The Commentariat -- June 25, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out Monday at a Virginia restaurant that refused to serve his press secretary.... 'The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders,' Trump said in his Monday tweet. 'I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It is unconscionable for the POTUS* to make derogatory remarks about a small business, especially since there's no reason to think he's even seen the restaurant. Worse president* ever.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday told a lower court to reconsider the case of a florist in Washington State who had refused to create a floral arrangement for a same-sex wedding. The justices vacated a decision against the florist from the Washington Supreme Court and instructed it to take a fresh look at the dispute in light of this month's ruling in a similar dispute involving a Colorado baker. The case, Arlene's Flowers v. State of Washington, No. 17-108, started in 2013, when the florist, Barronelle Stutzman, turned down a request from a longtime customer, Robert Ingersoll, to provide flowers for his wedding to another man, Curt Freed. Ms. Stutzman said her religious principles did not allow her to do so.... The Washington Supreme Court ruled that Ms. Stutzman had violated a state anti-discrimination law by refusing to provide the floral arrangement. The Supreme Court ... decid[ed] the Colorado case on narrow grounds specific to the dispute, saying the baker there had faced religious hostility from members of a state civil rights commission that had ruled against him." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds as if the Supremes are punting again. The narrow grounds in which the Court decided the Colorado case do not apply to the Washington matter, so I don't see how "a fresh look" at the Colorado case will help the Washington State Supremes. It seems as if the Washington Supremes ruled consistent with this part of Kennedy's opinion in the Colorado case: "Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights." ...
... ** Update. But This Is Really Bad. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday largely upheld Texas congressional and legislative maps that a lower court said discriminated against black and Hispanic voters. The lower court was wrong in how it considered the challenges, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in the 5 to 4 decision. The majority sided with the challengers over one legislative district. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was longer than Alito's majority decision. She said the decision 'does great damage to the right of equal opportunity. Not because it denies the existence of that right, but because it refuses its enforcement.'"
The Deciders Decide Not to Decide Another Gerrymandering Case. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Supreme Court on Monday said it is declining, for now, to wade into a dispute over a North Carolina redistricting plan that a lower court had found violated the Constitution by overly favoring Republicans. The justices had already passed up chances to issue sweeping decisions in cases from Wisconsin and Maryland involving claims of partisan gerrymandering. Instead, the high court ruled on narrow, technical grounds that steered clear of the central issue of when legislative districts are so skewed to favor one party that they violate voters' constitutional rights. In January, the justices blocked a lower court's order forcing a redraw of the North Carolina congressional map. Monday's order returned the case to the lower court for further consideration of a legal standing issue the court addressed in the Wisconsin case."
Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "The [bond market's] so-called yield curve is perilously close to predicting a recession -- something it has done before with surprising accuracy -- and it's become a big topic on Wall Street." Phillips explains the yield curve, which is the difference between long- and short-term T-bills. "On Thursday, the gap between two-year and 10-year United States Treasury notes was roughly 0.34 percentage points. It was last at these levels in 2007 when the United States economy was heading into what was arguably the worst recession in almost 80 years.... if it keeps moving in this direction, eventually long-term interest rates will fall below short-term rates.When that happens, the yield curve has 'inverted.' An inversion is seen as 'a powerful signal of recessions.'... Every recession of the past 60 years has been preceded by an inverted yield curve, according to research from the San Francisco Fed." ...
... Bye-Bye: The Sound of a Harley Backfiring. Arnie Tsang of the New York Times: "Harley-Davidson, the American motorcycle manufacturer, said on Monday that it was shifting some of the production of its bikes outside the United States to avoid European Union tariffs imposed as part of a widening trade dispute. The announcement, made in a public filing, is an early sign of the financial cost to companies on both sides of the Atlantic as the United States and Europe impose tariffs and counter-tariffs on each other. The moves have raised the specter of a full-blown trade war as the Trump administration pursues a protectionist tack.... Last week, the European Union imposed penalties on $3.2 billion worth of American products, many of which are produced in areas that form the heart of President Trump's political base, in response to steel and aluminum tariffs added by the White House. Harley-Davidson said on Monday that European Union tariffs on its motorcycles had increased to 31 percent, from 6 percent. It estimated that the higher tariffs would add about $2,200 on average to every motorcycle exported from the United States to the bloc, so it said it would move the production of bikes bound for Europe outside the United States." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It wasn't so long ago that Trump was telling Harley-Davidson executives their already-successful company would grow even bigger because of "a new American spirit that had emerged since his election." Earlier this year, Trump whined repeatedly about India's "unfair" tariffs on Harleys, so it's kinda funny that Harley is likely to move more of its production to -- you guessed it -- India. Who knew trade wars were so complicated?
