The Commentariat -- January 20, 2018
The Comments function appears to be working again. Those who signed up may continue to use their exalted "membership" status, or not, as they prefer. I don't intend to sign up anyone else as it's no longer necessary. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
*****
Afternoon Update:
David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post on Trump's Celebration of Me event tonight: "By holding the event at his own club, Trump will be able to collect tens of thousands of dollars in fees for food, ballroom rental and other costs. In effect, he will have transformed his supporters' political donations into revenue for his business. Again."
*****
Sheryl Stolberg & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Much of the federal government officially shut down early Saturday morning after Senate Democrats, showing remarkable solidarity in the face of a clear political danger, blocked consideration of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating. The shutdown, coming one year to the day after President Trump took office, set off a new round of partisan recriminations and posed risks for both parties. It came after a fruitless last-minute negotiating session at the White House between Mr. Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. With just 50 senators voting in favor, Senate Republican leaders fell well short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed on the spending measure, which had passed the House on Thursday. Five conservative state Democrats voted for the spending measure. Five Republicans voted against it, although one of those, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, did so for procedural reasons." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.) ...
... Here's how every senator voted, via the New York Times. ...
... Trump & the Football, Déjà vu. Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer f New York ... came close to an agreement to avert a government shutdown over lunch on Friday. But their consensus broke down later in the day when the president and his chief of staff demanded more concessions on immigration.... A the meal progressed, an outline of an agreement was struck...: Mr. Schumer said yes to higher levels for military spending and discussed the possibility of fully funding the president's wall on the southern border with Mexico. In exchange, the president agreed to support legalizing young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Mr. Schumer left the White House believing he had persuaded the president to support a short, three to four-day spending extension to finalize an agreement, which would also include disaster funding and health care measures.... As the evening wore on, Mr. Schumer got a call from Mr. Kelly that dashed all hopes for a Trump-Schumer deal before the shutdown deadline.... Mr. Kelly, a hard-liner on immigration..., outlined a long list of White House objections to the deal." You'll have to read all of the first half of the report to see how the "agreement" "evolved," or rather, devolved. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Let's hope we read a lot of stories headlined "Kelly Is New Unelected President," with a subhead that conveys the self-evident truth that a racist general engineered a coup over an unpopular, doddering president, bringing down the federal government. ...
... "Trump Whines: Shutdown Fight Could Make Me Miss 'My Party.'" Lacklan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "On the eve of a ... government shutdown..., Donald Trump privately vented frustrations that the political impasse could possibly keep him from attending a glitzy inauguration anniversary bash and fundraiser set for Saturday at his Florida getaway Mar-a-Lago. Two sources close to the president ... told The Daily Beast how excited he was for the event and relayed his growing concern that the potential failure to strike a deal to keep the federal government open could keep him from 'my party,' as the president has said." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: For Reality Chex readers who had forked over $100K or more & bought new outfits to wear to "his party," I read someplace that President* Whiney Face is off to Mar-a-Lago today to celebrate himself at a fête à Donaldo. I could find a link to verify this, but I don't care enough. ...
... Also, never mind what your outdated calendar says. It's really 01/01/01, Anno Trvmpvs. The Trumpian calendar is a little different from the old-fashioned Gregorian one. The Trumpian calendar has 13 months of 28 days each, & each month has four 7-day weeks. This adds up to 364 days a year, which is a little short. But hey, like all science, astronomy is fake, so this should work. The names of the days of the week have changed: SunKingDay, MoneyDay, AmericaFirstDay, BusinessDay, DonaldsDay, WhiteMansDay & TrumpsDay. ...
... Politico: "Some six hours after the federal government shut down..., Donald Trump tweeted, 'This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown.'..." ...
... Dana Milbank: "What on Earth does President Trump want? On Wednesday, the White House issued an official statement saying it supported a 30-day spending bill to avert a shutdown that included a six-year extension of the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. But Thursday dawned to see Trump declaring the opposite.... Exactly a week earlier, Trump ... rejected, in colorful fashion, a bipartisan immigration compromise he had said just two days earlier he would embrace. And this last week..., Trump was contradicting ... John F. Kelly, who said Trump had 'changed his attitude' and 'evolved' on the nature of a border wall. Trump replied that the wall 'has never changed or evolved.'... The president's mixed messages, more than anything, are what brought the government to the brink of a shutdown."
... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "... President Trump ... shares a sizable chunk of the blame [for the shutdown].... My colleagues reported in November he told confidants a shutdown could be good for him politically; a chance to flex his hard-line muscles on immigration. He's also tweeted stuff like this: 'either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix mess!' ... May 2, 2017.... This week, Trump cast doubt on whether he would sign a short-term spending bill ... hours after his spokeswoman said he would. Hours before a precarious vote in the House of Representatives to avoid such a scenario, Trump pulled the rug out from under GOP leaders by seeming to take away their only leverage to get Democrats on board: funding the Children's Health Insurance Program.... Trump also pushed back on his chief of staff's statements by suggesting he had not backed off the notion of a border wall.... Trump has also been extraordinarily inconsistent on what he wants on an issue that is impossible to separate from this shutdown: preventing the deportation of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.... With two words ['shithole countries,'] Trump caused an international stir and made it much mor difficult for Democrats to negotiate with the president...." ...
... The Party of Xenophobes & Racists. Sean Sullivan & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Amid the chaos and confusion of Capitol Hill this week, one prevailing trend emerged: Republican leaders are embracing the party's hard-line position on illegal immigration. While the battle over spending continues, GOP lawmakers have chosen to align with the conservative posture that took root in the party with President Trump, a development that is causing consternation among some Republican dissenters. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other GOP lawmakers repeatedly cast the spending fight as Democrats displaying more loyalty to undocumented immigrants than Americans -- a wager that the nativist leanings that propelled Trump to power will energize their political base in this year's midterm elections.... In McConnell's orbit, there is a sense that much of the Senate Republican Conference is closer to [Sen. Tom] Cotton [whom Sen. Lindsey Graham called 'the Steve King of the Senate'] and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) on immigration than it is to Graham, even if they are not as vocal about it."
Glenn Kessler & Meg Kelly of the Washington Post: "One year after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made 2,140 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker's database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That's an average of nearly 5.9 claims a day.... While the president is known to make outrageous claims on Twitter -- and that was certainly a major source of his falsehoods -- he made most of his false statements in unscripted remarks before reporters. Prepared speeches and interviews were other key sources of false claims. That's because the president relies on talking points or assertions that he had made in the past -- and continued to make, even though they had been fact-checked as wrong.... There were only 56 days -- or about 15 percent of the time -- on which we recorded no claims. These were often days when the president golfed. But there were also 12 days in which Trump made more than 30 claims. These were often days when he held campaign-style rallies, riffing without much of a script." Mrs. McC: Look for Trump to break 6.0/day during this election year.
Tamara Keith of NPR: "Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report. Turnover in Trump's first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama's first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan's White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency. 'While some turnover is expected and possibly beneficial, excessive turnover portends problems,' writes Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. '[President Trump] has valued loyalty over qualifications and suffered from a White House that has functioned in a chaotic manner. Both features have made it difficult to retain staff and have contributed to the governance difficulties he has encountered.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Cap'n. Nunes Keystone Kops to the Rescue. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "House Republicans spent the end of the workweek telling everyone who would listen that the American people must be allowed to see a top-secret four-page document that could bring an end to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.... The document, which alleges abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the FBI's quiet counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the final months of the 2016 election, was actually compiled by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee. That committee voted along partisan lines this week to allow any member of Congress to take a peek at the document themselves. Republican members soon flocked to a secure room to read the memo written by their allies -- and then ran to tell the press about it.... Overnight, #ReleaseTheMemo ― a hashtag reportedly given an additional boost by Russian-connected bots ― started trending on Twitter. In less than 24 hours, Donald Trump Jr. ... sent off more than 30 tweets and retweets about the memo t his nearly 2.5 million followers.... Democrats say the Republican-drafted classified memo is full of omissions and distortions intended to fuel efforts to run cover for President Trump." Emphasis added. ...
... Nunes & the RussiaBots. Natasha Bertrand in Business Insider: "Republican lawmakers are pushing for the House Intelligence Committee to release a memo written by the panel's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, that outlines purported surveillance during the transition period against ... Donald Trump by former President Barack Obama's administration. And Russia-linked Twitter bots have jumped on the bandwagon.... The frequency with which the [Russia-linked] accounts have been promoting the hashtag [#ReleaseTheMemo] has spiked by 233,000% over the past 48 hours.... The accounts' references to the "memo," meanwhile, have increased by 68,000%. The most-shared domain among the accounts has been WikiLeaks, and the most-shared URL has been a link to WikiLeaks' 'submit' page.... Several Republican congressmen -- many of whom have been highly critical of the special counsel Robert Mueller, the FBI, and the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia -- have released statements calling on the House Intelligence Committee to declassify and release Nunes' four-page memo.... A source with knowledge of the memo told Business Insider that it was 'a level of irresponsible stupidity that I cannot fathom,' adding that it 'purposefully misconstrues facts and leaves out important details.' [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.] said the document 'may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals.'" ...
