The Commentariat -- August 15, 2018
The log-in superglitch is fixed. Those of you who have logged onto Reality Chex in the past can begin logging in again. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Perfect Projection from "Erratic" President Petty Pouter. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "In a remarkable attack on a political opponent, President Trump on Wednesday revoked the security clearance of John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director under President Barack Obama, citing what he called Mr. Brennan's 'erratic' behavior. The White House had threatened last month to strip Mr. Brennan and other Obama administration officials -- including Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser; and James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence -- of their security clearances.... In a tweet this week, Mr. Brennan criticized Mr. Trump for the language that the president used to attack Omarosa Manigault Newman, his former top aide, who he called a 'dog.'"
Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The evidence against Paul Manafort is 'overwhelming,' a prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments in his fraud trial on Wednesday, saying that he hid more than $16 million in income and fraudulently obtained $20 million in bank loans even though, as a trained lawyer, 'Mr. Manafort knew the law.' The lead prosecutor, Greg D. Andres, described Mr. Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, as a bright and highly capable political consultant who was well versed in tax law and financial matters and fluent in terms like 'write-offs' and 'distribution' income. Mr. Manafort deliberately deceived his bookkeeper and tax accountants, Mr. Andres argued, so he could keep more of his income tax-free and then trick banks into loaning him millions when 'he was going broke and he couldn't pay his bills.' In a dispassionate summation that lasted nearly two hours, Mr. Andres insisted that Mr. Manafort's crimes could not be dismissed as mere oversights. He repeatedly showed the jury emails, tax returns or other financial documents that Mr. Manafort either personally wrote or signed. 'It wasn't a clerical decision. It wasn't "forgot to check a box,"' Mr. Andres said. 'When you follow the trail of Mr. Manafort's finances, it is littered with lies.'" ...
... Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post report on closing arguments in the Paul Manafort trial.
Talk about "Rigged." Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The tens of thousands of pages that have emerged from [Brett Kavanaugh's] tenure in the George W. Bush White House reveal little about his judicial philosophy and qualifications, much less any damning detail that could sink his bid to replace retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Yet those papers are being disclosed to the public ... [by] a lawyer working for Bush and his legal team.... The National Archives is doing its own nonpartisan review, but that won't be finished for weeks -- long after Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed.... The National Archives, which has played a central role for previous nominees in vetting their White House papers and sending them to the Senate, has effectively been sidelined. In its place is a team led by attorney Bill Burck, who also served in the Bush White House as Kavanaugh's deputy when the nominee was staff secretary." Mrs. McC: Yup, they know Kavanaugh has something -- if not plenty -- to hide.
On of the Best People Is Resigning. Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "A political appointee overseeing a small foreign assistance agency that has been used by the White House as a source of jobs for Trump administration supporters is resigning.... Robert Blau, a retired Foreign Service officer and speechwriter for Trump's presidential campaign, was named vice president of operations at the Millennium Challenge Corporation in May 2017. He assumed the duties of the chief executive in May of this year, after the Senate failed to move on Trump's nominee to lead the agency.... Blau's announcement followed a July 28 Washington Post story that detailed how the White House had assumed control over hiring at the headquarters of Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, a small independent agency that promotes economic growth in poor countries.... Soon after arriving at MCC, he filled his office with Trump campaign memorabilia. During a staff meeting last year, he urged employees to watch Fox News and read Breitbart News and characterized The Washington Post and CNN as 'very biased.'..."
Andy Kroll in Rolling Stone: "FBI agents in California and Washington, D.C., have investigated a series of cyberattacks over the past year that targeted a Democratic opponent of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Rohrabacher is a 15-term incumbent who is widely seen as the most pro-Russia and pro-Putin member of Congress and is a staunch supporter of President Trump. The hacking attempts and the FBI's involvement are described in dozens of emails and forensic records obtained by Rolling Stone. The target of these attacks, Dr. Hans Keirstead, a stem-cell scientist and the CEO of a biomedical research company, finished third in California's nonpartisan 'top-two' primary on June 5th, falling 125 votes short of advancing to the general election in one of the narrowest margins of any congressional primary this year. He has since endorsed Harley Rouda, the Democrat who finished in second place and will face Rohrabacher in the November election."
Gaia Pianigiani, et al., of the New York Times: "Long before the bridge collapse that killed at least 39 people in Genoa on Tuesday, experts raised the alarm that the structure was deteriorating and possibly dangerous -- warnings that, after the catastrophe, quickly led to a round of demands to determine who was to blame." See also yesterday's News Ledes. Mrs. McC: More than once I've traveled on that bridge, which is part of the autostrade. Glad I lived to tell about it & I'm sorry for those who did not.
Mrs. McCrabbie: The photo from which this snip is taken accompanied the NYT story, linked below, on how Trump has embraced Hungary's authoritarian President Viktor Orban. The snip is part of the "class picture" of the July 2018 NATO summit. I was thinking less about Orban and the summit than I was about how Donald Trump looks now that Hope Hicks isn't there to iron his pants while he's wearing them. Sad!
Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "... as pathetic as [the Unite the Right 2 event was], none of it was quite as hilariously humiliating to the alt-right as the video ... in which the rally's organizer, Jason Kessler, is yelled at by his father to get out of his parents' room in the middle of a live stream with a fellow alt-righter (the stream first aired some time ago, but recently resurfaced on Twitter).... 'Hey!' Kessler's father says, interrupting his conversation with the white nationalist and anti-Semitic former US Senate candidate Patrick Little. 'You get out of my room!'" Includes video. Mrs. McC: Little White Boy needs to put on his p.j.s & repair to the basement.
*****
Primary Election Results
Jeremy Peters & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "On a night when voters in four states went to the polls, Democrats delivered groundbreaking primary victories for a transgender woman in Vermont, a Muslim woman in Minnesota and an African-American woman in Connecticut, while voters in Wisconsin nominated a top state education official, Tony Evers, to challenge Gov. Scott Walker, one of the most vulnerable high-profile Republicans of the midterms cycle. Also in Wisconsin, Republicans backed State Senator Leah Vukmir to run against Senator Tammy Baldwin, a first-term Democrat, propelling an establishment Republican who was careful to heap praise on Mr. Trump while harnessing the support of state party leaders."