*****
... first they came for the Muslim immigrants. Then they came for the Hispanic immigrants. Then they came for the children of the immigrants. Then they came for the naturalized citizens. Now the President wants to cleanse the country of non-white immigrants using extrajudicial means. -- David Atkins
First immigrants don't get due process. Then it will be criminals. Then the poor. Then anyone that disagrees with Trump. -- Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Az.)
Donald Trump is the meanest man I've ever met. -- Former top Trump administration official
.. L'État, C'est Moi. Philip Rucker & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday explicitly advocated depriving undocumented immigrants of their due-process rights, arguing that people who cross the border into the United States illegally must immediately be deported without trial -- and sowing more confusion among Republicans ahead of a planned immigration vote this week. In a pair of tweets sent during his drive to his Virginia golf course, Trump described immigrants as invaders and wrote that U.S. immigration laws ... must be changed to take away trial rights from undocumented migrants. 'We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,' Trump wrote. 'When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents.' The president continued in a second tweet, 'Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit -- we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: On way to golf course, President* demands implementation of unconstitutional human rights abuses. Now there's a headline you never expected to see BT (Before Trump).
... Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "While in Las Vegas on Saturday, Mr. Trump told supporters that he thought the immigration system needed fewer judges -- putting him in conflict with a proposal by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, to expand the number of judges in an effort to process cases more quickly. Mr. Trump also suggested last week that he opposed adding judges because many of them could be corrupt. He has criticized immigration judges for weeks, saying they were not effective in stopping the flow of people coming into the country, sometimes using incorrect numbers to make his point. 'We have thousands of judges. Do you think other countries have judges?' Mr. Trump said during a round-table discussion in May. 'We give them, like, trials. That's the good news. The bad news is, they never show up for the trial. O.K.?' There are actually fewer than 400 judges dedicated to such work, according to the website PolitiFact." ...
... ** Benjamin Hart of New York: "Many people who cross the border already have no rights, but because the Trump administration has decided to prosecute border-crossing as a crime, many people who previously would have been sent back to Mexico are now tied up in the American judicial system. Trump's tweet appears to both contradict his own policy and endorse an end to any legal asylum, which is the direction in which the government has been heading. Beyond his enthusiasm for lawlessness -- which he perversely but not surprisingly framed as 'law and order' -- Trump's first tweet, with its conspicuous use of the word 'invade,' is another example of the president's increasingly disturbing rhetoric toward immigrants. It's not easy for a man who labeled Mexicans rapists during his first campaign speech to go even lower, but Trump has appeared, of late, intent on dehumanizing his favored scapegoats more viciously than ever.... The president is being more forthright than ever about the authoritarian playbook he's working from. He has conjured an immigration crisis where none exists, continues to terrify his supporters about a group that is more peaceful than native-born Americans, and has become increasingly bold about his desire to revoke that group's basic human rights. The world has seen this movie before, and it usually doesn't end happily." ...
... Matt Shuham of TPM: "'The right to Due Process of law is enshrined in the Constitution and extends to every person in the United States, irrespective of immigration status,' Jeremy McKinney, an immigration attorney and secretary of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told TPM in an email responding to Trump's tweet.... Some undocumented people are in fact eligible to be deported without having their case heard by an immigration judge, due to what's known as 'expedited removal,' a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act the use of which has dramatically expanded in recent decades. However -- even aside from many immigrant advocates' claims that the process has been vastly overused, and that many immigrants are not made fully aware of their full legal rights during expedited removal proceedings -- the law still requires immigration judges hear out the claims of asylum-seekers and those who fear persecution if they are ejected from the country."
Maria Sacchetti, et al., of the Washington Post: "The children who were forcibly separated from their parents at the border by the United States government are all over the country now..., in cold, institutional settings with adults who are not permitted to touch them or with foster parents who do not speak Spanish but who hug them when they cry.... The children have been through hell. They are babies who were carried across rivers and toddlers who rode for hours in trucks and buses and older kids who were told that a better place was just beyond the horizon. And now they live and wait in unfamiliar places: big American suburban houses where no one speaks their language; a locked shelter on a dusty road where they spend little time outside; a converted Walmart where each morning they are required to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, in English, to the country that holds them apart from their parents." Read on. It's a sickening story. ...
