The Commentariat -- December 9, 2018
Late Morning Update:
Michael Burke of the Hill: "Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that President Trump might 'face the real prospect of jail time' after prosecutors indicated last week that he directed illegal payments during his 2016 presidential campaign." ...
... Martin Matishak of Politico: "Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said that if accusations that ... Donald Trump directed illegal payments during his campaign are true that it would 'certainly' be an impeachable offense, but stopped short of saying such action would be taken. 'They would be impeachable offenses. Whether they're important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question,' Nadler, the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'"
Megan Keller of the Hill: "Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that the language federal prosecutors are using to refer to President Trump in an indictment against Michael Cohen makes it sound as if they might have corroborating evidence that the president violated campaign finance law."
Quinn Scanlan of ABC News: "Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said repeatedly that ... Donald Trump pardoning former campaign chairman Paul Manafort would be a 'terrible mistake,' and that doing so could possibly 'trigger a debate about whether the pardon powers should be amended.'"
Stephanie Baker, et al. of Bloomberg: "Not long after Michael Cohen stopped pursuing a Trump-branded property project in Moscow, another Russian connection to the future U.S. president's entourage started to form. Like the real estate plan, it didn't end well -- particularly for Russian tycoon Viktor Vekselberg. His effort to engage in statecraft at the highest level unraveled spectacularly, costing him billions, cleaving his family and severing the extensive ties to the U.S. elite that turned him into what one Moscow newspaper called the 'most American' of Vladimir Putin's plutocrats.... Instead, he became the richest victim of the most dangerous standoff between the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War." --s
Nervous Breakdown at the Wingnut Corral. Elham Khatami of ThinkProgress: "Conservative pastor E.W. Jackson went on a six-minute Islamophobic rant on his radio show Wednesday, telling listeners that Muslims are 'going to turn Congress into an institution of Sharia law.' Jackson was speaking specifically about Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who, along with Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), are set to become the first Muslim women elected to Congress.... 'Floor of Congress is now going to look like a, it's going to look like an Islamic republic.'... Late Thursday evening, Omar clapped back, tweeting that Jackson is 'gonna have to just deal.' 'Well sir,' she said, 'the floor of Congress is going to look like America....'" --s
Jamiles Larty of the Guardian: "This year has been by far the worst on record for gun violence in schools, the advocacy group Sandy Hook Promise said, citing research by the US Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The NPS Center for Homeland Defense and Security counted 94 school shooting incidents in 2018, a near 60% increase on the previous high, 59, an unwanted record set in 2006. The NPS database goes back to 1970 and documents any instance in which a gun is 'brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason', regardless of the number of victims or the day of the week.... In response to the NPS findings and to mark the sixth anniversary of Sandy Hook, on 14 December, Sandy Hook Promise will release a jarring public service announcement [video]." --s
North Carolina. Follow the $. E.A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "Controversy surrounding election fraud in North Carolina's 9th district increased this weekend as questions surfaced about campaign debts owed by Mark Harris, the Republican initially declared the winner in the race. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, the Harris campaign currently owes $34,310 to a political consultant employed by the Red Dome Group. The money is owed for 'Reimbursement Payment for Bladen Absentee' and 'Reimbursement Door to Door,' seemingly to Leslie McCrae Dowless, the consultant. Dowless was named Friday as a person of interest in a probe of possible absentee voter fraud.... In another twist in the saga..., a Democrat-funded PAC may have also been involved in a separate case of illegal absentee voter practices in the same county." --s
Virginia. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "Virginia's House of Delegates is one of the most gerrymandered bodies in the country. In 2017, Democrats won the statewide popular vote in Virginia's legislative races by over nine percentage points. Nevertheless, Republicans still held a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates, thanks to gerrymandering. But Virginia Democrats may actually get to compete in something approximating free and fair elections next year, thanks to a pair of documents handed down by a federal court on Friday.... While it remains to be seen what the final maps will look like, the current maps are so egregiously gerrymandered than any alterations are likely to benefit the Democratic Party. And that, in turn, raises the possibility that the increasingly blue state of Virginia could become a haven for progressive ideas." --s