Vermont. The New York Times is reporting results here.
... U.S. Senate. Jeremy Peters & Jonathan Martin: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont easily won his state's Democratic primary [link removed] on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, all but guaranteeing his re-election in November. But Mr. Sanders is expected to snub the party that he sought to represent in the 2016 presidential election: A self-described democratic socialist, he plans to reject the nomination and run instead as an independent, according to advisers. Mr. Sanders followed this course in his Senate races in 2006 and 2012. By winning the Democratic nomination, he effectively prevented the party from putting another name on the November ballot, and many Democratic leaders and voters supported him in November elections regardless of him not running on the party line." The story has been updated, the original lede obliterated. It is linked above. ...
... Governor. Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: Christine "Hallquist, a Democrat, made history.... She became the first transgender candidate to be nominated for a governorship by a major party, beating three other candidates in Vermont's Democratic primary, according to The Associated Press.... But from here, her path to the governor's office could be a narrow one, even though she is a Democrat running in a deeply progressive state. She faces a Republican incumbent, Phil Scott, who is running for his second term with history on his side -- Vermonters have not thrown out an incumbent governor since 1962. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the seat as 'solid Republican.'"
Connecticut. The New York Times' live results are here.
... Governor, U.S. Congress. Lisa Foderaro of the New York Times: "Ned Lamont, a wealthy businessman whose prior bid for governor fell short, won the Democratic nomination in the Connecticut primary on Tuesday, handily beating his sole opponent according to The Associated Press, and sounding buoyant about keeping the governorship in Democratic hands.... In 2006, Mr. Lamont upset the political order when he staged a shocking upset of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Democratic congressional primary. He then lost the general election to Mr. Lieberman, who ran as an independent. Four years later, he lost to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in the Democratic primary for governor.... [Lamont] will face the Republican Bob Stefanowski in November.... Democrats also chose Jahana Hayes in the state's Fifth Congressional District, the A.P. reported. Ms. Hayes, a 'National Teacher of the Year' in 2016, is seeking to become the state's first black Democrat to serve in Congress. Ms. Hayes, 46, was thought to be a long-shot in the contest against Mary Glassman, a longtime local Democratic politician in the Western Connecticut region. But she embraced her status as an underdog, melding her life story -- growing up in Waterbury, Conn., she went through homelessness, a teen pregnancy and economic hardship -- into her campaign. She also won support from some of the same progressive organizations that supported insurgent progressive Democratic candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...."
... U.S. Senate. Matthew Corey has won the GOP primary. He will face Sen. Chris Murphy (D).
Wisconsin. The Times' primary results are here. ...
... Governor. Patrick Marley & Molly Beck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Tony Evers won an eight-way Democratic primary Tuesday, setting up a November showdown between the state's education chief and GOP Gov. Scott Walker. ...
... U.S. Senate. Bill Glauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Down in the polls for months, [Leah] Vukmir relied on an old-fashioned get-out-the-vote ground game to defeat Kevin Nicholson -- and the big money behind him -- and claim the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate Tuesday.... Next up for Vukmir is a November showdown with Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. It is a classic confrontation between Vukmir, an unabashed conservative, and Baldwin, a proud liberal.... A record-breaking 19 women have won major-party nominations for the U.S. Senate this year, according to Rutgers University's Center for American Women in Politics."
Minnesota. The New York Times is updating results here. ...
... U.S. Senate (Special Election). Judy Keen of the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune: "U.S. Sen. Tina Smith beat Richard Painter, once the ethics chief in a Republican White House, in the DFL primary election Tuesday, setting up the state's first U.S. Senate race with two women nominees. State Sen. Karin Housley, who won the Republican nomination, will face Smith in the fall."
... U.S. Senate. Jim Newberger won the Republican primary. He will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D).
... Governor. Patrick Coolican of the Star Tribune: "Jeff Johnson shocked the Minnesota political world when he built an insurmountable lead over former Gov. Tim Pawlenty [in the Republican primary for governor]. Meanwhile, Tim Walz defeated Erin Murphy and Lori Swanson on the DFL side.... Johnson, a Hennepin County commissioner, derailed former Gov. Tim Pawlenty's bid to win back his old job. Pawlenty had been widely seen as the front-runner thanks to much higher name recognition from his two previous terms in office, and Johnson overcame a vast fundraising disadvantage with a message of change and by courting supporters of... Donald Trump." ...
... Attorney General. Jessie Van Berkel of the Star Tribune: "U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison won the DFL primary for Minnesota attorney general Tuesday and will face Republican Doug Wardlow in the November election."
Kansas (Last Tuesday's Primary). Governor. Bryan Lowry, et al., of the Kansas City Star: "Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has captured the Republican nomination for governor after the tightest primary fight in Kansas history, edging out the state's sitting governor. Gov. Jeff Colyer, a plastic surgeon from Overland Park, announced his concession Tuesday night after he failed to narrow the gap with Kobach when provisional ballots in Johnson County were tallied. 'I just had a conversation with the Secretary of State and I congratulated him on his success and repeated my determination to keep this seat in Republican hands,' Colyer said. 'This election is probably the closest in America, but the numbers just aren't there unless we go to extraordinary measures.'... Kobach led Colyer by 345 votes as of Tuesday evening, a week after Election Day, with 85 of the state's 105 counties having processed their provisional ballots.... Kobach will face Democratic state Sen. Laura Kelly of Topeka, who captured her party's nomination with 52 percent of the vote in a five-way race, and independent Greg Orman if Kobach's office certifies the signatures collected by the Johnson County businessman's campaign.... Patrick Miller, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas, said he sees the race leaning for Kobach because Orman will draw votes from Kelly."