... Maria Sacchetti, et al., of the Washington Post: "A visibly upset U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren visited the detention center where the Trump administration said separated migrant families would be reunited and deported and said she'd seen no evidence that the process was underway. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late Saturday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has 'dedicated the Port Isabel Service Processing Center as the primary family reunification and removal center for adults in their custody.' But Warren (D-Mass.) spent two hours inside the facility speaking with immigration officials and detained immigrant mothers Sunday night and said there were no reunifications to report. She said she spoke with nine women: 'In every case, they were lied to. In every case, save one they have not spoken with their children. And in every case, they do not know where their children are.... It's clear,' Warren said. 'They're not running a reunification process here.'" Read on. It's another sickening story. ...
... Who's in Charge? Mihir Zaveri & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "A 15-year-old migrant boy who was housed in a large shelter near the southern tip of Texas walked off its premises on Saturday and disappeared into the borderland, officials said. The shelter, a former Walmart in Brownsville, Tex., that was repurposed as the largest migrant child care center in the country, has come under intense scrutiny as children who were separated from their parents under President Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy began being housed there.... A spokesman for Southwest Key, Jeff Eller, said on Sunday it could not legally require children to stay on the premises if they sought to leave, and that 'from time to time' children had left several of its 27 shelters for immigrant children.... Federal officials echoed that position, saying they could not stop a child who attempted to leave. The officials did not respond to a question about how many children had walked away from migrant centers nationwide.... The revelation that children can leave such centers on their own raised a host of questions about the shelter system...." ...
... Jay Root & Shannon Najmabadi of the Texas Tribune: "Central American men separated from their children and held in a detention facility outside Houston are being told they can reunite with their kids at the airport if they agree to sign a voluntary deportation order now, according to one migrant at the facility and two immigration attorneys who have spoken to detainees there. A Honduran man who spoke to The Texas Tribune Saturday estimated that 20 to 25 men who have been separated from their children are being housed at the IAH Polk County Secure Adult Detention Center, a privately-operated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility for men located 75 miles outside Houston. He said the majority of those detainees had received the same offer of reunification in exchange for voluntary deportation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Last Year Trump Cancelled Effective Asylum Program. (Of Course He Did.) Jane Timm of NBC News (June 24): "In the wake of the 2014 migrant crisis that saw the Obama administration suffer its own backlash for the way it detained parents and children, Immigration and Customs Enforcement came up with a new way to handle families seeking asylum in the United States. The Family Case Management Program, launched as a pilot in early 2016, aimed to keep asylum seeking kin together, out of detention, and complying with immigration laws. It was praised by immigration advocates for both its high rate of compliance and its ability to help migrants thrive in a new country -- right up until the Trump administration shuttered it almost exactly a year ago.... Under the program, families who passed a credible fear interview and were determined to be good candidates for a less-secure form of release -- typically vulnerable populations like pregnant women, mothers who are nursing or moms with young children -- were given a caseworker who helped educate them on their rights and responsibilities. The caseworker also helped families settle in, assisting with things like accessing medical care and attorneys, while also making sure their charges made it to court."
Bob Bryan & Allan Smith of Business Insider: Trump's initiation of trade wars "prompted a swift response from US allies, including retaliatory tariffs and a radical departure in treatment from other formerly friendly foreign leaders.... But so far these responses have done little to deter Trump.... Op-eds in The Houston Chronicle and the Canadian news magazine Maclean's suggested the only way to quell the rising trade tensions is to strike at Trump's businesses. While some countries, such as China, have appeared to try and sway the president through treating his family's businesses more favorably, countries have not made moves to curtail the businesses' activity within their borders.... Scott Gilmore, a social entrepreneur and former Canadian diplomat, suggested in Maclean's that Canada should use anti-corruption laws to pressure Trump on trade.... 'In the spirit of the Magnitsky Act, Canada and the western allies come together to collectively pressure the only pain point that matters to this President: his family and their assets.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
E.J. Dionne is here to remind us that "Trump's cruelty is routine"; he & his administrative & Congressional ilk apply it to American citizens as easily as they do those trying to enter the country. "The latest attacks on programs that have long commanded bipartisan support came last week when the House voted 213 to 211 for a farm bill that would impose new work requirements on recipients of food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). But SNAP already includes work requirements.... The House vote came on the same day the administration released a massive government reorganization plan.... It's hard to escape the sense that this [plan] is about decimating help for the least fortunate."
