A new lawsuit has been filed against the Education Department, thanks in large part to actions by Education Secretary Betsy Devos:
Two women who claim they were defrauded by a for-profit college have sued the Education Department and a private loan servicer in a case their attorneys say could provide a new legal remedy for tens of thousands of students frustrated with the department’s inaction on claims seeking loan forgiveness.
[The Education Department] begins work this week rewriting Obama administration rules designed to boost protections for students defrauded by their schools. […]
Attorneys for the two students say the new approach is necessary because Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has stalled consideration of tens of thousands of similar claims from borrowers. […]
“People’s rights not to pay for defective products is well established in law, so whatever the Department of Education is or is not doing, the legal rights of borrowers continue to exist and are enforceable against the government just as they are against private parties,” said Toby Merill, a litigator at Harvard University’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents defrauded students.
“Yvette and Tina deserve to be able to move on with their lives, and because it’s clear that the department doesn’t have any intention for doing anything for cheated students, it’s necessary to bypass them and go straight to the court for their fair hearing,” she added.
Abby Shafroth, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, said borrowers are turning to the courts because nothing else is working.
“They’ve come to this approach because all other avenues have failed,” Shafroth said. “At a certain point there has to be another way, the department cannot say ‘You have to use our process and not provide a process.’ ” […]
This is disgusting and also false when applied to the Moore case – as the WaPo article said quite clearly: “The law then and now also includes a section on enticing a child younger than 16 to enter a home with the purpose of proposing sexual intercourse or fondling of sexual and genital parts. That is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”
Here’s an upcoming court case that we should keep our eye on:
“Crisis pregnancy centers” are anti-abortion organizations that often masquerade as reproductive health clinics in order to lure pregnant people away from clinics that will provide them with abortion care.
As the California legislature determined in a law intended to prevent these centers from deceiving people, “CPCs ‘pose as full-service women’s health clinics, but aim to discourage and prevent women from seeking abortions’ in order to fulfill their goal of ‘interfer[ing] with women’s ability to be fully informed and exercise their reproductive rights.’”
The fate of this law will now be decided by the Supreme Court. The Court announced Monday that it will hear NIFLA v. Becerra, which claims that California’s law violates the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee.
The law has two relevant parts. It requires state-licensed facilities that provide certain health or counseling services to post a notice informing patients that “California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women,” as well as a phone number that patients can call to inquire about these services. Meanwhile, it requires unlicensed facilities to display a notice that “this facility is not licensed as a medical facility by the State of California and has no licensed medical provider who provides or directly supervises the provision of services.”
The plaintiffs are anti-abortion groups […] who claim that the law requires them to convey a message that they would prefer not to convey,[…] It is a surprisingly difficult case, in large part because of past cases involving laws intended to discourage abortion. […]
A group of 53 Alabama pastors has signed onto a letter urging Alabamians to vote for Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore after the allegations of sexual misconduct were leveled against him.
The letter, published on AL.com and posted on Moore’s wife’s Facebook page, praises the candidate for his “immovable convictions for Biblical principles” and says he suffered “persecution” for his faith by opposing gay marriage as Alabama’s chief justice.
“For decades, Roy Moore has been an immovable rock in the culture wars – a bold defender of the ‘little guy,’ a just judge to those who came before his court, a warrior for the unborn child, defender of the sanctity of marriage, and a champion for religious liberty,” the letter reads. […]
“We are ready to join the fight and send a bold message to Washington,” the letter reads. “Dishonesty, fear of man, and immorality are an affront to our convictions and our Savior and we won’t put up with it any longer.” […]
Follow-up to comment 3 and to SC’s comment 6. The Hill link.
[…] The woman, Beverly Young Nelson, said she was sexually assaulted by Moore when she was 15 and 16. […]
During the news conference, Allred said Nelson had kept the allegations a secret because she “feared” Moore, who was serving as a defense attorney in Etowah County, Ala.
Nelson said Moore wrote in her yearbook saying: “To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore, D.A.” […]
Nelson told her sister and mother about the encounters at the time. A bit later, she told her soon-to-be husband. There is corroboration.
Her lawyer said that Nelson is not pursuing civil or other litigation. She is asking for a hearing, during which she can testify under oath.
[…] “Mr. Moore attacked me when I was a child. I did nothing to deserve this sexual attack. I was frightened by his position, by his power,” Nelson said.
Nelson said Moore offered her a ride home from work, then attempted to force her to have sex with him, leaving bruises on her neck as she struggled to free herself and refusing to stop when she asked.
“I tried to open my car door to leave, but he reached over and he locked it so I could not get out. I tried fighting him off while yelling at him to stop. But instead of stopping, he began squeezing my neck, attempting to force my head onto his crotch. I continued to struggle. I was determined that I was not going to allow him to force me to have sex with him,” Nelson said. “I was terrified. He was also trying to pull my shirt off. I thought that he was going to rape me.”
Moore eventually stopped, Nelson said. She said he told her no one would believe her if she shared her story.
“He said, you’re just a child, and he said, I am the district attorney of Etowah County, and if you tell anyone about this, no one will ever believe you,” she said. […]
Roy Moore’s response, as relayed by his campaign chairman:
“Gloria Allred is a sensationalist leading a witch hunt, and she is only around to create a spectacle. Allred was the attorney who claims credit for giving us Roe v. Wade which has resulted in the murder of tens of millions of unborn babies,” Moore campaign chairman Bill Armistead said in a statement released before Allred’s press conference began. “We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: Judge Moore is an innocent man and has never had any sexual misconduct with anyone.”
A correction to comment 7. Nelson did not tell her sister and mother right away. She kept the sexual assault secret because she feared Roy Moore. She thought he would do something to her or to her family.
While Alabama Republicans continue to back Roy Moore, other Republicans are urging that Moore withdraw from the Senate race, or that he face some consequences:
[…] In a statement, Gardner [National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner] said Moore is “unfit to serve in the United States Senate and he should not run for office.”
“If he refuses to withdraw and wins, the Senate should vote to expel him, because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate,” Gardner said.
Gardner said the women accusing Moore of sexually pursuing them while he was in his early 30s and they were teenagers “spoke with courage and truth.” […]
[…] Nelson told her younger sister about the attack two years later, told her husband before they were married, and also told her mother. She and her husband were Trump supporters, she says, and her decision to come forward “has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats.” Rather, it “has everything to do with Mr. Moore’s sexual assault when I was a teenager.” She came forward because of the courage of other women in coming forward first, showing her that she wasn’t Moore’s only victim. […]
France24 is saying that in an interview with Fethullah Gülen in July, he said he had been informed of an apparent bribe paid by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law to Flynn’s company, Exclusive: US-exiled cleric Gülen says he knew about Turkey’s ‘Flynn bribes’ (I’ve corrected the spelling of the surnames Gülen and Erdoğan):
In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 in July, US-exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen said he had been informed of an alleged “bribe” meeting between ex-US national security adviser Michael Flynn and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law.
[…]
In July, FRANCE 24’s Philip Crowther and Leela Jacinto met with the wanted Turkish cleric who told them that he had been informed of Flynn’s meetings with Turkish officials.
“I learned about the report of that meeting, that Erdoğan’s son-in-law met with Flynn and they paid his company a considerable sum of money,” Gülen said. “Indeed for a person like Flynn, who served in high positions, who comes from the military and served in respectable positions, for him to accept such money — which might be considered a form of bribery — I don’t think it’s befitting for a person of his stature.”
[…]
There is a video at the link.
Neither the son-in-law nor the company is named in the report, and it is unclear if France24 ever followed-up on this. The company is presumably Flynn Intel Group.
In 2012 the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, helped set up eight companies in Malta in a bid to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes for his company
In 2012 the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Berat Albayrak, helped set up eight companies in Malta in a bid to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes for his company — Turkey’s massive energy, textile and construction group conglomerate Çalık Holding, a report in the Malta Files has shown.
The Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism and The Black Sea included the report within the Malta Files, which were published yesterday [21-May-2017] by the European Investigative Collaborations in 13 countries, […] which show how Malta works as a base for tax avoidance inside the EU.
[… many details …]
Despite having no background or experience in politics, Albayrak has led the Turkish Energy Ministry since November 2015. Many now believe that Erdoğan is grooming Albayrak as his successor. Albayrak joined Erdoğan on his recent visit to the US where the pair were filmed together outside the Turkish Embassy in Washington, looking at their security detail beat up peaceful protesters.
Mr Albayrak is married to Esra Erdoğan (the older daughter). The younger daughter is Sümeyye Erdoğan, who is married to Selçuk Bayraktar. Mr Bayraktar seems to keep himself out of the news (at least in English). Which of those two men is the “Erdoğan son-in-law”, Gülen meant is unclear, albeit the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Albayrak seems probable.
A key point about the TPP is that it excluded China. Undoubtedly it had the aim SC points out, of allowing corporations to sue governments for “compensation” for loss of expected profits as a result of regulatory changes – but it also had a geostrategic aim: to bind as many of China’s neighbours as possible into a pact with the USA. I’m currently reading Jude Woodward’s The US vs China: Asia’s New Cold War?. Woodward’s central argument is that China’s booming economy has caused most of its neighbours to reorient their own economies, and their foreign policy, toward China and away from the USA. Most of them still want to keep good relations with the USA, but they won’t be drawn into the policy pf “containing” China, promoted by Obama (and Clinton, when she was Secretary of State). The American foreign policy establishment has been promoting a picture of China as an aggressive power in a military sense, although there’s actually scant evidence of this: since China is on course to overtake the USA as the world’s largest economy decades before it could even think about matching it militarily, it makes no sense for China to militarise competition for influence between the two. It will be interesting to see if any replacement for TPP negotiated by the other states involved includes China.