*****
** Convergence. John Sipher of The Atlantic: "While many Americans are concerned that the Trump campaign may have colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, Trump's outright convergence of interests with Putin's Russia may well prove far more damaging for U.S. interests in the long run.... Both Putin and Trump seek to inject chaos into the U.S. political system. They support an assault on U.S. foreign-policy elites, encourage fringe and radical groups, and envision a United States untethered from traditional allies. They also share a willingness to utilize informal and semi-legal means to achieve their goals.... Trumpism shares a disturbing amount in common with Putinism, including promoting racist hatred of outsiders; the belief that the rich are above the law; the reflexive use of propaganda lies and denial; and the shredding of legal and political norms.... The greatest concern for Americans shouldn't be that Trump may have colluded with Russia; it's that under his guidance, we may be converging." Read on. --safari (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I was thinking about this Monday night. For instance, what country benefits most from the FBI's firing of Peter Strzok, the agency's top counterintelligence agent on Russia? Hint: Not the U.S. ...
...Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "When President Trump signed a $716 billion military spending bill on Monday, he claimed the authority to override dozens of provisions that he deemed improper constraints on his executive powers. In a signing statement that the White House quietly issued after 9 p.m. on Monday — about six hours after Mr. Trump signed the bill in a televised ceremony at Fort Drum in New York — Mr. Trump deemed about 50 of its statutes to be unconstitutional intrusions on his presidential powers, meaning that the executive branch need not enforce or obey them as written. Among them was a ban on spending military funds on 'any activity that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea,' the Ukrainian region annexed by Moscow in 2014 in an incursion considered illegal by the United States.... The statement was the latest example of Mr. Trump's emerging broad vision of executive power. His personal lawyers, for example, have claimed that his constitutional authority to supervise the Justice Department means that he can lawfully impede the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election no matter his motive, despite obstruction-of-justice statutes." Emphasis added.
Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "'When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn't work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!' Trump tweeted Tuesday.... Referring to an African-American woman as an animal is at best a sharp departure from the language typically employed by Presidents and at worst a reference that traffics in sexual and racial imagery." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Michael Shear & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump added his former White House aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman, on Tuesday to the growing list of African-Americans he has publicly denigrated on Twitter, calling her 'that dog' and a 'crazed, crying lowlife' after her allegations against him of mental deterioration and racism. Even for a president who consistently uses Twitter to assail his adversaries, the morning tweet about Ms. Manigault Newman was a remarkably crude use of the presidential bully pulpit to disparage a woman who once served at the highest levels in his White House. In an interview on MSNBC, Ms. Manigault Newman responded that Mr. Trump treats women differently from men because he 'believes they are beneath him' and that he talked in derogatory ways about minorities. 'He has absolutely no respect for women, for African-Americans,' she said. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called Don Lemon, a CNN anchor, 'the dumbest man on television.' He has questioned the intelligence of LeBron James, a star basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers. And he has repeatedly said that Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, has a 'low I.Q.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Altho Trump has used the word "dog" to insult white people, as Shear & Sullivan note, he has used "dog" as a simile -- "lies like a dog" -- when applied to white people. He used it as a noun against Manigault Newman.
... Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "The President of the United States called someone a 'dog' on Twitter Tuesday morning, another first for his debasement of Presidential rhetoric.... Trump has hurled playground taunts at a breathtakingly long line of targets during his eighteen months in office, from African-American football players to the Prime Minister of Canada.... The tweet exploded like a bomb on Twitter, where many immediately labelled it as racist and sexist (and noted that it came after Manigault-Newman alleged that there were recordings of Trump using the N-word during tapings of his TV show 'The Apprentice').... Trump's tweet makes Omarosa more sympathetic than she otherwise would be.... Omarosa titled her kiss-and-tell 'Unhinged.' Trump seems intent on proving her right." ...
... Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "... Donald Trump's campaign said Tuesday it has filed for arbitration, accusing Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former campaign aide and White House official, of breaching a 2016 nondisclosure agreement with the campaign. The move is the first legal action the Trump campaign has taken since Manigault Newman published a tell-all book about her time as a Trump campaign adviser and senior White House official." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... the filing was a major escalation by Mr. Trump against Ms. Manigault Newman, whose book, 'Unhinged,' is the first account by a former White House aide to make embarrassing allegations about the president and his team.... Legal experts have said the nondisclosure agreements for the campaign and the White House are most likely not legally enforceable.... On Monday night, Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, denied on Fox News that the president had used the N-word, as Ms. Manigault Newman claims in the book. But on Tuesday, Ms. Manigault Newman provided an audio recording to CBS that appeared to reveal Ms. Pierson saying during the campaign that she believed Mr. Trump had used the slur, and that he was embarrassed for having done so."
... Jessica Levinson of NBC News: "... government employees are public servants.... They are also paid with public funds. And therefore, barring national security or significant privacy concerns, government employees should be able to tell the public -- who they work for -- about their service in government.... There's a strong case to be made that NDAs signed by White House employees violate the First Amendment and also public policy, making it doubtful that a court would agree to enforce them.... NDAs are also probably illegal.... It's important to note here that an NDA signed by a campaign staffer is different from one signed by a government employee. A contract between a campaign staffer and a campaign is between private individuals." ...
... Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "Attorney Charles Harder is representing ... Donald Trump's campaign in its arbitration fight against former senior White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Harder, who is best known for representing wrestler Hulk Hogan in his sex tape lawsuit against now-defunct gossip site Gawker, was brought on as Manigault Newman published a book with numerous salacious claims against the president." ...
... ** Josh Marshall: "[I]t seems highly dubious that the ... [non-disclosure agreements] are enforceable. But that's not really the point. As the Cohen/Stormy Daniels saga has demonstrated, enforceability has never counted terribly high in Trump NDA thinking. The point isn't to win cases but to get a license to terrorize or bankrupt signee with predatory litigation.... If there's nothing else we've learned in recent months it is that if Trump is paranoid about being betrayed by his top operatives, he apparently has good reason.... Having the dignity crushed out of you amounts to the most reliable and universal aspect of Trump service.... It's a low trust, high fear climate which breeds backstabbing, betrayal, paranoia which only deepens in a self-validating, self-perpetuating way. It is a system of maximal public obsequiousness and maximal private subterfuge. Everything is a lie.... It a classic Hobbesian world, the war against all against all -- a comic dystopia Trump is building in the White House and aspires to create worldwide." --safari ...
