The Commentariat -- April 22, 2018
strong>Umair Irfan & Eliza Barclay of Vox: "Earth Day turns 48 this Sunday, April 22.... When Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisc.) founded Earth Day in 1970, his hope was to make the environment a political issue in an era where US rivers caught on fire and thick smog choked cities. In many ways, it worked. Since then, major environmental laws have helped clean up much of the vivid toxic detritus in the soil, air, and water in the US. But our challenges today are no less daunting. The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the loss of wilderness and species, and the acidification and pollution of the oceans have all become more acute -- and more destabilizing.... Here are seven of the most troubling, intriguing, and encouraging things we learned about the Earth since the last Earth Day." ...
... MEANWHILE. John Heritage in a USA Today op-ed: "Trump and his minions are rolling back hard-fought environmental regulations as fast as they can. And while& Arctic and Antarctic ice melts and seas rise, Trump walks out of the most significant world conference yet to get a handle on global warming. Meanwhile, the Trump rollback targets federally-protected lands, making way for minerals and the already failing 'King Coal.' The lands are being opened even though safer energy sources are coming online. And lobbyists have invaded the Environmental Protection Agency, shoving dedicated environmental experts aside, supported by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (a man now deep in scandal)."
Donald, Full of Grace. Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "In the span of 15 hours, Trump alleged that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation was 'established based on an illegal act,' threatened to countersue the Democratic Party, bashed a Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times reporter and called one of his former aides a 'drunk/drugged up loser.' All of this overlapped with the Saturday funeral of former First Lady Barbara Bush.... On Friday night, the president continued his broadsides against former FBI Director James Comey.... 'James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a Special Council?' Trump wrote, using the wrong spelling for special counsel. 'Therefore, the Special Council was established based on an illegal act? Really, does everybody know what that means?'... 'James Comey's Memos are Classified, I did not Declassify them,' Trump tweeted on Saturday afternoon. 'They belong to our Government! Therefore, he broke the law! Additionally, he totally made up many of the things he said I said, and he is already a proven liar and leaker. Where are Memos on Clinton, Lynch & others?'" ...
... Restuccia has yet another explanation of the classification issue: "Comey authorized the release of four memos, none of which were deemed to contain classified material when they were made public. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Comey made redactions of classified information in one of the memos ahead of its release and the other three were not considered to be classified at the time. But the Journal said the FBI now considers information in another one of the memos to be classified, prompting an investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Award for Best Sentence in a News Report goes to Restuccia: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to an email seeking clarity on who specifically Trump is calling a 'drunk/drugged up loser.'"
Trump Sends Another Message to Cohen. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "As four former presidents and the current first lady traveled to the funeral of Barbara Bush in Texas, President Trump took in his usual Saturday round of golf and issued a morning barrage of disparaging (and misspelled) tweets. Shortly after the televised funeral for Mrs. Bush ended, the president indicated that he had also fielded a call from Rambo. 'Sylvester Stallone called me with the story of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson. His trials and tribulations were great, his life complex and controversial,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Others have looked at this over the years, most thought it would be done, but yes, I am considering a Full Pardon!'... As the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference and possible ties to Trump associates continues, Mr. Trump's mention of a presidential pardon for Mr. Johnson, who in 1908 became the first black heavyweight boxing champion, seemed to serve as a reminder that he wields the power to grant one." ...
... Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: Jack "Johnson..., the first black heavyweight champion, was convicted in 1913 under the Mann Act, federal legislation that made it illegal to cross state lines with a woman 'for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.' Jim Crow era prosecutors often used the legislation as a type of anti-miscegenation law.... Congressional leaders have sought a pardon for Johnson for years. A bill requesting a pardon from George W. Bush passed the House of Representatives in 2008 but died in the Senate."
Wherein David Remnick gets Jim Comey to finally admit things would be way better if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency:
... If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, a transcript of that part of the interview is here.
