The Commentariat -- Nov. 25, 2018
Late Morning Update:
Josh Dawsey & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump is demanding top advisers craft a plan to reduce the country's ballooning budget deficits, but the president has flummoxed his own aides by repeatedly seeking new spending while ruling out measures needed to address the country's unbalanced budget. Trump's deficit-reduction directive came last month, after the White House reported a large increase in the deficit for the previous 12 months. The announcement unnerved Republicans and investors, helping fuel a big sell-off in the stock market. Two days after the deficit report, Trump floated a surprise demand to his Cabinet secretaries, asking them to identify steep cuts in their agencies.... When former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn's staffers prepared a presentation for Trump about deficits, Cohn told them no. It wouldn't be necessary, he said, because the president did not care about deficits, according to current and former officials. Trump also repeatedly told Cohn to print more money, according to three White House officials familiar with his comments.... Trump often uses 'debt' -- the total amount the government owes -- to refer to the deficit, the annual gap between what the government takes in and what it spends. Trump also is often not versed in the particulars of the federal budget." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "Print more money" of course causes immediate & devastating inflation. Notice this is the same President* who suggested in a tweet this weekend (story linked below) that the Fed is causing inflation. I can just hear Steve Mnuchin trying to explain to Trump how federal income & spending work -- kinda like the way I explained to my then-five-year-old (or younger) how a checkbook works. Major difference: my little child understood the explanation. BTW, if you feel like shaking your head & muttering "What an idiot!" this is your opportunity. My favorite part: Trump guesses how much the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is paid. The exchange could help explain why Trump is no longer so enamored of "his generals."
Eric Levitz of New York: "[W]hile a majority of American voters ... want the new House majority to zealously investigate the president's malfeasance, some moderate Democrats aren't so sure.... But the idea that aggressive investigations of the Trump administration would be politically risky for Democrats -- as opposed to that scandal-plagued administration -- is absolutely bonkers.... There is simply no basis for thinking that Democrats will pay a political price for prioritizing investigations of Trump over helping the president score bipartisan policy victories. --s
Roey Hadar of ABC News: "Alan Dershowitz, a frequent defender of ... Donald Trump, said special counsel Robert Mueller's report will be 'devastating' for the president.... 'When I say devastating, I mean it's going to paint a picture that's going to be politically very devastating. I still don't think it's going to make a criminal case,' Dershowitz said."
George Gets a Jumpsuit. Rosalind Helderman & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Sunday ruled George Papadopoulos must report to prison as scheduled on Monday, rejecting a bid from the former Trump campaign adviser to delay the start of his sentence while a constitutional challenge to the special counsel investigation into Russia's election interference remains unresolved."
Juan Cole: "India's imports of petroleum from Iran in October doubled in value terms to $1.42 billion in October, year over year.... Even in volume terms, imports are up 38%. These statistics raise the question of whether Trump's attempt to squeeze Iran is failing.... Iran's economic relationship with Europe became warmer in 2018, growing by 7.5%.... [S]ince the US has not in fact managed to take most Iranian oil off the market, the Saudi tactic of producing extra has just caused the price to collapse, and boy are the Saudis angry.... So the squeeze play against Iran is failing right at the beginning. In part this failure is owing to the inability of the US to bully India, China and some other countries into cutting off Iran.... Saudi over-production hurts Saudi Arabia as much as it hurts Iran[.]" --s
Raphael Binder, et al., of the New York Times: "Thousands of people took to the streets of countries around the globe on Sunday, a day set aside by the United Nations to raise awareness of violence against women, to protest gender violence. It was the beginning of 16-day campaign urging individuals and organizations to fight the kind violence that will affect more than a third of women globally during their lives, according to the United Nations. Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile and the United Nations' high commissioner for human rights..., urged women everywhere to keep telling their stories of violence and 'to demand and accountability reparation.'"
Martin Longman of the Booman Tribune: "I did not know that there was such a thing as The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball PAC. It's a horrible idea. Politicizing baseball is foolish, and it's especially dumb to donate to individual candidates. It looks like some baseball lobbyists were asked/invited to attend an event for Cindy Hyde-Smith and got shaken down for the maximum allowable $5,000 contribution. They're returning the money because Hyde-Smith has been exposed as a neo-confederate proto-fascist and that's a bad look for an organization that prides itself on integration and has retired Jackie Robinson's number '42' league wide."
