Tuesday
Nov212017
The Commentariat -- November 22, 2017
Afternoon Update:
Trumpo Twitters While Airmen Die:
Anna Fifield of the Washington Post: "Eight people have been rescued and are in 'good condition' after a U.S. Navy cargo plane carrying 11 crew members and passengers crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Japan, the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said Wednesday. The search for the remaining three people is continuing. It was the latest accident to befall the 7th Fleet, which is based in the Japanese port of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, and has endured multiple collisions at sea this year, including two that involved guided-missile destroyers and left 17 sailors dead.... It crashed at 2:45 p.m. local time Wednesday, the 7th Fleet said in a statement." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That is, Trump would have been briefed about the crash this morning before he got back to picking on black people, something probably many racists eschew during the holiday season. ...
... Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump may be on vacation at his resort in Florida, but he was up early on Wednesday, railing against a college basketball player's father ... and the N.F.L. in a series of Twitter posts before 6 a.m. On the day before Thanksgiving, Mr. Trump apparently felt he was not getting enough credit for helping to free three U.C.L.A. basketball players who were detained in China after being accused of shoplifting designer sunglasses.... Mr. Trump tweeted and retweeted about a variety of topics early on Wednesday morning, but it was not until 8 a.m. that the president posted about the United States Navy aircraft that crashed outside of Okinawa, Japan...." If you'd care to know what-all Trump tweeted that was so much more important than this commander-in-chief job, Sullivan posts quite a few TrumpenTweets.
This is how it's going to work today. If you want to ask a question I think it's only fair since I've shared what I'm thankful for ... you start off with what you're thankful for. -- Sarah Sanders, at Monday's White House fake press briefing ...
... John Kirby of CNN: "At Monday's daily press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders encouraged reporters to first state things they were thankful for before asking their questions. Most of them obliged. They shouldn't have.... It's neither the time nor the place for kibbitzing or moralizing, and it's certainly not appropriate for a press secretary to lay down special rules for who gets to ask questions or how those questions need to be prefaced or proffered.... The whole cringe-worthy exercise made me embarrassed for the reporters and angry at Sanders and this White House for their arrogance and condescension.... I believe her little stunt is just part and parcel of a longer, larger effort by this administration to undermine the credibility and stature of a free press in this country." ...
... Also, Too, Sanders Started by Picking on a Black Person. Perfect! Masha Gessen of the New Yorker: "The President of the United States is a bully who makes a mockery of his office, democratic institutions, and the English language. So is his press secretary. On Monday, during the last briefing before the Thanksgiving holiday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders treated the White House press pool the way a sadistic teen-ager would treat a group of third graders. The journalists, for the most part, went along with it.... Her tone was menacing, the tone of a bully asking for a volunteer to be humiliated in front of the room. She called on April Ryan, of American Urban Radio Networks. Ryan was one of the few African-American reporters in the room...."
David Gelles of the New York Times has the silly idea of trying to apply logic to the Trump administration: "In a matter of hours this week, the Trump administration twice weighed in on one of the central issues shaping business and society today -- just how much market power big companies should be allowed to amass. Yet in back-to-back developments, two federal agencies arrived at starkly different conclusions, and one company, AT&T, found itself on opposite sides of the debate. On Monday, the Department of Justice sued to block AT&T's proposed $85.4 billion takeover of Time Warner, a deal that would unite one of the country's biggest internet providers with the company that owns CNN, HBO and the Warner Bros. film studio.... Then on Tuesday morning, the Federal Communications Commission announced plans to dismantle net neutrality rules. The move would let companies charge higher fees and block access to some websites, and was effectively a green light for big internet service providers -- including AT&T -- to freely wield their influence against rivals."
Dan Diamond of Politico: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she supports GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, the Alaska Republican wrote in an op-ed for a local newspaper Tuesday.... Murkowski's renewed support for repealing the mandate -- after repeatedly opposing her party's Obamacare repeal bills this year -- may be a boon for Senate Republicans' tax legislation, which includes mandate repeal and is expected to be taken up on the Senate floor next week. [BUT] A spokesperson for Murkowski told Politico that the comments should not be construed as support for the tax bill, which does not yet appear to have sufficient support to pass the chamber."
Cristiano Lima of Politico: "Kelley Paul called the assault on her husband Sen. Rand Paul 'a deliberate, blindside attack' on Wednesday, disputing a characterization by the alleged attacker's legal team that the altercation was 'regrettable dispute between two neighbors.' 'This was not a "scuffle," a "fight" or an "altercation," as many in the media falsely describe it. It was a deliberate, blindside attack,' Kelley Paul wrote in a an op-ed for CNN published Wednesday." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm tellin' ya, even tho Randy doesn't bag his leaves, we're going to find out he bagged the ex-Mrs. Boucher. And, yeah, I'm making this up, I have no reason more reliable than a hunch, & my apologies to all the victims of my random, crabby, totally unverified thoughts.
Marlise Simons, et al., of the New York Times: "With outbursts inside and outside the courtroom at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Gen. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the last major item of business for the tribunal in The Hague before it wound down, a full quarter-century after some of the crimes it prosecuted were committed."