Peter Fritsch and Glenn R. Simpson of Fusion GPS, in a New York Times op-ed: "The most significant recent development involving the president may be that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has subpoenaed Trump Organization business records as part of his inquiry into Russian interference in the presidential election.... We pored over Donald Trump's business records for well over a year, at least those records you can get without a badge or a subpoena. We also hired a former British intelligence official, Christopher Steele, to look into Mr. Trump's possible ties to Russia. In that 2015-2016 investigation, sponsored first by a Republican client and then by Democrats, we found strong indications that companies affiliated with Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, might have been entangled in foreign corruption.... Indeed, from New York to Florida, Panama to Azerbaijan, we found that Trump projects have relied heavily on foreign cash — including from wealthy individuals from Russia and elsewhere with questionable, and even criminal, backgrounds." The authors cite numerous shady operators & money launderers who financed Trump-branded properties. ...
... "Forgetting Rudy." Andy Borowitz (satire): "The independent counsel, Robert Mueller, told reporters that, prior to news reports on Thursday, he had 'almost forgotten' to investigate the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.... Mueller was at a loss to explain why he had failed to investigate Giuliani earlier. 'I have no idea how it could have slipped my mind,' he said. 'His role in Trump's campaign was as fishy as all get-out.'"
Marlow Stern of the Daily Beast: During the overtime segment of "Real Time with Bill Maher," Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti threatened he would release the contents of a mystery "evidence disc" "if they tried to claim that my client was a liar...." "In the words of Late Night host Seth Meyers, 'So we are looking at the very real possibility that Donald Trump sent Stormy Daniels a dick pic.'"
Eric Talmadge of the AP: "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has finally broken his silence on what he plans to bring to the table during his summits with the South Korean and U.S. presidents, and it doesn't have a whole lot to do with tossing out his hard-won nuclear arsenal. Instead, Kim appears to be maneuvering toward his own big 'get' -- the chance to sit down with ... Donald Trump on an essentially equal basis as the head of a nuclear-armed nation.... Kim laid out the new strategy at a meeting Friday of his ruling party's Central Committee that suspends underground nuclear tests and test-launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. He also said the country's nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, already believed to be essentially inoperable, will be closed and 'dismantled.'... Trump immediately took to Twitter to praise the announcement as 'very good news for North Korea and the World.' Seoul and Beijing welcomed it. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a hard-liner on North Korea, tried to keep his response positive, though he stressed the need for vigilance...." See also Patrick's commentary in yesterday's thread.
"World's Largest Pork Processor." Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, met personally last year with J. Steven Hart, the lobbyist whose wife had rented him a $50-a-night Capitol Hill condo, a disclosure that contradicts earlier statements that E.P.A. lobbying by Mr. Hart had not occurred. The meeting was set up on behalf of an executive associated with Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. Previously, Mr. Hart and his lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen, had maintained that Mr. Hart never lobbied Mr. Pruitt in 2017, when Mr. Pruitt was living in a condo co-owned by Mr. Hart's wife, or in the time since then.... The Smithfield Foods disclosure was made the same day that Mr. Hart announced he was stepping down as chairman of Williams & Jensen -- instead of waiting until his planned November retirement -- citing the negative publicity that had been caused by the Capitol Hill condo rental to Mr. Pruitt. ...
... Pruitt Was Always Corrupt. Steve Eder & Hiroki Tabuchi of the New York Times: "An examination of Mr. Pruitt's political career in Oklahoma reveals that many of the pitfalls he has encountered in Washington have echoes in his past.... Mr. Pruitt's home in Oklahoma City when he was a state senator..., which had belonged to a lobbyist, was held by a shell company registered to Mr. Pruitt's business partner and financed by a bank an associate of his ran.... ... In 2005, the shell company -- Capitol House L.L.C. -- sold the property for $95,000 more than it had paid. While shell companies are legal, they often obscure the people who have an interest in them, and none of Mr. Pruitt's financial disclosure filings in Oklahoma mentioned the company or the proceeds -- a potential violation of the state's ethics rules." Both the holder of the shell company & the banker who arranged the mortgage -- who is "barred from working in the finance industry because of a banking violation" -- now have top jobs at the EPA. The partners bought the house at a $100K discount; SBC Oklahoma, the former homeowner's employer, picked up the difference. SBC had been lobbying state legislators, & Pruitt sided with the company on matters for which it had lobbied him." AND there's more.
