The Commentariat -- May 29, 2019
Sorry, this crap system has been down since Mueller stopped speaking. Looks as if we're back in business.
Sharon LaFraniere & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, on Wednesday characterized for the first time his investigation of whether President Trump obstructed justice, saying 'if we had confidence the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so.' In what he said would be his only comments on his nearly two-year inquiry, he said that while Justice Department policy prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime, the Constitution provides for another process -- a clear reference to the ability of Congress to impeach the president. He suggested that he was reluctant to testify before Congress. 'The report is my testimony,' he said." ...
... Mueller Talks! ...
... Here's the full transcript of Mueller's remarks, as prepared by Politico. ...
... Abigail Weinberg of Mother Jones gathered tweeted responses from Members of Congress: Rep. Justin Amish (R-Michigan) tweeted, "The ball is in our court, Congress." Jerry Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee: "Given that Special Counsel Mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the President, it falls to Congress to respond to the crimes lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump -- and we will do so. No one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law." From presidential candidates: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.): "Mueller's statement makes clear what those who have read his report know: It is an impeachment referral, and it's up to Congress to act. They should." Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.): "What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable. We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation." Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): "Robert Mueller's statement makes it clear: Congress has a legal and moral obligation to begin impeachment proceedings immediately." (Oh, and then there was this: Donald Trump: "Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.") ...
... Andrew Clark of the Indianapolis Star: "South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller's remarks during a press conference earlier in the day were 'as close to an impeachment referral as it gets.' 'Robert Mueller could not clear the president, nor could he charge him -- so he has handed the matter to Congress, which alone can act to deliver due process and accountability,' Buttigieg tweeted." ...
... Jack Crosbie of Splinter: "If only there were strong party leaders who could bring all of these viewpoints together! Alas, we are left with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Pelosi responded to Mueller's conference with a continuation of the same thing she's been saying for months: that Congress would 'continue to investigate.' And Schumer made impotent promises about 'following the facts wherever they lead' (they have led to an explicit case for impeachment)." ...
... Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "... there was something markedly different about the atmosphere in Washington on Wednesday. It was more charged, more combustible. For the first time -- and perhaps the last time -- Mueller spoke publicly and firmly, if in limited fashion, about what his investigation meant. And, for the trained ear, it was unmistakable. 'He was virtually announcing "Congress, do your job,'" NBC News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said on MSNBC. That might make him the catalyst for a Democratic caucus that has been deeply ambivalent about the politics of impeaching the president." ...
... Richard Hasen in Slate: "Special counsel Robert Mueller issued a final statement on Wednesday before resigning from the Department of Justice, which clearly appeared aimed at one person: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mueller's simple message to Pelosi is that it is the constitutional duty of Congress -- and her sworn duty as speaker of the House -- to begin an investigation of the president and seriously consider impeaching him." Mrs. McC: If you missed that in Mueller's remarks, Hasen lays it out. ...
... Bill Barr's Very Bad Day. Zack Budryk of the Hill: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Wednesday said that special counsel Robert Mueller contradicted Attorney General William Barr in comments earlier that morning. 'Those comments by Bob Mueller about the other processes -- obviously impeachment being the only constitutional way -- definitely contradicts what the attorney general said when he summarized Mueller's report and said he then had to draw the conclusion on that,' Christie said in a phone call to ABC News. 'Mueller clearly contradicts that today in a very concise way.' Christie, a former U.S. attorney and longtime political ally of President Trump's, agreed with host George Stephanoupolous that the comments, in which Mueller reaffirmed that his probe did not exonerate Trump, move the discussion 'from the legal processes and put it right back into the political arena.'"
... Jonathan Chait: "Famously taciturn prosecutor Robert Mueller decided to address the public to make it very clear that he did not exonerate President Trump of committing obstruction of justice. 'If we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime we would have said so,' he said. Mueller cited a Department of Justice policy prohibiting a special prosecutor from charging sitting presidents: 'Charging the president with a crime,' he said, 'was therefore not an option we could consider.' This banal point is important because it pithily clarifies something Trump and his allies have labored, with quite a bit of success, to obscure.' [William Barr misled the public.] Mueller was not failing to draw a conclusion about the conduct. He was concluding decisively that he did not have the power to define Trump's conduct as a crime." ...
... Bill Barr, Big Fat Liar. Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "In the month before Robert Mueller's report was released, Attorney General Barr painted a picture of a special counsel who couldn't decide whether to charge the president with obstruction of justice, so he simply thew up his hands and left the decision up to the attorney general. During testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the report had been released, Barr acknowledged that Mueller explained his position, but suggested that he was 'not really sure of' Mueller's reasoning on the issue.... [During] the press conference just prior to the release of the report, [and] without Mueller present, Barr took a question from a reporter who asked whether Mueller's non-decision on obstruction 'had anything to do with the department's long-standing guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel on not indicting a sitting president.' Barr responded that he had a private conversation with Mueller, who told him that he 'was not saying that but for the OLC opinion, he would have found a crime.' During his remarks at the Justice Department this morning, Mueller demonstrated that Barr has been lying in an attempt to mislead all along.... While he left the conclusions up to us, he just made three things very clear: (1) the attorney general lied about his position, (2) if Trump were not president, they would have charged him with obstruction of justice, and (3) impeachment is the Constitutional remedy." ...
