The Commentariat -- July 18, 2018
Afternoon Update:
David Remnick of the New Yorker: "Just as the President's comments following the torchlit white-supremacist march last year in Charlottesville made it clear that racism was at the core of his character and his political strategy, the contemptible remarks he delivered alongside Vladimir Putin seemed to mark a turning point, even for some of his most ardent defenders. The President's attempt to reverse the damage -- clearly the result of a panicked White House staff -- only worsened the matter.... Trump's performances in Europe, and now in Washington ... raised dark suspicions and aroused the sickening feeling that we are living in the pages of the most lurid espionage novel ever written."
Tom Jackman & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The Russian woman arrested on charges of being a foreign agent had ties to Russian intelligence operatives and was in contact with them while in the United States, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. Maria Butina, 29, also had an ongoing relationship with a Republican operative, strictly for business purposes according to prosecutors, and offered another individual 'sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization.' In a new court filing, prosecutors said Butina, who has connections with wealthy businessmen linked to the Putin administration, appeared to have plans to flee the U.S. Butina was arrested on a criminal complaint Sunday, and federal authorities indicted her Tuesday for conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and failing to register as an agent of a foreign government. She is scheduled for a detention hearing Wednesday afternoon on whether to release her from jail before trial, and prosecutors filed a motion this morning outlining why she should be held without bond."
** The Macedonian Connection. Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed: "A week before Election Day in 2016, BuzzFeed News revealed that young men and teens in Veles were running over a hundred websites that pumped out often false viral stories that supported Donald Trump.... [The effort] was launched by a well-known Macedonian media attorney, Trajche Arsov -- who worked closely with two high-profile American partners for at least six months during a period that overlapped with Election Day. One of those Americans, Paris Wade, is now running for office in Nevada. Arsov also employed other American and British writers, including at least one who currently works for US right-wing conspiracy site Gateway Pundit.... Macedonian security agencies are cooperating with law enforcement in the United States and at least two Western European countries to probe possible links between Russians, US citizens, and the pro-Trump 'fake news' websites, two senior Macedonian officials said.... A senior FBI agent familiar with the Macedonia case confirmed that the bureau is assisting with the investigations. The agent said that information determined to be of interest to Mueller is being shared with his office...."
Brian Stelter of CNN: "The 'daily' White House press briefing is a thing of the past. The White House has only held three on-camera briefings in the past 30 days, according to the administration's own records on WhiteHouse.gov. Press secretary Sarah Sanders' most recent briefing was on July 2, more than two weeks ago. Since that time, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned; Bill Shine has started working as Trump's new communications chief; Trump has nominated a new Supreme Court justice; he has assailed America's alliances and sidled up to Russian president Vladimir Putin; and the administration has struggled to reunite parents and children who were separated at the southern border."
Manu Raju of CNN: "Judge Brett Kavanaugh two years ago expressed his desire to overturn a three-decade-old Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of an independent counsel, a comment bound to get renewed scrutiny in his confirmation proceedings to sit on the high court. Speaking to a conservative group in 2016, Kavanaugh bluntly said he wanted to "put the final nail' in a 1988 Supreme Court ruling. That decision, known as Morrison v. Olson, upheld the constitutionality of provisions creating an independent counsel under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act -- the same statute under which Ken Starr, for whom Kavanaugh worked, investigated President Bill Clinton. The law expired in 1999, when it was replaced by the more modest Justice Department regulation that governs special counsels like Robert Mueller."
Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "Dean G. Skelos [R], once one of the most powerful figures in New York State politics, was found guilty of bribery, extortion and conspiracy on Tuesday, the latest in a drumbeat of corruption convictions to roil Albany in a heated election year. The verdict itself was not necessarily a surprise, as a different jury had found Mr. Skelos, the former leader of the State Senate, and his son guilty on the same charges in 2015 before the convictions were overturned. But its timing -- on the heels of three other successful Albany-focused prosecutions this year, including one last week ... -- fed the perception that the culture of ethical neglect in the state capital had reached its nadir."
*****
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "... President Trump offered a fresh defense Wednesday of his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, firing off morning tweets in which he claimed that his widely panned news conference afterward actually was appreciated.... 'So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki. Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!'" Two more Wednesday a.m. tweets: "While the NATO meeting in Brussels was an acknowledged triumph, with billions of dollars more being put up by member countries at a faster pace, the meeting with Russia may prove to be, in the long run, an even greater success. Many positive things will come out of that meeting." "... Russia has agreed to help with North Korea, where relationships with us are very good and the process is moving along. There is no rush, the sanctions remain! Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "An acknowledged triumph"? Who says that about himself? And who said that about Trump? There's a reason Trump uses the passive voice here. And Trump is not responsible for members' increases in spending. It's a trend set in place in 2014. I wonder what "help" Russia has offered re: North Korea. Putin's last bit of "help" was to tell Trump to cancel U.S.-S.K. military defense exercises. ...