Wait for the Punch Line. Jonathan Chait: "Deep in [a Politico] story [about the Trump administration], a former administration official explains that 'Chris Liddell is not a policy guy,' and that he is also 'not really a Washington guy.' There are some jobs where these limitations could be overcome easily -- Starbucks barista, circus clown, corporate executive (Lid[]dell's former job), or working in a location far away from Washington, like New Zealand (Li[d]dell's home country). Unfortunately, Li[d]dell now works in Washington, and his current position is deputy chief of staff for policy." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: In fact, I don't see that as a big problem. Trump doesn't give a rip about policy, so "deputy chief of staff for policy" is a non-job, a reserved seat in the clown car. Liddell probably piddles around at whatever interests him. I looked up Liddell's background, & he has one of the most impressive CVs in the administration -- nothing like "Trump's former caddy" (social media director Dan Scavino) or "Ivanka's former go-fer" (former communications chief Hope Hicks) -- qualifications for two of Trump's closest advisors.
Everything They Do Is Stupid, Regressive & Mean. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The Trump administration says it plans to roll back a rule issued by President Barack Obama that prevents doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies from discriminating against transgender people. Advocates said the change could jeopardize the significant gains that transgender people have seen in access to medical care, including gender reassignment procedures -- treatments for which many insurers denied coverage in the past.... The Trump administration has been scaling back protections for transgender people on several fronts."
Hamza Shaban of the Washington Post: "Former first lady Barbara Bush was remembered by family and friends as a symbol of authenticity and grace during a private funeral Saturday in Houston, where more than 1,000 guests were in attendance, including four former presidents and three former first ladies, as well as the current first lady." ...
... Roxanne Roberts & Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post have more on the funeral. ...
... MoDo remembers Bar.
Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post reviews Chasing Hillary: "Amy Chozick, the lead New York Times reporter on Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, believes that the news media's focus on Clinton's private e-mail server -- a story the Times broke and that Chozick would write about extensively -- was excessive. She even grew to resent it. Chozick also thinks that reporting on campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked emails turned journalists into 'puppets' of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and she struggles to explain why they did it anyway. She contends that sexism played a big role in Clinton's defeat but also encounters it first-hand among Clinton's campaign staff. And while she hammers the candidate for having no clear vision for why she sought the presidency, Chozick allows that competence, experience and policy were hardly selling points in 2016, when it 'turned out a lot of people just wanted to blow s[hit] up.'" Lozada does not make you want to rush out & buy the book.
Congressional Races
Utah Republicans Humiliate Mitt. Lee Davidson & Courtney Tanner of the St. Lake Tribune: "After 11 hours of political elbowing and shoving at the Utah Republican Convention -- held appropriately at a hockey arena -- delegates forced Mitt Romney into a primary election against state Rep. Mike Kennedy in the U.S. Senate race. In fact, Kennedy -- a doctor and lawyer -- finished in first place at the convention with 51 percent of the vote to Romney's 49 percent. The former GOP presidential nominee fell far short of the 60 percent needed to clinch the nomination outright.... Romney and Kennedy emerged as the only two survivors from 12 candidates after two rounds of balloting.... Freshman Rep. John Curtis suffered the same fate as Romney, pushed into a primary against former State Rep. Chris Herrod, an ultraconservative who made his reputation on a tough anti-illegal immigration stance. But Curtis, who has been in office just five months after winning last year's special election, at least won 59 percent of the vote, just missing the 60 percent threshold. Meanwhile, Reps. Rob Bishop and Chris Stewart easily managed to eliminate their convention opponents and will proceed directly to the Nov. 6 general election. Mia Love did not draw a Republican challenger.
Matt Volz of the AP: "A Democratic candidate for Montana's U.S. House seat is using Sinclair Broadcast Group's own television stations to blast the company for forcing its reporters to read the conservative-leaning corporation's statements on air. John Heenan bought airtime starting Monday for an ad on Sinclair-owned stations KECI-TV in Missoula and KTVM-TV in Bozeman and Butte. In it, he calls Sinclair 'a corporation using its power to take advantage of journalists, our democracy and the people of Montana.'"
Steven Thrasher in a New York Times op-ed: "The police in this country have long been empowered to respond to white anxiety about the very presence of black people." Starbucks' anti-racial bias training won't fix that.
