The Commentariat -- January 19, 2020
Late Morning Update:
Ha Ha, Just Kidding! Jon Swaine of the Washington Post: "A Dutch supporter of President Trump said Saturday that he supplied a Republican candidate with purported intelligence on the movements of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine last year, taking responsibility for text messages that raised concerns the diplomat was placed under surveillance. But the supporter, Anthony De Caluwe, said in a statement that he was not involved in any surveillance of then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and that the messages were merely 'ridiculous banter' with the congressional candidate, Robert F. Hyde, who in recent days became entangled in the impeachment case against Trump. 'My engagement in this exchange with Rob is something that has no credibility,' De Caluwe said in the statement, which was emailed to The Washington Post by a spokeswoman. The spokeswoman, Karyn Turk, said that De Caluwe had never been to Ukraine and had no contacts in the country."
** Joseph Stiglitz, in Common Dreams, republished in RawStory: "It is becoming conventional wisdom that US President Donald Trump will be tough to beat in November, because, whatever reservations about him voters may have, he has been good for the American economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.... In fact, US economic performance over the past four years is Exhibit A in the indictment against relying on these indicators [of GDP and the stock market].... US life expectancy, already relatively low, fell in each of the first two years of Trump's presidency, and in 2017, midlife mortality reached its highest rate since World War II...Millions have lost their [healthcare] coverage, and the uninsured rate has risen, in just two years, from 10.9% to 13.7%.... In 2017 ... [deaths of despair, caused by alcohol, drug overdoses, and suicide] stood at almost four times their 1999 level.... If fully implemented, the 2017 tax cut will result in tax increases for most households in the second, third, and fourth income quintiles.... Making matters worse, the growth that has occurred is not environmentally sustainable[.]" --s ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is formerly chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisors.
** William Saletan of Slate: "It's hard to keep up with ... Donald Trump's scandals. One day he's covering up taxpayer-funded travel expenses for his family. The next, he's stealing money for his border wall. The next, he's being implicated by an accomplice in the extortion of Ukraine. But one horror is right out in the open: Trump is a remorseless advocate of crimes against humanity. His latest threats against Iran, Iraq, and Syria are a reminder that he's a ruthless as any foreign dictator. He's just more constrained.... But Trump's election and his persistent approval from more than 40 percent of Americans are a reminder that nothing in our national character protects us from becoming a rapacious, authoritarian country. What protects us are institutions that stop us from doing our worst." --s
Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian, sitcom star and political neophyte, catapulted to the presidency of Ukraine last spring on a promise of sweeping away the country's shadowy web of money and influence. Now, as Mr. Zelensky faces pressure to deliver on his promises, he is finding that actually bringing the corrupt officials and oligarchs to heel is a lot harder than satirizing them on his former TV show, 'Servant of the People.'... Further complicating an already daunting task, Mr. Zelensky has been forced to deal with the fallout from the Trump administration's pressure campaign in Ukraine...."
Reuters: "China ;is stepping up restrictions on the production, sale and use of single-use plastic products, according to the state planner, as it seeks to tackle one of the country's biggest environmental problems.... The United Nations has identified single-use plastics as one of the world's biggest environmental challenges.... [P]lastic bags would be banned in all of China's major cities by the end of 2020 and banned in all cities and towns in 2022." --s
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Michael Shear & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "President Trump's legal defense team forcefully denied on Saturday that he abused his power by pressuring a foreign government to investigate his political rivals, making Mr. Trump's first formal response to two impeachment charges at the center of the Senate trial that begins next week. The defiant rejection of the accusations came in response to an official summons issued last week by the Senate, notifying Mr. Trump that he faces removal from office if he is convicted. In the six-page letter, his legal team denounced the impeachment case brought by House Democrats as illegitimate, driven by malice toward him and lacking a factual basis. The president's lawyers did not deny any of the core facts underlying Democrats' charges, conceding what ample evidence has shown, that he withheld $391 million from Ukraine and asked the country's president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter. But they said Mr. Trump broke no laws and was acting entirely appropriately and within his powers when he did so, echoing the president's repeated protestations of his own innocence. They argued that Mr. Trump was not seeking political advantage, but working to root out corruption in Ukraine. ~~~
~~~ "Mr. Trump's response came shortly after the House impeachment managers formally outlined their case for Mr. Trump's removal from office, arguing in a lengthy legal filing that the Senate should convict him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. In the 46-page trial memorandum, the House impeachment managers asserted that beginning in the spring, Mr. Trump undertook a corrupt campaign to push Ukraine to publicly announce investigations of his political rivals, withholding as leverage nearly $400 million in military aid and a White House meeting. He then sought to conceal those actions from Congress, they said, refusing to cooperate with a House impeachment inquiry and ordering administration officials not to testify or turn over documents requested by investigators." ~~~
~~~ Darren Samuelsohn, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump launched his first formal attack on the House's effort to remove him from office on Saturday, calling the Democrats' impeachment case against him fatally flawed and 'constitutionally invalid' while blasting the effort as a political hit job by his adversaries. 'This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election,' Trump's lawyers argued in a six-page response filed with the Senate....
