The Commentariat -- August 16, 2018
Late Afternoon Update:
... DeNeen Brown of the Washington Post: "The president [Barack Obama] would later write in an email to the New Yorker: 'Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R. & B., rock and roll -- the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope. American history wells up when Aretha sings. That's why, when she sits down at a piano and sings "A Natural Woman," she can move me to tears.'"
Could He Be More Stupid? Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday assailed the media for editorials in newspapers across the country that championed the freedom of the press, a unified response in the face of the president's relentless attacks.In a series of morning Twitter posts, Mr. Trump said The Boston Globe was 'in collusion' with other newspapers for leading the editorial effort, choosing a word that has become synonymous with the special counsel's investigation into Russian election interference.... Trump also added 'PROVE IT!' in one of the messages, though it was not clear what he meant[:] '... Now the Globe is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT!'... [Then there was this:] 'There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!'"
Julie Davis & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's decision to revoke [John Brennan's] security clearance drew rebukes Thursday from national security officials and members of both political parties, who called it an extraordinary act of retaliation that reflected authoritarian tactics.... Step by step, from the moment 10 days into his administration that he fired the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, Mr. Trump has overseen the removal of top national security officials who have defied him or worked at senior levels of the Russia investigation. They include James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director; Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director; and Peter Strzok, the former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email inquiry and the Russia investigation and disparaged Mr. Trump in a series of inflammatory texts." ...
... Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "Disconnected from any allegation, let alone evidence, that [John] Brennan abused his clearance, Trump's maneuver struck many intelligence observers and former officials as a naked power play: a message to the intelligence community that the president expects their personal loyalty. But CIA Director Gina Haspel, whose nomination Brennan very publicly supported and whose integrity Brennan vouched for, is remaining silent, even as the White House suggests that the same fate may await other intelligence veterans who consider Trump a danger to the country."
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump says that although he has never obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, he does 'fight back.' And, as of Wednesday, he had 'fought back' against a majority of top officials involved in leading, overseeing or making administration decisions about that probe. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, of the more than a dozen officials with what could be construed as leadership roles in the investigation, more than half have been fired and/or threatened with official recourse. The most recent examples were the White House's revocation of former CIA director John Brennan's security clearance Wednesday and the threats to do the same for nine other current and former officials who have run afoul of Trump. In one fell swoop, the White House effectively more than doubled its enemies list -- and served notice that ex-officials who were involved in the probe will not be permitted to criticize Trump willy-nilly." Blake lists the officials Trump has targeted."
Adam Edelman of NBC News: "Omarosa Manigault Newman ... on Thursday released exclusively to MSNBC a secret tape of campaign official Lara Trump offering her a $15,000-a-month job after she was fired from the administration. The tape -- which, according to Manigault Newman was made on Dec. 16, 2017, just days after she had left the White House -- appears to corroborate claims she made in her new book about receiving an offer from the president's re-election campaign. Manigault Newman wrote in her book that the job offer came with the condition of signing a nondisclosure agreement; she said she did not accept it."
Darren Samuelsohn, et al., of Politico: "Jurors in Paul Manafort's trial ended their first day of deliberations Thursday without reaching a verdict."
Amanda Macias of CNBC: "... Donald Trump's military parade this fall is shaping up to cost $80 million more than initially estimated. The Department of Defense and its interagency partners have updated their perspective cost estimates for the parade, according to a U.S. defense official with firsthand knowledge of the assessment. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity. The parade, slated for Nov. 10, is estimated to cost $92 million, the official said.... The U.S. has not held a major military parade in Washington since 1991 to mark the end of Operation Desert Storm. That parade reportedly cost approximately $8 million and was paid for with about $3 million in government funds and the rest with private donations."
Burgess Everett of Politico: "On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said his caucus is preparing to sue the National Archives if it is unable to meet the party's Freedom of Information Act request for hundreds of thousands of pages of Kavanaugh documents that have not yet been disclosed publicly. If the Archives has not met Democrats' request in 20 days, Schumer and his members say they will go to court.... The minority leader also said he would meet with Kavanaugh next week, breaking a long standoff between Schumer and the White House over the documents.... Schumer said he would ask Kavanaugh about the documents 'and what he intends to do about it. He can't duck.'"
Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Ohio State University's response to allegations of sexual abuse against former athletic doctor Richard Strauss. The probe by the department's Office for Civil Rights will examine whether Ohio State responded 'promptly and equitably' to allegations by former students that Strauss touched athletes inappropriately during appointments and ogled them in a campus locker room, as well as claims that school officials knew or should have known about the alleged abuse, the school said. Strauss, who killed himself in 2005, was employed by Ohio State from 1978 to 1998. He has been accused of sexually abusing student athletes in 14 sports, as well as patients at the campus health center." Mrs. McC: Let's hope Ditsy DeVos isn't in charge of the probe.
*****
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "For the three-month period of May to July, the entire contiguous United States (CONUS) 'ranked hottest on record,' as the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, California tweeted out Wednesday, adding that 'records go back to 1895.'"--safari
Perfect Projection from 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.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... You can read Trump's full statement here. ...