"Trump's Fascination with the Trappings of Power." Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's presidency has yielded more -- and more elaborate -- [commemorative] coins that are shinier, flashier and even bigger [than those of previous presidents], setting off a boom for coin \ manufacturers, counterfeiters\ and collectors.... One such design, which was approved by Mr. Trump and paid for by the Republican National Committee ... bears his campaign slogan 'Make America Great Again,' as well as his name -- emblazoned three times.... Concerned about running afoul of rules barring government resources from being used for partisan political purposes, the White House Counsel's Office warned staff members not to display the Republican National Committee's challenge coin, or any paraphernalia with Mr. Trump's campaign slogan, in government buildings. Outside ethics watchdogs say the 'Make America Great Again' coins shouldn't be distributed to military personnel ... since the military is supposed to be walled off from politics. And those watchdogs warn that coins featuring Mr. Trump's properties, such as Mar-a-Lago, should not be produced using government resources ... since federal ethics laws prohibit the use of public resources to promote private businesses." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jimmy Fallon is now whimpering to all that he did the famous 'hair show' with me (where he seriously messed up my hair), & that he would have now done it differently because it is said to have 'humanized' me-he is taking heat. He called & said 'monster ratings.' Be a man Jimmy! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet yesterday
In honor of the President's tweet I'll be making a donation to RAICES in his name. -- Jimmy Fallon, in response, naming a charity aimed at reuniting migrant families
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
David Edwards of the Raw Story: At a Democratic dinner party on Martha's Vineyard, "Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, reportedly offered to spill secrets that were known only to himself and special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.... 'If you get me one more glass of wine, I'll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know,' he joked. 'If you think you've seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It's going to be a wild couple of months.'"
Marcy Wheeler predicts: "There are a number of reasons I think Mueller's investigation is coming to a head. But consider one detail. I've long explained that Mueller seems to be building a series of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States indictments that will ultimately incorporate the entire Russian operation (and may integrate the Trumpsters' international self-dealing as well). As Mueller's team has itself pointed out, for heavily regulated areas like elections, ConFraudUs indictments don't need to prove intent for the underlying crimes.... Let's see how evidence Mueller has recently shown might apply in the case of Roger Stone.... We've got Stone meeting with other people, repeatedly agreeing to bypass US election law to obtain a benefit for Trump, evidence (notwithstanding Stone's post-hoc attempts to deny a Russian connection with Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks) that Stone had the intent of obtaining that benefit, and tons of overt acts committed in furtherance of the scheme.... We could lay out similar arguments for Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and Brad Parscale, at a minimum.... So if Roger Stone is any indication, the Mueller investigation may soon be moving into a new phase."
Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "Stormy Daniels is scheduled Monday to be interviewed by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, preparing for a potential grand jury appearance about a $130,000 payment from President Trump&'s attorney Michael Cohen in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have been cooperating with prosecutors and provided documents about the payment, made shortly before the 2016 election, in response to a subpoena, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide the information about Monday's interview."
Ilan Ben Zion of the AP: "... Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser said in an interview published Sunday that the administration will soon present its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, with or without input from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In an interview published in the Arabic language Al-Quds newspaper, Jared Kushner appealed directly to Palestinians and criticized Abbas, who has shunned the Trump team over its alleged pro-Israel bias, particularly on the fate of contested Jerusalem.... The Palestinians refused to meet with Kushner, and leaders have criticized the Trump negotiating team in recent days.... It remains unclear how the Trump administration would proceed with a peace plan without Palestinian cooperation." Mrs. McC: No kidding. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The New York Times publishes "the transcript of an interview with Jared Kushner ... by the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds. The interview was conducted in Arabic by Walid Abu-Zalaf, the newspaper's editor, and published on its website Sunday morning. This transcript was released by the White House."
Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "The former director of the Office of Government Ethics said on Saturday that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders's decision to tweet about being kicked out of a Virginia restaurant violated ethics laws.... Walter Shaub, the federal government's former top ethics watchdog, tweeted that Sanders's response, which was made from her official White House account, was a clear violation of federal law." Shaub cited two laws, one that disallows using one's government position for private gain & another that violates a ban on endorsements. Thanks to unwashed for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: AND Scott Lemieux, in LG&$, adds something I didn't know, but it certainly helps frame the story: "From the WaPo's editiorial board's inevitable argument that a largely LBGT staff were obligated to serve someone whose job is lying to protect someone dedicated to using the coercive authority of the state to deny them equal citizenship.... Anyway, I'm glad that the Red Hen just politely requested that Sanders leave after a discussion with staff instead. (Although I agree that 'just make her wait hours, lie to her about what's on the menu, refer her to outside counsel if she tries to order anything, then walk away while she yells questions' is also a sound approach.) As for the broader substance of the editorial..., David Roberts [of Vox tweets]: 'What the Red Hen owner (& others) are trying to do is jerk us awake, push of OFF the slippery slope. They're trying desperately to draw a line, to cease the slide. And every time they try -- even now, even to this day, even with toddlers in cages -- the MSM scolds them.'" ...
... The stubborn blindness we see in Axelrod, Fred Hiatt, et al., derives from the fact that they not only follow the "norms" or "rules," they wrote them. Their milieux are the rooms where men & women come and go, talking with Chris Cuomo. The tut-tutters are sure that if they just hold steady, as they have during rough seas of yore (LBJ), the norms will hold & the ship of state will right itself. But mind what Mike Godwin writes, in the essay linked below: "In his 1957 book 'Language of the Third Reich,' Victor Klemperer recounted how, at the beginning of the Nazi regime, he 'was still so used to living in a state governed by the rule of law' that he couldn't imagine the horrors yet to come."
David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "The civility police have been hyperactive this weekend, monitoring and tut-tutting the response to Trump's deplorable policy of family separation and other outrages. We are told that comparing actual fascist politics to Nazis is bad form (even though Mike Godwin of 'Godwin's Law' approves). Both David Axelrod and the Washington Post are clutching their pearls over Sarah Sanders' being asked to leave a restaurant.... Meanwhile..., the President of the United States, upset that his policy of ripping babies out of the arms of mothers seeking asylum was rejected, argued for extrajudicial deportations today. This is the same administration that has been dehumanizing immigrants, comparing children to gang members and insisting they will become future criminals, and seeking to denaturalize citizens by finding fault with their paperwork.... Just how far will this go until well-heeled tone police start to realize that resistance means, well, actually resisting rather that sighing loudly over brunch, typing a few words of disappointment onto social media, and then lecturing the young that they should vote in greater numbers?" ...
... ** Mike Godwin, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "Does Godwin's Law need to be updated? Suspended? Repealed? I get asked this question from time to time because I'm the guy who came up with it more than a quarter century ago. In its original simple form, Godwin's Law goes like this: 'As an online discussion continues, the probability of a comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches one.'... Godwin's Law ... has been frequently reduced to a blurrier notion: that whenever someone compares anything current to Nazis or Hitler it means the discussion is over, or that that person lost the argument.... The seeds of future horrors are sometimes visible in the first steps a government takes toward institutionalizing cruelty.... So I don't think [Godwin's Law] needs to be updated or amended. It still serves us as a tool to recognize specious comparisons to Nazism -- but also, by contrast, to recognize comparisons that aren't."
It's a day ending in "Y," so there must be a new Scott Pruitt scandal:
... Lisa Friedman & Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "Scott Pruitt ... discussed hiring a friend of a lobbyist family that owned a condominium he was renting for $50 a night, newly released emails suggest. The files also show communications involving the lobbyist's client interests that have not previously been disclosed, suggesting a closer relationship between the< lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, and the agency than previously known. The emails, released as part of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, an environmental group, contradict early assertions by Mr. Pruitt and Mr. Hart that Mr. Hart hadn't lobbied the E.P.A. last year after concerns arose that Mr. Hart's wife had rented the condo to Mr. Pruitt. The potential hiring of Mr. Hart's family friend was discussed in emails between Mr. Pruitt's chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, and Mr. Hart, who was chairman of the Washington lobbying firm Williams & Jensen and whose wife, Vicki Hart, rented the condo to Mr. Pruitt." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Emily Holden of Politico: "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is reviewing claims that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt retaliated against a handful of employees who pushed back against his spending and management, according to three people familiar with the process. At least six current and former agency officials were reportedly fired or reassigned to new jobs, allegedly for questioning Pruitt's need for a 24-hour security protection -- which has now cost at least $4.6 million -- as well as his other spending and practices. OSC is in the process of interviewing some of those employees, according to the sources, although an OSC spokesman said the agency cannot comment on or confirm any open investigations."
