The Commentariat -- June 19, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "Republican senators moved on Tuesday to defuse a political crisis by seeking passage of legislation that would swiftly bring an end to President Trump's practice of separating children from their parents when families cross into the United States illegally. Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, said that 'all of the members of the Republican conference support a plan that keeps families together,' endorsing an approach that would provide legal authority to detain parents and children together while their legal status in the country is assessed by the courts. Asylum claims would be expedited by adding more immigration judges or allowing families to be processed before others, Republican senators said. Mr. McConnell said he planned to reach out to Democrats to support the effort.... But Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, immediately shot down the Republican approach, saying that Mr. Trump could -- and should -- use his executive authority, not legislation, to quickly end the family separations. 'There are so many obstacles to legislation, and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense,' Mr. Schumer said.... In an afternoon speech, Mr. Trump continued to falsely blame Democrats for causing the family separations and dismissed as 'crazy' several of the Republican proposals to address the issue by hiring hundreds of new immigration judges.... In a series of tweets on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump continued to falsely blame Democrats for forcing the separations...."

Steve Thompson & Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Maryland's Republican governor [Larry Hogan] has joined the outrage over the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their parents, ordering a National Guard helicopter and its crew to return from New Mexico and vowing not to deploy state resources to the border until the separations stop.... Many Democratic governors have made similar pledges. On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) recalled four Virginia National Guard soldiers and a helicopter.... Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) compared the separation policy to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and said he would 'not condone the use of our military reservists to participate in any effort at the border that is connected to this inhumane practice.'"

Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. shorted stock in a shipping firm -- an investment tactic for profiting if share prices fall -- days after learning that reporters were preparing a potentially negative story about his dealings with the Kremlin-linked company. The transaction, valued between $100,000 and $250,000, took place last fall after Mr. Ross became aware that journalists investigating offshore finances were looking at his investments in the shipper Navigator Holdings, whose major clients included a Russian energy company. The New York Times emailed a list of questions about Navigator to Mr. Ross on Oct. 26. Three business days later, Mr. Ross, a wealthy investor, opened a short position in Navigator, according to filings released on Monday by the Office of Government Ethics. The company's stock price slid about 4 percent before Mr. Ross closed his position on Nov. 16, eleven days after the articles were published by The Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as part of the 'Paradise Papers' project. The transaction was first reported on Monday by Forbes." Ross has offered a nonsensical defense.

Fred Imbert & Alexandra Gibbs of CNBC: "Stocks fell sharply on Tuesday after ... Donald Trump's latest threat to China increased fears of an impending trade war between the world's largest economies. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 275 points, with Boeing, DowDuPont and Caterpillar as the worst-performing stocks in the index. The 30-stock index also erased all of its gains for the year and was on pace to post a six-day losing streak, its longest since March 2017. The S&P 500 dropped 0.6 percent, with materials, industrials and tech all falling more than 1 percent. The Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8 percent."

Nick Wadhams of Bloomberg: "The Trump administration plans to announce its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, making good on a pledge to leave a body it has long accused of hypocrisy and criticized as biased against Israel, according to two people familiar with the matter. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley plan to announce the withdrawal at the State Department in Washington at 5 p.m., the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing a decision that hadn't yet been made public. The 47-member council, based in Geneva and created in 2006, began its latest session on Monday with a broadside against ... Donald Trump's immigration policy by the UN's high commissioner for human rights. He called the policy of separating children from parents crossing the southern border illegally 'unconscionable.'"

"Complete Chaos." Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Under the Trump adminisation's separation system, parents who are prosecuted and held in immigration detention to await deportation cannot regain custody of their children. Those who are released may spend weeks or even months trying to get them back.... The process requires coordination between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which holds many of the parents, and HHS, which takes custody of children and places them with adult 'sponsors.' Usually those sponsors are close relatives, but sometimes they are foster homes hundreds of miles away. 'There is complete chaos,' said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney whose organization is suing to force the government to promptly return children to their parents.... 'In America, when you get out of jail, you get your kid back,' he said. Migrant parents face significantly more bureaucratic hurdles once they lose legal custody to the U.S. government." ...

... Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [John Sandweg] told NBC News that migrant parents separated from their children at the border are sometimes unable to relocate their child and remain permanently separated.... While a parent can quickly move from detention to deportation, a child's case for asylum or deportation may not be heard by a judge for several years because deporting a child is a lower priority for the courts, Sandweg explained.... 'You could be creating thousands of immigrant orphans in the U.S. that one day could become eligible for citizenship when they are adopted,' Sandweg [said]." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So under this scenario, "zero tolerance" means admitting traumatized, troubled children -- Trump-brand "orphans" -- while rejecting families with a parent or parents who are able to work & improve the U.S. economy almost immediately. But, hey, it's a great 2018 campaign ploy. ...

... Benjamin Carey of the New York Times: "The longer children remain in institutional settings, the greater their risk of depression, post-traumatic stress and other mental health problems.... The risk of mental health consequences also depends on the holding facility itself -- the staff, the turnover, whether children know where their parents are, and how long they'll be held.... Institutions -- even the best and most humane -- by their nature warp the attachments children long for, the visceral and concentrated exchange of love, tough and otherwise, that comforts, supports and shapes a child's heart and mind.... Kalina Brabeck, a psychologist at Rhode Island College who works with immigrant children who lose their parents to deportation or for other reasons, said that the experience of loss often leads to a form of post-traumatic stress -- the paralyzing vigilance, avoidance and emotional gusts first identified in war veterans. Most of the children held on the border will have accumulated traumas, Dr. Brabeck said. Even before their parents were detained, many already had run the gauntlet of immigration itself, fleeing with little resources from often violent communities."

"Frontier 'Justice.'" Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "Multiple-defendant immigration hearings have been held for years in Arizona and Texas.... Assembly-line justice, known as Operation Streamline, started under President George W. Bush and persisted under President Barack Obama as deportations and other immigration cases were on the rise. But the Trump administration's new policy of prosecuting cases that previously were most often not a priority is pushing thousands of new defendants into the federal court system." Read on.

Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said today she will put a hold on the nomination of Kathy Kraninger to lead the CFPB until she turns over all documents about any role she played in families being separated at the border. In her current position as an associate director at OMB, Kraninger oversees the budgets for the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security -- meaning she 'helps oversee the agencies that are ripping kids from their parents,' Warren tweeted this morning. Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the top Democrat on the committee responsible for approving the nomination, noted in a letter that Kraninger's OMB oversight role includes providing 'ongoing policy and management guidance' and overseeing 'implementation of policy options' at the agencies in her portfolio."