Beyond the Beltway
Death by Misdemeanor. Carol Miller & Monique Madan of the Miami Herald: "A Broward County [Florida] circuit judge delivered a blistering, arm-waving, face-palming, tongue-lashing to a frail, out-of-breath woman -- pushed into court in a wheelchair -- who was facing misdemeanor charges following a family feud. Three days later, the defendant died. Judge Merrillee Ehrlich has resigned, although it is unclear when that resignation was provided and when it becomes effective. News of the death of Sandra Faye Twiggs, 59, surfaced Friday. The courtroom rant last Sunday was so over the top that Broward's elected public defender, Howard Finkelstein, demanded that ... Ehrlich be banned from the criminal courthouse.... Twiggs suffered from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also called COPD. She ended up under arrest after squabbling with her 19-year-old daughter." Twiggs had no previous arrest record.
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A history lesson in lieu of a Sunday sermon:
http://people.com/archive/twenty-years-after-he-mobilized-earth-day-denis-hayes-is-still-racing-to-save-our-planet-vol-33-no-13/
I knew Denis Hayes had something to do with Earth Day, that it wasn't all Senator Nelson, or created to commemorate Lenin's 100th birthday, or a plot foisted on an unsuspecting nation by the Unicorn Killer, so looked it up.
Interestingly (to me) I learned Denis Hayes spent much of his youth in Camas, WA, the lumber and pulp town along the Columbia that figured so prominently in David James Duncan's "The Brothers K."
While it sure stunk, it seems all that sulfur dioxide also worked a lot of magic.
Elizabeth Drew draws a good portrait of Comey––fair and balanced with some strong finger wagging at our FBI guy. As an aside: she mentions something that has gone by the wayside––Comey's remark that he'd never seen Trump laugh; a significant observation I would think.
https://newrepublic.com/article/148076/slippery-james-comey
I watched a goodly portion of Barbara Bush's funeral and found myself tearing up even during all the "Jesus loves us" business. Family and friends dearly loved and respected this woman who they all lauded as strong, funny and dynamic. Something that has stuck with me is Mrs. Bush's rendition in an interview years ago when she complained that throughout their years as Reagan's Vice he and Nancy never once invited them for dinner. What "Bar" must have had to swallow during those times we can well imagine.
Earth Day: We need to dig a deep hole for Pruitt and bury him forthwith ––OR send him to Antartica to view the melting of glaciers. Meanwhile looks like Spring is finally sprouting––picked the first of the daffodils yesterday. There is a continuance even amidst the chaos.
@PDPepe: Re Nancy Reagan shutting out "Bar"... I seem to recall a snappy remark she made about that woman... "calling her something that rhymes with witch!" She certainly was not known to hold back!
"In the view of several Cohen associates, the Daniels payment was an ill-conceived Cohen effort to curry Trump’s favor at a time when the lawyer’s rivals were shutting him out. The president has said he was unaware of the payment."
Michael Kranish, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman in an extensive Wapo story on Michael Cohen includes the above paragraph: "Was Trump in the dark? "
Hah!
—Yeah! Right! Why would Cohen do a "favor" for Trump and not tell him IF the whole point was to look good in Trump's eyes? Doh!
MAG: Re: Our liar-in-chief's lie about Cohen's payment to S.D. Such nonsense! If only Mary McCarthy was alive today so she could render the same admonishment to Trump as she did to Lillian Hellman:
"Every word she [he tweets] is a lie, including "and" and "the."
@MAG: Actually, no. "Describing Geraldine Ferraro, her husband's opponent for vice president in 1984: 'I can't say it, but it rhymes with "rich.'" (Oct. 15, 1984) She later apologized, and said she had the word 'witch' in mind."
@Bea: Oops! Thanks for the correction!
Funny, I 'mis-remembered' the object of the rhyme!
(still Bar was not one to suffer in silence!).
My son brought this topic up for discussion, and supplied me with this transcript of NPR's "Hidden Brain" piece from last Fall. The subject is how people advance 1st Amendment defenses of racist speech if they are "more racist." Conversely, "more racist" people don't advance 1st Amendment defenses of offensive speech which has no racial content.
And then it segues into how DiJiT's election seems to have given people permission to express their already extant, but largely unexpressed, prejudices.
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=548471325
If I didn't realize that people have been writing for about 4,000 years that things are going to hell in a handbasket, I'd worry more.