Sunday
Sep022018
The Commentariat -- September 3, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Catherine Lucey of the AP: "... Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday, suggesting the Department of Justice put Republicans in midterm jeopardy with recent indictments of two GOP congressmen. In his latest broadside against the Justice Department's traditional independence, Trump tweeted that 'Obama era investigations, of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department.' He added: 'Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......' The first two Republicans to endorse Trump in the Republican presidential primaries were indicted on separate charges last month: Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on charges that included spending campaign funds for personal expenses and Rep. Chris Collins of New York on insider trading. Both have proclaimed their innocence. Another blow in Trump's long-running feud with Sessions, the president's complaint fits with his pattern of viewing the Department of Justice less as a law enforcement agency and more as a department that is supposed to do his political bidding."
Trump Is Killing His Own Voters (and They Don't Live on Fifth Avenue). Ellen Knickmeyer & John Raby of the AP: "... Donald Trump picked [West Virginia] to announce his plan rolling back Obama-era pollution controls on coal-fired power plants. Trump left one thing out of his remarks, though: northern West Virginia coal country will be ground zero for increased deaths and illnesses from the rollback on regulation of harmful emission from the nation's coal power plants. An analysis done by his own Environmental Protection Agency concludes that the plan would lead to a greater number of people here dying prematurely, and suffering health problems that they otherwise would not have, than elsewhere in the country, when compared to health impacts of the Obama plan.... Nationally, the EPA says, 350 to 1,500 more people would die each year under Trump's plan. But it's the northern two-thirds of West Virginia and the neighboring part of Pennsylvania that would be hit hardest, by far, according to Trump's EPA."
POtuS Trashes Labor Leader on Labor Day. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "President Trump criticized the leader of the nation's largest union federation on Monday, escalating the feud between the administration and organized labor amid crucial negotiations for both sides over the North American Free Trade Agreement. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, had on Sunday disputed the White House's strategy for renegotiating the NAFTA trade pact and argued that Trump had 'done more to hurt workers than to help' them since taking office. Those comments elicited a sharp counterattack from Trump, who blasted Trumka as an ineffectual leader just as union members across the country prepared for Labor Day celebrations. 'Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, represented his union poorly on television this weekend,' Trump said in a tweet. 'Some of the things he said were so again[s]t the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself, that it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly.'" ...
... Justin Wise of the Hill: "'Happy Labor Day!' Trump tweeted [this morning]. 'Our country is doing better than ever before with unemployment setting record lows. The U.S. has tremendous upside potential as we go about fixing some of the worst Trade Deals ever made by any country in the world. Big progress being made!" he added." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: But we're so poor we can't afford to give federal workers a measly COL increase because of, um, a "national emergency or serious economic conditions." (See Vox report, linked below.)
Post-truth Trump/Putin convergence --safari
*****
** Steven Greenhouse in a New York Times op-ed: "Donald Trump promotes himself as a friend of 'forgotten' workers, but in ways large and small his administration has undermined what has traditionally been the biggest champion of workers: labor unions." Greenhouse counts a few of the ways. Thanks to PD Pepe for the link.
Emily Stewart of Vox: "Just ahead of Labor Day weekend..., Donald Trump announced he would freeze the salaries of some 2 million federal workers next year. After outcry, Trump said he'd use the long weekend to 'study' the matter. Thus far, he's spent much of the long weekend on the golf course and rage tweeting about Canada, the Department of Justice, the Russia investigation, his approval ratings, and Tiger Woods.... Trump in remarks in Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday seemed aware of the backlash.... 'People don't want to give them an increase. They haven't had one in a long time,' he said. 'I said, "I'm going to study that over the weekend. It's a good time to study it -- Labor Day."'... Trump's decision to freeze pay, especially when you look at his explanation that it's tied to 'national emergency or serious economic conditions' compared to his usual rhetoric celebrating the strength of the US economy, doesn't seem to add up.... New government data this week showed the economy grew by 4.2 percent in the second quarter -- something Trump's bragged about a lot. Republicans just passed a huge tax cut, insisting that it would translate to an economic boom. The administration said the tax bill would deliver an average $4,000 pay boost to American household annually. It hasn't yet materialized for workers.... If Trump does reverse course, it will be to address an immediate problem of his own making.” Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, his "study" is a political expediency. Even white nationalist Senate candidate Corey Stewart (R-Va.) "trusts" Trump will fix "Obama'" pay freezes. (Tweet embedded in Stewart's story."