... Ryan Parker of the Hollywood Reporters: "Penn Jillette says he knows for a fact that Mark Burnett possesses tapes of ... Donald Trump saying disparaging, racist remarks while working on the NBC reality show Celebrity Apprentice. Half of the magician duo Penn and Teller (who appeared on Celebrity Apprentice in 2012) recently told Vulture in an interview posted Tuesday that he is positive recordings exist because 'I was in the room' when Trump would say 'racially insensitive things that made me uncomfortable.' The infamous tapes that have dogged Trump since his campaign are once again in the news after former White House staffer and reality star Omarosa Manigault Newman said she heard the tapes, which allegedly include Trump using the N-word during production of the NBC series, which he hosted.... Trump on Tuesday, via Twitter, said Burnett assured him the tapes do not exist. Jillette says otherwise. However, he will not get in to the specifics of what Trump said because now that Trump is president, the 'stakes are really high.'" ...
... Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that she could not 'guarantee' that there are no recordings of ... Donald Trump using the N-word.... On Monday, the president took to Twitter to deny the existence of such a tape.... Sanders said that she and other White House aides would quit their jobs 'if at any point we felt that the president was who some of his critics claim him to be' and that he wouldn't have been able to form close relationships with other luminaries in the business and political worlds, including 'Bill and Hillary Clinton,' if he was." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nice to see Sanders using "Crooked Hillary" as a character witness for Trump. ...
This president, since he took office, in the year and a half that he's been here, has created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans. That's 700,000 African-Americans that are working now that weren't working when this president took place. When President Obama left after eight years in office -- eight years in office -- he had only created 195,000 jobs for African-Americans. President Trump, in his first year and a half, has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years. -- Sarah Sanders, at a White House news briefing on Tuesday
False.... According to the latest data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 708,000 more black Americans had jobs in July than in January 2017, the month Mr. Trump took office. By contrast, the same data show, the economy added about three million jobs for black Americans between January 2009 and January 2017, during Mr. Obama's presidency. -- Linda Qiu of the New York Times
Update: From the Shear & Sullivan report, linked above: "Hours after her briefing, Ms. Sanders made a rare apology, tweeting that her numbers were off. 'Jobs numbers for Pres Trump and Pres Obama were correct, but the time frame for Pres Obama wasn't,' she wrote, citing information that she had interpreted incorrectly from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. 'I'm sorry for the mistake, but no apologies for the 700,000 jobs for African Americans created under President Trump.'" ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox: "During a television interview Tuesday..., MSNBC's Katy Tur asked [Omarosa Manigault-Newman] ... whether Donald Trump knew about hacked Democratic emails before they were publicly released during the 2016 -- and Omarosa responded, 'Absolutely.' Tur followed up: 'He knew what was coming out before WikiLeaks released them?' And Omarosa said, 'Yes.' She also claimed that she had been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team but offered no further specifics. [The "interview" appears to have been in the form of a phone call.] These are extremely vague claims, and it's difficult to know what to make of them without more details — details that Manigault-Newman does not provide in her new book.... It's never been definitively shown that the Trump team was in the loop on or involved in the two biggest email dumps to WikiLeaks, of the DNC's emails and John Podesta's emails." ...
... Politico: "... Donald Trump wrote online Tuesday that Jeff Sessions is not a 'real' attorney general, heaping fresh blame onto him for the Russia investigation that has served as a drag on Trump's time in the White House.... On Tuesday morning, Trump quoted Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett and added a swipe at Sessions. '"They were all in on it, clear Hillary Clinton and FRAME Donald Trump for things he didn't do." Gregg Jarrett on @foxandfriends,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'If we had a real Attorney General, this Witch Hunt would never have been started! Looking at the wrong people.' Also, see Patrick's comment below. "The Great Hillary Conspiracy" seems to be a TrumpWorld theme. (Also linked yesterday.)
** Emma Loop & Jason Leopold of Buzzfeed: "In its investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, the Senate Intelligence Committee has spent more than a year trying to follow the money. But its efforts, unparalleled on Capitol Hill, have been hampered by a surprising force: the US Treasury Department, which has delayed turning over crucial financial records and refused to provide an expert to help make sense of the complex money trail. Even some of the department's own personnel have questioned whether Treasury is intentionally hamstringing the investigation.... While the reports include some of the president's current and former associates, even the Senate committee did not ask the Treasury for financial records on Trump himself or his family members." --safari: We keep hearing "the institutions are holding". This is proof of serious cracks in their foundations. Sounds like even the Senate investigation is looking under all the mattresses BUT the Trumps'.
Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "Lawyers for Paul Manafort say they’ll rest their case without calling any witnesses in the former Trump campaign chairman's trial[.] The decision in the bank- and tax-fraud case comes after Judge T.S. Ellis III denied a defense motion to acquit Manafort as his lawyers argued the special counsel had failed to prove its case at the federal trial in Virginia. Such motions are routinely filed and almost never granted. After several hours of sealed discussions, open court began at about 11:45 a.m. with no explanation for the delay." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Waiting for Donaldo. Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: "From the beginning, there has been a question hanging over Manafort's case: Why won't he flip?... There's a real possibility he'll never see another day as a free man. One popular explanation is that he's afraid that if he tells everything he knows, some people in Russia would become displeased enough to kill him. The oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whom Manafort supposedly owes $19 million, allegedly has links to organized crime.... [Enter right, Donald Trump.] You can already see the argument he'll make: The whole thing is a witch hunt, the charges are bogus, the jury was a bunch of Angry Democrats, and I’m intervening in the interests of justice. Trump also seems to genuinely believe that the investigation is unfair, and pardoning Manafort would be a great way for him to both assert control and stick it to Mueller."