... Napolitano Stuns Foxbots. Eric Dolan of the Raw Story: "Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller had indicated that he found evidence that Donald Trump committed a crime -- but was unable to indict him because Trump is a sitting president. 'Effectively what Bob Mueller said is we had evidence that he committed a crime but we couldn't charge him because he's the president of the United States,' Napolitano explained. 'This is even stronger than the language in his report. This is also a parting shot at his soon-to-be former boss, the attorney general, because this statement is 180 degrees from the four-page statement that Bill Barr issued at the time he first saw the report.' 'Is it that bad?' host Stuart Varney remarked. 'I think so,' Napolitano replied.... Napolitano also said that the evidence that Mueller provided was 'remarkably similar' to the evidence used against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton." ...
... Ken White in the Atlantic: "Wednesday's press conference was consistent with Mueller's image as a classic just-the-facts-ma'am G-man, a persona that frustrates anti-Trump partisans who dreamed of him as an avenging superhero. But a bit of passion shone through in two areas. First, Mueller was adamant that his team had not exonerated the president of obstruction of justice.... Second, Mueller seemed concerned that Americans have focused on what Trump did rather than on what Russia did.... Mueller is a man out of time. This is the age of alternatively factual tweets and sound bites; he's a by-the-book throwback who expects Americans to read and absorb carefully worded 400-page reports. Has he met us?" ...
... ** Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller will make a statement at 11 a.m. [ET] on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Justice Department said on Wednesday." This story has been update, with a Natasha Bertrand byline. ...
... Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "Mr. Mueller is expected to make a lengthy and substantial statement, a Justice Department official said, and take no questions. The White House was notified late Tuesday that Mr. Mueller would be making a statement, a senior White House official said." This story has been updated; the revised version is linked above the video, with a byline by Sharon LaFraniere & Sullivan.
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "An associate of Roger Stone has agreed to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury on Friday morning, his attorney and a Mueller prosecutor said in a court hearing before a federal judge.The development shows parts of the Mueller investigation related to interference in the 2016 presidential election -- and the grand jury's work -- may still be alive. Andrew Miller, Stone's associate, has fought testifying as he has challenged Mueller's authority since last summer after Mueller's team requested information from him about Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. Miller was held in contempt by Chief Judge Beryl Howell in Washington but will not be sent to jail at this time, the judge said. He lost his attempts at appeal. He did not attend the hearing Wednesday."
Daphné Dupont-Nivet & Nico Schmidt of OpenDemocracy (May 22): "Google and Facebook pressured and 'arm-wrestled' a group of experts to soften European guidelines on online disinformation and fake news, according to new testimony from insiders released to journalists at Investigate Europe today.... [S]ome of these experts say that representatives of Facebook and Google undermined the work of the group, which was convened by the European Commission and comprised leading European researchers, media entrepreneurs and activists.... Another member, Monique Goyens -- director-general of BEUC, which is also known as The European Consumer Association -- is blunter. 'We were blackmailed,' she says." --s
Jamal Greene of Slate: "Last week, the Washington Post published a profile of Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo, focusing in part on a speech he gave to the Council for National Policy in which he warmly predicted the Supreme Court would soon return to the pre-New Deal era of 'limited, constitutional government.' Leo believes, in other words, that the court's view of the Constitution was better off 85 years ago than it is today.... Leo has had Donald Trump's ear on judicial appointments and has been the main curator of the president's list of Supreme Court candidates.... So when Leonard Leo says he wants to return to a pre-New Deal Constitution, you should listen. And you should be alarmed." --s
Andy Beckett of the Guardian: "Conservatism is the dominant politics of the modern world.... Yet this aura has led to an overconfidence about conservatism's underlying health. In Britain and the US, once the movement's most fertile sources of ideas, voters, leaders and governments, a deep crisis of conservatism has been building since the end of the Reagan and Thatcher governments. It is a crisis of competence, of intellectual energy and coherence, of electoral effectiveness, and -- perhaps most serious of all -- of social relevance.... The right is still winning elections, from India to the European parliament, but transatlantic conservatism as we have known it since the 80s -- pro-capitalist, anti-government, controlled by the traditional parties of the right -- may be dying." --s
Tim Starks of Politico: "Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that they have pulled down a network of accounts spreading disinformation that originated in Iran, including some accounts that impersonated 2018 Republican congressional candidates. Acting on a tip from cybersecurity company FireEye, Facebook said it removed 51 bogus Facebook accounts, 36 pages followed by 21,000 users, seven groups joined by 1,900 users and three Instagram accounts followed by 2,600 people. Twitter said it removed 2,800 accounts. The revelations ... serve as a reminder that other governments and foreign adversaries are taking a page from the Russian playbook that disrupted the 2016 presidential election.... The Iranian campaign also succeeded in tricking U.S. and Israeli publications into publishing fake letters to the editor and blogs, according to the report." --s