Michael Miller of the Washington Post: Vandals keep defacing a street free library on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., dedicated to Michelle Obama. Earlier this month, vandals crossed off Obama's name & replaced it with Trump's." Mrs. McC: Why would even a Trumpbot "dedicate" a library to Trump -- who is semi-illiterate?
Jamie Doward of the Guardian: "The Conservative party [in the UK] is under pressure to reveal details about its relationship with the London arm of a US lobbying firm accused of smear tactics against critics of Facebook. UK Policy Group [UKPG], a consultancy with close links to the Conservative party, is part of Definers Public Affairs, the controversial firm ditched by Facebook earlier this month following a New York Times exposé that has further dented the social media network's image.... UKPG's only known client is the Conservative party, for which it reportedly provides research on its opponents.... Definers set up UKPG just as concerns about Facebook's relationship with the discredited data firm Cambridge Analytica reached fever pitch.... In the US, Definers was close to Cambridge Analytica. Its sister company, America Rising [financed in part by the billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer], with which it shares offices and some staff, held a joint Christmas party with the data firm in 2015." --s
*****
Miranda Carter, in the New Yorker, writes of the uncanny parallels between the personalities & behavioral patterns of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918, & Kaiser Donald. "I'm not suggesting that Trump is about to start the Third World War. But recent foreign developments -- the wild swings with North Korea, the ditching of the Iran nuclear deal, the threat of a trade war with China -- suggest upheavals that could quickly grow out of American control.... The real lesson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, however, may be that Trump's leaving office might not be the end of the problems he may bring on or exacerbate -- it may be only the beginning."
I, Trvmpvs. Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump capped the Thanksgiving holiday weekend by again expressing gratitude for himself and his administration's accomplishments. 'So great that oil prices are falling (thank you President T),' Trump tweeted Sunday morning. 'Add that, which is like a big Tax Cut, to our other good Economic news. Inflation down (are you listening Fed)!'" Mrs. McC: Never mind that among the multiple reasons inflation is low is that the Fed, whom Trump repeatedly has criticized for raising interest rates, has raised interest rates.
Joshua Partlow & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has won the support of Mexico's incoming government for a plan to remake U.S. border policy by requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims move through U.S. courts, according to Mexican officials and senior members of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador's transition team. The agreement would break with long-standing asylum rules and place a formidable new barrier in the path of Central American migrants attempting to reach the United States and escape poverty and violence. By reaching the accord, the Trump administration has also overcome Mexico's historic reticence to deepen cooperation with the United States on an issue widely seen here as America&'s problem.... The prospect of keeping thousands of Central American asylum seekers for months or years in drug cartel-dominated Mexican border states -- some of the most violent in the country -- has troubled human-rights activists and others who worry that such a plan could put migrants at risk and undermine their lawful right to apply for asylum."
... Jack Crosbie of Splinter: "On a practical level, this is a travesty for many people fleeing violence in Latin America. Many migrants have relatives already living in the United States, and before this policy, were usually allowed to find a home in the country while their asylum claim was processed. Now, they'll be forced to stay in camps. The policy comes after weeks of tension on the border, which the Trump administration stoked for political gain during the midterms. On Monday, the DHS shut down the entire Northbound section of the largest border crossing in California, citing unsubstantiated claims that migrants were planning to rush the border. The justification for the new policy, it seems, is the woeful lack of space at migrant facilities on the Southern border." ...
... Update. Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump asserted Saturday night that migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. will be forced to stay in Mexico while their claims are individually processed, though an incoming Mexican government official claimed his country had not agreed to such a policy. 'Migrants at the Southern Border will not be allowed into the United States until their claims are individually approved in court. We only will allow those who come into our Country legally,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Other than that our very strong policy is Catch and Detain. No "Releasing" into the U.S. All will stay in Mexico,' he continued. 'If for any reason it becomes necessary, we will CLOSE our Southern Border.'" ...
... AND. Amy Guthrie of the AP: "Mexico's incoming government denied a report Saturday that it plans to allow asylum-seekers to wait in the country while their claims move through U.S. immigration courts, one of several options the Trump administration has been pursuing in negotiations for months. The deal was seen as a way to dissuade thousands of Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S., a process that can take years. In effect, Mexican border towns are already acting as waiting rooms for migrants hoping to start new lives in the U.S. due to bottlenecks at the border. 'There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the U.S. government,' future Interior Minister Olga Sanchez said in a statement. Hours earlier, The Washington Post quoted her as saying that the incoming administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had agreed to allow migrants to stay in Mexico as a 'short-term solution' while the U.S. considered their applications for asylum. Lopez Obrador will take office on Dec. 1." ...