Tales of Trump & Two (Other) Tyrants
Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "For years, [Hungarian President Viktor] Orban’s government has craved validation from Washington, spending millions of dollars on lobbying, mostly in vain. The Obama administration largely ostracized Mr. Orban, avoiding high-level, bilateral contacts as punishment for his creeping authoritarian tendencies. American diplomats criticized Mr. Orban's crackdown on civil society — as did President Barack Obama himself. But now the Trump administration is pivoting, signaling a new engagement with Hungary, as well as nearby Poland. The shift has alarmed many campaigners for democracy and the rule of law, even as others argue that the Obama strategy of trying to isolate Mr. Orban had failed, and created openings for Russian and Chinese influence. President Trump has made no secret of his fondness for strongman leaders, yet his praise for them has sometimes been out of step with the policies of his administration. Toward Mr. Orban, at least, American policy seems to be following Mr. Trump's lead.... 'It legitimizes Russian influence in Hungary, [said Jiri] Pehe, who is now the director of New York University's campus in Prague." It appears Rex Tillerson continued Obama's freeze, a freeze which ended shortly after Tillerson's job did.
Martin Chulov of the Guardian has an piece that explains, according to his source, how Trump exacerbated the Turkish economic crisis -- which could threaten the world economy -- when he tried to make a deal with Turkish President Recep Erdogan on a prisoner swap. There were only three people in a room -- the Presidents & a translator -- and Trump didn't understand the deal he had made. Oh, and later mike pence put in his two cents & made things worse. As punishment (for his own ignorance & sloppiness, if you come right down to it), Trump doubled tariffs on Turkish steel & aluminum, further deflating confidence in Turkey's economic outlook. Mrs. McC: Are you surprised? (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Kareem Fahim of the Washington Post: "Turkey on Wednesday raised tariffs on a number of products imported from the United States, including passenger cars, tobacco and spirits, retaliating for President Trump's decision last week to double tariffs on Turkish metals. The tit-for-tat measures are part of a broader dispute between the two countries over the fate of an American citizen, Andrew Brunson, who is being prosecuted by Turkish authorities on terrorism-related charges. The Trump administration has demanded that Brunson, a pastor from North Carolina who has lived in Turkey for decades, be allowed to return to the United States. Turkey has suffered the most from the feud, which has helped push its currency, the lira, to record lows against the dollar. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has accused the United States of bullying behavior and economic sabotage, vowed on Tuesday to boycott U.S.-made electronic goods, including Apple's signature iPhone." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Surely a smarter president -- say, Dubya -- could have arranged to have Brunson returned to the U.S. without any fall-out or face-saving hoohah.
Emily Holden of Politico: "The Trump administration is preparing to unveil its plan for undoing Barack Obama's most ambitious climate regulation -- offering a replacement that would do far less to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, according to Politico’s review of a portion of the unpublished draft. The new climate proposal for coal-burning power plants, expected to be released in the coming days, would give states wide latitude to write their own modest regulations for coal plants or even seek permission to opt out, according to the document and a source who has read other sections of the draft.... Obama's Clean Power Plan ... would have sped a shift away from coal use and toward less-polluting sources such as natural gas, wind and solar. That plan was the centerpiece of Obama's pledge for the U.S. to cut carbon dioxide emissions as part of the Paris climate agreement, which ... Donald Trump has said he plans to exit."
Emily Stewart of Vox: "The federal government's top consumer watchdog has decided it no longer needs to proactively supervise banks, credit card companies, and other lenders who deal with members of the military and their families to make sure they're not committing fraud or abuse. Critics, baffled by the decision from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, say it will put service members in the claws of predatory lenders and put their careers and livelihoods — and potentially US national security -- at risk.... Now the agency, under interim director Mick Mulvaney, is planning to end its use of these supervisory examinations of lenders.... Instead, the bureau will only be able to take action against lenders if it receives a complaint." --safari (Also linked yesterday.)
** Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "Two federal immigration agencies worked together in a coordinated effort to set deportation traps for unsuspecting immigrants seeking legal status, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleged in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen this week. According to the Boston Globe, the two agencies arranged meetings for the undocumented immigrants at government offices, where they were subsequently arrested, and in some cases deported." --safari ...
... Amanda Michelle Gomez of ThinkProgress: "The federal health department's refugee office -- an office that's garnered attention for blocking an undocumented teen's abortion, failing to reunite migrant families the administration has separated, and contracting with detention facilities with grave abuses -- has removed its staff directory from its website.... Email addresses and phone numbers for 22 members of the Office of Refugee Resettlement's (ORR) leadership were taken down and not replaced.... The removal appears to have been around the same time that [ORR director] Scott Lloyd tried to stop detained migrant teens from getting abortions. In mid-October, news broke that Lloyd personally intervened to try to persuade pregnant girls in ORR custody." (Also linked yesterday.)
All the Best People, Ctd. Barbara Starr of CNN: "One of Defense Secretary James Mattis' most senior civilian advisers is being investigated by the Defense Department Office of Inspector General for allegedly retaliating against staff members after she used some of them to conduct her personal errands and business matters, according to four sources familiar with the probe. Dana White, the Trump administration political appointee who serves as the Pentagon's chief spokeswoman, has been under investigation for several weeks after multiple complaints were filed against her. White is alleged to have misused support staff, asking them, among other things, to fetch her drycleaning, run to the pharmacy for her and work on her mortgage paperwork. Staffers also charge that she inappropriately transferred personnel after they filed complaints about her. White has not been found in violation of any federal regulation or policy at this point.... Matters came to a head [in May], when at least two staffers raised concerns with more senior officials about White's use of their time. The staffers were transferred soon after and complained to the IG that they were moved in reprisal for their complaints."
Infernal Environmentalists Cause Infernos. Elliot Hannon of Slate: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a card-carrying member of climate change skeptic Trump administration, told a local TV station Sunday that climate change has nothing to do with the dozens of wildfires currently ravaging the west, and particularly the state of California, where blazes have churned through 1,000 square miles so far in what has already been the most destructive fire season on record. Instead, Zinke placed blame on 'extreme environmentalists' for the conditions that led to the state's historic fires this year. 'America is better than letting these radical groups control the dialogue about climate change,' Zinke said in an interview with KCRA. 'This has nothing to do with climate change. This has to do with active forest management.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Senate Race. Ed Kilgore: "Gary Johnson, Professional Spoiler, Jumps Into New Mexico's Senate [Race].... His leap into the Senate race is more than anything else a wake-up call for incumbent Democratic senator Martin Heinrich, who had been coasting to an easy reelection win over underfunded Republican political novice Mick Rich."
