." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, yeah, I know this belongs in Infotainment (or nowhere at all), but it is definitely about "This Russia Thing." ...
... Then Again. "... In His Own Bubble, Thinking He Controls Stuff." Alberto Nardelli of BuzzFeed News: "Shortly after leaving the G7 Summit in Canada in June..., Donald Trump tweeted to say he had instructed US officials not to endorse a statement he had agreed to just hours earlier with other world leaders. Trump was displeased with something Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during the summit's closing press conference, which the president was following on TV from Air Force One. But almost two months on, those instructions from Trump have never been acted upon, apparently ignored, two sources who were directly involved in the G7 process told BuzzFeed News. US inaction means Trump effectively endorsed the final statement after all.... Trump had left the leaders of Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the UK stunned and bewildered.... 'The White House and State Dept. are actively ignoring the tweets of the president,' one of the sources said. 'It's like there's a reality TV president, in his own bubble, thinking he controls stuff. It's like The Truman Show.' Trump's tweet, the source explained, wasn't sufficient to pull out of the communique itself because 'the G7 has a suite of diplomatic tools for communications, and Twitter isn't one of them.'" ...
... AND. Politico: "... Donald Trump issued one of his patented Twitter endorsements on Thursday, urging people to vote for a top political ally next week. But ... he's not on the ballot. Trump tweeted that Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who is leading House Republicans' efforts to keep the chamber in this fall's midterm elections, has earned his 'full [and] total endorsement.' Stivers, Trump wrote, 'has done a fantastic job' as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. 'Get out and vote for Steve on Aug 7th,' Trump wrote.... The fourth-term incumbent was unopposed in his primary, all the way back in May. He will next go before voters on Nov. 6, when he faces Democrat Rick Neal."
Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "Trump is lying more, and he's doing it on purpose." ...
... Gabriela Galindo of Politico: "... Donald Trump told supporters that Queen Elizabeth II kept him waiting during his first official visit to the United Kingdom, blaming the media for reporting he'd been the one who was late for their meeting. Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Trump claimed he had actually arrived 15 minutes early for his meeting with the 'incredible' queen, slamming the 'fake, fake, disgusting news' media reports that noted he had been the one who was late. The president's visit to Britain was broadcast live on television, including footage of the 92-year-old queen waiting for Trump for 12 minutes and looking at her watch.... Trump then claimed he had 'a better relationship' with European leaders 'than any other [American] president has had.'" Mrs. McC: But remember, "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."...
... Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Trump devoted the majority of his time at a rowdy rally [in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,] on Thursday targeting the news media, deriding the reporters present as 'fake, fake disgusting news.' The rally, intended to galvanize support for Representative Lou Barletta, a Republican who is running for Senate in this fall's midterm elections, did eventually turn to what Mr. Trump called 'boring subjects,' but for much of the event, the president focused on his multiple grievances with the Washington press corps." ...
... Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress has a rundown of some other lies & threats Trump made during the Wilkes-Barre "rally."
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Thursday formally announced its long-awaited proposal to dramatically weaken an Obama-era regulation on planet-warming vehicle tailpipe pollution. The publication of the proposal sets up a race among opponents of the change -- an unusual mix of environmentalists, automakers, consumer groups and states -- to temper the plan before it is finalized this year. The proposal would freeze rules requiring automakers to build cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars, including hybrids and electric vehicles, and unravel one of President Barack Obama's signature policies to combat global warming. It would also challenge the right of states to set their own, more stringent tailpipe pollution standards, setting the stage for a legal clash that could ultimately split the nation's auto market in two." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: How does this make America great again? Well, for one thing, you'll be able to see the air better. ...
... Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "... the Trump administration... is now arguing [that] ... forcing automakers to build cleaner cars will lead to more highway accidents and deaths." Plumer discusses the arguments, pro and con. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "... the administration has concocted a tortured, flimsy argument -- that cleaner cars will cost thousands more, and kill thousands more people -- to scare Americans into believing that the government should scrap its most consequential policy for reducing emissions.... The administration can’t say it wasn't warned about the flaws in its logic. According to The Washington Post, an earlier version of this proposal was presented to the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, and officials said it contained 'a wide range of errors, use of outdated data, and unsupported assumptions.'... On Thursday morning, 20 attorneys general pledged to sue the Trump administration over the proposed rule.... To justify this regressive policy, Trump is using two familiar ingredients: fear and falsehoods."
