The Commentariat -- May 31, 2019
Afternoon Update:
"Some Episodes." CBS News: "Asked about the fundamental difference between his and [Robert] Mueller's views on what the evidence gathered during the Russia probe means, [AG William] Barr said, 'I think Bob said he was not going to engage in the analysis. He was not going to make a determination one way or the other. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction.... As a matter of law. In other words we didn't agree with the legal analysis, a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department,' Barr said. 'It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers and so we applied what we thought was the right law.... And the bottom line was that Bob Mueller identified some episodes. He did not reach a conclusion. He provided both sides of the issue, and he -- his conclusion was he wasn't exonerating the president, but he wasn't finding a crime either.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Didn't find a crime," Bill? First, Mueller explained what the crime was, then he cited the applicable laws, then he related all the stuff Trump did that fit the criminal definitions he'd laid out. You'd have to be (1) stupid, (2) naive or (3) lying to say Mueller didn't find a crime. I'll guess (3).
... Here's the transcript of the CBS interview.
Elizabeth Warren Read the Mueller Report, AND She's Got a Plan: "First, a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help candidate Donald Trump get elected. Second, candidate Donald Trump welcomed that help. Third, when the federal government tried to investigate, now-President Donald Trump did everything he could to delay, distract, and otherwise obstruct that investigation. That's a crime. If Donald Trump were anyone other than the President of the United States right now, he would be in handcuffs and indicted.Robert Mueller said as much in his report, and he said it again on Wednesday.... Mueller's statement made clear what those of us who have read his report already knew: He's referring President Trump for impeachment, and it's up to Congress to act.... This is not about politics -- it's our constitutional duty as members of Congress. It's a matter of principle.... Congress should make it clear that Presidents can be indicted for criminal activity, including obstruction of justice. And when I'm President, I'll appoint Justice Department officials who will reverse flawed policies so no President is shielded from criminal accountability." Emphasis original. ...
... Andrew Prokop of Vox: “Robert Mueller's report makes the stirring claim that 'a fundamental principle of our government' is that no person, not even the president, 'is above the law.' But the special counsel's ultimate legacy may well be the exact opposite -- because of his controversial decision not to say whether Trump committed criminal obstruction of justice.... It was the punt heard around the world.... It effectively 'removes the president from the scope of generally applicable criminal laws,' Cornell law professor Jens David Ohlin recently told my colleague Sean Illing.... Even though Mueller made clear this was his own decision, it will inevitably set a precedent for future investigations into presidents -- a problematic one.... Mueller's considered decision not to decide was immediately thrown out the window by his superior [William Barr]...."
Mrs. McCrabbie: The analyses I've heard on the radio & teevee today on Trump's new tariff plan for Mexico ranged from "incoherent" to "incrediby stupid." In today's Comments, RAS is checking his mail for his tariff kickback. The odds are that RAS is not a Trump-country farmer. So good luck on that.
Emma Anderson of Politico: German Chancellor "Angela Merkel urged Harvard graduates Thursday to 'tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness' in a speech laced with apparent jibes at Donald Trump and his policies. Though she did not name the U.S. president, the German chancellor devoted much of her Harvard University commencement speech to attacking major pillars of Trump's presidency: protectionism, trade wars and building walls.... The audience of students, parents, and alumni gave Merkel a standing ovation when she said it is important not to 'describe lies as truth, and truth as lies.'"
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There He Goes Again. Annie Karni, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said Thursday that he would impose a 5 percent tariff on all imported goods from Mexico beginning June 10, a tax that would 'gradually increase' until the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border stopped. The announcement, which Mr. Trump made on his Twitter feed, said the tariffs would be in place 'until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.' In a presidential statement that followed, he said that tariffs would be raised to 10 percent on July 1 'if the crisis persists,' and then by an additional 5 percent each month for three months. They would remain at 25 percent until Mexico acted, he said. An across-the-board tariff on all Mexican goods would exact a serious toll on American consumers and corporations.... Rufus Yerxa, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents the nation's largest exporters, called the move 'a colossal blunder.'... [The tariffs] could derail another of his chief goals: Revising the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico." ...
... John Bowden of the Hill: "The Dow Jones futures dropped more than 100 points on Thursday after President Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on Mexico until the flow of immigrants to the southern U.S. border is cut off. The index saw losses of almost 200 points by 8:15 p.m., less than an hour after Trump tweeted to announce a 5 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico that would "gradually increase" until the flow of migrants stopped." According to Niv Elis' report linked below, "Dow futures plummeted more than 200 points on Thursday evening after the president announced the new tariffs."...
... Niv Elis of the Hill: "Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) condemned President Trump's new tariffs on Mexico late Thursday, calling the move a 'misuse' of presidential tariff authority and cautioning the levies could derail passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.... 'I support nearly every one of President Trump's immigration policies, but this is not one of them,' he added." ...
... Rafael Bernal of the Hill: "Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blasted President Trump's decision to impose tariffs on exports from his country in response to an immigration crisis on the border, writing in a letter that Trump's 'America First' policy was a 'fallacy.' 'With all due respect, although you have the right to express it, 'America First' is a fallacy because until the end of times, even beyond nationa borders, justice and universal fraternity will prevail,' López Obrador wrote in the two-page letter to Trump. The Mexican president said his country was doing 'as much as possible' to stem the flow of Central American migrants through his country to the United States, and 'without violating human rights.' He also wrote that Mexico wanted to avoid a confrontation with the United States on the issue." ...
... Matthew Yglesias of Vox looks at some of the ramifications of the plan, including the possibility that it's a fake threat: "One complicating factor here is that migration flows are at least in part a function of seasonality, with spring normally being the high point for border-crossings and summer a low point. Whether or not Mexico changes anything, in other words, numbers will almost certainly fall in July.... That means six to eight weeks from now, Trump should have a pretty easy off-ramp from this policy and an opportunity to declare victory even if the concessions he manages to wring from Mexico are relatively minor." ...
... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "As Trump announcements go, his planned tariffs on Mexican goods appeared more orchestrated than most with a tweet, a presidential statement from the press office and a background call with reporters. But behind the scenes, it was an administration-wide scramble. As with many presidential 'announcements,' this once sprang from intense frustration and boiled over quickly with staff rushing to react.... While the plan was hurried out the door to appease Trump, he has been privately talking about doing this for a while, per two sources who've discussed it with him."
Ian Kullgren, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump is considering sweeping restrictions on asylum that would effectively block Central American migrants from entering the U.S., according to several administration officials and advocates briefed on the plan. A draft proposal circulating among Trump's Homeland Security advisers would prohibit migrants from seeking asylum if they have resided in a country other than their own before coming to the U.S., according to a Homeland Security Department official and an outside advocate familiar with the plan. If executed, it would deny asylum to thousands of migrants waiting just south of the border, many of whom have trekked a perilous journey through Mexico.... The move could reach beyond Central America, affecting asylum seekers in other parts of the world, according to an activist who has been briefed on the issue." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Obviously, this is a Catch-22 for migrants from Central American countries other than Mexico. To get to the U.S., they have to travel through Mexico (unless they fly over it), but if they travel thru Mexico, they can't get into the U.S. Not only that, as Samantha Grasso's report (linked next) suggests, Trump has set up these migrants. It seems to me this plan would violate U.S. & international asylum laws, but that's what Trump does. ...
... Samantha Grasso of Splinter: “Reports of the proposal come nearly six months after the Trump administration fully enacted its 'remain in Mexico' policy, requiring Central American migrants seeking asylum to return to Mexico and wait 45 days for their court date. The ACLU has legally challenged the policy, though a Ninth Circuit Court has allowed the policy to continue as the government's appeal goes through the courts. Last week, BuzzFeed News reported that some migrants had been told that they'd have to wait more than a year before their court date."
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Charlie Savage & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times explain how impeachment works. Mrs. McC: I hope Trump reads the story (as if he will), because he demonstrated Thursday that he doesn't understand impeachment. In his chopper presser, he claimed that he would have to be guilty of high crimes "AND, not with or for" misdemeanors to be impeached, & he was innocent, he said, on both counts. He said he couldn't "imagine the courts would allow" the House to impeach him. (He also has claimed in the past that he couldn't be impeached because the economy was strong & he's doing a great job.) Since the Congress decides what constitutes impeachable offenses, neither the target of impeachment proceedings nor "the courts" has a say-so The House could decide that dying your hair & face orange constituted high crimes & misdemeanors, & that would be that.
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump tweeted on Thursday that Russia helped 'me to get elected,' and then quickly retracted the idea. 'No, Russia did not help me get elected,' Mr. Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Colorado Springs. 'I got me elected.' He spoke less than an hour after his Twitter post. The original comment, a clause in one of several Twitter posts this morning, is an extraordinary admission from Mr. Trump, who has avoided saying publicly that Russia helped him win the presidency in 2016 through its election interference.... Speaking to reporters outside the White House and in a subsequent Twitter post, Mr. Trump revived personal attacks on Mr. Mueller, asserting that the special counsel should never have been chosen for that position -- he was 'highly conflicted'-- and had failed to get the job he really wanted, F.B.I. director, an allegation addressed and countered in Mr. Mueller's final report. Mr. Mueller, who had previously served in that role in two administrations, did not go to the White House looking for a job, one of president's senior advisers, Stephen K. Bannon, told investigators.... 'I think Mueller is a true never Trumper,' Mr. Trump said on Thursday. 'He is somebody that dislikes Donald Trump, he's somebody that didn't get a job that he requested that he wanted very badly, and then he was appointed.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Mueller, a Republican, has never publicly expressed his political opinions about Trump. Also, he was not interested in returning as FBI director; he met with Trump to give him an idea of the qualities of a good director. ...
... Colby Hall of Mediaite: Trump deleted the "admission" tweet, then reposted it with a change in a word that does not change the "admission." "It's unclear why he did not delete the admission in his reposted tweets, given he just disavowed it in comments to reporters."
Lying Machine Turned up to High. Elizabeth Thomas & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: Trump told reporters as he left for a trip to Colorado, "'He [Robert Mueller] said, essentially: "You're innocent." There was no crime, there was no charge because he had no information.'... 'The whole thing [the Mueller investigation] is a scam. It's a giant presidential harassment,' Trump said. 'Russia did not help me get elected. You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn't help me at all,' Trump said, adding that, if anything, Russia helped 'the other side' get elected. 'I believe Russia would rather have Hillary Clinton as president of the United States than Donald Trump,' the president said. 'The reason is nobody has been tougher on Russia than me.... I think it was the same as the report,' Trump said when asked for his reaction to Mueller's statement. 'There's no obstruction. There's no collusion. There's no nothing. It's nothing but a witch hunt.... There was no high crime and there was no misdemeanor,' Trump said when asked about impeachment. 'I don't see how... I can't imagine the courts allowing it,' Trump said. 'To me, it's a dirty word, the word 'impeach.' It's a dirty, filthy, disgusting word, he said.... The president also said that Mueller was 'totally conflicted' because of a business dispute he claimed he had with Mueller, discussions he had with Mueller about the position of FBI director early in the Trump administration and called him a friend with former FBI director James Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Peter Baker & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out angrily at Robert S. Mueller III on Thursday, accusing him of pursuing a personal vendetta as Mr. Trump sought to counter increasing calls among Democrats for his impeachment.... Mr. Trump's assertions of conflict of interest have been refuted not only by Mr. Mueller but even by some of the president's own former aides. But Mr. Trump appeared determined to undermine the credibility that Mr. Mueller has developed over a long career as a lawyer, prosecutor and the second-longest-serving F.B.I. director in American history who worked under presidents of both parties.... Mr. Mueller ... said he could not clear the president of obstruction of justice and essentially suggested that Congress take up that question. Mr Trump fumed with friends that Mr. Mueller was out to get him. Bill O'Reilly, the former Fox News host, told WABC-AM radio that Mr. Trump called him at 11 that night and complained about Mr. Mueller's supposed conflicts." The report implies that Trump is one crazy, mixed-up dude. ...
... Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "Mercedes Schlapp, White House director of strategic communications, said Thursday that President Donald Trump is 'moving on' after special counsel Robert Mueller closed his investigation, urging the rest of the country to do the same. Minutes earlier, however, Trump's tweets about 'presidential harassment' made it clear he had no intention of focusing on anything else." --s
Barr Plays Dumb. Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News: "Attorney General William Barr said he believes special counsel Robert Mueller could have reached a decision on whether President Trump committed obstruction of justice, regardless of long-standing Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.... 'I personally felt he could've reached a decision,' he told CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford during an exclusive interview in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday. 'The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office, but he could've reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity,' Barr added. 'But he had his reasons for not doing it, which he explained and I am not going to, you know, argue about those reasons.' When he became aware that Mueller would not make a determination in his obstruction of justice probe -- which investigated 11 instances in which Mr. Trump tried to derail the Russia investigation -- Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein 'felt it was necessary' for them to make decision on the issue.... Mueller said the U.S. Constitution 'requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.' Many Democrats said the special counsel's remarks represented a referral of his investigation to Congress, which has the power to impeach and remove a president from office. Barr said Thursday he did not know what Mueller was 'suggesting' in his statement." ...
... Not His Fault. In the same interview, Barr blamed the "hyper-partisan age" for charges that he was protecting and enabling Trump. Mrs. McC: Right.
Video released by Republicans for the Rule of Law:
... Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "Republicans for the Rule of Law announced Thursday it will deliver a copy of the report with highlighted sections to Republicans in Congress.... Along with the letter and highlighted report, Republicans for the Rule of Law released a video [embedded above] with three GOP-appointed federal prosecutors claiming Trump would have been indicted if he were not president. The prosecutors also discuss ways in which the report outlines Trump's alleged obstruction of justice." Mrs. McC: That's a pretty good idea because ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Conservatives ... erupted in outrage [at Robert] Mueller's curt affirmation of his previous conclusions[.]... It seems ... that they believed their own propaganda about what Mueller had (and had not) found. Presented even briefly with reality, their minds have reeled in shock. Mueller produced massive evidence that President Trump committed Nixonian-scale obstruction of justice in office.... Trump, William Barr, and the Republican Party followed a strategy of systematically lying about this." ...
... "Old News." Quinta Jurecic of Lawfare in the Atlantic: "Based only on the reaction to Mueller's appearance, you could be forgiven for assuming that he had dropped a bombshell. The fact that this material is being treated as new when it has been available for weeks is indicative of a vast failure on the part of American institutions, which have not adequately grappled with the information conveyed in the Mueller report or presented it to the public with sufficient clarity.... The difficulty in communicating the substance of the Mueller report began even before the report itself was released. When Barr first released his letter describing Mueller's top-line conclusions weeks before the report itself became public, the press struggled to respond to the spin campaign mounted by the president and his allies..... The New York Times and The Washington Post both said a 'cloud' had been lifted from over the White House.... The status of the report as an impeachment referral should have been obvious [to members of Congress] the moment the document was released." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I do think one of the reasons the vast majority of House Democrats are willing to go along with Nancy Pelosi's "no impeachment now" decision is that they -- and perhaps Pelosi herself -- have not taken the time to read Mueller's report. Mueller should be smart enough to figure this out for himself & quit kvetching about sitting for a public hearing. The fact that he thinks it's more important to appear "above it all" suggests he too longs for an age when the only voters were rich white men who had time to sit around & discuss the issues of the day while wives, servants & slaves took care of the mundane chores of daily life. ...
... Marina Pitofsky of the Hill: "An American University professor who has correctly predicted the last nine presidential elections says President Trump will win the 2020 election unless congressional Democrats, 'grow a spine,' CNN reported [in a tweet]. Allan Lichtman, a political historian, said Democrats only have a shot at the White House if they begin impeachment proceedings against Trump, calling the decision both 'constitutionally' and 'politically' right in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election."
Olivia Messer of the Daily Beast: "President Trump said Thursday that he wasn't aware of a reported White House request to keep the USS John S. McCain 'out of sight' on his trip to Japan this week.... During a gaggle with reporters on the White House lawn, Trump said, 'I wasn't a fan, but I would never do a thing like that. Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn't like him. They were well-meaning, I will say.' Minutes later, Trump picked the topic back up again, noting that whoever made the request 'thought they were doing me a favor because they know I am not a fan of John McCain.' He added, 'John McCain killed health care for the Republican Party, and he killed health care for the nation.... I disagreed with John McCain on the Middle East. He helped George Bush to make a very bad decision of going to the Middle East. So I wasn't a fan of John McCain and I never will be. But certainly I couldn't care less whether there's a boat named after his father.'" Mrs. McC: A boat?? How nice that Trump used the bizarre move to protect his fragile ego, not to chastise his staff, but to attack a deceased Senator again. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Wesley Morgan, et al., of Politico: "Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan's quest for the Pentagon's top job faced a new obstacle Thursday amid outrage over an aborted attempt to hide the name of the destroyer USS John S. McCain during ... Donald Trump's visit to Japan.... Shanahan initially told reporters Thursday that he learned about the effort through media reports and declined to comment further. He later said he would never dishonor the memory of the late Sen. John McCain and promised to get to the bottom of what happened.... [He] said he has tasked his chief of staff with finding out who knew what and when. Yet critics say Shanahan is responsible for the military's actions.... '[Shanahan] ought to take responsibility no matter what, and he ought to demand that whoever in the White House made this request be fired,' former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in an interview. 'Whether he knew about it or not, declining to take responsibility in his initial reaction ought to be looked at carefully' by Congress during Shanahan's upcoming confirmation hearing.... Trump appeared to confirm Thursday that someone in the White House had made the request.... Trump later tweeted that the Navy had 'put out a disclaimer' on the story. 'Looks like the story was an exaggeration, or even Fake News - but why not, everything else is!'" ...
... Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "Sen. Martha McSally said an investigation is warranted to get to the bottom of an order to keep the warship named for the late Sen. John McCain, his father and his grandfather out of ... Donald Trump's view during his trip to Japan earlier this month. McSally, R-Ariz., now holds the seat McCain once held before his death and sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which McCain chaired before his death in August 2018. 'I am appalled to hear of the allegations surrounding the USS John S. McCain,' McSally said in a written statement." ...
... Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic: "Dishonor. Not to to the late senator [John McCain], nor to his father and grandfather of the same name, who rendered the same distinguished service in war and peace. Their deeds and reputations are far beyond such mean contrivances. But dishonor indeed to the civilians and officers who hold the lives of young Americans in their hands and went along with this.... That this could happen to the mightiest armed forces on Earth should worry Americans far more than reports of Chinese hypersonic missiles or ace Russian-military hacking teams. When large elements of the chain of command yield to illegitimate and morally corrupt demands of this kind, there is reason to fear veins of rottenness in the whole structure.... In a just world, [those that acquiesced to the request] would lose their commissions or resign their posts, but they will not. They will burrow more deeply in. They will do so because it is the nature of the moral compromise of someone sworn to a demanding code that weakness begets weakness, yielding begets yielding, and cowardice begets still more cowardice." --s
Andrew Restuccia of Politico ruminates on Trump's weird obsession with IQs. (Also linked yesterday.)
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "The federal government now owns condo 43G in Trump Tower because of the Mueller investigation, a judge certified Thursday. Judge Amy Berman Jackson's order was the final move seizing the apartment from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his wife Kathleen after he admitted to illegal foreign lobbying and money laundering and was convicted by a jury of fraud and other financial crimes during the Mueller probe. Manafort is now serving a prison sentence in western Pennsylvania. Manafort bought the 1,500-square foot, 2-bed, 2.5-bath Fifth Avenue condo more than a decade ago for $3.675 million through a shell company that hid his riches from US authorities.... In 2015, Manafort and his wife mortgaged it for $3 million, when his long-successful Ukrainian lobbying business dried up. He had paid off none of the mortgage, according to court filings."
"Only The 'Best' People," Ctd. Priscilla Alvarez, et al. of CNN: "President Donald Trump appears to have set his sights on a North Dakota construction firm with a checkered legal record to build portions of his signature border wall. The family-owned company, Fisher Sand & Gravel ... has a history of red flags including more than $1 million in fines for environmental and tax violations. A decade ago, a former co-owner of the company pleaded guilty to tax fraud, and was sentenced to prison. The company also admitted to defrauding the federal government by impeding the IRS." --s
Justin Wise of the Hill: "Vice President Pence on Thursday suggested that the Democratic Party supported late-term abortion and 'infanticide' while speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa. Pence said, among other things, that he was bothered by the Democrats 'in our country, and leaders around the country, supporting late-term abortion, even infanticide. But those are debates within the U.S., and I know that Canada will deal with those issues in a manner the people of Canada determine most appropriate,' he continued.... Trudeau, who had vowed to confront Pence over America's 'backsliding' on women's rights, said that he told the U.S. vice president that Canadians have concerns about the 'anti-choice laws' its state lawmakers have passed. 'It was a cordial conversation, but it is one on which we have very different perspectives,' Trudeau said. Trudeau has repeatedly spoken out against restrictive abortion policies."
Jonathan Chait of New York: "The Congressional Research Service ... has a new paper analyzing the effects of the Trump tax cuts. It finds that ... growth has not increased above the pre-tax-cut trend. Neither have wages. After a brief and much smaller than expected bump, repatriated corporate cash from abroad has leveled off.... [K]eep a close eye on the number of Republican officials or conservative policy-makers who revise their position on the Trump tax cuts in light of the data. So far, the number of Republicans reassessing their support for the Trump tax cuts is, give or take, zero. What this suggests is that ... the primary effect -- giving business owners more money &-- was the hidden main goal all along." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Congressional Research Service, as the name suggests, is a non-partisan operation controlled by the Congress for the purpose of analyzing (and predicting) the effects of legislation. It would be nice if members of Congress familiarized themselves with its reports.
The Week: "A seemingly bipartisan disaster aid bill has just stalled out in Congress for the third time. The Senate overwhelmingly passed a $19.1 billion bill last week, even getting support from President Trump. Yet just one voice in the House has caused the bill to crash and burn, given that Congress is still on Memorial Day recess and would need unanimous support to pass the bill before it reconvenes. Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) said he wanted more debate over the bill before approving it, and asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to call the House back early to get it done."
Secrets of the Dead. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "Thomas B. Hofeller achieved near-mythic status in the Republican Party as the Michelangelo of gerrymandering, the architect of partisan political maps that cemented the party's dominance across the country. But after he died last summer, his estranged daughter discovered hard drives in her father's home that revealed something else: Mr. Hofeller had played a crucial role in the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump's transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act -- the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision. Those documents, cited in a federal court filing Thursday by opponents seeking to block the citizenship question, have emerged only weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the citizenship question.... The disclosures represent the most explicit evidence to date that the Trump administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests." Read on. Mrs. McC: The secrets of dead Republicans are not pretty. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... It's a Feature, Not a Bug. Rick Hasen in Slate: "If we had a fair Supreme Court not driven by partisanship in its most political cases, Thursday's blockbuster revelation in the census case would lead the court to unanimously rule in Department of Commerce v. New York to exclude the controversial citizenship question from the decennial survey.... But this revelation ... is ironically more likely to lead the Republican-appointed conservative justices on the Supreme Court to allow the administration to include the question that would help states dilute the power of Hispanic voters.... At the Supreme Court oral argument, as Mark Joseph Stern reported for Slate, the conservative justices on the court offered disingenuous arguments in favor of the government." ...
... Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Coming up with a transparently feeble pretext for justifying what everyone knows to be racial discrimination to make it easier for Republicans to win elections and then lying about your real motives is essentially a summary of the Roberts Court&'s voting rights jurisprudence. The fact that disenfranchising Hispanic voters was the real reason for (illegally) adding the census question probably just makes it more appealing to the Court's neoconfederate majority, and someone having said the quiet part loud is highly unlikely to change that." ...
