The Commentariat -- March 2, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Just so you know, Trump has slipped right into dictator territory with a two-hour-plus speech at CPAC. ...

... Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday delivered a scorched-earth speech to conservative activists, calling the Russia investigation 'bullshit,' adopting a southern accent to mock his former attorney general, and asserting that some members of Congress 'hate our country.'... The president also revisited his infamous 2016 appeal to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails, arguing that he was just joking and criticizing the press for taking his comments seriously. 'So everybody is having a good time, I'm laughing, we're all having fun. Then that fake CNN and others say, "He asked Russia to go get the emails. Horrible,"' Trump continued, adding,'These people are sick, and I'm telling you, they know the game and they play it dirty, dirtier than anybody has ever played the game.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Saturday, Trump claimed he made the hacking "joke" in front of an audience of 25,000 people; in fact, he was speaking to a small group of press, and it wasn't a "joke." Here's a contemporaneous report (July 27, 2016) by Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "On Wednesday, Trump publicly called on Russian intelligence agents to hack Hillary Clinton's emails and release the results, a direct appeal to a foreign power to commit espionage that came as Trump faced increased scrutiny over his ties to Putin. 'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,' Trump said at a press conference.... When NBC News' Katy Tur asked Trump whether he had qualms about encouraging the release of stolen intelligence, he told her to 'be quiet.' 'If Russia or China or any other country has those e-mails, I mean, to be honest with you, I'd love to see them,' he said.... And, in case Trump's pleas to Russia were not obvious enough, he told a reporter he would not warn Putin against influencing the American election. 'I'm not going to tell Putin what to do -- why should I tell Putin what to do?' Trump said.... Russia has been widely blamed by experts for hacking the Democratic National Committee's emails. The release of some of those by WikiLeaks prompted DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign this week just one day before her party's national convention began. FBI Director James Comey has said it's unclear if Clinton's private email server, which Trump referred to in his remarks, has been hacked."

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Frank Rich has thoughts on national security hazard & international grifter Jared Kushner, Republicans' response to Michael Cohen's testimony & the GOP's history of rampant & overt racism.

Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) is demanding that President Trump's White House comply with an ongoing investigation into the security clearance process, accusing the White House of stonewalling congressional requests for documents and transcribed interviews. Cummings also raised concerns Friday about the actions by President Trump and others in the White House in reaction to a New York Times report that Trump ordered then-chief of staff John Kelly to grant his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance despite issues raised by the intelligence community and then-White House lawyer Donald McGahn. 'If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why General Kelly and Mr. McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee,' Cummings wrote in a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone on Friday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... "Rachel Maddow highlights the changes in public statements issued by Jared Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell, which appear to be an effort by Lowell to make sure he isn't thrown under the bus for his client's duplicity on how he got his security clearance." Video. ...

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: All the pundits are asking why Trump & Ivanka (and apparently Jared, too, to his own attorney) are lying about something Donald has the legal right to do. Their best guesses are something about nepotism or embarrassment (as if anything could embarrass Trump). But I think Trump's reasons are obvious & nefarious. The benign reason for the lies is that passing out security clearances on the flimsy basis of family ties is an egregious breach of national security. But the corrupt reason is that Trump wants Jared be able to weaponize top secrets. Of course Jared might put some secrets to a public purpose if that purpose would enhance the family's status is some way. But what about the private utility of state secrets? For instance, wouldn't it be way easier to get a billion-dollar loan from Prince Mohammed bin Salman if Jared could wave in front of him secret evidence proving bin Salman's role in Jamal Khashoggi's murder? This is a crime family, and Kompromat is a valuable commodity in that line of work.

Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "The top tax-writing committee in the House is readying a request for years of ... Donald Trump';s personal tax returns that is expected to land at the Internal Revenue Service as early as the next few weeks, according to congressional aides involved in the process. And Democrats are prepared to 'take all necessary steps,' including litigation, in order to obtain them. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has asked the committee's attorneys to prepare the request, according to two aides involved in the process. Neal has also contacted the chairs of several other House investigative committees..., asking them to provide detailed arguments for why they need the president's tax returns to conduct their probes."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump sought to attack the credibility Friday of his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen by pointing to a book Cohen has reportedly proposed that depicts Trump far more favorably than did the scathing testimony he delivered to Congress this week. 'Book is exact opposite of his fake testimony, which now is a lie!' Trump said in morning tweets, in which he accused Cohen of committing perjury during a congressional hearing and called on Congress to demand the book manuscript, which Trump claimed was recently finished. 'Your heads will spin when you see the lies, misrepresentations and contradictions against his Thursday testimony,' Trump wrote. 'Like a different person! He is totally discredited!'"