*****
The president of the United States appeared to endorse an accused child molester to serve in the U.S. Senate. -- Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Tuesday night
Trump Backs Accused Serial Predator for Senate. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump defended Roy S. Moore, the Alabama Republican Senate candidate accused of sexual misconduct with minors.... Mr. Trump said that Alabama voters should not support Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate running against Mr. Moore in a special election next month.... Mr. Trump declined to say whether he would campaign for Mr. Moore." ...
... Bob Brigham of RawStory: "Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House as he left Washington, DC to go to his golf properties in Florida, President Trump was asked 'is an accused child molester better than a Democrat?' 'Well, he denies it,' Trump replied.... 'What is your message to women during this is pivotal moment in our nation's history?' a reporter asked. 'Women are very special,' Trump responded." --safari ...
... Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's near-endorsement of Alabama Republican Roy Moore followed days of behind-the-scenes talks in which he vented about Moore's accusers and expressed skepticism about their accounts. During animated conversations with senior Republicans and White House aides, the president said he doubted the stories presented by Moore's accusers and questioned why they were emerging now, just weeks before the election, according to two White House advisers and two other people familiar with the talks. The White House advisers said the president drew parallels between Moore's predicament and the one he faced just over a year ago when, during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Trump confronted a long line of women who accused him of harassment." ...
... Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "... Donald Trump's decision to embrace Roy Moore on Tuesday was rooted in several factors, but one of the biggest: the noise and confusion from a recent tidal wave of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations from Hollywood to media to politics. '(It) made it easier and easier to stick with Moore,' a Republican source close to the White House said." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Oh, there are parallels, all right. ...
... David Graham of the Atlantic: "Trump’s stance is remarkable on several levels. First, it contradicts the position the White House has espoused since the first allegations emerged two weeks ago. The administration has avoided assessing the claims, saying instead that if they are true, [Roy] Moore should step aside. But in his remarks on Tuesday, Trump both seemed to accept Moore's denials as fact -- he also noted that the claims were about events that were many years old -- and took the view that even if true, the weight of a Republican vote in the Senate overcame the import of the allegations.... Trump's charge that [Doug] Jones is weak on crime is doubly ironic. Jones is a former prosecutor who put Klansmen behind bars; his opponent not only was twice removed from the state bench for violating the U.S. Constitution, but in the matter stands accused of committing a crime himself.... It's hard to think of two easier stands to take in American politics than condemning Nazis and denouncing child sex-abuse, and yet Trump has flinched twice." ...
... Jonathan Chait explains the many reasons Trump's endorsement of Moore was "the Trumpiest decision ever." Mrs. McC: Chait forgot one element that is essential to every Trumpy decision: at least one big, baldfaced lie. Needless to say, Trump does not disappoint here. ...
... Eric Levitz: "Doug Jones is a career prosecutor, famous for his role in convicting Ku Klux Klan members and terrorists. Roy Moore is a theocratic demagogue, famous for nullifying court orders and (allegedly) sexually harassing and assaulting so many teenage girls, he got himself banned from the Gadsden Mall. On Tuesday, president Trump suggested that Alabamians should vote for Moore over Jones in the state's upcoming special Senate election -- because the alleged sexual predator's rival was 'soft on crime.' 'He's terrible on the border, he's terrible on the military,' Trump said of the Democratic Senate Tuesday. 'I can tell you, you don't need someone who's soft on crime like Jones.'... If the president believes that an alleged, serial sexual abuser of teenage girls (who wants to deport law-abiding undocumented immigrants) is 'tougher on crime' than a lifelong prosecutor (who has little interest in deporting law-abiding, undocumented immigrants) than what, do you suppose, he means by crime?" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a hint, Eric, & one that every American should understand: Trump believes that a person who prosecutes members of the Ku Klux Klan for murdering black children is soft on crime. The SOB who is POTUS* privileges the KKK & sex abusers (like himself) over black people, Muslims, immigrants of all stripes & the rule of law.
... David Edwards of RawStory: "White House counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway reportedly spoke with President Donald Trump about the Alabama Senate race before she suggested that voters should cast their ballots for Republican candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of sexually abusing girls as young as 14." -- safari: Kellyanne Conjob has four children less than 12 years old. Pedophile politics trump her "values". What a sad sack of soul, destined for history's scarlet letter.
Jeremy Diamond & Elizabeth Landers of CNN: "... Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for 'a little over an hour' Tuesday morning, discussing a range of pressing international concerns a day after Putin met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a White House official told CNN. The two leaders discussed the situation in Syria and terrorism more broadly, the official said, as well as the state of affairs in Afghanistan, Ukraine and North Korea. The White House was expected to release a full readout of the call later Tuesday." ...
... Liz Sly, et al., of the Washington Post: "Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a major new push Tuesday to end the war in Syria after an unannounced visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Russia that seemed to affirm his future role in any eventual settlement. The Russian initiative builds on an agreement reached with President Trump this month in which the United States effectively acknowledged Russia's lead role in Syrian diplomacy in return for Russian acceptance of a continued U.S. role in Syria now that the Islamic State is nearing defeat.... Putin then talked for more than an hour on the phone Tuesday with Trump, a conversation that focused mostly on Syria, according to readouts ... from both the Kremlin and the White House. Putin told Trump he had secured a commitment from Assad to cooperate with the Russian initiative, including constitutional reforms and presidential and parliamentary elections, the Kremlin said." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, those elections are going to be free, fair & unfettered. ...