... Oh. There's this:
... Daniel Hurst of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has eased pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons quickly, conceding there is no deadline for a breakthrough.... The US president said there was 'no rush for speed' because North Korea had not tested any ballistic missiles over the past nine months. 'We have no time limit. We have no speed limit,' Trump said at a meeting with members of Congress on Tuesday. 'We're just going through the process, but the relationships are very good.'" --safari
Sophie Tatum of CNN: "... Donald Trump seemingly questioned the United States' commitment to defending all NATO allies in an interview that aired Tuesday evening.... NATO requires all members to help defend fellow member nations that have been attacked, which Carlson noted to Trump. 'Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?' [Fox 'News" host & Trump sycophant Tucker] Carlson inquired. Trump responded: 'I've asked the same question. Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. ... They are very strong people. They are very aggressive people, they may get aggressive, and congratulations, you are in World War III.'... While at the NATO summit last week, Trump signed the NATO communique, which explicitly endorsed Article 5. 'Any attack against one Ally will be regarded as an attack against us all, as set out in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty,' the communique reads.... Article 5 has been invoked only once -- by the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Here was Trump not only picking fights with allies, as he has been doing for months, but seeming to abandon the promise of collective self-defense that is the heart of the NATO pact. Without that ironclad pledge, the alliance would dissolve, to Russia's delight. Some analysts have tried to explain away these kinds of sentiments as just Trump's relentlessly selfish worldview. And yet in the very same interview with Carlson, Trump expressed a sense of gratitude toward Russia for its sacrifices as an American ally in World War II[.]... There is no remotely consistent thread between abandoning America's current allies and expressing fondness for its old ones."
Who Knew English Could Be So Complicated? Eileen Sullivan & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Tuesday that he had misspoken a day earlier in Helsinki, Finland, when he appeared to take the word of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies on Russian election meddling in 2016. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he 'accepts' those findings. Mr. Trump said the misunderstanding arose from his use of a 'double negative.' 'The sentence should have been "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia," sort of a double negative,' he said. 'So you can put that in and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McC: Yeah, he done corrected it pretty good. Holy cow! If you believe that, I have a Trump condo to sell you. The question was, "Who[m] do you believe?" That's an either/or question, & that's how Trump answered it: He contrasted what DNI Dan Coats ("and some others") "think" (just a hunch!) with what Putin declared: "I have President Putin [Putin being the horse's mouth]. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be." That's the either and the or. EITHER it's Coats' non-determinative belief, OR Putin's knowledgable declaration. I choose Putin. ...
... Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "... Donald Trump just issued what was arguably the most bald-faced lie of his entire presidency -- and that's saying something.... Trump is trying to gaslight the entire world, to assert that he said something he clearly didn't by sheer force of confident assertion." --safari ...
... Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "This makes absolutely no sense, but it may give congressional Republicans what they've been looking for ever since Trump left the podium in Helsinki: a way to avoid doing anything about the fact that the president is, for whatever reason, trying to cozy up to Russia and disrupt the traditional American alliance system. It's not exactly plausible deniability, since there's nothing plausible about it. But it is deniability." --safari ...
... Ryan Koronowski of ThinkProgress: "[I]f Trump really misspoke, you'd expect him to correct the record during interviews he did immediately after the news conference. But he didn't do so with [Tucker] Carlson. An interview with Sean Hannity, also taped after the Helsinki press conference, also contained no such correction -- Trump actually accused President Obama of rigging the Russia investigation." --safari ...
... BUT, just to make sure he didn't upset Putin ... Alana Abramson of Time: "Reading from prepared remarks, Trump said ... 'While Russia's actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying -- and I've said this many times -- I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.'" Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Mrs. McC: Although Trump read most of his statement from prepared text, "Could be other people also" appears to have been adlibbed. Obviously, the adlib completely undermines his claim that he accepted U.S. intel assessments. ...
... John Wagner & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "... Trump also floated without evidence the possibility that other actors may have been involved, a conclusion that is not backed up by the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies." ...
... Here's the full transcript (in English) of the TrumPutin press conference, via Vox. Read Trump's "double negative" in context & decide for yourself. The condo is still available. Solid gold taps. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Stephen Colbert fact-checks Trump's fake walk-back:
... (Also notice Trump is a terrible reader. As Gloria Borger of CNN & Gene Robinson of the WashPo quipped, Trump looked like the star of a hostage video.)
... Now You See/Hear It; Now You Don't. Uri Friedman of the Atlantic: "It was perhaps the most explosive exchange in an incendiary press conference: ... Vladimir Putin appearing to frankly admit to a motive for, and maybe even to the act of, meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, despite repeatedly denying Russian interference in American politics during the rest of his appearance with Donald Trump in Finland on Monday. But the exchange doesn't appear in full in the White House's live-stream or transcript of the press conference, and it's missing entirely from the Kremlin's transcript of the event. The White House did not immediately provide an explanation for the discrepancy." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: What cover-up? What collusion? ...
... Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Trump of trying to 'squirm away' from his comments in Helsinki. 'President Trump tried to squirm away from what he said yesterday. It's 24 hours too late and in the wrong place,' Schumer said. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said..., 'I don't accept the president's comments today. If he wanted to make those comments, he should have had the strength to make them in front of Vladimir Putin.' He added, 'This has a strange resemblance to the president's comments after he was so offensive after the disturbances in Charlottesville where he equated the neo-Nazis with the protesters. So, I give these comments about 24 hours before he once again slams the investigation, before he once again sides with authoritarians like Vladimir Putin.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Matthew Nussbaum & Nancy Cook of Politico: "The about-face was Trump's latest after a week-long trip to Europe.... After appearing to threaten to pull out of NATO on Thursday, Trump then took the stage to praise the organization and declare it a 'fine-tuned machine.' That night, as Trump enjoyed a formal dinner hosted by Prime Minister Theresa May, the British newspaper The Sun published an interview in which Trump was harshly critical of May's handling of Brexit negotiations and suggested her rival Boris Johnson would do better. The next day, Trump declared that he had not criticized May at all. Even for Trump, who is notoriously prone to switching positions and delivering falsehoods, the series of reversals marked an unusual degree of chaos." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "In preparation for a public statement meant to mitigate the damage from Monday's news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump brought four pages of handwritten notes to a meeting with congressional leaders. In his own distinctive scrawl -- using, as always, a black fine-tip marker -- Trump added notes to the prepared comments. And in several instances, he struck out things he planned to skip.... In his prepared remarks, Trump removed a line about bringing election hackers to justice." Mrs. McC: Obviously a line like that also would irritate Putin. ...
... safari: On his prepared notes, he also scrawled in black pen "there was no colusion", because he's a low I.Q. moron who can't spell words in English. Our president* can't read OR write. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: @safari: Yeah but. Apparently we Trump critics are the ones who are "at the lower ends of intelligence." (I realize this is not a logical syllogism, but I'm pretty sure it's what Trump had in mind in his tweet this morning.)
... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "While National Security Adviser John Bolton, according to a source, thought Trump's remarks were ill-advised, he believed that walking them back would only add fuel to the outrage pyre and make the president look weak. But Chief of Staff John Kelly was irate. According to a source, he told Trump it would make things worse for him with Robert Mueller. He also exerted pressure to try to get the president to walk back his remarks. According to three sources familiar with the situation, Kelly called around to Republicans on Capitol Hill and gave them the go-ahead to speak out against Trump.... To those who know Trump best, the 24-hour reversal is a sign that he's unnerved by the intensity of the backlash he provoked." ...
... Anderson Cooper of CNN does a number of Trump's phony grammatical defense (ends @ about 8:30 min. in):
... Nicholas Fandos & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Top Democrats in the House and the Senate demanded on Tuesday that Republican leaders stifle conservative attacks on the special counsel's Russia investigation and compel President Trump's senior national security advisers to testify to Congress about Monday's extraordinary summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. 'Words are not enough,' Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said in blistering remarks on the Senate floor. 'Our response to the debasement of American interest before an adversary demands a response not just in words but in deeds.'... Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader in the House, indicated to fellow Democrats that she ... would try to force their hand on the House floor. Ms. Pelosi said that the party would try to force a vote on a resolution condemning Mr. Trump's remarks in Helsinki and affirming the findings of American intelligence agencies.... Democrats would also try to force a vote to increase funding for states to enhance the security of their voting systems, she said.... Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, one of Mr. Trump's leading Republican critics from his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, signaled optimism that the Helsinki meeting might finally push Congress to reassert its authority as a coequal branch of government." ...
... Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Nobody knows what ... Donald Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin in their private, two-hour meeting on Monday.... Well, almost nobody. At least one U.S. interpreter was in the room with the two leaders. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) says she wants to bring in that interpreter to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on what, exactly, Trump shared with Putin. 'That translator is an official of the U.S. government,' Shaheen told reporters Tuesday. 'It is imperative that the American people and this Congress know precisely what the president shared or promised the Kremlin on our behalf.'... A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he supports Shaheen's push for a hearing. Some House Democrats are also floating the idea.... Earlier on Tuesday, Republicans acted as if there was no way to find out what happened in the meeting." ...
... ** You Knew This Would Happen. Nicole Gaouette & Abby Phillip of CNN: "Russia announced it was ready to pursue agreements reached by Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump 'in the sphere of international security,' though the White House and Pentagon would not confirm any agreements had been made or offer any details.... The National Security Council would not confirm what Trump had agreed to in the one-on-one with Putin. A spokesman for the NSC told CNN on Tuesday that they were still 'reviewing the discussion.'... [In his public comments, Trump] did not mention making any formal agreement with the Russian leader on military cooperation or anything else." ...
... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "As Mr. Trump scrambled to patch any holes on Tuesday by reimagining his extraordinary news conference with Russia's president..., the question was whether he had reached a genuine turning point or simply endured another one of those episodes that seems decisive but ultimately fades into the next one. For the moment, at least, this time did feel different. After seeming to take President Vladimir V. Putin's word over that of America's intelligence agencies on Russian election meddling, Mr. Trump was being accused not only of poor judgment but of treason -- and not just by fringe elements and liberal talk show hosts, but by a former C.I.A. director.... The list of Republicans rebuking the president included not just the usual suspects like [Sen. Bob] Corker [R-Tenn.]..., but friends of the president like the former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who called his performance in Finland 'the most serious mistake of his presidency,' and the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which called it a 'national embarrassment.'" ...
... Chris Strohm & Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg: "... Donald Trump gave the go-ahead to announce new Russian election-hacking indictments before his meeting with Vladimir Putin rather than after -- in the hopes it would strengthen his hand in the talks, according to accounts from people familiar with the decision. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein went to Trump last week and offered him the choice: before or after the Putin summit on Monday in Helsinki? Trump chose before, ultimately putting the issue into the spotlight just 72 hours before the high-stakes meeting, the people said.... Trump had hoped the indictment of 12 Russians on charges of meddling would give him the upper hand, one of the people said." Mrs. McC: And didn't that work out well? ...
... Trump Returns to De State of De Nile. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Tuesday portrayed his widely panned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a great success.... In a morning tweet, the president blamed the media for negative coverage of a joint news conference Monday with Putin, after which Trump was criticized by members of both parties for siding with the Russian leader over U.S. intelligence officials. 'While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia,' Trump wrote, referring to his efforts to increase defense spending by U.S. allies. 'Sadly, it is not being reported that way - the Fake News is going Crazy!'... In a speech on the Senate floor, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on the chamber's Republican leaders to schedule hearings on what occurred in Helsinki. 'Our Republican colleagues cannot just go, "tsk-tsk-tsk,"' Schumer said. 'They need to act.' Schumer said he was particularly concerned about what Trump might have said t Putin during a closed-door, two-hour meeting between the two at which only their interpreters were present." Mrs. McC: Trump, BTW, did not "raise vast amounts of money at NATO; he didn't raise a penny. NATO allies stuck to the agreement that had made when Obama was president. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump was upbeat immediately after his news conference with Vladimir Putin in Finland, but by the time he returned stateside on Monday evening, his mood had soured considerably amid sustained fury at his extraordinary embrace of the Russian leader.... The White House said Trump would address the summit to reporters ahead of an otherwise unrelated 2 p.m. ET meeting with lawmakers at the White House." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jonathan Swan & Mike Allen of Axios: "A former senior White House official, who worked closely with Trump, immediately texted us [after the Helsinki presser]: 'Need a shower.' One of Trump's own former National Security Council officials texted: 'Dude. This is a total [effing] disgrace. The President has lost his mind.' CBS 'Face the Nation' anchor Margaret Brennan, who was in the audience, told AP she was messaging some U.S. officials during the speech who said they were turning off the television.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** The High Costs of Collusion. Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "[N]ot only do we now know Russia worked hard to elect climate science denier Donald Trump as president, we also know they have been working since 2004 to sway elections toward pro-Russian populists elsewhere -- and most of those populists are also pro-fossil fuels and anti-clean energy.... Indeed, Russia's economy is unusually dependent on exporting fossil fuels..., a major source of hard currency that Kremlin kleptocrats rely on. Unsurprisingly, Putin put forward in Paris one of the weakest greenhouse gas (GHG) target of any nation.... If the president of the second-largest emitter, the United States, works with the leader of the fifth-largest emitter, Russia, they could deal a fatal blow to the ongoing negotiating process." --safari...
... Huntsman, Come Home. Robert Gerhke of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Ambassador Huntsman, you work for a pawn, not a president. It's time to come home.... It's by resigning immediately [as U.S. ambassador to Russia] and speaking out against a president who attacks our allies, gives comfort to our adversaries and undermines our moral standing, our commitment to democratic ideals and our interest in human rights every time he opens his gaping mouth." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... "Smoke & Mirrors." David Sanger of the New York Times (July 16): "... on Monday, standing next to Mr. Putin, President Trump not only avoided all mention of the Justice Department's indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers, but he questioned the very conclusion that Russia was behind the hacking. Instead Mr. Trump raised a series of largely irrelevant conspiracy theories -- none of which were directly related to the evidence of Russian hacking activity. He returned to questions of why the F.B.I. never took custody of a Democratic National Committee computer server. He asked what happened to Imran Awan, a Pakistan-born Capitol Hill aide.... And Mr. Trump demanded to know why thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails had disappeared, a question apparently unrelated to Russia's activities. It was a smoke-and-mirrors effort, several American intelligence officials said later Monday." ...
