The Commentariat -- November 18, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Impeachment investigators are exploring whether President Trump lied in his written answers to Robert S. Mueller III during the Russia investigation, a lawyer for the House told a federal appeals court on Monday, raising the prospect of bringing an additional basis for a Senate trial over whether to remove Mr. Trump.... Mr. Trump wrote that he was 'not aware during the campaign of any communications' between 'any one I understood to be a representative of WikiLeaks' and people associated with his campaign, including his political adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., who was convicted at trial last week for lying to congressional investigators about his efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks and his discussions with the campaign." A CNN report is here.
Jeff Stein & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Two senators are looking into a whistleblower's allegations that at least one political appointee at the Treasury Department may have tried to interfere with an audit of President Trump or Vice President Pence, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, a sign that lawmakers are moving to investigate the complaint lodged by a senior staffer at the Internal Revenue Service. Staff members for Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (Ore.), the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, met with the IRS whistleblower earlier this month, those people said. Follow-up interviews are expected to further explore the whistleblower's allegations.... Trump administration officials have previously played down the complaint's significance and suggested that it is politically motivated.... The IRS whistleblower complaint was first disclosed in an August court filing by Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.... Neal made the disclosure in court filings as part of his battle with the Trump administration over the president's tax returns, which the Treasury Department has refused to furnish. At the time, Neal said the whistleblower complaint raises 'serious and urgent concerns' about the integrity of the IRS audit process." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course it could not be possible that (1) the whistleblower's complaint is accurate and (2) Trump directed a political appointee to mess with his audit. ~~~
~~~ Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday issued a temporary stay of an appeals court ruling that granted House Democrats' access to President Trump's financial records.... The subpoena from the House Oversight Committee will be unenforceable while the Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case. Developing." ~~~
~~~ Update. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling that required President Trump to turn over financial records to a House committee. The brief order gave no reasons and served to maintain the status quo while the justices decided how to proceed. In a letter to the court earlier on Monday, lawyers for the committee said they did not oppose a brief interim stay. In entering one, the chief justice ordered the committee's lawyers to file papers on whether to grant a longer stay by Thursday. If the justices grant a longer stay, they will next consider whether to hear Mr. Trump's appeal. The case, concerning a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, is one of two cases before the Supreme Court in which Mr. Trump is seeking to halt disclosures of his financial records by his accounting firm, Mazars USA. The other case concerns a subpoena from Manhattan prosecutors to the firm seeking eight years of his personal and business tax returns."
Stephanie Nebehay of Reuters: "The United States has the world's highest rate of children in detention, including more than 100,000 in immigration-related custody that violates international law, the author of a United Nations study said on Monday.... Children should only be detained as a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible, according to the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty." ~~~
~~~ Abigail Hauslohner of the Washington Post: "Though President Trump has made cracking down on immigration a centerpiece of his first term, his administration lags far behind President Barack Obama's pace of deportations. Obama -- who immigrant advocates at one point called the 'deporter in chief' -- removed 409,849 people in 2012 alone. Trump, who has vowed to deport 'millions' of immigrants, has yet to surpass 260,000 deportations in a single year. And while Obama deported 1.18 million people during his first three years in office, Trump has deported fewer than 800,000. It is unclear why deportations have been happening relatively slowly." ~~~
~~~ Katie Rogers & Jason LeParle of the New York Times look into Stephen Miller's "intellectual ties to the world of white nationalism.... Katie McHugh -- the former Breitbart editor who leaked the messages, some 900 emails sent from March 2015 to June 2016 -- said in an interview last week that 'it's easy to draw a clear line from the white supremacist websites where he is getting his ideas to current immigration policy.'"
More below the graphic.
If Sondland shows up Wednesday & testifies truthfully, what are the odds that Trump will tweet-fire him mid-hearing?
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday said he will 'strongly consider' giving written or in-person testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, despite his repeated refusal to cooperate with the investigation thus far. Trump responded to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) suggestion on 'Face the Nation' a day earlier in which she said the president could 'come right before the committee and talk... or he could do it in writing.'" Mrs. McC: Yeah, Donnie, just as you repeatedly said you could hardly wait to testify to Bob Mueller. I'm going to spend the day strongly considering swimming from Kennebunkport to Brittany, France.
Sad! Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "The impeachment inquiry has created the first rift between ... Donald Trump and the Cabinet member who has been his closest ally, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to four current and former senior administration officials. Trump has fumed for weeks that Pompeo is responsible for hiring State Department officials whose congressional testimony threatens to bring down his presidency, the officials said. The president confronted Pompeo about the officials -- and what he believed was a lackluster effort by the secretary of state to block their testimony -- during lunch at the White House on Oct. 29, those familiar with the matter said.... Trump particularly blames Pompeo for tapping Ambassador Bill Taylor in June to be the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, the current and former senior administration officials said.... The impeachment inquiry has put Pompeo in what one senior administration official described as an untenable position: trying to manage a bureaucracy of 75,000 people that has soured on his leadership and also please a boss with outsized expectations of loyalty." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See his commentary in today's thread.
Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "Two days after a whistleblower secretly filed a complaint about ... Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine in August, two top congressional staffers arrived in Kyiv on a routine business trip that ended up setting off alarm bells on Capitol Hill. The aides ... had been dispatched to make an on-the-ground assessment of the cash Congress has been pumping into former Soviet states -- including Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine -- to aid their defenses against Russian aggression. But ... the staffers were shocked to learn from U.S. embassy officials that there was no new money coming into Ukraine.... What's more, the two Appropriations staffers, Becky Leggieri and Hayden Milberg, couldn't even get an explanation for the hold-up, because embassy officials didn't know the reason.... That set off a scramble in Washington to find out what happened to the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that had been specifically earmarked by Congress for Ukraine.... The hunt to find out why the money wasn't moving played out on Capitol Hill and across several federal agencies at the same time the whistleblower complaint was quietly winding its way through separate government channels in August and early September, and it illustrates the difficulty anyone connected to the administration would have in hiding a plot to withhold federal funds."
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This Is the Week That Is. Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast: "The upcoming week on Capitol Hill will be defining for the impeachment inquiry. Eight witnesses will testify publicly over three days in what will be the second, and perhaps final, week of public impeachment hearings." Set to testify this week are Gordon Sondland, Alexander Vindman, Kurt Volker, Jennifer Williams, Fiona Hill, Laura Cooper & David Hale. ~~~
~~~ Deirdre Walsh of NPR reports the schedule of witness testimony, which begins Tuesday at 9 am ET with Col. Alexander Vindman & ends Thursday with testimony from Fiona Hill, scheduled to begin at 9 am ET.
Emma Newburger of CNBC: "... Donald Trump on Sunday attacked Jennifer Williams, a special advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, a day after the House Intelligence Committee released testimony in which she called the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky 'unusual and inappropriate.' 'Tell Jennifer Williams, whoever that is, to read BOTH transcripts of the presidential calls, & see the just released statement from Ukraine,' the president wrote on Twitter. 'Then she should meet with the other Never Trumpers, who I don't know & mostly never even heard of, & work out a better presidential attack!' A spokesperson for the vice president's office, responding to a request for comment on Trump's remarks, simply said 'Jennifer is a State Department employee.' While Williams is a State Department employee, she has been detailed to Pence's national security council staff to work on issues related to Europe and Russia." ~~~
~~~ Chandelis Duster, et al., of CNN point out that Jennifer Williams is scheduled to testify in public this week, and they note that "Trump resurfaced an unfounded accusation he has raised against other officials who have testified in the probe, characterizing Williams as a Never Trumper and associating her with other 'Never Trumpers.'" As for veep wimpy, "Pence's office on Sunday declined to defend Williams after Trump's Twitter attack.... Staffers in the vice president's office have made a concerted effort to distance Pence from Williams, even before she sat down to testify. But sources explained to CNN that his office is selective about which career officials get detailed to their staff. His senior staff typically interviews them beforehand. Keith Kellogg, the vice president's national security adviser, was responsible for selecting Williams." Mrs. McC: Taken together, this is attempted witness intimidation.
Mimi Rocah & Jennifer Rodgers in a USA Today op-ed: Former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was testifying before a House panel that "she later learned the reason for her recall was a smear campaign orchestrated by Rudy Giuliani and others because she was standing in the way of their corrupt agenda in Ukraine. As she spoke..., Donald Trump was on Twitter doing exactly the same thing to Yovanovitch that his cohorts had done: attempting to smear and intimidate her.... This was not his first foray into public witness tampering. It is, in fact, one of his go-to moves[.]... The right to express one's opinion does not extend to criminal speech, such as verbal efforts to intimidate or tamper with witnesses. And the language, the pattern, the timing, and the contrast with tweets about other potential witnesses whom Trump considers loyal makes clear what he intends by these smear attacks.... The real issue for these impeachment proceedings is whether Trump appears to be using his platform and the power of the presidency to intimidate and harass witnesses who are providing highly damaging testimony against him. The answer to that is clearly yes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Oh, For Those Quiet Rooms of Yore. Allan Smith of NBC News: "Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., said Sunday that the administration officials who provided the whistleblower with information on ... Donald Trump's conduct toward Ukraine 'exposed things that didn't need to be exposed.... This would have been far better off if we would have just taken care of this behind the scenes,' he said.... 'If the whistleblower's goal is to improve our relationship with Ukraine, he utterly -- or she -- utterly failed,' Johnson said...." Emphasis added. Mrs. McC: So here's a U.S. senator going on national teevee & advocating for cover-ups of presidential crime sprees. In fairness, Johnson is the stupidest senator. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mike Allen of Axios: "House Republicans are asking Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for 'firsthand information' about Ukraine-related meetings, briefings and conversations with President Trump and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland.... A letter from Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who's leading the GOP case, and Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, asked Johnson for his recollections after attending the inauguration of Ukraine's president in May. The senator said yesterday on 'Meet the Press' that he had received the letter, and said he'd be working over the weekend on preparing his 'telling of events.' 'I will lay out what I know,' Johnson said. 'They're not going to call me, because certainly Adam Schiff wouldn't want to be called by the Senate. There's going to be a separation there.'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Johnson has already "laid out what he knows" a few times (here, for instance), and it's been, inadvertently, pretty devastating to Trump. But apparently Jordan & Nunes are themselves dumb enough not to realize that the Supidest Man in the Senate could put his foot in it again.
