The Commentariat -- December 18, 2018
Afternoon Update:
The Flynn sentencing is in recess till 12:30 pm ET. Pete Williams of NBC News is reporting that Judge Sullivan is conveying that he is not buying the recommendations for no jail time for Flynn. ...
... Axios: "During ... Michael Flynn's sentencing hearing in D.C. on Tuesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan blasted Flynn from the bench after he confirmed his guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before Trump's inauguration, telling him, 'Arguably, this undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably, you sold your country out.'" ...
... Update. Spencer Hsu, et al., of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Tuesday postponed the sentencing for Michael Flynn after he lambasted President Trump's former national security adviser for trying to undermine his own country and said he could not guarantee he would spare Flynn from prison. The stunning development means that Flynn will have to be sentenced at a later date, when he can possibly convince a judge more thoroughly of how his cooperation has benefited law enforcement. Flynn's attorneys asked for the delay after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan accused Flynn of acting as 'an unregistered agent of a foreign country, while serving as the national security adviser to the president of the United States' -- an allegation he later walked back. Sullivan granted the request and asked for a status report in 90 days, though he said he was 'not making any promises' that he would view the matter differently in three months."
Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "The Donald J. Trump Foundation will close and give away all its remaining funds amid a lawsuit accusing the charity and the Trump family of using it illegally for self-dealing and political gain, the New York attorney general's office announced Tuesday. The attorney general, Barbara Underwood, accused the foundation of 'a shocking pattern of illegality' that was 'willful and repeated' and included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Tuesday issued a new rule banning bump stocks, the attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire in sustained, rapid bursts and that a gunman used to massacre 58 people and wound hundreds of others at a Las Vegas concert in October 2017. The new regulation, which had been expected, would ban the sale or possession of the devices under a new interpretation of existing law. Americans who own bump stocks would have 90 days to destroy their devices or to turn them in to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Justice Department said A.T.F. would post destruction instructions on its website."
Alex Isenstadt & James Arkin of Politico: "Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has appointed GOP Rep. Martha McSally to the Senate seat being vacated by GOP Sen. Jon Kyl -- tapping McSally as the Republican contender in a 2020 special election that will be among the most competitive Senate races in the country that year. McSally, who lost a race for Arizona's other Senate seat to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in 2018, will be competing to serve out the rest of the term won by the late Sen. John McCain, who passed away earlier this year. Kyl was originally appointed to fill McCain's seat, but he will be stepping down at the end of the year to return to the private sector."
Trumpty-Dumpty Blinks, Likely to Fall off Wall. Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Tuesday retreated from his demand that Congress give him $5 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, backing down amid acrimonious GOP infighting that left him with few options four days ahead of a partial government shutdown. The news, delivered by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders in an interview on Fox News, represented a major shift from Trump's declaration last week that he would be 'proud' to shut down the government to get the money he wanted for his border wall. Democrats, who will reclaim the majority in the House just weeks from now, have consistently refused to give Trump anywhere near the $5 billion he wants."
*****
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Garrett Graff of Wired compiles what he calls "A Complete Guide to All 17 (Known) Trump & Russia Investigations.... After three weeks of back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombshells by federal prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller, it's increasingly clear that, as 2018 winds down, Donald Trump faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president-- at least 17 distinct court cases stemming from at least seven different sets of prosecutors and investigators. (That total does not count any congressional inquiries, nor does it include any other inquiries into other administration officials unrelated to Russia.)... More than two years in, the constellation of current investigations involves questions about foreign money and influence targeting the Trump campaign, transition, and White House from ... as many as a half-dozen countries. Prosecutors are studying nearly every aspect of how money flowed both in and out of Trump's interconnected enterprises, from his hotels to his company to his campaign to his inauguration. While President Trump once said that he'd see investigations into his business dealings as crossing a 'red line,' it appears that Trump himself obliterated that line, intermingling his business and campaign until it was impossible for prosecutors to untangle one without forensically examining the other." ...
... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "The breadth of investigations is so sweeping ... that few of the worlds Trump inhabits have escaped prosecutors' attention. The Trump Organization, the Trump Foundation, the Trump family, the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, the Trump inauguration, and the Trump White House are all being probed for wrongdoing.... Trump may emerge as a brazen grifter who, by aspiring to the White House like a wizened, soiled version of Icarus, flew beyond the boundaries of his own luck and abilities and delivered his business, children and well-being into the hands of prosecutors.... Trump ... had seen his previous presidential bids as free marketing opportunities and he likely was drawn to the 2016 campaign for the same reason." ...
... "The Grand Narrative." Steve Denning in Forbes: "Just over a week ago, on Friday December 7, the Special Counsel's Office ... for the first time outlined in a court filing the grand narrative of the Russia Probe. The court filing revealed what many had long suspected, that Trump and his family had used, or tried to use, his presidential candidacy, and then his presidency, to enhance their own wealth. We also learned finally what hold Russian President Vladimir Putin has over Trump.... Trump himself repeatedly stated since entering the presidential race in June 2015 that he had no business in Russia and no interactions with representatives of Russia. It now turns out that Putin knew what the American people didn't, namely that Donald Trump was throughout the 2016 presidential primary campaign secretly negotiating to build a huge and lucrative hotel in Moscow which required the personal support of Vladimir Putin. The fact that Putin knew about Trump's secret dealings, while the American people didn't, meant that if Trump didn't do what Russia wanted, Russia could expose Trump's lies and so bring him down. The filing revealed that Mueller's Office is now investigating the hypothesis that Donald Trump, his campaign, his organization and his associates participated in a massive election fraud, through five interlocking conspiracies -- arguably the worst set of crimes against the United States in its history." ...
... Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "... three sources familiar with Mueller's probe told The Daily Beast that his team is now zeroing in on Trumpworld figures who may have attempted to shape the administration's foreign policy by offering to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia. The Special Counsel's Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates' conversations about sanctions relief -- and spell out how those offers and counter-proposals were characterized to top figures on the campaign and in the administration, those same sources said."
Giuliani Stumbles into Admitting Trump's Hush-Money Payments Were Illegal. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Speaking with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Giuliani sought to argue that Michael Cohen's hush-money payments made on President Trump's behalf can't be campaign finance violations if they served any kind of personal purpose. 'It has to be for the sole purpose,' Giuliani said. 'If there's another purpose, it's no longer a campaign contribution -- if there's a personal purpose.' He then suggested that the failed prosecution of John Edwards for a campaign finance violation bolstered his point[.]... In fact, the Edwards case itself disproves Giuliani's point.... The Trump team's denials on this have been steadily watered down over time. Eventually, Giuliani and Co. admitted to the payments but said they were personal.... But ... implicit in his comments [Sunday] ... is the idea that this wasn't solely personal but ... served a dual purpose that included the campaign. 'It's not a contribution if it's intended for a purpose in addition to the campaign purpose,' he said. 'In addition to the campaign purpose' means there was a campaign purpose. And when you look at actual federal election law, it suggests that Giuliani just conceded that this was a campaign finance violation that Trump has been implicated in." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Giuliani's argument doesn't make sense. Any time a politician pays hush money, there are bound to be people other than voters whom he wants to keep in the dark. Maybe his family & friends, maybe law enforcement, maybe the general public. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "In an interview yesterday, George Stephanopoulos asked ... Rudy Giuliani if Roger Stone ever gave Trump a 'heads-up' about forthcoming WikiLeaks email publications. 'No, he didn't, no,' he replied. But then Giuliani ... softened his denial -- 'I don't believe so' -- before immediately transitioning into a conditional defense of the very charge he had been asked to deny: 'But again, if Roger Stone gave anybody a heads-up about WikiLeaks' leaks, that's not a crime.... One the -- the crime, this is why this thing is so weird, strange. The crime is conspiracy to hack; collusion is not a crime; it doesn't exist.' If you understand the facts and the law in this case, this much should be clear: Trump is almost certainly guilty of both collusion and a crime. And Giuliani's backpedalling defense reveals that he is no longer confident Trump's denials will hold.... Giuliani's comments seem to indicate that he knows that Trump did have a heads-up from Stone, but does not know if Mueller will be able to prove it. Hence his competing impulses to deny the accusation but to prepare a fallback defense in case that denial becomes inoperable.... Giuliani's defense has retreated right up to the line where it crosses into a confession of guilt." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Craig Timberg, et al., of the Washington Post: "Months after President Trump took office, Russia's disinformation teams trained their sights on ... special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Having worked to help get Trump into the White House, they now worked to neutralize the biggest threat to his staying there. The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies. One post on Instagram -- which emerged as an especially potent weapon in the Russian social media arsenal -- claimed that Mueller had worked in the past with 'radical Islamic groups.'"
Scott Shane & Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times: "The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee.... Using Gmail accounts with American-sounding names, the Russians recruited and sometimes paid unwitting American activists of all races to stage rallies and spread content, but there was a disproportionate pursuit of African-Americans, it concludes.... The most popular of the Russian Instagram accounts was @blackstagram, with 303,663 followers. The Internet Research Agency also created a dozen websites disguised as African-American in origin, with names like blackmattersus.com, blacktivist.info, blacktolive.org and blacksoul.us. On YouTube, the largest share of Russian material covered the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality, with channels called 'Don't Shoot' and 'BlackToLive.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Michelle Goldberg: "Even after controlling for variables like ideology, education, party identification and dislike of [Hillary] Clinton, [Ohio State researchers] found that believing a fake news story made people who voted for President Barack Obama in 2012 significantly less likely to vote for Clinton in 2016.... In an election decided by a rounding error -- fewer than 80,000 voters spread over three states -- Russian trolling easily could have made the difference." ...
... Steve M.: "Now, perhaps it would be rash to conclude that the Trump campaign colluded in this effort, but as Jennifer Palmieri reminds us, the campaign bragged about extremely similar vote suppression efforts in a Bloomberg story published in October 2016[.]... Funny how the Russians and the folks in the Trump campaign -- who, I'll remind you again, never colluded -- had precisely the same idea. Great minds think alike!" Mrs. McC: This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the stories about the Senate reports. I was imagining Donnie & Vlad's text message threads -- all lovey-dovey & conspiratorial, like two teenagers planning a tryst while the folks are away. (In fact, of course, Donnie & Vlad had cutouts doing the conspiring.)