…The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.’s lawyers to congressional investigators. They are part of a long—and largely one-sided—correspondence between WikiLeaks and the president’s son that continued until at least July 2017. The messages show WikiLeaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation. WikiLeaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump’s tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.
…
After [a DM sent on October 14, 2016, after which Jr. tweeted out the link Assange had sent him and the same day “Pence denies Trump camp in cahoots with WikiLeaks” was published], Trump Jr. ceased to respond to WikiLeaks’s direct messages, but WikiLeaks escalated its requests.
“Hey Don. We have an unusual idea,” WikiLeaks wrote on October 21, 2016. “Leak us one or more of your father’s tax returns.” WikiLeaks then laid out three reasons why this would benefit both the Trumps and WikiLeaks….
It is the third reason, though, WikiLeaks wrote, that “is the real kicker.” “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” WikiLeaks explained. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source.” It then provided an email address and link where the Trump campaign could send the tax returns, and adds, “The same for any other negative stuff (documents, recordings) that you think has a decent chance of coming out. Let us put it out.”
…
Trump Jr. did not respond to this message.
WikiLeaks didn’t write again until Election Day, November 8, 2016. “Hi Don if your father ‘loses’ we think it is much more interesting if he DOES NOT conceed [sic] and spends time CHALLENGING the media and other types of rigging that occurred—as he has implied that he might do,” WikiLeaks wrote at 6:35pm, when the idea that Clinton would win was still the prevailing conventional wisdom….
…
In the winter and spring, WikiLeaks went largely silent, only occasionally sending Trump Jr. links. But on July 11, 2017, three days after The New York Times broke the story about Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with connections to Russia’s powerful prosecutor general, WikiLeaks got in touch again.
“Hi Don. Sorry to hear about your problems,” WikiLeaks wrote. “We have an idea that may help a little. We are VERY interested in confidentially obtaining and publishing a copy of the email(s) cited in the New York Times today,” citing a reference in the paper to emails Trump Jr had exchanged with Rob Goldstone, a publicist who had helped set up the meeting. “We think this is strongly in your interest,” WikiLeaks went on.
blfsays
KG@15, A similar thought had occurred to me. Ms Caruana Galizia was pursuing quite a number of different corruptions in Malta, and it’s not inconceivable she, or her son Matthew, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, had encountered something linked-to or involving Mifsud. She had found Russian-connected corruptions, for example, from The Economist (The death of a crusading journalist rocks Malta):
Last year [her blog] Running Commentary revealed that [Malta PM Joseph] Muscat’s chief of staff and one of his ministers had Panama-registered companies and trusts in New Zealand. Ms Caruana Galizia claimed, and they denied, that the offshore vehicles received kickbacks from Russians who had bought Maltese passports. […]
[…] BBC discovered that both Trump’s campaign team and The Leave campaign had used the services of Cambridge Analytica, and Daphne Caruana Galizia said she had discovered that the MLP[†] had used its services as well in 2013. Now American investigators have discovered that one of the links between the Trump campaign team and Russian authorities is a mysterious Maltese professor who bragged of his numerous Russian contacts. The same professor had popped up in Muscat’s 2013 electoral campaign. […]
That same blog also notes Mifsud keeps popping up in a dubious fashion in Maltese affairs (The mystery professor), which would seem to make it quite likely she was aware of him.
Her own blog Running Commentary does mention a number of people with the surname Mifsud, but it’s not clear if any of them are the mystery professor. (I have the impression Mifsud is a rather common Maltese name.)
However, as you say, drawing a link to her assassination is very speculative. And has a whiff of paranoid conspiracy theory about it.
…This past weekend, I spoke or messaged with more than a dozen people—including a major political figure in the state—who told me that they had heard, over the years, that Moore had been banned from the mall because he repeatedly badgered teen-age girls. Some say that they heard this at the time, others in the years since. These people include five members of the local legal community, two cops who worked in the town, several people who hung out at the mall in the early eighties, and a number of former mall employees.
…
Gadsden’s current law-enforcement community could not confirm the existence of a mall ban on Moore. But two officers I spoke to this weekend, both of whom asked to remain unnamed, told me that they have long heard stories about Moore and the mall. “The general knowledge at the time when I moved here was that this guy is a lawyer cruising the mall for high-school dates,” one of the officers said….
Roy Moore’s penchant for flirting with teen girls was “common knowledge” and “not a big secret” around Gadsden, according to some area residents.
…
…People who lived in Etowah County during that time have said Moore’s flirting with and dating much younger women and girls was no secret.
“These stories have been going around this town for 30 years,” said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. “Nobody could believe they hadn’t come out yet.”
Usry, a traveling nurse, said he knew several of the girls that Moore tried to flirt with.
“It’s not a big secret in this town about Roy Moore,” he said. “That’s why it’s sort of frustrating to watch” the public disbelieve the women who have come forward, he said.
…
Five other current and former Etowah County residents also spoke to AL.com with similar accounts.
“Him liking and dating young girls was never a secret in Gadsden when we were all in high school,” said Sheryl Porter. “In our neighborhoods up by Noccalula Falls we heard it all the time. Even people at the courthouse know it was a well-known secret.
“It’s just sad how these girls (who accused Moore) are getting hammered and called liars, especially Leigh (Corfman).”
blfsays
[Gloria] Allred was in law school when Roe v. Wade was decided.
The 1989 “Gloria Allred” (more precisely, Gloria Rachel Allred) appears to be the same person Roy Moore is bellowing about. Ms McCorvey’s attorneys in 1973 were Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington.
“The Republican National Committee Hasn’t Yet Dumped Roy Moore”: “…About a dozen national party staffers are on the ground in Alabama, handling field organizing duties for next month’s special election between Moore and Democratic nominee Doug Jones, an RNC official told BuzzFeed News….”
Fake news-debunking East Stratcom unit saw upsurge in false information published in Russian and Spanish about independence referendum
[…]
In the run-up to and aftermath of the bitterly contested Catalan independence referendum, EU officials have seen an increase in false information published in Russian and Spanish.
World powers prepare for war in Europe, proclaimed the headline of the Russian-language site Polit Ekspert on the day of the Catalan parliament’s declaration of independence. A Moldovan politician, Bogdan Ţîrdea, claimed in a Facebook post: EU officials supported the violence in Catalonia.
An article for the Kremlin-backed news agency Sputnik about a minor secessionist appeal on the Balearic Islands was given the headline Independence movements: a contagious timebomb in a state that does not listen.
[…]
The findings emerged after Spain’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, said intelligence suggested Russian hackers were targeting the European Union.
[…]
Defence Minister Dolores de Cospedal said it was clear that a lot the messaging on social media around the Catalan crisis came from Russian territory, though a definitive link to the government had not been proved.
[…]
Ben Nimmo, an expert in disinformation at the Atlantic Council, told the Guardian that “the Russian propaganda machine’s approach to the Catalan question varied”, with the Kremlin-backed news agency Sputnik taking a far more outspoken editorial line than the TV station RT.
Sputnik put “an astonishing emphasis” on the tweets of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in its reporting before the independence vote, he said. […]
“Until September this year {Assange} had never tweeted on Catalonia. The decision to give him that prominence can’t be justified on his expertise, so the only logical reason for them to give him such prominence is because he was criticising Spain,” Nimmo said.
RT was “a lot more balanced than Sputnik on Catalonia”, Nimmo said, which suggested there had been no central direction on how to treat the story. […]
[…]
EU experts who monitor Russia’s domestic media have noted the comparisons that state TV draws between Catalonia and Crimea, annexed by Vladimir Putin in 2014. Is Spain repeating Ukraine’s mistakes? asked a guest on Rossiya 1. Russian commentators have also described the wealthy Catalan region as Europe’s Donbass, arguing that for the first time since 1945 a real civil war and real violence could break out.
The coverage on Russian state TV dwells on the failures of Europe’s democracy, a message that is likely to intensify ahead of the Russia presidential election in March 2018, Nimmo believes. “The one thing that Putin wants to avoid is a repeat of the street protests in 2012, so they are pushing out this argument now that there is no such thing as real democracy.”
[a DM sent on October 14, 2016, after which Jr. tweeted out the link Assange had sent him and the same day “Pence denies Trump camp in cahoots with WikiLeaks” was published]
Sorry – I have the dates wrong and it was Trump Sr. who tweeted it (which is even more inculpatory). The correct details are in the article.
President Donald Trump’s son told high-level Trump campaign officials, including Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner, that the self-described transparency organization WikiLeaks had made contact with him in September 2016.
“A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” Wikileaks wrote, according to a series of private messages obtained by The Atlantic and published on Monday.
“The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC,” WikiLeaks continued. “We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?”
Trump Jr. replied: “Off the record I don’t know who that is, but I’ll ask around. Thanks.”
Trump Jr. then passed along WikiLeaks’ message to high-level campaign officials, including his brother-in-law and senior campaign adviser Jared Kushner; campaign manager Kellyanne Conway; digital director Brad Parscale; and senior strategist Steve Bannon, a source familiar with the congressional investigations into Russia’s election interference told The Atlantic….
[…]
The Trump team was heckled and interrupted by a protest song at the UN’s climate change summit in Bonn on Monday after using its only official appearance to say fossil fuels were vital to reducing poverty around the world and to saving jobs in the US.