The "But His Gun Jammed"; Defense. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "House Republicans ... asserted on Sunday that President Trump had done nothing wrong because his plans for Ukraine to investigate his political rivals never came to fruition -- even as the president complicated their efforts by attacking another witness.... -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Mr. Trump to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, while the president's allies shifted their emphasis away from the defense they offered last week, when they stressed that witnesses had only secondhand information against him. That argument may not work much longer, because lawmakers are about to hear from crucial witnesses who had direct contact with the president including Gordon D. Sondland.... 'The Ukrainians did nothing to -- as far as investigations goes -- to get the aid released,' Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Mr. Trump's chief defenders, said on CBS's 'Face the Nation.' 'So there was never this quid pro quo that the Democrats all promise existed.'"
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is equivalent to witnesses testifying that Trump aimed a gun at a person walking down Fifth Avenue, cocked & pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed. There is a sort of "logical" argument here: the penalty for attempted murder usually isn't as great as the penalty for murder. So Trump -- because his plot failed -- should not get the equivalent of the death penalty: removal from office. A serious flaw in that argument: Trump's intended result was to smear Joe Biden. And now nearly every adult in the U.S. knows that Biden's son took a high-paying position at a dodgy Ukrainian gas company just as Joe Biden made certain Ukraine's top prosecutor was fired. So, yeah, Trump shot the guy. On Fifth Avenue. In front of a huge crowd. And he kept on shooting.
Chris Wallace Did Not Drink the Kool-Aid. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly confronted House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) on Sunday over the top Republican's characterization of last week's impeachment testimony, accusing the congressman of 'very badly' misrepresenting the witnesses' positions.... Scalise ... asserted [that] ... senior State Department official George Kent, top Ukraine envoy Bill Taylor, and former U.S. Amb. to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch essentially said Trump did nothing wrong. 'All three of them were asked, did you see any impeachable offenses' he declared. 'Did you see any bribery? Any of that? Not one of those things were mentioned. Not one person said they saw a crime committed.' 'With all due respect -- with all due respect, that very badly mischaracterizes what they said,' Wallace pushed back. '... William Taylor, for instance, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, was asked whether or not these were impeachable offenses. He said I'm there as a fact witness. I'm not there to pass judgment, but he made it clear what he thought about what the president was doing.' Wallace would then go on to play a clip of Taylor's testimony, further noting that Taylor said that withholding aid to Ukraine to help Trump's presidential campaign was 'crazy.' This wasn't the only time that Wallace left Scalise stumbling...." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So apparently a new line of "defense" is that fact witnesses have properly left it to Congress to determine what constitutes impeachable offenses. (Of course, had the witnesses called for Trump's impeachment, Republicans would have screamed about their deep-state, anti-Trump bias.) When your best defense is a word-twisting game, you got nuthin'.
BUT One Republican Was Not Amused. Devan Cole of CNN: Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) "said Sunday [on CNN's 'State of the Nation'] that information provided about Trump during a closed-door deposition of a former National Security Council official [Tim Morrison] 'is alarming' and 'not OK.'" Turner said Trump's tweet dissing Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was not impeachable, but it was "unfortunate." "'I think along with most people, I find the President's tweets, generally, unfortunate,' Turner said."
