Friday
Nov222019
The Commentariat -- November 23, 2019
** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: "The high crime that the president has committed is not against Ukraine, but against America.... Trump's defenders, having previously insisted that there was no 'quid pro quo' involved in the president's effort to extort Ukraine using taxpayer dollars, are slowly shifting to insisting, as much of the president's base already believed, that Trump did nothing wrong. This is of a piece with the general anti-democracy trend in the Republican Party, which justly fears that the majority of the country no longer supports its agenda, and that extreme measures must be taken to shield its grip on power from democratic accountability.... [Republicans believe] the party's political opponents are ... fundamentally illegitimate, faithless usurpers.... This has manifested in the quasi-religious dogma that Trump represents the will of Real America, and therefore defiance of his will is itself a form of treason.... Trump is the nation, and the nation cannot commit treason against itself. On the contrary, it is Joe Biden who is guilty of betrayal, defying the tribune of the people by seeking to run against him.... The more evidence of Trump's misdeeds the Democrats uncover, the more they reveal themselves as traitors."
Today's Red Scare, Ctd. Rachel Maddow did a pretty good job of demonstrating how Trump & his Republican backers are acting as Russia's American propaganda team. Links to stories supporting Maddow's segment follow:
** Trump, Republicans Are Russian Trolls. Julian Barnes & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The Republican defense of Mr. Trump became central to the impeachment proceedings when Fiona Hill, a respected Russia scholar and former senior White House official, added a harsh critique during testimony on Thursday. She told some of Mr. Trump's fiercest defenders in Congress that they were repeating 'a fictional narrative.' She said that it likely came from a disinformation campaign by Russian security services, which also propagated it. In a briefing that closely aligned with Dr. Hill's testimony, American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow's own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three American officials. The briefing came as Republicans stepped up their defenses of Mr. Trump in the Ukraine affair. The revelations demonstrate Russia's persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries -- and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points. American intelligence agencies believe Moscow is likely to redouble its efforts as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies. The classified briefing for senators also focused on Russia's evolving influence tactics, including its growing ability to better disguise operations.... Mr. Trump ... has also spoken with Mr. Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference." Emphasis added. The Week has a summary of the NYT report. ~~~
~~~ Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump unleashed a series of falsehoods on Friday in an effort to invalidate the impeachment inquiry and counter sworn testimony from officials in his own administration, after a week of damaging public hearings. In a 53-minute phone interview with 'Fox & Friends,' Mr. Trump accused David Holmes, a political counselor to the American ambassador in Ukraine, of fabricating a phone call between Mr. Trump and the American ambassador to the European Union. Mr. Holmes told impeachment investigators that he had overheard the president ask the ambassador, Gordon D. Sondland, about Ukrainian investigations into his political rivals, a consequential detail in the Democrats' impeachment inquiry. 'I guarantee you that never took place,' Mr. Trump said. He added that he barely knew Mr. Sondland.... In his own testimony, Mr. Sondland corroborated Mr. Holmes's account.... Mr. Trump also said he knows the identity of the anonymous whistle-blower whose complaint prompted the impeachment inquiry -- and asserted that the details in the complaint were 'fake.'... He also said Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election with the goal of helping Hillary Clinton, an unsubstantiated theory." Trump also seemed to say that he had no idea how Sondland got involved in the Ukraine scandal. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Quint Forgey of Politico: "One day after the wrap of the first phase of public impeachment hearings..., Donald Trump unloaded to Fox News, declaring he wants a Senate trial, pushing a debunked theory that Ukraine has a DNC server, and deeming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 'crazy as a bedbug.