... One Reason Nunes & the RussiaBots Are Collaborating to Shut Down Mueller & the FBI. David Graham of the Atlantic: "Perhaps the most interesting thread [in Glenn Simpson's testimony before Congress] is Simpson's suggestion that the Trump Organization could have been used by Russians to launder money -- an arrangement that would have both allowed Kremlin-linked figures to scrub cash and would have created possible blackmail material over the now-president, since the Russian government would be aware that a crime had been committed.... But while Simpson saw disturbing patterns, he was unable to nail anything down, because he couldn't get the relevant records from banks and other financial institutions.... [Rep. Adam] Schiff told me Friday that the committee had been unable to follow [the] roadmap [to nail down the facts which Simpson suggested], because Republican members are not interested." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course Mueller does have the subpoena power -- and apparently he's using it -- to investigate Simpson's supposition. Holding evidence that Trump was money-laundering -- which is a crime -- is a far more potent form of blackmail than their outting anything like the supposed "golden shower" episode. Trump's consensual sexcapades are amusing & ew!-cringeworthy but they're not illegal. ...
... Here's the full In Touch interview of Stormy Daniels on her affair with Trump. We keep it classy here at Reality Chex. Just reporting on the President. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jake Pearson of the AP: "A tabloid magazine held back from publishing an adult film star's 2011 account of an alleged affair with Donald Trump after the future president's personal lawyer threatened to sue, four former employees of the tabloid's publisher told The Associated Press. In Touch magazine published its 5,000-word interview with the pornographic actor Stormy Daniels on Friday -- more than six years after Trump's long-time attorney, Michael Cohen, sent an email to In Touch's general counsel saying Trump would aggressively pursue legal action if the story was printed, according to emails described to the AP by the former employees. At the time, Trump was a reality TV star on the NBC show 'The Apprentice.'" Mrs. McC: I toldja Cohen had practice bleaching Trump's dirty laundry. ...
... First Mistress? Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: In an interview with Bill Maher on last night's "Real Time," Fire & Fury author Michael "Wolff slyly teased a White House anecdote that he apparently didn't feel comfortable including. There was one story about Trump that he kept hearing, but couldn't confirm, even by his questionable standards. 'I didn't have the blue dress,' Wolff said.... 'It's about somebody's he's fucking right now?' Maher asked, excitedly. 'Yes,' Wolff replied, but he refused to elaborate. 'You just have to read between the lines,' he said, adding, 'Now that I've told you, when you hit that paragraph, you'll say bingo.'"
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Guess finding the name of the First Mistress will require some detective-reading. Assuming Wolff was referring to a woman (which Maher does not) & unable to scour his book, I'll go blindly with Omarosa. But since Kelly unceremoniously kicked her out of the White House, maybe Trump has moved on to Mrs. Huckleberry. She & Trump really are perfect for each other.
Russ Choma of Mother Jones: "A German business magazine is reporting that Deutsche Bank, the German financial giant which is a major lender to both Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, identified 'suspicious transactions' related to Kushner family accounts, and has reported them to German banking regulators. The bank is reportedly willing to provide the information to special prosecutor Robert Mueller's team of investigators. Manager Magazin, a respected German business magazine, reported in its latest print edition, which hit German newsstands on Friday, that Paul Achleitner, chairman of Deutsche Bank's board, had the bank conduct an internal investigation and the results were troubling. Those results have been turned over to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority -- Germany's bank regulatory agency...." ...
Madison Kircher of New York: During the 2016 election cycle, "... some 677,775 American people retweeted content from [Twitter] 'accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).; Twitter has since emailed that group to say hi, just FYI that tweet you retweeted was from Russia and engineered to thwart our democracy. It has also suspended the accounts behind the tweets." ...
... Madison Kircher: "Facebook recently announced that it would be tweaking its News Feed algorithm -- now, you should be seeing more posts from friends, rather than from publishers.... [Friday], Mark Zuckerberg announced that this means your feed should now be just 4 percent news, rather than the previous 5 percent. Oh ... and he also announced that Facebook is going to let its users decide which news sources they trust the most. 'This update will not change the amount of news you see on Facebook. It will only shift the balance of news you see towards sources that are determined to be trusted by the community.' Zuckerberg calls this being 'objective.' You might call it 'asking for it.'... But, hey, now if you see some fake news floating around your News Feeds, the onus is off [Facebook]. Blame 'the community.'"