Trump's Harsh Immigration Policies Are Good for ... Canada. Nelson Schwartz & Steve Lohr of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is using the country's vast and nearly opaque immigration bureaucracy to constrict the flow of foreign workers into the United States by throwing up new roadblocks to limit legal arrivals. The government is denying more work visas, asking applicants to provide additional information and delaying approvals more frequently than just a year earlier. Hospitals, hotels, technology companies and other businesses say they are now struggling to fill jobs with the foreign workers they need.... Seasonal industries like hotels and landscaping are having to turn down customers or provide fewer services. Corporate executives worry about the long-term impact of losing talented engineers and programmers to countries like Canada that are laying out the welcome mat for skilled foreigners."
Jeff Toobin, in the New Yorker, profiles Rudy Giuliani, concentrating on his role as Trump's lawyer, or as the headline writer (and the illustrator Barry Blitt) puts it, "Trump's clown": "He has, in effect, become the legal auxiliary to Trump's Twitter feed, peddling the same chaotic mixture of non sequiturs, exaggerations, half-truths, and falsehoods. Giuliani, like the President, is not seeking converts but comforting the converted.... At times, Giuliani's arguments have verged on thuggish irrationality." A pleasant read if you can stomach reading about Rudy.
Matthew Rosenberg, et al., of the New York Times: Accused Russian operative Maria Butina -- who "had no experience in the oil business" -- tried to put together a huge deal for the sale of Russian jet fuel in the U.S. "Ms. Butina's efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel, detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails, were notable ... for who they involved: David Keene, a former president of the National Rifle Association and a prominent leader of the conservative movement, who has advised Republican candidates from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. They also involved Mr. Keene's wife, Donna, a well-connected Washington lobbyist, and Ms. Butina's boyfriend, Paul Erickson, who ran Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign and who moved in rarefied conservative circles despite allegations of fraud in three states." There were others involved in the odd scheme, as well. "All of them seemed out of their depth, each projecting confidence and deep knowledge of the jet fuel business while seeming not to grasp the basics." Butina apparently tried using her feminine wiles to secure Russian backers. Mrs. McC: These are not very bright people.
Avery Anapol of the Hill: "Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort]s daughter has filed paperwork to officially change her last name, a move that would distance herself from her father, a convicted felon. Jessica Manafort filed name-change paperwork in the Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday, according to multiple reports. She is seeking to take her mother's maiden name, Bond.... 'I am a passionate liberal and a registered Democrat and this has been difficult for me,' she told the [Los Angeles Times]."
John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "As his legal troubles have deepened in recent weeks, the President's anti-media rhetoric has become even more inflammatory and personal.... Some of Trump's associates are open about the fact that his effort to discredit the media, which in recent days has expanded to attacking tech companies like Google, is now central to his survival strategy. But political expediency provides no excuse whatsoever for demonizing journalists and describing them as the public enemy. That is the language of dictators and despots." Cassidy reprises some of Trump's recent remarks & details some murderous threats Americans have made against members of the press.
Diplomacy in the Age of a POtuS* Who Is a Crude, Racist Bigot. Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "... few [irritants] have been as perplexing to New Delhi, or left as bitter a taste, as President Trump's tendency to mock Prime Minister Narendra Modi's accent in English. A video of Mr. Trump imitating Mr. Modi has gone viral in New Delhi. So have reports that Mr. Trump often mimics his Indian counterpart in internal discussions. 'There's a general understanding here that Modi is not sure he can do business with Trump,' said Suhasini Haidar, foreign affairs editor of The Hindu. 'India is just now coming to terms with the idea that Trump will not treat India with the same kind of benevolence that previous presidents have.' This is the diplomatic headache that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will confront when he arrives in the Indian capital on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Tiptoeing around the president's indiscretions is one in a suddenly long list of challenges to a relationship that, according to senior State Department officials, Mr. Pompeo would very much like to preserve -- and even improve."
