The Commentariat -- January 8, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Sharon LaFraniere & Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with an associate tied to Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign, prosecutors alleged, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday. The accusations came to light in a document filed by Mr. Manafort's defense lawyers that was supposed to be partly blacked out but contained a formatting error that accidentally revealed the information.... In one portion of the filing that Mr. Manafort's lawyers tried to redact, they instead also revealed that Mr. Manafort 'may have discussed a Ukraine peace plan' with the Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, 'on more than one occasion.' Investigators have been questioning witnesses about whether Russia tried to influence the Trump administration to broker a resolution to hostilities between Russia and Ukraine."
Pomp & No Circumstance. Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has invited representatives from cable and broadcast news channels to an off-the-record lunch at the White House ahead of his prime time speech Tuesday night, an address in which he is expected to frame his deman for border wall funding as a response to a national security and humanitarian crisis.... The president appears to be preparing for the event as if he is delivering a miniature State of the Union message -- typically, television anchors meet with the president over lunch ahead of his annual address to Congress."
Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult. Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a 'grave mistake' when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.... Mr. Bolton was in Ankara, the Turkish capital, on Tuesday for meetings with his national security counterpart Ibrahim Kalin but left after he was denied a meeting with Mr. Erdogan, the pro-government English-language newspaper Daily Sabah reported."
Russ Choma & Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones: "When Mother Jones first reported in December 2017 that the Environmental Protection Agency had hired a hyperpartisan GOP opposition research firm [Definers Public Affairs] known for its aggressive tactics to handle the agency]s news-clipping work, the politically appointed flacks in the agency's press office insisted the decision was about saving money and that the hiring had been handled through normal procurement channels.... Now, thanks to another batch of internal emails, we have even more evidence that the motivation for hiring Definers came from the top agency political appointees who were ticked off at the old service because it was collecting too many news clips that portrayed then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt negatively." --s
John Wagner & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Vice President Pence argued Tuesday that the United States is facing an 'undeniable crisis' at its southern border and urged Democrats to negotiate an end to the impasse over President Trump's demand for border wall funding that has led to a partial government shutdown. Pence appeared on three network morning shows, offering a preview of a prime-time address from the Oval Office planned by Trump on Tuesday night in a bid to gain leverage, with the shutdown now in its third week. Democrats announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would deliver a joint response. During his interviews, Pence did not rule out the possibility that Trump would declare a national emergency that could empower him to construct a border wall without congressional approval. But the vice president said repeatedly that the administration is seeking a negotiated solution with Congress." ...
... Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "The vice president avoided direct answers to questions from ABC and others about repeated misstatements from Trump and others that overstate the national security threat at the border.... 'How can the American people trust the president when he says this is a crisis, when he says things over and over again that aren't true?' [Jonathan] Karl [of ABC News] asked. 'Well, look, the American people aren't as concerned about the political debate as they are concerned about what's really happening at the border,' Pence responded. The vice president also repeated Trump's misleading insistence that a renegotiated free trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada fulfills to his campaign promise that Mexico would pay for a border wall, arguing that the new deal is structured 'in a way that it will benefit the United States in jobs and tax revenues.' Fact checkers have rated those claims false, even if the deal had been ratified and gone into effect, which it has not."
Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A Russian lawyer whose role at a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower has come under scrutiny from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was charged Tuesday in a separate case with obstructing justice in a money-laundering investigation. Natalia Veselnitskaya became a central figure in the Mueller probe when it was revealed that in June 2016, she met with Donald Trump Jr., after an intermediary indicated she had dirt on Hillary Clinton. But the charges unsealed Tuesday say she made a 'misleading declaration' to the court in a civil case. Veselnitskaya ... represented Prevezon Holdings in a civil case in which the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan sought millions of dollars in forfeiture from the company and others. The department had alleged in a civil complaint that a Russian criminal organization ran an elaborate tax refund scheme.... Those involved made about $230 million in tax refunds, prosecutors said, and filtered the money through shell companies and eventually into Prevezon, a Cyprus-based real estate corporation. Prevezon, prosecutors said, laundered the funds into real estate, including by investing in high end commercial property and luxury apartments in Manhattan. The parent company of the victim firms hired attorneys to investigate after learning of the sham lawsuits, including Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and they uncovered the fraud scheme, in which Russian government officials were complicit, prosecutors said." ...
... Mrs. McC: Hmmm, "luxury apartments in Manhattan." Do you suppose any of said "luxury apartments" was sold by "Individual A"? ...
... Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "... a federal indictment returned in Manhattan seemed to confirm that Ms. Veselnitskaya had deep ties to senior Russian government officials.... Ms. Veselnitskaya, 43, is believed to be in Russia.... The new indictment again raises questions about whom Ms. Veselnitskaya was representing when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the campaign." Includes a facsimile of the indictment.