Remember, Michael Cohen only became a 'Rat' after the FBI did something which was absolutely unthinkable & unheard of until the Witch Hunt was illegally started. They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY'S OFFICE! Why didn't they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked's office? -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2018
... Mob Boss in the White House. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "They 'BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY'S OFFICE!' Trump raged over the weekend, even though law enforcement obtained a warrant to do so. Trump then suggested that authorities should instead have infiltrated Democratic headquarters to expose his opponent -- in an apparent endorsement of the sort of tactics employed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. No shortage of ink has been spilled on the president's bizarre Twitter locutions, from 'Smocking Gun' to 'very legal & very cool.' Typos, excessive capitalization, misnomers and dubious terminology have become occasions for the president's detractors to have a laugh at his expense. Yet, some saw in his language on Sunday something darker -- a window into his legal worldview, even perhaps an unwitting acknowledgment of the highly consequential role his former fixer is now playing in assembling possible evidence against him." ...
... Matt Zapotosky & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "... Michael Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday for lying to the FBI about his dealings with the Russian ambassador to the United States, a court proceeding that could become complicated by his attorneys' recent suggestion that he was duped by law enforcement.... In a Tuesday morning tweet, Trump wished Flynn 'good luck today in court.' 'Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign,' Trump wrote. 'There was no Collusion!'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, this is how the POTUS* treats a retired general who betrayed the country multiple times for profit. The Don must be daft to think Flynn didn't "rat" on him, as Trump characterized cooperating with the government Sunday, or "sing," as Trump's consigliere Rudy put it the same day.
... Katelyn Polantz & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Two former business associates of former national security adviser Michael Flynn were charged with trying to influence American politicians to seek the extradition of a Turkish cleric, according to an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Bijan Rafiekian, also known as Bijan Kian, and a Dutch-Turkish businessman Kamil Alptekin, who also uses the first name Ekim, were charged with conspiracy and acting as an agent of a foreign government. Alptekin was also charged with making four false statements in a May 2017 FBI interview.... US authorities said the goal of the lobbying project was to press for the extradition of the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.... The alleged plot, the Justice Department said in a news release, involved using a company founded by Kian and Flynn to 'delegitimize the Turkish citizen in the eyes of the American public and United States politicians' to pave the way for his extradition. US authorities allege that high-level members of Turkey's government approved financing for the gambit...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Marcy Wheeler: "While not explicitly stated, the reference to Mike Flynn throughout the indictment as Person A -- the only unindicted co-conspirator so identified -- makes it clear that the government believes that's what Flynn was doing, acting as an agent of Turkey. And the timeline for the conspiracy goes up to March 2017. One of Trump's top foreign policy advisors and, for almost a month, his National Security Advisor, was an agent of Turkey." Wheeler outlines why she thinks Mueller's prosecutors "were able to move towards sentencing without his testimony in court: because he may not need to give testimony in court. The government has secured other, more reliable witnesses for that testimony." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Aaron Blake: "Trump backers last week found their (latest) smoking gun in a supposedly vast law-enforcement conspiracy to take down President Trump: A judge asked for more information about Michael Flynn's guilty plea after Flynn's attorney implied his client had been tricked into lying.... Just two days later, the Flynn-as-innocent-dupe narrative suffered a major setback [with the indictment of Flynn's business partner].... The indictment ... implicates his own eponymous business in an illegal lobbying operation. The Flynn Intel Group is referred to as 'Company A' in the filing, and Flynn is referred to as 'Person A.'... In Flynn's plea, the government said his lies and omissions included 'falsely stating that [Flynn Intel Group] did not know whether or the extent to which the Republic of Turkey was involved in the Turkey project....' ... This isn't just about Flynn having lied about his contacts with Russia's ambassador; there is a pattern of behavior that suggests he wasn't just some heroic general who misspoke once or twice and has been railroaded. At the worst, it suggests someone who was doing quite a bit of double-dealing and saw the need to cover it up by lying repeatedly." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CBS News: "Special counsel Robert Mueller released the January 2017 FBI memo that described the interview where former national security adviser Michael Flynn described his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday for lying to the FBI about a conversation with Kislayk during the transition. After reviewing the filing, Judge Emmet Sullivan has ruled that the material is 'relevant' to Flynn's sentencing and has ordered the government to publish the interview, known as a '302,' to be publicly available." ...
... The New York Times story, by Sharon LaFraniere & Adam Goldman, is here. ...
... Alex Johnson of NBC News has reproduced the 302 here. ...
... ** Marcy Wheeler: "Last week, I suggested that Mike Flynn's cute trick of publicly releasing information from Andy McCabe's memo and Peter Strzok's 302 might backfire.... Boy oh boy was I right." Judge Sullivan ordered the government to release a redacted version of the FBI's report on the meeting with Flynn "it is unbelievably damning, in part because it shows the degree to which Flynn's lies served to protect Trump.... Flynn lied to hide Trump's involvement in all this (and, to an extent, the degree to which it involved specifically ignoring a heads up from Obama). Flynn lied to hide Trump's personal involvement in telling the Russians to hold off on responding to Obama's sanctions. And when the FBI investigated those lies, Trump fired the FBI Director to try to end that investigation.... This 302 also reveals that [Flynn] was quoting directly from the instructions KT McFarland had given him, relaying Trump's orders."
Most Sanctimonious Man in Washington Testifies Again. Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Former FBI director James B. Comey accused President Trump on Monday of trying 'to burn down the entire FBI' and charged that congressional Republicans were willing accomplices for failing to challenge him. 'The FBI's reputation has taken a big hit because the president with his acolytes has lied about it constantly,' Comey told reporters, following his second closed-door interview this month with House lawmakers running a politically divisive investigation into how federal law enforcement officials handled probes of the Trump campaign's alleged Russia ties and Hillary Clinton's emails. But Comey directed his vitriol not just at the GOP members of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees, but at all Republicans.... 'At some point, someone has to stand up and face the fear of Fox News, fear of their base, fear of mean tweets, stand up for the values of this country and not slink away into retirement but stand up and speak the truth,' Comey said, without naming names. Comey ... flatly [refused] to take any personal responsibility for the reputation of the FBI having suffered under his stewardship." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Right message; wrong messenger.
Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump has long tried to explain away his legal troubles as the work of a 'deep state' of Obama supporters entrenched in the law-enforcement and national-security bureaucracies who are just out to get him. Now junior officials and others accused of wrongdoing are making the case that the same purported forces are illegitimately targeting them, too.... Alleging misconduct by law enforcement has long been a standard defense tactic, especially in white-collar cases, but the political cast of deep-state-style claims is new, said Samuel Buell, a Duke law professor and former federal prosecutor. He said it seemed to be aimed at getting conservative media attention in the hope that Mr. Trump will come across their case and intervene."
Carlos Tejada & Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street fell on Monday to a new 2018 low, as investors braced for a Federal Reserve decision on interest rates this week and health care stocks were roiled by a court decision about the Affordable Care Act.The S&P 500-stock index ended down 2.1 percent, sinking below levels reached during a steep decline in February. The index is now down 4.8 percent for the year. Should the market fail to rebound, the losses for 2018 could represent Wall Street's worst year since the financial crisis a decade ago. The selling spared few sectors, with tech companies, the health care industry, small businesses and blue-chip corporations all falling after survey data suggested some softening in the United States' outlook for growth." ...
... Craig Torres & Christopher Condon of Bloomberg: "President Donald Trump slammed the Federal Reserve on the eve of a pivotal policy meeting for 'even considering' another interest-rate increase, laying out arguments against a hike to savor the achievement of a strong U.S. economy.... The Federal Open Market Committee begins a two-day meeting in Washington on Tuesday and trading in interest rate futures indicate a greater than 70 percent chance of the panel's fourth hike this year. Analysts said that his latest attack make it extremely hard for Chairman Jerome Powell to pause this week, even if he wanted to." --s
Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Incoming White House acting-chief of staff Mick Mulvaney once said Donald Trump's past words and actions would disqualify him from becoming president in an 'ordinary universe.'... The Daily Beast on Friday reported that Mulvaney, then a congressman, called Trump 'a terrible human being' at a November 2016 congressional debate.In a 2016 Facebook post, Mulvaney similarly said he had learned throughout the 2016 campaign that Trump 'is not a very good person.' In all instances, Mulvaney said he was supporting Trump, but only because he believed Hillary Clinton would be a worse president."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "... it’s more important than ever [for the media] not to give falsehoods a megaphone.... Which brings us to Chris Cuomo's 39-minute interview on Thursday with Kellyanne Conway, President Trump's top dissembler. It should have been no surprise that Conway -- who coined the immortal phrase 'alternative facts' in early 2017 -- blithely spun her way through the interview.... Cuomo's CNN colleagues smacked him around, with Don Lemon leading the way.... So it's time (actually, well past time) for the mainstream media to enter the No Kellyanne Zone. And that goes far beyond banning her, or any particular adviser, from cable interview shows." Sullivan, as did Akhilleus last week, hammers the mainstream media for posting headlines that repeat Trump's lies without context.
Seriously guys, as Progressives we should not be making fun of Stephen Miller for his spray-on hair, we should be making fun of Stephen Miller for his half-baked Nazi policies AND his spray-on hair pic.twitter.com/CXnNZjMyYo
— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) December 16, 2018
... Monday morning, Katie Rogers of the New York Times tweeted that "... Miller came to work with regular hair today." Some responses to Rogers' tweet are pretty hilarious.
Nick Schwellenback of The Daily Beast: "In April 2018, Tracey Valerio, the top official in charge of 'all agency contracting' at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resigned. Within months, she was recruited as a paid expert witness in a lawsuit to defend ICE's biggest contractor -- a large, private prison and immigrant detention company known as the GEO Group. The lawsuit charged Florida-based GEO with violating minimum wage laws by paying the same immigrants now being locked up in record numbers by the Trump administration as little as $1 a day for menial work such as cleaning toilets.... Valerio ... not only went spinning through her agency's revolving door, she was accused of violating the law and an agency rule in the process.... Last year, as The Daily Beast first reported, Valerio's former boss Daniel Ragsdale left as ICE's deputy director to work as a GEO executive. In 2012, David Venturella -- formerly head of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations -- joined GEO as an executive vice president...[and so on.]" --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The Senate’s sweeping overhaul of the criminal justice system cleared a major hurdle Monday, with an overwhelming majority helping to advance what probably will be one of President Trump's final bipartisan accomplishments from his first two years in office. Senators voted 82 to 12 to end debate on the First Step Act and steer the legislation to a final vote, probably scheduled for Tuesday. The bill would revise several sentencing laws, such as reducing the 'three strikes' penalty for drug felonies from life behind bars to 25 years and retroactively limiting the disparity in sentencing guidelines between crack and powder cocaine offenses. The latter would affect about 2,000 current federal inmates.... Before a final Senate vote, dozens of the bill's proponents will have to defeat 'legislative poison pills' that they say are designed to kill the bipartisan compromise that has been carefully negotiated among Democratic and GOP lawmakers, as well as the Trump administration."
