The Commentariat -- September 22, 2019
Afternoon Update:
The integrity of our democracy isn't threatened when a president breaks the law. It's threatened when we do nothing about it. The GOP's silence & refusal to act shouldn't be a surprise. Ours is. -- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a tweet
Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would consider releasing a transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is said to be the subject of an intelligence community whistleblower complaint. 'We'll make a determination about how to release it, releasing it, saying what we said,' Trump said in Houston, defending his conversation with Zelensky as 'perfect.' His remarks came hours after the president suggested that he had discussed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during the call.... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on ABC's 'This Week' earlier Sunday that releasing the contents of the call would not be appropriate 'except in the most extreme circumstances.'" Mrs. McC: It's an "extreme circumstance," Mike, when the POTUS* pressures a foreign leader to do a fake investigation on POTUS*'s political opponent. As for Trump's considering releasing the transcript, he's still considering releasing his taxes. ~~~
~~~ Oh, I guess I was wrong. Here's the transcript, as released with redactions for national security reasons: "Yo, Volo, I hear you're a comedian. Say something funny." [Redacted] "Nice talking to you, Volo." ~~~
~~~ Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump suggested Sunday that he mentioned former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter in a phone call with the leader of Ukraine, amid swirling questions about whether Trump sought to use his influence to seek reelection help from a foreign country.... 'The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,' Trump told reporters. 'And Ukraine, Ukraine's got a lot of problems.'... The president's apparent confirmation that he mentioned Biden on the call came as his allies scrambled to deny that he did so.... Rudolph W. Giuliani ... said in a phone call with The Washington Post Sunday morning that he ... will 'keep pushing and pushing' to highlight the Biden family's finances. He alluded to new materials he may cite this week, but declined to offer specifics. When asked if Trump has given Giuliani's efforts his blessing, Giuliani said, 'I don't do anything that involves my client without speaking with my client.'" A Rolling Stone item is here. ~~~
~~~ Rachel Bade of the Washington Post: "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff said House Democrats may have to impeach President Trump following allegations that he pressured Ukraine to investigate a political adversary, a change in tone for the senior Democrat who has long been cautious about efforts to oust the president. Schiff (Calif.) said on CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday that Trump's request that a Ukrainian leader investigate a business connected to former vice president Joe Biden's son would be 'the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office.' Compounding that, he said, is the director of national intelligence's unwillingness to turn over a recent whistleblower complaint about a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he said could amount to a 'coverup.'" The Axios story is here. ~~~
~~~ Oops! Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin found himself in a rhetorical trap of his own making on Sunday when CNN's Jake Tapper cornered the treasury chief as he defended ... Donald Trump's efforts to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. '... if for instance, President Obama had pressured a foreign leader, Putin or the president of Ukraine, [and] anyone said "I want you to look into Donald Trump Jr., or I want you to look into Eric Trump," international businessmen, both of them, would you not find that inappropriate?' Tapper asked. 'I'm not going to speculate on that,' Mnuchin replied. "What I do find inappropriate is the fact that Vice President Biden -- at the time's -- son did very significant business dealings in Ukraine. I, for one, find that to be concerning and to me that is the issue perhaps that should be further investigated.' The CNN anchor ... said he didn't understand Mnuchin's answer because it appeared he was saying it is 'okay for Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump to do business all over the world and okay for Ivanka Trump to have copyrights approved all over the world while President Trump is president and while Joe Biden is vice president his son shouldn't be able to do business dealings.'" Mnuchin repliced, "homina homina." ~~~
~~~ Renato Mariotti in a Politico Magazine opinion piece: "What Trump is alleged to have done is not a garden variety crime; it's worse. It involved misusing $250 million in aid appropriated by Congress for his benefit -- the kind of gross misconduct that easily clears the bar of high crimes and misdemeanors set by the Constitution when impeaching a president. Which means the best way to hold Trump accountable for that misconduct isn't a criminal trial; it's for Congress to impeach him.... Labeling Trump's alleged conduct as 'bribery' or 'extortion' cheapens what is alleged to have occurred and does not capture what makes it wrongful. It's not a crime -- it's a breach of the president's duty not to use the powers of the presidency to benefit himself. And he invited a foreign nation to influence the 2020 election on the heels of a nearly three-year investigation that proved Russia had tried to influence the last presidential election. No one should expect law enforcement to act if our elected representatives are unwilling to do so."