Darren Samuelsohn & Rachel Bade of Politico: "The Justice Department is trying to delay acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker from delivering testimony to the new Democratic-led House until next month, potentially pushing his high-profile appearance until after a permanent replacement has already been confirmed, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Whitaker had initially committed to Democratic leaders that he'd give testimony in January to the House Judiciary Committee. But those plans have since stalled, with Justice Department officials citing the ongoing government shutdown and Whitaker's busy travel schedule as reasons for pushing back the hearing, the sources said."
Dissing Our Friends. Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "The Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union's delegation to the United States last year without making a formal announcement or informing the bloc about the change, a European official said on Tuesday. After protest from Brussels and discussion between the European Union and the Trump administration, the reclassification of the delegation and the consequent demotion of the ambassador, David O'Sullivan, is understood to have been reversed, at least temporarily, the official said. Mr. Trump has been critical of multilateral institutions, and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, delivered a provocative speech in Brussels on Dec. 4 in which he questioned the value of multinational organizations and institutions like the United Nations and the European Union."
*****
Catherine Lucey & Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "With the shutdown lurching into a third week, many Republican watched nervously from the sidelines as hundreds of thousands of federal workers went without pay and government disruptions hit the lives of ordinary Americans. White House officials affirmed Trump's funding request in a letter to Capitol Hill after a meeting Sunday with senior congressional aides led by Vice President Mike Pence at the White House complex yielded little progress. The letter from Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought[*] sought funding for a 'steel barrier on the Southwest border.' The White House said the letter, as well as details provided during the meeting, sought to answer Democrats' questions about the funding request. Democrats, though, said the administration still failed to provide a full budget of how it would spend the billions requested for the wall from Congress. Trump campaigned on a promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, but Mexico has refused." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... * Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Yet another "acting" official. ...
... Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is ramping up his efforts to make a public case for his border wall as the partial government shutdown is now in its third week, planning a prime-time address Tuesday night and a visit to the border Thursday. Trump announced the news of the presidential address in a Monday tweet. 'I am pleased to inform you that I will Address the Nation on the Humanitarian and National Security crisis on our Southern Border,' he said. 'Tuesday night at 9:00 P.M. Eastern.'... Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that Trump will travel to the border with Mexico on Thursday." (This is an update to a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Brian Stelter & Oliver Darcy of CNN: "The major television networks will provide wall-to-wall coverage of ... Donald Trump's prime time address on border security on Tuesday. NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox broadcast network all said on Monday that they had agreed to the White House's request for air time. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC will all carry the address live, as well.... But for a few hours, it was unclear what the networks would do.... A broadcast network executive said 'time has been requested for 9 p.m. Networks are deliberating.' The broadcasters have been known to resist presidential requests for air time for a variety of reasons, including the perceived urgency of the subject and the popularity of the shows that would be interrupted. With Trump, there were other factors to consider, including his record of deception and his tendency to ramble off script in long speeches. Many Trump critics posted messages on social media urging the networks not to air an address that could be filled with falsehoods. Some said that a prominent Democrat should be given equal time. It is unclear if any sort of Democratic rebuttal is in the works." ...
... Eliana Johnson of Politico: "Fighting a virtual one-man messaging battle for his border wall..., Donald Trump is growing frustrated that he doesn't have more public defenders in his shutdown fight with Congressional Democrats.... A president who demands constant praise has a diminishing number of public defenders these days. The result is a manic, one-man public-relations effort to sell the shutdown.... Trump has griped to associates that hasn't seen enough administration officials on the airwaves defending him during the shutdown fight.... He is also angry that he didn't get more backup for his mid-December decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.... Meanwhile the White House's once-daily televised press briefing -- a reliable forum for the administration to broadcast its message -- has also all but ceased." ...
... Donnie's Imaginary Friends -- Update on a Whopper. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "As he makes his case for building a border wall, President Trump says that his predecessors have secretly confided in him that they should have done it themselves. The only problem: All of the living presidents say that's not true. Former President Jimmy Carter said on Monday that he never had such a conversation with Mr. Trump, making him the last of the veterans of the Oval Office to dispute the assertion. 'I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump and do not support him on the issue,' Mr. Carter said in a statement. Aides to the other living presidents -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- have all likewise denied Mr. Trump's claim. Former President George Bush, who died in November, was in failing health throughout Mr. Trump's administration and did not have any discussion with the current president about substantive issues, according to people close to him. This would not be the first time Mr. Trump has bragged about conversations that never happened.... Mr. Trump has not interacted with any of his predecessors in any meaningful way since his inauguration." ...
... Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Democrats moved on two fronts Monday to goad Republicans into reopening the federal government, lining up House bills to fund shuttered agencies and preparing to block action in the Senate until the shutdown is resolved. The moves amounted to an increasingly calculated and confrontational strategy from congressional Democrats as the shutdown over President Trump's demand for money for a wall on the Mexican border entered its third week.... In a joint statement Monday night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats must be given equal airtime to rebut Trump, who, '"if his past statements are any indication will be full of malice and misinformation.'" ...