... Jay Michaelson of the Daily Beast: "This is worse than anyone thought. This is white supremacy.... Coincidentally, two major gerrymandering cases, both descended from Hofeller's REDMAP efforts, are also being considered by the Supreme Court at the moment -- and like the census case, it is likely that the Court's conservative majority will rule for the gerrymanderers.... None of [Hofeller's dirty work] was disclosed by Trump administration officials. On the contrary, they baldly lied about it, denying that Hofeller had anything to do with the citizenship question when in fact he had written the DOJ letter requesting it. Indeed, senior DOJ official John Gore testified under oath that he drafted the letter, which we now know was copied from Hofeller.... The Court can and does consider new evidence when it enables the disposition of a case. And here, the memo, the letter, and the lies all amount to a gigantic violation of the law.... Apart from the legal issues..., today's revelation is a bombshell even by the standards of the Trump administration. It reveals a years-long effort, led by the White House, to rig the electoral system for partisan and racist goals." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: No one should be shocked. The Republican party became the white supremacist party well before Trump was peddling birthism.
MEANWHILE, on White Supremacy Watch. Driving While Hispanic ... Owen Daugherty of the Hill: "A video of a California man berating a teen girl he thought was his Uber driver has gone viral showing the man harassing her for parking in a community lot and questioning her immigration status. The cell phone video from last week depicts a man leaning outside the girl's passenger window in Laguna Community Park and threatening her with the police, saying 'she barely speaks English' and 'you don't belong here,' according to CBS Sacramento. The girl repeatedly tells the man she is a citizen, as the man refuses to step away from her car, saying he's called police and will report her to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The confrontation started when the teenage girl pulled up and the man thought she was his Uber ride, according to the outlet. When the girl told him she was not an Uber driver, the man reportedly became incensed and began questioning her citizenship." Mrs. McC: I've always thought the worst thing about immigrants is that they might take "my" parking spots.
Presidential Elections 2020 & Beyond. Michelle Rindels & Riley Snyder of the Nevada Independent: "Gov. Steve Sisolak [D] has issued his first veto out of the 2019 legislative session, rejecting a proposal that would have pledged Nevada's six electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote for the presidency." ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "... when Sisolak vetoed a bill that would have committed Nevada to the National Popular Vote Compact (NPVC) Wednesday, he did so in the name of a breathtakingly stupid (but high-minded sounding) principle.... 'Once effective, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada's electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose,' Sisolak said in a statement.... The National Popular Vote Compact would not 'diminish the role of smaller states.'... In fact, in the highly plausible event that Texas becomes light blue, the NPVC could actually prevent the large states of Texas, California, and New York from installing a president over the objections of a large majority of 'small state' voters. Meanwhile, under the Electoral College system, voters in America's eight smallest states by population -- Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Montana -- receive approximately zero attention from presidential candidates."
Mike Spies of Trace: "Like all charitable groups, the NRA is required to describe the amount, nature, and recipients of its grants on its annual tax filings. But between 2013 and 2017, the NRA did not disclose payments to at least one charity -- a Christian organization called Youth for Tomorrow.... Founded in 1986 by the former football coach Joe Gibbs, the charity ... is a favorite of conservative elites. It is not an obvious match for the NRA Foundation. But the two groups do have one point of overlap: Wayne LaPierre's wife, Susan LaPierre, is a longtime member of the YFT board and, until very recently, was its president.... During the time of her involvement with the charity, the NRA Foundation has sponsored at least seven of its events, including its annual Heart 2 Heart Gala.... The NRA Foundation, however, faces potential regulatory problems for not disclosing its YFT event sponsorships, according to two nonprofit experts." --s
Annals of Journalism?, Ctd. Joe Pompeo of Vanity Fair: "On Sunday, May 19, New York Times finance editor David Enrich got a request from a producer at MSNBC to appear on Rachel Maddow's show the following night. Enrich had a red-hot front-page story for Monday's paper, about anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank flagging suspicious transactions involving Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, and Maddow wanted to bring him on air to talk about it.... Enrich said yes, but after mentioning the planned appearance to the Times's communications department, he was told he would have to retroactively decline. The reason? The Times was wary of how viewers might perceive a down-the-middle journalist like Enrich talking politics with a mega-ideological host like Maddow.... It's not just Maddow. The Times has come to 'prefer,' as sources put it, that its reporters steer clear of any cable-news shows that the masthead perceives as too partisan, and managers have lately been advising people not to go on what they see as highly opinionated programs. It's not clear how many shows fall under that umbrella in the eyes of Times brass, but two others that definitely do are Lawrence O'Donnell's and Don Lemon's, according to people familiar with management's thinking.... It's not so much a new policy as a reinforcement of an old one."
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: "ederal authorities in Florida have issued an expansive subpoena seeking information related to Andrew Gillum [D] the former Tallahassee mayor, and the campaign for governor he narrowly lost last year, as well as some of his associates. In a statement on Thursday night, Mr. Gillum's lawyer, Barry Richard, acknowledged the subpoena but denied that Mr. Gillum had done anything wrong. 'Somebody is out to damage Mr. Gillum politically and is making allegations to different law enforcement bodies,' he said. The closely watched 2018 campaign ... was shadowed by questions about corruption following a federal investigation into Tallahassee's community redevelopment agency that resulted in three arrests. Mr. Gillum has said that he was never a target of that investigation, in which undercover F.B.I. agents cozied up to a businessman with close ties to Mr. Gillum, eventually meeting the mayor on a New York trip that included a boat tour of New York Harbor. The recent subpoena was unrelated to Mr. Gillum's time as mayor, Mr. Richard said."
New Hampshire. Nathalie Baptiste of Mother Jones: "New Hampshire just became the 21st state to abolish the death penalty. Earlier this month, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a measure to end capital punishment statewide, but on Thursday lawmakers voted to override the veto." --s
Ohio. E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "A Trump campaign official pressured Ohio lawmakers to pass a nuclear and coal plant bailout bill, arguing it would help President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.... The Ohio House passed HB 6 with bipartisan support Wednesday, in a 53 to 43 vote. The bill is an effort to boost struggling nuclear and coal power plants in addition to gutting clean energy requirements currently mandated by the state. The bill must now be approved by the state Senate in order to become law, with the governor already in support." --s
Way Beyond
North Korea. Pompeo & Bolton Beware. Shinhye Kang & Jihye Lee of Bloomberg News: "North Korea executed its former top nuclear envoy to the U.S. and four other foreign ministry officials in March after a failed summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported. Kim Hyok Chol, who led working-level negotiations for the February summit in Hanoi, was executed by firing squad after being charged with espionage after allegedly being co-opted by the U.S., the newspaper said Friday, citing an unidentified source. The move was part of an internal purge Kim undertook after the summit broke down without any deal, it said." Mrs. McC: Way worse than getting fired by a presidential aide while on the toilet, then having the aide tell the press about the unceremonious ouster.