** Clive Irving in The Daily Beast: "Even if Russia didn't succeed in swinging the election to Trump (and we can't be sure that it didn't), [mitch mcconnell] blocking a protest [by Obama and Joe Biden] at that critical moment [before the election] on partisan grounds approaches 9/11 levels of dereliction, and you have to wonder if all of this had not been shrewdly anticipated in Putin's playbook, the fruit of long and careful study of Republican tactics.... Over several decades the Republicans have partly created and expertly exploited a broken system that regularly gives them a majority in the Electoral College.... Now it is McConnell who, more than any other Republican, is the supreme technician of the system, quietly loading the courts with judges who pass his smell test. If there is a model for the McConnell method, it is the apparatchiks of the Soviet machine.... It's a form of power that doesn't advertise its power, and McConnell thrives at it. There is no ethical foundation. It is barren of moral underpinnings. Sooner or later a president would arrive who was as barren. Trump is that, with bells on." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Paul Krugman: Nancy "Pelosi was right about [Judge] Reed O'Connor's ruling [that the whole Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional] being a symptom of a 'monstrous endgame,' but the game in question isn't just about perpetuating the assault on health care, it's about assaulting democracy in general. And the current state of the endgame is probably just the beginning; the worst, I fear, is yet to come."
Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "When he takes control of the House Natural Resources Committee next month, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) will have significantly greater powers to investigate the Trump administration's controversial decision to decimate the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments [and] ... the committee intends to continue oversight of [outgoing Ryan] Zinke's policy decisions.... And even though Zinke is resigning, environmental and public interest groups are urging the inspector general and Justice Department to stay the course with their investigations into his alleged misconduct.... Sen. Lisa Murkowsi (R-AK), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is unlikely to order investigations into Zinke. The Republican senator has not conducted oversight of Zinke's conduct since he was sworn in as Interior secretary in March 2017. In fact, Murkowski said she was 'disappointed' to learn Zinke is stepping down." --s
Anna North of Vox: "Conservative Sen. Mike Lee is taking a lone stand against a Trump nominee, blocking her from joining the office that takes workplace complaints because of her support for LGBTQ rights.... Feldblum, who currently serves as one of the EEOC's five commissioners, was appointed to the commission by President Barack Obama in 2010 and nominated for another term this year by Trump.... [I]f the Senate doesn't confirm ... Feldblum and two others, by December 31, the EEOC will no longer have the quorum required to make major decisions.... [W]hat happens with her confirmation in the coming days could affect whether millions of Americans have the protections they need from harassment and discrimination in 2019." --s
Ian MIllhiser of ThinkProgress: "Four years ago, President Obama was in the White House and Democrats controlled a solid majority in the United States Senate.... Yet then-Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) insisted on giving Republicans the power to veto many of Obama's nominees.... Three years later, in a move that pretty much everyone on the planet who is not named 'Patrick Leahy' knew would inevitably play out, now-Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has decided that Democrats who object to a Trump judicial nominee can go beat eggs.... Thanks to Leahy's refusal to see his Republican colleagues with open eyes, several federal judgeships remained open for years under President Obama, only to be swiftly filled by Trump. And two of those seats are on a court that will soon weigh in on the fate of Obamacare." --s
Joel Ebert of the Tennessean: "After roughly a quarter century in elected office, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander will retire. The former Republican governor, who has served in the Senate since first being elected in 2002, said Monday that he will not seek a fourth term in the upper chamber." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Alexandra Stevenson & Sharon Tan of the New York Times: "Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs on Monday, accusing the giant Wall Street bank of making false and misleading statements. The charges are a rare international rebuke of an institution that has long represented the pinnacle of money and power. The 149-year-old investment bank already faces mounting pressure in the United States, where two former bankers face charges of bribery and money laundering related to its business in Malaysia. The Malaysian authorities also charged several individuals in connection with the multibillion-dollar international fraud scandal that ensnared Goldman and that led to the ouster of Malaysia's former prime minister, Najib Razak. The government said it would seek criminal fines in excess of $2.7 billion related to the charges.
Edmund Lee & Rachel Abrams of the New York Times: "The CBS Corporation, battered by scandal and facing a leadership vacuum,said its former chief executive, Leslie Moonves, misled the company about multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and tried to hide evidence as he made a frenzied attempt to save his legacy and reap a lucrative severance. He will be fired for cause and, as a result, not receive his $120 million exit payout."
Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "The epidemic of U.S. gun violence has reached another gruesome milestone. 2017 was the deadliest year on record for firearms, as nearly 40,000 Americans were killed by a gun last year -- an average of 109 per day -- according to a CNN analysis that was confirmed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The totals for 2017 were a three percent increase over 2016, and mark a 38 percent rise over the past two decades." --s ...
... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Marisa Fernandez of Axios: "For the first time, the United States is one of the world's deadliest countries for journalists after six reporters were killed in the line of duty in 2018, according to Reporters Without Borders' annual report.... The report states there is an 'unprecedented' level of worldwide hostility against members of the media, highlighting that the number of journalists killed while doing their jobs spiked 8% to 80 in 2018. In addition, 348 journalists are currently in prison across the globe, and 60 are being held hostage.... From the report: 'Amplified by social networks, which bear heavy responsibility in this regard, these expressions of hatred legitimize violence, thereby undermining journalism, and democracy itself, a bit more every day.'"