David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "After 27 years of sitting out decisions on who should lead Israel, Arab lawmakers on Sunday recommended that Benny Gantz, the centrist former army chief, be given the first chance to form a government over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a watershed assertion of political power. Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Arab Joint List, wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed published on Sunday that the alliance's 13 incoming lawmakers -- the third-largest faction in the newly elected Parliament -- had decided to recommend Mr. Gantz because it would 'create the majority needed to prevent another term for Mr. Netanyahu.' 'It should be the end of his political career,' Mr. Odeh wrote.... [Gantz] appears to lack a 61-seat majority even with the Joint List's support. He emerged from the election with 57 seats, including those of allies on the left and the Joint List, compared with 55 seats for Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing allies."
~~~~~~~~~~
More Trump Projection. The Fake News Media nowadays not only doesn't check for the accuracy of the facts, they knowingly make up the facts. They even make up sources in order to protect their partners, the Democrats. It is so wrong, but they don't even care anymore. They have gone totally CRAZY!!!! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, at 8:04 pm ET Saturday ~~~
~~~ Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "President Trump began his weekend defending his 'perfectly fine and routine' conversation with the Ukrainian president in which he reportedly asked the foreign leader to investigate former vice president Joe Biden. In his tweets, Trump references his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but makes no mention of whether he brought up Biden during the conversation. Instead, he blames the news media for its coverage of the story.... He later tweeted that the news was an extension of the 'witch hunt' carried out by Democrats, his frequent reference to the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and firing of James B. Comey as FBI director.... Trump's comments echo a defense first laid out Thursday night by his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani, who argued that the president could ask a foreign leader anything he wanted and that the real story was related to Biden's pressuring the Ukrainian government in 2016 to fire its top prosecutor who at the time happened to be investigating a company in which Biden's son, Hunter, had a stake." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ There are Hill stories here and here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Daniel Politi of Slate: "In the upside-down world of Donald Trump it seems that journalists covering a story is the same as the media ignoring a story. On Sunday [Mrs. McC: actually Saturday] morning, the president went on a Twitter rant in which he defended his July phone call with Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.... Trump insisted that the only reason news outlets are so focused on the story is to avoid covering what he characterizes as the real story involving Biden's son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company.... Then, moments after complaining that 'the Fake News Media' are trying 'to stay as far away as possible' from covering the Biden story, the president tweeted a video that shows a compilation of journalists actually covering the story. The video is expressly meant to build up support for Trump's reelection campaign."
The most remarkable part of the Ukraine story is that it has Trump trying to collude with a foreign power to influence his next election shortly after the Special Counsel wrapped up its investigation of whether Trump colluded with a foreign power to influence the last one. -- Orin Kerr, in a tweet (The responses are good, too)
~~~ Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "For months this spring and summer, Ukraine's newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, tried to deflect pressure from President Trump and his allies to pursue investigations into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Biden's son and other Trump rivals. The pressure was so relentless that Mr. Zelensky dispatched one of his closest aides to open a line of communication with Rudolph W. Giuliani.... On July 25, two weeks after the first call between Mr. Zelensky's aide, Andriy Yermak, and Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Zelensky had a call of his own with Mr. Trump.... In the weeks after the call, events unfolded rapidly in a way that alarmed some officials in both countries. They interpreted the discussions as dangling support to Ukraine in exchange for political beneficial investigations.... The situation has also highlighted Mr. Trump's grudge against Ukraine, a close ally that has long enjoyed bipartisan support as it seeks to build a stable democracy and hold off aggression from ... Russia.... Privately, Mr. Trump has had harsh words about Ukraine, a former Soviet state.... 'They're terrible people,' he said of Ukrainian politicians.... 'They're all corrupt and they tried to take me down.'... Only after Congress put intense bipartisan pressure on the administration did he release the military assistance package to Ukraine last week." ~~~