That Was Then; This Is Now. David Graham of the Atlantic: "... on July 21, 2016, Donald Trump stood at a lectern in Cleveland and made a solemn vow. 'Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,' he said.... Candidate Trump was clear that he was talking, in large part, about immigration, which had been the central issue of his campaign[.]... Where that politician has gone is anybody's guess, but he's not the one who's in the White House now. Trump now faces a mushrooming political crisis over his administration's policy of separating children of unauthorized immigrants from their parents at the border.... This is a rare case where Trump alone really can fix it. With a single word, he could reverse the policy, which his administration implemented last month. Instead, however, Trump has spent days railing at Democrats and claiming that they are to blame. Late Monday afternoon, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen stood in the White House briefing room and echoed Trump's comments in Cleveland -- but flipped 180 degrees. 'Congress and the courts created these problems, and Congress alone can fix it,' she said."

Jonathan Swan & Alayna Treene of Axios: "Donald Trump Jr. and George P. Bush had formed an unlikely alliance despite their fathers, Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, loathing each other -- with Don Jr. backing George P. in his re-election campaign for Texas land commissioner, and even planning to headline a New York fundraiser for him on June 25.... Two sources close to Don Jr. tell Axios that he has decided to pull out of the fundraiser due to the Bush family's opposition to his father. Most recently, Jeb Bush tweeted that 'children shouldn't be used as a negotiating tool' and that President Trump should end his 'heartless policy' of family separation."

Money-Launderer-in-Chief. Alledgedly. Anita Kumar of McClatchy News: "Buyers connected to Russia or former Soviet republics made 86 all-cash sales -- totaling nearly $109 million -- at 10 Trump-branded properties in South Florida and New York City, according to a new analysis shared with McClatchy. Many of them made purchases using shell companies designed to obscure their identities. 'The size and scope of these cash purchases are deeply troubling as they can often signal money laundering activity," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a former federal prosecutor. 'There have long been credible allegations of money laundering by the Trump Organization which, if true, would pose a real threat to the United States in the event that Russia were able to leverage evidence of illicit financial transactions against the president.'"

Brendan King of CBS 6 Richmond, Va.: "In a majority six to one vote, the Richmond Public School board voted Monday night to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart Elementary to Barack Obama Elementary School.... Earlier this year the Richmond School Board voted 8-1 to rename the Northside school that honored the Confederate general."

*****

Look Over There! Over There! Katie Rogers & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump remained resistant on Monday in the face of growing public outcry over his administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the border, repeating the false assertion that Democrats were the ones to blame for it, and suggesting that criminals -- not parents -- were toting juveniles to the United States. 'They could be murderers and thieves and so much else,' Mr. Trump said of the people crossing the border, as he delivered somewhat incongruous remarks during a meeting of the National Space Council on Monday. 'We want a safe country, and it starts with the borders, and that's the way it is.'... In a series of tweets and speeches on Monday, Mr. Trump instead relied on fear to curry support for a 'zero tolerance' policy that refers for criminal prosecution all immigrants apprehended crossing the border without authorization. The president used the threat of gang violence and other crime, and a change in the fabric of American culture as a means to stoke support among supporters and push Congress into figuring out a way to drum up funding for his long-promised border wall." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Eliza Collins of USA Today: "Every Senate Democrat is now a co-sponsor of ... legislation which would prohibit children from being separated from their parents within 100 miles of the U.S. border except for instances of abuse, neglect or other specific circumstances.... The Keep Families Together Act was introduced by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein this month after the Trump administration started instituting a 'zero tolerance' immigration policy, under which anyone who crosses the border illegally will be prosecuted.... The bill has no support from Senate Republicans, despite some saying they are uncomfortable with what is currently taking place at the border." ...

... Christopher Schuetze & Michael Wolgelenter of the New York Times: "President Trump castigated the German government on Monday for its open-door policy toward migrants, saying that it was responsible for an increase in crime and could conceivably lead to the downfall of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition.... [According to Trump,] 'Crime in Germany is way up.' False. Crime statistics for 2017 showed the lowest level of crime in Germany in 25 years, according to figures released in May by the federal criminal office." And so forth. ...

... Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "The top human rights official at the United Nations condemned the Trump administration's 'cruel practice' of separating parents from their children at the border, saying that the 'thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable.' Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein used his final address to the body to criticize a familiar list of failed states and authoritarian regimes, including North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela. But he added the United States to the list for forcibly separating nearly 2,000 children from their parents from April 19 to May 31." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... "The Effect Is Catastrophic." William Wan of the Washington Post: "This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents. Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites -- the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and -- especially in young children -- wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain. 'The effect is catastrophic,' said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. 'There's so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.'... The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association have all issued statements against it -- representing more than 250,000 doctors in the United States. Nearly 7,700 mental-health professionals and 142 organizations have also signed a petition urging President Trump to end the policy." ...

... Jane Timm & Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "All four living former first ladies -- Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama -- have stepped out of political retirement to condemn the Trump administration's practice of separating parents and children at the border. Speaking at a women's group in New York City on Monday, Clinton called family separation 'an affront to our values' and said she had warned Trump's immigration policy would lead to this during her 2016 presidential campaign against him. And she said journalists should call out the White House for perpetuating 'an outright lie' by blaming Democrats for the law.... Meanwhile, Bush, who almost never speaks out on political issues, broke partisan ranks in a Washington Post op-ed.... Michelle Obama also weighed in to support Bush.... Rosalynn Carter called the policy of separating families 'disgraceful and a shame to our country.'" ...

... This Whole Humanitarian Fiasco Is All about the Politics. Nancy Cook of Politico: "Top aides to ... Donald Trump are planning additional crackdowns on immigration before the November midterms, despite a growing backlash over the administration's move to separate migrant children from parents at the border. Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and a team of officials from the departments of Justice, Labor, Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget have been quietly meeting for months to find ways to use executive authority and under-the-radar rule changes to strengthen hard-line U.S. immigration policies, according to interviews with half a dozen current and former administration officials and Republicans close to the White House." ...