Andrew Wasley & Natalie Jones of the Guardian: "The Guardian's findings [of unethical chicken processing in the U.S.] have fuelled concerns that a post-Brexit trade deal with the US could see the UK flooded with chicken produced to lower welfare standards. This follows last year's transatlantic row over chlorinated chicken, which prompted political interventions in both countries. The records include hundreds of instances in which groups of chickens and turkeys were bludgeoned, suffocated, scalded, frozen or heated to death.... The USDA dictates rules for humane slaughter, but these only apply to 'livestock', which the US government considers separate from 'poultry'. There are 'good commercial practice' guidelines, but they are largely voluntary and not enforced. The USDA is not obliged to take any action against plants that violate these practices, other than writing up a report." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
** Georgia. Alan Judd of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution details how days for the November election, Governor-Elect Brian Kemp (R), who as Georgia's secretary of state had for more than a year (after having been warned) left personal voter information exposed online, falsely accused the Democratic Party of Georgia of trying to hack into the voter database in a failed attempt to steal the election." ...
... Charles Pierce has something to say about this.
Way Beyond
** Joanna Berendt & Marc Santora of the New York Times: "Backing down from a showdown with Brussels, Poland's government reversed its purge of the country's Supreme Court, as the president signed a law on Monday that will reinstate the judges who had been forced out of their jobs. It was a remarkable turnaround after months of Poland's top officials saying they would resist pressure to stop the overhaul of the judiciary. The ruling party, Law and Justice, had put tightening its grip on the courts at the center of its agenda, claiming that it was vital to rid the courts of corrupt judges and Communist-era vestiges. The European Union sees the changes Poland has made to its judiciary in the last three years as a violation of the bloc's core values, a threat to the rule of law and the end of judges acting as a check on political power. Last year, the union chastised Poland and took the first steps toward stripping the country of its voting rights in Brussels -- a penalty that has never been used against a member nation. Poland's concession on the Supreme Court is by no means the end of that conflict between the right-wing, nationalist Polish government and Brussels, but it represented a striking change in tone."
Juan Cole: "The decision of the Australian government of PM Scott Morrison to recognize 'West Jerusalem' as the capital of Israel but to hold off moving its embassy there until there is a peace settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might look on the face of it like a victory for Israel. It is quite the opposite, a sign of how even strong allies of Israel are increasingly constrained by rising Muslim powers.... Australia badly wants a free trade deal with its neighbor across the waters, Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim country in the world, and where conservative Muslims are strong supporters of Palestinian rights.... That even an anti-immigrant, pro-Trump right winger like Scott Morrison felt he could not risk absolutely alienating Jakarta, and so was forced to craft a Jerusalem policy that satisfied no one but definitely disappointed the Likud, is a sign of the future." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Ammar Kalia, et al. of the Guardian: "The domination of Facebook by Italy's two populist political leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, is revealed in previously unseen data that shows how they exploited video and live broadcasts to bypass the mainstream media and foment discord during the country's general election. The data, reviewed by the Guardian, reveals how the leaders massively expanded their reach with inflammatory and visually arresting posts earlier this year, eclipsing their main rival, the centre-left former prime minister Matteo Renzi, on Facebook.... There is growing academic interest in the relationship between social media and populist movements on both the left and right. Facebook and Twitter have transformed western democracies, enabling politicians to bypass traditional gatekeepers and communicate directly with their base." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
New York Times: "Penny Marshall, the nasal-voiced co-star of the slapstick sitcom 'Laverne & Shirley' and later the chronically self-deprecating director of hit films like 'Big' and 'A League of Their Own,' died on Monday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 76."
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(Ah! I'm coming to the party late today! Or yesterday!)
Steve Denning in Forbes writes: Mueller Exposes Putin's Hold Over Trump "the Trump Wealth Enhancement Process "
It is noteworthy that Mueller has handed off the prosecutions of the hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal and Maria Butina’s involvement with the NRA to other parts of the Justice Department.
In effect, the Special Counsel’s Office gives every sign of focusing sharply on the larger narrative with Russia. It is investigating the possibility that Donald Trump, his campaign, his organization and his associates, participated in a set of criminal conspiracies with Russia to defraud the United States both of a free and fair election and of a government solely devoted to its interests (18 U.S.C. § 371).
As many RC-ers have noted, it is irrelevant whether the Russia Intervention was successful in its efforts to affect the outcome of the election and whether Trump would have won anyway. For Mueller's team, all that is necessary to prove a criminal conspiracy is that there was an agreement for a foreign government to intervene illegally, combined with overt acts to intervene. Of course, the Special Counsel’s earlier indictments of several dozen Russians outlined multiple instances.
and onto the Crown Clown Prince:
Tom Gara in BuzzFeed has the quite the story from the chief Palestinian Negotiator describing his last meeting with Jared Kushner. "the diplomatic skills of the Crown Prince of Trump " are seriously lacking. Who knew?
The sub-headline reads: Let's get the bad news out of the way first: It's possible that Jared Kushner may not successfully broker a Middle East peace deal.
'Twas not for a lack of meetings, according to Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat (who) said on Sunday in an on-stage interview at the Doha Forum in Qatar. Erekat himself has met with Kushner and others in the Trump administration 33 times, and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has had four summit meetings of his own. But Erekat’s last meeting with Kushner took place more than a year ago and it did not go well, according to his account of the situation.
...the dialogue is quite a tell.