... Henry Meyer & Stepan Kravchenko of Bloomberg: "Putin has taken a dominant role in efforts to end the conflict after a two-year Russian military campaign helped Assad to fight off opponents, including some backed by the U.S. With Islamic State nearly defeated in Syria, the Kremlin is moving on to bring together regional and global powers to revive long-stalled efforts to reach a settlement expected to cement the Syrian president in power. [In the phone conversation between Putin & Trump Tuesday,] Trump did not bring up the issue of political transition, an administration official said.... Nor did Trump bring up Russia's veto last week of a Security Council resolution that would have extended the investigation into who used chemical weapons in Syria, the official said.... The Russian leader's triumphant tone [in his Moscow meeting with Assad] underscores his success in turning the tables on the U.S., which under Barack Obama pressed for Assad's removal and came close in 2013 to ordering strikes on Syria in retaliation for a chemical attack blamed on the regime." ...
... Reuters: "Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad late on Monday for three hours of talks to lay the groundwork for a new push by Moscow to end Syria's conflict now that Islamic State's territorial caliphate is overrun. Russia is actively trying to broker an international consensus around a peace deal for Syria, over two years after Moscow began a military intervention that turned the tide of the conflict in Assad's favor." ...
... Putin Sidelines Trump, the Useful Idiot. Michael Crowleyof Politico: "Six months after ... Donald Trump ordered an airstrike against a Syrian government airbase, an act his aides said would give the U.S. renewed leverage across the Middle East, he is increasingly a bystander as Russian President Vladimir Putin takes the lead in shaping postwar Syria. On Wednesday, Putin will host the presidents of Iran and Turkey in the resort city of Sochi -- one of several Russian-brokered meetings the U.S. will not attend as the Syrian conflict winds down.... Trump may not care: He has said privately that he considers Syria to be [President] Obama's failure and that he sees little the U.S. can do about it now, according to a person briefed on one of his conversations. That view was reflected in Trump's decision earlier this year to cancel a covert CIA program that armed moderate Syrian rebels fighting [Syrian president Bashar] Assad's regime. But Trump has at least one major unmet goal in Syria: rolling back the influence of Iran, which partnered with Russia to defend Assad." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Despite the U.S.'s long but erratic support for Syrian rebels, Trump is overseeing a U.S. loss in an armed, political, diplomatic & economic conflict. Trump -- and Western democracies -- have lost not so much to Assad, but to Putin, who is busy cementing Russia's role in the Middle East. The U.S. media have been surprisingly muted about the loss of a civil & regional war in which some 400,000 people have been killed.
Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "... it wasn't long ago when Trump handed [Jared] Kushner a comically broad portfolio that included plans to reinvent government, reform the V.A., end the opioid epidemic, run point on China, and solve Middle East peace. But ... according to sources, [Chief-of-Staff John] Kelly has tried to shrink Kushner's responsibilities to focus primarily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And even that brief appears to be creating tensions between Kushner and Kelly. According to two people close to the White House, Kelly was said to be displeased with the result of Kushner's trip to Saudi Arabia last month because it took place just days before 32-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrested 11 Saudi royals, including billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The Washington Post reported that Kushner and M.B.S., as the prince is known, stayed up till nearly 4 a.m. 'planning strategy,' which left Kelly to deal with the impression that the administration had advance knowledge of the purge and even helped orchestrate it, sources told me."
Jason Szep & Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: "A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters. A confidential State Department 'dissent' memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.... Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China's influence in Southeast Asia." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Gary Cohn wants to save morons from the estate tax. Spirit of the season, Gary; you're a great guy. New York Times Editors reprise some of the lies & fake rationales Republicans are pushing to eliminate the estate tax on the top 0.02 percent of Americans. Mrs. McC: BTW, the No. 1 moron Cohn is sparing is his boss (and needy little heirs). (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "Federal agents are planning to conduct a major worksite enforcement operation at a national food service chain in the coming weeks, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) document reviewed by The Daily Beast. The current plan is focused on employers who exploit undocumented workers by illegally paying them below the minimum wage. The operation will target locations around the country and will likely result in charges of 'harboring illegal aliens,' according to an ICE official." --safari
David Dayen in The Intercept: "As soon as Richard Cordray, the current director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, officially resigns -- which could happen as soon as this week -- we are told President Donald Trump will choose Mick Mulvaney, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, to run the CFPB on a temporary basis.... It would be a GOP dream come true. Mulvaney ... once called CFPB a 'sad, sick joke.'... There's only one problem: it's not Trump's pick to make.... In the event of the absence of a director for the agency, the deputy director serves that role.... [I]t doesn't require Senate confirmation. This would mean David Silberman..., a former AFL-CIO deputy general counsel and a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall who has worked at the CFPB since 2011." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I gather it works like this: The director names a deputy director who takes over & names a deputy director, & so on. However, as Dayen points out, there is no deputy director now; Silberman is an acting deputy director. In any event, Dayen also foresees "a titanic legal battle" between the White House & the agency over the naming of a new director.
Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "The Federal Communications Commission announced on Tuesday that it planned to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet, clearing the way for companies to charge more and block access to some websites. The proposal, put forward by the F.C.C. chairman, Ajit Pai, is a sweeping repeal of rules put in place by the Obama administration. The rules prohibited high-speed internet service providers from blocking or slowing down the delivery of websites, or charging extra fees for the best quality of streaming and other internet services for their subscribers. Those limits are central to the concept called net neutrality. The action immediately reignited a loud and furious fight over free speech and the control of the internet, pitting telecom giants like AT&T against internet giants like Google and Amazon, who warn against powerful telecom gatekeepers." ...