** Gordon Sondland Is Really Forgetful. Erin Banco & Lachlan Markey of the Daily Beast: Gordon "Sondland has previously tried to claim he didn't know much about a quid pro quo with Ukraine -- until he suddenly told Congress he now recalls the deal. But the details of Sondland's behavior [at a White House meeting with Ukrainian officials on July 10] underscore the intensity in which the EU Ambassador advocated for the investigations into Biden and Burisma." When Sondland stepped into a meeting John Bolton was holding with the Ukraines, "'That's when things really went off the rails,' one person in the room said.... Bolton immediately cut the get-together short.... But Sondland guided the Ukrainians into the White House's Ward Room.... Sondland continued to not just relay, but demanded ferociously, that the Ukrainians open the Biden investigations, saying it was the only chance for Washington and Kyiv to develop any further meaningful relationship, two individuals with knowledge of Sondland's overtures said. Sondland raised his voice several times.... One individual ... [said] ... 'there was lots of yelling.' Another individual called the meeting 'erratic.'..." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Both Fiona Hill & Tim Morrison have testified that Sondland told them he was acting at Trump's direction. And he knocked himself out, during a number of meetings & likely in texts & phone conversations & other meetings not yet revealed, to get the Ukrainians to cooperate with Trump's demand that President Zelensky announce an "investigation" into the Bidens. Yet this all, uh, slipped his mind during his initial deposition. His testimony this Wednesday, unless he just begins & ends it quickly by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, should be very interesting. I'm sure we could all help him write his confession, the one where he breaks down in the witness chair, attests to his own corruption, fingers Trump as a lawless mob boss who should be removed from office forthwith, & throws Rudy & sundry co-conspirators under the bus. When Gym Jordan asks a question aimed at defending Trump, Sondland says, "Mr. Jordan, Trump is as bad as you were when you let that doctor get away with molesting boys you were supposed to protect." Alas, none of that will happen. And now this: ~~~
~~~ Uh-Oh. Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "Gordon Sondland ... briefed senior administration officials on efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of President Trump's July 25 call with the Ukrainian leader, the Wall Street Journal reports.... Emails allegedly sent by Sondland that were obtained by the WSJ indicate that several other officials can confirm what some witnesses have testified to already about a Trump administration request to investigate Burisma, a gas company with ties to Biden's son. Sondland ... previously testified that he told a top Ukraine official that military aid to the country wouldn't be released until officials agreed to investigate Burisma.... Per the WSJ, Sondland kept officials including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Energy Secretary Rick Perry informed via email of developments in the push to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into the Bidens." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, Rick. What about that time way last month when you said, "Not once, as God is my witness, not once was a Biden name -- not the former vice president, not his son -- ever mentioned"? And you said that on the Christian Broadcasting Network, for Pete's sake. Isn't lying under oath, as Gordy did, just like taking the Lord's name in vain on CBN? If God doesn't strike you dead, are you going to whip off your glasses and pretend you were too dumb to realize when you read Gordy's e-mails that B-I-D-E-N spells "Biden"? Or maybe you thought it was Gordy who couldn't spell, and that "Biden" meant "by then."
Kendall Karson of ABC News: "An overwhelming 70% of Americans think ... Donald Trump's request to a foreign leader to investigate his political rival, which sits a the heart of the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry, was wrong, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds. A slim majority of Americans, 51%, believe Trump's actions were both wrong and he should be impeached and removed from office. But only 21% of Americans say they are following the hearings very closely."
Jonathan Chait: "The saga of President Trump's reprisals against Amazon has lurked on th margin of the news, largely overshadowed by the Ukraine scandal. Late Thursday night, Amazon revealed it had filed a protest in federal court of a Pentagon decision to deny it a $10 billion cloud-computing contract.... The story here is almost certainly a massive scandal, probably more significant than the Ukraine scandal that spurred impeachment proceedings. Trump improperly used government policy to punish the owner of an independent newspaper as retribution for critical coverage. It resembles the Ukraine scandal because it is a flagrant abuse of power, and has been hiding in plain sight for months (as the Ukraine scandal did, until a whistle-blower report leaked in September). The scale of the abuse, though, is far more serious, because it is a concrete manifestation of Trump's authoritarian ambitions.... By 2016 Trump had gone from implicitly threatening to harm Amazon's interests to threatening this explicitly.... As president, Trump has continued denouncing the Post and its owner, and publicly floating policies to exact his revenge." The GOP "defense" of Trump in the Ukraine scandal is that he failed to get the result he wanted, but in the Amazon case, "Trump set out to abuse his powers of office to intimidate the media, and succeeded." ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, Alex Pareene, in the New Republic, mourns the "death of the rude press." Mrs. McC: Pareene himself is rude, and has been rude as long as I've been reading his stuff, almost always in a good way.
Max Boot, in the Washington Post: "Enter Attorney General William P. Barr to put a pseudo-intellectual gloss on Trump's authoritarian [view that he has an 'absolute right' to do anything he wants]. In a Friday night speech to the Federalist Society, Barr gave a chilling defense of virtually unlimited executive authority.... To hear Barr tell it, Trump is somehow denied power by the nefarious 'Resistance.' Barr decried Trump critics who do not view 'themselves as the 'loyal opposition,"' but rather 'see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.' Earth to Barr: Trump does not treat his critics as 'the loyal opposition.' He calls them 'human scum,' 'traitors' and 'the enemy of the people,' using the language of dictators. And it is Trump and his toadies -- not his opponents -- who are 'willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage.'... The real threat to 'our Constitutional structure' emanates not from administration critics who struggle to uphold the rule of law but from a lawless president who is aided and abetted in his reckless actions by unscrupulous and unprincipled partisans -- including the attorney general of the United States."
Never Mind. Josh Dawsey & Laura McGinley of the Washington Post: "Everything seemed ready to go: President Trump's ban on most flavored e-cigarettes had been cleared by federal regulators. Officials were poised to announce they would order candy, fruit and mint flavors off the market within 30 days -- a step the president had promised almost two months earlier to quell a youth vaping epidemic that had ensnared 5 million teenagers. One last thing was needed: Trump's sign-off. But on Nov. 4, the night before a planned morning news conference, the president balked. Briefed on a flight to a Lexington, Ky., campaign rally, he refused to sign the one-page 'decision memo,' saying he didn't want to move forward with a ban he had once backed, primarily at his wife's and daughter's urging, because he feared it would lead to job losses, said a Trump adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... As he had done so many times before, Trump reversed course -- this time on a plan to address a major public health problem because of worries that apoplectic vape shop owners and their customers might hurt his reelection prospects, said White House and campaign officials."