I can't help but think that Comey's on camera blow up about Trump & his clown car crew at the GOP trying to "burn down" the FBI isn't in a clear channeling of the behind the scenes fury bubbling up between the establishment DOJ/FBI nexus. That diatribe was directed straight at McConnel and his crew of supine shitstains that they'd better buck up and grow some balls or the real "deep state" is going to move on to stealth attack mode against the criminal enterprise being run out of the Oval Office.
No irony lost for such a stand up guy demanding everyone else assume their responsibilities while he can't bear to recognize his own in giving the Ogre a leg up into his saddle.
May you live in interesting times indeed.
I'm bringing forward this comment safari made late yesterday because (1) I haven't seen it much expressed in the news except as noted in (3) here; (2) I agree; & (3) so does Rachel Maddow:
By safari (12/17):
"I'm frankly not so pleased about Mr. Flynn getting off Scott Free [sic] after all of his super shady dealings are coming to light. The guy had his hand in cookie jars all over the world and thought it was all hunky fucking dory. And he isn't (or wasn't) a total fucking moron who can just use the "who knew?" defense. He literally spent his entire adult life absorbed in representing the US government abroad, international relations, law, and supposedly patriotism.
"He had better serve up one of Drumpf's spawns on a silver platter, or the Fatty McGee himself, to justify his ultra-lenient plea deal. Army General or not."
As do I, Bea.
I said to my wife earlier tonight, Flynn must have told all--or we're all in for an unrivaled disappointment.
As to the Flynn Flam I, too, am puzzled and angry at why he is not getting a stint in the slammer. There has got to be something here that promises a revelation of sorts.
Please, people, read the transcript of the meeting between Saeb Erekat, Palestinian Chief negotiator and Jared Kushner that @MAG posted (thanks!!!); it's a marvel of incompetence, arrogance and stupidity on the Little Prince's part. He comes off like––hold on–-as Kellyanne is wont to say––a member of the MOB.
And speaking of the mouth that never closes, K. Conway (I still can't get over how her last name suits her to a T, although husband George doesn't cotton to its implication) the piece by Margaret Sullivan (see above) advocating for the Media to enter the No Kellyanne Zone and stay there. What we need are hosts that stop any person that spouts blatant lies. Nicole Wallace, on one of her shows, stopped a guest with this:
"I invited you here to have an honest dialogue; if you continue to lie you can leave now."
I managed to watch part of the Chris Cumo brouhaha with Conway; it was an amazing performance. The two never stopped talking over each other and why Chris continued in this vein is troubling. CNN has a habit of these kinds of two side battles and they never end well. Do they think viewers revel in this kind of thing? you betcha! Ka ching!
Fatty's tan is sprayed on. Miller's hair is sprayed on. Is there nothing authentic about these people?
What if some ingenious inventor was able to replace their sprays with spray-on morals?
Trump would immediately fire Miller, then resign and volunteer as an aid worker to immigrants.
Miller would jump off a building. A very high one, I would hope.
People could wait around the corner for any number of Trumpy appointees and spray them as they walked by. They would all resign on the spot.
Then head for Miller's building, full of remorse for all their bad deeds. "Elevator going up, people, don't shove, there's room for everyone. Oh look. Here comes Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Sanders. Plenty of room, ladies, step right in. That's it. It'll all be over soon. Maybe you can all do better in the next life. Just remember, don't be an asshole. Okay, all out."
Just read that transcript of the "meeting" Young Jared had with the Palestinian negotiator.
Three words. What.A.Dick.
Screaming, threatening, ordering people around. Is this what they teach in Trump University's course on Great Negotiation Tactics? Love to see the syllabus for their course on Dealing with Banking Irregularities.
"The one who yells loudest wins" seems to be a Trump Family specialty.
How's that working with Mueller, Fatty?
Clearly, Kushner is impressing everyone with his diplomatic chops.
This is the sort of thing you read about in medieval stories where the king of Yabba-Dabba-Doo sends his trusted vizier and a party of lackeys to Tazzy-Agricola to try to force that country's ruler to go along with something insulting and stupid. Next scene, the vizier and his entire party are being boiled in a pot before having their heads chopped off and displayed on pikes at the city gates to general amusement all around. The remaining body parts are packed into a crate and sent back to Yabba-Dabba-Doo with the message "Thanks, but no thanks" nailed to a leg.
@AK: I thought Trumpy's face goes under his tanning machine. If he uses a tanning spray wouldn't his color be tan? Instead it is an awful reddish/pink that makes him look like a boiled ham. Because this man is a whiter shade of pale when under the glow of a tanning machine that skin takes on the color of a sunburn. You look at the pictures of him standing next to other "white" people, he stands out like a ripe tomato. Whatever he does to keep that glow, it's just another indication of his vanity––or maybe he realizes that if we see the REAL Donald Trump the jig is up.
Tick-tock, Mofo
So let me get this straight. Mike Lee (R-natch), is dead set against a nominee for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission because she is for....tolerance?
The core concept of equality implies an appreciation of tolerance, does it not? And not just an appreciation, but its active application.
So Mike Lee (whose name was once bandied about as a contender for the Supreme Court) has decided that one of the most positive of human qualities, tolerance, in the service of one of the bedrocks of American civilization, equality, guarantees that he will not support a nominee displaying that same quality.
There's nothing really confusing about it, as confounding as it might appear. Humanity and civilization are both anathema to these people.