[…]
“Promoting coal at a climate summit is like promoting tobacco at a cancer summit,” said Michael Bloomberg, […] UN special envoy for cities and climate change.
Benson Kibiti, from the Kenya Climate Working Group, said: “More coal will entrench poverty.”
When questioned, just one of the four energy executives Trump’s team chose to speak at the event expressed support for his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement.
Another panellist, Barry Worthington, executive director of the United States Energy Association, illustrated his points in favour of fossil fuels using future energy projections from ExxonMobil, BP and Statoil. He said US energy companies were already cutting carbon and was the only panellist to back Trump’s Paris pullout, saying: Frankly, we don’t need the Paris plan.
[…]
Andrew Steer, CEO of the World Resources Institute, said the US event was irrelevant: “It is a total distraction. It will not change the overwhelming momentum away from coal. The closing of coal plants in the US has accelerated since Trump was elected. It’s King Canute trying to hold back the tide.”
Earlier on Monday in Bonn, the US’s neighbours Canada and Mexico further isolated Washington by announcing a new partnership with the 15 US states that have pledged strong climate action. Canada’s environment minister, Catherine McKenna, and her Mexican counterpart, Rodolfo Lacy, joined with the governors of Washington state and California, Jay Inslee and Jerry Brown, to form a group that will focus on phasing out coal power and boosting clean power and transport.
“We are all in this together,” said McKenna. “The countries that move forward and realise there is a $30tn opportunity will be creating clean jobs and growing their economy.”
The Ioffe segment was excellent. I’ll give a link when it’s available.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Chuck Rosenberg, a lawyer who knows and worked with Jim Comey, and recently retired from the DEA, is on Rachael Maddow. I’ll post a link if one comes available.
Used-book shopping today, I came across a 2009 book by Michelle Malkin with the actual title Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. Really – this exists.
Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP’s most prominent megadonor, is publicly breaking with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon over his efforts to oust Republican incumbents in 2018.
“The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon’s efforts,” said Andy Abboud, an Adelson spokesman. “They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.”
The public pronouncement comes about a month after Adelson met with Bannon in Washington….
Undoubtedly it had the aim SC points out, of allowing corporations to sue governments for “compensation” for loss of expected profits as a result of regulatory changes – but it also had a geostrategic aim:…
If both Clinton and I agree that the TPP should not get to the floor of Congress this year, it’s hard to understand why an amendment saying so would not be overwhelmingly passed.
Let’s be clear: The trade agreement is opposed by virtually the entire grassroots base of the Democratic Party.
Every trade union in this country is strongly opposed to the pact. They understand that this agreement will make it easier for corporations to throw American workers out on the street and move factories to Vietnam, where workers are paid 65 cents an hour.
Virtually every major environmental group is opposed to the TPP because they understand that it will make it easier for the biggest polluters in the world to continue despoiling our planet.
Major religious groups are opposed because they understand that it will reward some of the biggest human-rights violators in the world.
Doctors Without Borders is strongly opposed to this agreement because its members understand that it would increase prescription-drug prices for some of the most desperate people in the world by making it harder to access generic drugs.
This agreement also threatens our democracy. We cannot give multinational corporations the ability to challenge our nation’s labor and environmental laws simply because they might reduce expected future profits through the very flawed Investor State Dispute Settlement system. That would undermine the democratic values that our country was founded on.
During the coming days and weeks our campaign* will be reaching out to grassroots America to do all that we can to oppose the TPP and make sure that it doesn’t get passed.
It seems like so many liberal pundits have forgotten about both the problems with the process and substance of the TPP and its plain unpopularity with the Democratic base, in the months leading up to an election. If Obama had been less concerned with “containing” China and more concerned with…anything he professed to care about, this wouldn’t have been such a disaster.
* Yes, his campaign. In July. In this moment he was selfish, shortsighted, reckless, and stupidly doctrinaire. But his objections to the TPP were genuine and substantive.
November 12, 1939: “9 Polish Boy Scouts have been arrested by Germans for putting up posters of Polish national anthem in town of Zielonka. All are to be shot. Nazis have banned ‘Polish nationalism’.”
Jeff Sessions will testify at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing at 10 this morning ET.
KGsays
News from the Yoo Kay:
1) The EU (Withdrawal) Bill returns to the Commons today, with literally hundreds of amendments to be discussed – many put down by Tory MPs. The lazy and ignorant David Davis, the minister in charge of the bill, has attempted to head off possible defeats by making a completely empty offer: Parliament will get a vote on the final deal – but if it’s voted down, the result will be the UK leaving the EU without any deal at all! This “offer” has been met with scepticism.
2) Theresa May has deviated from the Trumpist line by accusing Russia of “election meddling”. This is in large part to get the EU to give the UK what it wants in negotiations (all the advantages of membership with none of the costs or responsibilities), on the grounds that “a strong economic partnership between the UK and EU would be a bulwark against Russian agitation in Europe.” (That quote is from the BBC article linked, not direct from May.)
Ogvorbis: Swimming without a parachute.says
This does not surprise me at all. Well, I’m sure that a Sessions-appointed special cousel to investigate the Clinton Foundation and the uranium will be handled with the same professionalism, bipartipartisanship, and lack of any political agenda as every thing else Team Tang has done.
A spokesman for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday that President Trump offered to return a fugitive who had fled to the United States and did not bring up human rights issues at all during their bilateral meeting a day earlier.
Spokesman Harry Roque’s account of the meeting in an interview with The Washington Post appears to contradict White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said “human rights briefly came up” as the two leaders discussed the Philippines’ bloody fight against illicit drugs.
…
At one point, Trump offered to extradite a Philippine fugitive in the United States. “Do you want him back?” Trump asked, according to Roque. The U.S. president added: “I will send him back because I know you follow the rule of law.”
In the United States, extraditions are not actually the province of the president, but rather requests are reviewed and forwarded to the relevant U.S. attorney’s office. Then a judge ultimately makes the decision whether the person is sent back.
…
Roque, in the interview, said he believes Sanders was interested in making it appear that Trump had raised human rights in a bid to placate Trump’s “domestic constituency.” He said he decided not to challenge Sanders’s statement immediately after it was distributed to reporters in an email as a way of compromising with her. He said a charitable reading of the meeting would be that Duterte was alluding to human rights issues when he said the drug war was important as an issue of “human development.”
This is the third (known) alleged instance of Trump or one of his minions offering to hand someone over to an authoritarian regime: Gulen, Guo, and now this person. There’s also the recent incident with Bill Browder’s visa.
“Before He Was Tapped By Donald Trump, Controversial Judicial Nominee Brett J. Talley Investigated Paranormal Activity”: “On his questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee, a copy of which was provided to The Daily Beast, Talley says that he was part of The Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group from 2009-2010. The group, according to its website, searches for the truth ‘of the paranormal existence’ in addition to helping ‘those who may be living with paranormal activity that can be disruptive and/or traumatic’.”
…”Talley’s work in this field is not the typical biographical detail found on the resume of a federal court nominee.”
Conyers just read out some of Trump’s recent tweets pressuring the DoJ to go after Clinton (and expressed his disgust at “Pocahontas” – says at least when Nixon said such things about minorities he did it in private). “In a functioning democracy, is it common for the leader of the country to order the criminal justice system to retaliate against his political opponents?”
Sorry – that was the wrong link in #54. This is the right one. (That one was to the Lawfare liveblog of Sessions’ testimony, in case anyone’s interested.)
blfsays
Oh goody, another nutcase meltdown. I like nutcase meltdowns, watching a few tightly-twisted garments flung through the air over some reasonable thing. In this case, First hijab-wearing Barbie based on Ibtihaj Muhammad:
Barbie will release its first hijab-wearing character in 2018, a doll based on the Olympian fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad.
The 31-year-old sportswoman rose to fame at the 2016 Summer Olympics, after becoming the first female Muslim-American to earn a medal at the games, and the first American woman to don the headscarf at the competition.
[… Ms Muhammad & others approve …]
However, not everyone was pleased about the latest doll.
Twitter user Amy Mek, who describes herself as a psychotherapist and supporter of US President [sic] Donald Trump, accused Muhammad of anti-Semitism.
Incidents of hate crimes in the US went up to 6,121 during 2016, seeing an increase of 4.6 percent compared to the previous year […].
The crimes committed, particularly against African-Americans, Jews and Muslims, rose for the second consecutive year, with a spike of 10 percent from 2014 to 2015.
[…]
The [FBI’s] report says that about 58 percent of 2016 incidents were racially motivated, with over half of those being directed at the African-American community.
Roughly 21 percent of the incidents were religiously motivated, with 54 percent targeting the Jewish community and about 25 percent targeting Muslims. Roughly 18 percent of the hate crimes were based on biases towards sexual orientation.
[A spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Corey] Saylor, who tracks anti-Islamic incidents throughout the US, said he would “argue that it has a lot to do with the irresponsible rhetoric used by some politicians on the campaign trail”.
[…]
The increase was predicted in data collected by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Their study (PDF) showed a 4.9 percent increase in hate crime incidents.
According to the research, Tennessee and Rhode Island saw the largest decreases in hate crime incidents, with 30 and 18 percent reductions since 2015, respectively.
Indiana and Minnesota saw the greatest increases, with 123 and 27 percent surges.
Figures from 2015 show that 51 percent of religiously motivated incidents were anti-Jewish and 22 percent were anti-Islamic.