... Kevin Poulsen of the Daily Beast: "... the world watched as the President of the United States ... launched into a rambling discourse about Hillary Clinton's emails and a supposedly missing DNC server that hides the truth about Putin's innocence.... The 'server' Trump is obsessed with is actually 140 servers, most of them cloud-based, which the DNC was forced to decommission in June of 2016 while trying to rid its network of the Russian GRU officers working to help Trump win the election.... Despite Trump's repeated feverish claims to the contrary, no machines are actually missing.... Trump and his allies are capitalizing on a basic misapprehension of how computer intrusion investigations work.... When cyber investigators respond to an incident, they capture that evidence in a process called 'imaging.' They make an exact byte-for-byte copy of the hard drives.... If the president really wants to know what the DNC server is saying, it's all in the indictment against Putin's hackers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server.... Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?... I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media.... I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying?... What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Where are those servers? They're missing; where are they? -- Donald Trump, part of a rambling non-answer to a question about Putin's culpability for the DNC hack, Helsinki joint presser
The DNC servers were never missing. The DNC provided the FBI with a copy of their server, rather than the original hardware, but Comey testified that the evidence was an appropriate substitute. [Imran] Awan, the 'Pakistani gentleman' in the news, never worked for the DNC. Conservative news outlets suggested he had stolen a House Democratic server, but the U.S. Attorney's Office found no evidence of such theft. -- Politifact (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Former president Barack Obama lamented the rise of 'strongman politics' and 'the utter loss of shame' among political leaders who repeatedly lie during a speech Tuesday in South Africa that was widely seen as aimed in part at his successor. Speaking at an event honoring the late Nelson Mandela ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth, Obama did not mention President Trump by name and cast his concerns far more broadly, warning against movements toward authoritarianism globally. But Obama made several remarks that came across as thinly veiled criticism of Trump.... The trip is Obama's first to Africa since leaving office in early 2017. He stopped earlier this week in Kenya, where he visited the rural birthplace of his late father." ...
... Video of the full speech is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... Jamelle Bouie: "Donald Trump is fulfilling all of those Obama conspiracy theories. The anti-Obama animus had one obvious root: racial resentment. For millions of Americans, a black man in the White House was so upending -- so destabilizing to their expectations of what America was -- that they responded with primal anger, willing to believe anything about the man who sat in the Oval Office. Donald Trump powered his way to the White House on the strength of that anger, running as the savior of America's racial status quo, and a promise to turn back that tide. Many of those Americans surely believed that Obama was a Manchurian candidate of sorts. Now, faced with a president who is eager to please a hostile foreign power, they actively support the effort. If you're white, it seems, you really are all right." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Australia AP in the Guardian: "The Perth parents [Anthony Maslin & Rin Norris] of three children who died when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine have condemned the US president Donald Trump for his refusal to hold the Russian president Vladimir Putin to account over the tragedy.... Their children Mo, Evie and Otis and Norris's father died when the plane went down, killing 298 people, including 38 Australians." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One of many issues Trump should have raised with Putin. As the bereaved Maslin & Norris surmise, there's no indication he did so.
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The head of the nation's largest electronic spy agency and the military's cyberwarfare arm has directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections. The move, announced to staff at the National Security Agency last week by NSA Director Paul Nakasone, is an attempt to maximize the efforts of the two groups.... It is the latest initiative by national security agencies to push back against Russian aggression in the absence of direct guidance from the White House on the issue."
Donie O'Sullivan, et al., of CNN: "The now infamous Facebook data set on tens of millions of Americans gathered by a Cambridge University scientist for a firm that went on to work for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was accessed from Russia, a British member of parliament tells CNN. Damian Collins, the Conservative MP leading a British parliamentary investigation into online disinformation, told CNN that a British investigation found evidence that the data, collected by Professor Aleksandr Kogan on behalf of Cambridge Analytica, had been accessed from Russia and other countries. The discovery was made by the Information Commissioner's Office(ICO), Britain's data protection authority, Collins said."
Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Paul Manafort's upcoming trial on bank and fraud charges will continue in Alexandria, Va., despite his efforts to move the proceedings to Roanoke. The former Trump campaign chairman had argued that the jury pool in Northern Virginia is too liberal and too saturated with coverage of the case to give him a fair trial. Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled Tuesday that Manafort is not entitled to a completely ignorant jury, nor one with as many Republicans as Democrats. Moreover, the nationwide coverage of the case would make any move ineffectual. 'The proximity of defendant's pretrial publicity to the start of his trial will be the same in Alexandria as it would be in Roanoke or Kansas City or Dallas,' the judge wrote." ...