Because if you're a bigoted asshole, tolerance is right out. Equality too. After all, FRREEEeeeeedom.....
Right, Mike?
Jesus.
PD,
Yeah, I dunno. I read somewhere once that Fatty used an orange spray tan. Good color choice though, right? Very natural. Whatever it is, it ain't lookin' good. But thinking too long about the daily image machinations of the Orange Monster in the altogether is inimical to one's mental health, so best not to think too much about it.
A roadmap for other dissolutions?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/18/politics/trump-foundation-dissolve/index.html
How about the Pretender presiduncy also under court supervision?
Seems reasonable were the courts to apply the same standards to that enterprise, the use of the office for personal gain contrary to law among them.
It's often surmised that Comey went public with the last hurrah of Hillary's emails because the NY FBI office was going to/already leaked the info. to their right-wing hit men. Confederates would've blown a lid if it was later found out the investigation had been quietly reopened and closed, even if nothing of consequence came of out.
Add a huge win to the confederate column.
Now Mueller's on Trump's trail like a bloodhound, marking his territory on all the other confederates he crosses along the way that were leeching on to Putin's Playtime, and all the rightwingers cry FOUL! over unjustified persecution. The whole GOP, from the keyboard warriors, the Faux media megaphone, and the Washington Bandits, are all feigning victimization for investigating conservatives under the very laws Congress wrote.
And along the way, Mueller, up to his neck in Russians, Saudis, mafia dons and American turncoats, has been exposing crimes left and right, but treating the criminals with kid gloves. Lying to the FBI is a felony, with a maximum five year prison sentence. This is theoretically the most consequential and serious investigation in the history of our country, and the convicted liars are popping in and out jail like its Judge Judy. Multiple people have been caught, and stuck in jail for a week or two, tops. Cohen got sentenced more harshly because it was New York's call, but Mueller wanted them to go lenient on him, too. Flynn sounds like he's gonna skate completely. It's outrageous.
Looking at the evolution of the Comey/Mueller dynamic, I'm afraid that the FBI brass is feeling reluctant, intimidated even, to bring the hammer down because of all the whining and crocodile tears being shed by conservatives across the country, and the fear of the damage Republicans could do to the FBI if they actually did their jobs neutrally and sent all these criminals to the slammer for the time they deserve. Conservatives would napalm the institution and color them all tree-hugging libs, forever destroying their image of impartiality.
I'm beginning to fear that the prevailing groupthink within the Mueller team is to clearly expose the criminality, but go soft on all the actors because they just got caught up in something bigger than themselves, poor souls, and didn't know better. Donny Jr. will get a slap on the wrist cause he's just a boy, and Ivanka skates because she so feminine and with that smile she probably didn't really mean to sell out our country and illegally hoard millions of dollars of the inauguration fund. Until I see some true hammers dropping, like life in prison for Manafort no questions fucking asked, I'm afraid my theory holds up well.
Add another huge win to the confederate column.
The WaPo article on DiJiT "blinking" on the wall shutdown mentions that McConnell suggested offering DiJiT another $ billion to use "as he sees fit," but D's say no, because that's a slush fund.
It would be a slush fund, and to have the majority leader, a Republican, suggest handing it to the prezdet* tells us that the GOP congressional leadership has gone nuts. They may support treason, but a slush fund ... that goes against every strand of DNA in the GOP body!
So Fatty finally gets around to banning bump stocks. That only took a year. Wonder what he had to do to get Wayne-O, Good (White) Guy with Many Guns, to go along with that ruling. Must have promised to legalize grenade launchers and automatic weapons.
As the list of investigations into the Trump crime family lengthens by the week, it's become crystal clear that there is nary a single venture promoted and propagated by these crooks that is completely and wholly legal and on the up and up. Trump doesn't blow his nose without wondering how he can turn snot into scratch.
Everything he does is scammy, scuzzy, snaky, self-dealing, skewed and warped by his pervasive pursuit of wealth and personal glory. Every deal, every plan, every policy he pursues is infected with degrees of illegality ranging from rigged street hustles to Constitutional subversion and possibly (very likely) treason.
He IS a crook. His entire family operates on the basis of a criminal enterprise, scarfing everything they can grab. It's not a coincidence that the New York attorney general, in the wake of the bullet to the head of the Trump Foundation scam, is barring Trump and his greedy family from serving on the boards of any charitable organization or foundation, with the understanding that they will do whatever they can to enrich themselves at the expense of the charities and those they seek to serve. Trumps serve only themselves.
Over the years, Trump has developed an MO that allowed him to scam, skim, steal, lie, cheat, and grab every loose dollar in sight. He has gotten away with it for his entire life, stopping only to pay a fine or threaten and cajole his way out of trouble. But that wasn't enough. He had to run for president, thinking that trick to be the money making scam to beat all. But by working with, or with the help of Russian ratfuckers, Jim Comey, Julian Assange, and various right-wing media shooters, he won.
And now he can't bribe, bellow, or belittle his way out of the consequences of his dishonesty.
I don't believe for a second that he'll ever see the inside of a jail cell, although he deserves much worse. But I do dearly want to see him kneecapped, humiliated, and degraded.
He's a fucking criminal and possibly a traitor. And he needs, at long last, to pay.
@Patrick: The chance of any money from a Trump billion dollar "as he sees fit" government slush fund going to build a wall would be near zero. It would just go to lining his pockets. Maybe the all his boarder patrol agents could use a $250k membership to Mar-a-lago?