Michael Calderone of Politico: "The mood in the Pentagon briefing room was tense Friday when officials went on the record for the first time to blame Iran for recent flare-ups in the Middle East.... The Pentagon press corps has chafed for months at what reporters see as a sharp decline in access to information, including limited access to officials during trips.... Friday will be a year since the Pentagon held an on-camera briefing with any department spokesperson." --s
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump's administration is systematically launching one of the most insidious efforts in American history aimed at not merely ruining our children's health, but at literally erasing their future entirely.... This includes the announcement that the agency will start taking the position that air pollution does not harm children the way science says it does. At the same time, it is cutting 13 research centers aimed at reducing environmental threats to our children. Meanwhile..., White House appointee running the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) -- James Reilly, a former petroleum geologist -- is mandating that the agency's scientific assessments of climate change will only examine climate impacts that may occur between now and 2040. The agency's standard practice is to look as far ahead as the year 2100." --s
~~~~~~~~~~
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Edward Helmore of the Guardian: "A new book from Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff says special counsel Robert Mueller drew up a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against Donald Trump before deciding to shelve it -- an explosive claim which a spokesman for Mueller flatly denied. The stunning revelation is contained in Siege: Trump Under Fire, which will be published a week from now, on 4 June. It is the sequel to Fire and Fury, Wolff's bestseller on the first year of the Trump presidency which was published in 2018.... In an author's note, Wolff states that his findings on the Mueller investigation are 'based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel'.... Mueller ultimately demurred, Wolff writes, but his team's work gave rise to as many as 13 other investigations that led to cooperating witness plea deals from Michael Cohen, David Pecker of American Media and Trump Organization accountant Allen Weisselberg. 'The Jews always flip,' was Trump's comment on those deals, according to Wolff." (Also linked yesterday.) Mrs. McC: Nice. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: According to the Guardian, the special counsel's "flat denial" was this: "Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, told the Guardian: "The documents that you've described do not exist." Sorry, I don't think that's a "flat denial"; just because the documents -- i.e., obstruction charging documents -- don't exist now doesn't mean they didn't exist at one time. That's a point MAG made in commentary yesterday, and I think MAG is right. ...
... Jennifer Szalai of the New York Times: "'Siege' is ostensibly about Trump -- portrayed here as a very unstable non-genius cracking under the pressure of being thrust into the highest office -- but its guiding worldview looks remarkably like [Steve] Bannon's [whom Wolff credits in his acknowledgments.]... [Jared] Kushner comes across in this account as perhaps the saddest figure of all: a hapless schemer.... 'Siege' reads like a 300-page taunt of the president -- from Wolff or from Bannon, though they seem to have arrived at the kind of collaboration in which the distinction doesn't really matter."
Matthew Choi of Politico: "James Comey ... derided ... Donald Trump on Tuesday for perpetuating what he called 'dumb lies' about the bureau and the origins of the Russia investigation. 'There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup,' Comey wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. 'Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances.'... Comey said that the 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign followed a legitimate tip and was the nature of the FBI's work.... The op-ed comes after Trump accused the FBI of spying on his 2016 campaign in a conspiracy to sabotage his candidacy.... Trump escalated his accusation with numerous calls for an investigation into the FBI, granting [AG Bill] Barr the authority to declassify intelligence regarding the investigation... Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, accused [Trump & Barr] of conspiring to 'weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies.'"
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: On Tuesday, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) held "his first town hall-style meeting since publicly declaring that President Trump's behavior had reached the 'threshold of impeachment.' In Grand Rapids, his political stronghold, Mr. Amash's boldness was still applauded -- wildly.... There were voters angry over a perceived lack of loyalty to the party and those appreciative of a politician consistent in his views and votes. Attendees came in 'It' Mueller Time' shirts, a liberal cry of support for the special counsel, and red 'Make America Great Again' apparel.... In a reminder of Mr. Amash's wavering political standing, hundreds crammed into ... the DeVos Center for Arts and Worship at Grand Rapids Christian High School, from which all four of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's children graduated.... The billionaire DeVos family ... said through a spokesman that it would not financially support the congressman.... He prefaced his meeting with another series of Twitter posts on Tuesday, accusing Attorney General William P. Barr of misrepresenting aspects of the special counsel's investigation to protect Mr. Trump."