Wisconsin. H. Claire Brown of The Intercept: "[In the GOP last minute power grab,] buried under controversial moves to curtail early voting and strip authority from Gov.-elect Tony Evers is a sweeping codification of welfare restrictions that Republicans across the country have long sought. The new legislation enshrines in state law outgoing Gov. Scott Walker's controversial policy of forcing many food stamp applicants to submit to drug testing. It also limits the incoming administration's ability to walk back the state's strict new work requirements for aid recipients. After Walker's approval, Wisconsin will be the only state that requires drug testing for non-felon food stamp applicants." --s
*****
Michael Shear & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly, the retired Marine general tapped as chief of staff by President Trump last year to bring order to his chaotic White House, will leave the job by the end of the year, Mr. Trump said on Saturday, the latest departure from the president's inner circle after a bruising midterm election for his party. Mr. Trump, speaking with reporters on the White House lawn before departing for the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, said that he would announce a replacement for Mr. Kelly &-- perhaps on an interim basis -- in the next day or two." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Good-bye & Good Riddance. David Graham of the Atlantic: "The essential moment for understanding Kelly came in October 2017. After several American soldiers were killed in a raid in Niger, Trump used the occasion to attack former President Barack Obama's handling of condolence letters for slain service members. Trump cited the combat death of Kelly's own son.... Some pundits expected Kelly to rebuke Trump. Instead, Kelly staunchly defended him. He also attacked Representative Frederica Wilson, who had provided a damning account of Trump's phone call to Myeisha Johnson, the widow of slain Sergeant La David Johnson. When video evidence debunked Kelly's attack on Wilson, the White House said that it was inappropriate to question the chief of staff, because he is a veteran.... [Mrs. McC: And Kelly refused to apologize to Wilson for falsely smearing her with false accusations.] The episode ... showed that the gulf between Kelly and Trump wasn't as large as many analysts had assumed. Kelly was always a Trumpist in ideology -- reflexively nostalgic for the past, committed to old-fashioned gender roles, skeptical of cultural change, and strongly anti-immigration. The difference between the men was largely about style and approach, not substance." Read on. Graham also goes into Kelly's appalling performance in the Rob Porter fiasco.
... Mrs. McCrabbie: There have been so many White House scandals, one cannot keep them all in mind. But Kelly's mistreatment of a black congresswoman, in contrast to his support for a white male wife-beater, is the measure of the man. His chestful of medals tells us he might have been heroic once upon a time, but by the time he got to Trump's place, he had shriveled to an evil gnome.
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
Mother Jones: "The House Judiciary and Oversight committees have released a transcript from Friday's closed-door hearing of former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. The hearing was part of a Republican-led investigation into the FBI's actions during the 2016 presidential election, which included investigations of Hil[l]ary Clinton's email server and Russia's involvement in the Trump campaign. Comey, who was fired by ... Donald Trump in May 2017, has since called the hearing a 'desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president.'" Mrs. McC: The story, which is brief, includes a copy of the transcript. It's Saturday evening, & several other outlets have equally brief reports, noting only that the transcript has been released as part of a deal reached between Comey & House Republicans. I'll look for some reporting & analysis Sunday. ...
... Update. Eric Tucker, et al., of the AP: "The FBI's counterintelligence investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia initially focused on four Americans and whether they were connected to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers during hours of closed-door questioning. Comey did not identify the Americans but said ... Donald Trump, then the Republican candidate, was not among them. He also told the House Judiciary Committee that, contrary to Trump's claims, he was 'not friends in any social sense' with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is now leading the Russia investigation. Trump has repeatedly portrayed the men as close as part of a long-running effort to undermine the investigation and paint the lead figures in the probe as united against him.... The questioning largely centered on well-covered territory from a Justice Department inspector general report, Comey's own book and interviews and hours of public testimony on Capitol Hill." ...
