Friday
Jun072019
The Commentariat -- June 8, 2019
Late Morning Update:
Hahahahaha. Karoli Kuns of Crooks & Liars: "The Republicans, those champions of free speech, have fired off a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler demanding that there be no talk of lying, or obstruction of justice, or any other mean things that people might otherwise say about Dear Leader. Politico Congress reporter Kyle Cheney tweeted a copy of the rule book Rep. Doug Collins is demanding Nadler use." Kuns reproduces Collins' demands here, and they are hilarious. Mrs. McC: Collins' demands would be like conducting a murder trial in which the defense ordered the prosecution to never utter any of a long list of words like "accused," "victim," "dead," "deceased," "body" "killed" "murder," "wound," "motive," "opportunity," etc. Another funny part is that some of the words Collins bans are ones that Trump himself regularly uses, without evidence, against his perceived political enemies. I'm not sure how Collins came up with "a little bugger" as a verboten phrase, but maybe it's a nod to Trump's recent visit to the land of merry old buggers. Many thanks to unwashed for the link. ...
... More Banned Words. Nathalie Baptiste of Mother Jones: "The White House prevented State Department officials from submitting testimony to Congress that warns of climate change catastrophe. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that after reviewing the written testimony, White House officials tried to remove references to the government's own scientific findings on global warming. The prepared statement included references to catastrophic damage due climate change. 'Absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant -- possibly catastrophic -- harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change,' the testimony warned. Several anonymous Trump administration officials told the Post that the State Department testimony strayed too far from the White House's official stance on climate change."
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "The anonymous foreign-government-owned company that fought a subpoena in the special counsel investigation for months appears to be off the hook, while prosecutors continue to put significant resources into investigating what Robert Mueller pursued related to the company, according to newly unsealed court records. Federal judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court stopped fining the company in February, when it turned almost 1,000 pages of documents over to Mueller. The court fight dragged on from February into April, however, because Mueller's team and other prosecutors believed the company had kept records from them, according to the newly unsealed information. She finally deciding the company was no longer in contempt on April 17. Howell previously ordered that the company should be fined $50,000 a day beginning January 15 for refusing to comply with Mueller's subpoena from last year. It's unclear from the newly released court record how much, if anything at all, the company paid in fines. Much of the mystery around the case remains."
Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A raft of legislation intended to better secure United States election systems after what the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, called a 'sweeping and systematic' Russian attack in 2016 is running into a one-man roadblock in the form of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky." Mrs. McC: Since some of these bills are bipartisan, one can only assume that Mitch is betting that foreign intervention will favor Trump & incumbent Republicans.
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Michael Shear & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "President Trump backed off his plan to impose tariffs on all Mexican goods and announced via Twitter on Friday night that the United States had reached an agreement with Mexico to reduce the flow of migrants to the southwestern border. Mr. Trump tweeted the announcement only hours after returning from Europe and following several days of intense and sometimes difficult negotiations between American and Mexican officials in Washington.... The cease-fire will forestall that economic reckoning and prevent an intraparty war that Mr. Trump had created by threatening tariffs to leverage the immigration changes he demanded." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Gee, Donnie, I guess that creep Chuck Schumer was right -- the tariffs were a bluff.
Tim Egan of the New York Times: Trump's debasement of "the foundations of a great democracy ... started on Day 2, when the hapless liar, newly subsidized by taxpayers, tried to conscript the National Park Service into the fantasy that his crowd was the largest ever.... After the inauguration debacle, Trump moved on to bigger targets -- the judiciary, the military, the press, and the professional class of bureaucrats who have made the United States a model for competence and incorruptibility in the Civil Service. With William Barr, Trump now has an attorney general who doesn't care how much lasting damage he does to truth, justice and the American way. His mandate as the nation's top prosecutor is to carry out Trump's private vendettas.... The most disgusting of the recent corruptions is the attempt to make the military another extension of presidential vanity.... Any day now, the Supreme Court will rule on [Commerce Secretary Wilbur] Ross's effort to insert, into the census form ..., a citizenship question, something that hasn't been asked since 1950. It could mean that about 6.5 million people would go uncounted -- citizens and noncitizens."
Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Top congressional Democrats are actively discussing opening a probe into Rudy Giuliani for his overseas political and consulting work, including a recent attempt to uncover dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, a source with direct knowledge tells The Daily Beast. The contours of a potential probe are still under consideration. But it would likely look at whether Giuliani's relationships with foreign politicos interfered or intersected with American foreign-policy efforts." Upon hearing the news, Rudy said a lot of stuff -- trashing the Constitution, Joe McCarthy, blah-blah. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Andrew Desiderio of Politico: “The White House tried to block former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach from testifying to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about his conversations with ... Donald Trump about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, according to a new letter released Friday. 'Mr. Kobach's conversations with the president and with senior White House advisers who advise the president are confidential, and [Kobach] would not be permitted to discuss those conversations during a transcribed interview,' Deputy White House Counsel Michael Purpura wrote to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the committee's chairman, on May 21.... Kobach appeared before the committee on Monday, the panel's Democrats said, but he largely adhered to the White House's directives.... Kobach refused 15 times to answer questions about his discussions with Trump or White House officials.... The committee will soon go to court over the issue...."