Laurie Goodstein & Sharon Otterman of the New York Times: "Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and police officers not to investigate it, according to a report issued by a grand jury on Tuesday. The report, which covered six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses and found more than 1,000 identifiable victims, is the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. There have been ten previous reports by grand juries and attorneys general in the United States, according to the research and advocacy group BishopAccountability.org, but those examined single dioceses or counties."
Beyond the Beltway
Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Prison officials in Nebraska used the powerful opioid fentanyl to help execute a convicted murderer on Tuesday, the first such use of the drug in the United States and the first execution in the state since voters overturned a death penalty ban in 2016. The use of fentanyl, an opioid at the heart of the nation's overdose crisis, as part of a previously untested four-drug cocktail drew concern from death penalty experts who questioned how the execution unfolded.... The condemned man, Carey Dean Moore, 60, had been convicted of killing two Omaha taxi drivers decades ago and did not seek a reprieve in his final months."
Joel Achenbach, et al., of the Washington Post: "Florida's governor this week made official what residents of southwest Florida already knew: The bloom of toxic algae that has darkened gulf waters is an emergency. The red tide has made breathing difficult for locals, scared away tourists, and strewn popular beaches with the stinking carcasses of fish, eels, porpoises, turtles, manatees and one 26-foot whale shark. Gov. Rick Scott (R) late Monday declared a state of emergency in seven counties stretching from Tampa Bay south to the fringe of the Everglades. Scott promised $1.5 million in emergency funding. The governor is facing Sen. Bill Nelson (D) this fall at the ballot box in a contest for the senate seat Nelson has held for three terms. Each man has accused the other of failing to tackle the red-tide calamity and the simultaneous bloom of a different type of algae that is clogging rivers and canals and putting a scum on top of Lake Okeechobee." Includes video & a photo slideshow. Mrs. McC: This catastrophe is literally in my back yard, which abuts the Caloosahatchee River, part of the Intracoastal Waterway.
Erik Ortiz of NBC News: "Attorneys for the family of the Florida father who died last month following an argument over a handicap parking space thanked state prosecutors Monday for filing a manslaughter charge against the gunman, Michael Drejka -- less than a month after the killing. 'We are very appreciative that the state moved fast in this case,' Kelly McCabe, an attorney for the family of Markeis McGlockton, said at a news conference in which they supported the charge -- a felony that carries up to 30 years in prison. But while attorneys for the family of McGlockton have also decried his fatal shooting as a 'cold-blooded murder,' Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe told NBC News that he went with manslaughter after investigators and lawyers interviewed witnesses and studied the surveillance footage from the deadly July 19 dispute. 'I went through it all and made the legal decision that that is the charge that we could prove,' McCabe added. Legal experts agree...." (Also linked yesterday.)
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Reader Comments (17)
Reduction ad absurdum:
If there were no trees, there would be no forest fires...
Zinke is no doubt correct that forests could be better managed and forest practices improved, and the application of such techniques would cut down on the severity of the fires we're seeing, but that kind of intelligent management costs money and private forest owners don't find it profitable and most of the national forest service budget is consumed by fire fighting, which as more fires erupt has it perpetually chasing its own budgetary tail.
Nothing like simple answers for simple minds.
@Ken Winkes: Thanks. Sadly, even Zinke would probably agree you had perfectly framed his argument, altho he doesn't see it as absurdum. Except for Whitefish, Montana, & environs, the only place on earth where he's interested in preserving what Mother Nature planted in her garden.
We've had two great stories to come out in the last two days to best summarize the corrupt intent of the entire Republican party, and ample evidence to confirm that it did not start, nor will it end, with the current sleaze occupying the Oval Office.
The coupling of the National Archive shananigans with the announcement of their fast-tracking of Kavanaugh's confirmation process is a case study in the GOP absconding from their democratic duties and strong-arming Democrats into short circuiting proper institutional processes. That Democrats will still show up, venting some anger and getting in a few memorable retorts, while ultimately voting (yeah or nay) in this shambolic process is all Movement Conservatives need to give Kavanaugh a veneer of legitimacy. This circus is all they need for his 30 years of Republican fidelity. That the GOP has already announced the enquiries will last but a few days is a blatant admission that Dems will be squeezed for time with incomplete information and the man might as well just show up in his fancy Supreme Court robe already. Yet this Supreme Court nomination has very little, if anything, to do with Donny Diapers. This predates him and would be the case for any Republican president. This is pure GOP party tactics of deceit and deception.
Whether the National Archives is staffed with GOP stooges we can ponder. But the fact that Republicans know fully well that they hold the apparent magical key to the archives, and are steadfastly unwilling to even humor using it after various requests from their equally representative colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is a damning condemnation of how far out of bounds they're willing to go to push for ever more power over the political system. Their hunger knows no bounds, and norms and traditions are for losers.
And now, in Buzzfeed's article linked today, we have the Treasury Department, indeed led by Trump stooge Mnuchin, refusing to assist in key moments of the Senate's investigation into Russian ties, specifically hampering the investigation into the money trail between potential American traitors and their Russian masters, which is, obviously, the most likely place to look for evidence of malfeasance. Here we have Trump's goons leaning heavily on the Treasury Dept. to not cough up any goods, and Treasury refusing to send over an expert to sift through the maze of shell companies and wire transfers. And beyond that, it appears that Richard Burr, the GOP head of the Senate investigation and the man everyone in the MSM hails as a Very Serious Person dedicated to finding out the truth, hasn't even solicited financial documents on ANY member of the Trump family. Not because he can't, but because he doesn't see the reason for it.
Here, the GOP/Trump corruption racket comes full circle, the party appeasing its patriarch, regardless of the fact that he very might be in cahoots with an international adversary who has our demise as political priority numero uno. And now that they've all tied their life rafts to the Trump Org, they have to scatter like rats to throw forks in every road, lest the investigations hit the iceberg and take them all down with him.
@This also points to the perils of impeachment. president mike pence wouldn't fix any of this; if anything, he'd exacerbate it because, unlike Trump, he's a gentleman loon. And as a former Congressman, he certainly has more friends on the Hill. He won't embarrass them. And, assuming he would pre-pardon Trump on Election Eve 2020, he would become a great folk hero to Trumpbots. We are not even halfway through the shortest possible Long National Nightmare.