... John Brennan, in a New York Times op-ed: "The already challenging work of the American intelligence and law enforcement communities [to thwart Russian incursions into the 2016 U.S. elections] was made more difficult in late July 2016..., when Mr. Trump ... publicly called upon Russia to find the missing emails of Mrs. Clinton. By issuing such a statement, Mr. Trump was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent.... Mr. Trump's claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash. The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of 'Trump Incorporated' attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets."
... David Nakamura & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday followed through on threats to strip the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, igniting a firestorm of criticism that the president was recklessly attempting to distract from his own political problems and silence high-profile critics.... Trump added that he is reviewing the security clearances of nine other former officials, including former FBI director James B. Comey, all of whom have criticized the president or been targeted by congressional Republicans seeking to discredit the Russia probe.... Trump appeared to make a direct link in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. 'I call it the rigged witch hunt,' Trump said of the Russia probe. 'And these people led it. So I think it's something that had to be done.'... [Brennan's] former colleagues rallied to his defense, hailing his service to the nation, including a key role in the 2011 operation that killed Osama bin Laden.... Security experts have described [Trump's] move as unprecedented and warned that words and actions protected by the First Amendment are not grounds to take a clearance away.... After Sanders's briefing Wednesday, the White House released the written statement from Trump bearing the date July 26 -- before quickly releasing an identical statement with the date removed." ...
... An Omarosa Distraction. Inae Oh of Mother Jones: "But many questioned the timing of Trump's decision, which comes amid claims made by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman that appear to substantiate previous rumors of a secret tape of Trump saying the N-word. A follow-up email to reporters from the White House is fueling speculation that Trump is hoping to distract from those very rumors. Note the timestamp: '... July 26, 2018.'...
... Gail Collins: "One of the worst things about this moment in our national lives is the fear that if Trump gets into trouble for doing something dumb and obnoxious, he'll respond by doing something huge and maybe dangerous.... Trump's response [to Omarosa's book tour] has been somewhere between hysterical and totally nuts.... The tweets tell us a lot about the president's own miserable insecurities.... When he calls someone a 'dog,' he's just reacting to a pathological fear that he's unlovable. Just as when he calls someone 'dumb,' he's trying to get past the fact that he's not all that bright.... Back when I worked for New York Newsday, he sent me a copy of a column I'd written, scrawled with objections, along with an announcement that I was 'a dog and a liar' and that my picture was 'the face of a pig.'... Whenever I tell the 'dog' story, I always enjoy pointing out that Trump misspelled the word 'too.'" ...
... Mrs. McC: Brennan spoke by phone to Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC and said the White House has never notified him the POTUS* had stripped his clearance. He heard it on the news. ...
... Jonathan Chait: Trump himself has of course behaved erratically throughout the course of his presidency, posing innumerable risks to American security, up to and including the potential for triggering a nuclear war, which he has threatened to do on his Twitter feed. In one documented instance, Trump literally handed over classified, highly sensitive national security secrets to Russia.... [Last month, when Trump threatened to revoke John Brennan's security clearance,] "a reporter asked Paul Ryan if he believed it was 'dangerous' for the president to use this tool to punish critics. 'I think he's trolling people, honestly,' replied the House Speaker, with a forced laugh. Get it?.... The White House also announced that it is reviewing clearances for James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page -- all former security officials who have criticized or otherwise offended Trump." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: For some reason, Chait doesn't name Bruce Ohr, who also made Trump's Enemies List. Ohr is important because he still works for the DOJ, so obviously if he lost his clearance he couldn't do his job. He made Trump's list because his wife works for Fusion GPS, so he's part of Trump's "deep-state" conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton is running a plot to destroy Trump. She's doing very well, I'd say, because Trump himself is self-destructing. I'd bet Bob Mueller updated his "Instances of POTUS* Obstructing Justice" file to include today's stunt. ...
... Katie Benner of the New York Times profiles Bruce Ohr here; Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post profiles him here. ...
... Greg Sargent: "... this move is all about striking a political blow against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.... The revocation of his security clearance will have no practical impact on [John] Brennan's ability to make public statements along the lines that Trump is objecting to on such disingenuous grounds.... The CIA was reportedly caught off guard by this decision..., which suggests Trump knows the agency would probably not find legitimate grounds for doing this.... The White House statement -- its suggestion that Brennan is using his access to classified info to 'validate' his 'political attacks' -- strongly suggests Trump doesn't want Brennan's criticism to have the aura of authority that comes with having security clearance. By revoking it, Trump is trying to take Brennan's legitimacy as a critic of him down a peg...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So Trump just had somebody type up these security clearance revocations when he was pissed off & he never went through the normal revocation protocol. I guess he'll dole out new revocations every time stuff hits the proverbial fan. But Brennan is "erratic." ...
... Margaret Hartmann: "The Brennan incident showed Trump might be able to get away with using the same attack on Mueller. The president's legal authority in this area is untested, but the response on Wednesday suggests the political blowback may be manageable. Senator Rand Paul saw Trump use his authority to punish a political enemy and cheered.... House Speaker Paul Ryan, who previously laughed off the idea of such a gross abuse of power, suddenly went silent." Mrs. McC: Hey, what about Rosenstein & Guildensessions? Might as well strip their clearances while he's at it.
Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: "Prosecutors urged jurors in the trial of Paul Manafort to focus on financial records and Manafort's 'lies' -- and to set aside personal feelings about a tainted star witness -- as the government offered its closing argument on Wednesday. Pushing back, lawyers for the former Trump campaign chairman argued that the case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller is a mishmash of 'selective' evidence that doesn't amount to any crime at all.... In the late afternoon, [Judge] Ellis -- whose routine interjections have irked prosecutors throughout the trial -- spent nearly two hours delivering instructions to the jury.... Ellis dismissed the four alternate jurors and told the 12 primary jurors to return to court at 9:30 a.m. to be greeted briefly and then commence deliberations."
.... 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.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post report on closing arguments in the Paul Manafort trial. (Also linked yesterday.)
Rudy's Mob Lawyer Impersonation, Ctd. Michael Burke of the Hill: "President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani signaled Wednesday that his team is losing patience with special counsel Robert Mueller, urging the former FBI director to finish his Russia investigation ahead of the November midterm elections. Giuliani tweeted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) 'should require Mueller to submit his report before September 7.'... Giuliani also told Bloomberg that Mueller should 'write the damn report so we can see it and rebut it,' the website reported Wednesday. 'If he doesn't get it done in the next two or three weeks we will just unload on him like a ton of bricks,' he reportedly said." ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... said Wednesday that he is still awaiting a response from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to the Trump team's latest terms for a presidential interview, which were made last week in a letter that argued against Trump's having to answer questions about his possible obstruction of justice.... In the meantime, Trump's lawyers are preparing to oppose a potential subpoena from Mueller for a Trump sit-down.... 'We would move to quash the subpoena,' Giuliani said in an interview. 'And we're pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.' Giuliani added that Trump's attorneys are ready to 'argue it before the Supreme Court, if it ever got there.'... Mueller told Trump's lawyers in March that he could issue a subpoena for Trump to appear before a grand jury if Trump declined an interview, according to four people familiar with the encounter."
Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "In the time since the election, a little-known Trump campaign staffer named Daniel Gelbinovich reached out to a number of Washington lobbyists with an eyebrow-raising ask: to shield a Putin ally from U.S. sanctions. Two lobbyists ... told The Daily Beast that Gelbinovich approached them and told them he was trying to help Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch worth more than $11 billion, find a lobbyist to help keep him from being added to the Treasury Department's sanctions list. Gelbinovich confirmed this reporting.... Gelbinovich's claims to have worked on behalf of Abramovich, if true, are another piece of the web of connections between Trump World and powerful Russians.... Ivanka Trump has been friends with Dasha Zhukova, who has two children with Abramovich, for more than a decade, according to Bloomberg. Zhukova and Abramovich announced they would split in August 2017."
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." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Space Force Russia. BBC News: A mysterious Russian satellite displaying 'very abnormal behaviour' has raised alarm in the US, according to a State Department official. '"We don't know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it,' said assistant secretary Yleem Poblete at a conference in Switzerland on 14 August. She voiced fears that it was impossible to say if the object may be a weapon. Russia has dismissed the comments as 'unfounded, slanderous accusations based on suspicions'. The satellite in question was launched in October last year. '[The satellite's] behaviour on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before from on-orbit inspection or space situational awareness capabilities, including other Russian inspection satellite activities,' Ms Poblete told the conference on disarmament in Switzerland."
Max Fisher of the New York Times on how "populist" strongmen like Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey "are unusually prone to creating [economic crises], unusually inhibited from fixing it and unusually slow to recover." Mrs. McC: Fisher writes a cautionary tale for Erdogan, but each of the "lessons" seems to apply to Trump, too.
Zero Credibility. Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "On the heels of former Trump campaign and White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman saying she's heard tape of President Trump using the N-word, Trump's allies have taken to the cable news networks to defend his reputation. But there's one big problem -- because they've signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), even if they have heard Trump using a racial slur, they're legally prohibited from saying so." --safari
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! When I was a schoolgirl, we used to "perform" "The Farmer in the Dell," with children taking the parts of the characters in the song. Trump reminds me of the Cheese. Heigh ho the derry-o, the Cheese stands alone. ...
... So He Has Imaginary Friends. Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg: "One of the biggest supporters of ... Donald Trump's trade policies, according to the president, is the unnamed chief executive officer of a mystery company. 'I was with one of the greatest companies in the world. The chief executive officer...,' Trump said at a July 31 campaign rally in Tampa.... 'He said "You know what, this does affect our company. But, Mr. President, keep going. You're doing the right thing."'... Trade groups ... have almost universally opposed Trump's disruptive approach to trade. But the person fits a model: an anonymous figure -- important and powerful -- who invariably supports the president's position, according to Trump himself. They are fixtures of Trump's speeches.... In some cases Trump's accounts are rebutted by the people he seems to describe. Key details change when he repeats the stories. 'Many of these anecdotes have either not been verified or they're unverifiable,' said Robert Rowland, who teaches presidential rhetoric at Kansas University.... 'When he doesn't have hard data to cite, he goes to these kinds of anecdotes. When he doesn't have real anecdotes, it appears that he finds his own.'"
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Erin Durkin of the Guardian: "Nearly 350 news organizations are set to publish editorials on Thursday pushing back against Donald Trump's attacks on the media and defending freedom of the press. The publications are participating in a push organized by the Boston Globe to run coordinated editorials denouncing what the paper called a 'dirty war against the free press'." ...
... The Boston Globe's editorial is here. (I had to sign in w/Facebook.) The New York Times' editorial is here. The Portland (Maine) Press Herald editorial is here. ...