Investigations into Moore’s nonprofit the Foundation of Moral Law, have revealed a man who champions himself above all else. […] Moore has used his platform to personally enrich himself and his family and to pursue his own, radical agenda.
Former Alabama judge Roy Moore […] once said publicly that he did not take a “regular salary” from the small charity he founded to promote Christian values because he did not want to be a financial burden.
But privately, Moore had arranged to receive a salary of $180,000 a year for part-time work at the Foundation for Moral Law, internal charity documents show. He collected more than $1 million as president from 2007 to 2012, compensation that far surpassed what the group disclosed in its public tax filings most of those years.
When the charity couldn’t afford the full amount, Moore in 2012 was given a promissory note for back pay eventually worth $540,000 or an equal stake of the charity’s most valuable asset, a historic building in Montgomery, Ala., mortgage records show. He holds that note even now, a charity official said.
A Washington Post review of public and internal charity documents found that errors and gaps in the group’s federal tax filings obscured until now the compensation paid to Moore […]
[…]
[…] In his last two years as president, as fundraising dwindled, Moore’s compensation amounted to about a third of the contributions to the group, tax filings show.
The charity has employed at least two of Moore’s children, although their compensation is not reflected in tax filings. Moore’s wife, Kayla, who is now president, was paid a total of $195,000 over three years through 2015.
Moore’s charitable and political activities have also overlapped in significant ways. The former longtime executive director of the charity now serves as Moore’s campaign manager. The charity retained the same fundraising firm used by three of Moore’s most recent campaigns for state office, public records show.
An Internal Revenue Service audit of the Foundation for Moral Law’s 2013 finances, provided by the charity, concluded that it left out information about fundraising and other activities on its public tax filings and also identified discrepancies between those filings and its internal books. […]
Seven charity and tax law specialists consulted by The Post said the nonprofit’s activities raised questions about compliance with IRS rules, including prohibitions on the use of a charity for the private benefit or enrichment of an individual.
[…]
There are numerous more details at the latter link.
(I don’t recall seeing this bit of sleaze by Moore mentioned before — I certainly wasn’t aware of it — apologies if it’s already been covered previously.)
“Is it possible, Mr. Sessions, that you and other members of the Trump campaign coordinated closely with Russia during the 2016 election and you have simply forgotten about it?”
Worth repeating for the laughs. We need all the laughs we can get.
I noticed that Republicans questioning Jeff Sessions have been prefacing their questions with falsehoods like, “the thoroughly debunked and scurrilous dossier” in reference to the Steele dossier. Nope. Not debunked. So far, the dossier has held up well. I think “politically motivated” was thrown in there too. Republicans really want to investigate Clinton in connection with the production of the dossier.
Hank Johnson is asking good questions about the AT&T merger and efforts to prevent future foreign election interference. I hope someone follows up on the question about whether anyone in the Trump administration/campaign has contacted him or the DoJ about the merger. Sessions is good at shifting the answer away from the question asked; they should tell him he can address his other points after he answers the basic question, because he uses up the time and it doesn’t get answered.
It’s amazing how clearly and quickly he can answer questions about deportations, in contrast to his befuddlement and stammering when answering Democrats’ questions.
More on Brett Talley, who has been nominated by Trump for a lifetime position on the federal bench in Alabama:
[…] Talley also appears to have failed to disclose other work he published online, including his reaction to massacre of children at Sandy Hook elementary. “My solution would be to stop being a society of pansies and man up,” Talley wrote in 2012. […]
(I don’t recall seeing this bit of sleaze by Moore mentioned before — I certainly wasn’t aware of it — apologies if it’s already been covered previously.)
It has, but it’s worth raising again. I was just thinking this morning about how much of the Right – and especially the Religious Right – involves blatant grift. Trump, Sekulow, Moore, Huckabee,… People support them unwaveringly and in return get fleeced.
Since Sessions expressed that he doesn’t think the DoJ should be interfered with for political purposes, someone should ask him why neither he nor Rosenstein have pushed back publicly on Trump’s efforts to interfere (they could show the recent emails again).
Governments in Venezuela, the Philippines, Turkey and elsewhere use social media to influence elections, drive agendas and counter critics, says report
[…]
Unlike widely reported Russian attempts to influence foreign elections, most of the offending countries use the internet to manipulate opinion domestically, says US NGO Freedom House.
“Manipulation and disinformation tactics played an important role in elections in at least 17 other countries over the past year, damaging citizens’ ability to choose their leaders based on factual news and authentic debate,” the US government-funded charity said. “Although some governments sought to support their interests and expand their influence abroad, as with Russia’s disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe, in most cases they used these methods inside their own borders to maintain their hold on power.”
Even in those countries that didn’t have elections in the last year, social media manipulation was still frequent. Of the 65 countries surveyed, 30, including Venezuela, the Philippines and Turkey, were found to be using “armies of opinion shapers” to “spread government views, drive particular agendas, and counter government critics on social media”, according to Freedom House’s new Freedom on the Net report. In each of the 30 countries it found “strong indications that individuals are paid to distort the digital information landscape in the government’s favour, without acknowledging sponsorship”.
[…]
“The fabrication of grassroots support for government policies on social media creates a closed loop in which the regime essentially endorses itself, leaving independent groups and ordinary citizens on the outside,” [director of the Freedom on the Net project, Sanja] Kelly said.
“So sad that Jeff Sessions suffers from that debilitating brain disorder where you can only remember things after someone proves you lied about it. Should we set up a charity walk or something?“
Rep. Bass is doing a great job questioning Sessions about the focus on so-called Black Identity Extremists and the ignoring of real, violent White Identity Extremists. She’s getting the facts on the record.
Jeffries confronting Sessions with his “I don’t recalls” and changing story was beautiful. Sessions is doing the high-dudgeon routine again. It’s stale.
Cicilline asked whether anyone in the WH contacted the DoJ about the AT&T deal or any other deal. Sessions just refused to answer about any contacts with the WH. Goodlatte said that’s fine.
Senior lawyers in India say the country’s supreme court is in crisis over the case of a former high court judge accused of offering to influence decisions for cash.
Events in the case in recent days have led to extraordinary accusations of misconduct against India’s most senior judge and fierce criticism of the supreme court […].
Critics accuse the Indian chief justice, Dipak Misra, of intervening to ensure only judges of his choice can hear a sensitive case relating to corruption involving a retired high court judge.
The retired judge, IM Quddusi, is accused of conspiring to bribe supreme court justices in a case over which Misra himself presided. It is not known which justices, if any, were allegedly offered bribes.
[… Misra has repeatedly overturned decisions / petitions for the case to be heard by an independent tribunal …]
The Friday hearing was a chaotic affair, with one lawyer arguing the petition, Prashant Bhushan, escorted from the court while flanked by security after verbally remonstrating with Misra.
Bhushan later tweeted that the chief justice was guilty of “very serious misconduct”. “He has violated basic principle of natural justice, that you can’t be judge in your own cause,” he said.
[…]
The article is at pains to point out there is no allegation that “Misra or any other supreme court justice behaved corruptly”, only that one of the problems is “a possible likelihood of bias if Misra was to consider a case with some connection, however tenuous, to him or other judges.”
Internet trolls carrying out an orchestrated campaign of intimidation and death threats have forced the shutdown of a French telephone hotline aimed at shaming men who refuse to take no for an answer.
The anti-harassment phone number was launched on Friday afternoon as a tool for women being pestered by over-insistent males.
Victims were advised to give a mobile phone number to men whose behaviour was inappropriately persistent.
When the men contacted the number they received an SMS message reading: “Hello! If you’re reading this message it’s because you have made a woman uncomfortable{…} It’s not complicated: if a woman says ‘no’ don’t insist. Learn to respect women’s freedom and their decisions. Thank you.”
The “anti-relou” (anti-pest) number […] was inundated in the 48 hours after its launch as the telephone number spread on social networks. In three days, the number received 26,000 messages, with each reply costing 16 centimes.
At the weekend, Clara Gonzales and Elliot Lepers temporarily suspended the campaign as the bill for SMS charges passed €600 (£527) due to the number of people texting the number, with only some of them genuine victims of sexual harassment. The pair launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay the growing bill.
The hotline was shut down definitively on Tuesday, after the concerted trolling campaign saw 20,000 hate messages, including death threats, sent on Monday afternoon.
[…]
In a statement on Twitter, the pair added: “We will try to reactivate a similar service as soon as possible.”
Gonzales and Lepers were inspired to set up a French version of the “Rejection Hotline” after hearing about a similar initiative set up by the American feminist website the Mary Sue, which suggested it as an option when dealing with “men who won’t respect their wishes or space”.
Police see 30% increase in year-on-year figures for October in wake of series of high-profile allegations against famous figures
[…]
The sharp increase in reports in October, up from 1,213 in the same period last year to 1,577 (30%), was revealed by an official source to Agence France-Presse.
Asked about the increase, France’s justice minister said the country’s legal system was equipped to deal with the extra workload […]
[…]
Last week, Richard Lizurey, the director general of the gendarmerie national, wrote to officers and prefects, calling for a “general mobilisation” to prevent violence against women and to support victims.
On Aug. 3 of last year, just as the US presidential election was entering its final, heated phase, the Russian foreign ministry sent nearly $30,000 to its embassy in Washington. The wire transfer, which came from a Kremlin-backed Russian bank, landed in one of the embassy’s Citibank accounts and contained a remarkable memo line: “to finance election campaign of 2016.”