Russia. Amy Knight of The Daily Beast: "The bodies had hardly stopped falling from the sky on July 17, 2014, when the trolls of Russia's Internet Research Agency went into action. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 had just been shot down over eastern Ukraine, and the same IRA operation Vladimir Putin would use to influence the U.S. presidential election two years later went into overdrive, pumping out conspiracy theories to exculpate Moscow's murderous clients.... Exhaustive research by two Dutch journalists, Robert van der Noordaa and Coen van de Ven, published in the Dutch weekly Der Groene Amsterdammer, shows precisely the way the Russian trolls worked to shift blame for the massacre and create a dense fog of conspiracy theories to obscure the facts.... Altogether, 111,486 tweets about MH17 were posted by the IRA in just three days, from July 17 through 19. (By comparison, in the 10-week period leading up to the November 2016 elections, the IRA accounts posted 175,993 tweets.)" --s
News Ledes
CNN: "At least 11 people were killed after a gunman opened fire at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, police chief James Cervera told reporters Friday night.The shooter is dead, Cervera said. It was unclear whether the shooter was among the 11 dead." Mrs. McC: At a news conference Friday night, the chief said a 12th victim died.
Rolling Stone: "Leon Redbone, the singer who built a career out of performing ragtime, vaudeville and American standards with a sly wink and an unmistakable, nasally voice, died Thursday. He was 69."
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Reader Comments (16)
Re Mueller, whose little event was covered quite a lot, and which I have not listened to yet: Somewhere someone mentioned that Americans are so illiterate that they can't read and understand statements with seemingly double negatives. (--important line quoted yesterday--)Hence, even that brief little speech, never mind the 400 pages of high-minded reporting, is too much for Americans who have the attention spans like gerbils. That would include most of MAGAland. I have not read it, and I don't intend to. If security-approved Senate members still don't have an unredacted copy, and most of those Senate jamokes have not read ANY copy, why in the world should I, with no pathway to any sort of action that would change the crap we are all swimming in? However, I have heard ad nauseum parts of it, interpreted by those whose journalism I respect, and I am, at least not like the silly lady at Amash's town hall, being completely taken in by trumpTV. My mouth was hanging loose listening to her. "Why no-- I didn't know there was anything negative about him in that report..." Sheesh. People can't read, and they can't seem to listen to anything except the pablum fed to them 24 hours a day by Faux non-news. And don't tell me I need to empathize with idiots like that woman. No can do.
Like Jeanne, I haven't read the report (yet). It looks like a hard slog. From excerpts and from excerpts reported of Mueller's testimony, it appears he is saying, "We could not prove the president did not commit a crime. On the other hand, we could not prove that he did." In other words, it's like the Scottish legal verdict, which I wish English Common Law had adopted, "Not Proven." Almost all the accusations appear to be tendentious and overblown distortions. My opinion is, of course, entirely irrelevant and pointless.
@Procopius: Mueller & his report do not say, "We could not prove the president did not commit a crime." Rather, they say (obvious paraphrase), "We can't indict a sitting president, so we didn't charge him with crimes; i.e., indict him. But here's all the stuff he did." In the obstruction part of the report, Mueller lays out all of the evidence he gathered of Trump's "obstructive acts," the "nexus to an official proceeding" of each incident, & evidence of Trump's "intent" in each incident. As the report explains, these are the elements of crimes of obstruction; in the report, Mueller also names the statutes they Trump "could have" violated.
That's kind of like my telling a reporter, "I saw Procopius walk into a bank, wave a gun around, threaten the teller & order her to clean out the till & put the cash in his Trader Joe shopping bag, then walk out of the bank with the money. Here are the laws Procopius would have broken when he robbed the bank. I'm not a cop so I can't arrest him. So just sayin'." So, assuming the cops read the paper, you might expect they would pick you up for questioning. Just sayin'.
Definition of hypocrisy: Scott DeJarlais (R-Tn) is on tape advising
his mistress to get an abortion. While chief of stall at a medical
center in Tn. had sex with co-workers and patients. Ran for election,
U.S. House of Rep. and won on the ticket "God has forgiven me."
He voted to ban abortions.
https://en.wickipedia.org/wiki/Scott_DesJarlais
A few musings of the day:
I, like Jurecic in Lawfare (linked above), couldn't understand all the buzz created by Mueller's presser. I've only read the first dozen pages of the Mueller Report (no time), but I've listened to apparently smart people break it down for me and there was literally NOTHING new in his statement, besides insisting on a few aspects a bit more here and there. I came away extremely disappointed frankly.
The obese bloodthirsty despot Kim's execution will get zero reaction from Agent Orange, UNLESS it's some horrible snark about the poor guy "deserving it" or blaming the dead guy (à la McCain) for the failed negotiations.
Bill Barr should be held in contempt of Congress for not providing the full, unredacted Mueller report, AND for lying to Congress. Schiff needs to grow some balls and demand all docs at once or bring down the hammer. Full stop. This slow rolling doc production bullshit is absolutely ridiculous, everyone knows it, but the Dems still stomp their feet in front of cameras. Contempt proceedings show some Democratic backbone, piss Barr off for tarnishing his "reputation" in the record books (fuck him anyway), and it won't cost the Dems a single vote, because voters don't care about Barr and won't even remember the episode next week.
The fact that Lindsey Graham didn't go on camera to denounce the McCain coverup is the final nail in the coffin (already enough nails, I know) of his reputation. No more reporters should even ask questions to him, instead just saying into the mic "Remember your supposed best friend John McCain...", shake your head at him, and walk away as he stammers.