~~~ Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "[O]f all the scraps in which Giuliani has engaged in recent months, of all the obfuscations and verbal sleights of hand, this week's performance could prove the most damaging, both for him and for his White House buddy.... No fewer than three House committees this week launched investigations into the Trump-Giuliani efforts in Ukraine. Though not yet on the scale of Mueller's inquiry into whether Trump colluded with Russia, the new uproar bears chilling echoes of it.... For the past five months [Giuliani] has been telling anyone prepared to listen about his attempts to enlist Ukraine as a partner in Trump's re-election.... Under US law, it is categorically illegal for anybody to solicit the help of any foreign national -- let alone a government -- for a US election." --s ~~~
~~~ ** Rudy Giuliani Is a Big Fat Liar. Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian journalist & activist, in a Washington Post op-ed: "On Aug. 19, 2016, I convened a news conference in Kiev at which I revealed previously secret records [in the so-called 'black ledger'] of payments made by the former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.... I have no doubt that Yanukovych paid Manafort for his services out of the funds he robbed from Ukrainian taxpayers.... President Trump's lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, the mouthpiece of this campaign, is not only attempting to rehabilitate Manafort but is also working to undermine U.S. relations with Ukraine.... Giuliani went on Fox News, where he [falsely] called me '[an enemy] of the president [and] of the United States.' This accusation ... cost me a job in the new administration. Not wanting to create problems for Zelensky, I withdrew from consideration.... Giuliani's entire approach is built on disinformation and the manipulation of facts.... In his May interview on Fox, Giuliani even [falsely] claimed that I was convicted of a corresponding crime.... Giuliani also persists in [falsely] claiming that the 'black ledger' is a fake. Giuliani has also been attacking the fearless activists from our Anti-Corruption Action Center, who managed to uphold their ideals even though they were persecuted by the previous government of President Petro Poroshenko." ~~~
~~~ Kaitlin Collins, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's stance on Ukraine has evolved over the past year from one of general uninterest to a more engaged approach as he has discussed allegations of wrongdoing involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, people familiar with the matter said.... His approach to Ukraine melds political and national security concerns fanned by some of his closest advisers. Trump has raised the issue involving the former vice president and his son Hunter Biden repeatedly in private conversations and believes there is a political opportunity in further probing the matter.... He's been urged along by ... Rudy Giuliani.... 'He had never been concerned or interested in Ukraine,' one person familiar with Trump's thinking said.... Renewed engagement [this summer by John Bolton & other Trump advisors] happened to dovetail with Giuliani's efforts to convince Ukrainian officials to look into Biden and his son.... At the same time, the administration begin reviewing $250 million in foreign aid to Ukraine, initially placing a hold on the package that angered some in Congress.... Through it all, Trump's interactions and meetings on Ukraine have been treated with special sensitivity within the administration. The State Department never got extensive readouts of his calls."
~~~ Tom Nichols in the Atlantic: "The president of the United States reportedly sought the help of a foreign government against an American citizen who might challenge him for his office. This is the single most important revelation in a scoop by The Wall Street Journal, and if it is true, then ... Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office immediately.... If this in itself is not impeachable, then the concept [of impeachment] has no meaning. Trump's grubby commandeering of the presidency's fearsome and nearly uncheckable powers in foreign policy for his own ends is a gross abuse of power and an affront both to our constitutional order and to the integrity of our elections.... The story may even be worse than we know. If Trump tried to use military aid to Ukraine as leverage, as reporters are now investigating, then he held Ukrainian and American security hostage to his political vendettas.... There is no spin, no deflection, no alternative theory of the case that can get around the central fact that President Trump reportedly attempted to use his office for his own gain, and that he put the foreign policy and the national security of the United States at risk while doing so." (Also linked yesterday.)