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "With [Michael] Cohen's appearance before a House committee, the public airing of ethical transgressions by Mr. Trump reached a new phase, one that may be harder to ignore for friends and foes alike. The spectacle of Mr. Trump's onetime enforcer denouncing him in televised proceedings, detailing a catalog of allegations of cruelty and crimes, signaled the pressure the president's already strained coalition could feel in the coming months as Congress scrutinizes him, and as the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III completes his investigation.... In the electoral arena, Mr. Trump's political survival has long depended on his ability to marry the unbending support of his fiercest followers with the ambivalent backing of more traditional right-of-center voters -- people who view him as a distasteful character but favor his economic policies, or who preferred him over Hillary Clinton in 2016.... It may grow more difficult for Mr. Trump to reforge his 2016 coalition if he faces protracted humiliation of the sort inflicted by Mr. Cohen."

Mrs. McCrabbie: In case you didn't think the Trump Organization was a criminal enterprise (or at least the best facsimile of a crime family Trump could organize), meet the "Big Squid," as the Trump Org's former veep Barbara Res said "everybody" called Matthew Calamari, who started out as Trump's bodyman but eventually became the organizations chief operating officer. Allyson Chiu of the Washington Post obliges. And yeah, according to a Trump biography, the Big Squid once told Trump he would kill for him.

Trump's New Fixer Fixes Former Fixer. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has fallen under investigation for an apparent threat against Michael Cohen -- which he may have made at ... Donald Trump's request.... Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff reporter for The Atlantic, tweeted Thursday that he overheard a phone conversation between Gaetz and Trump, whom he said called the Florida Republican from Hanoi to discuss the Cohen testimony and apparent threat. I was happy to do it for you,' Gaetz said, according to Dovere. 'You just keep killing it.' Gaetz later refused to discuss the call, [telling Dovere he didn't discuss his phone calls with Trump]...."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It isn't clear from Gaetz's remark to Trump that Trump asked Gaetz to send the tweet threatening to out Michael Cohen's purported extra-marital sex life. Gaetz could have been freelancing. On the other hand, how would Gaetz, who is from Florida, know Cohen had or was rumored to have had affairs? Trump of course would have been much morely likely to know this. So it seems to me that -- at the very least -- Trump provided the dirt for Gaetz's tweet. Did he direct Gaetz to send the tweet? Nah. He likely said something like, "Michael has had all these affairs. Wouldn't it be something if somebody tweeted them out right before he's scheduled to testify on TV? It would be great if the tweet said Michael's wife would be banging everybody in the building (except Jarad!) while the rat is in the clink." Because, you know, that's the way the capo dei capi gives orders to his capi. ...

... Alex Daugherty of the Tampa Bay Times: "Matt Gaetz ... laughed off a Florida Bar inquiry into his tweets, which claimed, the night before former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified in a congressional hearing, that Cohen had extramarital relations, statements that invited claims of witness intimidation. And he also vigorously denied claims that he's been in touch with anyone at the White House regarding Cohen's testimony this week, after a reporter said Gaetz had a phone conversation with ... Donald Trump while the president was in Vietnam.... Recent conversations between Trump and Gaetz could mean that the president is coordinating with allies to discredit Cohen.... Gaetz tried to formally join Wednesday's Oversight Committee hearing to question Cohen even though he is not a committee member, but he said Democrats blocked his request. Members often join committee hearings they are not a part of when they are particularly interested in an issue. The request is usually granted. Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Gaetz's actions in recent days were 'embarrassing.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Either Gaetz is lying or Dovere is. Not only did Dovere overhear Gaetz's end of the phone conversation with Trump, when Dovere asked Gaetz about the call, Gaetz told Dovere he never discussed his conversations with Trump. That sure would indicate Gaetz had had the conversation with Trump which Dovere overheard. Gaetz is a jerk, he's indiscreet, and he's a liar. ...

     ... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly elaborates: according to a question Gaetz asked during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Trump administration's family separation policy, Gaetz seems to think that it's okay for children to be sexually abused in U.S. border custody as long as custodians don't abuse them more often than human traffickers do. Mrs. McC: I guess I overestimated Gaetz in the preceding graf. ...

... Tim Egan of the New York Times: "It's been clear, ever since the last of the never-Trumpers were rooted out of the party, that the G.O.P. would be an extension of the grime and grift of Trump's personal brand. But now the enablers are willing to do what Cohen said he once did for Trump -- take a bullet for him.... Among Cohen's duties as Trump fixer was to threaten people; he did this maybe 500 times, by his recounting. That job has been taken over by Republican elected officials like Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida. He threatened Cohen on the eve of his testimony, mentioning his family in an ominous tweet. Initially, Gaetz compared witness intimidation to the 'marketplace of ideas.' Sure.... In years to come, people will ask, 'What did we do to make sure our democracy is intact?' as Representative Elijah Cummings, the committee chairman, put it. For Trump's new fixers, Cohen gave them an answer: 'I did the same thing you're doing now.'"

Manu Raju of CNN: "Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, who chairs the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said that [Sean] Hannity's latest comments suggest he has information about hush money payments made by ... Michael Cohen to keep ... [Donald Trump]'s alleged extramarital affairs quiet in the days before the 2016 election.... 'Sean Hannity volunteered first-hand knowledge about Michael Cohen's actions last night,' Cicilline spokesman Francis Grubar told CNN. 'If he was lying, it wouldn't be the first time. This is the same guy who claimed inside knowledge that Russia didn't hack the DNC until a federal judge ordered him to stop. Regardless, if he feels he has information that's relevant to this investigation, he should share it under oath before Congress.' On his television program Thursday night, Hannity told Trump that Cohen told him 'at least a dozen times' that 'he made the decision on the payments -- and he didn't tell you.'"

Uh-Oh. Christian Vasquez of Politico: "The judge in charge of Roger Stone's criminal trial on Friday demanded to know why the court wasn't made aware of the 'imminent general release' of a book that could include discussion of the longtime Trump adviser's legal proceedings, potentially violating a gag order. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson broadened an initial gag order against Stone on Feb. 21 after Stone's Instagram post featured an image of the judge with what looked like gunsight crosshairs in it. Under Jackson's order, Stone can't make any public comments of any kind about the charges he's facing from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.... Jackson gave Stone's lawyers until Monday to explain why they didn't tell her until this week about the looming publication, which she emphasized 'was known to the defendant.'" The book is probably one titled, The Myth of Russian Collusion: The Inside Story of How Donald Trump REALLY Won, an update of a book Stone wrote in 2017. Mrs. McC: Maybe he can update it again while he's in jail for violating his gag order.

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Lawyers for Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, asked a federal judge in Northern Virginia on Friday to show leniency when he sentences Mr. Manafort next week, casting him as a loyal, compassionate, idealistic man who has learned a 'harsh lesson.'... Earlier this week [in the Washington, D.C., case], citing new information from a cooperating witness, prosecutors appeared to correct one element of their allegations that Mr. Manafort had lied to them about his contacts with a Russian business associate whom they have linked to Russian intelligence. Mr. Manafort's lawyers seized upon that apparent admission of an error, telling [Virginia] Judge [T.S.] Ellis that the prosecutors'; revised account of their evidence cast Mr. Manafort in a more favorable light. But just as they filed their pleadings, Judge [Amy] Jackson ruled that she stood by her conclusion that Mr. Manafort had lied about his interactions with the Russian associate..., as well as about two other matters." ...

... Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News: "... Paul Manafort on Friday continued to attack special counsel Robert Mueller, accusing Mueller's office of not only vilifying him, but also of spreading misinformation.' Manafort and his lawyers have used pre-sentencing memos not only to lobby for a lower prison sentence, but also to criticize the special counsel's office -- something they've had limited opportunities to do, given a gag order imposed early on. In a sentencing memo filed Friday in Manafort's case in federal court in Virginia, his lawyers wrote that Mueller had unfairly impugned Manafort's character." ...