Finally, who wants to bet which sycophant ordered the S.S. John McCain covered up and hidden from the petulant Man Baby? My guess? Investigations will go nowhere, no one sure where the email came from. Why? 'Cause it was either Jared or Ivanka, but they're too precious and have social media reputations to preserve. They'll throw some underling under the bus and pay him $25,000 out of the RNC slush fund to keep quiet and respect his non-binding Non-Disclosure Agreement.
In defense of people who are ignorant of the facts: Besides those that we would consider utter sycophants of the Trump flapdoodle there are others who because of their busy lives are not seeped in politics to the degree that some of us are. If one was to just catch Barr's original assessment of the Mueller report and hear nothing more then...
I have a friend that I sometimes walk with. She is a retired professor of Middle English Studies––she reads, and she watches some news but her ignorance of the political issues astounds me or it used to until I realized she is just not "into" the weeds like I am. Many times we begin our "talks on walks" with "So–-fill me in."
And if people watch Chuck Todd (the video link above takes you to a CNN interview after the initial video) interview Sarah Sanders and except for a few flimsy "buts" he lets her go on with her lies and constant mouth wagging nonsense and then thanks her at the end for it then...
And I'm wondering: If reporters who gather round at these chopper poopers that Trump issues remain silent–-no questions asked which would result in Trump asking why there are no questions and some lone brave reporter telling him because "You lie!" well then...
And what kind of system is it that makes it ok for a president to commit crimes but not citizens of the country. "When the president does it, it is not a crime" said Nixon. I would think––I WOULD THINK–- it would be an even more egregious crime if indeed it was a president.
I'm going for a walk–-alone; only the birds and squirrels will hear my heavy sighs.
The Report. Or should it be THE Report?
And no, I haven't read it either. Hey, I'm still trying to finish the Warren Commission Report, the Church Committee Report, Walsh's Iran/Contra Report, and "Finnegan's Wake" (the last has a chance of making it to the finish line).
But, as a number of you out here (and out there) have pointed out, there are a fair number of more assiduous readers who get paid to pore through these things and deliver an honest assessment (meaning, pay no attention to anyone on Fox who claims to have A) read it, or B) offers their own "honest" assessment. They didn't and it ain't.
One reason I haven't read it (and I've picked it up more than a couple of times at the bookstore for a good thumbing-through) is the large number of redactions. It's like reading one of those early 19th century novels where people are never mentioned by name and referred to only as "Madame B" or "Monsieur M". At least in those books there aren't pages of blacked out text.
I get why some redactions are necessary, but it's a bit off-putting (okay, it's a lame excuse, whadaya want?). Nonetheless, Inquiring Readers (who aren't connected to Fox or the Trump-Right-Wing Propaganda-and-Lie-Machine) have found plenty with which to pin the Traitor-in-Chief to the wall.
But here's the thing.
As the uproar of what is REALLY in the report filtered out across official Washington yesterday, it's clear that only a small percentage of people have read this thing who should have done so.
You can't blame Mueller for that. He came out with as complete (I suppose) a report as he could. You can't dumb this stuff down. You wouldn't criticize Einstein for publishing as complete a treatise on General Relativity as was necessary, despite few people understanding it (never mind reading it--I tried once. Hahahahaha...yeah.). In fact, at a lecture in which he was discussing Einstein's theories, the British astronomer Arthur Eddington was told by an admiring member of the public that it was clear that he was only the second person, after Einstein, who actually read and understood relativity. Eddington asked "Who was the other?"
But although Einstein wasn't obliged to break it all down for the general reading public (he did his best later on), Mueller IS obliged, given the stakes involved, to make sure the American public DOES understand what's in his report, what it says, and what it means. Being all inscrutable and patrician and above it all doesn't help fulfill that duty.
He needed to release some kind of executive summary that boiled down his findings, a bit like he did yesterday. Leaving it all up to each person to figure it out for himself is what left us with a lying attorney general and an even bigger liar in the White House getting in the first licks at "interpretation" of the report.
Were Einstein to try to boil down General Relativity, it might have been something like "Matter, energy, time, gravity, it's all connected, you know? It's a great big megillah"
Mueller's would be even clearer.
"The Russians helped him win. He let them, his people encouraged it, then he tried to kill any and all investigations. He obstructed justice, but Bill Barr says I can't charge him. Over to you, Nancy."
He needs to appear before Congress before this thing gets worse.
And Nancy Pelosi needs to come off whatever medication is stopping her brain from processing criminal activity in the White House.
Jeez.
PD,
A professor of Middle English? Cool. Does she say things like "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" and "Sumer is icumen in" when you go on your walks? Maybe when she asks to be filled in on the politics of the day you can say something like "Well, Edward III is doing pretty well, but that craziness in Scotland! Woof. Balliol and David and that business. Who knows what he'll do about all of that!"
But more to the point, you are one hundred percent correct that there's something off about a system that purports to be based in equality and the rule of law but allows the king, er, I mean the president, to run hog wild over both, to break laws willy-nilly, spit on the Constitution, and completely escape justice and attack any who criticize him, even deciding that some of those he considers enemies deserve death. We kicked George III out because we weren't down with things like lèse-majesté. And here we are almost 250 years later with an asshole who has crowned himself king.
And very much unlike Chaucer's knight, he is no fan of "...chivalrye,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye"
Especially Trouthe, honour, and curteisye.
Ask your friend how to say "rectal cyst" in Middle English.
Well..... I waded through the report. Here's what I took away from it (a bit long-winded, I'm afraid):
Volume One: Although heavily redacted, it detailed a great number - scores - of contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign. Ultimately, Mueller decided he could not charge Trump or the campaign under criminal conspiracy laws because those laws require a demonstration of intent. Essentially, he concluded that Trump and his staff were either too ignorant or too stupid to understand they were acting illegally, so he chose not to bring charges.
Gee, officer, I did not intend to plow my car into that bus stop. I can go, right?
No.
Golly, inspector, I had no idea colluding with a foreign power in our presidential election, and accepting things of value from them, was illegal. I can go, right?"
Yes.