... David Bauder of the AP: "In St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch called journalists 'the truest of patriots.' The Chicago Sun-Times said it believed most Americans know that Trump is talking nonsense. The Fayetteville, N.C. Observer said it hoped Trump would stop, 'but we're not holding our breath.... Rather, we hope all the president's supporters will recognize what he's doing -- manipulating reality to get what he wants,' the North Carolina newspaper said.... 'While we agree that labeling journalists the "enemy of the American people" and journalism "fake news" is not only damaging to our industry but destructive to our democracy, a coordinated response from independent -- dare we say "mainstream" -- news organizations feeds a narrative that we're somehow aligned against this Republican president,' the Baltimore Sun wrote. Still, the Sun supported the effort and also noted the deaths of five Capital Gazette staff members at the hands of a gunman in nearby Annapolis, Maryland." ...
... David Remnick of the New Yorker: "It would be easy to dismiss Trump's behavior as farcical, a subplot in his reality-TV Presidency. And yet it is essential to recognize what damage the President is doing, and how intent he is on eroding inviolable rights. What the Russian experience makes plain is the fragility of press freedom. This week's editorials on this topic, here and elsewhere, aim to maintain American vigilance in defense of that freedom. This is not a matter of the press seeking to protect itself as an interest group. The interest group in question is the United States."
Make America White Again. Sarah Aziza of The Intercept: "[Immigration] advocates describe ... an apparently concerted effort by the Trump White House to systematically dismantle the nation's refugee resettlement program.... The FBI is one of the agencies that runs background checks on refugees, and as the Daily Beast recently reported, its turnover for those cases has dropped from hundreds a week to the single digits.... Other sources close to the issue estimate that the backlog of applications includes over 200,000 refugees abroad who are awaiting interviews by U.S. officials, with about only 30 refugee officers available to conduct these assessments worldwide.... The result has been the reduction of the overall refugee flow to a bare trickle.... The drastic decrease in refugee admissions has led to the weakening of decades-old systems that help refugees transition to life in their new home, making it likely that the program will have to be rebuilt if a future U.S. administration moves toward welcoming more refugees." --safari ...
... On the Other Hand... Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "The Trump administration has requested the restarting of thousands of deportation cases that immigration judges previously had suspended, according to statistics provided Wednesday by the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration courts. So far this fiscal year, attorneys for Immigration and Customs Enforcement have sought the reactivation of nearly 8,000 deportation cases that had been administratively closed -- meaning pushed off the court's docket. The previous fiscal year, which included nearly four months of the Obama administration, there were nearly 8,400 such requests. The pace of such requests is nearly double that of the last two years of the Obama administration, when there were 3,551 and 4,847 such requests, respectively. Judges generally grant requests to restart cases, experts say." ...
... AND They're All Despicable. Pilar Menendez of The Daily Beast: "The head of the federal agency overseeing the U.S. immigration system spoke at an event hosted by an anti-immigrant organization that has routinely published false information about immigration and has been deemed a 'hate group' [by the Southern Poverty Law Center].... U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna appeared Wednesday at the anti-immigration think tank Center for Immigration Studies. (CIS).... Cissna, the son of a Peruvian immigrant..., was named USCIS chief in October.... Cissna is the third Trump administration official to take part in the Center for Immigration Studies' 'Immigration Newsmaker' event." --safari
Fuck Future Generations. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "The No. 2 official at the Department of the Interior wants to ease provisions of the Endangered Species Act that the Trump administration sees as obstacles to its goal of expanding resource extraction and making land management policies more industry friendly.... David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for energy companies and large agribusiness, presented the Trump administration's case for weakening the Endangered Species Act. He claimed the way the nation protects species has become an 'unnecessary regulatory burden' on industry and U.S. taxpayers.... In July, the Trump administration released a proposal that would strip the act of key provisions.... His administration has now set its sights on the Endangered Species Act as one more law at which it can chip away." --safari
Margot Williams, et al. of The Intercept, "The unusual strategy of tracing monetary flows to stop explosions is one of many significant disclosures contained in a batch of 328 internal NSA documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden and released by The Intercept today after research and redaction. Also included in the material ... is the untold story of how intelligence related to Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was finally acquired; an assessment that a 'vast … network of Iranian agents' operated in Iraq and influenced its government; a major push to hone the agency's voice identification technology; details on how NSA staff deployed abroad viewed, and sometimes stereotyped, their host countries; and grumbling about having to comply with public-records laws.... Those stories and others are detailed in the highlights [in the post]." --safari
One 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.'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast: "Republicans don't fail to object to Trump because they're afraid of his base. They refuse to stand up to Trump because they like what Trump is doing.... [T]hey don't complain ... because they're with him on the most fundamental commodity in politics: power, and its use. Trump's anti-democratic instincts, which are so dangerous to so many of us, do not trouble Republicans in the least.... [F]or a generation now ... Republicans have been trying ... to change the rules of the game so that they will win every election.... And then came the mother of all rule changes...: the blocking of Merrick Garland.... They wanted to make that public demonstration to establish a precedent -- to show, to return to my phrase from above, that they could exercise public contempt for the democratic allocation of power. And win.... Under Trump, it's open season on the rules. And this, not fear of the base, is why they don't criticize him. On this most fundamental question, they're with him all the way." --safari
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. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
2018 Elections
Maggie Haberman & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, is forming a group to try to sell voters on a midterm message that they should support Republicans to defend the Trump agenda and save the president from impeachment. The group, Citizens of the American Republic, is Mr. Bannon's new vehicle after he was pushed out of the White House last summer and then parted ways with the conservative website Breitbart. Mr. Bannon declined to describe his donors or how much money the group has raised.... Most of Mr. Trump's advisers in the White House consider Mr. Bannon's foray into the midterms to be quixotic -- they say the House is almost certainly lost to the Democrats -- and see his efforts as another way to promote himself. They point to Mr. Bannon's paltry record in backing Republican candidates, particularly Roy S. Moore.... In addition to Mr. Bannon, the group includes Sam Nunberg, one of Mr. Trump's earliest political advisers; Michael Caputo, a New York-based strategist who worked on the Trump campaign; and Pat Caddell, a pollster who worked in Jimmy Carter's White House and who has remained close to Mr. Bannon over the years."
Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "In perhaps the most serious test of her 15-year grip on the House Democratic caucus, [Nancy] Pelosi is facing unrest from older lawmakers critical of her style, younger Democrats demanding generational change and candidates across the party who have sought to inoculate themselves against Republican attacks by distancing themselves from her. While she remains intent on reclaiming the speakership, Ms. Pelosi, 78, has also begun to acknowledge more candidly that a transfer of power is coming at some point. And in an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Pelosi sent a message of reassurance to anxious Democrats, speaking with specificity about building a 'bridge' to new leaders in the party."
Ryan Cooper of the Week: "Tom Perez is chair of the Democratic National Committee because wealthy centrist liberals -- above all then-President Barack Obama -- needed a convenient stooge to keep the party machinery out of the left's hands. He's serving his big donor masters loyally, and in the process failing his party, the United States of America, and humanity as a whole." Cooper goes on to count the ways. Worth a read.
Making Capitalism Great Again. Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Elizabeth Warren has a big idea that challenges how the Democratic Party thinks about solving the problem of inequality.... She's introducing a bill Wednesday, the Accountable Capitalism Act, that would redistribute trillions of dollars from rich executives and shareholders to the middle class -- without costing a dime. Warren's plan starts from the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood. Traditionally, she writes in a companion op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, 'corporations sought to succeed in the marketplace, but they also recognized their obligations to employees, customers and the community.' In recent decades they stopped, in favor of a singular devotion to enriching shareholders.... Warren wants to eliminate the huge financial incentives that entice CEOs to flush cash out to shareholders rather than reinvest in businesses. She wants to curb corporations' political activities."
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Matthew Goldstein, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal securities regulators have served Tesla with a subpoena..., increasing pressure on the electric car company as it deals with the fallout from several recent actions by its chief executive, Elon Musk. The subpoena, from the Securities and Exchange Commission, comes days after regulators began inquiring about an Aug. 7 Twitter post by Mr. Musk, in which he said he was considering converting Tesla to a private company. In the post, he said that the financing for such a transaction, which would probably run into the tens of billions of dollars, had been 'secured.' Tesla shares, a popular target for so-called short sellers who bet on certain stocks losing value, soared about 11 percent on the day Mr. Musk posted the message. It has become clear since then that neither Mr. Musk nor Tesla had actually lined up the necessary financing aside from having preliminary conversations with some investors."
Michelle Lou of the Huffington Post: "Months after winning a Supreme Court case over his refusal to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, Colorado baker Jack Phillips is setting up for another legal showdown. Phillips, ordered by the state Civil Rights Commission into mediation with a trans customer of his Masterpiece Cakeshop for whom he had refused to bake a cake, sued Colorado officials in federal court on Tuesday, claiming they violated his rights to freedom of speech and religion.... The lawsuit cites Phillips' narrow Supreme Court victory in June that said the state Civil Rights Commission displayed anti-religious attitudes toward the baker, violating his rights, in a case involving his refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex couple."
Amerikan Hate. Casey Michel of ThinkProgress: "Earlier this month, the white supremacist League of the South organization formally launched a series of Russian language pages, hoping to attract the support of Russian speakers across the world. ThinkProgress reported on the impending Russian language material in July, noting that League of the South head Michael Hill had said he believes 'the Russian people and the Southern people are natural allies against the destructive and impersonal impulses of globalism.'...Prevention of 'brothers' war' may well be the cause of the League of the South's new Russian outreach, but they’ve simultaneously announced plans to launch Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish language pages." --safari
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. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Travails of Alex Jones
AP: "The Federal Communications Commission has shut down a pirate radio station that served as the flagship outlet for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The Austin American-Statesman reports the FCC also has fined the station's operators $15,000 -- a fine the FCC says in a lawsuit the operators are refusing to pay. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Austin alleges Liberty Radio operated on a channel without a license since at least 2013. The lawsuit names as defendants Walter Olenick and M. Rae Nadler-Olenick. Court documents show the FCC had tracked the transmissions to a 50-foot tower at an Austin apartment complex owned by an entity linked to the Olenicks."