The Most Corrupt Administration Ever, Ctd. Josh Meyer & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: Joe "Hagin, who announced last week that he is leaving the White House in July to return to the private sector, has championed [former business partner Steve] Atkiss' career for at least 15 years, even after a pair of on-the-job incidents -- including an alleged unwelcome advance toward another staffer that was investigated by Bush's White House counsel -- raised questions about his young protégé's fitness for sensitive government security positions." Hagin hired Atkiss for two important advance jobs preparing for presidential trips, which one former Bush official likened to "a jobs fair for their company, and a potential gold mine that no amount of money could buy." Mrs. McC: This is a somewhat complicated story with a simple punchline: the Trump administration is the most corrupt ever. Corruption is what they do. For some, it's the only thing they do.
Chas Danner of New York: "David Bossie, President Trump's former deputy campaign manager, used a racist slur to attack Democratic strategist Joel Payne, who is black, during an appearance on Fox & Friends on Sunday. In the midst of a contentious exchange, Bossie told Payne that, 'You're out of your cotton-picking mind.' [Mrs. McC: Ironically, ] The purpose of the segment was to debate 'the left's racists rants' -- referring to people calling members of the Trump administration Nazis -- and Bossie's remark came not long after Payne criticized Trump and his allies for using racist 'dog whistles.' Payne immediately called out Bossie's 'cotton-picking' slur, adding that, 'Brother, let me tell you something, I got some relatives who picked cotton and I'm not going to sit back and let you attack me on TV like that.'"
Senate Race. Mrs. McCrabbie: I know you are all wondering what Mitt Romney (R-Utah [When Convenient]) thinks about Trump's immigration policy. Luckily, Mitt obliges with an op-ed in Sunday's Salt Lake Tribune: "I have and will continue to speak out when the president says or does something which is divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions." He goes on to say nothing about Trump's devisive, anti-immigrant, dishonest & destructive policy. So there you have it (although he did say in March that he was "more of a hawk on immigration than even the president').
Joe Manchin Cracks Claire McCaskill's Rib. No, Really. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told constituents over the weekend that she'd suffered a cracked rib after a colleague saved her from choking at a Democratic caucus luncheon -- an injury that took that colleague, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), by surprise.... A spokesman for Manchin said the accident occurred Thursday, when Senate Democrats met for lunch.... McCaskill began choking, and Manchin ran over to give her the Heimlich maneuver. That dislodged the blockage in McCaskill's throat, but unbeknownst to Manchin, it left his colleague injured."
Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates. Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Michael Grynbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "... a three-year affair that unfolded between a young reporter and a government official with access to top-secret information -- is now part of a federal investigation that has rattled the world of Washington journalists and the sources they rely on. [James] Wolfe, 57, was arrested on June 7 and charged with lying to investigators about his contacts with Ms. Watkins and three other journalists. [Ali] Watkins, a Washington-based reporter for The New York Times, had her email and phone records seized by federal prosecutors.... Since meeting Mr. Wolfe in 2013, Ms. Watkins reported on the Senate Intelligence Committee for Politico, BuzzFeed News, The Huffington Post and McClatchy, where her reporting was part of a submission that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.... Her reporting led to a series in 2014 that revealed the C.I.A. was spying on the Intelligence Committee, which was compiling a critical report on the agency's use of torture." This is a long story that elaborates on news of Wolfe's arrest & his relationship with Watkins, which the Times reported June 7.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey claimed victory on Sunday in the country's presidential election, sending tremors that will be felt not just in Turkey but in Western and regional capitals -- if it holds up. The official results showed him with just under 53 percent of the vote, enough to spare him from going to a second round against his nearest challenger, uharrem Ince. In parliamentary races, Mr. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party came in first, with 43 percent of the vote, the state news agency Anadolu reported, enough to retain a majority in alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party.... An alliance of opposition parties that was doing its own count immediately cried foul, warning its supporters that the numbers were being manipulated and that they should disregard the figures released by Anadolu."