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe you think the White House is being reasonable. Actually, no. "In a memo released Friday, the Democratic side of the committee said ... claims of executive privilege cannot apply to individuals who never worked in the executive branch.... In seeking to block Kobach's testimony, the White House lawyers repeatedly cited 2007 Justice Department guidance that determined advice from outsiders could still be subject to executive privilege.... But in the case that the 2007 guidance relies upon -- a 1997 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals' D.C. Circuit -- the judges explicitly concluded that their ruling would have no bearing on congressional demands for information."
Collusion by Any Other Name ... Quinta Jurecic in a New York Times op-ed on a few damning things buried in the Mueller report. Here are two of them: 1. "Rick Gates, a top adviser, said that the campaign was 'planning a press strategy, a communications campaign, and messaging based on the possible release' of Hillary Clinton emails by WikiLeaks. After receiving a call during a drive to La Guardia Airport, Mr. Trump 'told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming.'... This section suggests that Mr. Trump may have been in the loop on the campaign's efforts to get a heads-up about what WikiLeaks had planned. And that is a very long way from 'no collusion.' [2].... After his July 27 ['Russia, if you're listening'] comment, the report states, Mr. Trump 'asked individuals affiliated with his campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails' -- including Michael Flynn. 'Mr. Flynn, in turn, reached out to a Republican Senate staffer.... The operative raised money to support the project, which he marketed as 'coordinated with the Trump campaign,' and told others that he was in communication with Russian hackers who had access to emails he believed were Mrs. Clinton's.... If ['collusion'] mean working behind the scenes with Russian actors..., then this section of the report describes just that -- collusion that took place at Mr. Trump's request." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Seems to be it would not be a stretch to work Trump's efforts outlined here into an Article of Impeachment. Getting Trump on "collusion" would be great. Let the final meltdown be televised.
Aaron Rupar of Vox: “Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has done more than anybody (except perhaps Donald Trump himself) to push the narrative that Hillary Clinton should be locked up, now thinks such calls are something that only happens in 'banana republics' -- at least when they're directed toward Trump." Rupar goes into detail about Hannity's amazing double standard. (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael LaForgia & Walt Bogdanich of the New York Times: An emergency authorization Donald Trump signed last month "allows Raytheon Company, a top American defense firm, to team with the Saudis to build high-tech bomb parts in Saudi Arabia. That provision, which has not been previously reported, is part of a broad package of information the administration released this week to Congress. The move grants Raytheon and the Saudis sweeping permission to begin assembling the control systems, guidance electronics and circuit cards that are essential to the company's Paveway smart bombs. [Previously,] the United States has closely guarded such technology for national security reasons. Multiple reports by human rights groups over the past four years have singled out the weapons as being used in airstrikes on civilians. One attack, on a Sana funeral home in October 2016, led the Obama administration to suspend bomb sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen."
For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Friday evening
As JFK famously said, 'We choose to go to the Moon not because it is easy, but because it is Mars' -- Jason Gilbert, in a tweet ...
... Brianna Sacks of BuzzFeed News: "President Trump declared that the moon is part of Mars.... Trump's assertion was made in a very confusing tweet lambasting NASA for wasting money on another lunar mission (even though he promised them this funding and supported the exploration in a declaration in 2017...) ... In December 2017, Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, which directed NASA to create a major, sustainable presence on and around the moon and then use that knowledge to get a crew to Mars. And last month, the White House requested an extra $1.6 billion in next year's budget to accelerate the moon mission and get astronauts back on its rocky surface by 2024, including the first woman. The president was clearly stoked about it at the time, tweeting May 13, 'we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars.'" ...
... Brian Williams of MSNBC suggests that what prompted Trump's Mars Moon tweet was a remark by Fox Business host Neil Cavuto questioning the moon mission.