... Comey Is Still Sure He Was Right to Interfere in the 2016 Election. Karoun Demirjian & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Comey was asked frequently about whether the president obstructed justice when Trump fired him last year. An FBI lawyer sought to block him from answering a question about a memo Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein wrote supporting the termination, saying it 'goes to the special counsel's investigation into obstruction.' That seems to offer public confirmation from law enforcement that such a probe exists. When it came to questions about his own conduct..., Comey was loath to take any blame. Several Democrats asked whether he had erred in superseding then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch to declare the Clinton probe closed -- and then informing Congress just days before the 2016 election that it had been reopened. Comey responded by criticizing Lynch's decision not to recuse herself from the investigation and said the timing of his decision to write to Congress had been approved by subordinates. Asked whether he regretted not following normal Justice Department protocol, Comey said, 'I don't' and disputed that he had done so. 'I still think the other alternative was worse,' Comey said, echoing a rationale he has expressed in public. 'And as between bad and worse, I had to choose bad.'"
Eric Tucker, et al., of the AP: "Just before leaving Washington on Saturday afternoon for the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, Trump told reporters 'we're very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever. There never has been. The last thing I want is help from Russia on a campaign.' Trump described the investigation as a 'very one-sided situation, but I think it's all turning around very nicely. As far as the reports that we see, according to everybody I've spoken to, I have not read it, there's absolutely no collusion, which is very excellent.' The court documents make clear how witnesses previously close to Trump ... have since provided damaging information about him...."
Peter Baker & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The prosecutors made clear in a sentencing memo filed on Friday that they viewed efforts by Mr. Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to squelch the stories as nothing less than a perversion of a democratic election -- and by extension they effectively accused the president of defrauding voters, questioning the legitimacy of his victory. On Saturday, Mr. Trump dismissed the filings, and his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, minimized the importance of any potential campaign finance violations. Democrats, however, said they could lead to impeachment."
John Dean Drops the "I"-Word. Michael Brice-Saddler of the Washington Post: "John Dean, a White House counsel under President Richard M. Nixon who received jail time for his role in the Watergate scandal, said Friday that allegations against President Trump detailed in new court filings give Congress 'little choice' other than to begin impeachment proceedings." ...
... Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "Trump tweeted that the [Mueller] investigation 'Totally clears the President. Thank you!' But [George] Conway [-- husband of Kellyanne --] was among the most vocal in pointing out how wrong the phrase 'totally clears the president' is. 'Except for that little part where the US Attorney's Office says that you directed and coordinated with Cohen to commit two felonies. Other than that, totally scot-free....'... Conway then proceeded to spend the rest of his Friday night focusing his Twitter on the Trump-as-potential-felon theme. He retweeted a link from satirical site the Onion:'Giuliani Insists Breaking the Law Not a Crime.' He shared a Nixon-era headline 'President: "I'm not a crook," retweeting presidential historian Michael Beschloss's analysis: 'What's old is new again.' He also retweeted former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, who said 'The real news ... is about the conclusion by federal prosecutors that Donald J. Trump has committed a serious felony.'... [And one] from Preet Bharara, the fired U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York:'Inspiring reminder: In America anyone can grow up and become Individual-1.'... Even Conway's correct spelling of 'scot-free' may have been a dig at Trump and his head-scratching use of the phrase 'Scott Free' earlier in the week."
Mrs. McCrabbie: I haven't found this expressed in writing anywhere, but I did hear an MSNBC pundit (and I'm sorry, but I don't know who) suggest that the harsh sentence the SDNY recommended for Michael Cohen was a kind of proffer to Cohen; that is, a means to "persuade" him to be more cooperative. That's something to keep in mind.
** Chas Danner of New York: "Trump himself quickly asserted that the new information 'totally clears' him of wrongdoing, and added on Saturday that 'we're very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever.' We don't know what Trump and his advisers are reading, but here is a running roundup of the most insightful commentary and analysis we've read on the memos -- from experts and pundits who actually understand them." ...