... Margaret McGill of Politico: "The Obama administration's net neutrality rules met their all-but-certain demise Tuesday as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai outlined a plan to repeal them -- while making sure states can't impose their own regulations to fill the void.... Blocking states from acting unilaterally would help cement that victory in a policy dispute that has whipsawed for years as the White House changed hands and courts took up the issue.... Proponents of the current rules question whether the FCC has the authority to block states from issuing their own rules, especially when the agency is paring back its oversight over internet service providers in the order." ...
... Adi Robertson of the Verge: "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman revealed today that his office has been investigating a flood of spam FCC comments that impersonated real people.... In an open letter addressing FCC chairman Ajit Pai, Schneiderman writes that his office has spent six months investigating who submitted hundreds of thousands of identical anti-net neutrality comments under the names and addresses of unwitting Americans. But he says that the FCC has ignored multiple requests for logs and records, offering 'no substantive response.'... Public comments played a huge role in helping pass strong net neutrality rules in 2015, but this time around, the process was a mess. Many comments were made under assumed names or disposable email addresses, and the system briefly crashed in early May, when the FCC claimed it had been hit with a denial-of-service attack." ...
... David Coldewey of TechCrunch: "For someone who claims to be working for the American people, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai sure doesn't seem to care what they have to say. In his announcement today that the Commission would vote whether to roll back net neutrality rules on December 15, he made no mention of the inconvenient and embarrassing fact that his proposal had attracted historic attention, garnering over 22 million comments -- the majority of which opposed it. The statement mentions benefiting or protecting consumers five times.... Yet those very same consumers wrote the Chairman by the millions to say that they felt the existing rules protect them very well and that to remove them would be detrimental to their safety and privacy."
** Mark Stern of Slate: "Another federal judge has concluded that ... Donald Trump's ban on transgender military service is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis, a George H.W. Bush appointee, blocked the entirety of Trump's order on Tuesday in a trenchant opinion that pilloried the president for his 'capricious' attempt to 'degrade' American service members on account of their gender identity. LGBTQ advocates could not have hoped for a better decision.... Garbis recognized judicial deference is typically 'owed to military personnel decisions.' But he declined to apply that deference here in light of the fact that the president tweeted the ban with no 'policy review' or 'evidence demonstrating' that it 'was necessary for any legitimate national interest.' Instead, Garbis agreed with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who blocked the ban in October, that 'the decision to exclude transgender individuals was not driven by genuine concerns regarding military efficacy.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: You mean instantaneous "governance" by tweet is unacceptable? This could be the most important takeaway from Garbis's decision: that a president cannot instantly turn his politically-motivated whims into federal policy. For a president who is too impulsive to wait for "process," Garbis's smackdown must be infuriating.
Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Three military personnel have been reassigned from their White House jobs amid allegations that they had improper contact with foreign women while traveling with President Trump on his recent trip to Asia, according to officials familiar with the situation. The service members worked for the White House Communications Agency, a specialized military unit that helps provide the president, vice president, Secret Service and other officials with secure communications. The military is scrutinizing three Army noncommissioned officers who allegedly broke curfew during Trump's trip to Vietnam this month, officials said."
Today in Sexual Harassment News:
Yamiche Alcindor, et al., of the New York Times: "... Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, moved swiftly on Tuesday against the House's longest serving lawmaker, calling for the House Ethics Committee to investigate sexual harassment charges against Representative John Conyers Jr., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. Mr. Conyers, 88, who has represented parts of the Detroit area in the House since 1965, confirmed the settlement of a wrongful termination complaint in 2015 from a staff member who had accused him of sexual harassment. But he denied that the staff member was fired for refusing to have sex with him. The settlement was first reported by Buzzfeed News on Monday. Ms. Pelosi and senior Democrats on the Judiciary Committee offered little support, and the Ethics Committee said it had indeed opened an investigation." ...
... Paul McLeod & Lissandra Villa of BuzzFeed: "Another former staff member to Michigan Rep. John Conyers alleged that she endured persistent sexual harassment by the congressman, according to court documents. A former scheduler in the Conyers' office attempted to file a sealed lawsuit against him this February in the US District Court for the District of Columbia that alleges she suffered unwanted touching by the Democrat 'repeatedly and daily.' She abandoned the lawsuit the next month, after the court denied her motion to seal the complaint. The woman was not involved in the 2015 sexual harassment and wrongful dismissal complaint that Conyers settled in 2015, which was revealed Monday by BuzzFeed News, and is now under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. The lawsuit centered on behavior that took place later, from 2015 to 2016, but involves similar allegations." ...
... Say What? AP: "Longtime Michigan Rep. John Conyers on Tuesday denied settling a complaint in 2015 from a woman who alleged she was fired from his Washington staff because she rejected his sexual advances.... Conyers, who answered the door at his Detroit home, told The Associated Press that he knows nothing about any claims of inappropriate touching and learned of the story from television just hours earlier. 'I have been looking at these things in amazement,' he said, referring to allegations of sexual harassment and assault being made against politicians and others." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Um, this won't be the end of the story. BTW, Conyers didn't deny the allegations; he denied knowledge that anyone had made a claim. ...