Ivanka Will Save Us! John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump said Thursday that she does not agree with her father's characterization of the media as 'the enemy of the people' and that she was 'vehemently against' separating children from parents at the border, calling that a low point of her White House tenure. The comments from Trump, a White House adviser, came during an event hosted by Axios...." (Also linked yesterday.) And see safari's comment in yesterday's thread. Mrs. McC: I'd say safari has Ivanka's number. Plus, apparently Ivanka said in the same Q&A that she really enjoyed traveling around the country. Guess that doesn't include visiting child prisoners in Trump Summer Camps, which even Melanie, who does not have a West Wing job, did. ...
... MEANWHILE, in Other Trump Family News. Eli Watkins of CNN: "... Donald Trump's eldest son said the platform of the Democratic Party is similar to that of the Nazi Party in Germany during the early 1930s and that history classes are biased against conservatives.In a video posted Thursday by the pro-Trump One America News Network, Jack Posobiec -- a prominent right-wing voice online who supported the Pizzagate hoax -- spoke with Donald Trump Jr., who compared the present-day Democratic Party to Nazis and disparaged history taught by academics. 'I've been out hearing the left talking about all these things, fascism, Nazism on the right,' Trump Jr. said. 'And when you look at the actual history of how these things evolved, and when you actually look at that platform versus the platform of the modern left, you say wait a minute, those two are really heavily aligned and, frankly, contrary to the right.... 'You see the Nazi platform in the early 1930s and what was actually put out there ... and you look at it compared to like the DNC platform of today, and you're saying, man, those things are awfully similar, to point where it's actually scary,' Trump Jr. said.... Trump Jr. made his comments at a movie premiere for Dinesh D'Souza...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie Viewer Warning: A self-loading video of Junior making these remarks accompanies the story. If you are prone to throw things when someone irritates the hell out of you, hit the "pause" buttom ASAP.
Mrs. McCrabbie: Also in yesterday's thread, see Akhilleus's commentary on Gamergate. It's nothing we've ever covered on Reality Chex, but it helps explain how we ended up with Trump & the Trumpbot contingent. BTW, I'd say Trump knows who these people are: "somebody sitting on their [sic.] bed that weighs 400 pounds." And, yes, as Akhilleus says, Trump has betrayed these losers (or "loosers," as they would write), but as Steve M. pointed out (see yesterday's Commentariat) in a related post, Trump is not essential to these people: "Trump is just, in their belief, the greatest fighter they've had."
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "During a tense White House briefing on Thursday, [CNN's Jim Acosta] challenged the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, to disavow President Trump's description of journalists as 'the enemy of the people.' Ms. Sanders declined to do so, saying she had been personally attacked in the media and had faced threats since starting her job.... 'It would be a good thing if you were to state right here, at this briefing, that the press -- the people who are gathered in this room right now, doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier -- are not the enemy of the people,' Mr. Acosta said.... Ms. Sanders deflected [saying the media picked on her].... Mr. Acosta tried again.... 'This democracy, this country, all the people around the world watching what you are saying, Sarah, and the White House for the United States of America -- the president of the United States should not refer to us as "the enemy of the people,"' he said. 'His own daughter acknowledges that, and all I'm asking you to do, Sarah, is to acknowledge that right now and right here.' Ms. Sanders replied: 'I appreciate your passion. I share it. I've addressed this question.' At that, Mr. Acosta promptly walked out."
Jonathan Chait: "[Wednesday], the Trump administration unveiled plans to allow insurers to skim healthy customers out of the insurance pool by offering skimpy plans that last for up to three years. The legally dubious maneuver is the crowning touch on the administration's persistent efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act.... The Republican line maintains that all these blatant attempts to kill the law are somehow the fault of the law's designers.... This is demonstrably false.... Having spent years insisting they had an army of wonks who could design a better alternative to the Obamacare 'train wreck,' the Republican plan of attack has dissolved into a rearguard sabotage campaign with no pretense of doing anything to help the poor and sick afford medical care." ...
... Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "After congressional Republicans repeatedly failed last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump promised to 'let Obamacare implode' on its own. A new lawsuit being filed Thursday argues that Trump's efforts to make good on that promise violate the U.S. Constitution. Trump has 'waged a relentless effort to use executive action alone to undermine and, ultimately, eliminate the law,' the complaint charges, according to a draft obtained by NBC News. The lawsuit is being filed in Maryland federal court by the cities of Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati and Baltimore." (Also linked yesterday.)