"Bloody Battle in Affghanistan" -- Herman Melville, Moby Dick. Mujib Mashal of the New York Times: General John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said, "'It is time for this war in Afghanistan to end.'... The general called on the Taliban to 'stop killing your fellow Afghans,' but he also referred indirectly to regional players -- particularly Pakistan, where the militants enjoy sanctuary -- who have complicated the fight.... His departure [from Afghanistan] comes as the war seems to spiral deadlier even as it recedes from American attention -- General Nicholson did not meet once with President Trump in the 20 months since he moved into the White House.... Like his predecessor, John F. Campbell, General Nicholson is likely to retire immediately, a diplomat with ties to the general said, a sign that the posting is no longer a springboard to more senior roles...."
Thomas Gibbons-Neff & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Pentagon is considering withdrawing nearly all American commandos from Niger in the wake of a deadly October ambush against a Green Beret team that killed four United States soldiers. Three Defense Department officials said the plans, if approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would also close military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya, as well as seven of the eight American elite counterterrorism units operating in Africa. The shift in forces is part of the Pentagon's defense strategy to focus on threats from China and Russia. But they represent a more severe cut of Special Operations forces in Africa than initially expected, leaving a lasting, robust military presence primarily in Somalia and Nigeria."
Alayna Treene of Axios: "Omarosa taped nearly every conversation she had while working in the White House, including ones with 'all of the Trumps,' a source who watched her make many of the tapes tells Axios. Omarosa did this with a personal phone, almost always on record mode."
Emily Birnbaum of the Hill: "After a week of emotional and bipartisan celebrations commemorating the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Senate giant has been laid to rest at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. McCain ... was buried in a plot of land next to his Naval Academy classmate and lifelong friend Adm. Chuck Larson, who died of leukemia in 2014, the Associated Press reported. Mourners and the senator's family walked behind a horse-drawn caisson carrying his casket from the Naval Academy chapel to the cemetery after the ceremony, the AP reported. Students from McCain's 1958 graduating class also joined. McCain's son Jack McCain, Gen. David Petraeus and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) delivered remarks at the private ceremony."
Senate Race. Texas. Avery Anapol: "Activists in Texas have raised thousands of dollars to place an anti-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) billboard in the state. A GoFundMe page organized by USA Latinx, a political group focused on supporting Latinx candidates, topped its $6,000 fundraising goal, raising nearly $10,000 in less than 24 hours. Parkland, Fla., school shooting survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg and Claude Taylor, the chairman of the liberal Mad Dog PAC, helped promote the effort on social media.... The proposed sign will feature a February 2016 tweet from Trump...[:] 'Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them,' Trump's tweet reads. 'He is another all talk, no action pol!'"
Congressional Races. Why Not to Go to a Seahawks Game. Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times: "Billionaire Seahawks owner and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen this year has made his largest-ever foray into congressional politics, donating $100,000 to a group aiming to keep Republicans in control of the U.S. House of Representatives."
Gubernatorial Race. Florida. Courtesy of Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post, here's some of the text of that racist robo-call against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum that the Tallahassee Democrat refused to publish in a story we linked last week: 'Well, hello there,' the call begins as the sounds of drums and monkeys can be heard in the background.... 'I is Andrew Gillum. We Negroes ... done made mud huts while white folk waste a bunch of time making their home out of wood an' stone.' The speaker goes on to say he'll pass a law letting African Americans evade arrest 'if the Negro know fo' sho' he didn't do nothin'.'... In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Gillum's spokesman, Geoff Burgan said: 'This is reprehensible -- and could only have come from someone with intentions to fuel hatred and seek publicity. Please don't give it undeserved attention.'" The campaign of Gillum's GOP opponent also has condemned the call.