... Editors of the Detroit Free Press call for Conyer's resignation. ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "Journalism can make for strange bedfellows. Case in point: BuzzFeed and Mike Cernovich. Cernovich -- a controversial far-right figure who has promoted blatantly false conspiracy theories, such as the discredited 'Pizzagate' hoax -- was the source of a big BuzzFeed scoop Monday night.... The agreement between Cernovich and BuzzFeed appears to have come with a hidden facet: Cernovich acquired the congressional documents after offering to pay $10,000 for them.... Cernovich declined Tuesday to say whether he actually paid anyone.... BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith said Tuesday he was not aware of the offer. A BuzzFeed spokesman said the site 'would never pay for information.'..."
Christie D'Zurilla of the Los Angeles Times: "Saying they 'feel compelled to stand up for Al Franken,' 36 women affiliated with 'Saturday Night Live' during the now-senator's 20 years on the show have signed a letter countering sexual harassment allegations recently leveled against the Minnesota Democrat. Signatories included original 'SNL' cast members Laraine Newman and Jane Curtin, along with 34 women who worked on the show behind the scenes between 1975 and the present. Franken was a writer and performer on the NBC sketch comedy show primarily from 1975 to 1995. 'What Al did was stupid and foolish, and we think it was appropriate for him to apologize...,' the letter said. However, it continued, 'after years of working with him, we would like to acknowledge that not one of us ever experienced any inappropriate behavior; and mention our sincere appreciation that he treated each one of us with the utmost respect and regard.'" ..
... Mrs. McCrabbie: At this point, it appears that the horrific allegations against John Conyers may help Franken keep his seat. So far, when compared with Conyers' apparent pattern of harassment & abuse, the stories about Franken are beginning to look more like really bad manners.
Senate Race
Brad Reed of RawStory: "A retired Alabama police officer told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday that she had to keep an eye on Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore in the 1980s at local high school football games because he would regularly harass the team's teenage cheerleaders. Faye Gary, who for 37 years was an officer at the Gadsden Police Department, explained to Mitchell that Moore's reputation for pursuing underage girls was widely known throughout the community." --safari
Patrick Coolican & Jennifer Bjorhus of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "A pair of Minnesota state lawmakers -- one a DFL senator, the other a Republican representative -- announced Tuesday that they will resign from office in the wake of sexual harassment allegations. Word of the resignations of Sen. Dan Schoen and Rep. Tony Cornish came within two hours of each other, capping a stunning sequence of events that vividly demonstrated a new awareness of what many insiders say has been a long-standing tolerance of mistreatment of women working at Minnesota's Capitol. Both men had been under pressure from leaders of their parties to resign. But in leaving, the two legislators, both with law enforcement backgrounds, struck sharply different tones. Cornish, an eight-term representative from southern Minnesota's Vernon Center, issued an apologetic statement and agreed to pay the legal bills of Sarah Walker, a lobbyist he had repeatedly propositioned for sex.... Schoen continued to deny wrongdoing. The St. Paul Park resident served two House terms starting in 2013 and joined the Senate at the beginning of this year. His lawyer, Paul Rogosheske, said Schoen felt he had little choice but to resign, adding that they plan to release information Wednesday that would demonstrate Schoen's innocence."
So Long, Charlie. John Koblin & Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "CBS fired Charlie Rose on Tuesday, a day after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. Not long afterward, PBS canceled distribution of his self-titled nightly interview program. David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, told staff members in an internal email that Mr. Rose, a host of 'CBS This Morning' and a '60 Minutes' correspondent, had been let go after allegations were raised 'of extremely disturbing and intolerable behavior said to have revolved around his PBS program.' PBS, which had been the longtime home of 'Charlie Rose,' released a statement 70 minutes after CBS cut ties with the host. 'In light of yesterday's revelations, PBS has terminated its relationship with Charlie Rose and canceled distribution of his programs,' the nonprofit broadcaster said in its statement. 'PBS expects all the producers we work with to provide a workplace where people feel safe and are treated with dignity and respect.'" ...
... Daily Beast: "Three CBS News employees have come forward accusing Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct."