... How to Get the Turtle to Peek out of His Shell. Greg Sargent: "President Trump would almost certainly not be able to continue shutting down the government over his megalomaniacal border wall obsession if it weren't for Mitch McConnell. The Senate majority leader is refusing a Senate vote on the bills that House Democrats have passed funding the government -- shielding Trump from possibly having to veto a bipartisan measure reopening it, which would be politically disastrous for him.... Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) tweeted over the weekend that Senate Democrats should block any and all measures in the Senate that are unrelated to funding the government until the Senate votes on reopening it. Since then, several progressive groups and a handful of Democratic senators have endorsed the strategy.... 'McConnell and Senate Republicans have to stop contracting out their votes to Donald Trump,' Van Hollen [told me]. 'They have an important constitutional role, and we should not have business-as-usual in the Senate until we open the entire federal government.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Sarah Ferris of Politico: "Several dozen House Republicans might cross the aisle this week to vote for Democratic bills to reopen shuttered parts of the federal government, spurring the White House into a dramatic effort to stem potential GOP defections. White House officials and Republican congressional leaders worry that GOP support for the shutdown is eroding, weakening ... Donald Trump’s hand...." ...
... Josh Israel & Ryan Koronowski of ThinkProgress dig up the hypocrisy of countless Confederates in their position on the Trump shutdown. --s ...
... Damian Paletta, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House on Monday directed the Internal Revenue Service to pay tax refunds to millions of Americans during the federal shutdown, marking its most dramatic reversal yet of past legal precedent as officials scramble to contain public backlash from the funding lapse. Last year, and during previous administrations, the IRS said it would not pay tax refunds during a government shutdown. But Trump administration lawyers ruled Monday that the refunds could be processed after all, a move that some Democrats called legally dubious.... But it is also the latest in a string of sudden shifts and legal reversals that have shown the White House reverse precedent in the face of public pressure. Senior administration officials changed rules to pay Coast Guard salaries in December, restart an IRS program to clear mortgage applications, and reopen some national parks. They are now searching for ways to prevent the nation's food assistance program from running out of money.... Sam Berger, who worked in the general counsel's office ... during a shutdown under the Obama administration, said the decision reverses years of precedent and runs contrary to the Antideficiency Act, the law establishing that federal agencies cannot spend money that has not been authorized by Congress. 'What we're seeing now is an effort by the administration to ignore legal views, to basically put aside the law and limit the political impact of what's going on,' he said." ...
[In 2017] over 3,700 known or suspected terrorists tried to enter into this country ... at the southern border because there's no wall, there's no physical barrier. There's no way to actually control ports of entry.....It's a problem of national security. It's a problem of terrorists.... We have terrorists coming through the southern border because they find that's probably the easiest place to come through. They drive right in and they make a left. -- Donald Trump, in remarks last week ...
... Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered only six immigrants at ports of entry on the U.S-Mexico border in the first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists, according to CBP data provided to Congress in May 2018 and obtained by NBC News. The low number contradicts statements by Trump administration officials, including White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who said Friday that CBP stopped nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists from crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2018.... The White House has used the 4,000 figure to make its case for building a wall on the southwest border and for closing the government until Congress funds it. They have also threatened to call a national emergency in order to get over $5 billion in funding for the wall." ...
... "The Number of the Beast." Mrs. McCrabbie: Mrs. Huckleberry, et al., were off by a factor of 666 (4,000/6), which is just too perfect, what with the Revelation that 666 is "the number of the Beast." I wonder if any of Trump's evangelical acolytes are good enough at arithmetic to notice his press secretary is sending them the coded message, "Trump is the Anti-Christ." ...
... Kevin Drum: "Six. And this is merely people who were on a watchlist. Given what we know about the terrorist watchlist, this means the most likely number of real threats stopped at the southern border was zero or one. But it gets worse. These were people stopped at legal ports of entry, so a wall obviously wouldn't have affected them anyway.... At this point, anything officially released by the White House should simply be considered a lie unless it’s confirmed with someone reliable." ...