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ ** Daniel Dale & Tara Subramaniam of CNN: " Fox & Friends tried harder than usual -- not especially hard, but harder than usual -- to challenge ... Donald Trump. It did not work very well. Trump ranted dishonestly for much of his 53-minute Friday interview with his favorite morning show, repeatedly refusing to let the show's co-hosts get in a word in edgewise. When they did manage to make a semi-critical point, Trump brushed them off. When co-host Steve Doocy asked Trump if he was sure about his claim that the Democratic National Committee had given an important computer server that was hacked in 2016 to Ukraine (they had not), Trump said, providing no evidence and citing no sources, 'That's what the word is.' When co-host Brian Kilmeade corrected Trump's claim that European countries haven't provided aid to Ukraine, Trump didn't respond. (Kilmeade had quickly moved on to the next question.) When Kilmeade corrected Trump's claim that he has 'pulled out' of Syria, noting that Trump is keeping hundreds of soldiers in the country, Trump again said nothing. (Kilmeade quickly moved on again.) Trump made at least 18 false claims in the interview -- and that's our initial count. We're still looking into some other claims." The reporters list the lies & provide the facts. It's a pretty good read. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie Translation: "That's what the word is." = "Putin told me so." ~~~
~~~ Abbey Marshall & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump unleashed fresh attacks on Marie Yovanovitch Friday, the former U.S. ambassador he ousted in May..., accusing her of refusing to hang a photo of himself in the Ukrainian Embassy and saying she 'was not an angel.' 'This ambassador that, you know, everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy,' Trump said in a phone interview on 'Fox & Friends,' without offering any evidence of his claim.... The claim ... echoes similar complaints from earlier in his tenure when Trump's official portrait was reportedly missing from thousands of government offices -- until the White House released portraits of the president nine months after he was sworn in.... 'She said bad things about me,' he continued.... 'She wouldn't defend me. I have the right to change an ambassador.'... Trump ... decr[ied] Yovanovitch as an 'Obama person,' and saying his staff instructed him to 'be nice' because she's a woman. 'This was not an angel, this woman, OK?' he said. 'There are a lot of things that she did that I didn't like and we will talk about that at some time, but I just want to let you know, this was not a baby that we're dealing with.'... [He went on.] Yovanovitch responded in real time to the president's broadside, saying, 'It's very intimidating.' House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff quickly scolded Trump, telling Yovanovitch that lawmakers take 'witness intimidation' very seriously." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Of Course It Was a Lie. Geoff Bennett of NBC News [@11:50 am ET Friday]: "Lawyers for former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch say ... Donald Trump's claim that she refused to hang his picture in the U.S. embassy in Ukraine is false. 'The Embassy in Kyiv hung the official photographs of the president, vice president, and secretary of state as soon as they arrived from Washington, D.C.,' a person connected to her legal team said[.]" Mrs. McC: Okay, this is a he-said/she-said situation. Whom do you believe?
~~~ Jonathan Chait: "Yesterday, Fiona Hill testified that President Trump and his allies have circulated 'a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,' absolving Vladimir Putin of interference in the election by claiming Ukrainians, not Russian hackers, actually stole Democratic emails in 2016. Republicans indignantly denied the charge.... This morning, Trump gave an interview to Fox & Friends repeating the very theory Republicans so angrily denied he has ever promoted. As the friendly hosts looked on apprehensively, Trump began unspooling a wild theory he has mentioned before, and invoked on his phone call to Ukrainian president Zelensky. The theory posits that Ukrainians hacked Democratic emails, framed Russia, and kept the server they hacked to hide their crime." Chait points out a couple of other glaring inconsistencies in Trump's morning rant. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Johnson, Grassley Troll for Russia. Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Republican chairmen of two Senate committees are urging the FBI and Justice Department to provide more information about Alexandra Chalupa, a former consultant for the Democratic National Committee who has come under GOP scrutiny amid the impeachment inquiry. In a letter sent Friday to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa cited a 2017 Politico report that Chalupa met with Ukrainian officials to discuss ties between Russia and ... Donald Trump and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.... Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Grassley, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, also sent a letter Thursday to the National Archives and Records Administration asking for records of any White House meetings in 2016 between Obama administration officials, representatives for the Ukrainian government and DNC officials." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Johnson was almost certainly among the senators whom U.S. intelligence officials informed that Russia has been trying to frame Ukraine for 2016 election hacking. Grassley, as a prominent Senate chairman, probably was informed, too. So these two jamokes are asking for these documents, knowing full well that they're acting on a conspiracy theory that they know is a Russian disinformation campaign.
Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Former vice president Joe Biden lashed out Friday at Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, a longtime friend and once-close Republican ally, as Graham stepped up efforts with other GOP senators to make Biden's son Hunter a focus of the impeachment proceedings.... Graham (R-S.C.) requested new documents Thursday from the State Department, attempting to uncover additional information related to Hunter Biden's activities when he was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. 'Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he's going to regret his whole life,' Joe Biden said on CNN. Asked by host Don Lemon what he would say to his longtime Senate colleague, Biden responded, 'I say: "Lindsey, I just -- I'm just embarrassed by what you're doing, for you. I mean, my Lord."'... The increasingly personal and angry nature of the impeachment proceedings threatens to undercut a key message of Joe Biden's campaign -- that comity and civility can return to Washington after President Trump's departure and that he's the man to make that happen. At the Democratic debate Wednesday night, Biden largely refrained from criticizing Republicans, even when moderators asked why he thought he could work with them given that several longtime GOP friends are calling for investigations of his family." ~~~
~~~ Marc Caputo of Politico: "Joe Biden's presidential campaign accused Sen. Lindsey Graham of having 'forfeited his conscience' for requesting State Department records concerning the former vice president's efforts to oust a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor in 2016. The broadside against Graham signaled a new phase of the Biden campaign's counterattack against ... Donald Trump -- whose attempts to have Biden and his son investigated in Ukraine have led to his looming impeachment -- by pointing out that congressional Republicans saw no scandal regarding the Bidens until it became a political issue for Trump." ~~~
~~~ This is how Lindsey used to feel about his friend Joe circa 2016. Maybe he still feels that way. But a Trumpletoady's gotta do what a Trumpletoady's gotta do:
Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: Mick "Mulvaney and top White House officials have hosted weekend getaways for Republicans at [Camp David], seeking to butter up Republicans before the big impeachment vote. The casual itinerary includes making s'mores over the campfire, going hiking, shooting clay pigeons and schmoozing with Trump officials, some of whom stay overnight with lawmakers. During dinners, Trump has called in to compliment members personally. [Trump doesn't like the rustic retreat, which is short on gold & marble fixtures.]... The Camp David excursions are one prong of a broad White House charm offensive, meant to hold House and Senate Republicans in line through a House impeachment vote and a trial in the Senate that appears all but inevitable.... In all, Trump has met with or reached out personally to 100 GOP members of the House since the impeachment inquiry was launched, and 50 of the 53 Senate Republicans have attended a White House lunch -- where chicken is often served -- with the president." The Hill has a summary of the WashPo report here.
Gabby Orr of Politico: "As White House aides and senior administration officials scramble to keep his administration afloat, Trump has become monomaniacally focused on impeachment.... 'His top priority right now is making sure voters know this is the single greatest scam in the history of politics,' said a Republican close to the White House.... Even when Trump has been at work in the West Wing, aides say his preoccupation with impeachment creeps into every discussion.... On the policy front, Trump has delegated issues that are critical to his reelection to high-ranking officials, acting agency heads and members of his family -- freeing up his schedule to allow for more campaign events and less time dealing with the technicalities and complications of the policy-making process.... '... He cares about his grievances and his reelection, and that's it,' said Chris Whipple, an expert on presidential schedules...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
This is what's going out to local newspapers across the U.S.: ~~~
~~~ Julie Pace of the AP: "After two weeks of riveting public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump, there is a mountain of evidence that is now beyond dispute. Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington's help to fend off Russian aggression. The Republican president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both American and Ukrainian officials feared that Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kyiv announced it was launching those probes. Those facts were confirmed by a dozen witnesses, mostly staid career government officials who served both Democratic and Republican administrations. They relied on emails, text messages and contemporaneous notes to back up their recollections from the past year. Stitched together, their hours of televised testimony paint a portrait of an American president willing to leverage his powerful office to push a foreign government for personal political help." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Josh Marshall received an e-mail from a former DOJ attorney explaining why s/he (the e-mail writer) thinks Pelosi & team are not pursuing subpoenas for Bolton, Mulvaney, et al. Thanks to Anonymous for the link. Mrs. McC: Without having any knowledge of how this worked, I have been thinking along the lines the e-mail writer -- who does know how it works -- suggests. The downside of this approach, which neither Marshall nor the e-mailer addresses, is that the House managers would have to interrogate Trumpist officials cold during the Senate trial; that is, without knowing what their answers would be. And of course Trump's defense team will be able to cross-examine the witnesses, which they would be able to do in any event. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Trump's Lost Peggy Noonan. Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "In a column for The Wall Street Journal today..., Peggy Noonan argued that when it comes to the charges against President Trump that he pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals in exchange for military aid, 'the case has been made.'... She wrote that ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland 'was both weirdly jolly and enormously effective in doing Mr. Trump damage' and was 'completely believable.' But it was former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill who really impressed Noonan -- she was 'all business, a serious woman you don't want to mess with.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "The U.S. State Department has released thousands of pages of documents from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requested by American Oversight. They are documents that Congress has demanded but the State Department refused to hand over, so American Oversight sued under the FOIA laws and was able to obtain the documents [Mrs. McC: under a judge's order & about an hour-and-a-half before the deadline the judge gave State]. While American Oversight's website is down due to the traffic, they are available for download and review on Document Cloud. According to Austin Evers, executive director of AO, the emails link Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rudy Giuliani, but they also link ... Donald Trump through his Oval Office assistant.... 'The documents show a clear paper trail connecting not just Rudy Giuliani to Mike Pompeo but being connected by the Oval Office,' said Evers in an MSNBC interview with Ali Velshi. 'President Trump's personal assistant Madeleine Westinghouse serving as a conduit when Rudy Giuliani can't get through to Pompeo through, quote, regular channels. The president's personal assistant makes that connection happen. Based on the timing which is around March of this year it looks apparent this was a connection to ensure that Rudy Giuliani's smear campaign against a sitting U.S. ambassador made it to Mike Pompeo's desk. This is just the first set of disclosures American Oversight's litigation is going to expose." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Good work by Burris. She got this story up in record time. Nobody else has it as of 11:30 pm ET. We can look for follow-ups Saturday as reporters comb through the docs. ~~~
~~~ Update. Phil Helsel & Abigail Williams of NBC News: The released documents "appear to show two calls between Giuliani and Pompeo in March, around a month before former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch ... was abruptly called back to the U.S. in April and then removed from the post. David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs, testified on Wednesday that Pompeo and Giuliani spoke on the phone twice in late former personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, helping to connect Giuliani to Pompeo after there was trouble establishing a connection. The documents do not say what Giuliani and Pompeo discussed."
Lev Willing to Out Devin. Vicky Ward of CNN: "A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden. The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes. 'Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,' said Bondy. Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases." Mrs. McC: Wowza! Wouldn't that make for a fun Intel Committee hearing? ~~~
~~~ Grant Stern of Occupy Democrats: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) "pointed out the surprising fact that the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican member might have to appear as a fact witness in the panel's impeachment inquiry.... Lev Parnas handed a bombshell exclusive story to The Daily Beast last night [also linked here yesterday] when his lawyer admitted that he set up meetings and calls for an investigation conducted by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in Europe last year while he was traveling on an official congressional delegation.... Swalwell, who entered the Beast's story into the official record of the inquiry and said, 'Now, if this story is correct, the Ranking Member [Nunes] may have actually been projecting. And in fact, he may be the fact witness if he is working with indicted individuals around our investigation.'... It appears that [Parnas's] cooperation has a real chance to expose Rep. Nunes to a blistering deposition for the ongoing impeachment inquiry, under oath, in front of his own congressional committee." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, a "panel" of witnesses consisting of Parnas & Nunes would be even better.
Kevin Freking of the AP: "Former national security adviser John Bolton said Friday in a series of cryptic tweets that he's regained control of his personal Twitter account, asserting the White House refused to provide access to it after he resigned in September, a charge ... Donald Trump rejected." The New York Times story, which is more extensive, is here.