Share Article
Reader Comments (11)
The Hill has a headline about the Glorious Leader ripping Jimmy Fallon over what they refer to as the “Tomight Show controversy”.
First, a little reality check, if you will. There IS no greater controversy than the fact that we have an illegitimate, treasonous, in-American thug in the White House.
This other “controversy” involves the silliness of that Tonight Show on which Fallon touched that weird orange mass on Trump’s dome. Fallon now says he wished he hadn’t done it since he helped to humanize then candidate* Trumpy.. Now president*, after ratfucking the election, Trump tells Fallon to stop whining. He does this, of course while whining himself that Fallon really, really, really messed up his hair! Oh, and it took him soooo long to get it looking just right. So who’s the man here?
C’mon people we need perspective. Keep it together. There are no other controversies as serious of mention as the mere fact of Trump.
Don’t ever forget what liars these people are.
I laughed when I read that the dictator trump and his merrie band of racists and torturers have already “reunited” 500 families within 48 hours of the Glorious Leader’s self-serving, if obviously begrudging diminishment of his Chidren and Families Torture policy.
Trumpers themselves had previously said such reunification couldn’t be accomplished in fewer than five to ten days. Actual assessments from the real world are more like two to four years. But all of a sudden, magically, hundreds of families have been restored overnight, a feat not even the most competently run operation could have achieved. By law, the words competence and Trump should never appear in the same sentence.
Then take into account the testimony of Sen. Warren that no such reunification plans are anywhere on the horizon.
These people would lie to you about location of the sun in the sky, an assertion disproved by a mere glance in an upward direction. When called on it, they’d send Liarbee Sanders out to insult you, then Trump would tweet about your diminished mental state for five days straight.
There is no earthly reason to believe anything Trump says, other than how put out he was that mean old Jimmy Fallon mussed his rat’s nest.
I DO thank you, Marie, for the splendid James Corden and Paul McCartney carpool sing-a-longs in Liverpool; it warmed me on this Monday morning where one faces nothing positive from the political arena. And listening to the old Beatles' bounty, watching the throng of Pub fans clapping, singing, and looking so happy, I wished we could grab that scene and keep it warm for awhile before venturing out to face what new fresh hell awaits us.
Can't wait for the little dictator to declare his Middle East "peace plan" a complete success. Greatest ever! "Everyone at the table agreed that my plan was the best they'd ever seen."
Of course no Palestinians will be at the table, but what's a little detail like that when you're talking world historical Trumpisms?
What Do We Stand For?
A goodly number of my postings lately have concluded with something along the lines of "Where are the Democrats?" If we're going to get ourselves out of the Trump-Confederate Swamp, we will need the Democratic Party to do....something. And not just be the Party of Not Trump, or even win elections (although that'd be a start).
They have to stand for something. Right now, I'm not sure what that is.
This weekend I listened, slackjawed, to piece on "This American Life", Ira Glass's radio documentary program. The show covered the candidacy of Jeff Beals running for Congress in the New York 19th. It's a seat the Democrats can and must win. But the story turns dark very quickly. Beals is the sort of candidate that many Democratic voters could easily support, especially in the wake of the stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton, an often tone deaf campaign that was big--really big--on money. And Wall Street.
Beals is the anti-corporate-control candidate.
And once he got on the map, he got a call from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who clearly see themselves as the gatekeepers, the Deciders. I get emails from the DCCC, or D triple C, all the time. Likely a bunch of you do as well. But I never had any idea of the kind of power they wield, or try to.
Prior to the D triple C call, Beals got another call from a political friend, a connected guy, as it were. He told Beals that the D triple C people only wanted to know two things. Both were about money. At least initially they weren't concerned with what he stood for. When they found out, they weren't happy.
He was told that he couldn't talk about income inequality or bad mouth corporations. The Big Money donors don't like that kind of talk. Makes them feel like heartless Daddy Warbucks types. Inequality is right out. But for Beals, that's a problem. Income inequality and the power that corporations wield are his entire campaign.
Listen to the story. It's as fascinating as it is scary.
Democratic candidates are being told 1.) don't piss anyone off, so controversial subjects are verboten, 2.) you need to raise millions to win so, 3.) don't piss off the donors.
Since the ACA was passed and Citizens United came online to allow corporations and big money to control our elections, Democrats have lost almost 1,000 legislative seats around the country. The bloodletting has gone on while Democrats sought increasingly to be more like Republicans, at least in fund raising.