Matt Stieb of New York: "On Saturday afternoon, Trump's tendency to downplay his personal health reached the most concerning moment of his presidency, when he went to Walter Reed Military Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, for a surprise medical exam.... According to CNN, hospital staff were not aware that Trump was swinging through: 'Typically, Walter Reed's medical staff would get a general notice about a "VIP" visit to the medical center ahead of a presidential visit, notifying them of certain closures at the facility. That did not happen this time, indicating the visit was a non-routine visit and scheduled last minute.'... Former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow ... [tweeted], 'This does not add up; the White House Medical Unit has very comprehensive facilities at the White House complex that could easily accommodate most of what is needed in an annual physical....'... If the president's Sunday behavior was any indication, all is well: Trump spent the day online, tweeting over 40 times about 'sleepy' and 'very slow' Joe Biden, 'corrupt' Adam Schiff, and the 'nasty & obnoxious Chris Wallace.'" ~~~
~~~ Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post calls for a second opinion: "The only thing of which we can be fairly certain about President Trump's mysterious Saturday-afternoon trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is this: The White House is not telling the truth when it claims the president was there 'to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam.' We know this because -- well, because those people lie about pretty much everything.... Medical privacy is something that should not be granted the most powerful person in the world.... As Trump embarks on his effort to convince us that he deserves another four years in office, Americans should demand something more than what they are getting, starting with a briefing from the physicians who treated him at Walter Reed." ~~~
~~~ Do Not Question Our Lies. Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Press secretary Stephanie Grisham on Saturday argued it was 'dangerous for the country' for anyone to challenge the veracity of her claims. Grisham made her argument after ... Donald Trump went to Walter Reed Hospital for an unannounced doctor's visit, resulting in a great deal of speculation.... 'Further speculation beyond the extensive & honest info I put out is wholly irresponsible & dangerous for the country,' Grisham argued." Brigham reports some of the speculative tweets from a bunch of horrible, suspicious traitors.
Presidential Race
Maybe Bloomberg Really Is Running. Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Ahead of a potential Democratic presidential run, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York reversed his longstanding support of the aggressive 'stop-and-frisk' policing strategy that he pursued for a decade and that led to the disproportionate stopping of black and Latino people across the city. 'I was wrong,' Mr. Bloomberg declared. 'And I am sorry.' The speech was Mr. Bloomberg's first since he re-emerged as a possible presidential candidate. The topic and the location, the Christian Cultural Center, a black megachurch in Brooklyn, was a nod to the fact that African-American voters are a crucial Democratic constituency and that Mr. Bloomberg's policing record is seen as one of his biggest vulnerabilities, should he decide to run. Until Sunday, Mr. Bloomberg had steadfastly ... defended stop-and-frisk, which gave New York police officers sweeping authority to stop and search anyone they suspected of a crime. Mr. Bloomberg stood behind the program even after a federal judge ruled in 2013 that it violated the constitutional rights of minorities and despite the fact that crime continued to drop even after the program was phased out in recent years." Politico has the story here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Charles Blow of the New York Times is underwhelmed: "It feels like the very definition of pandering. It is impossible for me to take seriously Bloomberg's claim that he didn't understand the impact that stop-and-frisk was having on the black and brown communities when he was in office.... Bloomberg's cynicism here is staggering. But, this is something that black voters must contend with: politicians who do harm through policy to black communities, then come forward with admissions and contrition when they need black people's votes.... As he was about to enter the race..., Joe Biden finally offered a full apology for the disastrous 1994 crime bill that wreaked havoc on the black community, after having defended the bill for years." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Politicians like Biden & Bloomberg have histories of promoting or supporting policies that are known to hurt minorities & women, then -- sometimes decades later -- "apologizing," while saying their motives back then were pure. We all make well-intentioned mistakes, so it's reasonable to believe once or twice that politicians with long records didn't understand the consequences of their actions in real time, but it gets as old as they are when the excuses keep coming and the effects of their mistakes have been in evidence for a long time.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Hong Kong. Lily Kuo of the Guardian: "Hong Kong police have fought running battles with protesters trying to break through a security cordon around a university in the city, firing teargas at anyone trying to leave. Polytechnic University, a sprawling campus that has been occupied by demonstrators since last week, has become the scene of the most prolonged and tense confrontation between police and protesters in more than five months of political unrest. Hundreds were still trapped inside on Monday, after overnight clashes during which protesters launched petrol bombs and shot arrows at police, who threatened to use live rounds."
U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "... when Prince Andrew set out to explain his friendship with the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a BBC interview broadcast Saturday night, it backfired predictably. Viewers were left shaking their heads at the wisdom of consenting to a polite-but-relentless grilling by the journalist Emily Maitlis in the first place. Many said they found his statements alternately defensive, unpersuasive or just plain strange. Prince Andrew, also known as the Duke of York, repeatedly denied accusations by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that he had sex with her when she was 17 years old and had been offered to him by Mr. Epstein. Under insistent questioning by Ms. Maitlis, the duke insisted he had 'no recollection' of meeting Ms. Giuffre." He called Epstein's pedophelia "unbecoming." "The reaction in the British media and on social media was uniformly withering."