Sarah Ferris & Ally Mutnick of Politico: "Vulnerable Democrats are watching in horror as GOP impeachment attacks deluge their districts back home. And they want a much stronger counteroffensive from their own party and its allies. Some of those Democrats raised their concerns with party leaders this week as they prepared to leave for Thanksgiving recess, fearing that voters will be bombarded by anti-impeachment ads as families gather around the TV for parades and football, according to multiple lawmakers and aides." --s
Josh Marshall of TPM: "The Ukrainian [Andrii Telizhenko] at the center of the 'Ukraine collusion' conspiracy just posted a picture of himself hanging out with John Voight at the Trump DC hotel. Because of course he did." --s ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McC: That's Jon Voight. Trump just awarded the National Medal of Arts to Voight, a long-time winger.
** Adam Goldman & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department's inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump, according to people briefed on a draft. Investigators for the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, uncovered errors and omissions in documents related to the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page -- including that a low-level lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap, the people said. Mr. Horowitz referred his findings about Mr. Clinesmith to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge.... More broadly, Mr. Horowitz's report, to be made public on Dec. 9, portrays the overall effort to seek the wiretap order and its renewals as sloppy and unprofessional, according to the people familiar with it.... At the same time, however, the report debunks a series of conspiracy theories and insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump and his allies have put forward over the past two years, the people said, though they cautioned that the report is not complete." ~~~
~~~ Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department's internal watchdog is expected to find in a forthcoming report that political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, while at the same time criticizing the bureau for systemic failures in its handling of surveillance applications, according to two U.S. officials." ~~~
~~~ The CNN report, by Evan Perez & Caroline Kelly, is here.
Jeff Stone of Cyberscoop: "The accused Russian scammer [Aleksei Burkov] at [the] center of a geopolitical standoff pleaded not guilty Friday to allegations that he operated two hacking forums where members bought and sold payment data worth roughly $20 million.... The 29-year-old St. Petersburg native arrived in the U.S. on Nov. 12 from Israel after a prolonged extradition battle in which the Russian government tried coercing Israeli officials into sending Burkov to Russia, rather than the U.S.... A 2016 indictment against Burkov made public& this month accuses him of operating two web forums dedicated to cybercrime..., [One ultra secret] forum [that isn't named] ... was used by 'elite cybercriminals to meet in a secure location' where they could trade stolen data.... In November 2015, a member of this 'elite' forum advertised a database containing information about 191 million Americans, including names and birth dates.... Chris Vickery, an independent security researcher, says he found the same database, which also contained voter information, such as party affiliations and whether an individual voted in recent elections. Vickery later traced the database to a religious group, United in Purpose, dedicated to electing conservative politicians." --safari: There is a lot of chat on twitter that this case could be the prologue to the Russian disinformation campaign.
Gaslighter-in-Chief. Michael Calderone of Politico: "CNN's Jake Tapper thinks fact-checking Donald Trump is no longer enough -- and he's created an hourlong special exploring the effects on foreign policy, business and the national culture of the president's compulsive lying.... Tapper thinks the media is well past the point of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. His special, therefore, represents a new benchmark in the mainstream media's adjustment to Trump's norm-shattering presidency." Tapper's special will be on CNN at 9 pm ET Sunday.(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jay Greene & Aaron Gregg of the Washington Post: "Amazon on Friday cited comments by President Trump at a rally and to journalists as it pursues its challenge to the Pentagon's surprise decision to award a lucrative contract to rival Microsoft last month. For the first time, Amazon directly linked comments by the president to the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, also known as JEDI, to Microsoft last month. Though Amazon filed its protest under seal, it also notified the Court of Federal Claims that it intends to use four videos as exhibits, including one of Trump at a February 2016 campaign rally, as well as one of a Fox News host urging him to prevent the Pentagon from awarding the contract to the online retail giant. The e-commerce giant formally filed a protest with the Court of Federal Claims to challenge the award of the cloud-computing contract, following through on a threat it made last week. It said it did so under seal to protect trade secrets."