Presidential Election 2020. Axios: "An 'exhaustive review' of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's professional history by the Boston Globe found that her claim to Native American ancestry was never a consideration during her hiring process for Harvard Law School or throughout her rise in the legal profession." The Globe story is firewalled, but click on the link if you're a subscriber. Mrs. McC: I'm sure Trump will quit calling Warren "Pocahontas" now. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
** David Roberts of Vox: "California is one signature away from committing to 100 percent clean electricity. If it does so, it will become the most significant political jurisdiction in the world to take that step, by a wide margin. (It is the world's fifth-largest economy!) The state is on the verge of making history -- again. SB 100, the bill sponsored by state Sen. Kevin de León, would set a target of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. It passed the California Senate last year, passed the state Assembly on Tuesday, and was reconciled by the Senate on Thursday. All that remains is a signature from Gov. Jerry Brown." --safari
Adam Peck of ThinkProgress: "Lawmakers in California passed new legislation that will restore virtually all of the net neutrality protections first introduced during the Obama administration. The bill is the most sweeping state legislation since current FCC chairman Ajit Pai led a campaign to repeal those Obama-era regulations.... Predictably, the industry's largest lobbying group came out forcefully against California's new bill, which now goes to the desk of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature or veto. He has yet to indicate whether he will sign the measure." --safari
Way Beyond
Dom Phillips of the Guardian: "Brazil's oldest and most important historical and scientific museum has been consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20m items is believed to have been destroyed.... 'It was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America. We have invaluable collections. Collections that are over 100 years old,' Cristiana Serejo, one of the museum's vice directors [said].... Luiz Duarte, another vice-director ... said that governments were to blame for failing to support the museum and letting it fall into disrepair. At its 200th birthday in June, not one state minister appeared.... Duarte also said that the museum had just closed a deal with the Brazilian government's development bank, BNDES, for funds that included a fire prevention project. 'This is the most terrible irony,' he said." --safari
Benjamin Haas of the Guardian: "South Korea's capital and largest city, Seoul, is set to begin daily checks for hidden cameras in public toilets in response to growing public outrage over an epidemic of 'spy-cam porn'. South Korea is in the middle of a battle against videos secretly filmed in places such as toilet stalls and changing rooms. Police have said more than 26,000 victims between 2012 and 2016 have been identified, but many cases go unreported.... But experts and activists have criticised sweeps of public bathrooms, saying they were little more than a show and most cameras were installed in homes and offices." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wait, wait. They're installing spy-cams to spy on people who installed spy-cams? Okaaaay.
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (11)
Brave Sir Donald’s Labor Day Promise.
President* Anti-Labor sticks it to working people then wonders who could possibly have done such a thing.
Never mind that Fat Boy continues to brag about low unemployment, a situation handed him by Obama for which he takes full credit, his policies are making sure that wages remain stagnant. Then, in order to pay for the enormous tax cut he helped himself to, along with his billionaire cronies, he announces that he’s going to stop a raise scheduled to take effect for federal employees.
Then, after a backlash at such a slimy underhanded move, in typical cowardly fashion, he tweets that “some people” didn’t want those workers to get their long delayed raise:
“‘I’m going to be studying the federal workers in Washington that you’ve been reading so much about,’ he said. “People don’t want to give them any [pay] increase; they haven’t had one in a long time. I said I’m gonna study that over the weekend.’”
In between rounds of golf...
So, some unnamed “people” don’t want federal workers to get an increase in pay, but Brave Sir Donald will look into that terrible situation, and if he feels “those people” are getting bad enough publicity, he may have to step in and do something prezidenshul-like about it. The idea! Stopping someone’s raise purely out of spite and greed. Who’d do such a thing?
Brave Donald, who’s never done a hard day’s work in his life, who takes more lazy vacation days, on our dime, than a retired person, who takes three or four hours Egg-Zecutive Time so he can lounge around watching the TV every day before dragging his fat ass downstairs so’s he can pretend to work for a couple of hours before hitting the links, is going to help those poor working stiffs.
Brave Sir Donald! Friend of workers everywhere! Meanwhile, he’ll be looking into other labor unions he can destroy. A Confederate tradition.
Greed, anti-labor spite, and cowardice. Trump’s gifts to America on Labor Day.
LOVES LABORS LOST:
How Trump Betrays Forgotten Americans by Steven Greenhouse, NYT, who knows a thing or two about labor. He does give us a little bit of good news in the fact that Unions have scored some significant victories recently, especially among White Collar workers (he lists them all) but compared with other major industrialized nations the U.S. fall short: just one in 10 American workers belongs to a union, down from more than than 3 in the 1950s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/opinion/trump-labor-unions-greenhouse.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
So the Trump policy is not just to stop people crossing the boarder. He wants to not only keep out hands but brains. My personal experience about 12 years ago tells reality. I advertised for a position in the US and didn't find one credible CV. I wound up hiring someone from Turkey. He did an excellent job. His wife is a physician. We put her in a residency program and after full training
she now spends her time saving lives of American children.