... GOTRV -- Get Out The Racist Vote. Jonathan Martin & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... President Trump sent his clearest signal yet on Monday that he intends to make divisive, racially charged issues like immigration central going into the campaign season.... Mr. Trump renewed the sort of bald and demagogic attacks on undocumented immigrants that worked well for him politically in his 2016 presidential campaign. He inveighed against 'the death and destruction that's been caused by people coming into this country' and vowed that 'the United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility.'... Mr. Trump's allies believe that trying to link Democrats to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and gangs like MS-13 will do more to galvanize Republican voters and get them to the polls in November than emphasizing economic issues.... Mr. Trump's broadsides against Hispanic migrants, like his criticism of black athletes who will not stand for the national anthem, may resonate in the deeply red states where the battle for control of the Senate is playing out. But such culture war attacks will likely alienate voters in the affluent, heavily suburban districts Republicans must win to keep control of the House." ...

... ** DHS Has No Procedure for Tracking Families It Splits up. Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker: "Although the zero-tolerance policy was officially announced last month, it has been in effect, in more limited form, since at least last summer. Several months ago, as cases of family separation started surfacing across the country, immigrant-rights groups began calling for the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.), which is in charge of immigration enforcement and border security, to create procedures for tracking families after they are split up. At the time, D.H.S. said that it would address the problem, but there is no evidence that it actually did so.... There is no formal process in place to insure that a family that's been separated at the border gets deported back to their home country together." ...

... Ditto. Adolfo Flores of BuzzFeed: "Two months after the Trump administration began separating children from their parents along the US-Mexico border, immigration authorities cannot say what procedures exist to reunite children with their parents after the parents' illegal-entry cases have been resolved but their immigration case is still pending.... ICE said it does work to reunite the parent and child once the parent's immigration court case is resolved, which can take months or more than a year after the illegal entry charge is resolved. But the agency's statement made no mention of reunifying the families before the parent's immigration case is decided, even though a fact sheet from Customs and Border Protection says children can be reunited with their parent after the parent has been released.... 'My impression has been that in general many are not being reunited after they do their time served ... that they are in fact not reunified while awaiting their asylum claim,' [Sen. Jeff] Merkley [D-Ore.] told BuzzFeed News. "There's great confusion on this point.'" ...

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Contributor Gloria asked the other day where the young girls were. On Monday, a reporter asked HHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen where the girls were, and Nielsen said she would check. That is, Nielsen has no idea where a thousand little girls are being warehoused. The incompetence & failure to plan anything is a-mazing.

... DHS has not allowed reporters to take photos or audio inside the detention facilities, so all the pictures you see are ones distributed by U.S. "officials." BUT ...

... Madeleine Aggeler of New York: "... ProPublica has obtained disturbing audio from inside one U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, which captures the agonizing sounds of young children sobbing and screaming for their parents. In the recording, which was made last week by someone who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, ten Central American children who were separated from their parents can be heard weeping, calling out for 'Mami' and 'Papá.' At one point, a Border Patrol agent jokes, 'Well, we have an orchestra here. What's missing is a conductor.'" Mrs. McC: Hilarious. ...

... Stephen Engelberg of ProPublica: "Minutes after ProPublica posted a recording of crying children begging for their parents, Kirstjen Nielsen stepped up to the podium in the White House briefing room to answer questions from reporters, as well as a growing chorus of criticism from Democrats and Republicans. Nielsen, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, blamed Congress for the Trump administration's policy of separating children detained at the border from their parents. Nielsen said the administration would continue to send the children to temporary detention centers in warehouses and big box stores until Congress rewrites the nation's immigration laws. At one point, a reporter from New York magazine, Olivia Nuzzi, played the tape ProPublica obtained from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, according to tweets she posted.... Reporters attempted to ask [Nielsen] questions about the material in the recording -- including 'How is this not child abuse?' -- but she did not respond directly. Asked if the recordings, along with pictures and more that have emerged in recent days, are an unintended consequence of the administration's approach, she said, 'I think that they reflect the focus of those who post such pictures and narratives.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The administration is apparently taking the position that the sounds & photos of crying children are "fake news," and they have reportedly put out photos of happy children playing at one of the detention facilities. ...

They're All Criminals. Everyone is subject to prosecution.... Parents who entered illegally are by definition criminals. -- Kirstjen Nielsen, Monday

... Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pushed back Monday at the growing condemnation of her agency's practice of separating migrant families at the border, telling a gathering of law enforcement officers, 'We will not apologize for the job we do.' In a speech at the meeting of National Sheriffs' Association in New Orleans, Nielsen drew rousing applause when she directed her remarks at 'a selected few in the media, Congress and the advocacy community' whom she accused of mischaracterizing the Trump administration's border crackdown.'... Nielsen said the government has detected hundreds of cases of fraud among migrants traveling with children who are not their own. Trump on Twitter Monday echoed that point. 'Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country,' he wrote. 'Has anyone been looking at the Crime taking place south of the border. It is historic, with some countries the most dangerous places in the world. Not going to happen in the U.S.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, doesn't describing the places from which asylum-seekers are fleeing as "the most dangerous places in the world" undermine Trump's argument that the U.S. should not be receiving victims of the dangers he describes? ...

     ... Fact Check. Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "Kirstjen Nielsen ... suggested in two appearances on Monday that the Trump administration policy to separate children from their parents at the border was justified, in part, to prevent smugglers from posing as families to take advantage of a 'get-out-of-jail-free card.' But characterizing the increase of this type of fraud as 'staggering' is misleading. The data reflects a period of less than two years, making it difficult to draw a meaningful historical comparison. And the instances of fraud make up less than 1 percent of families apprehended at the border." ...

Michelle Goldberg: "It's hard to know who's worse -- the sociopaths like [White House fascist Stephen] Miller who glory in the administration's cruelty, or those who are abashed enough to lie about the filthy thing they're part of, but not to do anything else." ...

... Michael Shear & Katie Benner of the New York Times trace how the fringey, cruel anti-immigration policy prescriptions of Stephen Miller & Jeff Sessions made it into federal policy. Hint: It took a Trump. ...

... Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch on how the Trumpies & other wingers view the crisis: "Laura Ingraham said that people expressing concern and outrage over children being detained in cages was 'hilarious.' Ann Coulter went the Infowars route, choosing to cite a nonexistent New Yorker article to allege that the children speaking to media about the way ICE has treated their families were 'child actors.' Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said, 'This children and families being separated at the border?... It's entirely manufactured ... It's all about people attempting to invade our country, not emigrate here.' Similarly, Infowars called the mistreatment of migrant children 'a giant hoax.' Conservative pundit and Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro wrote that 'Trump isn't forcing children away from parents,' but is merely 'enforcing the law on the books.' He continued, 'Pretending that this is Japanese internment (as Laura Bush suggested) or the Holocaust (as General Michael Hayden suggested) is ridiculous.' Senior Breitbart News investigative reporter Joel Pollak appeared on Breitbart's morning radio program today and said that the children being held in cages at detainment centers are actually experiencing a better quality of life than they had before." Oh, there's more. ...

... Amanda McGowan of WGBH Boston: "Governor Charlie Baker [R] is canceling the deployment of Massachusetts National Guard troops to the border in light of recent reports about the Trump Administration's practice of separating immigrant children from families." ...

... Jesse Paul of the Denver Post: "Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper [D] on Monday took executive action barring any state resources from being put toward the Trump administration-s policy of separating immigrants illegally crossing the border into the U.S. from their children -- a decision that's unlikely to have widespread impact but represents a rebuke to the White House." ...

... Lying to Their Morons. Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "On Monday, the Drudge Report's lead story was headlined 'BORDER BATTLE: USA TAKING IN 250 KIDS PER DAY.' The accompanying image was of a group of young boys holding what looked like guns -- the implication being that some of the kids the Trump administration is separating from their parents and detaining in detention centers are dangerous gangsters. There was just one problem, however -- the image was actually of Syrian kids holding toy guys during the 2012 Battle of Azaz." --safari ...

... A Cage by Any Other Name.... Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "On Monday morning's edition of Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy defended President Trump's immigrant child detention facilities by arguing the media is unfairly describing cages as 'cages.' 'And you know, while some have likened them to concentration camps or cages, you do see that they have those thermal blankets, you do see some fencing ... some have referring to them as cages, but keep in mind this a great big warehouse facility where they built walls out of chain-link fences,' Doocy said.... During a subsequent interview with White House spokesman Hogan Gidley, Doocy again objected to the characterization of cages as 'cages,' saying they are more accurately described as a 'security pen.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Fascist Forewarnings. Juan Cole: "Separating children from their parents, as Trump, Sessions and their myrmidons are doing, is monstrous and has been characteristic of the biggest dictators of the modern era. Here are a few cases in case you don't believe me: Stalin's police...Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s, 1980s..., Spanish dictator Francisco Franco..., Saddam Hussein..., the Burmese military junta... And, yes, Hitler." --safari ...

... "Values Voters" Put to the Test: FAIL. Dylan Matthews of Vox: "Two new polls find that the US government policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexican border is very unpopular with the general public, but retains majority support among Republicans.... Sixty-six percent of voters -- including 91 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents -- told Quinnipiac they opposed the policy.... But by a large, 20-point (55 percent to 35 percent) margin, Republicans supported the policy." --safari ...

... When you walk down a busy street, there's a good chance half the people you see are morons who pose a clear danger to democracy. Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "President Donald Trump's job approval rating averaged 45% in Gallup polling last week, tying his personal high. His previous 45% rating occurred in the first week after he was inaugurated as president." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jim Norman of Gallup: "Thirty-eight percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States today, similar to last month's 37% satisfaction rate but marking the numerical high since a 39% reading in September 2005. The satisfaction rate, which Gallup has measured at least monthly since 2001, has now topped 35% three times this year -- a level reached only three times in the previous 12 years (once each in 2006, 2009 and 2016)."

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Monday that he has ordered his chief trade negotiator to draw up a list of $200 billion in Chinese products that will be hit with 10 percent tariffs if China refuses to back down in the rapidly escalating trade war between the two countries.... The president's action doubled his April threat to respond to any Chinese retaliation for his trade action with $100 billion in additional tariffs. And Trump promised to levy tariffs on a further $200 billion in Chinese goods if Beijing responds to today's action. Such a step would be virtually unprecedented in U.S. history and would put nearly all of the $505 billion in products that the U.S. imports from China under trade restrictions." ...

... Evidently Trump heard about this report (or a similar one): ...

... Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: "Thanks to President Trump's tariffs, Americans will soon be paying more for a wide variety of Chinese-made goods, and some American customers may end up buying from other countries instead. For now, China can live with that. The tariffs the White House announced on Friday will have little immediate impact on China, despite the size of the $50 billion in goods involved and the invective the move set off from Chinese official news media. Mr. Trump's tariffs are ultimately too small and narrowly targeted to seriously affect China's nearly $13 trillion economy, which no longer depends so much on exports and can easily find other places besides the United States to sell its products. In some ways, they are even smaller than tariffs imposed by previous presidents." ...

... Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday amid an escalating trade conflict between China and the United States, one that gives him an opening to play the powers against each other as Washington presses him to dismantle his nuclear arsenal. 'This could be regarded as an intuitive response to Trump's escalation of the trade war,' Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said of China's invitation to Mr. Kim."

The Marshall Project. Josh Marshall of TPM has been all over the inherent FBI anti-Clinton bias that has been hiding in plain sight, but yet to be reckoned for.  --safari ...

     Josh Marshall: "According to testimony in the IG Report, one reason for the harsh criticism of Secretary Clinton in James Comey's June 2016 statement was to assuage the concerns of FBI employees who said 'You guys are finally going to get that bitch. We're rooting for you.'" --safari...

     ... ** Implicit Bias in the FBI. Josh Marshall [June 16th]: "Despite specifically being to requested to address the issue, Inspector General Horowitz basically ignored lots of evidence about [FBI] bias against Secretary Clinton.... We have strong evidence that there was a clique of senior agents in the New York field office with what senior FBI and DOJ officials viewed as a 'visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.'... We know from Rep. Devin Nunes' own account that, within two or three days of finding the emails on the laptop, what Nunes termed 'good FBI agents' [from the NY field office] were leaking the information to Capitol Hill Republicans. According to Nunes, it wasn't just him but the 'House Intelligence Committee.'... [The NY FBI agents] more or less immediately went to Congress ... after finding the laptop emails, far too little time to have any reasonable belief that the information was being covered up by FBI leadership.... Nunes' own account clearly identifies these not as whistleblowers ... but evidence of political bias leading agents to take actions to damage Secretary Clinton. And yet this critical question remains all but unexplored in the Report itself." --safari...