Grounded! AP: "Twitter says it is suspending the account of the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for one week after he violated the company's rules against inciting violence. The New York Times reports that Jones tweeted a link to a video calling for supporters to get their 'battle rifles' ready against media and others. Jones won't be able to tweet or retweet from his personal account for seven days, though he will be able to browse Twitter. The Twitter account for his 'Infowars' show was not affected." Mrs. McC: Ooooh, such a tough time-out. Wonder what Twitter would do if Jones urged his nutjob followers to get their battle rifles ready to take out Twitter execs. As a kid, I got harsher punishments for staying an hour too late at a friend's house. ...
... Jeet Heer: "Defending the suspension in an interview with NBC, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey argued the goal was to get Jones to transform his behavior.... The interview is alarming evidence that Dorsey doesn't actually understand who Alex Jones is (and, by extension, who many of the other bad actors who exploit social media are). To talk about Jones changing his behavior is to assume Jones is basically a rational person who is sometimes tactless. But conjuring up ludicrous conspiracy theories that lead to harassment isn't incidental to Jones, but integral to his entire public project."
Way Beyond the Beltway
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. (Also linked yesterday.)
News Ledes
Chicago Tribune: "Aretha Franklin, who died Thursday at 76, was a once-in-a-generation singer. She was the Queen of Soul, but she also ventured into -- and mastered -- virtually every style of music, from jazz and classical to rhythm and blues. She passed away a her home in Detroit." ...
... Update: Franklin's New York Times obituary is here. ...
Washington Post: "Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister who oversaw nuclear tests that ushered in a new arms race in South Asia starting in the late 1990s, died Aug. 16 at a hospital in New Delhi. He was 93."
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Reader Comments (18)
I saw the interview with Jack Dorsey and when he said that this little bitty suspension would, he hoped, change Alex Jone's behavior,
I almost fell on the floor. Dorsey can't be that dumb––can he?
Back in 1984, Alan Berg, a liberal talk show host was shot 12 times by members of a white supremacist group, when he was getting out of his car. Today journalists and media folks are fearful of their lives being snuffed out by some crazed lunatic who follows Alex's message about "gunning down them liberals." They tell us they have death threats and lurid profanity flung at them at a rate never before experienced. In KatyTur's book, "Unbelievable" she tells of an incident when she rolled down the window of a network van for a man who seemed to want to talk to her, only to have him spit at close range into her face.
And of course there's our esteemed president who, during his rallies, has journalists/reporters caged where he eggs on his audience to throw verbal rotten tomatoes at them:
"They say Putin killed reporters––I would never kill them, but I do hate them, some of them are such lying, disgusting people."
and with that the crowd yelled:
"Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." You could buy a tee with that message at Walmart's on line––for awhile.
And then there was the January arrest by the FBI of a nutcase who was repeatedly calling CNN saying, "Fake news! I'm coming to gun you down." Finally a real "coming to gun you down" occurred at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Md. Five employees were killed.
So I'm elated that today all those newspapers from all over this country put their two cents and their middle finger to this president* and his minions in their editorials. Thanks to the Boston Globe's great idea.
John Brennan's phone conversation with Nicole Wallace last night was so gratifying; he completely dispelled Trump's "erratic behavior" tag that Trump pinned on him and turned it back on Donald who once again comes up with another ploy–-another distraction in order to keep hidden other information that is creeping closer and closer in revealing the truth.
NYT:
Cuomo Jabs at Trump: America ‘Was Never That Great’
By SHANE GOLDMACHER
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s remark drew immediate criticism from his Republican opponent, Marcus Molinaro. President Trump said Mr. Cuomo was “having a total meltdown.”
What Cuomo actually said when you get the whole context is that no country that lives with racism and misogyny is not entitled to the word 'great'.
VESTIGES
Father Joyce
enjoys
his many pleasures
like three brandies
with his Camels
at each day's closing.
And Father Joyce
enjoys
baseball with his boys
Three strikes and you're out!
He indulges them with four –– -
sometimes even more.
Say what you will
about
The Will of God–––
he will tell you, sotto voce,
it's all bunk.
Still––there lingers
the scent
of incense and sincerity
that clings to his clothes
even after washing
strictly out of habit.
Geez....where to begin? So much bullshit, balderdash, and barbarity in today's Trump World.
Well, how 'bout a little fraudulent voter fraud?
The special election recently held in Ohio is being questioned by stalwart 'mericans on honest and reliable (*cough-cough*) websites like Breitbart and Red State, the Federalist Papers, and something called Fellowship of the Mind (I don't even wanna know).
Anyway, their guy, Troy Balderson (C), is not already sitting in Congress with a runaway victory so naturally it's massive voter fraud. If the Democrat, Danny O'Connor, is that close to their man, there's no question, the Demycraps are trying to steal the election through some evil votey-vote foolery.
But the people at factcheck.org are informing these clowns to tell their story walking.
Here's how it goes. Some moron (or just a run of the mill Confederate liar) at Breitbart checked the voter rolls in one district and discovered (horrors!) that over 170 voters came up as being well over 100 years old. In some cases, over 200 years old. Well, harumph, harumph! Some 217 year old lady voting must certainly be proof positive of voter fraud, and since only Democrats commit votey-vote crimes, ipso facto, e.g., to wit, and mirabile dicto, Voter Fraud!
This idiot, Eric Eggers, rests his case.
He also rests his brain.
If he took the very next, stupidly obvious, step, he would have talked to someone in the know and asked about this. But no, that might mean there was no voter fraud and how much would that suck?