"The House managers in their own opening 111-page trial brief featured a slate of evidence that has emerged in the month since the House impeached Trump on Dec. 18.... Among the new evidence the House will rely upon: a Government Accountability Office report that found Trump illegally withheld military aid from Ukraine when he failed to notify Congress of the move.... The brief also cites emails recently unearthed by national security publication Just Security, indicating the legal turmoil that Trump's hold on military aid caused inside his administration. Democrats' argument also includes one reference to Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who turned over multiple flash drives containing evidence to the House in recent days." The article includes a reproduction of Trump's "Answer" to the charges.
Jim Acosta & Pamela Brown of CNN: "Donald Trump has appeared 'distracted' by the impeachment trial that begins on Tuesday, according to a source close to the White House who speaks to the President regularly. 'Why are they doing this to me,' the source quoted Trump as saying repeatedly, telling people around him Friday night at Mar-a-Lago that he 'can't understand why he is impeached.' Trump has been telling associates and allies around him that he wanted a 'high profile' legal team that can perform on television, the source said."
Things Fall Apart, the Senate Cannot Hold. Jonathan Chait: "By seizing on tiny gaps in the evidentiary record -- gaps that existed because Trump refused to release any testimony or documents -- [Republican Senators] denied Trump had withheld a meeting and military aid from Ukraine in order to force investigations. Since then, evidence, some pried loose by lawsuits, has dismantled those defenses. A batch of emails released in late December showed the Office of Management and Budget ordered a freeze on aid almost immediately after Trump's phone call with Ukraine's president. Then, in January, another tranche of emails found the Defense Department raising concerns about the freeze's legality. Weeks later, the Government Accountability Office deemed the freeze illegal, making moot the defense that Trump hadn't technically violated laws.... The most explosive revelations came from a trove of documents turned over by Lev Parnas, a small-time hustler who was recruited by Rudy Giuliani to help run Trump's extortion scheme." Read on. Chait does a nice job of distilling the meaning from the Parnas docs.
Franklin Foer of the Atlantic on how Lev Parnas's allegations bring the Ukraine scandal closer to the Kremlin by invoking Dmytro Firtash, the Ukrainian oligarch who represents Russian interests in Ukraine & -- tho he denies it -- is tied "to the gangster Semion Mogilevich, one of the region's most important Mafia bosses, a man the FBI placed on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list." Firtash himself is fighting extradition to the U.S. on bribery charges. Firtash bankrolled the Three Stooges' efforts to get dirt on Biden and, in return, Rudy Giuliani may have pleaded Firtash's case to Bill Barr. Firtash has despised Joe Biden since 2014 when then-veep Biden "promoted an anti-corruption agenda that included liberating Ukraine's energy sector from Firtash’s dominance." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: My own conspiracy theory is that the whole Ukraine-meddling scheme was a tiny piece of Trump's desire to get in on the millions or billions of dollars to be had through corrupt Kremlin-related schemes. Getting "dirt on Biden" may have been of less interest to him than it was to Firtash, to Putin or to whoever else Trump was hoping would welcome him into the Kremlin's circle of corruption & give him a piece of the pie. This is why Trump can't grasp why he's being impeached: his true motives are different from what the Articles of Impeachment allege. He's in it for the money. Lots of money.
Breakfast at Cipriani's. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Although Donald Trump repeatedly asserts he doesn't know Lev Parnas and has never spoken to him, it has become clear these are lies. There are of course all those two-shots of Trump and Parnas that keep cropping up. But Trump is right that a high-profile person doesn't necessarily "know" many of the people with whom he appears in posed photos. But besides Lev's assertions in his interviews this week, Lev brought receipts. For instance, his day calendar includes a September 2019 entry, "Breakfast with President Trump in NYC." According to Joy Reid of MSNBC, Trump's official schedule showed he had a breakfast at Cipriani's NYC the same day at about the same time. NBC News notes that the breakfast took place "just days before Parnas was indicted." Could Lev have consulted Trump's schedule, then penciled in the breakfast after the fact? Maybe. Also is the latest docudump of Lev's files, there a photo of some other event in which printed place cards for "President Donald Trump" and "Lev Parnas" are placed next to each other at a table. Could Lev have mocked up the table setting? Possibly. But I doubt it. (Also linked yesterday.)
** Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Trump's ascent does not make it harder for women to ascend -- just the opposite.... Trump is once more doing his part to energize women voters. On Friday, we learned that the president will get help from Starr and Dershowitz for the impeachment trial in the Senate.... After playing an avenging Javert about foreplay in the Oval, Starr will now do his utmost to prove that a real abuse of power undermining Congress and American foreign policy is piffle. In 2007, he defended Jeffrey Epstein. By 2016, Starr was being ousted as president of Baptist Baylor University for failing to protect women and looking the other way when football players were accused and sometimes convicted of sexual assaults. In other words, he's a complete partisan hack.... And then there's Dershowitz, whose past clients have included such sterling fellows as Epstein, Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson and Harvey Weinstein.... Dershowitz has put himself on the side of an impressive pantheon of villainy in the realm of violence against girls and women."
Edward Moreno of the Hill: "Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he made the call to release to the media hundreds of text messages between two high-ranking FBI employees after they criticized then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, according to new court filings the Justice Department released late Friday night. In the messages, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page insulted Trump as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), expressing a preference for Hillary Clinton in the election. The messages, which were exchanged on government cellphones, also revealed that the two were engaged in an extramarital affair, which has made them the subject of public harassment as well as ridicule from the president.... Strzok and Page filed separate lawsuits against the Department of Justice (DOJ) last year, alleging that the release of their text messages violated the Privacy Act.... In the court filing Friday..., Rosenstein said he decided to release the messages because they would inevitably become public after his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee during the Mueller investigation. He said he also wanted to ensure they weren't 'cherry-picked' by members of the committee." (Also linked yesterday.)
Colby Itkowitz & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "President Trump delivered a dramatic account of the airstrike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, joked that he doesn't care if construction projects kill all the rattlesnakes and noted his indifference to the budget during a private dinner with deep-pocketed donors Friday night at Mar-a-Lago, according to audio files obtained by The Washington Post." A CNN story on Trump's remarks at the fundraiser is linked in yesterday's Commentariat.
Maria Cramer of the New York Times: "The National Archives and Records Administration ... apologized on Saturday for altering a photo of protesters at the 2017 Women's March that blurred out references critical of President Trump. 'We made a mistake,' began a statement the archives released on Saturday. The photo of protesters holding signs was part of an exhibit ... which examined the struggle of women to gain the right to vote.... Initially, in a statement to The [Washington] Post, an archives spokeswoman defended the decision.... By Saturday afternoon, three museum officials were seen turning around the photo display.... The display was [then] positioned so that only a blank canvas could be seen. Officials then posted a statement to the public that also apologized for the alterations.... The controversy unfolded as tens of thousands of women gathered in Washington and other cities on Saturday for the fourth Women's March." See also yesterday's Commentariat for context. The Washington Post's story of the Archives' apology is here. An AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post -- a man who gets it: In "... blurring out details from protest signs in an image of the 2017 Women's March, including the name of President Trump and references to the female anatomy -- a decision the Archives publicly apologized for on Saturday -- is egregious for multiple reasons.... The Women's March ... was a march for equality, dignity and fair treatment. For many who attended, those issues were newly urgent given the man who had been inaugurated the day before. Many of the signs at the march were directed at Trump's denigrating language, his cavalier comments about groping and kissing women without their consent, his support for denying them the right to control their own bodies and the many accusations of harassment and assault.... Inequality, for women today, is ... something understood directly through their bodies.... Thus, scrubbing out references to women's anatomy in the image was ... censorship of the fundamental message of the Women's March."
Lynn Berry of the AP: "Thousands gathered in cities across the country Saturday as part of the nationwide Women's March rallies focused on issues such as climate change, pay equity, reproductive rights and immigration. Hundreds showed up in New York City and thousands in Washington, D.C. for the rallies, which aim to harness the political power of women, although crowds were noticeably smaller than in previous years. Marches were scheduled Saturday in more than 180 cities."
William Cole of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: "On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, at Pearl Harbor, the Navy is expected to announce that a $12.5 billion aircraft carrier will be named after Mess Attendant 2nd Class Doris Miller, the first African American to receive the Navy Cross for valor for his actions on Dec. 7, 1941, when he manned a machine gun on the USS West Virginia to fire back at attacking Japanese planes.... In 1941 an African American was not allowed to man a gun in the Navy, and as far as rank was concerned, 'he could not really get above a messman level,' [Doreen] Ravenscroft[, president of Cultural Arts of Waco (Texas),] said. Miller's actions started to turn the tide, she added. 'Without him really knowing, he actually was a part of the civil rights movement because he changed the thinking in the Navy,' Ravenscroft said Friday.... Miller died on [an escort carrier] when it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on Nov. 24, 1943, during the invasion of the Gilbert Islands, according to the Navy."