     ... Josh Marshall: "It's refreshing to see at least one Democratic member of Congress roundly address Rep. Devin Nunes' (R-CA) apparent role pushing to restart the Clinton emails investigation in the final weeks of the 2016 election. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) called Nunes 'the President's fixer in Congress.' But I would be highly, highly skeptical of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's suggestion that claims that Rudy Giuliani received leaks from the New York FBI field office in the fall of 2016 may still be [sic] investigation.... It was a pattern of bias and biased behavior leading to a number of inappropriate actions which shaped the course of the investigation and the election. This is the overarching look at the situation that was wholly absent in last week's IG Report. I do not expect any follow up report to do anything like that.'" --safari

Karoun Demirjian, et al., of the Washington Post: "House Republicans plan to grill the Justice Department's inspector general [Michael Horowitz] Tuesday about missteps by former FBI director James B. Comey and other bureau officials during the 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton, which is the subject of a sprawling, ongoing internal probe.... Lawmakers spent much of the three-hour hearing pressing FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to crack down on leaks." ...

... Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department inspector general said Monday that his office is still probing possible misconduct in the FBI's safeguarding of its own secrets -- from how former director James B. Comey handled his private memos to whether others under him gave sensitive details to reporters. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz revealed the continued investigative work to lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which on Monday conducted the first hearing to examine his 500-page report assessing how the FBI handled the high-profile investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.... Horowitz rebutted Trump's claim that the report exonerated him with respect to possible coordination with Russia, saying flatly, 'We did not look into collusion questions.'... Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) asserted that the report showed Clinton 'got the kid glove treatment' and that if it were not for the inspector general, FBI officials would 'still be plotting about how to use their official position to stop' Trump." Mrs. McC: Great to see Grassley is dedicated to keeping his committee all bipartisan. Ha!

Shawn Boburg & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "A South Korean aviation firm that hired President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen failed last year to disclose that it was the subject of a corruption investigation as it won work from the U.S. military, records show. On Oct. 11, nine current and former executives at Korea Aerospace Industries were indicted in Seoul on charges that included bribery, embezzlement and defrauding the South Korean government, records show. Just two weeks later, KAI cleared a business integrity review by the U.S Air Force and won a contract worth up to $48 million -- its largest ever from the Air Force -- to maintain fighter jets. Experts said the criminal case should have subjected the company to additional scrutiny.... Companies are required to provide 'immediate written notice' if their 'certification was erroneous when submitted or has become erroneous by reason of changed circumstances,' according to federal guidelines.... But KAI did not alter filings it had previously submitted to the U.S. government certifying that none of its executives were under indictment.... Cohen was a consultant for KAI at the time.... There is no indication Cohen was involved in the awarding of the contract. KAI said he was not, and the Air Force said no senior leaders or contracting officers were contacted by Cohen." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In other words, Cohen's "consulting" arrangement with KAI was just a shakedown. Cohen knew it; KAI knew it.

** The Tangled Webs of Trumpland. Tarini Parti & Aram Roston of Buzzfeed: "Joseph Whitehouse Hagin, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff for operations ... has been a Washington insider for almost four decades.... Hagin put his dreary political life on pause during the Obama years for the world of international influence peddling.... It also brought Hagin a lucrative client: an aspiring Libyan expatriate politician with deep pockets and troubling relationships. [The client] Basits Igtet was deeply involved in NXIVM, the celebrity 'sex cult' whose leadership is now under federal indictment.... Igtet proselytized for the group, BuzzFeed News has learned, while his wife, the heir Sara Bronfman, reportedly kept the cult afloat with tens of millions of dollars.... Hagin's firm was working with Igtet in 2013, when Igtet reportedly met with Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was charged under seal that year by the Justice Department for his role in the 2012 Benghazi attack on the American embassy that killed the US ambassador there." The whole story is twisted.--safari

Space Force Trump. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Monday that he would direct the Pentagon to establish a sixth branch of the armed forces dedicated to protecting American interests in outer space, an idea that has troubled lawmakers and even some members of his administration, who have cautioned that the action could create unnecessary bureaucratic responsibilities for a military already burdened by conflicts. During a speech at a meeting of the National Space Council, Mr. Trump announced plans to protect American interests in space through monitoring commercial traffic and debris, initiatives he said would be 'great not only in terms of jobs and everything else, it's great for the psyche of our country.' Minutes later, the president zeroed in on Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and tasked him with the undertaking of creating another branch of the military. 'General Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored,' Mr. Trump said from the podium, after searching for him in the crowd. 'We got it,' the general replied." Mrs. McC: Yeah, sounds easy.

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon announced Monday that it will suspend all planning of a forthcoming military exercise with South Korea, following a pledge from President Trump last week after his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Dana White, said the decision is 'consistent with President Trump's commitment' to the North Koreans and made “in concert' with the South Korean government. It applies solely to the August exercise Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, in which about 17,500 U.S. troops gathered with South Korean counterparts last year in an exercise that focused heavily on computer-simulations to defend against a North Korean attack."

Mehdi Masan & Ryan Grim of The Intercept: "The Trump administration, as part of a dual effort to counter both Iran and the Islamic State, should push for an 'Islamic Reformation,' a State Department memo advised the White House last year. The suggestion was ultimately not adopted as part of the National Security Strategy announced in December, but that a so-called reformation of Islam was up for discussion at the highest levels of the State Department and National Security Council underscores the extraordinary rise of a once-fringe, far-right approach to foreign policy." --safari

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A former CIA computer engineer has been indicted on charges he masterminded what appears to be the largest leak of classified information in the spy agency's history. Joshua Schulte, 29, was charged in a new grand jury indictment with providing WikiLeaks with a massive trove of U.S. government hacking tools that the online publisher posted in March 2017, the Justice Department announced on Monday. Schulte was previously facing child pornography charges in federal court in New York, but the indictment broadens the case to accuse him of illegally gathering classified information, damaging CIA computers, lying to investigators and numerous other offenses." Mrs. McC: Sounds like a creep with no redeeming social value. Allegedly.