In a way, the slow-rolling Mueller investigation is the best we can hope for, as it keeps Trump distracted from (some of) the real business of turning the U.S. into a dictatorship. And I think he can do it or at least go a long way toward it. Abraham Lincoln trounced all over the First Amendment. Andrew Jackson supposedly said (the quote is probably apocryphal but expresses his 'tude), "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Franklin Roosevelt interned innocent Japanese-Americans. Jim Crow still ruled the South in my lifetime. Yeah, yeah, this was all a long time ago. But history has a way of repeating itself.
safari: good summary and your "they have to scatter like rats to throw forks in every road..." brings to mind how some dehumanize by putting an animal tag on others. Trump calling Omarosa a "dog" is one step above the Nazi's referring to Jews as vermin or rats. If for nothing else–-and there IS so much else–-Trump's racism, prejudices, and just plain venom that is displayed in those tweets is so outrageous for a sitting president that one wonders at the complacency of those republicans who remain mute––are they that afraid??? It's like we have a runaway train and there's no one to pull on the brakes or throw a stake on the tracks.
Stephen Miller, the man behind the throne, has an uncle who is speaking out against his nephew. David Glosser is furious at the immigration/refugee debacle and blames Stephen for much of it. He reaches back in history to the separation of British children from their parents in WWII and how studies later showed the psychological damage on many of these children even though many were residing in decent (meaning non-abusive) American homes.
Barbara Starr's (story above) modus operandi sounds a whole lot like that little punk Scotty Pruitt, don't it?
We here on R.C.talked about and were alarmed at the algae problem in Fla. about two years ago. Sorry to hear Marie's abode is so close to this disaster. Why has it taken so long to do something about this?
Everyone I voted for yesterday, I'm happy to report, won.
Someone mentioned the CSICon conference in Las Vegas in October where a slew of critical thinkers get together and chew on and spit out their ideas and critical thinking. Here's the promo:
https://csiconference.org
The revelation of more sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not surprising; what is a puzzlement is the plethora of data about these cases that were kept in a locked vault. Why would all this have been recorded––for what--for whom?
@PD Pepe: You make a very good point about the Roman Catholic Church. There had to be a worldwide conspiracy to keep secret clerics' sexual abuses of children, men and women. Thus it's hard not to surmise the conspiracy started at the top. But Pope John Paul II is on a fast-track to sainthood, a timely reminder, I suppose, that even the saints have feet of clay.
Know something about this outrage was linked here the other day, but thought it worth another thought....so I had one.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/legal-immigration-us-citizenship-trump-policy-stephen-miller-immigrants-a8481606.html
Yesterday's bike ride Spock thought:
Since undocumented immigrants (that's only those who are UNDOCUMENTED) contribute about 24 billion in income taxes and 9 or so billion to social security, if any use of the proscribed social services prevents them from becoming citizens....
....they should ask for and GET their money back.
It's only logical.
Sorry, calling Trump a racist gives him too much credit. Racism is bad and it is based on the need to provide an excuse for who you are. Trump is a trumpist. Similar issue but different context. All humans of any race who do not kiss the Trump ass are ignorant. All such women are dogs. So remember, Trump is the smartest, most competent human on the planet.
To sum it up, racism like behavior is just a tiny piece of the demented brain.
P.S. Looks like working for Trump, any job, is trying to control him.
A friend just emailed me and asked how is the Catholic Church not subject to RICO. So I looked it up; the data is old but gives a good account of the procedure. I replied to my friend that I think the Church, like the "Lord God almighty" is untouchable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
@Ken: Bike riding and walking both provide blazing insights into complex problems––logical solutions, however, are anathema to those in charge even IF they took to the road.
Jesse Daniels, a U.of N.Y. professor, and author of a book on white supremacy, has this piece "Laura Ingraham Is Mainstreaming White Supremacy But She's not Alone." (hello NPR)
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-laura-ingraham-fox-npr-twitter-white-supremacy-racism_us_5b731a29e4b0594c38c58ac4
@PD Pepe: Your friend is on the right track. A few civil cases have been brought against the church hierarchy citing the RICO statute, but they've been losers. Nonetheless, it's hardly an outlandish idea: here's a law professor arguing why RICO s/b applied in the sex-abuse coverups.
I don't think one needs to "sue the Pope" as at least one of these suits tried (& failed), but suing an American archbishop or cardinal & those underlings who aided & abetted the priest-perps? It seems like a criminal conspiracy to me that could plausibly be subject to RICO's "corrupt organization" prohibitions. Nonetheless, it takes a gutsy prosecutor to bring such a case, & a supportive administration not to fire her.
The Prerogatives of Power
I'd like to direct the attention of RC'ers to a link Ken made at the end of yesterday's comments
, to a series of tweets that form a coherent and well crafted argument against Republicans who try to rescue the reputation of the Party of Traitors by claiming that it's all Trump's fault, that their party, minus the Trump Monster, would be just good old wonderful guys and gals striving toward the American Dream.
Sorry guys. Your party has been on a toboggan ride to hell since Reagan.
Yesterday I mentioned that the Age of Trump should more correctly be called the Age of Gingrich-Bush-Trump, since this triumvirate has pulled the pin on any semblance of truth, honesty, and decency in right-wing politics (there are none of these things currently in the GOP, and aren't likely to be for perhaps decades to come).
The writer of the tweets referenced in Ken's link is Seth Cotlar, a history professor who specializes in conservatism. He is no bug-eyed liberal loonie. He is a serious intellectual (anathema on the right, I know) who points out the despicable nature of Gingrich as both a politician and a former history professor himself. Gingrich's version of history has been described by others as completely fictionalized. Indeed, his stuff is textbook propaganda. It has the teleological certainty of religion and it's ripe with an America (and white Christians) first mentality shored up by invented or warped historical narratives (for instance, his treatise on the Civil War never once mentions slavery).