News Ledes
CNN: "A group of family and friends were gathered in a backyard Sunday to watch a football game when a gunman walked up and began shooting, killing four young men and wounding six others, police in Fresno, California, said. About 35 to 40 people were at the house, including several children, when the suspect -- who remains on the loose -- began shooting into the crowd, according to police."
Breaking Bad. Guardian: "Two chemistry professors in Arkansas are accused of making methamphetamine in a lab at their school. According to a statement from Clark County sheriff Jason Watson, Terry David Bateman and Bradley Allen Rowland, of Henderson State University, were arrested and charged with manufacturing meth and use of drug paraphernalia."
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Reader Comments (21)
The "Never Trumper" label has been a very good smoke screen of late. It puts the source of the desire for testimony on the person and not on the action. I strongly suspect any of the witnesses so far would call "foul" on any person involved in the actions described, not just the monumentally awful trump. This has been hinted at in the questioning, "Have you ever seen anything like this before?" and even "Are you a Never Trumper?" but I think this point needs to be driven home with a 10-pound sledgehammer. The civil service will put up with an asshole, as long as he/she follows the law.
SERVING AT THE PLEASURE OF THE PRESIDENT:
"The phrase is as old as the republic itself. But when Trump’s defenders invoke it these days, they aren’t using it to defend the president against allegations that he couldn’t use his powers. They instead cite the ability to do something to dismiss concerns that the president shouldn’t do something. In effect, Republicans are arguing not that Trump didn’t abuse his power in the Ukraine scandal, but that he can’t abuse his powers no matter how he exercises them. Combined with other conservative arguments about the executive branch, Trump and his supporters are effectively arguing for an elective monarchy." Matt Ford
I have been thinking along these lines for sometime now. When Nixon told Frost " when the President does it [criminal behavior] it is not a crime." We laughed at that response–-poor Tricky Dick–-too much of the bubbly on those cold nights talking to past president's paintings on the wall. But, by George, here we go full throttle and this guy has backup. Listening to Republican excuses for Fatty's impeachable behavior is not only laughable, but pathetic.
So–-perhaps it's time to take some of those pleasures away. Have we given presidents too much power? We all expect a president to use that power carefully, honestly and be above board. We now know what happens when that doesn't happen. Reading today about Trump changing his mind about banning flavored E-cigarettes is another example of using this office as his own private kingdom––-always executing what will benefit him in the long run.
So I ask: Isn't it time to remove some of those pleasures? Time to change some of those powers? The old "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely" was originally directed at the Catholic Church but it addresses the power angle within all fields whether those that run our government or the guy that runs the kitchen in the diner down the street and thinks he has the right to do what he wishes with the waitresses.
Mike Pompeo is learning something he probably already knew: DiJiT will screw you over even while your lips are pressed to his butt.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/trump-s-impeachment-ire-turns-pompeo-amid-diplomats-starring-roles-n1082716
Pompeo's progress is a classic example of how you lose everything because you try to protect your own interest at the expense of those whose welfare is in your charge.
It remains to be seen whether Kansas voters will care. They seem to have a high tolerance for pain.
Honest as the day is long. Oh, wait. Days are getting shorter...
That strange lady no one ever sees who calls herself the Orange Menace's press secretary, Stephanie Whatshername, is outraged. People don't believe her when she claims that a rushed, unscheduled visit by Fatty to Walter Reed Hospital was anything other than a regular old physical. (Because racing unannounced to the hospital is just the thing the healthiest people always do.)
Oh, wait. Sorry. "Part" of a physical. I dunno 'bout youse guys, but I've never in my life had a multi-part physical unless there was a warning sign that required additional testing and a follow up. And usually the way that works is you get your basic labs done, come back in a couple of days, they take your vitals, ask some questions, you see the doctor, and at some point, she says "You know, I think we might want to dig a little deeper here. I'm gonna have you take a few tests and we'll see what comes back." The Trumpy way is exactly the opposite. He runs to the hospital because, clearly, something's going on, but he'll do the reg'lar stuff later. Typical? Hardly.
But here's the kicker. After the scoffing, Stephanie Whiner comes out and sez this:
'Further speculation beyond the extensive & honest info I put out..."
Umm...what? "Extensive and honest"? First, what's extensive about "You all just shut up! It's routine. And that's all you're getting"? And who has to make a point of claiming that what they've been saying is "honest"?
Usually it's someone who isn't being honest at all. I'd love to get these people in a poker game. They have tells you can see if you were half asleep, looking at the table with one eye and watching TV with the other.
"I put out honest info! Honest!"
Yeah. sure. Whatever you say, Stephanie. Oh, and by the way, any actual press conferences scheduled for the next year or so? Let us know when you actually start doing your job.