Presidential Race 2020
Brianne Pfannenstiel of the Des Moines Register: "Elizabeth Warren has surged in Iowa, narrowly overtaking Joe Biden and distancing herself from fellow progressive Bernie Sanders, the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows. Warren, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts, now holds a 2-percentage-point lead, with 22% of likely Democratic caucusgoers saying she is their first choice for president. It is the first time she has led in the Register's poll. Former Vice President Biden, who had led each of the Register's three previous 2020 cycle polls, follows her at 20%. Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont, has fallen to third place with 11%. No other candidate reaches double digits."
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Cory Booker's presidential campaign is betting it all on the next 10 days, signaling Saturday that it will cease to exist unless it can raise nearly $2 million by the end of the month. 'We have reached a critical moment, and time is running out,' campaign manager Addisu Demissie warned in a memo to Booker staff and supporters. 'It's now or never: The next 10 days will determine whether Cory Booker can stay in this race and compete to win the nomination.'"
Senate Race 2020. Steve Leblanc of the AP: "U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III formally declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on Saturday, becoming the first member of the Kennedy political dynasty to bid for the upper chamber of Congress since Edward M. Kennedy in 1962."
Mark Chediak & Brian Eckhouse of Bloomberg: "Today, renewable energy is so cheap that the handouts they once needed are disappearing.... Electricity generation and heating account for 25% of global greenhouse gases. As wind and solar demonstrate they can compete on their own against coal- and natural gas-fired plants, the economic and political arguments in favor of carbon-free power become harder and harder to refute. 'The training wheels are off,' said Joe Osha, an equity analyst at JMP Securities. 'Prices have declined enough for both solar and wind that there's a path toward continued deployment in a post-subsidy world.'... The cost of wind power has fallen about 50% since 2010. Solar has dropped 85%. That makes them cheaper than new coal and gas plants in two-thirds of the world, according to BloombergNEF." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
CBS/AP: "A Facebook hoax this summer invited people to 'storm' Area 51 on Friday. Five people have been arrested since Thursday, mostly for trespassing. Meanwhile, thousands of others are celebrating their love of UFOs at a number of festivals in the Nevada desert. The events have been mostly festive, with crowds numbering in the low thousands and few arrests, officials said. Several minor injuries were reported, and one man was treated for dehydration by festival medics in Rachel before returning to the party." ~~~
~~~ Alex Dobuzinskis of Reuters: "A U.S. military unit apologized on Saturday and deleted a tweet that used the specter of a stealth bomber being deployed against any young people who tried to break into the Area 51 base in Nevada. The tweet, posted on Friday on the Twitter account of the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), took aim at UFO fans and curiosity seekers who poured into the Nevada desert this week, after an online campaign to 'storm' the U.S. military base long rumored to house government secrets about extraterrestrial life and spaceships. Alongside a photo of military men and women standing at attention in uniform in front of a B-2 stealth bomber, it read, 'The last thing #Millennials will see if they attempt the #area51raid today.'"
Way Beyond the Beltway
Canada. Rob Gillies & David Crary of the AP: Canada's Prime Minister Justin "Trudeau, 47, is seeking a second term as prime minister in an Oct. 21 election. His leading opponent, Andrew Scheer of the Conservative Party, has assailed him as 'not fit to govern' because of the revelations [that he wore blackface & brownface at events years ago]. But key figures in the prime minister's Liberal Party have stuck by him, including Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who would be a favorite to replace Trudeau as Liberal leader if he lost the election. Many minority Canadians, increasingly active in politics and government, seem ready to forgive Trudeau.... As for Trudeau's main election rival, his denunciation of the prime minister was undercut by comments he made shortly before the brownface photo surfaced. Scheer said he would stand by other Conservative candidates who had made racist or anti-gay comments in the past, as long as they apologized and took responsibility for those remarks."
Share Article
Reader Comments (7)
So Democrats are convening 758 hearings in the House on the latest Trump treason? Wonderful. Pardon my lack of enthusiasm. Democrats in the House have been moving at geologic speed and with all the effectiveness of a dried out marker (I doubt Fatty will lend them his Sharpie).