John Hendel of Politico: "The Senate voted Monday to reimpose the U.S. ban on Chinese telecom giant ZTE, in a rebuke to ... Donald Trump and his efforts to keep the company in business. The provision targeting ZTE was part of the National Defense Authorization Act, a must-pass defense spending bill that cleared the Senate by a vote of 85-10. It must now be reconciled with the House version of the measure, which takes a narrower approach to ZTE.... Trump will meet Wednesday with some Republicans on ZTE, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Politico, although he didn't say how many lawmakers would attend and whether the group would include any Democrats.... Despite Monday's overwhelming Senate passage, the ZTE ban could still be stripped from the defense bill or modified during the conference process between the Senate and House, which did not push back as aggressively in its own version of the legislation. House lawmakers did include a provision that would bar ZTE and Huawei from entering into U.S. government contracts."

Dana Milbank: Paul Ryan "has been living in a cave. Without Internet or TV. Out of range of cell service, newspaper delivery and carrier pigeons. With blindfold on eyes, cotton in ears and head in sand. Late last week, Ryan was asked at a news conference whether scandal-plagued Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt should remain in office. 'Frankly, I haven’t paid that close attention to it,' said the man who is second in line to the presidency. 'I don't know enough about what Pruitt has or has not done to give you a good comment.'... The speaker averts his gaze so often from Trump's mayhem that he is likely to get a stiff neck...." Milbank has a long -- and frankly astounding -- list of things newsworthy topics Ryan knows nothing about.

Punt! Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court declined on Monday to decide two challenges to partisan gerrymandering, citing technical grounds. In a case from Wisconsin, the court said plaintiffs there had not proved they had suffered the sort of direct injury to give them standing to sue. The court sent the case back to the lower courts to allow the plaintiffs to try again. In a second case, from Maryland, the court ruled against the challengers in an unsigned opinion. The decisions were a setback for critics of partisan gerrymandering, who had hoped that the Supreme Court would decide the cases on their merits and rule in their favor, transforming American democracy by subjecting to close judicial scrutiny oddly shaped districts that amplify one party's political power. The court has never struck down a voting district as a partisan gerrymander, in which the political party in power draws maps to favor its candidates." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Cristian Farias of New York: "Racial gerrymandering ... has already had its day in court and been found unconstitutional. But partisan gerrymandering, which relies on the party affiliation of voters to 'pack' them or 'crack' them into given districts, has so far evaded a definitive adjudication.... [To justify the Court's decision not to decide today, Chief Justice] Roberts managed to get unanimous consensus from his colleagues for the view that the Democratic voters who challenged as too partisan a particular set of legislative maps in Wisconsin have no standing to bring that claim in court.... Justice Elena Kagan -- writing separately and joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor -- charted a course for the Wisconsin plaintiffs ... on how they could later press their claim in the lower courts and make it stick. But before she did that, she took care to remind the nation that the Supreme Court ... does have the power to end partisan gerrymandering.... Kagan's entreaties, more than anything, are aimed at an audience of one: Justice Anthony Kennedy.... It is Kennedy's insufferable indecision that's holding the court back from making much noise moving forward in a way that's meaningful for voters."

Idiocracy. Joe Concha of The Hill: "A new poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center suggests people are having difficulty telling the difference between fact and opinion.... Nine-in-10 Democrats correctly identified the statement 'President Barack Obama was born in the United States' as factual, while only 63 percent of Republicans saw it as factual.... At the same time, 37 percent of Democrats identified the statement 'increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is essential for the health of the U.S. economy; as factual and not as opinon." --safari

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "Sea level rise driven by climate change is set to pose an existential crisis to many US coastal communities, with new research finding that as many as 311,000 homes face being flooded every two weeks within the next 30 years. The swelling oceans are forecast repeatedly to soak coastal residences collectively worth $120bn by 2045 if greenhouse gas emissions are not severely curtailed, experts warn." --safari

Beyond the Beltway

> ** Judge Rules Kobach Is an Ignoramus. Jonathan Shorman & Hunter Woodall of the Wichita Eagle: "A federal judge has struck down a Kansas voter citizenship law that Secretary of State Kris Kobach had personally defended. Judge Julie Robinson also ordered Kobach, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, to take more hours of continuing legal education after he was found in contempt and was frequently chided during the trial over missteps. In an 118-page ruling Monday, Robinson ordered a halt to the state's requirement that people provide proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. The decision holds the potential to make registration easier as the August and November elections approach." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: After I stopped laughing, I got to wondering where Kobach went to law school. I was figuring he was a classmate of Michael Cohen's or went to a winger school like Liberty U. School of Law. Nope. This is from Kobach's Wikipedia page, & I'm going to assume it's correct: "He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude and first in his department. It was there that he came under the influence of the director of the university's Center for International Affairs, Professor Samuel P. Huntington.... In 1975 Huntington authored a pessimistic report entitled The Crisis of Democracy, about the challenge to the dominance of white Protestants by Hispanic immigrants. In his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations, he warned that 'Mexicans pose the problem for the United States,' simultaneously predicting and bemoaning the growing influence of Muslims in Western Europe. From Harvard, Kobach went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics at the University of Oxford, attending having been granted a Marshall Scholarship. Returning to the U.S., he studied at Yale Law School, where he earned a law degree in 1995, and became an editor of the Yale Law Journal."

Comments

[RAS]

"We need a country that follows all laws." What a novel idea Mrs Trump. How many times has Trump tried to undermine law enforcement? How many times has Trump tried to discredit the Department of JUSTICE? How many people has Trump declared guilty or in need of prosecution? It's rich to hear this the wife of the most lawless president in history. Emoluments is not a real law apparently.

What would happen if we had a "zero tolerance" policy for speeding? One mile an hour over the speed limit and you are pulled over. Under Trump/Sessions all speeding offenses would now be prosecuted to the maximum degree. So a first offense for going 36 mph in a 35 mph zone would result in jail time even for a first offense. (Great for the private prison industry!) Maybe a little discretion is needed when applying the law.

[Gloria]

I have a terrible story to tell. When my eldest was about a year old, I left him with a close friend and her family of similarly aged children. He was speaking and comprehending well, and I explained to him over a couple of days that we (his parents) were going away for a while, that we would be back, bringing presents. He seemed settled and we left. After about a week I got a call that he wasn't doing too well, and I flew home. I returned to a zombie. I held that child for twenty-four hours before he started to speak again. I still shake remembering, and I regret nothing as much as that. He was left in a loving home and was still traumatised being separated from his parents for more than a few hours. I can't imagine how traumatised those thousands of children must be, corralled in cages, without any carer, and with language barriers. In complete bewilderment of both their present and their future.
This is not deterrence, this is lot law enforcement, this is terrorism.