... Max Bergmann & Sam Berger in The Daily Beast: "Mueller may still be only showing us part of his hand, but it's a damn good hand. He has signalled to us he's found collusion. He has shown us that the president is compromised. He has told us that he has gathered information important to his investigation about contacts with people in the Trump Organization, the campaign, the transition, and even the White House. That's everyone Trump has been connected with since he started running.... Mueller is coming.... Not simply for obstructing justice but for conspiring with a hostile foreign power to win an election. This is a scandal unlike any America has ever seen." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's the crux of Bergmann & Berger's analysis: "Russia not only knew that Trump was lying, but when investigators first started looking into this deal, the Kremlin helped Trump cover up what really happened. That made Trump doubly compromised: first, because he was eager to get the financial payout and second because Russia had evidence he was lying to the American people -- evidence they could have held over Trump by threatening to reveal at any time. Since the president's embarrassing performance at the Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin ... there has been open speculation about what leverage the Kremlin has over him. Now we know at least part of the picture...." ...
... ** Adam Davidson of the New Yorker: "In a series of filings that came Friday night, the office of the special counsel Robert Mueller, and a separate group of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, laid out evidence that, taken together, leaves little doubt that Donald Trump sought to use his candidacy to enrich himself by approving a plan to curry political favor from Vladimir Putin in exchange for a lucrative real-estate opportunity. It may be only part of the full story, but what we now know is a powerful tale that combines elements that are familiar from other Trumpworld scandals. It is, at once, shockingly corrupt, blatantly unethical, probably illegal, yet, at the same time, shabby, small, and ineptly executed. Combined with another memo released on Friday -- a more sparsely informative sentencing memo for Paul Manafort -- we are seeing the inner workings of a coördinated conspiracy conducted by people who are very, very bad at conspiracy." ...
... Ken White in the Atlantic: "Federal prosecutors filed three briefs late on Friday portending grave danger for three men: the former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, the former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and ... Donald Trump.... The brief [on Manafort] oozes a level of confidence notable even among professionally hubristic prosecutors: Mueller says he's ready to present witnesses and documents, and that he gave Manafort's lawyers an opportunity to refute the evidence but they could not. Mueller is sure he has the receipts.... The [SDNY] prosecutors' rebuttal of Cohen's sentencing brief is one of the more livid denunciations I've seen in more than two decades of federal criminal practice.... If the Southern District's fury at Cohen is notable, its explicit accusation that President Trump directed and coordinated campaign-finance violations is simply stunning.... Most significant [in Mueller's brief on Cohen], the special counsel indicates that Cohen 'described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries, while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements within it.' That statement suggests that the special counsel believes that someone in the Trump administration knew of, and approved in advance, Cohen's lies to Congress. That's explosive, and potentially impeachable if Trump himself is implicated." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Eli Hogan in a CNN opinion piece: "President Trump and his allies have long rallied around the defiant battle cry that special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a 'witch hunt' that has uncovered 'no collusion' with Russia. But public filings by Mueller and the Southern District of New York over the past two weeks have changed the game. We still do not know everything Mueller knows, but the contours of a broad scheme by the administration to conspire with Russia -- to the personal benefit of Trump and the detriment of the United States -- are now coming into sharper focus.... First, the evidence mounts that Trump has committed federal crimes unrelated to Russia.... The evidence also builds that Trump has attempted to obstruct justice by impeding the investigation of Russian election interference.... Second, it is increasingly clear that Trump had deep financial and political incentives to curry favor from Russia as the 2016 election approached.... Because of his own financial dealings and lies to the public, Trump gave Russia the ability to influence and potentially manipulate him.... The puzzle pieces fit together." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Garrett Graff of Wired: "Mueller's court filings, when coupled with other investigative reporting, paint a picture of how the Russian government, through various trusted-but-deniable intermediaries, conducted a series of 'approaches' over the course of the spring of 2016 to determine, as [Lawfare's Benjamin] Wittes says, whether 'this is a guy you can do business with.' The answer, from everyone in Trumpland -- from Michael Cohen in January 2016, fromGeorge Papadopoulos in spring 2016, from Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016, from Michael Flynn in December 2016 -- appears to have been an unequivocal 'yes.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: And that's the crux of it, isn't it? Trump's "no collusion!" protestation is the Lie of the Year. A more accurate portrayal of what was going on all during the campaign & into the transition period was "all collusion, all the time." The fact that Trump perpetuated lie after lie about his dealings with Russia, even as he continued to curry favor with Putin, demonstrates a pattern of treacherous, impeachable behavior more egregious than Nixon's domestic crimes. Even a person who agrees with Nixon's view that "when the president does it..., it is not illegal," would not extend that dictum to cover secret conspiracies with hostile nations.
... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "Trump's name isn't in any of the unredacted portions of the Manafort sentencing memo but his presence looms large in all of the court filings since both Manafort and Cohen worked for him. In a taste of what might still be coming, CNN reported earlier on Friday that one of the president's ersatz lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, said Mueller's team told Manafort that Trump was lying when he said he didn't know about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting Donald Trump Jr. arranged with a Russian attorney offering compromising information about Hillary Clinton. Manafort was present at that meeting, along with the president's son-in-law and current White House adviser, Jared Kushner.... In addition to noting Cohen's willingness to sacrifice his accountant to save himself, the Manhattan prosecutors also take issue with the idea that Cohen's cooperation emerged from some a newfound sense of duty.... They plainly state that Cohen cooperated to save his hide and avoid a harsher penalty." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Dana Milbank: "That Trump is fundamentally lawless can no longer be seriously disputed. His own prosecutors now say he took part in a crime -- and his former secretary of state says Trump had little concern about what was legal.... Trump has floated the idea that he could unilaterally end the constitutional protection of birthright citizenship, and his administration has toyed with implementing a $100 billion capital-gains tax cut without Congress, and sharing census citizenship information with law enforcement officials.... When courts push back on his lawlessness, Trump treats judges as political opponents.... On Friday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the latest filings 'tell us nothing of value that wasn't already known.' That's true in the sense that recent findings essentially corroborate much of the 2016 'dossier&' by former spy Christopher Steele -- declared fraudulent by Trump -- and its reports of extensive, compromising interactions between the Trump campaign and cronies of Russian President Vladimir Putin."
... All that said ....,
... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "[T]he likelihood that Trump will experience any consequences for his actions -- even if there is ironclad proof that Trump committed very serious crimes -- is close to zero so long as Trump occupies the White House. Simply put, the framers of our Constitution had no idea how politics actually work. And that left us with a Constitution that offers no good remedies against a criminal president." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Millhiser argues, "If you think that 20 Republicans are going to vote to remove a president who still has an 89 percent approval rating among Republican voters, then I hope you've been comfortable living under a rock for the last two years.... The framers simply did not anticipate a situation where a political party would organize to protect its criminal leader." They also did not anticipate Fox "News." But I can still envision a scenario in which the House impeaches Trump and several Republican senators -- fewer than 20 -- vote to convict him. Impeachment & near-conviction would severely weaken a president who already does little more than send the Federalist Society's noxious judicial nominations up to the Senate for confirmation. Nancy Pelosi may be third in the line of presidential succession according to the Constitution, but a weakened Trump & a dingbat veep would leave Mitch McConnell as the effective head of the U.S. government. In fact, one could argue he has already donned that mantle (see Sam Fulwood's story, linked below, and don't forget Merrick Garland). ...