Steele Says No to Barr Witch Hunt. Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "The former British spy who produced a dossier describing alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia will not cooperate with a prosecutor assigned by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review how the investigations of Trump and his 2016 election campaign began, a source with knowledge of the situation said. Christopher Steele, a former Russia expert for the British spy agency MI6, will not answer questions from prosecutor John Durham, named by Barr to examine the origins of the investigations into Trump and his campaign team, said the source close to Steele's London-based private investigation firm.... The source close to Steele's company said Steele ... might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department's Inspector General into how U.S. law enforcement agencies handled pre-election investigations into both Trump and [Hillary] Clinton. Steele also cooperated with Mueller's investigative team, voluntarily submitting to two interviews in September 2017. He also gave written testimony to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in August 2018, the source said."
An Underground Tunnel?? WPTV (West Palm Beach): "A man has pleaded guilty to illegally gaining access to ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort ... while the commander-in-chief was staying there. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mark Slattery Lindblom entered the grounds of Mar-a-Lago on or about Nov. 23, 2018. On Tuesday, Lindblom ... was sentenced to one year of probation. According to The Palm Beach Post, Lindblom is a freshman at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and managed to slip past security through an underground tunnel during the Thanksgiving holiday while President Trump was staying at Mar-a-Lago." ...
... According to Jane Musgrave of the Palm Beach Post, &"Once at a tunnel under State Road A1A that gives Mar-a-Lago members exclusive access to the beach, Lindblom stood in line with club members who were waiting to pass through a metal detector manned by Secret Service agents, said his attorney Marcos Beaton. 'Mr. Lindblom was wanded by Secret Service agents and he walked on through,' Beaton said. The ease with which Lindblom gained access to the club again raises questions about the Secret Service agency's ability to protect Trump while he is visiting the members-only club he has dubbed the Winter White House."
The Embarrassing Guest, Ctd. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump traveled almost 7,000 miles to become the first foreign leader to meet with Emperor Naruhito since his enthronement this month. The president's closest ally on the world stage, [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe, regaled him with golf, a sumo tournament, a cheeseburger lunch and a robatayaki dinner, hoping to cement what the prime minister described as their 'unshakable bond.' Throughout his visit, though, Mr. Trump acted like a man who could never be fully present. From start to finish, his stay in Japan was defined more by his focus on politics at home than diplomacy abroad, expressed as a running refrain posted online seemingly every time he was left alone with his screens. From his particular fixation on Mr. Biden to his constant castigation of Democrats over all, Mr. Trump underlined the reality that his 'unshakable bond' was with his Twitter megaphone. It was evident that his main interest was not where his hosts had gone to such lengths to direct it -- on security and trade in Asia -- but instead was on fighting with his perceived political enemies in Washington." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump publicly undercut John R. Bolton, his national security adviser, on Iran and North Korea in recent days, raising questions about the administration's policy and personnel in the middle of confrontations with both long-term American adversaries. During a four-day visit to Japan that ended Tuesday, Mr. Trump contradicted Mr. Bolton by saying, inaccurately, that recent North Korean missile tests did not violate United Nations restrictions. And Mr. Trump declare that he did not seek regime change in Iran, in contrast to Mr. Bolton, who has long advocated a new government in Tehran.... Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump have never clicked personally, according to other advisers to the president." Mrs. McC: Maybe Bolton should resign before he gets tweet-fired.
....Super Predator was the term associated with the 1994 Crime Bill that Sleepy Joe Biden was so heavily involved in passing. That was a dark period in American History, but has Sleepy Joe apologized? No! -- Donald Trump, May 27, in a tweet
#realDonaldTrump called for execution of #CentralParkFive who were exonerated of rape of #CentralParkJogger.... Trump still says they did it. Voters should remember when Trump talks #Biden crime bill vote. -- Marilyn Van Winkle, May 28, in a tweet
Not to mention ... lying about Obama's birth certificate, vilifying Mexicans & Muslims, defending Nazis in Charlottesville, or endorsing racists Steve King & Roy Moore. -- Kevin Boykin, undated tweet
How about "The Jews always flip" & "shithole countries," etc., etc.? -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ...
... Okay, now we have some follow-up:
... (1) Kate Riga of TPM: "A panel on Fox News' 'Special Report with Bret Baier' Monday night berated ... Donald Trump for mounting attacks against former Vice President Joe Biden during his trip to Japan. 'You don't attack political opponents from foreign soil, you're supposed to be out there as America's chief diplomat,' said the American Enterprise Institute's Marc Thiessen. 'And two, you don't cite the murderous dictator of North Korea as evidence of why Biden is a bad candidate.'" ...