... Dan Mangan & Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "Special counsel Robert Mueller is asking a judge to grant immunity from prosecution for five potential witnesses whose testimony Mueller wants to compel at the upcoming federal criminal trial of former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, according to a court filing Tuesday. If the five unidentified people are not granted immunity -- and compelled to testify against Manafort -- they would either refuse to take the witness stand or refuse to answer questions by citing their Fifth Amendment right against being forced to incriminate themelves, according to Mueller's filing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. Mueller has also asked Judge T.S. Ellis to seal from public view the court motions detailing the witnesses' identities.... Mueller is asking Ellis to give the witnesses what is known as 'use immunity,' which would prevent prosecutors from using their testimony as evidence against them in a criminal case, other than one in which they are accused of perjuring themselves in that testimony." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jackie Kucinich & Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "'Putin's Favorite Congressman' [Is] Now Engulfed in [the] NRA Spy Case. Pro-Kremlin GOP Congressman Dana Rohrabacher met with a Putin ally in Russia in August 2015, The Daily Beast has confirmed, matching an account in Monday's blockbuster FBI affidavit against accused Russian spy Maria Butina. Butina was part of 'discussions about the RUSSIAN OFFICIAL's plans to meet with a U.S. Congressman during a Congressional Delegation trip to Moscow in August 2015,' FBI agent Kevin Helson's affidavit swears.... The official is widely believed to be Alexander Torshin, an influential former Russian politician from Vladimir Putin's party who established trans-continental ties to the National Rifle Association. The lawmakers on that congressional delegation were Rohrabacher and Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York, the leadership of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on Europe." ...
... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) says he's not sure whether he's the congressman mentioned in Monday's indictment of a Russian gun-rights activist for acting as an unregistered agent of the Kremlin -- but he is sure that the charge against the woman is 'bogus.'... Rohrabacher unloaded on the indictment, which alleged clandestine efforts by [Mariia] Butina to set up a back channel between Russian and American political leaders, using the National Rifle Association as a conduit. 'It's ridiculous. It's stupid,' Rohrabacher said. 'She's the assistant of some guy who is the head of the bank and is a member of their Parliament. That's what we call a spy? That shows you how bogus this whole thing is.'" Mrs. McC: Okay, then: ridiculous, stupid, bogus. I'm convinced.
Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "President Trump is inciting a trade war, undermining NATO and painting Europe as a foe. It's no wonder, then, that the European Union is looking elsewhere for friends. On Tuesday in Tokyo, it signed its largest trade deal ever, a pact with Japan that will slash customs duties on products like European wine and cheese, while gradually reducing tariffs on cars. The agreement will cover a quarter of the global economy -- by some measures the largest free trade area in the world.... The deal with Japan, and the others being negotiated, point to a more assertive Europe, one that is looking past the frosty ties with the United States, and even the upcoming withdrawal of Britain from the bloc." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Alan Pyke of ThinkProgress: "Trump lying about what the [Jerusalem] embassy's physical materials would cost U.S. taxpayers is small potatoes next to the costs he inflicted on regional stability by making the move. But as political observers and voters hope to at least catalog the full litany of this administration's callousness, dishonesty, grifting, and amorality, it's nonetheless worth noting: Donald Trump said the embassy would cost 'about $250,000,' but it actually cost $21.2 million. But it's not a total loss -- at least not for Trump himself. The move convinced officials to put Trump's name on at least two valuable pieces of Israeli real estate: a prominent train station, and a professional soccer team with a notorious track record for anti-Arab racism among its fans." --safari
Making Citizens United Worse. Patricia Cohen, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration will end a longstanding requirement that certain nonprofit organizations disclose the names of large donors to the Internal Revenue Service, a move that will allow some political groups to shield their sources of funding from government scrutiny. The change, which has long been sought by conservatives and Republicans in Congress, will affect thousands of labor unions, social clubs and political groups as varied as arms of the AARP, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association and Americans for Prosperity, which is funded partly by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Such groups have played an increasingly prominent role in American politics in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in a case brought by the nonprofit group Citizens United, which empowered them to spend unlimited money on campaign ads."
Rosa Furneaux of Mother Jones: "Two immigrant children who were separated from their parents at the southern border have had their constitutional rights violated, a federal judge [Victor Bolden] in Connecticut ruled late last week in yet another blow to the Trump administration's draconian immigration agenda.... Significantly, the ruling shows that 'all parties' agreed that the children's rights had been violated. The government conceded that the children's 'separation from their parents was, and remains, traumatic'.... In addition..., a crucial and unusual component of Bolden's decision was an order for the children to receive treatment for the psychological trauma they have suffered." --safari ...
... Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn of Mother Jones: "Earlier this month, as outrage continued over the Trump administration's family separation policies, another immigration agency quietly introduced several changes that could threaten even more immigrants, many of them here legally, with deportation. In a memo made public July 5th, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with handling immigration benefits think work and student visas, green cards, and naturalization ceremonies -- said it would now refer immigrants for deportation in a wider range of cases.... While seemingly small changes, these policies could have widespread implications, potentially sending far more immigrants into removal proceedings and increasing the number of cases in an already backlogged immigration court system.... The changes would affect both undocumented immigrants and those who are already legally in the country." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "Coal executive Bob Murray on Tuesday railed against 'government interference' in energy markets, calling for an end to tax credits for the wind energy industry.... Murray ... said 'we need to let the markets work.' Murray's criticism of tax credits for wind farms appears to be the height of hypocrisy -- Murray ... has repeatedly urged the Trump administration to bail out the coal industry.... Along with following Murray's advice on a coal bailout, the Trump administration installed a top lobbyist for Murray Energy as acting head of the EPA after Scott Pruitt resignation on July 5. Andrew Wheeler earned more than $3 million lobbying for Murray Energy over an eight-year period before joining the agency earlier this year.... 'Didn't want to lose [Wheeler],' Murray said. 'But the country has him.'" -- safari
Congressional Race. Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Representative Martha Roby of Alabama prevailed on Tuesday in a Republican primary election that unfolded as a test of fealty to President Trump, defeating a challenger who assailed her for withdrawing her support for Mr. Trump in the last days of the 2016 campaign. Her criticism of Mr. Trump cost Ms. Roby, a mainstream conservative seeking a fifth term, a clear-cut victory in an initial round of voting last month. She fell short of a majority, forcing her to compete in a runoff election against Bobby Bright, a populist former Democrat who served in Congress and as mayor of Montgomery, Alabama's capital.... Though she pronounced Mr. Trump 'unacceptable' after the release of the 'Access Hollywood' recording that showed him bragging about groping women, she has been an unflagging supporter since his inauguration.... So last month Mr. Trump, who easily carried Ms. Roby's predominantly rural district in 2016 and remains popular there, extended to her a kind of political clemency that he rarely grants critics on the right. He endorsed Ms. Roby on Twitter, calling her a 'consistent and reliable vote for our Make America Great Again Agenda.'"
Mark Hand: "Minority homebuyers are systematically steered to neighborhoods with higher concentrations of toxic contamination and pollution than their white counterparts, according to a new study that looks at potential discrimination faced by people of color when working with real estate agents." --safari
Andrew Sorkin & Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "Goldman Sachs on Tuesday named David M. Solomon as its next chief executive officer, putting a veteran investment banker in charge of a Wall Street giant that faces mounting challenges. Mr. Solomon's appointment will end the tenure of Lloyd C. Blankfein, the 63-year-old former gold salesman who has run the firm since 2006 and steered it through the financial crisis. Mr. Blankfein will hand over the chief executive role on Oct. 1 and remain chairman until the end of the year. Mr. Solomon, 56 and currently the bank's president, will add the chairman title at the beginning of 2019." Mrs. McC: Weirdly, a well-shaved head seems to be a prerequisite for a top spot at Goldman. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** As the World Burns. Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "At least 11 wildfires are raging inside the Arctic Circle as the hot, dry summer turns an abnormally wide area of Europe into a tinderbox. The worst affected country, Sweden, has called for emergency assistance from its partners in the European Union to help fight the blazes.... There have been huge fires in the past in Sweden, but not over such a wide area. This appears to be a trend as more and bigger blazes are reported in other far northern regions like Greenland, Alaska, Siberia and Canada.... 2017 was the worst fire year in Europe's history." --safari
Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "Google was hit with a $5.1 billion fine by European antitrust officials on Wednesday for abusing its power in the smartphone market, in the region's latest move to rein in the clout of American tech companies. The penalty of 4.34 billion euros was a record, and far larger than the €2.4 billion, or about $2.8 billion, that the European Union levied on Google last year for unfairly favoring its own services in internet search results. The decision on Wednesday highlighted how European authorities are aggressively pushing for stronger regulation of the digital economy on issues including antitrust, privacy, taxes, and the spread of misinformation and hate speech."
Daily Beast: "MGM Resorts International filed a complaint in federal court Monday in a case brought by victims of the Las Vegas massacre, asking a judge to declare the company has 'no liability' for the attack. MGM owns the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino and the venue of the Route 91 Harvest music festival where Stephen Paddock opened fire, killing 58 and injuring more than 850." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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I hope it's true that QE was having an albeit very subtle joke.
Quisling: A person who betrays his or her own country by aiding
an invading enemy, often serving later in a puppet government.
Sounds like Donald Q. Trump to me.