... Rafi Schwartz of Splinter: "Incidentally, NBC reported, there were nearly twice as many people from the database stopped at the northern border -- 41 of whom weren't citizens or lawful residents. In any case, you'd think that after years of barfing up obvious falsehoods for the president, [Sarah] Sanders would know not to make bogus claims that, oh, I dunno, might be easily disproven. Which means either she's getting worse at lying for a living, or just doesn't care anymore. Maybe both." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump, a former real estate developer, should know that the first major step in developing a property is, um, acquiring it. It's a lesson that seems to have slipped his mind. As Gerald Dickinson writes in the Hill, "Only about one-third of the land the wall would sit on is owned by the federal government or by Native American tribes. States and private property owners, especially along the Texas-Mexico border, own the rest. Trump would have to engineer a monumental settlement with thousands of landowners who control thousands of acres of land along the border. Otherwise, the administration will have to face hundreds, if not thousands, of lengthy eminent domain disputes before anything is built across approximately 2,000 miles of the international border. Beyond the turf wars, the wall is sure to raise considerable litigation over environmental impacts." Based on the government's past experiences acquiring vast land tracts, Dickinson predicts "years and years of litigation and long and drawn out settlements with landowners." ...
... Well, you say, Trump isn't planning to use "regular" eminent domain to take the land. As Dickinson notes in another Hill op-ed, Trump "said he would grab the land 'under the military version' of eminent domain 'fairly quickly.'..." Oh yeah? As Dickinson writes, "it took 15 years for the Army Corps of Engineers to seize the land for the famous Truman Dam." AND, speaking of Truman, as Harry Truman himself learned from the Supreme Court when he tried to national steel mills during the Korean conflict, "the president does not have the power to order the military to seize private property and that the power is the 'job for the Nation's lawmakers, not for its military authorities.'" ...
... ** AND This. Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "The shutdown is because Trump demands extending the existing border walls and barriers to vast areas that make no sense largely because they are in the Rio Grande floodplain. Building barriers in that floodplain was such a problematic idea that a 1970 treaty between United States and Mexico explicitly bans them.... [T]he overwhelming majority of the border, where there isn't some form of barrier, runs straight down the middle of 1,254 snaking miles of the enormous Rio Grande River. But the Rio Grande routinely floods.... If Trump flagrantly violates the treaty to build his wall, not only will it lead to court challenges, but it will worsen relations with the very country we need to work with if the United States is to improve the border situation." --s ...
... Aditi Shrikant of Vox: "The partial government shutdown is dragging on over the $5 billion ... Donald Trump wants for his wall along the US-Mexico border, a political crisis that may be weakening security at a much more common point of entry for immigrants: airports. According to CNN, hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers who were expected to work have called in sick. 'This will definitely affect the flying public who we [are] sworn to protect,' President of the National TSA Employee union Hydrick Thomas told CNN. Their absence will not only increase airport frustrations for travelers, but could also lead to skimping on safety precautions.... According to WNYC, TSA is one of the lowest-paying federal agencies, with the typical starting salary of a TSA agent being $17,000 (other estimations say it may be closer to $25,000). And with Trump declaring the shutdown could last for 'months' or even 'years,' it's easy to see why many calling in or looking for other options." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "The Trump administration's shutdown of the federal government over the last two weeks is a synecdoche for the way it has run the federal government over the last two years. They blundered into it almost by accident, without any understanding of what they are doing nor any plan for success.... Nobody in the administration had a clear understanding of just what a shutdown would entail. Two devastating reports in the Washington Post over the weekend detail the horrifying scope of their ignorance. The administration did not realize that 38 million Americans lose their food stamps under a shutdown, nor did it know that thousands of tenants would face eviction without assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.... Facing an economic cataclysm, Trump appears to have no endgame in mind.... All [Democrats] can do in the meantime is continue to send Trump bills to reopen the government immediately, and wait for the president to realize the political blood on the floor is his own."
From the Alternative Reality of Donald J. Trump. Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday pushed back against media reports that he had altered the timeline for removing U.S. troops from Syria, denying his administration had issued a series of contradictory statements about plans for ending America's role in the war. 'We will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!' the president said in a message on Twitter, referring to the Pentagon's ongoing operation to defeat the Islamic State. His comment, which differed from earlier promises of a swift departure for the more than 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria, was the latest iteration of an envolving roadmap for concluding the military mission there. Trump's statement came a day after national security adviser John Bolton, speaking to reporters during a tour of the Middle East, said the troop departure would occur only after Islamic State militants are fully routed. Both his comments and Trump's conflict with officials' initial statements following the president's unexpected Dec. 19 announcement that all troops would come home in short order. Trump also declared victory against the Islamic State, contradicting military assessments." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mark Landler & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "John R. Bolton found himself last weekend in a familiar but dangerous spot: cleaning up after his boss announced the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria -- a decision that rattled allies and threw America's Middle East policy into turmoil. But Mr. Bolton is at least partly responsible for the conditions that led to President Trump's sudden move. As the president's national security adviser, Mr. Bolton has largely eliminated the internal policy debates that could have fleshed out the troop decision with timetables, conditions and a counterterrorism strategy for after the troops leave. Under Mr. Bolton's management, senior administration officials said, the National Security Council staff had 'zero' role in brokering a debate over America's future in Syria.... Faced with the president's abrupt declaration..., Mr. Bolton felt compelled to talk his boss into slowing down the process, these officials said. Then Mr. Bolton had to cobble together a withdrawal strategy that would normally have taken shape over weeks or months and laid the groundwork for Mr. Trump's decision -- not hastily followed it. Mr. Trump pushed back on reports that he and his adviser were out of sync..., firing at a report in The New York Times rather than at Mr. Bolton."