Will Wright & Bill Estep of Lexington Herald Leader: "Trade tariffs implemented by ... Donald Trump have hurt Kentucky's wood-products industry in serious ways.... U.S. wood exports to China are down 43 percent nationwide since the tariffs on wood products were imposed, said Dana Lee Cole, executive director of The Hardwood Federation.... The losses in Kentucky exports likely mirror the national figure, said Bob Bauer, head of the Kentucky Forest Industries Association. The tariffs haven't just driven down sales of Kentucky wood products to China. The levies also have forced producers to cut prices in order to prop up their remaining sales, meaning the tariffs are hurting their profit margin."--s
Jim Wyss of the Miami Herald: "Two of Colombia's top diplomats [Colombia's Ambassador to the United States Francisco Santos and the country's Foreign Minister-designate Claudia Blum] -- caught in a moment of candor in a surreptitiously taped conversation -- declared the U.S. State Department 'destroyed.'... Santos said that a decade ago, when he visited Washington, 'It was predictable. You knew how things worked. Now that's all over.' As an example, Santos said that the ambassador from Singapore to the U.S. had confided that during the Obama administration he used to visit the State Department once a week, but now hadn't been there in eight months 'because it doesn’t count.' While he said that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo still carried weight in Washington, his underlings had no power, and that real policy decisions were being made by the National Security Council." --s
As a follow-up to some of the commentary in yesterday's thread: ~~~
~~~ Michelle Castillo of CNBC (Sept. 2018): "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's love for ancient Roman emperor Augustus Caesar offers some insights into how he views being a leader.... Zuckerberg's interest in ancient Rome began in high school and has continued throughout his life, he said. In addition to naming his second daughter August, he spent his 2012 honeymoon in Rome. 'My wife was making fun of me, saying she thought there were three people on the honeymoon: me, her, and Augustus,' he said. 'All the photos were different sculptures of Augustus.'" Zuckerberg elaborated on his admiration for Augustus during an interview with The New Yorker. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Australia. Nick McKenzie, et al. The Age: "A Chinese spy has risked his life to defect to Australia and is now offering a trove of unprecedented inside intelligence on how China conducts its interference operations abroad. Wang 'William' Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover.... [H]e has revealed in granular detail how Beijing covertly controls listed companies to fund intelligence operations, including the surveillance and profiling of dissidents and the co-opting of media organisations." --s
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Reader Comments (10)
According to Vicky Ward's story linked above regarding David Nunes' involvement:
Parnas became part of what he described as a "team" that met several times a week in a private room at the BLT restaurant on the second floor of the Trump Hotel. The group... included Giuliani, Parnas, the journalist Solomon, and the married attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing . Parnas said that [retired colonel Derek] Harvey [who works for Nunes on the House Intel Committee] would occasionally be present as well, and that it was Parnas' understanding that Harvey was Nunes' proxy".
So Trump's goon squad was running the Biden smear scheme out of the fucking BLT restaurant IN HIS OWN DC HOTEL, literally down the street from his office. Because OF FUCKING COURSE he did. Not only did he task his motley crew to produce foreign meddling in our next elections for his own benefit, but he also made sure to put some nickels and dimes in his pockets along the way.
My question is with the amazing (still alleged) direct involvement of Nunes, a retired colonel Derek Harvey, AND the mob lawyers Joe diGenoa and Victoria Toensing: does that mean if Dems can find some receipts, that they could subpoena all of these fools to testify???
It doesn't seem like the public is really moving either way so far with these impeachment hearings, but I don't see why Dems don't drag this out a little bit more to see what else they can shake loose. There seem to be reams of evidence that are sitting in the White House and the State Dept. and it would be a travesty of justice if some of these goons sneak away unscathed. And all reports are saying Dotard is blowing his lid about the impeachment hearings. Turn up the heat on this toad.
Like Safari, I'm in no hurry.
Since the evidence against the Pretender and his gang of goons revealed up to now is so damning and cracks are beginning to appear in the stone-wall, it seems certain that the more to come will be even more damning to the Pretender himself and will further besmirch even more of these clowns--like Pompeo, Pence and especially Nunes, a twerp, if I ever saw one.
(Nunes, ducking into the bushes in the dark of night: A Pink Panther moment, if I ever saw one. Now wasn't that a picture this presidency and for our time?)
And I do not see the danger for the Democrats of letting the drumbeat of revelation continue into the primary season.