Most of us, I would imagine, have seen hundreds, if not thousands of films. Many we forget, but there are those that stay with us forever. One of these forever films, for me, is "Gaslight"–-the 1944 film with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman based on a 1938 play by British playwright Patrick Hamilton. Bergman's fear that she might actually be going mad, that she began to question her reality was absolutely chilling (I saw this film when I was still quite young). The term "gaslighting" has been banded about of late by quite a few journalists and pundits who use it to describe what Trump is doing or trying to do to us. What we are witnessing these last few days appears to solidify this accusation in the most blatant and egregious way, although the dimming and brightening of those gaslights in this scenario could also be attributed to the mindset of this fool who continues to search for servers and pretends to love this country.
Dana R. (story above) saying regarding Butina, "That's what you call a spy?" is NOT what the FBI has pinned on her; rather she has been arrested for being a foreign lobbyist, up front and influential.
Yesterday I was wondering why we hadn't heard from Richard Clark for some time since he's a cyber expert plus always thought he was one of the Wise Guys that made a lot of sense. Lo and behold last night he was a guest on Christiane Amanpour's program. He gave us one sentence that summed up his assessment of Trump:
"He is acting like a "controlled asset."
By the way: Amanpour took over Charlie Rose's spot on PBS and for my money she's a much better interviewer–-one reason––she probes, while he posed, always letting us know how much he knew.
"Apparently we Trump critics are the ones who are 'at the lower ends of intelligence.'" - Marie
Ah yes indeed, you're so right. However could I forget. Not long ago Donny was at one of his therapy rallies and redefined what "intelligence" means, by declaring all of his fellow stable geniuses the real "elites" of the country while they snortled and chortled "Lock her up" in their "I'm deporable" t-shirts.
If we could only get that brainstorm elected to Congress, we'd be winning so much we'd have to beg for mercy. Of course, the idea of "winning" is also actively being redefined as we sleep and sunder through this presidency* so whatever ending this horror show has will go in history books as V-Day.
At least THAT'S reassuring.
Time to start stashing cash, folks!
Quess which so-called economic genius is at it again! Jeff Cox on cnbc.com posts " "there's no recession coming" Larry Kudlow sez it again!
Ahem! Let's look back to Bess Levin piece in Vanity Fair for a reminder (March 12, 2018) "Why Wall Street Hates the Trump Economy" , “Some of Kudlow’s greatest hits include the time, on December 7, 2007, he said: “There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen. . . ..”
Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump's top economic advisor, gave an optimistic view of the economy on Wednesday in which growth will run considerably above what has been the norm for the past decade.
As part of the administration's plan to grow the economy, Kudlow said there would be additional rounds of tax cuts ahead.
Bet the people on the lower end of the economic scale will be thrilled. Like maybe an extra $43 a year in their pocket.
Just read that my boy Beto is calling for "Impeachment"––-he and Maxine, who wanted this from the get-go, should couple up and run with it. I'm not sure that's going to be possible given that we have so few patriots on the "other side of the aisle." What I would like to see is that we haul in that U.S. interpreter who took notes whilst Trump and Putin had their two hour love fest. I think Congress could do that.
@PD Pepe: You're right about the interpreter. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) has already asked her colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to haul in the interpreter to find out what-all Trump & Putin said in their secret meeting. I've heard several experts say the interpreters almost always take notes because they need to read them back after longish, uninterrupted remarks. What convinces me that somebody took notes was the CNN story (linked above) about Russia's getting ready to implement the "action" agreements of the TrumPutin secret exchange. According to the story, "The National Security Council would not confirm what Trump had agreed to in the one-on-one with Putin. A spokesman for the NSC told CNN on Tuesday that they were still 'reviewing the discussion.'" So presumably, they had something on paper to review, & what they had to review must have come from the interpreter if there really was no one else in the room besides TrumPutin & the interpreters.
Republicans are utterly shameless, to wit:
According to Rep. Peterovich King (R-N.Y.), he said Trump’s actions on Russia were “perfect.”
“He’s undone so much of the damage Obama did,” King continued. “Killing Russians in Syria, sending weapons to Ukraine, troops to Poland and the Balkans, but he’s got to clean up the language.” (From HuffPost).
Let the Speculation Games begin!
What did the orange clown agree to with BFF (handler) Pootey-Poot during that closed-door pate-à-pate?
A. Break ground for Trump Tower Moscow as the new eastern Goldhouse.
B. In exchange for a "deal" on Ukraine/Crimea and/or Syria/Assad/Iran, DiJiT gives Alaska back, declaring it never should have allowed by his predecessor since it's not even part of the US anyway.
C. Asylum for the family when Mueller opens the lid on the witch hunt. (They can all live in the new TTM).
D. A copy of the pee tape.
E. ???
E. In exchange for blowing up Barack Obama's childhood home in Hawaii, give Hawaii to Putin personally.
F. Putin gets the cow, DiJiT gets magic beans