The Commentariat -- November 24, 2017
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: "Activists will launch a last-ditch effort to prevent Donald Trump's tax bill from passing in the Senate on Monday, with scores of groups planning to lay siege to politicians' offices. Indivisible, the progressive group that aims to use Tea Party tactics to thwart the Republicans, has called for a day of action to stop the tax legislation, which the Senate is expected to vote on in the week after Thanksgiving. According to some estimates, the GOP bill would actually raise taxes on middle-class workers over the next decade, and leave 13 million more people without insurance. A different tax bill passed the House on 16 November.... Indivisible, which is made up of more than 6,000 groups nationwide, has called for people to target seven senators in particular who it believes could vote against the bill: John McCain, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowsi, Susan Collins, Rob Portman, Shelley Moore Capito and Bob Corker." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: You can check this Indivisible page to see where some of the sponsored protests are. There's more info here.
Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "Michael Flynn has so much criminal exposure it's almost ridiculous, including things as potentially serious as conspiracy to kidnap, perjury, and obstruction of justice. He has to worry about those charges, plus a long list of problems with disclosure forms involving his lobbying work, background checks, and compliance with military rules and regulations. And he's reportedly worried that his son will wind up with a lengthy jail term, as well. To significantly reduce all that exposure, he's going to have to tell a pretty compelling story to Robert Mueller's prosecutors. It's true that plea negotiations could still break down, but they've almost certainly begun. The chances are now very high that Flynn will be testifying against the president of the United States and that his testimony will be the basis for a criminal referral of some sort to Congress from the office of the special counsel. This also has to be of concern to Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, because they're missing the chance to be the first cooperating witnesses, and are therefore losing the opportunity to reduce the amount of time they'll be spending in prison."
Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "Islamist militants detonated explosives and sprayed gunfire at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt's Sinai coast on Friday, killing at least 235 people and wounding 109 more, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country's modern history."
*****
Pax Americana. Politico: "... Donald Trump tweeted that he'll be speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday.... The president's tweet comes a day after Erdogan spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at Sochi to try to find a solution to end the fighting in Syria. 'Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East,' Trump tweeted Friday morning. 'I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!'" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So Trump is calling Erdogan to find out what-all went in on the meeting Putin shut him out of, after which the sidelined Trump is going to bring peace to the Middle East & end multi-millennia-long conflicts. Ding ding ding -- another 25th Amendment moment.
Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "On Thanksgiving, President Trump celebrated winning. Early in the morning, he tweeted a list of wins, including the 'highest Stock Market EVER,' a reduced unemployment rate and a new Supreme Court justice. A few hours later, he video-chatted with troops stationed around the world and told them that they are now winning because his administration is allowing them to do their jobs and win. Trump then traveled to a nearby Coast Guard mess hall to hand out sandwiches and commend the military branch for improving its brand over the past few months. Afterward, he stopped by his private golf club in West Palm Beach." Mrs. McC: Sandwiches? Were they turkey sandwiches? If you wonder why the Guard got sammiches & chips instead of the traditional Thanksgiving fare Trump had at Mar-a-Lago, it might be because, according to Johnson, Trump paid for the meal. ...
... Elliot Hannon of Slate: "On Thursday, a so-called billionaire, who is the current president of the United States woke up in his so-called luxury resort in Mar-a-Lago and spoke to the American military servicemen and women stationed overseas to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. Speaking via teleconference with American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, President Trump haltingly delivered prepared remarks with a message: You guys are doing great, thanks to me." Hannon goes on to report some of Trump's ridiculous boasting. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Will Trump start tweeting insults at American troops because the ingrates are not giving him sufficient thanks for so much winning? ...
... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "retired lieutenant general [Mark Hertling] said Thursday that President Trump's comments to troops deployed overseas, which included remarks about the economy and military's recent success, were 'somewhat insulting.'... 'You're talking to soldiers and military personnel around the world who have been in this fight for 17 years, and to suddenly be told they're winning now when they weren't winning before is somewhat insulting.' Hertling said troops likely don't care about the economy or stock market, but just want to be thanked for their service."
Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "President Trump attacked ObamaCare on Thursday night.... 'ObamaCare premiums are going up, up, up, just as I have been predicting for two years. ObamaCare is OWNED by the Democrats, and it is a disaster,' Trump tweeted. 'But do not worry. Even though the Dems want to Obstruct, we will Repeal & Replace right after Tax Cuts!'... ObamaCare premiums have risen after Trump ended key subsidies to insurers that helped to cover costs for low-income Americans. Trump's promise to repeal ObamaCare comes as enrollment in the health-care law has unexpectedly surged since the start of the open enrollment period." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump is right about one thing: "Premiums are going up, up, up." For some reason, he doesn't mention that this is almost entirely his fault. Because Trump ended the subsidies, costs spiked for those who don't qualify for subsidies. One Reality Chex reader wrote earlier this week that his family's costs went up 43 percent over last year's insurance premiums. That's outrageous.
Flynn Flips? Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, notified the president's legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel's investigation, according to four people involved in the case -- an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating a deal. Flynn's lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump's lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.... The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller.... [But he probably] has, at the least, begun discussions with Mr. Mueller about cooperating."
Anita Kumar & Ben Wieder of McClatchy News: "Several of ... Donald Trump's top aides -- including former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka -- have failed to file legally required financial reports after they were dismissed this summer, according to the White House. Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, filed his report this week, according to a White House official, after McClatchy requested his form multiple times and reached out to him for comment. Priebus left the administration in late July, and the filing came well beyond the 30-day deadline for filing these reports. In total, at least four senior White House staffers have not filed termination reports, which outline their financial activity while serving in the White House. They include Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who served as senior director for intelligence programs for the National Security Council for seven months, and Middle East adviser Derek Harvey, who served on the National Security Council for six months, according to the White House and the Office of Government Ethics." The report suggests Bannon could have used his White House position to profit from a contract Cambridge Analytica made to trash Qatar. ...
... Follow the Money. Mrs. McCrabbie: As you may recall, Rex Tillerson tried to mitigate a Middle East feud with Qatar. but the White House undid his efforts by abruptly taking sides against Qatar. From Middle East Eye: "Following [a June 2016] move by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to boycott Qatar, which they accuse of supporting terrorism, Tillerson publicly asked the nations to ease the blockade, and put the onus on both sides to end the crisis. Less than 90 minutes later, Trump accused Qatar of being a 'high-level' sponsor of terrorism and suggested he had helped plan the Qatar action with Arab leaders." Mrs. McC: And Bannon is still at it. In a speech he delivered in October 2017, Bannon compared Qatar to North Korea -- and said Qatar was worse. Bannon claims now he has "nothing to do with" Cambridge Analytica. Right. Even if Bannon did sell his interest in CA (the McClatchy reporters can't tell since Bannon didn't file his financial disclosures), one of the major owners of CA is Robert Mercer. The Mercer family is Bannon's No. 1 backer, pouring millions into Bannon's little projects like Breitbart and the push to inflict unhinged wingers like Roy Moore on the Senate. BUT. Nothing to see here, folks.
Union Calls Trump's Bluff. Clever. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "At the heart of the Republican tax plan hurtling through Congress is an implicit promise that cutting corporate taxes will lift the middle class through higher wages and more jobs.... Mr. Trump has put a number on it, saying a typical American would see a $4,000 raise if the corporate rate was reduced to 20 percent.... This week, the Communications Workers of America asked several companies that employ its members to promise to give workers a pay increase if the cut in the corporate tax rate goes through.... In a letter sent this week to the top executives of Verizon, AT&T and six other companies, the communications union asked them to pledge a $4,000 annual pay increase for employees for every year that the corporate rate rests at 20 percent. The union, which has called the tax measure 'an outrageous money grab.'... The request, while unlikely to be heeded, highlights a critical question over who would benefit the most from the tax bill: shareholders or workers?"
Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "The toxic chemical industry is having a really great year.... The $800 billion chemical industry is finally getting what its been attempting to buy from Republicans for decades.... On Monday, the Republican-controlled Senate released a spending bill that eliminates ... an EPA program called the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which assesses the health risks of thousands of chemicals across the country.... IRIS scientists' findings have huge financial implications for polluters.... Freed from the Obama administration's clampdown on safety, companies that produce essential but oftentimes toxic substances are seeing their stocks rally. Pesticides and chemicals banned for their poisonous nature are being newly reviewed; safety regulations are being relaxed; and industry representatives are being chosen for top government positions.... In Trump's federal government, industry players decide what's best for protecting human health and the environment." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I wonder why Trump didn't mention his pollution successes in his Thanksgiving day celebration of "winning."
... Update: Oh, he sort did when he spoke about himself at the Coast Guard facility: "We've cut back so much on regulation and all the waste and the all of the abuse." BuzzFeed has the full transcript of Trump's remarks at the picnic or whatever it was.
Chris Sommerfeldt of the New York Daily News: "Actor Billy Baldwin claims President Trump hit on his wife during a ritzy hotel party in Manhattan over two decades ago.... Baldwin fired off the accusation on Thanksgiving morning in response to a tweet from Donald Trump Jr. about the latest sexual harassment allegations against beleaguered Democratic Sen. Al Franken. 'Your Dad is a 5th degree black belt when it comes to sexual impropriety allegations,' Baldwin tweeted at Trump Jr. 'In fact ... I once had a party at the Plaza Hotel... your father showed up uninvited & hit on my wife... invited her on his helicopter to Atlantic City.' The 54-year-old Baldwin brother bluntly added, 'She showed his fat a[ss] the door.' A man who attended the party told the Daily News that Baldwin was hosting an intimate get-together in a Plaza hotel room for his soon-to-be wife Chynna Phillips' birthday when Trump suddenly knocked on the door.... The mogul ... zeroed in on Phillips and 'looked her up and down,' the witness [said]. 'He tried to coerce her into getting in his helicopter.... (Phillips) laughed uncomfortably at the prospect and said thanks but no thanks.' [according to the witness]" ...
... Brandon Conradis of the Hill: "Embattled Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who is facing a growing number of allegations of sexual misconduct, issued a new statement on Thursday promising to regain the trust of Minnesotans and apologizing for past behavior. 'I feel terribly that I've made some women feel badly and for that I am so sorry, and I want to make sure that never happens again,' Franken said in a Thanksgiving Day statement.... Franken also suggested on Thursday that some of his conduct with women might have been misjudged. 'I'm a warm person; I hug people. I've learned from recent stories that in some of those encounters, I crossed a line for some women -- and I know that any number is too many.'" ...
... American "Justice," Ctd. David Dayen in the New Republic: "The reason adjudicating sexual misconduct claims has been left to the media and the crowd is that people have no expectation that the legal system will adjudicate those claims fairly.... [Victims] have witnessed endless instances of powerful people, mostly wealthy men, getting away with criminality and deception, in every context imaginable. When you don't have a working justice system, you get a kind of vigilantism as a result.... Brazen impunity for the powerful is a hallmark of our era. The worst financial crisis in America in nearly a century led to practically no convictions for those whose actions facilitated the meltdown. The Catholic Church shuttled around sex-abusing priests for decades with little reckoning. Cops shoot black people and go back on the job. On the opposite end of the spectrum we have a wildly punitive justice system for those unlucky enough to have no money or power. Black men are sentenced to more jail time for committing the exact same crimes as whites. Nonviolent drug offenders rot in jail. Mandatory minimum sentences and three strikes laws trap many in an unforgiving correctional system.... The best response to the #MeToo revolution is to restore the rule of law so women don't have to use a hashtag to ensure their story of assault gets heard." ...