Time to Go, Bob. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The Justice Department announced on Friday that it intended to retry Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, two months after a jury deadlocked on federal corruption charges against him. The move means Mr. Menendez will have to defend himself again in a year when he is up for re-election. A new trial for Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, who has been in the Senate for 12 years, adds a wrinkle to the political map in this year's 2018 midterm elections. While the senator has not officially announced that he is running, he has given no indication he intends to retire.... So far, however, no strong Republican challenger has emerged."
Christopher Mele of the New York Times: "A neighbor of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky intends to plead guilty to a federal felony charge after he tackled the senator in November in an assault set off by the placement of a pile of brush, the man's lawyer said on Friday. The neighbor, Rene A. Boucher, 58, of Bowling Green, Ky., was charged on Friday with assaulting a member of Congress resulting in personal injury, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Josh J. Minkler, said in a news release.... Mr. Boucher saw Mr. Paul stack brush in a pile near their property line, and Mr. Boucher 'had enough,' according to the release. He ran onto Mr. Paul's property and tackled him.... Federal prosecutors will seek a prison sentence of up to 21 months, [Matthew Baker, Boucher's attorney] said, adding that he would seek probation for his client.... The attack against Mr. Paul, a Republican, was not politically motivated, Mr. Baker said...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Good. Li'l Randy is an asshole & among other assholery, is apparently a sloppy neighbor, but that's no excuse for beating him to a pulp & likely causing permanent physical damage.
Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "The FBI recently opened an inquiry into Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens [R]..., as he fights an allegation of blackmail and faces calls to resign just a year into his job. While the FBI has not commented on the existence of any inquiry or formal investigation into Greitens, the St. Louis circuit attorney's office announced last week that it is investigating Greitens' conduct following an explosive story that forced the Republican governor to acknowledge having had an extramarital affair and confront an allegation of blackmail.... Greitens has acknowledged having had an extramarital affair before he became governor, but has vehemently denied blackmail."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would consider a challenge to President Trump's latest effort to limit travel from countries said to pose a threat to the nation's security, adding a major test of presidential power to a docket already crowded with blockbusters. The case concerns Mr. Trump;s third and most considered bid to make good on a campaign promise to secure the nation's borders. But challengers to the latest ban, issued as a presidential proclamation in September, said it was tainted by religious animus and not adequately justified by national security concerns." (Also linked yesterday.)
Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "Journalists at The Los Angeles Times voted overwhelmingly to form a union despite aggressive opposition from the paper's management team, reversing more than a century of anti-union sentiment at one of the biggest newspapers in the country. Shortly after the final vote count was announced on Friday, The Times's parent company said that the newspaper's publisher, Ross Levinsohn, was taking an unpaid leave of absence while a law firm investigated allegations of coarse workplace behavior while he was employed by other companies.... Out of the 292 employees who cast ballots, 248 voted in favor of joining the NewsGuild...."
Joe Coscarelli of the New York Times: "Tom Petty, the chart-topping singer and songwriter, died in October from an accidental drug overdose as a result of mixing medications that included opioids, the medical examiner-coroner for the county of Los Angeles announced on Friday, ending the mystery surrounding his sudden death last year. The coroner, Jonathan Lucas, said that Mr. Petty's system showed traces of the drugs fentanyl, oxycodone, temazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl."
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Reader Comments (8)
GIVING BIRTH TO IRONY:
Here we had the president* speak at the March for Life rally yesterday spouting all the pablum of those that revere the "sanctity of life" while his own party (this is questionable–-does he actually have a party?) can't seem to take care of actual REAL LIVE children and use them as bargaining chips to get other monies for the things they think are important. I couldn't watch this charade–––all those shiny faces filled with goodness and mercy–– but praise Jesus, if Trump didn't screw this up, too, saying that it is wrong that some state laws allow babies to be born in the ninth month–-we have to stop this!
Well! I'll be switched––-we'll give him a pass for the gaffe but there were others. Have a look:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-flubs-anti-abortion-speech_us_5a627b15e4b002283002c6c0?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Always 'love' the photos that accompany an article following a devastating turn of events for the Party. Doesn't Mitch McConnell look like last night's failure was just a delightful finish to the day? Going home to celebrate the success that we are shutting down the government. Yaaaaah!
Appears they all received the PR lecture, no matter how awful your day went, the vote went,....SMILE as tho' you haven't a care in the world (despite a major setback/ screw-up!).
My reference: photo with NYT article by Stolberg/Kaplan.