"In the only example he offers of alleged voter fraud, Eggers writes that there are 170 voters registered in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District who are over 116 years old. That’s wrong.
According to the most recent version of the roll for that district, there are 161 registered voters who have a birthdate listed as Jan. 1, 1800 or Jan. 1, 1900. But those dates are just place holders for voters who registered before birthdates became a required part of the registration process in 1974. They are not their real birthdates."
Yup. Sorry, Eggie, that 217 year old lady doesn't exist. Well, she exists, but she's not 217.
Moron.
But here's an extra for this tale of winger woe. Secretary of State for Ohio, Jon Husted, a tireless fighter against voting rights, announced, when asked about the horrors of voter fraud in this special election, that there was none that he could see. Oh, but, not to worry, voting fraud, he insisted, DOES EXIST. There just wasn't any that he could find in this election. Yet.
They just can't resist, can they? "Oh, yeah, it might be rare but it DOES EXIST!" Yeah, like Foreign Accent Syndrome exists but is rarer than a day on which Trump doesn't lie. Oh wait. There IS no day on which Trump doesn't lie. Well, FAS is pretty rare anyway.
Nonetheless, facts aside, expect to hear screams of voter fraud in any election won by a Democrat in the upcoming midterms.
PD,
Whoa. One of your best. It's horrible that such subject matter exists, but it does. I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell was in the water in those seminaries. How is it possible to either attract or create so many sexual predators in a career that's supposed to be all about taking care of people? Likely it has to do with the repressive, medieval approach the Church has held since, well, since forever it seems, about sexuality.
Still, if you pick any social group, at random, and try to come up with a percentage who will sexually assault and rape young children, I can't imagine you'd find any that come close to what must be an astonishing percentage of priests who went that way.
After I read the DiJiT Ban of Brennan, I could not help but think that some WH staffer was assigned to "put something together" that justified the action. And that said staffer just wrote up some of DiJit's many offenses and flaws, stuck in the name "Brennan" and passed it up the chain. And that those in the review chain (which might have included no one but DiJiT) are so lacking in critical faculty after all these months in Wonderland that they did not notice. And of course DiJiT will sign anything without reading it. So Bob's your uncle, you get the greatest piece of projection since Edison invented the kinescope.
May it rain on Trump's $92-million dollar military parade on Nov. 10 in D.C. What a wast of money if this goes ahead.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/trump-military-parade-expected-to-cost-80-million-more-than-estimated.html
I did a bit of checking to see if I could find a percentage of Catholic priests who abuse children.
In 2004 the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, studied the extent of abuse over the previous five decades.
"The report concluded that between 1950 and 2002, a staggering 4,392 priests had been accused of child molestation by 10,667 individuals throughout the US. Given the reluctance of victims to come forward, that figure is probably an underestimate. This represented about 4.3 percent of active American Catholic clergy during that time."
Given the fact that the number of both reports and accusations is low, it could be as high as 5%, an astounding number of pedophiles posing as holy men.
Surveys every year seem to indicate a steady decline in church attendance. This drop has not hindered the ability of Bible bangers to inflict their beliefs on the rest of us, however, a time I look forward to with great anticipation.
MAG,
Rain on the little king's parade would be a glorious thing. It would, of course, be Obama's fault.
Just wondering if little donnie will be wearing his General Pinochet autographed authoritarian fruit salad. Maybe he'll wear that Purple Heart some veteran gave him (the one he wanted to make sure was real, because a fraudulent president* at the very least needs a real medal, even if someone else earned it).
I'm betting he's already practicing his Mussolini chin-jut
and trying to perfect his Hitler salute.
Hey, maybe he can get a Kim Jong Un haircut for the event!
Even better, he should ride in on a horse with BFF Putie. The bare chest might be a bit much though. Children could be watching. It would scar them for life.
RIP the Queen of Soul.
RESPECT is yours, Aretha. Forever and ever.
I'm in a quandary about which would pay more. A roll in the White
House (Omarosa) or a role in the hay (45's many one night stands).
Re DiJiT's Big Parade:
November 10 is a Saturday. The next day is Veteran's Day, which will be observed (i.e. federal holiday) Monday Nov 12. A three day weekend, so LOTS of Washingtonians will be out of town. So if people line Pa. Ave for the procession, most of them will be out-of-towners. Turnout will be an indication of DiJiT support, not the patriotic attendance associated with Veteran's Day.
November 10 is the Marine Corps Birthday, which the Marines celebrate big time every year. Watch for the White House to try to horn in on the Marine Corps Balls.
November 10 is "Ataturk Death Day" in Turkey. Probably no association, but if U.S.-Turkey relations are still nasty then, Turks may consider a U.S. military display to be disrespectful. As with DiJiT, Erdogan lets no opportunity to perceive an insult go by.
The midterms will have been held the Tuesday before the Big Parade. We can either use it to celebrate, or listen to DiJiT crow about his wonderfulness if the Blue Wave doesn't show.
Thanksgiving will follow two weeks later, the Macy's parade will be better, and hopefully by then we will see a positive turn in the country.
Dum spiro spero.
Forrest,
Depends. As long as you're okay with an NDA, either might be good. Omarosa is riding her horse until it drops from exhaustion, NDA be damned.