Chutzpah. Trump DOJ Sez ACLU Should Find the Parents Trump Deported. Ted Hesson of Politico: "The Trump administration on Thursday informed a federal judge that it isn't responsible for locating deported parents separated forcibly from their children at the southern border. DOJ said in a court filing that the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit over family separations, should instead take the lead in reunifying deported parents with their children. 'Plaintiffs' counsel [i.e., the ACLU] should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others, together with the information that defendants have provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries,' DOJ said."
Ben LeFebvre of Politico: "... the [In Interior D]epartment's inspector general will be asking whether [Secretary Ryan Zinke] colluded to have the chairman of Halliburton, one of the leading companies with business before the department, build him [a microbrewery in Whitefish, Montana]." Read on. Mrs. McC: The other day there was some discussion in the Comments about local vs. federal governance. The Zinke beermeister serial is a good reminder that those self-dealing opportunists who sit on your town council sometimes get federal jobs where they continue to self-deal, if sometimes on a grander scale.
Primary Election Results -- Tennessee
Senate Race. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Republicans braced for a difficult, high-stakes campaign in the heart of Trump country as Tennessee Democrats nominated a popular former governor to run for the state's open Senate seat. Phil Bredesen won the Democratic nomination Thursday, giving his party its best chance of a statewide general election victory in more than a decade. He has presented himself as an affable centrist willing to work with President Trump, and his presence on the ballot forces the GOP to play defense on its home turf as the party seeks to preserve a narrow 51-to-49 Senate majority. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is backed by Trump and has largely championed his agenda, won the Republican nomination."
Gubernatorial Race. Joey Garrison of the Tennessean: "Karl Dean easily defeated Craig Fitzhugh in Thursday's Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial primary, setting up a November general election where he'll try to become the first Democrat to win a statewide race in the Volunteer State in a dozen years. In a landslide, Dean, former mayor of Nashville, won the Democratic nomination with around 75 percent of the vote, crushing the nearly 20 percent captured by Fitzhugh, the minority leader of the state House. Mezianne Vale Payne, a nurse from Gainesboro, finished with 5 percent. Dean will now face Republican nominee Bill Lee, a Franklin businessman."
Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The National Archives said Thursday it will not be able to produce the full cache of documents requested by the Senate on Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh until the end of October, but Republicans indicated they would press ahead with plans to hold confirmation hearings next month.... The scope of documents requested by Republicans does not touch on an even bigger group of documents from Kavanaugh's three years as [George W.] Bush';s staff secretary. Democrats are demanding those papers, but Republicans say they are out of bounds.... Politically, a delay in document production could give red-stat Democrats a reason to wait on saying how they would vote on the Trump nominee. Among those in the spotlight are three facing tough reelections in November -- Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). All three voted to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch to the court." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So Chuck Grassley asked for fewer docs than Democrats want to see, and they can't get all of those, BUT they're going ahead with a vote anyway. ...
... Breaking. Orrin Hatch Loses Memory of Everything Occurring Before 2017. I really want to compliment the Democrats who have stood up and are willing to stand up for Judge Kavanaugh because they realize we can't keep going down this partisan, picky, stupid, dumbass road that has happened around here for so long.... I'm tired of the partisanship and, frankly, we didn't treat them -- their candidates for these positions the way they're treating ours. -- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
I'm sure Judge Merrick Garland will send condolences. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Linda Greenhouse looks at one year -- this past term -- in the estimable career of Clarence Thomas. If you haven't time to read the whole essay, at least read her "favorite" concurrence. Thanks to Gloria for the link. Mrs. McC: CJ Roberts should order Thomas to wear knee breeches & powdered wigs to court, because the old fart refuses to emerge from the 18th century. As Greenhouse writes, "Taken as a whole, as the work of a single justice during a single Supreme Court term, they paint an extraordinary picture of a judge at war not only with modernity but with the entire project of constitutional law."
Elisabetta Povoledo & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Pope Francis has declared the death penalty inadmissible in all cases because it is 'an attack' on the 'dignity of the person,' the Vatican announced on Thursday, in a definitive shift in Roman Catholic teaching that could put enormous pressure on lawmakers and politicians around the world. Francis, who has spoken out against capital punishment before -- including in 2015 in an address to Congress -- added the change to the Catechism, the collection of beliefs for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics." (Also linked yesterday.)