Doing the paperwork for a green cards was no big deal. Looks like under Trump it might have never happened.
Marvin,
That’s what you get when you install a small minded, racist, nationalist more concerned with sops to his white supremacist ‘merica firster supporters. Just imagine what sort of nation we would be had we decided, after the revolution, to exclude all foreign born visitors from citizenship.
Hey, for one thing, Trump would be in Germany, likely still trying to live down his family’s Nazi past.
@Akhilleus: You're thinking of an alternate universe. In the universe as we know it, Donald Drumpf would be dressing up in (and popping the buttons of) Dad's Nazi uniform.
Indolence Personified
It appears that labor is most definitely not one of President Sloth’s strengths.
As a candidate, he routinely attacked the last real president for his occasional golf outings, sniffing that HE, the great Donaldo, would be far too busy to golf.
Ho-hum, another lie. In fact, aside from enriching himself, golfing has been his most consistent activity. Out of almost 600 days in office (so far), President Fore! has spent 25% of his days out on the course, stuffing tax dollars into his own pocket at an alarming rate into the process.
And get this:
“...during his first 100 days in office, Trump found more time for golf than than each of his last three predecessors, totaling 90 days in his first year alone, compared to Obama's one day golfing during his first year in office.”
I dunno about you guys, but I’d say, for a con man who bleated that, unlike Obama, he would be too busy to play with his putter, a 90 to 1 differential is a clear indication of two sure things: a lazy bastard, and a world-class fucking liar.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/09/03/trump-has-visited-his-golf-courses-on-25-percent-of-his-590-days-in-office/23515263/
Marie,
Geez. You’re right. He’d be standing in front of a full length mirror with Fred’s old SS uniform on giving himself the Hitler salute and dreaming of boxcars full of his enemies being carted away.
Richard Trumpka is not my favorite labor leader.
In fact, have friends in the labor world who call him a "pie hole," whatever that might mean, but I don't think it's nice. Still, he rose in my estimation today when the Pretender (the similarity in the two men's names is eye-catching...) pulled his hands off the club long enough to tweet an attack on a labor leader....on Labor Day...for (what else?) telling the truth.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/03/president-trump-goes-after-afl-cio-head-richard-trumka-labor-day/
Came across an article badmouthing McCain mourners, that Trump should get credit for allowing Air Force 2 to be used at the families request to transport the body and family. Wikipedia notes that since mid 20th century Air Force 2 has been used to transport bodies of US state funeral bodies, except for 1969, when Eisenhower was transported between NY and Washington. Seems to me Trump supporters are desperate to find something Trump has not screwed up. https://www.dailywire.com/news/35364/good-trump-president-lends-air-force-two-mccain-joseph-curl
Don't know what my excited fingers were thinking when they made Trumka and the Pretender's names even more similar than they really are, but do know what my head is thinking after reading this "Politico" piece.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/03/trump-nafta-labor-unions-806291
Seems the grand plan is to strengthen Mexican labor, raising Mexican wages, while at the same time doing all we can to lower American wages, with the eventual result that companies won't have any reason to move jobs to Mexico because Mexican and American wages will have reached peonage par.
Campaign promise almost kept!
But then there's that pesky Canada, where unions wield much greater sway, making it more difficult to spread low-wage work to the Northcountry.
To make what appears to be the plan work, gotta bring Mexican wages up and Canadian wages and benefits down to meet the American bare minimum, and if labor has any vestige of sense, that oughta be tough.
We’ll see how dumb American labor really is.
It's easy to hear the outrage from the Right building here on the Left Coast on this otherwise quiet Labor Day afternoon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/arts/bannon-new-yorker-festival-remnick.html?
What? That librul elite afraid of a little free speech?
As a long time "New Yorker" subscriber (and occasional reader), no we're not, I say.
Mr. Bannon can say anything he wants in any marketplace that tolerates his presence, but markets, which I would define as anywhere anything--from widgets to ideas--is sold or exchanged have the right to act on market principles; and when the vast majority of consumers (students and teachers at universities, shoppers at stores, or participants in a festival), don't want to buy, even object strongly to the product's presence, sane markets will offer something more appealing in its place.
That's the way markets work.
Take that you neo-libruls (and alt-righters)!