As for the hay bale buyoff, it's not clear if that sort of payment is accessible anymore with president* find-em, feel-em, forget-em. Now that Trump thug Mickey Cohen is on ice, who would he get to be his bag man? Rudy? Nah, he'd drop it somewhere when people asked to take his picture. Junior? Ixnay. He'd use it to get into a poker game and lose the whole package betting on an inside straight. In five card draw. Little Dracula? Nah. He'd get into a cab and go the wrong way. For three days. Young Jared? Well, let's see, average payout has been around 150 large, right? That oughta buy him a couple of slim-line suits at Barneys. Melanie? Oops, never mind.
I know. Barron. He'll send the kid. Might as well break him in sooner rather than later. The Trump Family Business: grift, graft, pussy grabbing, and payoffs. Oh. And treason.
Speaking of free press, thank you so much, Mrs. McCrabbie, for your wonderful site. I visit your site a lot, so this is your thank you note for keeping the press free.
Just to keep everybody up to date: opiate overdose deaths had a banner year this past year, up 10%, with the 72,000 deaths now surpassing suicide rates, and deaths from influenza and pneumonia. (source: CDC)
RIP, Aretha. You are my all time favorite singer. I hope everybody saw her when she sang (2 times) at the Obama White House. The Best.
Hey Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, donnie needs a little extra...
Just a teensy bit, mind you.
The Grand Parade to Honor Trumpskyev is going to cost a skosh more than he told us originally. Just a teensy amount more.
$80 million more. But not a million extra! You'll hardly even notice. See? Just saved you some money there.
Original estimate for the Parade to Honor Trumpskyev was $12 million. Don't know how they came up with that number but it sounds strangely like....a LIE!
Anyway, now they're gonna need $92 million, cuz geez, you don't want the other crooks in the Dictators' Club to make fun of him for not showing off the military bling, now do you? Course not.
But wait until Liarbee gets an earful about the extra moolah. She'll strip it down quicker than you can say "Liar, liar, pants on fire". By the time she's through with the story, Trump will be paying for the whole thing himself and it won't cost the taxpayers a red cent. All that other bullshit about $92 mill is just fake news and Demycrap lies. It's, it's....erratic. Yeah. Erratic. That's what it is. Great word.
Anyhoo, if he could roll out the Enola Gay for this hippity-hop at the barber shop he would. That'd show everyone that this tough guy means business, baby. He'd climb in the cockpit and growl and roar and make big boy plane noises just like he did when he pretended to drive that very big truck. Oooooh that was so MANLY! Watch out Canada! We're comin' with the nukes!
And now he'll have tanks and planes and stuff that will blow your city up faster than a White Supremacist rally. And army guys in uniforms with guns and bullets and grenades and missile launcher thingies and
cool green army stuff hanging off their belts and EVERYTHING. All to honor his wonderful militariness. Obambi never had a parade like this I betcha.
Honestly, if it wasn't for that foot thingy (which foot was that again?), he'd have gone to Vietnam and kicked commie ass all by himself.
Now about that $92 mill? Can you make that check out to "Cash"? And hurry it up.
@forrest morris: I figured it out a few days ago. Stormy got $135K for her roll in the sack (purportedly a one-night stand). Trump offered Omarosa about $170K for her roll in the White House. Even accounting for inflation, the White House gig had a slightly larger payoff.
This security clearance issue with John Brennan indicates, I believe, an uptick in the little dictator's belief in his own power and ability to avoid consequences for his treasonous actions. Republicans won't lift a finger to stop his most blatant authoritarian urges so why wait until the midterms when some of his rubber stamps might be voted out? Why not find a way to end the Mueller investigation now?
Fire the little Confederate slavery supporting general and put a stooge in his place. Who will say no? Who will try to stop him? McConnell? Ryan? Fox?
No one with the ability to do so will make a move.
But if he doesn't act now, all that could change if the midterms go south. Then he could be screwed. Then he might actually be held accountable for his actions. This is not something the Great Trump can countenance, the poors and the not-famous and the non-golf course owning little people deciding his fate.
I think Giuliani's declaration that "a ton of bricks" will be dropped on Mueller if he's not finished (and if he doesn't exonerate Putin's pal) by early September is not just a bit of trolling (although it could be that).
You want an October Surprise? How about Giuliani replaces Jeffbo and he fires Mueller. The investigation is ended, the documents are shredded and no one in Trump World says a word.
Then Fox begins the rant about how it was all a Democrat ploy to hurt the Glorious Leader. Winger voters turn out in droves, demoralized Democrats and stupid independents stay home.
Of course, it could backfire, but do any of you really believe that that's a given? I sure don't. Not these days.
Fat racist "honors" greatest American voice in the last century by saying, oh yeah, that nee-groe broad used to "work for me".
So your way of honoring the great Aretha Franklin, whose feet you are not fit to kiss, is by saying that she was your employee?
Could this asshole be any more insulting and rebarbartive?
"Let me say a few words about this Aretha chick. She worked for me once. Pretty good. The guys in the lounge congratulated me for letting her sing a few songs. I reminded them that I am the best, and don't forget it."
This is like some self-possessed, hosenscheißer burgher congratulating himself on hiring Bach to write a cantata for his 50th birthday and taking credit for his entire oeuvre because he tossed the guy a few pfennigs.
A (tiny) prick like no other.