The Talented Mr. Mulvaney. He Can Do Anything Better than Anyone. Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, as recently as late last year explored the possibility of becoming president of the University of South Carolina, four people familiar with the discussions said. Mr. Mulvaney, a congressman from South Carolina for six years before joining the Trump administration, initiated a discussion with a senior official at the university late last year about the position, which is going to become open this summer. By then, Mr. Mulvaney already had two other jobs -- he led the federal Office of Management and Budget, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But he was weeks away from getting a third job that he had lobbied President Trump for over several months: White House chief of staff. Mr. Mulvaney got the job in an 'acting' capacity -- a move Mr. Trump said over the weekend gave him 'flexibility' with various appointments.... But chief of staff is not a cabinet-level position requiring Senate confirmation, so it is unclear why the 'acting' designation has remained."
"All the Best People" Are Saying, "Hell, No." Eliana Johnson & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "... Donald Trump is having a tough time hiring a Pentagon chief after the abrupt departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis late last month. Jon Kyl, the retired Arizona Republican senator, became the second person to wave off Trump's overtures last week, telling the White House he is not interested in the job. Ret. Gen. Jack Keane also turned down the job shortly after Mattis' resignation. (Keane, who frequently advises Trump, had refused the position once before, during the 2016 presidential transition.)"
Juan Cole: "The response of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to the proposed the Senate bill permitting state and local sanctions on persons and companies that boycott Israel was 'They forgot which country they are representing.'She wasn't harsh enough. The senators who pushed this bill, foremost among them Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) have betrayed the Constitution. And so have the American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffers, who are attempting to gut the US Constitution on behalf of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.... Economic boycotts have been part and parcel of American political striving for liberty from the beginning. I have three words for you: Boston Tea Party.... Two Federal judges have already found state laws that attempt to punish companies or individuals for boycotting Israel unconstitutional, one in Kansas and one in Arizona.... Unless Trump manages to so corrupt the Supreme Court that it ceases even trying to uphold the constitution, both S. 1 and the fascist state laws it seeks to safeguard will all be struck down. The senators know this.... They are not only betrayers of the constitution, they are whores." --s
Uh-Oh. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who underwent cancer surgery last month, was missing from the bench on Monday for the Supreme Court's first arguments since the court returned from its four-week holiday break.... Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. announced his colleague's absence at the start of Monday's session, saying that 'Justice Ginsburg is unable to be present today.' He added that she would take part in the court's consideration of the day's two cases based on the briefs submitted by the parties and transcripts of the arguments." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mark Sherman of the AP: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is missing arguments for the first time in more than 25 years as she recuperates from cancer surgery last month, the Supreme Court said." (Also linked yesterday.)
Beyond the Beltway
Arizona. Liam Stack of the New York Times: "The chief executive of the corporation that runs a private nursing home in Arizona where a woman in a vegetative state was sexually assaulted and later gave birth to a child resigned on Monday, the company said in a statement. The company, Hacienda HealthCare, said the resignation of the executive, Bill Timmons, was unanimously accepted by its board of directors. David Leibowitz, a company spokesman, said Mr. Timmons had been chief executive for 28 years.... Hacienda HealthCare has been under intense scrutiny since the Phoenix Police Department said last week that it had opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the conception of the child, who was born last month.... Records posted to the Medicare website indicate that the care center received a 'below average' rating from health inspectors in 2017. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rated its quality of resident care as 'much below average.'
California. Creepy News. Neal Broverman of the Advocate: "The body of another young black man has been found at the West Hollywood apartment of Ed Buck -- a prominent Democratic donor who allegedly has a fetish for drugging sex workers.... Buck, a white man in his 60s, was investigated previously by authorities after the death of Gemmel Moore, who died of a methamphetamine overdose in Buck's home in July 2017. Since Moore's death was classified as an accidental overdose, numerous young black gay men have alleged that Buck has a fetish for shooting drugs into black men he picks up off the street or on hookup sites. Moore had written about Buck injecting him with dangerous drugs before his death."
New York. Katie Thomas of the New York Times & Charles Ornstein of ProPublica: "Dr. José Baselga, who resigned his position as the top doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center after failing to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug companies, is now going to work for one of them. AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish drug maker, announced on Monday that it had hired Dr. Baselga as its head of research and development in oncology.... Dr. Baselga stepped down in September from his role as chief medical officer at the cancer center after The New York Times and ProPublica reported that he had failed to accurately disclose his conflicts of interest in dozens of articles in medical journals. He later resigned from the boards of the drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb and the radiation equipment manufacturer Varian Medical Systems. Although Memorial Sloan Kettering has said that Dr. Baselga was not fired, hospital leaders have indicated that he was forced out."