Brooks Barnes of the New York Times: "One of the Walt Disney Company's most important executives, the Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, said Tuesday that he would take 'a six-month sabbatical' after unspecified 'missteps' that made some staffers feel 'disrespected or uncomfortable.' Mr. Lasseter, 60, made the announcement in a lengthy email sent to employees at Disney's animation division, which he leads as chief creative officer.... Shortly after Mr. Lasseter's announcement, The Hollywood Reporter published
Natasha Lennard of The Intercept: "A national conversation about structurally enabled sexual violence in this country needs to address prisons and detention centers. According to a 2012 Justice Department report, an estimated 200,000-plus people are sexually abused in U.S. detention centers every year...." --safari Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "After discovering that Richard Spencer and his National Policy Institute were hosting an event at their farm venue over the weekend, the owners of Rocklands Farm in Poolesville, Maryland kicked the white nationalists out in the middle of their booking." --safari Juan Cole: "China will have installed 54 gigawatts of new solar energy by the end of 2017, instead of the 15 gigawatts forecast last January or the 30 gigawatts forecast as late as last June. As of last June, the US installed solar capacity was only 47 gigawatts, accounting for less than 2% of American electricity generation. That is, China is putting in more solar energy in 2017 than has ever been installed in the whole history of the United States.... Not only is the sheer amount of solar power generation increasing at blinding speed but the cost is plummeting in unrigged markets, as well. Mexico just accepted bids of 1.77 cents per kilowatt hour.... In most states in the US it would now cost you 8 cents to 22 cents, if the electricity were generated by coal and natural gas." --safari Jessica Brown of the Guardian: "[T]he battle against sugar might have begun sooner if the industry hadn't kept secrets to protect its commercial interests.... In 1967, when scientists were arguing over the link between sugar consumption and increased risk of heart disease, researchers now claim that the International Sugar Research Foundation (ISRF) withheld findings that rats that were fed a high-sugar diet had higher levels of triglycerides (a fat found in the blood) than those fed starch.... The researchers conclude that the debates we now have on sugar's effects on our health are potentially rooted in six decades of the sugar industry's manipulation of scientific evidence." --safari Beyond the Beltway Frances Robles of the New York Times: "With less than half the power on Puerto Rico restored two months after a deadly hurricane hit the island, the company hired to help bring back the electricity is 'standing down,' it said, because it is owed tens of millions of dollars for weeks of work. Whitefish Energy Holdings had already been fired last month by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority after widespread criticism and multiple investigations of a $300 million contract it received to help repair the island's power grid. Even with the cancellation of the contentious contract, the company and its 500 workers were supposed to stay on the job until the end of the month. Puerto Rico's bankrupt electric company, known as Prepa, is behind in its payments and Whitefish cannot continue fronting the cash needed to hire subcontracted workers, Whitefish said. Dozens of line workers from Florida have already begun heading home, because the utilities they work for are nervous about payment, the company said in a letter to Prepa. It added that it hoped to resume work once the payment issue was resolved." Tom Boggioni of RawStory: "Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) has chosen an official charged with obstruction of justice in the Flint water crisis to head up the state's Public Health Advisory Council. According to WUOM-FM, Snyder selected Michigan's chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Well[s], to head up the agency tasked with anticipating and preparing and responding to public health crises. Wells was expected to appear in court on Tuesday on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to an officer in connection to the Flint water crisis, with threat of manslaughter charges looming due to the deaths of Flint residents according to prosecutors.... Snyder's office defended the controversial appointment, issuing a statement reading, 'Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.'"--safari WWJGrab? Tom Boggioni of RawStory: "An LDS church in Berkeley County, West Virginia has been hit with a massive lawsuit for knowingly allowing a pedophile to serve as a youth leader despite accusations of child molestation dating back to 2007. According to Fox13, Michael Jensen was sentenced to 35 to 75 years in prison in 2013 for first-degree sexual assault, after he was convicted of abusing minors, including one as young a[s] 4-years-old. Now twelve plaintiffs -- identified in court documents as 'John and Jane Doe' — are suing the church and church officials, including Jensen’s parent, after it was revealed they allowed the man to oversee children despite knowing about complaints." --safari Way Beyond Norimitsu Onishi & Jeffrey Moyo of the New York Times: "Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, resigned as president on Tuesday shortly after lawmakers began impeachment proceedings against him, according to the speaker of Parliament. The speaker of Parliament read out a letter in which Mr. Mugabe said he was stepping down 'with immediate effect' for 'the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and the need for a peaceful transfer of power.'" (Also linked yesterday.) Shaun Walker & Hannah Devlin of the Guardian: "A secretive Russian nuclear facility has denied it was behind high atmospheric concentrations of the radioactive isotope ruthenium-106, after Russia's meteorological service confirmed levels several hundred times the norm were found in several locations in the country during tests in late September.... Russia’s nuclear agency had denied European reports of increased ruthenium-106 levels.... Nuclear experts also said there was no evidence to suggest the leak posed a significant hazard to human health or the environment." --safari News Lede New York Times: "David Cassidy, the actor, singer and teen heartthrob best known for his role as the band member with the green eyes and the feathered haircut on the 1970s television sitcom 'The Partridge Family,' died on Tuesday. He was 67. His death was confirmed by his publicist, Jo-Ann Geffen, who said the cause was liver failure."
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Eric Newcomer of Bloomberg: "Hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber Technologies Inc., a massive breach that the company concealed for more than a year. This week, the ride-hailing firm ousted its chief security officer and one of his deputies for their roles in keeping the hack under wraps, which included a $100,000 payment to the attackers. Compromised data from the October 2016 attack included names, email addresses and phone numbers of 50 million Uber riders around the world, the company told Bloomberg on Tuesday. The personal information of about 7 million drivers was accessed as well, including some 600,000 U.S. driver's license numbers. No Social Security numbers, credit card information, trip location details or other data were taken, Uber said."
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"Trump pardons turkey....." (Reuters) an annual header that seems somehow to have a wholly different flavor this year, awkwardly buffoonish as always, with just a wisp of Flynn.
Imagine in his craven heart the Pretender wishes he could have used the occasion to pardon them all.
So here’s how it stands the day before Thanksgiving, TrumpDate 1:
Americans now with healthcare are having it taken away so the money saved can help Confederares give it to Trump and gigantic corporations.
Consumer protection is now a quaint idea of the past. Consumers are not to be protected, they’re to be pickpocketed.
The Trump Secretary of State is all for children being dragooned into armies resembling the bridge of a pirate ship and forced to kill people, probably other children. Which shouldn’t be a surprise because the leader of the Party of Family Values supports a child molester to become one of only 100 senators..