Where Are The Girls?

[Marie Burns]

@Gloria: Thank you for sharing your story.

In answer to your question, as I've noted above, Kirstjen is checking into that. Really. As of Monday morning, she had no idea.

[PD Pepe]

@Gloria: Yes, thank you for your story which I imagine most parents with children can match to some degree. Separation from parents is traumatic for even older children.

My youngest son, when about three, attended a nursery school, only twice a week, called Sunshine and Lollipops, that was only five blocks from our home at that time. He never wanted to go but while there seemed to adjust well after the initial tears at my leaving–-"When the big hand is on the one, I will be back to pick you up" always seemed to help the transition. But one day while the kids were having their playtime outside in the backyard my little guy spied an opening along the fence; he crawled under and was about to high tail it back home when he was discovered. His explanation: "I miss you, Mommy, and I miss my trucks."

What these immigrant children are experiencing is beyond cruel–-it can be called, without any equivocation, EVIL.

Steven Miller, slinky slime-ball and right hand to the president*, is one of the architects of this horrific immigration crisis. And wouldn't you know Miller's great-grandparents found refuge in the U.S. after escaping anti-Jewish persecution in Antopol, Belarus. So after working for Sessions he moved easily into the W.H. where he initially teamed up with Bannon––the guy with an eye for deconstruction:

"But if Bannon now has no formal power, his ideas still seem to be dominant in Trump’s White House. As Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt noted in a Monday column, “Truculent, anti-immigrant nationalism; disdain for the ‘deep state’; disparaging democratic allies while celebrating dictators: These are now the pillars of President Trump’s rule. In his administration’s policy, foreign and domestic, and in the compliant Republican Party, Bannonism is ascendant.” (Jeet Heer)

What we thought could not be possible is now happening.

[Jeanne]

There is nothing being said by the congressional repugnicans about this crisis. I wrote our "senator" Terrible Toomey last night, and on rereading it, I sounded hysterical about why they are doing nothing about this total child abuse. I will get a form email letter telling me all about his stupid views about border security. I am beginning to think that the people who think this is okay are certifiable. That would be all the Rs and half the country. As for that wretched Miller, someone should have punched out his lights in high school. He looks like a thumb and sounds like a storm trooper. Did we deserve this simply because we elected an intelligent black man? Fickle finger of fate? Karma, where are you?

[Akhilleus]

I think most of us have had experiences that demonstrate the traumatic effect separation can have on children. When I was very young my mother took me and my brother who, at the time, was about two years old to the supermarket. He got separated somehow and my mother soon heard him crying and screaming frantically for her from a few aisles over. She was yelling for him and he for her, both running up and down aisles until she found him. I actually don't remember any of that. I was too little. What I do remember is how my mother would get so anxious, and tear up, even years later, relating that story, and she was a tough old Irish lady. It took a lot to get her worked up, but not when it came to her baby.

Now that was only a few minutes, at best. I can't imagine how bad it must be for little children in a cage with guards making fun of them, calling out for parents they may never see again, not understanding what's going or why they're there. I tried to listen to that tape of children in that detention facility but could only get a minute into it before I had to turn it off.

It's not that the people who inflict this sort of trauma and abuse on babies and little children are hard-hearted. Hard-hearted would be a giant leap forward in morality. These people are fucking monsters. Monsters. And so is every single Republican in congress who goes along with this, as are all the Trump voters who think this is perfectly fine.

As for the truly despicable demons like Coulter and Limbaugh who laugh it off, call the kids fakers and actors and describe their trauma as a big nothing or made up, I can only wish for a deep dark hole full of pit vipers for them to fall into, never to climb out.

If the kids I heard on that tape are actors, they deserve a lifetime achievement Academy Award, for I can't think of a single actor who in her or his career has been able to pull off so convincing a performance.

Actors? Despicable pigs these people are.

And its all done to support the inhuman hatred of an incompetent, racist asshole who doesn't have the balls to own up to his black deeds.

You see, here's the thing (and it's no secret). A true leader would understand that there are those in his country who harbor hatred and animosity toward others. The job of that leader is to try to show these people a different, better way, not go along with and fire up those hatreds. But Trump has never been a leader. He's a follower. An obsequious, craven follower. But when it comes to the torture of children, that should be a bridge too far even for the most cowardly of politicians. It should be, but it isn't. Not for Republicans. Mitch McConnell? Radio silence. Paul Ryan? Never heard of kids in cages.

And those evangelicals who still support Trump's torture and abuse of babies? Is this what Jesus would do?

Despicable monsters, all of them.

Democrats need to hang this horror around their necks, tie it up good and toss their fat asses overboard in November.

We'll see.

[Akhilleus]

Death Star Donny

Reagan had his Star Wars, little donny wants his Death Star.

About this Space Force the little dictator is demanding. Can he do this? Can the president create a brand new branch of the Armed Forces just on his say so? Congress doesn't need to be consulted? Plus, where will the money come from? If you think a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and a Joint Strike Fighter cost a lot, what will Trump's Death Star cost? Never mind his X-wing fighters and the various shuttles needed to get his Starship Troopers out into space to fight....well, I don't really know. Who are they supposed to be fighting again?

This is more Bread and Circus bullshit. Another distraction. "Trump Sez 'We're on to Mars!'" "Put Armies in Space! Beat those....those...those, um...those guys...You Ess Ay!"

I do believe he's gonna try to sell the ISS, even though he doesn't actually own it. Has Trump ever made money before on something he doesn't actually own?

See what I mean?

Anyway, you'll know he's serious about his Death Star when, if he ever holds another press conference again, his appearance is preceded by the Imperial March from "Empire Strikes Back". Of course the Darth Vader mask, cape, and cheesy light saber would be giveaways as well.

And here's the New Big question. Will Mars pay for a wall? We can't let in Martian rapists and drug dealers, now can we?

[Patrick]

It is good to see the neurologists publishing the science of damage to little kids caused by the trauma of separation. It has been fairly well established that this type of trauma can inhibit proper development of the prefontal cortex' networks, among other effects. And the PFC is one of the crucial organs adults find necessary to make "good" judgments.