Way Beyond
Bibi Takes a Page out of Donald's Big Book of Cheap Tricks. David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "For seven minutes on live television -- enormously valuable exposure with elections only three months away -- [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu railed against a corruption investigation into his dealings with several Israeli media tycoons that is widely expected to culminate soon in an indictment on bribery and other criminal charges. The investigation was 'biased,' Mr. Netanyahu complained.... He scoffed at the idea that one of the main accusations against him — buying positive news coverage, in exchange for government benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- could amount to bribery: 'A joke,' he said. 'An absurdity!' And then he suggested one of his chief rivals in the April elections, the centrist candidate Yair Lapid, was guilty of the same thing; called himself and his family victims of a 'terrible witch hunt' orchestrated by the political left; and claimed that those leftist adversaries wanted him to sacrifice Israel's security, but that he would 'never do such a thing.' At least one television channel cut away midspeech."
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Reader Comments (16)
Wouldn't it be loverly if Bibi and the Baby went down together. Both such arrogant pissers who whine about "witch hunts" while their countries suffer scurrilous bouts of "What the hell is happenings."
die Daumen drunken––-she says gutturally–-but we know "fingers crossed" ain't gonna cut it.
I can see that these words are only black and white silence. It's probably a good thing that nobody can hear me screeching: If I were on a job and I placed 35 million people in immediate danger of being thrown out into the cold with no access to food, I would be fired and probably sued or put in jail. And if I righteously defended my position and wanted to broadcast my actions, I would be sent for a mental status evaluation followed by 72 hours of locked ward observation.
We need the 25th amendment, and we need it now.
And yes, I did look up how it must be an executive committee consisting mostly of cabinet members or most of congress to act on the 25th, but will these cabinet members have any standing, since they're mostly "acting", and will the R's in the senate remain silent forever?
Hope springs eternal. Rant finished.
@Victoria, please feel free to continue... You're much more eloquent than I could ever be.
Doesn't know, doesn't care.
The post (linked above) pointing out one of the more pesky problems with the development of Fatty's wall (he doesn't own the vast majority of the land on which it would sit) foregrounds one of the most consistent problems (of the many) with the current administration.
They don't plan anything. Let me be more accurate. Fatty doesn't plan anything. He just makes announcements and assumes it will all come together because, well, because he's the president*, dammit, and everyone gotta do what he says. Right?
Even if that were true (and it's not--we are not yet a monarchy), there are still a plethora of real-world considerations in any plan of this magnitude. None of which bothers Fatty. We don't own the land? No mind. We'll do that eminent domain thing. Oh, we can't do the reg'lar eminent domain? Then we'll do the irreg'lar domain thing, with the military. There's no such thing? Waaaahhhhh!!! Tweet, tweet, tweeeeeeeettttt...
Last night I happened upon a piece in Vanity Fair about Fatty's White House transition clusterfuck. You may all recall how the Orange Monster had no idea that there needed to be a transition team (an essential concept of American governance built in to the idea of peaceful TRANSITION of power, duh) and when one was put together, he fired them because he believed they were "stealing my money". We'll overlook the fact that not a penny of it was his in the first place.
But it gets even stupider.
"In November, after he had won the election, President-Elect Slow-on-the-Uptake fired everyone who’d been manning the transition team, threw their work in the trash, and decided, per Michael Lewis, that he was going to handle things 'more or less by himself,' [and we all know how well that goes] a bone-chilling determination that he made right around the time it came out that he thought Barack Obama’s West Wing staff CAME WITH THE WHITE HOUSE (emphasis mine). In the words of his own campaign chairman-turned-senior adviser, Trump didn’t 'know anything,' and worse, he didn’t 'give a shit.'"
The piece goes on to point out that Fatty has only just now realized that a government shutdown means, um, that the government shuts down.
"The Washington Post reports that, two weeks after Trump shut down the government over his ridiculous border wall, the administration—only then!—'recognized . . . the breadth of the potential impact' of the president’s actions. In other words, the people in charge of the most powerful nation in the world evidently had no idea that the government actually does stuff, and that when it runs out of money, that stuff ceases to function."
Oops. Who knew?
Well, don't worry. Fatty has been given carte blanche by the networks to get on the TV and spew his lies at length (did these people not learn anything?).
Don't look for equal time for Democrats to talk about things like truth and facts, either. Isn't this how the monster got elected in the first place? Nearly unlimited, wall to wall media coverage of his every lie and bowel movement during the campaign?
Lovely. Let's see what little donnie learned today. Maybe he won't plan this appearance. Maybe he'll wing it like everything else. A country run by a seat of the pants moron who doesn't know, doesn't care, and doesn't "give a shit" (per one of his own people!).