One of the most successful prosecutors in recent memory is soft on crime because he prosecuted white supremacists. 60,000 people are Trump targeted for forced deportation even though many of them (children and babies) are US citizens, because black.
The Trump FCC is taking the keys to the internet and handing them to giant corporations. You want to go online? You’ll soon have to pay more. A lot more.
Trump and the Confederates are raising taxes on tens of millions and giving huge breaks to the one percent, because big donors have ordered them to do so. Trump insists the billion or so he stands to gain is in fact going to really, really hurt him.
US standing in the world plummets by the hour. Trump has ensured, in just a slight change from US policy for the last 75 years, that the big winners are China and Russia.
And in preparation for a stream of upcoming similar actions, in light of an investigation into massive fraud, collusion with a foreign government, election tampering, and treason, Trump pardons a turkey. It made him feel good.
So it’s off to Marred a Lago to chow down on an unpardoned turkey, or the American people (same thing), but first Putin spends an hour on the phone with his American puppet.
And look, if you squint, you hardly notice the strings.
Happy Turkey Day, America. This time next year you’ll be run by corporations, foreign potentates, and child molesters. Are you tired of winning yet?
Trump didn't "discuss with Putin" for an hour. Trump is a fucking moron. He couldn't talked coherently about Syria for 5 minutes, let alone an hour. He spent an hour, sitting in the White House, taking marching orders from Comrade Putin. He's capitulating U.S. foreign policy to our avowed enemy, hook line and sinker. All so his puppetmaster doesn't leak the dirt on him, and hopefully keeps his promise of Trump Tower Moscow when he finally decides to stop terrorizing the nation that created him.
We are going to save a lot of money in the justice system now that if you 'totally deny' your innocent.
Safari,
Putin must wake up every morning, look in the mirror and laugh out loud at his luck. He figured he'd screw with the American election, throw a few monkey wrenches into the works and see what happened, pretty much what he'd been doing to other countries. When lo and behold, his puppet won!
Now add in whatever he has over little Donnie, plus the fact that Trump is an idiot and will mostly do whatever he's told, and believe the most specious bullshit Putin feeds him, and suddenly, Russia is back in the high life again, a big time player, telling the US where to get off, something no leader at the peak of Soviet power had ever been able to do. Not Khrushchev, not Brezhnev, not even Stalin.
It's amazing. Putin hacks the DNC and Trump says "Go for it!". He works with Wikileaks and his hacker brigade to release thousands of Clinton emails, Trump chortles and yells "More, please!" He screws with American voters and has his hackers backdoor voting systems in multiple states. American intelligence agencies all agree (something very unusual) that Russia did this. Trump says "My pal Vlad would never do that. Fake news!" And let's not even get into his incredible luck at realizing that the entire Trump team was made up of gullible twits, egotistical fools, and greedy pricks, the holy trinity of any spy master's requirements for turning and managing assets.
It's been a gala time for old Vlad. Instead of watching where he steps so that he doesn't plunge knee deep into some shit pile left there for him by the United States to hamper his worst instincts, now he's got the American president asking him if he thought the right shoe was shiny enough so he can start spit polishing the left.
The Idiot Remains Useful
Concerning the Russification of the Syrian landscape (and looking ahead to a post-civil war Russo-Syrian mowing down of any future movement toward real democracy), the little king pacifies himself (most infants know how to self-soothe) as he stands helpless on the sidelines by repeating to himself "It's Obama's fault. It's Obama's fault. It's Obama's fault..."
The truth is that Trump doesn't have the first clue about such complicated international chess matches, especially in a region like greater Syria, embroiled in internal and external conflicts. Expecting his participation in any constructive way is a non-starter, especially given the experience of the other players. It's a little like holding a contest between Julia Child and a halfwit who can't boil water, to create the best pâté en croûte.
He's content to stand there with his tiny hands in his pockets and stare, open-mouthed, watching the action pass him by, like Zippy the Pinhead mesmerized by the spin cycle at the laundromat.
I suppose he's still useful to some, however.
Russia, China, Syria, murderous dictators, child molesters, corporate oligarchs...
Just heard part of this episode on Fresh Air, an interview with Guardian reporter Luke Harding about his new book Collusion.
Terry Gross starts "...'Collusion' is about what the author, my guest Luke Harding, says appears to be an emerging pattern of collusion between Russia, Donald Trump and his campaign. Harding also writes about how Russia appears to have started cultivating Trump back in 1987. The book is based on original reporting as well as on the Trump-Russia dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Harding met with Steele twice, once before and once after the dossier became public. Harding had a lot of good contacts to draw on for this book because he spent four years as the Moscow bureau chief for the British newspaper The Guardian. During that time, the Kremlin didn't like some of the stories Harding was investigating, and in 2011, he was expelled. In Moscow, he learned a lot about Russian espionage partly through his own experience of being spied on and harassed..."
And "... the sort of constellation of Russian connections circling around planet Trump is just quite extraordinary..."
Read on or listen to here.
Ve-e-e-ry in-te-re-stink.
Unwashed,
I heard that interview yesterday. Harding makes no bones about the case for collusion. The evidence is massive. But a smoking gun will still be required to make anything stick to the little king. Even then, Fox will call it all fake news and his drones will slaver the "fake news" mantra to anyone who will listen.