@Procopius: The percentage of American voters who could identify "Burisma" before the whistleblower came forward had to be somewhere below 2 percent. Yes, I know there were a few articles (like those by Ken Vogel, which came up in yesterday's Commentariat) about Joe & Hunter Biden's divergent Ukraine projects, but anybody aware of Hunter's avaricious capitalizing on his last name probably equated him with Billy Carter's beer-brewing enterprise or more recent nepotistic endeavors. In other words, same ole, same ole, and we're not our relatives' keepers. (And of course it's hilarious that the father of Ivanka, Darryl & Darryl would kvetch about opportunistic offspring.)
In addition, it's true that we'll never hear the end of "Crooked Joe" if Biden wins the nomination.
As well as I am aware that you enjoy disagreeing with me for the sake of disagreeing with me, I can't quite figure out what your disagreement is here. What I wrote was true: the Ukraine scandal has raised the profile of the Bidens in Ukraine from the ramblings of weird right-wing conspiracy theorists to above-the-fold front pages of every major U.S. publication. (BTW, calling "blackmail" on Biden's successful effort to force the firing of a corrupt prosecutor kinda tipped your hand.) So more like trolling, I guess.
@Procopius
I'm confused. (Nothing new here.)
Do you have solid information about Biden's Ukraine dealings that contradicts or undercuts that contained in this account?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/03/what-really-happened-when-biden-forced-out-ukraines-top-prosecutor/3785620002/
The NYTimes today is running a story about why so many have tuned out the news. The rumors spread about Biden (I'm no Biden enthusiast, BTW), and the constant back and forth of the corrections and re-corrections required by this stream of apparent falsities is only one instance of the right wing playbook at work.
When facts are debased enough, they don't matter. And if there's one thing the right can't stand, it's pesky facts.
One would think that a "stable genius" would eventually figure out
that it isn't the never trumpers who are landing in the clinker.
Guess he puts two and two together and comes up with six more lies.
@Forrest Morris: Sorry, Trump is never going to figure it out. Trump's friends are populating our prisons because of the deep-state hoax run by Bob Mueller & his all-Democrat team of evil prosecutors, aided and abetted by anti-Trump FBI officials, whom Bill Barr & his allies are about to out, even before Rudy finds the server in Ukraine that proves Hillary personally hacked the DNC.
Pompous-eo (and his fat godfather) is learning that a criminal enterprise can not afford to have responsible, experienced professionals who believe in the rule of law posted in positions that require personal loyalty to the big cheese and a solid background in underworld tactics, bribery, ratfucking, lying, and underhanded schemes.
He should have been going to the Vinnie Boom Bah Mobster Employment Agency. Won’t find no Taylors or Yovanovitches or any other smart, decent person who believes ethics and laws are not things to get over and around and under.
Ken: agree wholeheartedly. Anyone listening to the diplomats can weed out who are the "bad guys" with regard to corruption IN Ukraine and corruption as run by the presidunce/mob boss. It almost seems (duh) that they are fouling the airwaves just to confuse the easily-confused. I don't want Joe either, but he has not been the corrupting body. And yeah, the offspring of monsters are monsters themselves-- we aren't fooled as they point fingers.
Read earlier that Monsters Inc. is blaming the press and public for making him do and say stuff that is blindingly stupid and loud. Seems to me that abusive spouses do that too..."You made me hit you cuz of what you did..."
Dysfunctional doesn't describe our political landscape. Someone used a good term to describe any r these days: Cult45. I believe it.
(And I won't cry when/if Pompous gets thrown under some bus. He is as insufferable as the rest--) And 'Shifty' Schiff smiles like Mueller and goes right on... (Love him...)
@Akhilleus: You're right. Pompeo's big mistake was not hiring Lev as special envoy to Ukraine & Igor as the ambassador. Mike is a quick study: I'll bet he's learned his lesson.
Bea,
You know far better than I:
Does the New York Times employ a fact checker for its op-ed columns? Does it feel any responsibility (should newspapers of record more generally?) for the "facts" its opinion writers build their cases upon?
In an (apparently very) idle moment skimmed Douthat this weekend and came across this canard.
Obama "fought the war (with his State Department) with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses" (than the Pretender is fighting his on Russia's behalf--a reasonable supposition unmentioned by Douthat).
I wrote, roughly, "Come'n Ross. Give us a break. Or at least have the grace and honesty to back up your cowardly canard."
What's with this "fewer" things? No tweets that I knew of and certainly no impeachabe offenses...
The Times held my comment for almost 24 hrs before posting it. but I saw a similar remark was a Times Pick, as it should have been, which made me wonder why the Times allowed such nonsense to sully the paper in the first place.
So I see that Fatty has deported far fewer immigrants than Obama at the same point in their administrations. Well, administration for Obama, steaming shithole for Trump. And that right there accounts for the major difference.
One can take issue with Obama’s decision to aggressively deport so many people (more about this in a bit), but the fact is that he was not a corrupt, incompetent agent of ignorance and chaos who surrounded himself with jackoffs and inept howler monkeys. Trump is, and does. The Orange Menace hovers over a vast wasteland of corrupt, scarily unqualified, maladroit bumblers for whom a description of “bush league” would be an undeserved compliment.