@Akhilleus: What you seem to be saying here is that the so-called "Trump administration" was a clown show even before the clown show was scheduled to begin.
The definitions of "administration," BTW, run to things like, "the management of public affairs; government." I don't see any "management" of anything here. Reality has already forced me to asterisize "president"; I think I'll have to do the same with "administration." This is a fake presidency in every way except for the damage Trump & his minions manage to do.
I waffle but this AM I'm thinking the Pretender's focus on The Wall and the mythical terrorists streaming (swimming?) into the country may, more than the Russia thing, be his political undoing.
From the beginning, the promise that he would build a Wall and Mexico would pay for it was the most patently absurd thing he said, and as we know once the Pretenders stumbles across a line that energizes his pet idiots, he uses it again and again. Unlike "lock 'er up," whose utility was limited to the campaign itself, if it were not to be the obvious bullshit it was, the Wall was something he would actually have to erect if he ever became the Pretend President.
If I may say, the Wall was the Rock on which the Pretender built his church.
All the trade deal talks, the new NAFTA that isn't all that much different from the old, all that is complicated and the effects, large and small, mostly invisible to anyone not immediately affected.
But that Wall. It's right there, visible.
The Pretender can and does lie about how many miles of his Wall have already been built and I'm sure some believe him, you know, just because, but walls are pretty much either/or things, there or not, and so far because he's so obviously done nothing to fulfill that silly promise his pet natives are getting restless.
And now he's going on TV to focus even more attention on the Wall that isn't, that Mexico won't pay for, and on the terrorists that aren't.
As brilliant as he says he is, I'm thinking that's not too smart.
I swear-- I am an eternal pessimist, and I underestimated what a sh*tshow this administration would be... I underestimated how bitter and nasty the entire midwest and rural areas loyal to a lunatic seem to have been... Can it be that everyone in the previously mentioned groups of people is just hideously undereducated as well as nuts? How can anyone not know what it means to shut down the government?? Boggled mind-- Resolve NOT to listen to Circus Peanut tonight.
In local news, Betsy DeVos is recovering nicely after surgery to
repair a broken bone suffered in a biking accident (?).
Thoughts and prayers.
So wait, what happened to the last National Emergency?
The caravan?
Didn't Fatty call out the Marines, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, WAVE's WAC's, Army Corps of Engineers, FBI, CIA, National Guard, DoD secretaries union, and the Federal Dog Walkers to quell that gigantamundo, wicked scary holy shit national crisis?
What happened there? Did they all turn around and go home? Did they evaporate? Did he fire them, like on his godawful unreality show?
No, they're mostly waiting in terrible conditions, mothers, dads, kids, and little babies, to ask for asylum, something the little dictator refuses to give them (because brown, natch). So, really, a crisis of his own making.
I'm thinking that's the technical title of this entire administration. Crisis of His Own Making. So, Marie, you can fugget the asterisk, from now on I'll be referring to this clown show as the Trumpy CHOM (if I could turn that O into a U we'd have CHUM, actually a pretty good description of this disaster--the fish kind, not the friend kind).
I read somewhere that Fatty already has about 20 or 30 additional national emergencies going on right now, so what's a few more? I'm surprised he didn't declare a national emergency when Princess Ivanka had to close down the Chinese sweat shops where her slave-labor manufactured half-ass, knock off clothing lines were made. Boo-hoo. Maybe that was just a baby emergency.
The Trumpy CHOM strikes again! National Emergencies for everyone!
Forrest,
Not the head bone, by any chance, was it? Prob'ly the funny bone. She's such a card.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/08/support-growing-trump-emergency-declaration-1086229
That would be GOP support. And of course it's growing. Declaration of an emergency, extant or not, let's congressional GOP'ers off the hook. They won't have to declare themselves by voting.
More profiles in cowardice.
"Supine" comes to mind.
A friend just sent me this:
"A short while ago I received an emailed attempt to perpetrate a credit card fraud. I dutifully reported it to my card company, my ISP, and attempted to report it to the FTC: "https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0038-spam
But got a big red banner reading: "THE FTC IS CLOSED DUE TO THE LAPSE IN FUNDING".
"Are we Great Again yet, or what? Hope all the Trumpanistas feel safe now."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, come on guys, have some sympathy for poor Betsy––funny bone or tibia it means she's out of commission for awhile so maybe ....nah, forget it–-lots of thoughts but no damned prayers.
The Barrier is Crucial to the Security of American Freeeeedom!...or something....