I found Harding's report that everyone he has spoken to who is familiar with Steele's work, finds him to be serious, professional, and not prone to inventing things, to be hopeful. This is all well and good, and makes me feel that perhaps there's more to that dossier than we've been led to believe, but it's still not proof. If you were going after a state senator, it would be enough for his or her ouster, but a president? That requires a different level of demonstration of guilt.
Mueller will likely catch some small fish and even a Jared, and a Flynn or two, but Trumpy has been unusually lucky so far and may remain so. He will never admit to anything.
The best we can hope for, I think, is that the investigation uncovers some details the Trumpies would much rather remain buried, that Trump's many arcane and undercover deals are dragged out into the bright light and that his ability to fuck with the country any more than he already has might be somewhat curtailed, or at least contained. One other happy byproduct could be the partial evisceration of the Confederates in the mid-terms. That would be worth at least a full year's worth of hateful, rancid tweets from the little king.
I don't doubt for a second that Trump colluded with the Russians. I'm sure he doesn't look at it as collusion, more like his pal Vlad helping a buddy. Proving it, however, will be tough.
I hate to state the obvious, and for fear of being a bit morbid, the only real way of getting Trump to stop self-destructing our nation is going to be when he croaks. Unless he miraculously lands in jail with no access to Twitter, even voting his fat ass out of the White House will never calm his Twitter wars. No one actually believes he would respect presidential norms and fade slowly back into public life as a citizen. He'll stir our nation's demons until the last french fry finally clogs his bloated body.
It's not hard to understand the Pretender. There's not all that much to understand in an "it's all about me" personality, a messed up man so irretrievably damaged he's easy to dismiss.
But others? The thousands who still support him and his anti-Obama agenda, especially those who call themselves Christian and say they will be pleased to vote for Roy Moore? One has to ask (another line from another movie) who are these people?
That I'm still thinking about and each time out I come back to the inherent blindness of the true believer, a personality type evident in and allied with all single-issue voters.
If abortion is your thing, or gun rights, or race, or coal mining jobs or trade agreements; if you worship at the temple of Ayn Rand; if, whatever belief you hold most dear, you are so convinced that you and you alone are right that evidence to the contrary or counter opinions both leave the purity of your intentions untouched; then you live in psychological straitjacket but think you're free because the straitjacket is of you own devise.
You go through life looking down, never up, your horizons limited to your next step along the single-issue path you have chosen to walk. What lies ahead? Are there consequences to your actions? Both irrelevant because you are sustained by the knowledge that you have chosen the right path to the exclusion of all the misguided others.
Will the leader you have chosen because he pretends to support your single issue causes havoc in your world; when your taxes rise, when the promised jobs don't come back, when you lose your health insurance, when all those black and brown people haven't gone away: will you finally see the light?
Not likely...because you are blinded by your beliefs, and the only thing you can do is to take the next step along the path that has by now become a rut with walls so high you can't see over them and maybe the next time around support someone who makes even wilder promises that he or she can't possibly fulfill unless you hand all the power the people used to share to him or her alone.
Only then can the Supreme Leader make your dreams come true.
So what am I thankful for this morning?
The odds of that last scene being small.
That said, fingers crossed, a genuine Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Ken,
Because I just can't take anymore Trump idiocy (at least today), I thought I'd see if I hit the jackpot with your question from that other movie.
I'm guessing it's this one.
And now the good news and the bad news. The main characters did manage to escape "those guys" but they had to jump off a cliff in order to do it.
We should be so lucky.
To quote Sundance, "Ohhhhhh....shhhiiiiiiiittttttttt"
I see the NYTimes has a piece on the mixed messages the administration is delivering by going after the Times-Warner and AT&T merger on the one hand and stripping the net of neutrality on the other.
In the article's language, " Instead, the diverging decisions reflect an effort by different agencies trying to come to grips with a radically transformed media and telecommunications landscape, one where Silicon Valley companies are suddenly powerhouses in content creation, and traditional media companies exert vast influence over how information flows across the internet."
Bushwah! As I mentioned earlier, the Pretender is not hard to understand. Nor is his administration. The Pretender has his small hands all over both decisions. He doesn't like CNN but he does like unbridled corporate profit and the money and power that flows to him when he supports it.
NPD explains everything about Trumpland. No complicated intellection necessary; no reason to look farther afield to make sense of it all.
Just think of those small hands.
" ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm tellin' ya, even tho Randy doesn't bag his leaves, we're going to find out he bagged the ex-Mrs. Boucher. And, yeah, I'm making this up, I have no reason more reliable than a hunch, & my apologies to all the victims of my random, crabby, totally unverified thoughts."
That's exactly what my mister said and I said, "really? you think Paul got randy with the missus next door?" My mister looked at me and smiled–-then said, "You rarely cold cock someone for leaf problems–-the assault was full of fury–-I'd bet on some other reasons than grass border disputes."
The Huckleberry gal's last presser before diving into turkey and dressing. Did she get up yesterday morning and think–-now what can I do to divert actual questions that I can't answer. Oh, wait, she probably said while brushing her teeth and spitting into the sink––I'll ask everyone to say what they are thankful for–-golly, gee, I am one smart cookie––they'll be eating right out of my hand. And they bought it! Ain't nothin like a lot of love floating around a presser. Jesus was there and he just grinned from ear to ear.
@PD, that must be making Randy Paul one of those evangenital christians. WWJD?