That wire transfer is one of more than 60 now being scrutinized by the FBI and other federal agencies investigating Russian involvement in the US election. The transactions, which moved through Citibank accounts and totaled more than $380,000, each came from the Russian foreign ministry and most contained a memo line referencing the financing of the 2016 election.
The money wound up at Russian embassies in almost 60 countries from Afghanistan to Nigeria between Aug. 3 and Sept. 20, 2016. It is not clear how the funds were used. At least one transaction that came into the US originated with VTB Bank, a financial institution that is majority-owned by the Kremlin.
…
Much as checks include a memo line, wire transfers often include a note that states what the money is for. The note on this set of transfers does not indicate what election the money was to be used for, or even the country. Seven nations had federal elections during the span when the funds were sent — including the Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, on Sept. 18, 2016. Russian embassies and diplomatic compounds opened polling stations for voters living abroad.
…
Following the congressional requests, Citibank turned over a range of financial documents. The material includes more than 650 suspicious transactions between November 2013 and March 2017 totaling about $2.9 million. That money was sent to four Russian accounts operating in the US: the embassy; the Office of Defense, Military, Air and Naval Attaches; and Russian cultural centers in Washington and New York City.
Most of these wire transfers were not related to the election, sources say, but are the subject of FBI scrutiny for their possible ties to Russian corruption and money laundering.
The FBI and congressional investigators are now inspecting each of those transactions….
…Between Election Day 2016 and the end of September of this year, federal political committees reported paying at least $1.27 million to Trump entities, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Not a dollar has come from any Democrats.
Among congressional Republicans, 40 have spent campaign or leadership PAC money at Trump properties, including the D.C. hotel and other hotels and golf clubs throughout the country. The Trump Organization declined to comment.
…
Below are the 10 national Republican officials who have spent the most at Trump properties since Election Day 2016 — and the congressional candidate who has spent the most at the president’s venues.
President Trump
$534,864 spent at Trump-branded properties since Jan. 1, 2017
Among Republican politicians, Donald Trump’s best customer this year — by far — has been Donald Trump.
President Trump, who began fundraising for his 2020 reelection on Inauguration Day, has spent heavily at Trump Organization properties through his campaign and two affiliated committees since Jan. 1. His campaign has paid $482,371 for rent at Trump Tower in New York. It paid $22,700 for stays at the Trump hotel in D.C. It spent $2,596 on “office supplies” from Trump Ice, a bottled-water company.
In addition, the Republican National Committee spent $176,738 at Trump properties this year, including $122,000 to host a fundraiser headlined by the president at the Trump hotel in Washington in June….
How new plan works:
1. GOP ends Obamacare’s individual mandate
2. Fewer healthy people buy insurance
3. Premiums shoot up for everyone else
4. Millions can’t afford insurance who want it
5. Govt saves $ on subsidies
6. $ goes to corporations & rich people
Neera Tanden: “This is repeal with no replace. Millions will lose health care in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. Just in time for Christmas.”
[…] After the [Westminster terrorist attack in March], the tweeter shared a photograph of a young Muslim woman walking along the bridge looking at her phone, and wrongly accused her of ignoring the injured. It was swiftly picked up in the media […]
SouthLoneStar appeared to be a fairly conventional member of the American “alt-right” taking a sudden interest in London. […]
But there was a hidden — and disturbing — dimension to the incident, because this tweeter was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
[… examples of the fake accounts activities & oddities …]
[Twitter] suspended the account and decided that SouthLoneStar was the creation of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian “troll army” based in St Petersburg. This is where, in rooms of about 20 people working 12-hour shifts for pay of between 45,000 and 65,000 rubles a month (£575–£830), a modern disinformation campaign is crafted.
[…]
As chief justice of Alabama’s supreme court, Moore twice argued that the state’s “rape shield” law should not prevent alleged sex offenders from using certain evidence about their underage accusers’ personal lives to discredit them.
The cases were among 10 between 2013 and 2016 where Moore dissented from the court’s majority view and sided with alleged offenders who were appealing to the court as part of their efforts to overturn convictions or punishments for sexual crimes.
[…]
A review by the Guardian of all decisions issued by the Alabama supreme court during Moore’s second stint found decisions on 16 criminal cases that involved alleged sexual crimes. Moore sided with the offender over state prosecutors in 13 of those cases.
On 10 occasions, this meant dissenting from the court’s majority view. […]
[…]
[If the case of] Eric Higdon, a daycare center intern convicted of raping a four-year-old boy […] Moore in July 2015 […] argued the evidence did not support a lower court’s finding that Higdon had assaulted a child using “forcible compulsion”.
[…]
Like the four-year-old boy consented or something?! What a creep.
“RNC cuts off Moore”: “The RNC is pulling out of a joint fundraising agreement it had with Moore, according to a senior party official briefed on the decision. It is also canceling a field program it had set up ahead of the state’s Dec. 12 special election. The committee had about a dozen paid canvassers in Alabama working for Moore. It will no longer transfer any money to the race.”
In other news, there’s been a mass shooting in northern California.
A gunman killed four people and wounded a number of others at random Tuesday at multiple locations in rural Northern California, including an elementary school, before police shot him dead, authorities said.
Two hospitals said they were treating seven people, including at least three children.
No children were killed, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said. The shooter, who has not been identified, was fatally shot by police after engaging two officers who returned fire at an intersection in the community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, about 130 miles north of Sacramento, Johnston said. […]
“WOW==> US congresswoman @JackieSpeier (D-CA) tells Chuck Todd: ‘there is about 15 million dollars that has been paid out by the House on behalf of harassers in the last 10-15 years’ to settle sexual harassment claims… by the way that is US taxpayer money that was used!”
And the victims have to sign an NDA before they’re even able to go into mediation, so the public doesn’t know who its money is being used to protect!
Another amazing fake story emerged from Trump’s muddled brain. He thinks that President Obama, onboard Air Force One, flew to the Philippines but was not allowed to land.
[…] I mean, the Philippines, we just could not have been treated nicer. And as you know, we were having a lot of problems with the Philippines. The relationship with the past administration was horrible, to use a nice word. I would say ‘horrible’ is putting it mildly. You know what happened. Many of you were there, and you never got to land. The plane came close but it didn’t land.
And now we have a very, very strong relationship with the Philippines, which is really important…. So we’ve accomplished a lot.
From Steve Benen:
[…] That in no way reflects reality. In the real world, Obama was scheduled to meet Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in Laos last year, but the Democratic president canceled following a Duterte tantrum.
A year earlier, before Duterte took office, Obama visited the Philippines and the trip went smoothly.
In other words, Trump has embraced an odd fantasy as if it were true, pointing to an incident that never occurred as evidence of his diplomatic superiority over his predecessor. […]
From the Washington Post:
[Trump’s rhetoric was] exceedingly strange.
[…] Obama actually called off his meeting with Duterte — not the Philippines. So it’s unclear what Trump means when he says the Obama administration “was not exactly welcome.”
And Obama had some pretty good reasons for not meeting with Duterte. Chief among them is that police in the Philippines, with Duterte’s apparent blessing, have killed thousands of people without due process during Duterte’s drug war. After Obama criticized those killings, Duterte called him a “son of a whore.” That’s what led to Obama canceling a planned meeting with Duterte at the ASEAN conference in Laos. Obama said it wasn’t personal, but his State Department said that it didn’t think such insults were conducive to constructive dialogue. […]
Trump is confused, delusional. And he always tries to pull other people into his delusion, to make them complicit in his lies, “You know what happened. Many of you were there, and you never got to land.” Yes, other people were there, and they know what happened. Reality is/was nothing like the drivel Trump spouts.
(It bugs me how weird lines keep ending up in otherwise decent articles. “Minutes after Guccifer 2.0 released a new blog post, Lewis tweeted his support of the hacking collective, which U.S. intelligence officials believe was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee that was distributed by Wikileaks last year.” Hacking collective? Believe? The intelligence agencies, along with multiple independent experts, concluded that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and “Guccifer 2.0” was their front.)
The GOP tax plan will have lots of unintended consequences. The plan has no explicit rules/provisions that cut Medicare, but that is exactly what will happen:
The Republican tax bill would force $25 billion in immediate cuts to Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a move that could be stopped only with a bipartisan vote.
Those are the consequences under the pay-as-you-go law that Congress passed in 2010. That law requires tax cuts and certain spending increases to be paired with offsetting provisions. If not, the law forces automatic spending cuts…. Congress could prevent the cuts, but that couldn’t be done under the fast-track procedures they’re using for the tax bill.
Britt Lawson, a registered nurse from Pittsburgh, is fighting one instance of injustice perpetrated by the Trump administration:
[Lawson] traveled to Washington in January to serve as a volunteer medic for a weekend of protest activities against president-elect Donald Trump.
Lawson ended up spending most of the weekend incarcerated by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). She and more than 200 other people, including journalists and legal observers, were indiscriminately rounded up by police on inauguration day and thrown into jail. […]
In an unprecedented move, U.S. federal prosecutors turned what would have been a normal legal response to a protest — presenting charges to a court against specific protesters who engage in vandalism or violence — into a broader attack on dissent. They charged Lawson and her fellow arrestees — who have become known as the “J20” resistance — with several felonies that could send them to prison for more than 60 years.
Out of the legal scramble, Lawson emerged as part of a group of seven defendants who will be first in line to have their cases heard in D.C. Superior Court. Under the current schedule, her trial will start Wednesday and is expected to last at least a couple weeks. Donations to J20 defense funds have helped pay for her travel and housing costs.