Cotlar carefully follows the thread leading from fake intellectuals (i.e., liars and fabulists) Gingrich and fellow traveler in the land of propaganda, failed and disgraced con artist Dinesh D'Souza, down the road of right-wing aggression and hatred of progressive policies (which also leads to the grift machine that the GOP has become).
He also addresses the point that so many wingnut screamers rave on about, the question of why there are so many more progressives and liberals working in areas of intellectual pursuits, such as teaching in colleges and universities and pursuing research projects in the arts and sciences.
"So why are there so few conservative professors and intellectuals? In part because conservatism became so associated with jingoistic anti-intellectualism that it became nearly impossible for an educated person to defend it."
Good point. Another reason Trump loves "the uneducated". Which brings Cotlar to this:
"This points to another thread in the history of conservatism that dates all the way back to Bill Buckley...conservatism has often defined itself largely AGAINST a phantom 'left' that doesn't really exist as they think it does...Without a scary, phantom 'left' to bash, conservatives wouldn't have much to talk about."
But if Trump really is the sole reason for the party's descent into stupidity, irrationalism, and racism, then what about this?
"Voodoo economics is alive and well in Trumpist conservatism, Scott Pruitt was like James Watt redux, climate change denial is the 2018 version of the @gop's anti-science foot dragging on tobacco regulation, and Ollie North is back as the head of the GOP's favorite gun club...We might also remember that Dick Cheney and other 'serious conservatives' defended our support of apartheid South Africa, and Reagan was pretty tolerant of dictators like Pinochet. More than a few echoes of Trumpian foreign policy here."
And leave us not forget Henry the K, who has returned like some grisly éminence grise to mill about the Trump clan.
Cotlar's main point is that Trumpism is just Republicanism rebranded and shot up with the steroidal yowling of a greedy, self-obsessed bigot. The larger point is that conservatism, as it currently exists, is an empty, truth-free vessel for control and for the grasping and maintaining of money and power.
It's worth remembering that that Founders, whom wingers so constantly try to connect to their present-day shenanigans, thereby inoculating them from any serious charges, were serious, thoughtful, and radical. Does anyone believe that any modern day winger of note would have supported them in that day and age? Would Gingrich? Would Trump?
Never.
A large part of the Revolution was a reaction against the prerogatives of power. Since that radical age, a counter-revolutionary force has been at work to roll back the ideas of freedom for all and the concept of rights for every American, not to mention gutting the essence of the revolution at it's heart: Democracy.
That slow reverse was accelerated dramatically under Reagan and then through the machinations of Gingrich, Bush, and now Trump and their supporters and lackeys. They have become the anti-revolutionaries. Their sole goal now is to ensure and enshrine, through lies, propaganda, gerrymandering, election rigging, and attacks on voting rights, their own prerogatives of power.
Okay, time for some fun.
I've only recently found out about these guys (no longer on the cutting edge of coolness, sad to say), a group of irreverent (putting it mildly) but very smart lefties called Chapo Crap House
. They take on the stupidities of the right (and some on the left) and rip the Trumpies big new ones.
Here's a sample. It's a podcast of their sorrow at seeing Charles Krauthammer go, and a reminder of what a raging asshole he was.
There are a load of others but I picked this because of a funny line about Edmund Burke.
These are the guys who found it ridiculous that many Democrats were saying "Oh, be nice to those Trump voters" when my sense was "To hell with those scumbags".
They can be insulting and overboard sometimes, but it's a lot more refreshing--and entertaining--than listening to people like Chuck Todd who are portrayed by the right as raging liberals. You probably won't agree with--or like--everything they say, but at least it's something different.
Anyway, see what you think.
In any other time and place, listening to a smug, congenital liar like Liarbee Sanders sniffing that the president*, another liar and very likely a traitor, has a "constitutional responsibility" to deny the security clearances of people who criticize him, would cause a righteous uproar.
In the Age of Gingrich-Bush-Trump, it's little more than a bit of winger flatulence, easily dissipated by the Trumpy Mouth Wind. This, about a so-called president*, a self-serving bollocks who was elected with the help of an antagonistic foreign power, a power which seeks at all turns to upend our Constitution, an ignorant blowhard who has never even read that document, who thinks the Constitution has 12 articles, and who couldn't list half of the original Bill of Rights if his misspent, bigoted, greedy life depended on it.
And don't forget that, as Don Lemon, the last in a long line of observers who have noted this, has mentioned, Trump is, because of the dead-head support from his racist followers and a criminally irresponsible Party of Traitors, immune to standards of decency.
And so, in the same way, are his Nazi supporters in Congress, the "leaders" like Mitch McConnell and Lyin' Ryan, and Chuck (What Constitution?) Grassley, who see no problem (and expect no electoral reprisal) from their refusal to allow a full accounting of the complete works of Brett (Torture Man) Kavanaugh before allowing him to ascend for the rest of his life to a position in which he can rubber stamp their most fervent and fetid wet dreams about control for a party whose popular support is now at a level approaching that of the Bubonic Plague.
They Really.Don't.Care.
But they are going to fuck us all as much as possible until the little king hits the wall.
Make shit while the anus is open. The GOP motto.
So Ak–-listened to the Chapo Crap House having a good old time with Krauthammer and his distain for the Bear books ( I never liked them much myself)––and can see where these C.C. Housers have appeal. Why, as you say, are they no longer on the cutting edge of cool?
Your other post re: Seth Cotlar I found most interesting. It brought to mind something that Marie said about the Republican party some time ago–-that it was pathological or something to that effect and I followed it by citing a quote by Richard Hofstadter who said the very same thing. Anyway–-thanks for that.
@Akhilleus: Yeah, the Edmund Burke line was pretty funny. Since I never read Krauthammer, I didn't know he wrote crap like this. The Krauthammer column sounds so David Brooksian.
PD,
Sorry, I may have been inaccurate in my description. I meant that I was the one on the outs with the coolest and the hippest, a terrible thing for one who once held a primogeniture-ish spot for hipness and insider coolness; we lose that shit pretty quickly, as I found out when I cautioned a younger friend about playing her music at a ridiculous volume. “If it’s too loud, you’re too old!” She admonished. Being in my early 30’s at the time I felt distinctly like a stranger in the strange land I felt I had helped to discover.