Shane Dixon Kavanaugh of The Oregonian: "The FBI believes the Saudi Arabian government 'almost certainly' helps its citizens flee the country after they are accused of serious crimes, 'undermining the US judicial process,' according to a newly declassified document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The surreptitious action is done, in part, to spare the wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom embarrassment, the FBI said. Intelligence officials believe the flights from justice will continue without intervention by the American authorities." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Sex, Lies, But No Videotape. Carol Rosenberg of the New York Times & the Pulitzer Center on the mysterious death of a Marine at Guantánamo Bay. The naval base's commander was involved, has been removed from his post and was convicted of six charges related to the incident in a civilian federal court. The Navy never brought charges against him. Mrs. McC: There's no indication in the story that the commanding officer murdered the Marine, nor was that a subject of the trial, but it does give you an idea that the Navy is willing to let slide some pretty bad behavior. That makes Donald Trump's pardons of four servicemen whom the services did bring charges against look all the worse.
Beyond the Beltway
Puerto Rico. Audrey McNamara of CBS News: "Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced fired the island's emergency management director on Saturday, after a video showing aid sitting unused in a warehouse went viral on social media. Some of the aid has allegedly been sitting in the warehouse since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017.... Garced said in a statement that she has ordered Secretary of State Elmer Roman to conduct a 'thorough investigation into the mishandling of emergency aid in a warehouse in Ponce.'..."
Way Beyond
U.K. BBC News: "Prince Harry and Meghan will no longer use their HRH titles and will not receive public funds for royal duties, Buckingham Palace has said. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also said they intend to repay £2.4m of taxpayer money for the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage, which will remain their UK family home. The couple will also no longer formally represent The Queen. The new arrangement will come into effect in spring this year. It comes after the couple earlier this month said they wanted to step back as senior royals. A statement from the Queen said following 'many months of conversations and more recent discussions' she was 'pleased that together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family'. 'Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family,' the statement continued." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marrying an American Woman Can Be Hazardous to Your Royal Title. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "However civil, the agreement codifies one of the most dramatic ruptures within the British royal family since King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry an American woman, Wallis Simpson. It is a spectacle that has enthralled and divided Britain, overshadowing even the country's impending departure from the European Union, and provoking conversations around the world about race, privilege and tradition.... The couple plan to spend a majority of their time outside Britain, initially in Canada but later likely in the United States as well, according to officials at the palace."
Venezuela. Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cast himself as the wily survivor of a dramatic, year-long struggle by the opposition at home and its allies in Washington to unseat him, and said it's now time for direct negotiations with the United States to end the political stalemate that has crippled this nation of some 30 million. In an exclusive, extensive interview with The Washington Post -- his first with a major U.S. media outlet since the day last February he abruptly pulled the plug on a Univision taping and ejected its journalists from the country -- an exuberant Maduro said he had outfoxed his opponents in Caracas and Washington, is comfortably in charge and ready to talk."
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I'm reposting this comment made late in the day yesterday:
By Akhilleus:
Weltanschauung, Weltschmerz, und Schmucks
So I put on a CD of Sinatra songs while working around the house and I glanced at the liner notes on the back, written by Irish rock icon Bono, lead singer and songwriter with U2. Bono's (née Paul David Hewson) name was plaited by friends who appreciated his good voice (Latin: bonavox), thus, one might readily accept his take on another singer's vocal chops.
Commenting on Sinatra's vocal approach on this album of love songs, Bono points out (appropriately, in my opinion) that in order to sing like that, one would have to have lost a few fights. And no one who could sing love songs like he does could do it like that without having his (or her) heart broken a few times.
Bono speaks like a true Irishman. Yeah. We've lost a few fights (more than a few), but we always get up and jump back in the ring.
Which makes me think of the Current Occupant of the White House, the Orange Menace. Fatty has never accepted that he has ever lost any fights. In his mind, he was cheated or screwed. And in love, broken hearts are for losers; he does whatever he wants: cheats, philanders, screws porn stars then lies about it and pays them off, rapes his wife then runs lawyers at her to force her to deny it.
Serendipitously, just after the Sinatra album, I popped in Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte", an opera that, even though it's largely a comic work, takes seriously the journey of the hero. The hero, in traditional mythology and narrative, loses battles and learns the lessons of failure. This is what promotes him or her to the status of hero. They screw up. They learn pain and suffering and learn from it. Their personal strength helps them to overcome all and they enter the realm of heroism.