The case’s outcome could set a precedent that would affect all of the remaining defendants awaiting trial who face the same strict maximum sentence. “I’m feeling generally confident for the case broadly as well as for my specific case. I feel like it will be a helpful and a psychological boost if we get some early acquittals,” Lawson said. […]
Much more at the link, including this explanation from Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology and the coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College:
[…] “It is not lawful for the police to engage in collective, indiscriminate punishment and arrests. In their desire to bring the protest to end as quickly and as decisively as possible, they decided to act in an extralegal fashion,” explained Vitale, who is serving as an informal adviser to lawyers for the J20 defendants. […]
Oh, FFS. We really don’t need less regulation on banks.
On Monday, the Senate Banking Committee announced that it struck a rare bipartisan deal to deregulate banks. The deal would gut several of the protections enacted in 2010 in response to the financial crisis as part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, most notably a key rule requiring that “Too Big To Fail” banks—those with more than $50 billion in assets—undergo stricter oversight. The deal is backed by nine Democrats, which means that if the full Republican caucus backs the bill it would have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.
The plan […] would quintuple the threshold for a “systemically important” designation by the federal government, raising that figure from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion. The result? Several dozen major banks and financial institutions—including BB&T, American Express, Credit Suisse, Regions Financial, Citizens Financial, and SunTrust—would no longer be subject to the most rigorous risk checks enacted in 2010 to monitor big banks’ ability to withstand financial shock.
These checks include annual stress tests by the Federal Reserve, as well as higher capital ratio requirements. The total number of financial institutions subject to this highest level of supervision would drop from 40 to about 12. This same deregulation was proposed this summer by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, […] and a number of the banks that would be excluded have failed stress tests in the past. […]
[…] But there was more to the story of WikiLeaks’ apparent effort to conspire with the Trump campaign against PutinTrump.org—and I had a front-row seat to it, as editorial director of the site. Within just minutes of reaching out to Trump Jr., WikiLeaks also publicized the password, setting off a wave of online harassment, email bombs, and personal threats against people behind the site. […]
Our site was soon hit with a surge of traffic and spam while it was still password-protected and meant to be out of public view—and that was just the beginning. Within hours, people involved with launching the site were doxxed and personally targeted on Twitter, an attack that quickly spread to Reddit and to alt-right and pro-Trump news sites.
Mother Jones is withholding some details about the attack at the request of the people who were targeted due to their concerns about further harassment: Their cellphone numbers, home addresses, and other information about them and their family members were publicized, alongside calls to go after them. Their email accounts were hit with a spambot attack, signing them up for thousands of unwanted subscriptions—many in a foreign language—which rendered the accounts unusable. In a panic, one of them sent me a message: “We are getting 100,000 spam messages to our inbox and all of our personal info is on twitter.” They also received menacing emails and crank phone calls.
“It was the scariest times in our lives,” recalls one of the people targeted. “There were messages threatening our families.” […]
The New York Times covered Trump’s recent trip to Asia quite well. As a result, Trump indulged in a hyperbolic Twitter rant against the Times:
It is actually hard to believe how naive (or dumb) the Failing @nytimes is when it comes to foreign policy…weak and ineffective!
The failing @nytimes hates the fact that I have developed a great relationship with World leaders like Xi Jinping, President of China.
They should realize that these relationships are a good thing, not a bad thing. The U.S. is being respected again. Watch Trade!
Possible explanation for what triggered the rant:
[…] earlier Wednesday Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman penned a piece criticizing President Trump for allowing himself to be manipulated by Xi on trade, an issue the president has made a priority in his overseas diplomatic talks.
“Xi has been brilliant at playing Trump, plying him with flattery and short-term trade concessions and deflecting him from the real structural trade imbalances with China,” Friedman wrote in an op-ed titled, “China Could Sell Trump the Brooklyn Bridge.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday questioned whether the three UCLA basketball players released from China on Tuesday after being accused of shoplifting while traveling abroad would thank him for his hand in delivering them back to Los Angeles.
“Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!” the president tweeted Wednesday morning.
The three UCLA freshmen were arrested last week after being charged with stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store […] Forwards Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, along with guard LiAngelo Ball, the brother of Los Angeles Lakers rookie point guard Lonzo Ball, did not play in their season opening match against Georgia Tech on Saturday, but were released on Tuesday by Chinese authorities after remaining secluded in their hotel over the weekend. […]
Larry Scott, commissioner of the Pacific-12 athletic conference, thanked the president and his administration for the players’ release in a statement. […]
It’s incredible how much it reads like a contemporary “Childhood of a Leader”! It also alludes to, but unfortunately doesn’t emphasize, the likelihood that Anglin was raised in an abusive environment. And of course there’s a Russia angle (which is by no means gratuitous).
(This one, too, has one of those inexplicable weird passages:
Anglin set up his own website, for a fake record label called “Andy Sucks! Records” that he used to dupe bands into sending him demo tapes. Here, his leftist leanings were on full display: He wrote posts encouraging people to send the Westboro Baptist Church death threats from untraceable accounts, and he mocked the Ku Klux Klan and other racist organizations. He wasn’t so different, back then, from the antifascist activists who would one day protest outside his dad’s office.
O’Brien earlier describes the antifascist protesters outside Anglin’s father’s office as including his preschool teacher. I doubt many of them are death-threats-from-untraceable-accounts types. What this part of his history actually shows is an early manifestation of his psychology: in a variety of contexts throughout his life, he’s been prone to whipping up mobs and encouraging others to vilify, harass, threaten, and commit violence against his targets. People with tendencies like this can exist in more socially progressive movements – we’ve certainly seen some in the atheist/secular/pro-science movements over the past several years – but they tend to have less success. They find their true home in rightwing authoritarian movements.)
Roy Moore threatened to sue some more people. So far, everyone he has threatened to sue is not backing down.
One of Alabama’s top local news companies said Wednesday its newspapers “will not be silenced or slowed” by Senate candidate Roy Moore’s threat to sue them over their reporting on his alleged sexual misconduct.
The Alabama Media Group, […] issued a statement Wednesday that said the publisher “stands by its reporting” on Moore, […]
“Roy Moore seeks election to the United States Senate. As such a public figure, he merits and can expect intense scrutiny by the electorate and the media on its behalf, including by Alabama Media Group, the state’s largest media outlet,” Michelle Holmes, vice president of content for the Alabama Media Group, wrote on Wednesday.
The publisher confirmed that Trenton Garmon, an attorney for Moore, sent a letter dated Tuesday indicating his intent to pursue legal action in response to their coverage.
“This letter is provided in anticipating (sic) of our firm preparing and filing a lawsuit against your client and its agents,” the letter stated, according to the publisher. […]
“Why do you think they’re giving me this trouble? Why do you think I’m being harassed by media and by people pushing allegations in the last 28 days of the election? … After 40-something years of fighting this battle, I’m now facing allegations and that’s all the press wants to talk about,” Roy Moore said.
Six Democrats are now calling for Trump to be impeached:
[…] Rep. Steve Cohen told reporters that five other Democrats have signed on to his resolution to introduce five articles of impeachment against the president.
The Democrats charge that Trump obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey; that he has violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by continuing to frequent and profit from his businesses; and that he has undermined the federal judiciary and freedom of the press.
“We’re calling upon the House to begin impeachment hearings,” Cohen said. “It’s not a call for a vote. It’s a call for hearings.”
Cohen acknowledged that he doesn’t expect the House Judiciary Committee, which he accused of operating “like a branch of the administration,” to hold hearings but pledged to hold briefings with experts to highlight what he contends are the president’s impeachable offenses. […]
Popehat: “People are suggesting I write about Roy Moore’s lawyer’s threat letter. Write what? How would I begin? Would you footnote a sunset over the water? Would you airbrush a rose? That letter is the Mona Lisa of unselfconscious imbecility.”
The lawyer, Garmon (who I think technically represents Moore’s wife and scammy charitable foundation), was on MSNBC with Ali Veshi and Stephanie Ruhle this morning. I was rushing around an unable to catch the whole thing. Everyone is focusing (with reason) on this part – “Roy Moore’s Lawyer to MSNBC’s Ali Velshi: Your ‘Background’ Should Help You Understand Underage Dating.” But the “banned from the mall” discussion was also interesting. Garmon actually suggested that rural Alabama malls are somehow a gold standard for security practice and record-keeping. I think he implied that he’d contacted the mall and that they told him that they didn’t have a list of banned people with Moore’s name on it from that time. (I believe the articles and interviews I’ve seen presented it as an unofficial policy that everyone knew about, so this wouldn’t necessarily be significant anyway.) Ruhle was a bit confused after he referred to his dealings with the mall on behalf of other clients, but in the process of clarifying I’m pretty sure he said that there had been reports to the mall about Moore’s behavior, but that the mall security people must not have thought they rose to the level needed for a ban. That seems like quite an admission. I don’t know if Moore told him that or if the people from the mall did, but it sounded like he was saying there had been reports. He doesn’t express himself very clearly, and as I said I was doing other things while it was on, but it seemed like that’s what he said.
Steele discovered that Fifa corruption was global. It was a stunning conspiracy. He took the unusual step of briefing an American contact in Rome, the head of the FBI’s Eurasian serious crime division. This “lit the fuse”, as one friend put it, and led to a probe by US federal prosecutors. And to the arrest in 2015 of seven Fifa officials, allegedly connected to $150m (£114m) in kickbacks, paid on TV deals stretching from Latin America to the Caribbean. The US indicted 14 individuals.