... To wit. Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "A growing number of Republicans fear that a battery of new revelations in the far-reaching Russia investigation has dramatically heightened the legal and political danger to Donald Trump's presidency -- and threatens to consume the rest of the party, as well.... The White House is adopting what one official termed a 'shrugged shoulders' strategy for the Mueller findings, calculating that most GOP base voters will believe whatever the president tells them to believe. But some allies fret that the president's coalition could crack apart under the growing pressure. Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump strategist..., predicted 2019 would be a year of 'siege warfare' and cast the president's inner circle as naively optimistic and unsophisticated. 'The Democrats are going to weaponize the Mueller report and the president needs a team that can go to the mattresses,' Bannon said. 'The president can't trust the GOP to be there when it counts ... The don't feel any sense of duty or responsibility to stand with Trump.'"
Mrs. McCrabbie: A week or two ago, a contributor suggested Trump would not run for re-election because he hates the job. Eric Levitz of New York posits the same reason I think Trump is likely to run: it's his get-out-of-jail card. Trump may hate to do his daily chores, but he does as few of them as possible anyway. He may think the White House is a bland dump, but it beats Paul Manafort's digs.
This Saudi Thing, Ctd.
How Mohammed Wooed Jared. David Kirkpatrick, et al., of the New York Times examine the relationship between Jared Kushner & Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Samuel Oakwood & Ryan Goodman in the Atlantic: "... Donald Trump, who repeatedly complains that the United States is paying too much for the defense of its allies, has praised Saudi Arabia for ostensibly taking on Iran in the Yemen war. It turns out, however, that U.S. taxpayers have been footing the bill for a major part of the Saudi-led campaign.... Since the start of the Saudi-led intervention, in March 2015, and up until last month, the United States provided mid-air refueling for Saudi-led coalition aircraft that then flew missions related to the Yemen campaign. Getting heavy U.S. tankers into the air and carrying out this job is enormously expensive. The recipient country is required by law to pay the costs, but that isn't what happened here. In a mea culpa of sorts, the Pentagon's November 27 letter states that while the Defense Department 'believed' Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates 'had been charged for the fuel and refueling services, they in fact had not been charged adequately.' How inadequately, the Pentagon will not yet say; it is 'currently calculating the correct charges,' the letter states.... The Pentagon's letter says that it reached these conclusions after Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made a specific request for information." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: BUT it's okay because (a) "if the president does it, it's not illegal"; (b) Jared likes M.B.S.; & (c) starving Yeminis is a necessary byproduct of "America First."
Lee Fang of The Intercept: "President Donald Trump's pick to serve as his next attorney general, William Barr, pushed repeatedly to expand the role of the military [abroad] to strike drug traffickers during his last stint at the Justice Department, while serving in President George H.W. Bush's administration.... Barr called the failure to ramp up the drug war the 'biggest frustration' he faced.... In 1992, Barr signed off on a book titled 'The Case for More Incarceration,' writing that the nation must 'identify, target, and incapacitate those hardened criminals who commit staggering numbers of violent crimes whenever they are on the streets.'" --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
But the Emails! Emily Holden of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's first Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator [Scott Pruitt] repeatedly violated agency policy [over a period of months] to use personal email for government business, according to newly released public records.... Using personal rather than government email shields messages from public records requests and can put sensitive information at risk.... Others in the administration, including the president's daughter Ivanka Trump, have used personal email accounts for work.... In response to a previous request, the EPA had officially released just one message Pruitt wrote to anyone outside the agency during his first 10 months in office. His emails offer a new look at his close relationships with influential conservatives." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sam Fulwood III of ThinkProgress: "True to the form of our hyper-dysfunctional politics, [Mitch] McConnell is openly defying the president as well as a large contingent of GOP senators by refusing to bring the measure [on criminal justice reform] to a vote before the current session ends. The irony of McConnell's spiking the only idea that has a sliver of merit from the White House is a bright-line example of just how dysfunctional Congress has become. Even though this criminal reform legislation is favored by President Donald Trump and key White House insiders, a significant number of GOP lawmakers, and nearly all of the Democrats in Congress, its chances of passage are doomed because the Senate's top Republican doesn't like the bill." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Sharon Lerner of The Intercept: "A new water rule will greatly reduce federal water protections, imperiling drinking water, endangered species, and ecosystems across the country. According to the rule that the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release next week -- some details of which were leaked Thursday -- streams that are dependent on rainfall and wetlands not physically connected to year-round waterways will no longer be covered by the Clean Water Act. As a result of the change, an estimated 60-90 percent of U.S. waterways could lose federal protections that currently shield them from pollution and development, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.... By removing water quality standards and permitting requirements, the rule will open these streams, rivers, and wetlands to being paved over, filled in, or polluted." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
"I wouldn't be as big as I am today without chocolate milk." -- Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue, "justifying" the lowering of school lunch standardsWhat's Next? Wonder Bread & Kool-Aid? Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "This week, the United States Department of Agriculture announced its final plans to lower nutrition standards for grains, flavored milks and sodium in school cafeterias that were part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and that Michelle Obama, the former first lady, had advocated."