Trump has never felt pain. Never believed that any downturn in fortune was his own fault. It was always due to some loser or some asshole. Daddy was always there to bail him out. He never LEARNED ANYTHING!
Last night, I took my little guy to a screening of "The Wizard of Oz". The great value of this movie is that the heroes of the film learn from their hard times. They become true heroes. They LEARN.
Trump? He never learns anything. Any problems are always someone else's fault. Never his.
He is the Greatest. No matter what.
Hero?
No. Loser schmuck.
And those who worship this loser schmuck and his weltanschauung?
Lost.
-- Akhilleus
Thanks, Akhilleus (and Mrs. McC).
I feel that exactly. However, in Die Zauberflote (where's that umlaut), my favorite hero is Papageno. A bird-man. Talk about an outsider!. But there he is, loving his job, and only wanting someone to love and be loved by. He's apparently totally unfit for his job and really is a complete coward, but he's so funny and nice that he gets his girl anyway. An un-Trump.
The joy is in the music. Everything works out, even if the plot is iffy.
Bestie: die koenigen der nacht (Sills)
papageno(Prey)
NO HOLDS BARRED:
Last October William Barr appeared at Notre Dame Law School and claimed:
"Organized destruction of religion was under way in the U.S. Secularists and their allies among the progressives, and their allies among the progressives have marshalled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditions."
David Rohde at the New Yorker has written a long and spectacular profile of Barr that after reading makes your skin crawl. I urge you all to read this.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/william-barr-trumps-sword-and-shield
And AK: Sinatra: "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" made many of our teenage hearts go fairly weak in the knees and other places. Thanks for the memories and the connections to the man behind the curtain.
Victoria,
So now you’ve done it. I’m walking around all morning with “Der vogelfanger bin ich ja” playing on a loop in my head. Papageno IS a coward, but that’s one of the lovable things about him. He is without affect or pretense.
Unlike another cowardly character (the Orange Menace), Mozart and Schikaneder’s birdman never tries to pretend that he is, in fact, brave and tough and smart. His nature is elemental and clear. When you mentioned your fave (Hermann Prey), I was thinking of how funny it is to see singers like Prey and Fischer-Dieskau, and more recently someone like Bryan Terfel, guys who typically play authoritarian types or villains, hopping around the stage dressed in feathers carrying panpipes and a bird cage.
Papageno may not be a traditional hero, but he is an honest representative of humanity who has no delusions about who or what he is and doesn’t care to look silly. Fatty, on the other hand is all authoritarian without a shred of self awareness or humor. As an operatic character, I’m tempted to connect him to the venal, backstabbing, womanizing chief of the Roman secret police, Baron Scarpia, but Scarpia is way too intelligent for Trump. Scarpia, like most real life strongmen, would make Trump sit up and do tricks while singing the Prologue to Pagliacci in Pig Latin.
(Oh, and Bubbles was a killer Queen of the Night. If Fatty ever tried to grab her, she’d tear his tiny balls off and feed them to her pet dragon. )
PD,
Some years ago, an old college friend and I, over a few beers, commiserating over what we thought (at the time) was the beginning of the end of the great American Experiment, as The Decider and his pet shark began shredding the Constitution (little did we know that the real horror had yet to begin), came up with what we thought had the makings a rip-roaring political novel (of course it got better, and wilder with each round—sillier too, but you know how that goes).
So here it is. A kid fresh out of law school sets his sights on the Supreme Court. But he decides, given the changing power structures of the country, as we moved closer and closer to totalitarianism, to go about it as a sleeper. He stifles his essentially liberal views and sails to the dark side, supporting every evil prick and rat bastard right wing program that slithers down the pike.
After many adventures in the muck (which got progressively more baroque and complicated) he builds up a resume of rot and filth, racism, misogyny, and nastiness which, naturally, put him in the perfect position to be elevated by some future Republican douchebag president. However (spoiler alert for anyone planning to read the book, whenever we get around to writing it), once on the Court, his true nature is revealed and the many evil wingnut legal plots before the court are foiled. I’ll spare you the details.
Well, it was all fun for that afternoon, but we never expected that some lawyer would come along, being seen as a relatively reasonable legal mind (by those paying only cursory attention) who would eventually tear off the mask to uncover his essential nature, that of a far-right hack dedicated to screwing America as he defends an indefensible traitor.
But here we have one: Bill Barr.
Might have to order another round. Make it a double, bartender.
Victoria,
Make that BRYN Terfel. My auto correct doesn’t know from Welsh names.