... Annys Shin & Libby Casey of the Washington Post report an edited interview of Anita Hill & five current & former U.S. female members of Congress on Hill's testimony before Congress. If you missed this yesterday, read it today. ...
... The Great Court-Packing Plot of 2017. Linda Greenhouse: "Even though there's been nothing subtle about the current push to fill dozens of judicial vacancies kept open by the Republican-controlled Senate during the final years of the Obama administration, a document now making the rounds inside the Beltway is head-snapping. It is a proposal by a leading conservative constitutional scholar to double or even triple the number of authorized judgeships on the federal Courts of Appeals, now fixed by law at 179. Why so many, and why now? The author, Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern University, a founder and the current board chairman of the conservative Federalist Society, declares his goal boldly: 'undoing the judicial legacy of President Barack Obama.'" ...
... Here's Ian Millhiser's report (dated Nov. 17). "In a memo to Congress, the founder and board chair of America's most influential conservative legal society proposed a massive court-packing plan that would enable President Donald Trump to fill the judiciary with hundreds of new judges." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is so-o-o-o surprising because I remember how Chuck Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thought the D.C. appeals court had way too many judges & accused President Obama of trying to pack the court even though Obama was merely nominating judges to fill vacated seats.
Blackish Friday. Abha Bhattarai of the Washington Post: "Shoppers, it seems, are over the frenzied, harried, wait-all-night-in-the-cold madness of Black Friday. They are increasingly shunning the shopping holiday, opting instead to spread out purchases over a course of weeks or months. For the first time, more Americans are preparing to shop online this holiday season than in department stores, according to data from the National Retail Federation.... Online spending is expected to surpass $100 billion for the first time this holiday season."
Sean Hannity's going off the rails to save the moron. --safari
Way Beyond the Beltway
Austin Ramzy of the New York Times: "The United States Navy on Friday ended its search for three sailors who have been missing since a transport plane crashed near Japan this week, the Navy's Seventh Fleet said in a statement. Eight of the 11 passengers and crew members who were aboard the C2-A Greyhound propeller cargo plane were rescued after the crash Wednesday. The Seventh Fleet said they remained in good condition." ...
... Elliot Hannon: "After a week of searching for a missing Argentine Navy submarine off the coast of the country, the families of the 44 crew members aboard have been told that their loved ones are believed to be dead. That news came Thursday after naval officials announced they had detected a sound believed to be an explosion aboard the vessel shortly after it went missing on Nov. 15th. A spokesman described the sound as 'abnormal, singular, short, violent' and 'consistent with a non-nuclear explosion.'"
News Lede
Washington Post: "A court in South Africa on Friday more than doubled the prison sentence for Oscar Pistorius to 13 years and five months for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius, who gained fame as a double-amputee runner who competed in the 2012 Olympics, fatally shot Steenkamp four times through a closed bathroom door at his home in Pretoria in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013. Pistorius claimed he thought Steenkamp was an intruder. Under a 2015 murder conviction, Pistorius was originally sentenced to six years in prison. On Friday, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal called that sentence ]shockingly lenient,] and more than doubled it after unanimously upholding an appeal by prosecutors, the Associated Press reported."
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Reader Comments (5)
Remember when unemployment statistics, according to the Little candidate, were all bullshit and 5% unemployment was really more like 15%? How is it that all of a sudden, those numbers are entirely reliable?
If you have to constantly tell everyone how good you are and what an awesome job you’re doing AND remind troops that their good job is entirely your doing, well...
It’s like all elementary school teachers tell kids learning to write: don’t tell me, show me. Little Donald must have been peeking up little girls’ skirts the day that was taught.
@Akhilleus: You have to wonder how many parents across the U.S. snap at their misbehaving children, "Stop that! You sound like Donald Trump!"