Election 2018
Michigan, Etc. Emma Roller of The Intercept: "Wisconsin isn't the only state where Republicans have been ramping up efforts to negate the will of voters -- it's becoming part of the GOP's regular playbook. In Michigan, a lame-duck push by the GOP is also seeking to neuter incoming Democratic elected officials. The same thing happened in North Carolina in 2016.... Republicans' message is consistent: If elections don't go the way they want, then they have no intention of respecting the results. In their minds, voters who don't support Republican candidates are illegitimate, for the simple fact that they don't support Republicans. This circular thinking isn’t an aberration within the GOP -- it's the foundation for all of their machinations. And more naked power grabs like this are sure to come in the next two years, as Republicans continue to feel their popular support slip out from under them." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
North Carolina. Popular Information: "The election scandal engulfing North Carolina's 9th district, where Republican Mark Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes, took an unusual turn on Friday night. Jens Lutz, the Vice Chair of the Bladen County Board of Elections abruptly resigned, WBTV reports.... Why? We don't know for sure but it may be related to his extensive connections to Leslie McCrae Dowless, the convicted felon at the center of the election fraud scandal in the 9th District." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Adam Nossiter, et al., of the New York Times: "A fourth weekend of antigovernment protests in France turned violent again on Saturday, with demonstrators in Paris burning cars and ripping down barricades from store fronts, while the riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to control the crowds. The so-called Yellow Vests descended on the capital by the thousands, even as the police turned out in force, blocking off roads and monuments. Nearly 1,400 people were arrested nationwide. In Paris, many were detained before they could even reach the central site of the demonstrations along Paris’s main artery, the Champs-Élysées."
Natalie Lung of Bloomberg: "China’s trade surplus with the U.S. hit a record in November, even as overall export growth slowed amid waning global demand and uncertainty about a constructive resolution to the trade war." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
CNN: "Treacherous driving conditions and canceled flights could keep residents stuck at home for days as a nasty mix of snow and ice grip the Southeast. 'Over 20 million people are under winter weather alerts, over 8 million people are under a flash flood threat, and over 9 million people are under wind advisories,' CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said Sunday.... More than 12 inches of snow will fall Sunday in the southern and central Appalachians, the National Weather Service said. Snowfall could total 12 to 20 inches over the Appalachians and into the Carolinas by Monday, when the storm is expected to move off the coast, the agency said."
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Found this little gem that might enhance your Sunday pleasure, if only to go back to our discussions here re: the Bush funeral spectacular. Dan O'Sullivan, like our Akhilleus, does a spanking good job of spoiling a perfectly perfected pomp and circumstance (and you can hear the people go--"oh no, how dare he!)
THE NAUSEATING SPECTACLE OF THE GEORGE H.W. BUSH FUNERAL.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-nauseating-spectacle-of-george-h-w-bushs-funeral/
"These days, we're not really living in Donald Trump's America. It would be nice to think that, and plenty do–-eager to pretend the country isn't likely broken beyond repair, and that Trump is an aberration who will soon pass...