On to picky definitions, why is Tom Petty's demise an "accidental" overdose vs. overdose vs. intentional overdose? How does anyone know it was accidental? Maybe it was just an overdose. Period.
Questions on my mind. Is Trump still gonna make his splashy entrance at the Davos economic conference? Darn, this pesky shutdown ruined his Mar-a-Lago party & golf plans. When does the Tweetstorm begin???
@MAG: good point about Petty's overdoses, accidental or not. I didn't find it "picky" or petty––your point is well taken.
I'm bringing up the comment I wrote late yesterday evening because I find this quite extraordinary. If Trump actually has some kind of mythical belief in the magic of his hair then his sense of himself is more wacko than we thought. From the transcript it's hard to tell whether Trump is joshing, but I bet not. I would have liked to know what his reaction was after Ms Clifford was done "hysterically laughing."
"And I asked him about his hair. I was like, “Dude, what’s up with that?” and he laughed and he said, “You know, everybody wants to give me a makeover and I’ve been offered all this money and all these free treatments.” And I was like, “What is the deal? Don’t you want to upgrade that? Come on, man.” He said that he thought that if he cut his hair or changed it, that he would lose his power and his wealth. And I laughed hysterically at him." Stormy Daniels
Now we know. Donaldo actually envisions himself as Samson––all the power is in that hair. Oh, for some Delilah to snip, snip, snip on some stormy night gently tossing that fine golden fleece hither and thither for our fine feathered friends to build their nests– a real golden opportunity. Bald, broke, beleaguered, the poor man stumbles forth and has a teeny tiny tantrum that no one gives a shit about. He's done for. He's through. "Hair today, gone tomorrow" as maybe some comic said on the stage back when America was maybe a little great.
January 19, 2018
Me, again on: "we've-been-waiting-for-this"
"A German magazine is reporting that officials of Deutsche Bank have informed Germany’s banking regulator about “suspicious” transactions by the real estate company owned by Jared Kushner and his family. (Mary Papenfuss) over on Huffington Post "Deutsche Bank Flags ‘Suspicious’ Kushner Company Transactions."
—The bank is prepared to turn over documents to special counsel Robert Mueller, says a German business magazine.
Well, OK.
@PDPepe, thanks!
Oh BTW, I see the DJT Tweetsturm und drang has begun! Damn those pesky Democrats!
Bea, great line!
"Kelly Is New Unelected President"
Proof that Trump is seriously dumb and cowardly.
Nobody will ever negotiate again with the 'fake president'.
The shutdown is due to a total lack of leadership.
The word chaos dosn't make it. Trumpaos?
On another matter, I am shocked to here that the DOJ is going after
Menendez again. In the first case, the jury voted 10-2 in favor of acquittal. Do you think there is a chance it has something to do with politics?
@MAG & PD Pepe: Absent evidence to the contrary -- a suicide note, credible testimony that the person intended to kill himself, etc. -- I think it's common practice for coroners to determine that a drug overdose is "accidental." In fact, I found this one Washington state county directive that reads, "Deaths related to illicit drug or excessive medication use, in the absence of evidence specifically supporting the conclusion of the manner of death being homicide or suicide, are classified as accident." Of course a coroner can always amend her report if she is subsequently presented with strong evidence that refutes it.
Since it may be that a purposeful death would have financial ramifications (life insurance policies with suicide clauses) on the family & because suicide remains taboo in some religions (Roman Catholic, I think) & among certain cultural camps, "accidental overdose" seems like a "nicer" opinion that "suicide by overdose."
Petty had a number of conditions that caused him pain & one very recent one that caused him severe pain. He seems to have had different prescriptions for every one of the medical conditions. Reportedly, he stopped using illegal drugs in the early 2000s, but maybe that's about the time he began to discover that legal drugs were a safer bet. At any rate, it seems the "accidental overdose" is fitting under the circumstances. Someone who took prescription painkillers for years & then probably added one new one to the cocktail, sounds more like he suffered an accidental overdose than he does someone who intended to kill himself. Is it possible Petty had just "had enough" & decided to end it all? Yes, but he's not here to say one way or the other.
@Marie: Duly noted. Thanks for the comprehensive run-down. Makes sense. Me thinks MAG and I do an Emily Litella?
@Bea McCrab & PDPepe: What Bea wrote were considerations in my own head even as I wrote what I did. In a sense, there is concurrence. I do see the insurance/family/niceties of it all. Now, I could stir things up further by mentioning how a car plowing into a crowd is described. Yep. There are different factors. Was it an accident? Intentional? Medical situation.
Headlines often use a baffling shorthand.
Never mind.