The episode burnished Steele’s reputation inside the US intelligence community and the FBI. Here was a pro, a well-connected Brit, who understood Russian espionage and its subterranean tricks. Steele was regarded as credible. Between 2014 and 2016, Steele authored more than 100 reports on Russia and Ukraine. These were written for a private client but shared widely within the US state department, and sent up to secretary of state John Kerry and assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the US response to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine. Many of Steele’s secret sources were the same people who would later supply information on Trump.
One former state department envoy during the Obama administration said he read dozens of Steele’s reports. On Russia, the envoy said, Steele was “as good as the CIA or anyone”.
I also didn’t know (among several other details) that Steele had been brought in and had started looking at Manafort in early spring 2016, before the Democrats took over the Fusion GPS contract. I’m still confused about whether the Democrats contracted with Fusion GPS in April or May.
Hillary Clinton responded on Wednesday to news that the Trump administration is considering appointing a special counsel to investigate her alleged ties to the Uranium One deal, calling the move “a disastrous step into politicizing the Justice Department” and “such an abuse of power.”
In an exclusive interview with Mother Jones, Clinton said such an investigation would have devastating consequences for the justice system in America. “If they send a signal that we’re going to be like some dictatorship, like some authoritarian regime, where political opponents are going to be unfairly, fraudulently investigated, that rips at the fabric of the contract we have, that we can trust our justice system,” Clinton said. “It will be incredibly demoralizing to people who have served at the Justice Department, under both Republicans and Democrats, because they know better. But it will also send a terrible signal to our country and the world that somehow we are giving up on the kind of values that we used to live by and we used to promote worldwide.”
…
“I’m not concerned, because I know that there is no basis to it,” she said. “I regret if they do it because it will be such a disastrous step to politicizing the justice system. And at the end of the day, nothing will come of it, but it will, you know, cause a lot of terrible consequences that we might live with for a really long time.”
Taxpayers are footing the legal bill for at least 10 Justice Department lawyers and paralegals to work on lawsuits related to President Trump’s private businesses.
Neither the White House nor the Justice Department will say how much it is costing taxpayers, but federal payroll records show the salaries of the government lawyers assigned to the cases range from about $133,000 to $185,000.
The government legal team is defending President Trump in four lawsuits stemming from his unusual decision not to divest himself from hundreds of his companies that are entangled with customers that include foreign governments and officials.
In the cases, Justice Department attorneys are not defending policy actions Trump took as president. Instead, the taxpayer-funded lawyers are making the case that it is not unconstitutional for the president’s private companies to earn profits from foreign governments and officials while he’s in office.
The government lawyers and Trump’s private attorneys are making the same arguments — that the Constitution’s ban on a president taking gifts from foreign interests in exchange for official actions does not apply to foreign government customers buying things from Trump’s companies. The plaintiffs, including ethics groups and competing businesses, argue the payments pose an unconstitutional conflict of interest.
The Justice Department for weeks refused to answer questions about how many employees were working on the cases and for how long, falsely saying the agency doesn’t track such information. USA TODAY identified the government legal staff who are defending Trump’s business profits using the agency’s own internal case-tracking database, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act….
SC in comment 114: Clinton’s comments are so spot on. And it’s like her to look at the bigger picture, at the consequences. Even Trey Gowdy said that he didn’t think the standard had been met to justify opening an investigation into Hillary Clinton. When Gowdy is hesitant to open an investigation you know that investigation is not legit.
Nerd @120, I enjoyed the Warren interview on Maddow’s show. Warren knows the issues inside and out. She doesn’t put up with any bullshit. Her laughter was also a great moment.
Neera Tanden re #117: “Now that the Intercept knows wikileaks was colluding with Trump, they can go back and update every story they ever wrote using wikileaks to attack people.”
Republicans are lying repeatedly about their tax plan. Steve Benen looked at the lies of one particular Republican, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise:
[…] the Louisiana Republican’s pitch includes a straightforward suggestion: “Just look at history.”
“If you go back to when John F. Kennedy Jr. cut taxes, if you go back to the last time we transformed our tax code – 1986 when Ronald Reagan was president – you can go to the Clinton years,” Scalise said. “Every time we’ve cut taxes you’ve seen the economy take off.”
Later, Scalise added: “So if you look at history, every time this has been done it’s worked. Why not do it again, especially when you’ve got a slow economy?” […]
Alas, reality is stubborn. Indeed, if we take Scalise’s advice and “look at history,” it points in a direction he and his caucus probably won’t like.
The last time Congress approved a massive overhaul of the federal tax system, for example, the economy didn’t soar at all. This isn’t a matter of opinion; the quantifiable evidence for what happened after the 1986 tax reform package become law is readily available. (Similarly, Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts didn’t boost the economy, either.)
It’s also fascinating to see a member of the House GOP leadership celebrate “the Clinton years” – since it was Clinton who raised taxes in 1993, to the consternation of Republicans who insisted the policy would cause a recession. Instead, “the Clinton years” offered one of the most robust economic boom periods on record.
And as long as we’re taking a stroll down memory lane, there’s one name that seems to be getting too little attention in this debate: George W. Bush.
It was, after all, the most recent Republican president who slashed taxes, disproportionately benefiting the wealthy, in ways the country couldn’t afford. Bush and congressional Republicans were nevertheless certain that their tax breaks would send the economy soaring, […]
But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently explained, “Despite promises from proponents of the tax cuts, evidence suggests that they did not improve economic growth or pay for themselves, but instead ballooned deficits and debt and contributed to a rise in income inequality.”
And, of course, Bush left office with an economy in shambles. Conditions improved dramatically under Barack Obama’s presidency – which included tax increases. […]
SC in comment 114: Clinton’s comments are so spot on. And it’s like her to look at the bigger picture, at the consequences. Even Trey Gowdy said that he didn’t think the standard had been met to justify opening an investigation into Hillary Clinton. When Gowdy is hesitant to open an investigation you know that investigation is not legit.
I think we were all far too quiet about the disgusting Benghazi farce – since we knew it was a baseless witchhunt, we let it take its course, even after they publicly admitted it was meant to hurt Clinton politically. This is now so far outside the bounds, so unsuited to a democracy.
“Senator Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It.”
And his response is trash too:
“I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann,” he said. “As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Nice gaslighting attempt there. If he’s calling her a liar about that rehearsal, then why apologize for it?
Also, I’m pretty sure that photo is wrong because of the sexual attack and misogyny and not because it wasn’t funny. He says it like he’s sorry because it didn’t get a big laugh.
Overall, a pretty standard notpology as expected from a man.
Franken has released a longer statement. There will be an ethics inquiry, which the Democrats I’ve seen so far fully support. Franken says he’ll cooperate fully with the inquiry.
[…] Under the new guidelines, Twitter can remove verification “at any time without notice” for users “promoting hate and or/violence” against others based on their identities. Behaviors “on and off Twitter,” including “inciting or engaging in harassment,” now warrant removal.
Unsurprisingly, the white nationalists targeted flipped out—on Twitter.
“Verified no more! Is it not okay to be proudly White?” Spencer asked, subsequently tweeting that anyone on the right who retained their verified status was “system approved” and “utterly irrelevant.”
Jason Kessler, organizer of this summer’s violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and whose verification last week prompted a mass backlash that ushered in these changes, posted the full letter he received from Twitter.
“Twitter has changed their verification policy just to be able to censor me,” Kessler lamented. […]
Pity the poor, persecuted white supremacists.
[…] Far-right activist Laura Loomer repeatedly compared the removal of her allies’ blue check marks to the Holocaust, likening it to the Nazis’ “Final Solution” to annihilate Europe’s Jewish population. […]
An already chaotic, confusing open enrollment period, run by an administration openly hostile to the Affordable Care Act, just got worse.
As health care consumers across the country find themselves with half as much time to enroll, and with far fewer resources for information and assistance, many people across the country are also receiving renewal notices from their insurers showing wildly inaccurate estimates of how much they will have to pay in premiums.
Government officials and health care experts fear many consumers will not do the research necessary to learn that they qualify for far lower premiums than these letters suggest—depressing overall enrollment and weakening Obamacare’s already vulnerable individual market.
[…] Because insurers often have to send out renewal notices to their consumers before they know what next year’s federal tax credits will be, they estimate the new year’s monthly premiums based on the assumption that the consumer will receive the same amount of tax credits for premiums as they did the year before.
But the issue was massively exacerbated this year by the Trump administration abruptly yanking cost-sharing reduction payments from insurers right before the start of open enrollment. That sudden move is causing big premium hikes, but Obamacare shields most consumers from the impact by increasing the federal tax credits. The renewal notices landing in the mailboxes of millions of people around the country show the premium hikes but use last year’s lower subsidy amounts, making it appear as though the plans cost as much as several hundred dollars more per month than they really do.
[…] Alex Feldvebel, New Hampshire’s deputy insurance commissioner, told TPM that his office has been fielding calls from confused and irate residents—some of whom received letters saying, incorrectly, that their out-of-pocket costs will jump from $200 to $600 per month. He’s been directing them to Healthcare.gov, where most find they will have to pay much less, and in many cases qualify for a free plan, but he said he’s worried about those who don’t call. […]
David Mendels, former CEO of Brightcove, and an Adobe executive, debunked some of the Republican lies about the GOP tax plan. First, the lie, as summarized by Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
The average American family would get a $4,000 raise under the President’s tax cut plan. So how could any member of Congress be against it? What would your family do w/ a $4,000 raise from the President’s tax cut plan? REPLY & I’ll share your family’s story in the press briefing.