Monica Hesse of the Washington Post: "'He never harassed me,' isn't evidence. It's misdirection.... Sexual harassment seems to be one of the few misdeeds for which we accept testimonies from non-victims as evidence of innocence.... Earlier this week, following a rash of accusations against CBS chief Les Moonves, the Atlantic writer Megan Garber called this the Familiarity Fallacy.... She cited the litany of women who have come forward on Moonves's behalf, who stated that he'd been good to them and was therefore good in general. Garber pointed out how absurd this was. Serial harassers victimize some women and not others." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is different from but akin to the popular Blame the Victim Fallacy. "Her skirts are too short." "She's very flirtatious." "She shouldn't have traveled on business with him."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Mrs. McCrabbie: In the past, I may have linked to one Red State story. So this will be my second. Unless the author of the story mocked up the tweets he's posted (and that's possible -- all of the tweets start with Sarah Jeong's "professional twiter name" -- and yeah, that's "twiter," not "twitter"), it's a disturbing story: "Yesterday, the New York Times announced that it was hiring a journalist named Sarah Jeong as a member of their editorial board.... Ms. Jeong is apparently more than a journalist, she's also a virulent racist." The post goes on to reproduce quite a few awful anti-white tweets. Other right-wing sites -- Daily Caller & National Review -- have the story, too. What do you think? (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Here's a follow-up by Brian Flood of Fox "News": "The New York Times is standing by its hiring of tech writer Sarah Jeong despite several derogatory tweets of hers aimed at white people having been recently unearthed on her Twitter account.... [Jeong issued a statement: ] 'I engaged in what I thought of at the time as counter-trolling. While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers. These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns. I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context, and would not do it again,' Jeong wrote." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Amanda Arnold of New York: "Today, the Times declared that it was standing by Jeong -- but also issued an apology in response to the bad-faith criticism from the right.... Right-wing trolls are notorious for taking comments and jokes out of context and drumming up disingenuous outrage to target their opponents; although the Times didn't cave to their demands, it did legitimize them with a response." Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm still not sure. One has to assume the tweets were satirical. Maybe they were.
News Lede
USA Today: "Hiring slowed in July as employers added 157,000 jobs, a possible sign that worker shortages and widening U.S. trade spats are starting to curb employment gains. The unemployment rate fell from 4 percent 3.9 percent, close to its 18-year low, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected 192,000 payroll gains."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (16)
Wow - Just Wow! From the inestimable Linda Greenhouse.
The Sarandons are the same as the Kochs in that they (believe that they) are not affected by the details of life. They have medical care, gated communities and body guards, multiple homes in other countries and climates, can travel to other jurisdictions for procedures that would be illegal in the US, and can float above the fray. They can buy citizenship in safe havens, so that they don't have to queue with asylum seekers. Maybe they will be able to float on the rising oceans of despair and violence. Sociopaths.
Gloria,
In terms of a citizenship in NZ, an american can gain citizenship through residency, or through investment. The investment pathway is much faster: as fast as one can invest a million dollars. The exception for the rich man is the rule of age. They don't let people over 50 become citizens, and they require the same amount of investment. It looks like that rich man is over 50 and was allowed to become a citizen. It may be that the phoniness was that backdating of when he declared citizenship.
I second Gloria's "Wow" for Greenhouse's piece––dismal prospects for our Supreme Beings, but the one "being" she zeroed in on confirmed our suspicion long ago that he lives in his own archaic world sans coke cans and porn films.
From the NYR Daily comes a piece by Murray Waas who argues that the most compelling evidence that Trump may have obstructed justice appears to come from his own most senior and loyal aides.
"The greatest threat to his presidency is not from his enemies, real or perceived, but from his allies within the White House."
I wouldn't discount Omarosa, (although wouldn't go that far re: her book) because her observations about Trump's demise certainly has legs, albeit strictly "Omarosa style."
My opinions on the Jeong kerfuffle.
I'm guessing that her critics, whose sole purpose was to cause trouble, were all white, thereby supporting her joking generalizations about white people. Among their other racial weaknesses, those white folks certainly can't take a joke....
And her supporters have made the reasonable point that jokes about race don't have the same force in all directions. When minorities who have been discriminated against for centuries are the butt, it's one thing. It's punching down, piling on, bullying behavior as well as more evidence of continuing bias, . In the other...not so much. There's something about underdog status here that should play into a patently unbalanced equation. My sappy emotions take me in that direction anyway.
But all other arguments I can think of aside, generalizing about race in a multi-colored world, in the public sphere especially, while not always in each circumstance equally "wrong," is always plain stupid because it cannot possibly have any good social outcome.