... (2) Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Joe Biden's campaign on Tuesday issued a sharp response to President Trump's criticism of the former vice president while on a state visit to Japan, calling the president's attacks on his potential 2020 rival 'beneath the dignity of the office.' Biden's office waited for Trump to land in the United States before issuing the statement, a nod toward the old adage that criticism stops while the president is abroad. 'To be on foreign soil, on Memorial Day, and to side repeatedly with a murderous dictator against a fellow American and former Vice President speaks for itself,' deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement. 'And it's part of a pattern of embracing autocrats at the expense of our institutions -- whether taking Putin's word at face value in Helsinki or exchanging "love letters: with Kim Jong Un.'" ...
... Wait for it, wait for it ...
... (3) Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "'I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil. Kim Jong Un called him a "low IQ idiot," and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer "low IQ individual." Who could possibly be upset with that?' the president tweeted [after a spate of] ... bipartisan blowback against the president." Mrs. McC: Mr. Trump thinks his supporters are very, very stupid.
Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has held onto her shares of Vulcan Materials, a construction company she promised to divest from more than a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Vulcan, the U.S.'s largest supplier of sand and gravel used in paving and building, has seen its stock price rise more than 12% since April 2018, when Chao said she would cash out her shares, according to a 2017 government ethics agreement. Chao's shares have risen in value by more than $40,000 since the month she said she would divest them, the Journal reported, citing corporate and government filings." (Also linked yesterday.)
Eric Levitz of New York explains how the most recent Republican line is that climate change is real, but then rejects each partial remedy as too expensive. Trump, however, "insists on putting his party's dumbest face forward.... Now Trump is preparing to appoint [CO2 enthusiast Dr. William] Happer to chair a 'climate review panel' that would formally challenge the assessments of the federal government's climate scientists (or, as Trump calls them, the 'deep state').... Notably, even the president's most unethical and demagogic advisers think this is a bad idea[.]" ...
... Alex Lubben of Vice has more on Happer, the fossil-fuel-funded physicist.
Start. Screaming. Now. Ted Barrett of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday if a Supreme Court vacancy occurs during next year's presidential election, he would work to confirm a nominee appointed by ... Donald Trump.... That is in sharp contrast to his decision to block President Barack Obama's nominee to the high court following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016.... Speaking at a Paducah Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Kentucky, McConnell was asked by an attendee, 'Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?' The leader took a long sip of what appeared to be iced tea before announcing with a smile, 'Oh, we'd fill it,' triggering loud laughter from the audience." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: AND Congratulations to Daniel Victor of the New York Times for putting the very best "partisan-cue" framing on his story. It's in the headline (on the front page); it's in the lede: "Democrats accused Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, of hypocrisy...." Really? Really? Is it just "Democrats" who "accuse" Mitch of hypocrisy? Or is McMachieavelli out-and-out flaming duplicitous? Can't the New York Times make a call on double-dealing even this obvious? Does the paper really have to hide behind the "Democrats say" construction? That's not "objective reporting"; it's a shoddy copout. Why not report the 2018 election results as "Democrats say they flipped the House; Republicans say they retained control of the Senate"? Why not, "Some observers claim the sun rises in the East"? When it walks like a duck..., NYT.
Presidential Race 2020. Alex Thompson of Politico: "Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran who is running for president, will introduce a plan Tuesday evening to expand military mental health services and will disclose that he sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after his combat deployments during the Iraq War. 'I had some particular experiences or regrets from the war that I just thought about every day, and occasionally I'd have bad dreams or wake up in a cold sweat,' the Massachusetts Democrat told Politico in an interview ahead of a Tuesday night event in Massachusetts that will begin a Veterans Mental Health Tour in early-primary states. 'But because these experiences weren't debilitating -- I didn't feel suicidal or completely withdrawn, and I was doing fine in school -- it took me a while to appreciate that I was dealing with post-traumatic stress and I was dealing with an experience that a lot of other veterans have.'"
Senate Race 2020. James Arkin of Politico: "Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday warned Roy Moore not to run for Senate again in Alabama, calling him the only candidate who could lose the race for Republicans." Mrs. McC: There's a serious question here as to which of these lamebrains is the bigger jerk. Would you rather be stuck on a desert island with a fakety-fake evangelical pawing you or an arrogant prick telling you he's too good for you?