Can't wait for the media ass kissers to nod sagely, stroke their chinny-chin-chins and wonder how we can ever possibly survive with thousands of known terrorists flooding our southern border, once Fatty gets through lying tonight. After Chuck and Nancy have a chance to rebut Fatty's lies, the wise men and women of the media will say, "Well, there is clearly a difference of opinion here. We'll leave it up to you, but it looks like Democrats are just being stubborn!" Just as they do with global warming. Confederates, over several decades, have been outrageously successful at cowing the media and daring them to call them on their lies. They rarely do. Mostly they say "Well, everyone has an opinion..."
The actual statistics say that only six people on terrorist watch lists tried to come in from Mexico. And they didn't try to sneak across "Fatty's Wall Territory", they drove up and knocked on the door. AND we knew who they were. So, really the number of terrorists "streaming" across the border?
Zero.
(Seriously, if you were a bad guy intent on terroristic activities, would you try to enter the country at a spot where former mall security guards are just dying to shoot someone?)
But tonight, Orange Fatty will go on the TV and shout and gesticulate and holler that we need his wall or else.
And here's where Democrats get caught, unless they're smart.
Way back in 1984, Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro tried to make the case that taxes were what paid for a decent way of life. Even Adam Smith said so (the fucking Romans said so!). Mondale made a very careful, detailed argument for reasonable and fair taxation. Saint Ronald of Raygun just said "Well....guvmint is the problem. All taxes are horrible."
How many voters do you think went for Mondale's truthful evaluation versus Reagan's demagogic lies?
Get it?
So Fatty sez "The brown people are coming to kill us!! We need a WALL! NOW!" whether it's true or not (it's not).
Nancy and Chuck will say "This is ridiculous and here are some facts..." but waaaaay before they get to the word "facts", a good percentage of viewers will tune out and indulge their worst fears. This includes everyone who watches (or works for) Fox.
Clearly, demagoguery still works. If it didn't, Fatty would be trying to sell condos to Russians on Brighton Beach. We need to be smart to outwit the witless, the racists, the reactionaries, and the garden variety haters.
Let us see what we shall see tonight.
Were I advising Chuck and Nancy, I'd suggest that they point out that $5.6 billion is just the beginning. That it will eventually take $30 or $40 billion for Fatty's Wall and it won't work any better than what we have now. That money could be much better spent in different ways. You want to spend FORTY BILLION dollars? There are better ways than blowing it on something you saw on QVC, hawked by some fat old guy with an orange comb over and salacious smirk telling you that your wife and daughters (and maybe the dog) will be raped by dawn by Mexican gang members.
Where is George Carlin when we need him?
(Don't worry, I know, I know...)
PD,
About ol' Bets, I'm not celebrating that she broke a bone. That hurts (I know, I've broken enough of them). I'm just being a rotten rat bastard liberal hater. Like all the rest of us. We should all apologize to those nice Nazis and rich machers.
As for the Trump/McConnell shutdown, I see where TSP personnel are all out sick with something called the Blue Flu.
Gee...hope terr'rists don't try to sneak in while all those working-free-for-Trump employees are out sick. That would be bad.
And, of course, Democrats would be to blame.
It's really quite amazing to hear Trump and Pence start in with the "humanitarian crisis" bullshit. Is there a humanitarian crisis? Sure there is. You guys started it!
This is no different from serial arsonists going on TV lecturing everyone about how bad it is that reg'lar 'mericans are going without shelter because someone burnt their houses to the ground.
Good god-a-mighty!
Last year Congress approved $1.57 billion for border security, including 90 miles of "border wall system" to close gaps between San Diego and the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas.
Since then, preparations have been underway and construction is due to begin in one month on a segment of border wall in the Valley. Local residents and elected officials are united in their opposition to the $100 million project, but contractors are happily raking in the money.
The construction will cut through the grounds of the historic La Lomita Chapel and such environmentally sensitive areas as Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and the National Butterfly Center, all in the town of Mission, TX.
You shrug. Surely butterflies can fly over -- or through -- a border wall? It's not so simple, of course. The Butterfly Center offers a heart-rending description of "What the Border Wall will do." A few highlights:
--Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat…
--Create devastating flooding …
--Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating…
In addition:
--Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species….
--Wildlife that relies on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" …
--Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River…
--Humans will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.
The full text has additional details about the mayhem that lies ahead.
https://www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/
And all this destruction for what? The Congressman who represents McAllen and Mission is Vicente Gonzalez. He dismisses the notion that a wall is needed for security: "…I would remind the president that there are 7,500 open positions with Customs and Border Protection that have not been filled, and that this should be their top priority."
With Trump set to visit McAllen later this week, Gonzalez suggested the president get to know the city: "He should feel free to walk around and support our local businesses — after all it is safer to walk around McAllen than it is D.C.”
This shutdown is supposedly about national security, but Trump is making our government workers vulnerable. He has said that this shutdown could go on for months or years. None of these workers can afford that. It would be easy for foreign adversaries to take advantage of desperate people. And they would not have to look far with all the tweets and facebook posts about the hardships people are already facing. Trump makes everything he touches worse.