Maybe the Pretender will infarc...
When someone makes a film about all this it will have to be a series; no way could you get this in even a three hr. movie.
Trump's exchange––well, not really an exchange since he did all the talking––with the three Foxes the other morning is one for the ages. Fact checking revealed lie after lie. And there they, the foxes, sat dumbfounded wondering, I imagine, how long was he going to rant and how in hell were they going to respond. I have some idea what Jake Tapper will illustrate on his Sunday CNN special but, boy, oh, boy could he use this zinger.
Last night Brian Williams featured clips of Lindsey trashing candidate Trump even as far as saying if we elect this guy we are doomed or something to that effect. Then we see pictures of Lindsey with McCain and Joe Lieberman–-the three close friends for many years. Next a video of L. driving in a car and opining on his love for Joe Biden––"one of the most decent, good men that God ever put on this green earth," a few tears here are visible.
So what happened? Has the GOP completely fallen from grace? Is there not one who has retained a teensy bit of moral turpitude? When this is all over how many republicans in congress will be able to stand up straight? How many will line up to get the fair shock of the whip?
And somewhere in Moscow the little leader is seen, a fleeting, ferrety grin on his puss, while he partakes in another glass of the bubbly in celebration of how the world's edge seeps and bleeds.
@Ken and safari: From "that's what the word is" the Dems don't want to delay because of the oncoming election; they fear that this will cause a great muddle in the middle of it. But I agree with the two of you–-there is so much more to unravel–- enough loose threads to make a whole new sweater. And to have that twerp Nunes revealed as the ingrate that he is would make my day.
@PD, I think you may have mis-wrote. I think you meant to say fortitude rather the turpitude? The GOP has turpitude in spades.
Oh, yes, unwashed––gawd! Thank you for catching that.
@PD Pepe: I think Adam Serwer has a pretty good explanation of what's going on with Republicans. The upside: no matter what your race or socio-economic status, you and I and anyone with a conscience gets to experience a bit of what it's like to be a racial minority in the U.S.: we don't count, we're not "real Americans"; we're not quite real people.
Another excellent piece by Serwer. The crime here is truly a crime against the nation.
His argument duplicates my sense that talking about Pretender populism, which pundits have been doing since that awful day he arrived on the American political scene, is misleading on its face and very dangerous in its implications.
Serwer's point is that the party now headed by the Pretender is about nothing that is really popular, in the sense of being supported or desired by the majority. It is in fact about a whole bunch of things that are downright unpopular, desired as they are by a minority.
Late to the David Brooks party yesterday, sent this at about the time the comments section closed. Brooks had written about populism without defining the term and it annoyed me.
"Many references of 'the core problem here (in the comments), but don't see one to the main problem with this article: definitions.
Populist movements are fueled by what people think is good for them, and since there are a multitude of "goods" there are a multitude of populisms.
Mr. Brooks uses the term for everything, so that the word becomes meaningless.
Trump did promise to pursue economic populism, contrary to Republican desires and history, certainly since Reagan. On that front we knew he was just kidding, and his actions have proved it, beginning early with the great tax scam, his only legislative accomplishment.
Racist populism? A lot of people want that, and there he's delivered. Build that wall and separate 60,000 children from their parents. That's apparently popular with many.
The House has passed hundreds of populist (as in good for most people) pieces of legislation, which have died upon arrival in the Republican Senate. Trump and the Republican Party have no interest in any of them, popular as most of these measures are.
And in pursuing foreign policy, he spells "populism," PUTIN.
Trump's populism works to the degree he can keep racism and resentments stoked to a high level, as at his rallies.
But popular in the nation as a whole? We'll see."
There seems to be fairly wide agreement on Trump and witness intimidation. With all the senators having lunch at the White House with the president* and taking trips to Camp David when will someone in the media raise the question of jury tampering?
Since all the Republicans are working to further Russia's goals isn't about time we sent Putin an invoice to pay the salary of all his operatives? Trump is always saying that foreign governments need to pay their fair share. It seems that Russia owes a lot of back pay, or maybe that is why Trump won't let anyone see his tax returns.