Andrew Taylor of the AP: "A second conservative Republican on Tuesday blocked another attempt to pass a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill, delaying again a top priority for some of ... Donald Trump's most loyal allies on Capitol Hill. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said that if Democratic leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi thought the measure was so important, they should have kept the House in session in Washington late last week to slate an up-or-down roll call vote.... Another conservative, Texas freshman GOP Rep. Chip Roy, had blocked an earlier attempt Friday to pass the measure under fast-track rules.... Eventual passage of the bill, supported by Trump and top leaders in Congress, is a foregone conclusion."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an Indiana state law that required fetal remains to be buried or cremated. But it sidestepped a larger abortion question, turning down an effort to reinstate the law's strict abortion limits. The court's decision, issued without briefing on the merits or oral arguments, was unsigned and just three pages long.... In the second part of the case, an appellate court had struck down a provision of the law that banned abortions being sought solely because of a fetal characteristic like sex or disability. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied review of both issues in the case. The case, Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, No. 18-483, had been closely watched because it could have given the Supreme Court its first chance to consider the constitutionality of a state law restricting abortion since Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh replaced Justice Anthony M. Kennedy last year.... The Indiana law was enacted in 2016 and signed by Gov. Mike Pence...." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mark Stern of Slate: "But Justice Clarence Thomas wasn't willing to let Indiana's nondiscrimination rule die a quiet death. Instead, he wrote an astonishing 20-page concurring opinion declaring that the rule is clearly constitutional — and, in the process, condemning many women who obtain abortions as willing participants in eugenicide. (Because Thomas says he wanted to 'allow further percolation' of this issue in the lower courts before settling it, he joined his colleagues in refusing to review the case.) Thomas began by insisting that the 'foundations for legalizing abortion in America were laid during the early 20th-century birth-control movement,' which 'developed alongside the American eugenics movement.' That's not actually true: Abortion was legal at the founding, and states only began criminalizing abortion around the 1860s. Thomas is pushing a pro-life narrative that seeks to intertwine abortion and eugenics while ignoring history.... His opinion is a rhetorical assault against women who terminate their pregnancies due to a fetal abnormality. (There is virtually no evidence that American women get abortions on the basis of a fetus' race or sex; that part of the law seems designed to troll liberals.)" ...
... Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "The implication [of Thomas' bizarre screed] is that contraception, and not just abortion, may need to be banned in order to prevent some kind of racial eugenics.... Nearly all of today's women who have ever had sexual intercourse -- 99% of those aged 15-44 -- have used at least one contraceptive method in their lifetime. And 88% 'have used a highly effective, reversible method such as birth control pills, an injectable method, a contraceptive patch, or an intrauterine device." Mrs. McC: Somehow I have a feeling Thomas himself, although a Roman Catholic, has used contraceptives.
Nicole Guadiano & Caitlin Emma of Politico: "The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear a case challenging a Pennsylvania school district's bathroom policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice. The conservative Alliance Defending Freedom represented a group of students in the case, Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, alleging that the district's policy violates student privacy. ADF has represented students and school districts in similar lawsuits across the country. The Supreme Court's decision leaves standing the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals unanimous ruling last year that the Pennsylvania school district can continue allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The court later revised its ruling, toning down language that said federal law protects that right." (Also linked yesterday.)
Kate Smith of CBS News: "The last remaining abortion clinic in Missouri says it expects to be shut down this week, effectively ending legal abortion in the state. In a statement to be released later Tuesday, Planned Parenthood said Missouri's health department is 'refusing to renew' its annual license to provide abortion in the state. If the license is not renewed by May 31, Missouri would become the first state without a functioning abortion clinic since 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided. Planned Parenthood would still be able to provide non-abortion health services for women in Missouri. Planned Parenthood said it plans to sue the state 'in order to try to keep serving Missouri women.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Megan Graham of CNBC: "Netflix says it will continue to film in Georgia amid controversy surrounding the state's passage of an abortion law forbidding termination of a pregnancy after an indication of a heartbeat. But the company said it would rethink its investment in Georgia should the bill go into effect. The statement comes as some in the film and TV industry have said they will boycott working in the state because of the law." (Also linked yesterday.)
Kevin Williams & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "In the last week alone, the authorities have linked tornadoes to at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. Federal government weather forecasters logged preliminary reports of more than 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period -- a rare figure, if the reports are ultimately verified -- after the start of the year proved mercifully quiet.... Climate change is increasingly linked to extreme weather, but limited historical information, especially when compared with temperature data that goes back more than a century, has made it difficult for researchers to determine whether rising temperatures are making tornadoes more common and severe.... But researchers have found that tornadoes are increasingly clustered in short periods of time."
Beyond the Beltway
Fresno Bee: "The Fresno Grizzlies have apologized to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for a scoreboard video shown during Monday night's doubleheader that appeared to equate her with Kim Jong-un and Fidel Castro. The video was 3 1/2 minutes long, called a 'Memorial Day Tribute - We Are Americans.' It's mostly filled with patriotic-themed images playing behind excerpts from the first inaugural speech by President Ronald Reagan. But at about three minutes, it shows an image of an Antifa member. Then Kim, the North Korean leader. Then Ocasio-Cortez, then Castro, the late Cuban leader. The images are seen as Reagan arrives at this point in his speech: 'As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries ...'" Grizzlies management said they had not viewed the video before showing it & assailed its "misleading and offensive editing."
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Remembering Tony Horwitz: A historian who reckoned fearlessly with the legacy of the Civil War:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/tony-horwitz-a-historian-who-reckoned-fearlessly-with-the-legacy-of-the-civil-war
I discovered Horwitz years ago and he took me to places I had never been before and introduced me to a history I never knew. He died too soon.