... "The Criminalization Is Intention." Angelo Guisado in Slate: "... the Justice Department openly admitted it was diverting resources from drug-smuggling operations to incarcerate migrants. This has clearly been part of a broader political strategy of vindicating ... Donald Trump's xenophobia: The Trump administration's nativist rhetoric is more effective when our immigrants are manufactured into criminals, not portrayed as tired, huddled masses of refugees. This practice of criminalizing asylum attempts is also a classic case of entrapment. Systematically rejecting destitute asylum-seekers at the border and stranding them in life-threatening border towns forces these individuals to cross unlawfully.... The recent interim rule to deny asylum to anyone who crosses the border 'illegally' won't have its intended deterrent effect.... Under Trump's latest policy, the U.S. is criminalizing potentially thousands of individuals who have arrived at our nation's doorstep seeking asylum. Worse still, the U.S. knows that these individuals are here to seek asylum; the criminalization is intentional." ...
... Huh? Trump Thinks He Already Shut Down the Border. Or Not. Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "... Donald Trump insisted -- twice -- in an odd exchange with reporters Thursday that he already shut down the border with Mexico and even signed an order to do so. 'Actually two days ago we closed the border,' Trump said at Mar-a-Lago during a meeting with journalists. 'We actually just closed it. We said nobody's coming in because it was out of control.'... Then he walked back what he had just insisted, saying he would shut the border in the future if it's necessary.... But minutes later he returned to his insistence that he had already closed the border. 'I've already shut it down, I've already shut it down -- for short periods,' he said in response to a question to clarify the shutdown. 'I've already shut down parts of the border because it was out of control with the rioting on the other side in Mexico. And I just said, "Shut it down." You see it. I mean, it took place two days ago.' When someone asked if he had to sign an order to shut it down, Trump responded: 'Yeah, they call me up, and I sign an order.' Asked if the media could get a copy, Trump responded: 'You don't need it. Don't worry. It's not that big a deal. Maybe to some people it is.' No order on closing the border has been released by the White House." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Another White House Friday Afternoon Holiday News Dump. Jeremy Barr of the Hollywood Reporter: "Bill Shine received an $8.4 million severance package upon leaving his post as co-president of Fox News Channel in May 2017, according to a financial disclosure form he filed upon entering Donald Trump's White House as deputy chief of staff for communications. The document was released to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, a day after Thanksgiving. Shine, who officially began working in the White House on July 5, will also receive a bonus and options of about $3.5 million from 21st Century Fox both this year and next year. That means that Shine will be paid simultaneously by both the White House and the parent company of Fox News, a network that has had close ties to the Trump administration. The severance agreement expires on May 1, 2019." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
A Must-Read for for the Lunatic Fringe. Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Two of the president's longest-serving advisers allege in a new book that scores of officials inside the White House, Congress, the Justice Department and intelligence agencies are 'embedded enemies of President Trump' working to stymie his agenda and delegitimize his presidency. The authors, Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie, are both Republican operatives who do not work in the administration but are close to Trump and fashion themselves as his outside protectors. They portray the president as victim to disloyalty on his staff and 'swamp creatures' intent on extinguishing his political movement. Their book, 'Trump's Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency,' which is being released Tuesday and was obtained in advance by The Washington Post, paints a dark and at times conspiratorial portrait of Trump's Washington. The authors identify by name a number of Trump appointees who they claim have formed a 'resistance' inside the government during the first two years of Trump's presidency.... The narrative reads in part like Trump's Twitter grievances in book form." ... Mrs. McC: Other than that, Mr. Rucker, how did you enjoy the book?
Camila Molina of the Raleigh News & Observer: "After living almost a year in a Durham church, an undocumented man was arrested Friday by immigration officers when he left the church to keep an appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Morrisville. Samuel Oliver-Bruno, 47, has been living in the basement of CityWell United Methodist Church for 11 months while he petitions to have his deportation to Mexico delayed. Churches are one of the few places where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not make arrests.... In a joint statement released Friday evening, Reps. David Price and G.K. Butterfield accused USCIS and ICE of coordinating the arrest.... Morrisville Police and the Wake Sheriff's Office arrested" numerous supporters of Oliver-Bruno, including the church's pastor Cleve May, "after multiple warnings to disperse. Oliver-Bruno's son, Daniel Oliver Perez, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in the parking lot after approaching the van to say goodbye to his father. He was charged by Morrisville police with assault on a government officer."