... According to Rachel Maddow, the pleading characterized Manafort as an altar boy (literally) & repeatedly suggested he should get off with a light sentence because "no collusion," something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Virginia charges for which Manafort was convicted.

Be Careful What You Ask for. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes [R-Trump] called Friday for full transparency from special counsel Robert Mueller if his final report on Russian election interference is made public, demanding that any release include every piece of evidence that Mueller used to compile the report. The California Republican, in an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference..., prefaced his proposal by saying he doesn't believe 'Mueller has any report to put out that would be worthwhile, with anything new.... I want email, I want everybody that they wiretapped, every warrant that they got, every single thing that Mueller used....'"

A Big Freebie for Li'l Kim. Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: "The U.S. military is preparing to announce that annual large-scale joint exercises conducted with South Korea every spring will no longer be held, according to two U.S. defense officials. The major U.S.-South Korea exercises are being curtailed as part of the Trump administration's effort to ease tensions with North Korea, the officials said. The exercises -- known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle -- will be replaced with smaller, mission-specific training, according to the officials.... Word of the planned announcement comes less than 48 hours after a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came to an abrupt end with no agreement. Trump said afterward that the annual military drills with South Korea were 'very, very expensive' and the government in Seoul should pay more for them. U.S. officials said the decision is not related to the summit in Hanoi but has been under consideration for some time." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Nakamura & Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "The parents of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died after being detained for 17 months in North Korea, on Friday directly blamed leader Kim Jong Un for their son's death a day after President Trump said he believed Kim's account that he was not responsible. 'We have been respectful during this summit process. Now we must speak out,' Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement. 'Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuse or lavish praise can change that. Trump said at a news conference in Hanoi that Kim felt 'very badly' about Otto Warmbier's death in 2017, several days after being released in a coma from captivity in North Korea. 'He tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word,' Trump said, responding to a question from a Washington Post reporter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Update. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday sought to clean up his widely criticized claim that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not know about the treatment of U.S. college student Otto Warmbier, saying 'I hold North Korea responsible' for Warmbier's 'mistreatment and death.' In a pair of tweets, Trump claimed that his initial comments at a Thursday news conference following his failed nuclear summit with Kim were 'misinterpreted.'... Trump's new comments, however, do not directly address whether he believes Kim bears responsibility for the death of Warmbier, who died in 2017 shortly after being released from a 17-month stint in a Nort Korean prison." ...

     ... Mary March of the Hill: "CNN host Jake Tapper condemned President Trump's remarks Friday seeking to clean up his claims that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was unaware of the treatment of American college student Otto Warmbier. 'There's no misinterpretation here. It's very clear,' Tapper said of Trump's remarks. 'The Warmbiers say that Kim is responsible, along with North Korea, and President Trump says he takes Kim at his word that he wasn't.'" ...

... Jerry Dunleavy of the Washington Examiner: "President Trump's belief that North Korea leader Kim Jong Un was unaware of the torture of American hostage Otto Warmbier has been undermined by previously-unreported court testimony." Dunleavy recites the ruling (a $501MM judgment against North Korea for Otto Warmbier's torture & death) & certain testimony in a federal case indicating Kim would have directed Warmbier's treatment while holding him hostage to further its nuclear policy goals. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Examiner is a right-wing publication, but I'm going to assume its reporting is accurate here, especially because Dunleavy includes a copy of the transcript of an evidentiary hearing (which I didn't read). So Trump did not only show deep disrespect for the Warmbier family, he also undermined the finding of a federal court, a decision that was widely-reported. I know Nancy LeTourneau picked Matt Gaetz as dirtbag of the week, but really, that's an award Trump always wins.

Julie Brown of the Miami Herald: "A court hearing on whether to unseal sensitive documents involving the alleged sex trafficking of underage girls by Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein -- and the possible involvement of his influential friends -- will play out in a New York City courtroom next week. But ... an attorney for lawyer Alan Dershowitz wrote a letter to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday, asking whether the media should be excluded from the proceeding because his oral arguments on behalf of his client could contain sensitive information that has been under seal. The appeals court had not responded to his concern as of Friday, but if the hearing is closed during his lawyer's argument, it would represent the latest in a long history of successful efforts to keep details of Epstein's sex crimes sealed. Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard, constitutional law expert and criminal defense attorney, represented Epstein, who in 2008 received what many consider an unusually light sentence for sexually abusing dozens of girls at his Palm Beach mansion.... Last week, a federal judge ruled that [Alexander] Acosta, [then the U.S. attorney in Miami and] now ... Donald Trump's secretary of labor, violated the law because he and other prosecutors deliberately kept the deal secret from Epstein's victims...."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The Washington Post has issued a super-correction of its original January 19 story on an incident between high school students & a Native-American activist.