A few days ago I mentioned how Lincoln was criticized by some as a traitor to his race and FDR for being a traitor to his class. I'm wondering whether our rogue senator Justin Amash will be touted as a traitor to his party; if so he will be in good company.
It has started: the endless interviews and speeches by all these Democratic candidates and next month we will have our first debate. Will we hear about the deeper system that hatched Trump in the first place besides from Bernie and Elizabeth? This is a question posed by Terry Thomas, a leftist historian:
"The Trump fiasco allows the inauthentic opposition [Democrats] to sit around and smugly refer to themselves as “the adults in the room,” as if that’s now all that’s required. There’s no need for Bernie or radical change, we just need someone who is not mentally ill, an “adult in the room.” The Democrats act like we’ve got this covered because we’re sane and the Orange Dumpster’s not, our point has been proven, so now just give us power again, and we’ll put everything back together, nothing more needed. But the truth is glaringly obvious: how flawed and fundamentally dysfunctional must the system be to allow something like this to happen?"
This morning I wrote a letter to the ed of the WashPo, which I hope is self-explanatory.
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"Robert Costa reported Wednesday that 2020 candidates are bringing up Trump's cowardice, claiming he avoided combat in Vietnam by a fake medical claim. Reporters should start to shift the frame on this story, which will be recurring. Trump did not avoid combat, and no other American was forced to fight in his stead. He avoided the draft. All we know of Trump says that if drafted he would have served in an office somewhere close to home (Ft. Hamilton? Probably, it is right around the corner for a Queens boy). The image of Donald Trump humping outside the wire in Vietnam is discordant, totally improbable if not unimaginable. "
@Patrick: It's true that in the Nam-era draft, unlike in the Civil War period, men of means did not directly pay off poor people to fight in their stead. On the other hand, millions of American men avoided the draft with deferments & evasions as spurious as purported bone spurs, and the evaders were -- on the whole -- men from families of greater means than the average guy who went into combat.
I don't see how you can argue that Trump "did not avoid combat." Of course he did. True, he also avoided a desk job at Fort Hamilton.
Many of those who served would not have done so if they had a choice, and their choices were limited, in large part, by luck (day of the year they were born) and by economic circumstances. And tens of thousands of the "chosen ones" died or were wounded in combat. If Cadet Bone Spurs' ploy had not worked, he could have been one of them. There's an indirect connection, tho not a direct one, between Trump & an American soldier who died in Viet Nam.
As someone who did not serve (tho I considered it) but did marry & have a child partly to help my husband avoid the draft, I am no less blameless than Trump, In fact one could argue that I did more than Trump's daddy did to help a relative avoid the draft -- giving birth is a lot more arduous than paying off a doctor to invent a deferment-ready diagnosis.
This was a system designed & executed to help wealthier American men avoid combat & send poorer Americans to combat zones. Everyone at the time recognized that, and those who succeeded in eluding the draft often openly discussed -- or boasted about -- that "success."
I don't have much of a problem with candidates eliding the facts, but those who cast stones ought to be more blameless than Bill Clinton and I when it comes to rapping someone else's lack of military service.
PD,
The Terry Thomas quote may not say it all, but it does say a great deal about the sad state of our nation's affairs, which has everything to do with our inability or unwillingness to distinguish money and power from worth.
Here in WA State, our newly elected Democrats, who at long last controlled both house of the legislature and belong to the same political party as one of its horde of presidential candidates, did manage to take a few baby steps in the direction of righting the state's economic ship which has been shoaled on the reef of regressive taxation for decades now, but....just baby steps.
Faced with the real propect of imposing a capital gains tax of the extremely wealthy (and WA State does have more than a few) some Democrats shied away and it didn't happen.
Their timidity astounds.
Nothing like the bold hypocrisy of the McConnell's who smugly and proudly admit they are all about power....and that the good of the nation has absolutely nothing to do with their agenda. It is in fact the farthest thing from their minds.
More handicaps for Democrats
Yesterday, Washington Post writer Paul Waldman, in an interview, brought up the fact that Democrats are constantly required to do many things that Republican candidates don't care about and don't bother with, such as reaching across the aisle.
Democrats (and the media, mostly) have lately been wrestling with with whether or not their presidential candidates should appear on Fox to reach out to Trump voters. Republicans, however, are never expected to show up on MSNBC (which, as Waldman points out, is much less farther to the left than Fox is to the right). They don't even consider it. And yet, the media rips Democrats who don't appear to at least try to understand the poor Trump voters. He's right. Just look at the plethora of feature articles over the last few years (and even before Trump) investigating the wants and needs of wingnut voters, doing deep dives into the psyche of red state voters. Have you ever seen such an attempt made to examine the concerns and positions of Clinton or Obama voters?