The racism, the violence, the power-grabbing, the arrogant eternity––it's a great legacy George H.W. Bush built on, like Reagan and Nixon and Goldwater before him...
It's a shame he couldn't recognize Trump as his own heir."
P.S. I never knew that Bush had a long time affair––alleged, of course.
That Rockwell painting of the little girl being escorted by marshals to school breaks my heart every time I see it, because we've progressed so little since then. How terrified she must have been, and she had real reasons to be afraid. If they had not been there the mob really would have beaten her to death and then celebrated it.
Despite succumbing to my Negative Nancy alter ego (no offense to any real Nancy's out there) doubting the size of the blue wave, Democrats and decent people in general surmounted the multitudinous obstacles and came through for democracy in a big way. Now that 2018 is winding down while the Mueller investigation heats up, we can take a better look at the horizon of 2020 and declare: The Wave crashed the fraud party.
Even if average Janes and Joes across America can't figure out the extremely complex Russer Thing, the campaign finance felony is going to ensure Drumpf's poll numbers are eternally dragged down. If it were just cutting checks or accepting cash from some rich fucks, the average American wouldn't care. But look at the cast of characters that is going to be paraded front and center on teevees across America for the foreseeable future:
Main characters:
Sleazy Presidunce*: Donny Diapers
Porn stars: Karen McDougal & Stormy Daniels
Bomb throwing attorney: Michael Avenatti
Flipped rat personal attorney: Michael Cohen
Fake news king (and flipped): David Pecker
Secondary roles:
Cheated on pregnant wife: Melanie Trump
Shitty kids who can't keep their mouth shut: Eric & Junior Diapers
Vessel of corruption: Trump Org.
Now that the Democrats have subpoena power, expect recurring headlines with Porn Star + payments + Presidunce*, available on demand by the Democratic investigations. Few Americans outside of his deranged base want to think about our president, let along this bloated ogre, fucking porn stars. With his dirty laundry aired across the wavelengths, people will be more and more repulsed as the evidence mounts. Donny will still largely command the news cycle, but he's lost total control. All Americans love Law & Order shows and we're gonna have one playing out on live teevee. Donald will deny, deny, deny and thus keep it in the news, while the wheels of justice continue to squeeze.
And that's just the campaign finance violations. Subpoenas unearthing the whole sideshow of corruption and crookedness enacted by his self-appointed "best people" will piss people off even more. If Democrats play their hands right, we could bring another massive wave in 2020 and completely wreck Movement Conservatism. With tact, it's doable.
Safari, Safari, Safari,
Don't you know that the new watchword in Washington is peace, love, dove, and bipartisan comity? It's not polite, now that the Nazis don't rule the entire coop, for Demycraps to say and do things that might upset the White House. C'mon, dude. Certainly you must remember how nice the Party of Traitors were to Obambi, that blackity-black-black guy who isn't even a real 'merican, right? I mean, they went WAY out of their way to Trrrrrrryyyyy to be nice to him, but he wouldn't have it. No siree bob. He wanted things like healthcare and a decent economy, and low unemployment, and other stuff that 'mericans HATE. But they were still nice to him.
And now, Demycraps want to subpoena our Great President and ask for stuff WAY out of line, like tax returns and how he colluded with an antagonistic foreign power to steal an election. I mean, c'mon! That's just NOT NICE.
Sorry. Now is the time for Demycraps to let Republicans run the show and sit back and be kinder and gentler, and basically, shut the fuck up.
We cannot allow the trump “Foundation” to melt into the background in all of this. It should be a lifetime in jail for the whole family. I think the NY attorney general is working on this.
Procopius,
The truly outrageous thing is that plenty of Trump supporters believe—today—that that little girl had no business sitting in a classroom with white children. And this week, a guy Trump called “a good person” is going on trial for murdering someone who thinks that an integrated society is the goal of a decent and moral society.
The Trump racist mob was thrilled that that person was found out in the dead.