Because its motivation was likely mean in itself, the abuse directed at Jeong may not have been "fair," or the Times response wholly appropriate, but she did invite it with her tweets, and if she's as smart as she's reported to be, she should have learned the right lesson from the experience and avoid such behavior in the future...
@Ken Winkes. Thanks. The Times & Jeong are asserting that her racists tweets were responses to racist tweets flung at her. While this is more than plausible, it would be helpful to see some evidence of this. For instance, did @GamerMan write, "All Asian women are crap" to which she responded "All white men are crap"? I don't know. If one's point is to give the heckler a taste of his own medicine, a better way to do it would be to tweet "@GamerMan: How would you like it if I tweeted, 'All white men are crap.' You're a great example." Then it would be clear that she wasn't making a racist generalization.
Marie: Yes, your last comment re: Jeong is exactly the kind of retort that would have been not only effective (for her) and possibly made the abuser think–– for maybe just a moment. It's very difficult not to respond in kind to these vicious comments, but it's so counterproductive to reply in kind ( and do those "kinds" even understand sarcasm?). I have had first hand experience with this in the past and the urge to get down and dirty is pretty overwhelming.
I was once called "a Lesbo cunt without a brain"––I can't recall if I ever replied, but if I did I hope it was a zinger without the sting.
The Deluded, the Deranged, and the Long Con
As the QAnon Trumpbots wave the flag of right-wing derangement, the contours of Right wing World become more obvious through the fog of lies and misdirection provided by its media arm, most notably, Fox.
There are, essentially, two fronts in the right's War on America. One might be termed the Ideological Wing, the warriors whose brainwashing is complete and who are ready to throw themselves into the breach against facts, truth, and the evil they are sure is all around waiting to pounce on their perfect 'mericanism. The other front is peopled by what might be called those in the Opportunistic Long Con Wing.
A few years ago, eminent historian Rick Perlstein carefully exposed the inner workings of the cadre of right-wing con artists and grifters from whose ranks slithered the Trump Monster. Writing in 2012, Pearlstein concentrated on the Rat. The kind of daily assault on truth and fact blasting out from the Trump Monster's Twitter feed was, we might forget, given a trial run by Mittens Romney during his run for absolute money-making power. And Trump, with a helping hand from deranged trolls, Fox, and Russia (and a supine,clueless MSM), has been able to usurp that power that the Mittster sought so greedily: the ability to monetize the presidency and fill his coffers to overflowing. A house with an elevator in the garage on the beach? Pshaw. That's for pikers. Romney was hoping for the whole coastline. And lies were his road to power, until he hit that Obama stop sign.
The trolls from the Ideological Wing took down the stop sign for Trump. These two wings work together in finely tuned ways, but it's really nothing new. In fact, according to a piece in the Baffler, the Trump-Russia Plan is a refinement and a more successful reboot of a plot put in place decades ago, run by that avatar of Winger Con Men, Jack Abramoff.
"For all the overheated talk of a sinister Russian takeover of a benign American electoral process, the details of this particular Russian infiltration of the leadership caste of the American right showcase an age-old stratagem favored among our homegrown conservative elite: ascribe an agreeably broad freedom-crusading identity to a deeply corrupt and undemocratic client regime; repatriate dubious cash flows through a tangled network of global organizations; smooth over, or conceal, any damaging conflicts or public disclosures by demonizing the opposition or the press as faithless abettors of liberalism, unfreedom, and other unforgivable ideological sins. Lather, rinse, repeat."
Abramoff, through a hilariously named think tank, the International Freedom Fund, began a campaign of disinformation and character assassination on behalf of the ruling white party of South Africa, painting the ANC as commie stooges and American supporters of anti-apartheid policies like Ted Kennedy, as their lying advocates. But this wasn't just an attempt by American right-wingers to advance the positions of racism.
"As it turns out, the IFF itself was steered and subsidized not just by the government of another country, South Africa, but by its military intelligence. The apartheid regime’s chief 'superspy,' a covert infiltrator of leftist opposition groups named Craig Williamson, had effectively conjured up the idea for the group as an extension of his day-job obligations."
So what we have here is a blood soaked (rather than dry) run for today's Trump-Russia scheme in which a foreign superspy, former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin, is at the helm of a project of ratfucking the inner workings of another country, attacking any who call them on it, and aiding the efforts of an extreme minority to maintain power over the majority.