Never. Not once, ever.
And yet the onslaught of fluff pieces about the poor, misunderstood Trump voters continues unabated. And Democrats are expected to get in line to genuflect before them.
And yet no Republican is ever expected to give a half a shit about Democratic voters. And the media is perfectly okay with that.
Waldman, as an example, reminds listeners that after he won the 2016 election, with the help of Russia, Wikileaks, and Jim Comey, without whose help he surely would have lost, Trump took victory lap after victory lap, but only in states he won. States who went for Clinton don't exist for Trump. Whenever he says things like "Bad for our country", you know he means red states only, not the entire nation.
But no one in the press takes him to task for this. And yet, had Obama tried that, there would have been outrage on all sides, especially in the MSM.
Waldman makes another excellent point about the asymmetrical electoral situation. While Democrats are expected to go to red state strongholds and create serious, workable policies to help those voters, Republicans completely cut off anyone they think won't vote for them. But not just cut off...since they believe African-Americans are not likely to vote for them, rather than simply ignore them (which they do as a matter of course), they try to make sure they can't vote for anyone. Voter suppression will be a main focus of the run up to Trump's second coronation.
It's a worthwhile piece, about five minutes.
Dear Nancy,
Sumpthin' else you need?
Yours,
Bob
@Akhilleus: Nice note. I saw the first draft. It went, "Nancy, you ignorant slut, I labored over this damned report for two years, I handed you Articles of Impeachment on a silver platter. Git 'er done. Yours, Bob"
Dear Bob,
Your report is NOT your testimony. It's your Plato's Cave testimony.
We need to hear your "unredacted" (read: candid and forthright, with no weasel words) assessment of the cancer spreading through the body politic. Saying "I'm done" is the oncologist saying "We couldn't say it's not cancer, but we couldn't say it is, because the hospital won't let us, so I'm going home now. Good luck with that tumor."
Sorry, dude. That's not good enough. The patient and her family are ready to be tied. Or to die. Is that good enough?
You were a Marine. Would you be fine with your CO saying "I'm sending you guys out in the morning. I can't say there aren't VC troops waiting in ambush to kill you all because the brass won't let me. You're on your own"?
We are, as a nation, heading into an ambush by members of your own party in willful support of a traitor (you KNOW he is!). They will have no problem slitting our throats then whining that it was our own fault, dumping us into a common grave and burning our bodies. Are you okay with that???
What happened to Semper Fi? Or should that be Sometimes Fi?
Man up, Bob.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their...country.
So yeah, it's Nancy's move, but it's also yours.
Whadaya say?
Akhilleus
Marie,
Ha! I like that draft. Now let's see if it works.
" ... Of the 27 million draft-age men between 1964 and 1973, 40% were drafted into military service, and only 10% were actually sent to Vietnam. This group was made up almost entirely of either work-class or rural youth. College students who did not avoid the draft were generally sent to non-combat and service roles or made officers, while high school drop-outs and the working class were sent into combat roles."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties
Wikipedia, so who knows how accurate.
But it is pretty clear that young Donald, had he been drafted, as a wealthy college grad with family "blat" (Russki for influence) would have had a very very very low probability if shipping out, much less doing combat. He avoided inconvenience, not danger.
But I'll give you this. In his very fine brain, he probably thinks he avoided combat heroism. He's probably sure he would have received the Medal of Honor had he picked up a weapon. And he probably regrets all the war story lies he's had to eschew.
@Patrick: Kind of like Ronald Reagan who twice -- to Jewish leaders, no less -- claimed he observed the American liberation of Nazi concentration camps as part of his Army service during WWII. In fact, Reagan never left Hollywood, where he made Army training films.
Of course Trump would have led the charge, in the face of great danger to himself, against fierce adversaries to liberate American POWs. The POWs, despite their weakness after years of privation, would have hoisted him on their shoulders in gratitude for his heroics. And he would have won a chestful of medals, which he magnanimously gave back to the Pentagon to melt down to metal to make more bullets.
What AK said. I can no longer listen to another insipid interview with some middle-aged, jowly fat guy in a red hat telling us all how great the piece of manure in the White House is, and that he does everything he promises to do (Huh??!!) and that he cares for the poor pathetic farmers who have lost their markets, their crops and their livelihoods to tariffs, tax cuts and climate horrors. My first reactions to hearing about a disaster is-- RED or BLUE state? I simply don't care. They can vote themselves out of jobs and into poverty forever-- I. Don't. Care. Mitch doesn't bear thinking about. He is a vile wretch. And yes, he has rat****ed us all since 2008, and we have somehow allowed it, and excused it. The only answer to any of this, other than a firing squad for the entire repugnant party, is to IMPEACH Dump and Barr now. Disgusting garbage, all of 'em. I'm going to bed. Mueller be damned.