Brad Lendon, et al., of CNN: "The United States and Russian navies are at odds over an apparent near collision in the Pacific Friday with each side blaming the other. The US and Russian warships came somewhere between 50 feet and 165 feet of each other, according to the two opposing reports, with both sides alleging their ships were forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid a collision, which can be seen in video and a picture of the event obtained by CNN."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Trump Bigotry Program, Ctd. Josh Lederman of NBC News: "The Trump administration is rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow pride flag on embassy flagpoles during June, LGBTQ Pride Month, three American diplomats told NBC News. The U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia are among those that have requested permission from Trump's State Department to fly the pride flag on their flagpoles and have been denied, diplomats said.... The denials to U.S. embassies have come from the office of the State Department's undersecretary for management, Brian Bulatao, a longtime associate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who also worked for him at the CIA. Under State Department policy, embassies that want to fly the flag on their flagpoles are expected to obtain permission from Washington. During the Obama administration, the government granted blanket permission to embassies overseas to fly the pride flag during June."
Presidential Race 2020. Edward-Isaac Dovere of the Atlantic recounts the internal deliberations that took place within Joe Biden's campaign re: his four-decade support for the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortions.
Beyond the Beltway
Bill Chappell of NPR: "The University of Alabama's board of trustees has voted to return a $21.5 million gift from Hugh Culverhouse Jr. -- the school's biggest donor -- and take his name off its law school. The move comes after Culverhouse urged businesses and prospective students to boycott the university and the state over Alabama's new abortion law. The school says the transaction to return the funds was processed Friday morning and that it will also return any accrued interest. Last fall, Culverhouse pledged to donate a total of $26.5 million over four years. 'The action taken by the Board today was a direct result of Mr. Culverhouse's ongoing attempts to interfere in the operations of the Law School,' the university's vice chancellor for communication, Kellee Reinhart, said Friday. 'That was the only reason the Board voted to remove his name and return his money.'" Mrs. McC: I'm thinking most of the trustees look like Colonel Sanders.
Way Beyond
BBC: "Theresa May has officially stepped down as the leader of the Conservative Party, but will remain as prime minister until her successor is chosen. She has handed in her private resignation letter to the backbench 1922 Committee, two weeks after announcing her intention to leave. Eleven Conservative MPs are vying to replace her as party leader and, ultimately, prime minister. The winner of the contest is expected to be announced in the week of 22 July." (Also linked yesterday.)
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Reader Comments (15)
Venezuela in the news as the Miami Herald is reporting that Florida senator Marco Rubio has called for a special task force to investigate the "Maduro crime family". No mention of one to investigate the "Trump crime family."
For Akhilleus' list: Three more for Tea:
Would you care
to sit with me
For a cup of English tea?
Very twee, very me
Any Sunday morning.
What a pleasure it would be
Chatting so delightfully
Nanny bakes fairy cakes
Every Sunday
Morning.
Paul McCartney
They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace–-
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
"Do you think the King knows all about ME?"
"Sure to dear, but it's time for tea,"
says Alice.
A.A. Milne
And then there's the play and film "Tea and Sympathy"
"Years from now when you talk about this––and you will––please be kind."
And this man who is playing the part of "leader of the world" is actually the Mad Hatter at the infamous tea party where Alice "felt dreadfully puzzled" because of course the Hatter's remarks made no sense–-had no meaning and yet it was certainly in English. Trump is our crazy Hatter continually pouring hot tea on noses ( many dormouses) he doesn't like and stirring the pot when things get hot for him. The latest shake-up over the Mexican tariff is a prime example of his madness––lord knows what he'll come up with next.
The news of this administration rejecting the flying of LGBTQ flags at various embassies around the world makes me furious. If we can bring another Alice into this picture whose husband always told her he'd send her to the moon, let's have Alice march up to the White House with her fist raised and her voice booming as she tells the dotard where he can go–-"To the moon which is part of Mars."
And Chrisopher Robin once wished he were a King so he could do anything. Trump thought the same–-his time is running out and it better be soon. Tea anyone?
;
Who knew our moon was part of Mars? Just imagine all those
moon songs that will now have to be changed.
Mars Over Miami.
Fly Me To The Mars.
And on and on. From the one who has the intellect of a slug.
PD,
While the Mad Hatter never seems to slur his words or blather about with beastly mispronunciations, as is the little king’s wont, they are both prone to nonsensical statements and questions. This is the idiot, after all who once applauded his wonderfulness in front of a collection of survivors of a natural disaster, a hurricane, by shouting “Hey, what a crowd! What a turnout!” and claimed to have been at the World Trade Center site on 7-Eleven. In comparison, “Why is a raven like a writing desk” seems almost Socratic.
As for tea, I’m sure Trump has some bizarre thoughts about it. Very likely he was disappointed at one time after an invitation to a tea party. “I thought the card said ‘tea and strumpets’”
But Prez Man of the People does have another connection with the Mad Hatter. Hatters were typically driven mad by mercury poisoning, contracted in the workplace. Trump is all for making workplaces less safe as long as corporate owners can increase profits.
Here's a quote from Euripides to keep in mind: "Whom the gods would seek to destroy, they first make mad with power."