And one other interesting bit of business. The Maria Butina subplot, that of helping to funnel dark money through the NRA to assist the Russian Candidate Trump, has a direct connection to Abramoff's plan to get rich helping racists and attacking Americans. "The Butina trail leads us to Republican political operative Paul Erickson—known as 'U.S. Person 1' in the Mueller filing—who came to political prominence as treasurer of the national College Republicans, under the esteemed leadership of Jack Abramoff."
Well, fancy that. These greedy, treasonous pigs never die, they just keep on ratfucking away.
And while we're on the subject of the NRA, here's something else to think about regarding the slavish obedience seen by the entire Party of Traitors to the whims of the NRA, and it has nothing to do with guns.
"Here’s how Robert Maguire, an investigator for the Center for Responsive Politics, laid out the connection, as reported by Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson:
'The NRA is routinely used as a conduit' for 'sketchy' money spent on Republican politics, says Maguire. . . . 'We’ve seen some of the groups in the Koch network give large, six- and seven-figure grants to the NRA—knowing that the NRA is going to spend that money on ads in an election,' Maguire says. 'They get away with it.' The Russians, Maguire says, could easily have funneled money into the NRA’s coffers, using a similar pathway: 'It is not surprising that the NRA would be used in that way.' It might even have been legal, he says. The NRA is allowed to accept foreign cash; it’s only forbidden from spending that money directly on U.S. elections. But in an organization as vast and varied as the NRA, cash is fungible."
How you like them apples?
Apparent support for the Second Amendment is, for most of these crooks, support for money to help them stay in power.
So all of this is part of the long con (go back and read Perlstein and you'll see that what began as a collection of cheap crooks and grifters has become industrialized and assembly-lined under Trump, the King of the Con).
But what about that Ideological Wing? The Steve M. piece, linked yesterday, following the menace of the QAnon creeps, paints a picture of not just partisanship, but INSANE partisanship. These people aren't just around the bend, if you peek around that bend, they're not even anywhere in sight. They don't just believe we're the enemy, they think we're evil spawns of Satan. And that means that there's nothing they can do, no illegal or dangerous or crazy thing, that is beyond the pale in order to counter liberal and progressive policies.
Which brings us to a subset (well, actually, the biggest group) inside the Ideological Wing. The Religious Nuts. If you want to know (and I realize this may be an extremely distasteful concept) what's really going on inside the minds of people like Sessions and little mikey pence, I direct you to Mr. Jon McNaughton, a painter who has become something like the Confederate Michelangelo.
McNaughton's paintings depict Trump, always, as a heroic god-like figure who stands between real 'mericans and, well, us. The Demons who attempt to wrest from them their status of being god's Chosen Ones. I'll let you examine some of the more outrageous images, but if you want a pure distillation of how these people really think, check this out.
This is McNaughton's "masterpiece", an interactive image called "One Nation Under God". It's a painting of Jesus presenting Americans with the Constitution. But as you scroll over the image, you will find him backed by real 'mericans like Thomas Jefferson; funnily enough, the guy who wanted a wall between church and state is standing directly behind Jesus (McNaughton's way of saying to the faithful, don't believe what your eyes and ears tell you, as Trump would say, Jefferson was a Jesus guy all the way).
Reagan is there, of course, and Washington and Lincoln. Lincoln is on his knees pleading with a corner of modern Americans to forget secularism and come to Jesus. There is a grinning "liberal scientist", his back to Jesus, grasping a copy of "Origin of Species" and a "liberal" reporter demanding to know if a pregnant woman will be a good libber and abort her baby.
Most frighteningly, there is an image of a Supreme Court justice with his head in his hands, sobbing for all the damage he's done to 'MERICA. And he's not identified, as some others are, as a liberal. He's ANY justice. Why is this frightening? Because, by McNaughton's lights, and presumably his many fans, even the wingers on the court are far too liberal. None of them are extreme enough, and that's pretty fucking scary.
This is what these people really think. And this is the wing that gives cover to the opportunists practicing the long con, enriching themselves off the backs of American taxpayers and, with the assistance and funding of foreign powers totally anathema to America, working to maintain power.
And very little of this has to do with Trump. He was a lucky chiseler who happens to have been a useful idiot for both sides at just the right time. Oh, his carnival barking certainly helps to keep the yokels engaged and enraged, but the con jobs and ideological derangement will continue long after Trump has moved on.
This is why Obama was never going to convince these people to sit down for a reasonable, thoughtful conversation. This is why we shouldn't care what any of these people say. They are past the point of rescue.
GOTV.
As Safari pointed out yesterday, Princess Ivanka is the Ruler of the Too Little Too Late, Sad Face for Being a Republican team.