Obama, on the other hand, running an administration almost entirely bereft of corruption, indictments, and serious investigations into wrongdoing, was able to push through an amazing number of major accomplishments despite having the Congress actively working against him. Trump, with congress in his pocket, got himself a tax cut, but that’s about it for notable achievements.
And Obama’s constant attempts to reach out to confederates (as I believe those deportations were meant serve) should stand as an object lesson to Democrats. They will hate you no matter what you do, so do what you think is right, not what you think they might like to see.
Bea: Mike may have learned his lesson, but it makes no difference. Once DiJiT thinks you have failed him, it's just a matter of time until you're slightly vulnerable and he can shiv you. No backsies.
People like Taylor and Yovanovitch know the combat infantry man's secret: nobody gets out in one piece so don't worry and do your job.
@Ken Winkes: Actually, on this one narrow topic I may know better than you, from personal experience.
Years ago, I wrote a letter to the Times editor. It was two or three sentences. They fact-checked me, fact-checked me & fact-checked me again. I had about 5 phone calls from a Times fact-checker. I was impressed. Wow! A teeny opinion piece from a citizen (so no skin off their noses if I had made mistakes) & they want to make sure every word is right and I'm really who I say I am. Very impressive.
However. They do not do the same with their columnists. I recall Brooks some years back -- I think it was Brooks -- saying that the editors had never questioned his work once. The regular columnists do get the benefit of copy editors, but apparently their opinions and "facts" go unchecked.
I recall quite a few years back when Maureen Dowd plagiarized a piece by Josh Marshall of TPM. Marshall was magnanimous about it, but Dowd claimed "I was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing, who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent — and I assumed spontaneous — way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column." Right. As if you could remember word-for-word a 43-word remark your friend said/read. In fact, if a friend of mine gave me an idea, "expressed in a cogent way," I'd credit her. I wouldn't present it as my original idea. If my friend didn't want her name attached to the idea, I'd describe her anonymously, as a friend or something. My guess at the time was that the "friend" was Ashley Parker, who was MoDo's assistant at the time. Here's a Time mag story about the incident. So the editorial staff also doesn't check for plagiarism, which -- in this case -- would have been an easy Google search.
It's a matter of opinion if Obama has written any ludicrous tweets, but I'd bet he never wrote a one dissing the State Department, ludicrous or otherwise. So fewer than Trump? Well, yes insofar as zero can be described as "fewer." As for impeachable offenses, that too is in the eye of the beholder. Rep. Peter King -- who is in the business of impeaching presidents -- seemed ready to impeach Obama over the tan suit affair. So, if you agree with that, then Obama did indeed commit an impeachable offense. Douthat is right!
According to the WaPo article linked above, "...It is unclear why deportations have been happening relatively slowly.”
Well, ca-ching! Could it be because the longer deportees are kept in custody the more for-profit detention centers, provision providers, and other contract services get to cash in? Nah, not a chance.
unwashed,
You have a devious mind, well-suited, I'd say, to interpreting and explaining the behavior of deviants.
Bea,
As I feared/thought.
As you know, I regularly write letters to our local paper. Most pass unremarked by the editor, but there are exceptions.
A few years back I stated the obvious fact that D senators represented far more citizens than R senators. I got a phone call asking that I cite my source. I told the editor why I was correct, that senators from populous states, representing as they do large urban areas, tend to be Democrats, apparently something she had not thought of before. Made me wonder if she called the climate change deniers too about their claims, but I didn't ask.
Soon after, related perhaps to the phone call, the paper announced a new policy, requiring citations for asserted facts. Since then I have done so, but remain a rarity in this regard. I don't mind, in fact kind of enjoy the exercise and have even thought that the contrast between my letters and the loonies' might present a lesson in itself.
Thanks for the insight.
Guess I was hoping, but judging from some of the things I've noticed, not expecting that the NYTimes and Faux News imposed wildly different editorial standards on the opinion pieces they run.
Ken,
I’m guessing that editors or various media gatekeepers never ask confederates for citations because they know that demands for accuracy and truth from the right will be met with outraged assaults and threats including denial of service attacks from racist winger trolls.
This has been the goal on the right since Newt Gingrich began teaching right wingers how to lie and attack any who dare to question their lies. This has been Fatty’s modus operandi since he and DaddyTrump were denying black tenants their civil rights. Liberals, or any who seem to espouse a point of view based in fairness and decency, will always be subject to demands to prove their honesty. Confederates, on the other hand, can spew the most noxious and easily disproved lies and they’ll be thanked for their “fair and balanced” input.
Richard Engel's "On Assignment: American Betrayal" MSNBC special Sunday night was one of the finest piece of journalism I have seen in a long while. It was cut and edited with a masterful hand. The piece gave no quarter to Trump's betrayal and used his own words juxtaposed with real conditions on the ground. The interviews with Kurds, including General Mazloum Abdi, were tight and on point, no fat. I highly recommend, if you have On Demand, watch this 1 hour special.