It’s not that there aren’t individual members who are serious about pulling the rug out from under the most criminal and treasonous administration in US history, but House leadership is operating a ship without a leader. Setting a course for a circle rather than towards a specific destination guarantees that actions and conclusions that will satisfy their oath to uphold the Constitution are about as unreachable then Port Trumpless. But, hey, wake if they do anything useful.
Had a chance this morning to read some pieces that I put on hold given the continual Tsunamis that invade our space. Garry Wills has written a book about guns and their impact on American life and the NYRB daily interviewed him. I found this part interesting:
"“I am now even more convinced that Madison added the Second Amendment under pressure from his Virginia foe Patrick Henry, who opposed the Constitution without protection for the militia as a slave-compelling power and for arsenals (‘keep and bear arms’) to store military resources against slave rebellions, a deep and constant fear in the South.”
When asked what he thought was the difference between Nixon (he had written a scathing book on him) and Trump:
"The difference between an evil man and the devil."
The other mention this morning is of another mind-bending email from my brother. After sending him a photo of my granddaughter marching for the Climate Change movement in Germany, instead of saying, wow, isn't that great, he sends me a photo of a heavily made-up buxom bimbo wearing a MAGA cap whose Tee shirt sported this gem:
On top: Picture of Trump: GREAT JOBS
Middle: picture of Obama: NO JOBS
Bottom: picture of Bill Clinton: BLOW JOBS
Kind of puts a damper on the day, don't it? As though I needed this to accomplish that.
@PD Pepe: Funny thing is that of the three assertions posted across the lovely lady's boobs, only the third is accurate. But kudos to your brother for popping his head out of the sand long enough to ogle the babe.
@Marie: You got that right. Brother Bill always had a thing for breasts: When he was a wee willy he said to my mother:
"No bad man is gonna come and take your breasts away."
Forgot to add another quote from the Garry Wills' piece:
"Naturally, I wanted to know from such a deep and experienced observer of American politics how he saw the prospects for exorcising that demon. In particular, I was interested to note that back in 2015 he’d written a piece for the Daily urging Elizabeth Warren not to run. (His point there was that her best work was championing people’s interests against those of bankers and using her influence to pull Hillary Clinton further from the clutches of Wall Street.) But what about now?
“Warren was useful in the Senate before Trump. She is essential in the White House after Trump,” Wills said. “Who does the government work for?”
Bea,
Though the arithmetic is off by one, had the same thought about PD's brother's T, but it came to me in Jack Nicholson's voice when in his role as president in "Mars Attacks," he sought to reassure the American people after the White House had been destroyed by the Martians.
“I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad."
Today, I'd agree. Two out of three functioning branches wouldn't be bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VakU20APPdw
We all known grifters gonna' grift. It appears that Giuliani, who already had a fair number of sketchy contacts in the Ukraine underworld, saw Manafort go to jail and suddenly saw himself plodding around K-street in a sleak osterich-skin coat. I wonder what treasonous Manafort thinks about Giuliani swooping in on his territory and suddenly screaming about "corruption" to stain the new pro-West Ukrainian government and try to swing it back East toward Putin?
This whole plot is absurd.
Tom McCarthy at The Guardian offers more insight into tRump’s Boiling Frog Strategy, which is reinforced by media repetition of tRump’s baseless claims.
The president’s tactic of redirecting accusations of misconduct back at his accuser is childish, petty … and surprisingly effective
“No, you are.”
Since he first emerged from the primordial muck of reality TV, Donald Trump has responded to attacks from political opponents with some version of that playground phrase. When accused of this, or revealed to have done that, Trump simply blurts “she did it” or “he’s guilty”, whatever the charge may be.
And with – impressive? – regularity, the tactic seems to work at shifting the broader framing of the story, through a mix of media repetition, Republican complicity, credulous reporting and debunking efforts that nevertheless end up repeating Trump’s claims.
In an appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation program on Sunday, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was asked whether it was “appropriate” for Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who for months has been Trump’s man on the ground in Ukraine, to call for an investigation of Biden, as Giuliani has done.
“If there was election interference that took place by the vice-president,” Pompeo replied, “I think the American people deserve to know.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/donald-trump-joe-biden-ukraine