Kendra Pierre-Louis of the New York Times: "Fish populations are declining as oceans warm, putting a key source of food and income at risk for millions of people around the world, according to new research published Thursday. The study found that the amount of seafood that humans could sustainably harvest from a wide range of species shrank by 4.1 percent from 1930 to 2010, a casualty of human-caused climate change. 'That 4 percent decline sounds small, but it's 1.4 million metric tons of fish from 1930 to 2010,' said Chris Free, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Science."

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

On the W Post's "correction," (likely crafted with a little help from their lawyers, since I believe the Post has been sued for multi-millions):

Correction and my admission of strong bias aside, that kid still looked like a turd to me.

And wasn't he wearing a MARA (make American Racist Again) cap?

Like a little Kavanaugh-in-training.

[Mrs. Bea McCrabbie]

@Ken Winkes: Couldn't agree more. The MARA cap is in itself a taunt & an affront to anyone who is (a) not white or (b) is white but deeply offended by expressions of racism. And I think we know the difference between a smirk & a smile, even if a teenager pretends he doesn't.

[Bobby Lee]

If former governor, now senator, Rick Scott finds the Matt Gaetz affair "embarrassing", there's something to the charges.

[PD Pepe]

Chris Christi appears everywhere these days touting his new book but giving voice recently on the Cohen hearings. It's interesting to listen to him skirt the obvious–-that the man he once thought capable of being president is now being tarred and feathered. "Boy, was I wrong" has not come forth from his lips and this I find curious since what Trump did to Christi would surely elicit some negativity on his part. Could it be that Chris is, like other Republicans, protecting the GOP's stupidity?

According to Michael Lewis ("The Fith Risk) in August 2016 Trump was enraged to discover that the head of his transition team, Christi, had raised several million dollars to meet the campaign's legal obligations to start planning to take over the government after the presidential election. Trump yelled at Christi:

"You're stealing my money! You're stealing my fucking money! What is this? ...fuck the law. I don't give a fuck about the law! I want my fucking money."

He was finally dissuaded from shutting down the transition team only by Steve Bannon's argument that the media would take this as evidence that he had abandoned hopes of winning in November. But Trump had his revenge ( and this character trait we have seen in full flower many times):He fired Christi ( and the entire team almost immediately after the election effectively shredding all the work they had done to find suitable appointees) with some strong nudging from Jared who harbored ill will toward Christi for putting his father in jail.

The news about the declining fish population is just another red flag warning us of what we have in store. We here are seeing the beginnings of the disaster and will not be alive when the planet's inhabitants will suffer the effects of what is to come if we can't (or won't) drastically change our operations. The planet will survive; billions won't.

[Ken Winkes]

This just appeared in my inbox and while I don't know exactly how it followed my appreciation for forrest's "quaalude" funny, if I understood it correctly, I think I get it.

‘Crashdavid’ added The Commentariat — March 1, 2019:

Ken Winkes: that's monopoly capitalism. I agree with you 100% - 30 days a month. On the first of the next month my dividend check had better be in my account. And at the end of the quarter my capital, the little I have to live out the rest of my life, had better have increased. The half of me that I am ashamed of has done quite well under Trump -so far. The other half of me sleeps ok. At least we're still sleeping together.

@Crashdavid

Maybe the major difficulty communitarians face in our capitalist society is attempting to move that society in a direction other than the one we're all beholden to.

I've said for years that I use the capitalism part of my life (no small part) to support the socialist part, but that doesn't eliminate the basic contradiction in the way I live.

One discussion we've had is whether we ought to divest ourselves of all investments in socially or environmentally irresponsible businesses, just say the hell with them and cut ourselves off from them entirely, or whether we should use those tainted profits to support and advance those causes we believe in. For me, that's not always an easy question to answer.

And while I sleep well enough most nights, regardless of how well the markets were doing I did sleep better in the eight years before the Pretender.