DiJiT, JeffBo and Stevie M must have been traumatized when young, too. Their PFCs are clearly shrunken and inadequate. Their judgment sucks.

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Regarding Kris Kobach's bona fides as a Harvard grad, he is by no means an unusual case. It's a given in winger circles that ripping Harvard as a sea of pansy liberals will get you a standing ovation at Trump World gatherings, but let's extract all the right-wing Harvard alums from congress and the Confederate media (and Supreme Court) and see what happens.

Here's who you'd lose: Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz (Harvard Law), Ben Sasse, Mike Crapo, Dan Sullivan, Pat Toomey, Elise Stefanik (David Vitter was also a Harvard grad). In the media, you've got Andrew Sullivan, Ross Douthat, Bill Kristol. Steve Bannon went to Harvard Business School as did Mitt Romney. This is not to mention a fair number of Harvard grads serving as worker bees in various congressional offices. And leave us not forget Little Johnny Roberts, Harvard '76.

Michael Boddell, class of 2000 writes that "...if you compare Harvard to other schools, it isn’t an extreme outlier on the left wing side. For instance, Most Liberal Colleges in America ranked the most liberal colleges in the US (from 4000), and Harvard wasn’t on the top 100. Most Liberal Colleges in Massachusetts ranks the top 30 liberal colleges in Massachusetts and Harvard wasn’t ranked. Political Affiliation of the Students ranks 503 schools on how liberal their students are and Harvard is 92nd with a score of 67.1 (where 100 is most liberal and 0 is most conservative). That sounds somewhat liberal but that is closer to the 50/100 than it is to the top 25 liberal schools (25 is Vassar with a 84.7)."

Most Liberal Colleges in Massachusetts! And Harvard didn't make the top 30.

Harvard isn't a Nazi paradise, but it is by no means, as wingers often describe it, Kremlin on the Charles either.

[Akhilleus]

Oops...I forgot that Anthony Kennedy and Neil Gorsuch are both graduates of Harvard (Law School) as well.

Plenty of winger stars are from Harvard.

[Jeanne]

To Patrick: I don't think it is their prefrontal cortexes that have shrunk. Other things have, however: hearts and, well...
Seriously, I don't think their judgement is the problem-- it's their entire way of thinking/being that cannot be fixed by being more "judicial" . One does not fix despicability for one's self. Marie's research proves that-- take Kobach (please)with his sterling education; he is as always simply a rotten cockroach to the core, and he ain't fixable.

[Akhilleus]

Interesting that Trump is always talking about what horrible people immigrants are, they're criminals, rapists, murderers, damaged people infecting our beautiful (white) country. I say interesting because even though those descriptions are incredibly wrong in the vast majority of cases, Trump's policy of inflicting torture and trauma on little children may be helping to set many of these kids on roads which could lead them to damaged and damaging lives based on the catastrophic effects of their treatment at the hands of these psychiatric Josef Mengeles.

If he isn't right now, by god, he'll be right in about 20 years. Good job, little donnie. You are a breaker of human beings.

[Akhilleus]

Please welcome....Director Eggplant!

So, another nominee totally bereft of experience at one of the most important jobs in the nation. Sounds about right for Trump.

"...now for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — arguably the single-most-powerful financial regulator in Washington — Trump has tapped a little-known White House aide with no apparent relevant experience in finance, banking regulation or consumer protection."

Kathy Kraninger, a White House aide and something, something at the OMB is being put up as head of the CFPB. Oh-oh, I got that wrong. It's not the CFPB anymore. Trump's current choice to run that agency, Mick Mulvaney, who spent years trying to kill it (sounds about right for Trump, again), has changed the name. It's now the BFCP. Or as someone else called it, the Bureau for Corrupt Financial Predators.

Really, is this a big deal? Yes. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked.

As we here at RC have suggested before (well, okay, it was me), language makes a difference. What you call something matters. Mulvaney whines that Dodd-Frank refers to it as the BFCP, but it's more than that. What he has done is to demonstrate to the insiders (the banking predators who abhor being told that they cannot bilk and defraud consumers with impunity anymore) that C (consumers) is no longer first in the name. What it says, surreptitiously, is that protection of consumers is not the name of the game any longer.

Want more proof? I know this sounds piddling, but it matters to the insiders who pay close attention to every smoke signal out of Washington.

Last week, Mulvaney disbanded the consumer advisory council that had been set up to advocate for consumer protection. He's now working to make all consumer complaints completely confidential, meaning that if you have a problem with Huge Fucking Bank & Trust and go to the CFPB website, you won't see hide nor hair of any other complaint against the HFB&T.

Then there's this:

"In December, the CFPB renamed a fellowship program for law students and recent graduates that had honored Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who was known in the early 20th century as the 'people’s lawyer' for taking on major moneyed interests, including J.P. Morgan’s railroad monopoly."

Still think I'm overreacting? You guys do know that FDR is STILL hated by Wall Street, bankers, and old money, right? Almost 90 years after setting up banking regulations in the wake of the Great Depression. STILL hated. So removing the name of the "people's lawyer" from a fellowship program is a giant wink and a nod to corporations who have always despised a guy who stood up against the trusts and monopolies of the early 20th century.

But back to Kraninger. I see here and there that this will be a tough confirmation. Tough confirmation, my ass. Are you kidding? Look, if incompetent, completely inexperienced jamokes like Ben Carson and Besty DeVos can get confirmed, Trump could nominate an eggplant and everyone with an R after their name would vote for it. Rick Perry is the fucking Energy Secretary. Rick Perry, who was all set to kill that agency if he could only remember what it was called. And what about Scott Pruitt? I rest my case. Director Eggplant will be added to the roll of Trumpian Greatness.

She'll be a rubber stamp for predatory lenders. And Mulvaney, and Trump and all their rich buddies.

Consumers, fuggedaboutit. You're screwed.

Again.

[RAS]

Akhilleus,
Donnie's Space Force is just another way to enrich Putin. We are going to need to rent seats on those russian rockets to get our troops to the moon. And we all know how great a negotiator Trump is.

[RAS]

It is ridiculous that a bill cosponsored by an entire party may not get to the floor for a vote. There needs to be more mechanisms for bills to be brought up for vote, especially for the minority party or smaller factions. If a bill has a certain amount of support there should be more ways to go around the leadership and straight to the floor for an up or down vote. Congress might actually get something done that way.