More details from a story earlier this year: During a May 10 meeting in the Oval Office, the president betrayed his intelligence community by leaking the content of a classified, and highly sensitive, Israeli intelligence operation to two high-ranking Russian envoys, Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Lavrov. This is what he told them—and the ramifications, according to Howard Blum,at Vanity Fair who writes more about "the Blabbermouth in the WH"
and as a former operative notes in the article:
"...“Those leaks to The New York Times and The Washington Post about the investigations into Trump and his cohorts is no accident. Trust me: you don’t want to get into a pissing match with a bunch of spooks. This is war.””
So the little king, who, if you handed him a blank map of the Middle East, couldn’t identify a single country in the entire land mass, is going “get it all done”? What’s the plan? A two-state golf course, run by little Dracula? With armed guards checking Palestinian papers if they want to play through? Something shiny with Trump’s signature on it for the first five leaders who agree to the Trump Peace Accords, whatever the hell that might be?
Plus, don’t miss the habitual use of the first person whine: “I” inherited a mess. “I’ll” get it done. Well, Donnie, “We” won’t be holding our breath. Seeing as how he hasn’t closed on a single Big Deal in almost a year, no one but the Kool-Aid zombies are expecting anything more in depth than some Twitter ranting blaming Obama for everything from the Israelites’ captivity in Babylon, to the Six Day War.
This jabroni is about as useful as a snow shovel in Bermuda (in a few years you can make that “a snow shovel in Maine”). Another Trump “Victory”.
Mr. Fix-it
This unforgivably jejune claim by the stupidest, most inept and ignorant president in our history (and that’s saying a lot given the low bar set by the dim-witted Decider), that he will “fix” the Middle East, despite the “mess” left him by the Kenyan usurper, has really gotten under my skin. The knee jerk reaction is to say “Forget it. It’s Trump.” But I can’t.
A piece in the latest NYRB reviewing a quartet of offerings trying to parse the tragedy of the Syrian situation, a “War of All Against All”, begins with this warning: “In Arab mythology, the Al Sada bird, or death owl, emerges from the body of a murdered man and shrieks until someone takes revenge. ‘Today, there are undoubtedly tens of thousands of Al Sada birds crying out for revenge all over Syrian skies’”.
But Trump will fix it. Even though it’s all Obama’s fault.
The article goes on to trace the genesis of this modern volcanic violence to the 1963 takeover of the Ba’ ath Party. Obama was two. That is a thaumaturgical prodigy right there, folks.
The Syrian disaster is a Rubik’s Cube of religious and ideological stews, the ingredients of which have been stewing for a millennia.
But Trump will fix it all.
And that’s just Syria. Trump is promising to “fix” the entire Middle East, a Gordian Knot laughably immune to Alexander’s solution.
Then there’s Iran, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinians, Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and dozens of smaller but no less lethal sects. Syria alone has combatants supported by the US, UK, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. Ya can’t tell the players without a scorecard, folks.
But Trump will fix it all.
Does anyone seriously believe that Trump has a useful opinion on the attack in Egypt today? I mean, do you think he has a valid idea of what went on without resorting to the Today’s News for Idiots in three sentences or less flash cards he needs desperately to avoid looking even stupider than usual?
But he’ll fix everything.
The most insulting aspect, and most alarming, of such an astounding claim, is the totally unnerving idea that despite the immense complexity and historical background of the current malaise, stretching back thousands of years, this moron believes he can fix it all in record time. Or thinks we are all moronic enough to believe him.
Almost more than any other American politician, Trump should appreciate the power and intransigence of ideologies based on hatred and fear. He should recognize that unbending, ignorant belief systems are not easily “fixed” in time for the next tee. If it weren’t for adherents to a hate filled ideology, he would be looking for a gig on the Shopping Channel and begging Russians to please give him another month on his vig.
He’ll fix it all?
He is an insulting and abysmally ignorant prick. If Mueller doesn’t have him fitted for an orange jumpsuit, I’ll be terribly disappointed.
A prison sentence will fix it all for me.