Election 2018
She's So White. Ashton Pittman of the Jackson Free Press: "U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith attended and graduated from a segregation academy that was set up so that white parents could avoid having to send their children to schools with black students, a yearbook reveals. A group photo in the 1975 edition of The Rebel -- the Lawrence County Academy Yearbook -- illustrates the point. High-school cheerleaders smile at the camera as they lie on the ground in front of their pom-poms.... In the center, the mascot, dressed in what appears to be an outfit designed to mimic that of a Confederate general, offers a salute as she holds up a large Confederate flag. Third from the right on the ground is ... Cindy Hyde. The photo ... adds historic context to comments she made in recent weeks about a 'public hanging' that drew condemnations from across the political spectrum." Hyde-Smith went on to send her daughter to another "segregation academy"; the daughter was gradated in 2017. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Eric Bradner & Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith once promoted a measure that praised a Confederate soldier's effort to 'defend his homeland' and pushed a revisionist view of the Civil War.... As a state senator in 2007, Hyde-Smith cosponsored a resolution that honored then-92-year-old Effie Lucille Nicholson Pharr, calling her 'the last known living "Real Daughter" of the Confederacy living in Mississippi.' Pharr's father had been a Confederate soldier in Robert E. Lee's army in the Civil War. The resolution refers to the Civil War as 'The War Between the States.' It says her father 'fought to defend his homeland and contributed to the rebuilding of the country.' It says that with 'great pride,' Mississippi lawmakers 'join the Sons of Confederate Veterans' to honor Pharr. The measure 'rests on an odd combination of perpetuating both the Confederate legacy and the idea that this was not really in conflict with being a good citizen of the nation,' said Nina Silber, the president of the Society of Civil War Historians and a Boston University history professor. 'I also think it's curious that this resolution -- which ostensibly is about honoring the "daughter" -- really seems to be an excuse to glorify the Confederate cause,' Silber said." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'll dedicate this to Senator Cindy. We folks up North, we just don't understand:
Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian: The British "Parliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs' questions. The cache of documents is alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is claimed they include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg."
Beyond the Beltway
Avi Selk of the Washington Post: Police in Hoover, Alabama, shot dead a young black man, Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford, Jr., whom they said had shot others in a local shopping mall on Thanksgiving night. It now appears that, although he may have been involved in an altercation that led to the brief shooting spree, he was not the shooter. The gunman, police said, is still at large.
Baraboo Boys Have First-Amendment Right to Salute Nazis at School-Related Event. AP: "Students who appeared in a photograph that showed several high school boys giving what appears to be a Nazi salute are protected by free-speech rights and are unlikely to face discipline, Baraboo School District officials said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The New York Times story, by Christina Caron, is here. Here's my favorite part: Lori Mueller, the district school superintendent, "wrote that the image had been posted on social media 'to create harm.'" Yeah, the Nazi boys are victims here.
Way Beyond
Daniel Boffey, et al., of the Guardian: "EU leaders have given their backing to the Brexit deal struck with Theresa May, firing the starting pistol on the prime minister's race to win parliamentary approval in time for the UK's withdrawal next March. At an extraordinary summit in Brussels, the bloc's 27 heads of state and government took a decisive and historic step towards sealing the terms of Britain's split from Brussels after 45 years of membership. Unanimous support was given to the terms of a voluminous draft withdrawal treaty, covering citizens' rights, the £39bn divorce bill, and the Irish border issue, along with a 26-page political declaration setting out the basis of the future relationship. In a statement, the EU's leaders stated their intention to build 'as close as possible a partnership' with the UK after Brexit, while warning that they would be 'permanently seized' in future negotiations by the principle that countries outside the bloc cannot enjoy the same rights as those within."
Marc Santora of the New York Times: "... Andrej Babis, prime minister of the Czech Republic and its second-richest person, has long been compared to Donald J. Trump for his populist politics, bombastic style and exuberant wealth. He has also been similarly besieged by opponents he accuses of being part of an organized cabal out to bring him down. On Friday, those tensions hit another high point when lawmakers held a vote of no confidence seeking to end Mr. Babis's government, the second time they have done so since he came to power more than a year ago. Though Mr. Babis survived the challenge, all sides agree that the conflict has become so venomous that it has paralyzed the politics of this small Central European country.... In the most recent and bizarre turn of the scandal [surrounding Babis], it was reported that Mr. Babis's eldest son -- Andrej Babis Jr., 35, known as Junior -- had claimed that his father had had him abducted and held outside the country against his will to prevent him from talking to investigators." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Now, that should give Trump an idea.
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