Um, I'm not sure how many teammates she has, but let's say it's just her for now.
But she's also capable of perfect Trumpian misdirection and outright lying.
A piece in Huff Post makes this point admirably. The Princess wants everyone to know that she is just like those little brown babies her daddy has torn out of the arms of their parents. She is the daughter of an immigrant. AND by the way, those babies? Their parents are to blame. And not just for the abductions. They are to blame because the kiddies could be trafficked (sad face).
But not to worry. Daddy has fixed it all:
"Thank you @POTUS for taking critical action ending family separation at our border. Congress must now act + find a lasting solution that is consistent with our shared values;the same values that so many come here seeking as they endeavor to create a better life for their families"
So, to conclude, POTUS* had nothing to do with the abduction of kids at the border, it's the fault of the parents, who by the way, are probably hoping to have the kids trafficked if things don't work out, AND Congress has to fix this strange, weird problem that appeared out of nowhere. Oh, and something, something, values.
What a piece of work.
One of the staples of fascist and reactionary right-wing attack techniques is to criticize those they consider enemies for actions they themselves are guilty of, thus we have Junior calling Democrats Nazis.
Appearing at a screening for a piece of whack job winger agit-prop patched together by disgraced, former felon and career liar Dinesh D'Souza, Junior tried the "Democrats are Nazis!" trick. Which, I suppose fits in with D'Souza's pained fantasies.
"The movie, which has been panned by critics [It sucks? What a surprise!], includes an interview with white nationalist Richard Spencer, asserts that Adolf Hitler was a liberal and links Democrats to slavery, while failing to acknowledge the party’s support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act."
So....Hitler was a liberal? Yeah, I seem to remember seeing him at Woodstock with a guitar singing Phil Ochs songs. Sure, that was him. The 'stache was a little bigger, but it was him alright.
What's next? Nancy Pelosi is really Eva Braun? Trump is Lincoln? Oh, wait, they had that in the promotional claptrap:
"The poster for the documentary features the faces of Presidents Trump and Lincoln merged together in a less-than-subtle comparison between the two men."
Oh, but they forgot to mention that Trump did better in the polls than Lincoln.
Around the bend. Waaaaay around it.
(It seems that the Trump Spawn, who have kept a low profile of late, have decided it's time to open the pie holes and spew out the garbage again. Oh, joy.)
Junior: An Idiot of Towering Proportions.
So goes the title of a piece on Trump, Jr. (the Brain) in GQ.
Not for nothin', but who in the hell is this jabroni to lecture anyone about history? This is a guy who was referred to as Fredo by people in his dad's campaign, Fredo, the idiot son in the Godfather. On an election day in Virginia, he once tweeted that people should go out and vote....tomorrow, i.e., the day AFTER the election.
And how 'bout this piece of brilliance, coming while Daddy was stumping to elect a child molester:
"Junior... 'liked' a tweet discrediting one of Roy Moore's accusers — because she 'has had three divorces' and 'filed for bankruptcy three times.'"
Geez. Can't imagine what sort of loser that person would have to be.
"In September 2016...he posted an image featuring Pepe the Frog, a white-supremacist emblem. Junior pleaded ignorance: 'I thought it was a frog in a wig.'" So...he believed a picture of a frog in a wig would help elect Daddy?
And leave us not forget, since we're talking history, that Junior's brilliant actions in setting up a meeting with a Russian operative may pave the way for Dad's impeachment, or at the very least, a big fat asterisk next to his kisser for all time.
Don't presume to lecture anyone about history. Imbecile.
Regarding the Jeong situation, I get what Ken is saying, and I agree also with Marie's request for further context. Context would help, but it doesn't clean the slate completely. I'm tempted to say, in the spirit of Stephen Colbert's assertion the other night in connection with the charges against Les Moonves, that accountability only works if it applies to everyone.
When Jeong uses terms like "white people" she's not directing her ire at a Twitter user who attacked her, she's making a blanket statement about all white people. This is textbook racism, I don't really care how you couch it. I'm glad, if as she says, she realizes this sort of approach is wrong, but I don't think it's true that minorities, even if they've been subjected to discrimination and racist rants (and they certainly have), should get a 100% pass on racist statements. There are moments when anger creeps in. I get that. And if it were one or two times, okay. But this seems like a regular thing with her.