And still, they're trying to silence people like Beals who may be the way out of the wilderness.
I am not feeling overly sanguine this morning about some blue wave to come. But Democrats need to figure out what they stand for. And if they stand for more of the same, we're screwed.
The little dictator, in Las Vegas the other day, told his usual assortment of whoppers, two of which are, as usual, easily disproved.
First, he said we have thousands of immigration judges. Lie number one. It's more like 400 (although I've also heard that it was 300).
Second, he said that immigrants who are released pending trials "never show up". Lie number two.
In fact, according to a study from a few years ago by a group assessed by some as anti-immigrant, and based on statistics collected by an immigration judge in Florida, Mark Metcalf, a staunch anti-immigrant right-winger, things are not nearly as bad as Trump maintains. Here's what he found:
"'Over the last 20 years, 37 percent of all aliens free pending trial failed to appear for their hearings,' Metcalf wrote."
That means, even by the standards of a Trump style anti-immigrant judge, that 63% do show up. That's nowhere near Trump's "never show up" claim.
So, okay, this guy maybe is a tad biased. Let's ask another group how many immigrants show up for trial. Let's ask ICE.
Programs started under Obama (and killed, of course, by Trump) had pretty good results.
"About 5 percent of ATD [Alternatives to Detention program] migrants absconded from the program in 2012, the most recent year for which data is public. Another 4 percent ended up arrested by other law enforcement agencies while on the program. Just 2 percent of FCMP [Family Case Management Program] participants absconded.
Homan [head of ICE] was likely invoking the near-identical rates at which people in each program showed up in immigration court: 99.6 percent for the ankle-monitored crowd, and 100 percent for those paired with caseworkers. But either way the programs prove that Trump and his pals – even the ones who acted scandalized about family separation but then showed up to carry water for the president Wednesday as he prepared his strategic-retreat Executive Order – know full well that migrants can be released on their own recognizance without ghosting on the feds."
Neither 99.6 nor 100% merit a "never show up" claim.
Lies. Nothing but lies. In the service of hatred, racism, and infliction of pain.
Party Like It's 1199
Trump's typically flippant and dictatorial declaration that due process is not necessary for certain brown types indicates his fondness for life before the Magna Carta.
One of the biggest and most immediate game changers of that document, signed in 1215, was the concept of due process. Human rights! What an idea!
Trump wishes to drag us all back to some swamp in Scotland or Hohenstaufen where his ancestors were either chopping off heads of those who wouldn't salute them, or getting their heads chopped off by other barbaric pre-due process douchebags.
But you know who will whine incessantly the millisecond he feels as if his own due process looks a little wobbly to paranoid eyes.
That's right, King Trumpy I, pre-due process douchebag lord of the Rhineland swamp.
@Akhilleus: Remember Trump whining about how (alleged) wife-beater Rob Porter wasn't afforded due process (even though "due process" has nothing to do with whether or not a person gets security clearance or keeps a top job). Sorry, folks, "due process," a/k/a complete benefit of the doubt, is for Trumpelthinskin's loyal troubadours, not for ordinary people. Trump wants to run this country like a giant fiefdom, & only those who kiss the ring get favors. Screw the Magna Carta. I think Nancy Pelosi wrote it.
Marie,
"I think Nancy Pelosi wrote it." Hahaha, yeah, with an assist from Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, NOW, and a bunch of Occupy hippies.
And while he's at it, Trumpy might as well toss the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Bill of Rights is too long anyhow. Should've only included the Second and the Tenth. Poor Donald can't be expected to wade through all those amendments. He was lucky to get through that bit (which he rather liked) about Me, the people. Everything after that except "GUNS" is a blur.
Interesting NYT animation (series?) "Trump Bites", which at first I thought was noun-verb but I suppose is noun-noun, like "sound bites."
Anyway, DiJiT tells the story of how "big" the Oval Office is, such a big deal that when a big guy from business came to see him, he (big bizguy) started to cry. DiJiT implies that the augustness of the space overwhelmed bigbizguy.
It would never, of course, occur to DiJiT that bigbizguy might be upset and lacrimose about seeing a moron sitting in the big chair, and wondering WTF is happening to our country.
Never.
Pot, meet kettle: Trump’s Roach-Infested Restaurants Are Vile Compared to the Red Hen