Volume Two: A long list of underlying facts followed by at least nine (by my count) declarations of how Trump acted to obstruct the investigation into the acts outlined in Volume One. Mueller concluded by saying that: 1) Justice Department policy precluded him from indicting a sitting president; and 2) he did not feel it would be proper to state that he would have indicted had this restriction not been in place as it would not afford the accused the opportunity to defend himself formally in court; and 3) had he been able to state that there was no compelling evidence of criminal obstruction of justice, he would have said so.
What Mueller also is saying is that Trump's obstruction, as bad as it is, is going far beyond simply self-protection. It's serving to shield the Russians from investigation and increases, substantially, the likelihood that we will have a repeat of 2016.
Which leads us to conclude one of two things about Trump:
1) Best case, he cares only about protecting himself and cares not at all about the integrity of our elections, or
2) He cares only about himself and also realizes that the only way he can win is to undermine the integrity of our elections (and our institutions) by accepting help from the Russians.
Either interpretation can lead us only to conclude that the man is irredeemably corrupt and should not only not be in the White House, but should be in jail.
@Schlub: Thanks for the excellent distillation of the Mueller report. From what of I've read of it and about it, what you write sounds just right.
Presidental harassment, isn't that what Trump does to us everyday. It would be nice if Donald could stop tormenting us for five minutes. I would tell him to get back to work, but we see with the Mexico tariffs what kind of damage he does when he is doing his "job".
I wonder if I and the rest of the Americans will be getting a bailout once the Mexico tariffs start. That's how it works, right? We start tariffs on some country, we pay the extra prices, but we also get free money from the government to pay the extra costs?
RAS,
If your're in the top tenth of one percent income bracket or a corporation, you already got your free money.
So what's the beef?
Fractals and Futility
Back in the mid 70's the concept of fractals was all the rage. The interest in recursive structures led to a better understanding of complex systems and was instrumental in the development of Chaos Theory. Chaos is certainly a major component of our current situation, but it wasn't unpredictable.
The idea of fractals is based on self-similar systems that repeat mathematical structures. You can see it in trees, clouds, rivers, even puddles. As you zoom in from wide angle views to the smallest imagery, you can see repetition of the major constituent structures. The shape and angle of tree limbs is repeated in the shape and angles (and even number of branching elements) in large branches, then smaller branches, right down to twigs. Why is this something more than just cool?
The fractal concept has become the structural model for the entire domain of Confederate politics. Recursive features are repeated from the macro down to the tiniest political molecular structures.
What features? Corruption, hypocrisy, mendacity, self-serving narratives, rigging of outcomes, propaganda to support the rigging, and fake news to both cover up the lies and attack the enemies. These are constant features of Republican political structures, from Trump all the way down to the dog catcher in your red state neighborhood.
Schemes and manipulative routines have become the norm. The belief that only they can rule, and that they can do whatever is necessary to maintain power because of the false narratives implicitly accepted on face value about the essential unqualified and dangerous nature of any political movement or candidate that is not based in far right-wing ideology.
The fractal nature of right-wing politics means that these beliefs and schemes and election rigging principles are repeated all the way down the line. It's not a coincidence that gerrymandering and election rigging have become essential to all red states. The current vogue for attacking women stems from similarly recursive beliefs.
So what does this mean in the real world?
First (are you listening Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer?) the fractal nature of right-wing politics guarantees a repetition of these structures throughout the entire system, from Mitch McConnell right down to some Fox-weaned zoning board schmoe. There is no change. They won't change, they won't adapt, they have no interest in listening to your arguments about what's good for America, about law or ethics or the Constitution or global warming or facts, figures, or fucking French Fries. As Schlub mentions above about Trump, he is irredeemably corrupt. Corruption is an essential element of all congressional Republicans. It's their nature. They are ALL irredeemably corrupt. You're not going to change them.
So STOP TRYING. You think impeaching Trump will piss off his minions so they won't vote for the Democrat? They're all fractalled up the ying-yang, Nancy. They will NEVER vote Democratic. Never. It's futility itself to think otherwise.
The recursive structures have built-in regeneration guaranteed. They know cheating and stealing and lying and hypocrisy. And winning (or stealing) elections to remain in power. They don't care about your arguments. And if you're thinking of the so-called independents, well, they're not gonna vote for you in 2020 either because you all look like weenie-ass Hamlets who aren't sure whether they should go after the guy who murdered their father and is now banging their mother. Would you vote for someone like that?
In nature, fractal geometry offers a closer look at the beauty of systems and structures all around us, it offers us a better understanding of how those systems are created and function.
In politics, it shows us how the self-replication of hate and lawlessness will eventually bring an end to this country.
All you have to do is open your eyes.
Back in the 70's a mathematician named Benoit Mandelbrot used fractals to bring order to the seeming chaos of natural phenomena. If he was still around, maybe he could offer a solution to the unnatural phenomena of what has become the praxis of right-wing ideology. Until then, the best solution is to fight them tooth and nail and don't worry about trying to reform them or "understand" them.
It's futile. Do what you have to do. They're lost. And their most fervent hope is to drop you off a cliff.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/asia/tiananmen-massacre-china-wu-qian-intl/index.html
Turns out the Tiananmen Square massacre was not "suppression."
Think Sara Sanders is auditioning for a job in China?
We know the Pretender is.
Maybe someone whispered in his ear it's hard to extradite criminals from there.
This one may appear twice (not that's it worth once) since I sent it some time ago. It appeared in my inbox in short order, but I see it did not show up here....
‘Ken Winkes’ added The Commentariat — May 31, 2019:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/asia/tiananmen-massacre-china-wu-qian-intl/index.html
Turns out the Tiananmen Square massacre was not "suppression."
Think Sara Sanders is auditioning for a job in China?
We know the Pretender is.
Maybe someone whispered in his ear it's hard to extradite criminals from there.
Saber-rattling in the Mid-East, the escalating trade war with China, threatened tariffs on Mexico if they don't keep those brown people on their side of the border, and now the take it or leave it "deal of the century for the Palestinians:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mideast-plan-insight/palestinians-say-us-deal-of-the-century-will-finish-off-their-state-
No pulpit for the Pretender.
Just the bully.