I understand it's a hard thing. I'm not a minority so it might sound a bit sanctimonious for me to sit here an wag my finger and say "never, never, never". I feel funny about that. But I also believe there has to be some kind of baseline for behavior. If, as Marie suggested, she was lashing out at racist sentiments directed against her, then I'll give her that. I'd feel the same way. But, as far as I can see, she never says "Hey, you, Mr. Jerkoff, you are a disgraceful white person."
I'd like to hear what other people think. I'm not immediately ready to rip any minorities for trying to break out and fight back, I would probably feel the same way, so my thinking on this is still evolving. But that being said, that idea about accountability being for everyone still sticks in my mind.
I understand that racism and discrimination are two different but allied things. One involves a belief system. The other involves acting on that belief. I don't know where Jeong comes down on this. Maybe she's using Twitter the way plenty of others use it, to blow off steam, so I'm not ready to call for the Times to fire her. Is this different than Roseanne Barr's firing? Barr's tweet was especially vicious but what about Jeong writing under #CancelWhitePeople? That might be a tad more funny than calling someone an ape, but this is also a situation that has been around seemingly forever and it moves in incrementally small steps.
I could say "We need more conversation on the subject of race", but if Trump came out and said that, my response would be "More conversation? What's to talk about? Racism is racism. Period."
But, as with many other things, there are shades of gray between the black and the white.
Nuance is not a bad thing, but I don't think we should give someone a complete pass because we like most of the rest of what they say.
If she's discovered that it might be better to temper her statements, that's a good thing.
And that's about all I'll say for now.
Okay, one more then I'm done.
Larry (I'm not a real economist, I just play one on Fox) Kudlow offers an accidental look at how the Glorious Leader supersedes the entire country, at least for his sycophants.
Typically, when administration apparatchiks like Kudlow talk about an economic situation, especially as it relates to other countries and trading partners, they say something like "The United States will not look kindly on actions such as blah, blah, blah..." or "In the current trade battles, the United States blah, blah, blah..."
Not Kudlow. And not any other Trumpie.
Instead, here's what playactor economist Kudlow said about the Chinese threat to respond to further tariffs with additional tariffs of their own:
"The message here is do not underestimate President Trump's determination to follow through on the China trade reform campaign."
Did you notice any mention of America or the United States?
No.
For these grifters, liars, cheaters, and traitors, Trump IS America.
Even Jen Rubin said so today on NPR. Asked about Liarbee Sanders's refusal to say that the press is not the Enemy of the People ("People" meaning Trump and his horde), Rubin said that any questions directed toward her support of lying and misdirection, Sanders takes as an assault on America, not on her personally for serial mendacity. Sanders, because of her connection to the Glorious Leader, IS America.
For these people, Trump IS America. No one can question him or wonder about his motives. They are considered traitors for the mere thought of questioning the Great Leader or his minions like Sanders.
And so it is that fake economist Kudlow expresses his disdain for China not by saying that they should not underestimate the United States, but that they should not screw with the Great Donald Trump.
Everyone have a good weekend.
Since you're done for the day, Akhilleus, you may not see this, but I'll direct it at you anyway, appending it as an expansion of your last post.
The Pretender has been confusing himself with the country since the beginning of his reign, laughable yes, but also deeply disturbing.
When he talks about something being bad for the country, like the Mueller probe (why do images of a colonoscopy come to mind?), he's really talking about himself.
When he cites national security to justify his tariff tiffs with Mexico and Canada, he's talking only about his own political security, not the country's.
When he says the press is an enemy of "the people," he has only one person in mind. Himself.
It's not any surprise his toadies have picked up the false equivalency between the Pretender and the P(OTUS.). Suck ups are sensitive to such things, and that "of the United States" part just confuses the Pretend president. Failure to speak in that fashion, talking as if the Pretender and the country were not one and the same, is a sure step in the direction of the White House exit.
That's what terminal narcissism does, both for the narcissist in chief and those willing to abase themselves deeply enough to serve him.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/02/trumpism-the-real-danger-of-donald-trump/
Ken,
Done posting (as opposed to responding), but never done reading.
You are spot on about the Pretender’s Primary Pretenses, as you are about suck-ups and narcissists. Solipsism reigns supreme.
Whyte,
Your linked article reminds me of how close we are to the Armageddon of authoritarian control, albeit authoritarianism waving the flag and singing “God Bless America” with Nuremberg Rally gusto.
And the last line in your link, “And that man is coming. We just haven’t met him yet”, calls to mind the character Trashcan Man from Stephen King’s apocalyptic novel “The Stand”, the nihilistic, solipsistic figure who drags destruction in his wake.
This is some serious shit.