Get a load of the list of rules that Rep. Doug Collins (C-GA) wants Nadler to follow when referencing Hair Furor during this coming Monday's Judiciary Committee hearing.
Looks like "fat" and "dumpy" are OK though.
Oops, I overlooked #15.
@unwashed: I've assumed that Karoli did not write this for the Onion. What a knee-slapper.
AK, McC et al., your prescient language.
Haven't got all my thoughts together on it yet, but it seems Republicans thrive by running a kind of anti-school, have in effect become an institution of lower education maybe, whose purpose it is to erase as much as they can of what we know to be true and should be taken into account if people have any intention of making intelligent decisions about their lives and their future.
The list of what they want to erase from the nation's consciousness grows longer every day, many of the items discussed here. Ideologically impure or uncooperative bureaucrats re-assigned. Research hampered. One inconvenient fact after another scrubbed from government testimony, publications, websites, most recently the harmful effects of pollution, and as we learned last week, now radiation. And, oh, let's not forget the thousands of lies told.
Corporate capture of government explains a good part of what's going on. If a fact interferes with profit, it has no chance of survival. Under Republican administration, it's "disappeared." And because Republicanism in its present form is are all about corporate profit, when Republicans control government, facts have to be disappeared from the very process and substance of government itself.
Illustrative of the technique applied to politics:
From the beginning of the Special Counsel's investigation, R's have called for an investigation of the investigators, implying that the cops were at fault for looking into a possible crime. Now AG Barr himself will lead the charge to look into the "spying" that took place into the Pretender's campaign, using the Justice Department (what's in a name?) as an instrument of diversion, deflection and denial.
Thanks to Unwashed, we have another, outrageous to the point of silly-seeming, illustration: a Republican document that tells Congress it cannot name the Pretender a liar, although the man has been calling the Mueller investigation, which produced at least a dozen convictions or guilty pleas, a "witchhunt" since the get-go and who has lied to the American people at least 11,000 times.
The medieval church during those ages we call Dark, was no worse and had a much better excuse for its ignorance and for the consequent draconian censorhip it practiced.
Remember, the Pretender did say he loved the uneducated. I understand why. He loves 'em so much he wants many more of 'em.
If the Republican Stupid* School succeeds in its mission, in 2020 the Pretender might have that actual majority of the popular vote he likes to claim he "really" had in 2016.
*probably should come up with another word here if I decide to turn this one into a LTTE...
Here's some more language that dare not be named in public:
Alzheimer's disease.
In the website for the Alzheimers Society of the UK, here is some of their language on dementia (usually Alzheimer's):
1. The person may not use the correct word (oranges)
2. The person may get stuck on certain words (nasty)
3. The person may have fluent speech without meaning, using jumbled up words and grammar (the answer in the cemetery).
4. the person may not be able to understand complex ideas (right).
Yesterday on Nicolle Wallace's program on MSNBC, John Heilman was speaking directly about Trump's obvious language difficulties. He referred back to the 80's & 90's, when he knew Trump well, and said that Trump's language now was like "your demented uncle, like you walk up to his family and say how sorry you are that this is happening." This was what I heard in the last few minutes of the program.
This morning, I went to the MSNBC site and listened to the whole show from yesterday. I wanted to see why this subject was brought up. But the entire last few minutes was cut off. There was no Heilman talking and no antecedent on the subject.
Is dementia another "verboten" word? Is this how the MSM is handling this obvious problem in Trump?
Some people are saying he has no clothes. When are people going to understand that, right now, he has no mind?
Dare I speak about a process other than the "I" word?
@Victoria: It's at the end of the segment about Mars, which right now is on the front page of the Wallace show's site: https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house
Got it, thanks. I went to the main MSNBC site this am. Nicolle's site had 47 min of the show. The main site had 40 min. I think Nicolle did a service by allowing talk about dementia. C'mon: the moon is in Mars?
Trump is not only an idiot, he's a demented idiot.
A deal with Mexico forged months ago?
Certainly worth a Pretender victory lap this weekend.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html?
What's next?
The Pretender taking credit for getting a man on the moon, er, Mars, or....
And, Victoria, I think you have that dementia thing right.
And anent what I wrote above about the Republicans School for the Stupid, the Pretender, that stable genius, would be much happier if everyone else were no more "stable" and certainly no more smart than he.
A major weakness of the stupid who would like to think they are smart is their susceptibility to flattery. They are natural and easy marks for those willing to feed their ego with head-nodding and praise. That would describe those of the Pretender's inner circle who have survived.
Not much different in Kim Jong-un's circle, I'd surmise.
BTW, that the Pretender won't make his test scores or grades public amuses the heck out of me.
@Ken,
One mustn't forget about his IQ challenge.