The reply from David Mendels:
We had clear metrics we followed in most areas–for every additional $ in sales growth we committed to, we could hire a roughly fixed ratio of addition sales reps. For every increase in call volume, we would hire a roughly fixed ratio of customer service reps. For new product ideas, we would expect management to sign up for significant and specific revenue goals. It is a simple but true concept, customers drive business growth, not tax rates, not mythical “job creators.” Tax rates impact profitability, but are only very indirectly tied to hiring. […]
Again, simple concept: the market for labor determines what CEOs/management/investors pay employees. Tax rates are not a factor. If I want to hire an engineer with experience in machine learning, the demand in the market right now is tremendous and the supply of people with that experience is limited. Salaries are going through the roof. If I want to hire a young person out of college for a junior sales or customer service job, it is a buyer’s market and wages are moderate. Neither of those realities change if my tax rate changes. […]
First of all, Occam’s Razor suggests that cutting corporate taxes will benefit the owners of corporations–the investor class. It it is pretty simple and obvious concept. The leap of faith required to argue the the goal is not that, but to benefit the working class, is such a stretch that it really can not be taken seriously. We know this because we have already tested this proposition and seen the results.
Broadly in the US economy, we have seen a massive increase in corporate profits at the same time as we have seen stagnant wages. That increase in corporate profits has lead to a record stock market and a dramatic increase in wealth for investors, not to significant increases in wages for working people. A tax cut for corporations will increase their profitability. Why should we believe that this increase in profitability will lead to wage increases when we have already seen that increases in profitability over the last 10 years did not, but rather went to stock buybacks and dividend increases that benefitted the investors? […]
[…] Earlier in the morning, Governor Ricardo Rossello had told his 140,000 Twitter followers that the Puerto Rican power utility had reached a short-term goal of getting power output back to 50 percent of normal levels, adding the hashtag, “#PRSeLevanta,” or Puerto Rico pulls itself up.
The celebration lasted till the lights went out. A statement from the power agency said a technical problem in a plant was responsible for the outage. […]
Governor, I believe that your percentage has just changed. The power went out at the Centro Médico (Medical Center of Puerto Rico), and Hospital Municipal (San Juan Municipal Hospital) and the CRIM—Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales (Municipal Revenue Collection Center)
Details of some past mistakes made by FEMA:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency spent $35.1 million on renting two emergency generators to help power blacked-out San Juan, Puerto Rico. But a group of engineers says existing infrastructure could have been used more effectively at a fraction of the cost.
The mobile turbine generators, fully connected as of last week, bring some 50 megawatts to the partially idled Palo Seco plant west of the capital. That’s intended to stabilize power supply, at least in neighborhoods where distribution lines are intact.
Yet the Puerto Rico Professional College of Engineers and Land Surveyors said a better alternative was to turn on some of Palo Seco’s existing facilities to provide at least five times more power, according to a report delivered to local lawmakers and an interview with the organization’s president. […]
Haley Byrd: “What I’ve learned in the past few weeks: Sexual harassment is rampant on Capitol Hill. Few people are immune, even lawmakers. Abusers are well known, but good luck getting victims on record or on background. My heart breaks for all the stories I’ve heard. But keep them coming.”
[…] South Carolina pastor and vocal Trump supporter Mark Burns was asked to comment on the growing list of allegations against the former judge, which include reportedly being banned from a mall for his predatory behavior. Burns expressed doubt about the claims, saying Moore is a “very strong Christian conservative” and that the accusations amount to a “character assassination.”
“Today it’s Judge Moore. Tomorrow it could be you,” Burns said.
But MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle fired back: “It can’t be me tomorrow because when I was in my 30s, I didn’t get banned from a mall. I wasn’t calling girls out of class [or] dating girls under 18 so no, it is not possible for it to ever be me.”
The increasingly tense interview eventually took a sharp theological turn after Burns, a pastor, referred to himself as a “man of faith.” Ruhle responded by asking how Burns feels about Moore reportedly signing Bibles on the campaign trail—a legacy of his status as a crusader for what is often called Christian nationalism. […]
“Jesus, the Bible…had the issue of blood, she reached out and she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment,” Burns said. “She never touched Jesus but she touched his hem. In other words, she touched his cloths. It was her faith that healed her. She never touched his body, she touched his cloth. If it increases somebody’s faith, whether it be a piece of cloth, there’s no voodoo or special power in these artifacts. Whether it be a signature—if it increases somebody’s faith to believe Moore and the faith of the lord Jesus Christ, then so be it.”
Burns’ theological argument was not immediately clear. The Bible story in question—which is referenced in three different Gospels—involves a woman whose hemorrhaging is miraculously healed after she pushed through a crowd to touch Jesus’s garment, after which Christ tells her “your faith has made you well.” The story does not state that touching the cloak “increases” the woman’s faith in the way Burns says a Bible autographed by Moore would. On the contrary, Jesus’ words imply that it was her faith that made her pursue Jesus in the first place.
The claim is but the latest in a series of odd religious arguments that conservatives have recently used to defend Moore’s alleged predatory behavior. […]
[…] The crucial thing to realize is that this tax reform effort reflects more than the normal conservative allergic reaction to progressive taxation — going far beyond undoing the modest progressive grains achieved by Presidents Obama and Clinton.
Three major changes stand out: These taxes are far more focused on owners than on workers, even by Republican standards. They take advantage of the ambiguity of what counts as income, weaponizing that vagueness to help their friends and hurt their enemies.
And after years of pushing for a safety net that works through the tax code, in order to keep more social democratic reforms at bay, Republicans now reveal their willingness to demolish even those modest protections. Their actions make clear that a welfare state based on tax credits and refunds, rather than universal commitments, is all too vulnerable. […]
The Trump Organization in New York is reportedly worth one tenth of the value it previously claimed.
Donald Trump’s family business had previously ranked near the top of Crain’s New York Business’ list of largest privately held companies.
But this year it has fallen from number three to number 40 after the President disclosed the organisation’s revenue to federal regulators.
While the Trump Organization claimed $9.5bn (£7.2bn) in sales last year, Mr Trump’s public filings suggest revenues of less than a tenth of that amount, between $600m (£450m) and $700m (£530m)….
Hmm…: “All the signs out there today suggesting Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab either entered a guilty plea/made a deal with prosecution on Iranian sanctions violation case. His Turkish lawyer cannot reach him but American one can. He didn’t appear today in court.”
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner forwarded emails concerning a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” to Trump campaign officials and failed to produce those emails to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a letter the senators sent Kushner’s lawyer on Thursday.
Kushner also failed to produce emails on which he was copied involving communication with WikiLeaks, and with the Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian, the senators said….
…
It is unclear what the “dinner invite” was a reference to. The senators also said Kushner had not produced any phone records.
It has also not been reported that anyone on the campaign was in touch with Sergei Millian via email. Millian, a Belarus-born businessman who is now a US citizen, founded the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in 2006.
…
The Wall Street Journal and ABC reported earlier this year that Millian is “Source E” in the dossier alleging ties between Trump and Russia. Millian, who attended several black-tie events at Trump’s inauguration, has denied that charge….
Oil leak in South Dakota: TransCanada: “We are currently responding to an incident in Amherst, SD. We have activated emergency response procedures and dispatched ground crews to assess the situation.”
Ogvorbis: Swimming without a parachute.says
SC:
Wait, that cannot be! Impossible!!11!!! They said it would be the bestest and most leakproofiest pipeline ever builded and that leaks and spills were a non-issue because they cannot happen. Does this mean that a for-profit company lied? Or maybe it is god’s punishment for all those evil libruls in South Dakota who tried to stop pipelines because leaks and spills can happen . . .
Wait, that cannot be! Impossible!!11!!! They said it would be the bestest and most leakproofiest pipeline ever builded and that leaks and spills were a non-issue because they cannot happen.
I know – inconceivable! The earlier press release said 50,000 barrels; a more recent one says 210,000. Who knows what the real figure will turn out to be.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller caught the Trump campaign by surprise last month, issuing a subpoena to more than a dozen officials despite the campaign’s voluntary compliance with his probe, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing a source.
…
None of those who received the subpoena were compelled to testify before a grand jury, the Journal reported.
“Sending a subpoena to an entity that says it has been cooperating with document requests isn’t unusual in cases in which prosecutors have some concern that their demands aren’t being met promptly or aren’t being entirely fulfilled,” the Journal wrote, citing former prosecutors….
…An NBC News investigation into the Trump Ocean Club, in conjunction with Reuters, shows that the project was riddled with brokers, customers and investors who have been linked to drug trafficking and international crime. Ceballos, who investigated the project, went as far as to call the skyscraper “a vehicle for money laundering.”
The investigation revealed no indication that the Trump Organization or members of the Trump family engaged in any illegal activity, or knew of the criminal backgrounds of some of the project’s associates. But Ventura said that the Trumps never asked any questions about the buyers or where the money was coming from.
Legal experts contacted by Reuters said the Trumps should have asked those questions. Because Panama is “perceived to be highly corrupt,” said Arthur Middlemiss, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and a former head of JPMorgan’s global anti-corruption program, those who do business there should perform due diligence on others involved in their ventures. If they fail to do so, he told Reuters, they risk being liable under U.S. law of turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.
…
Ivanka Trump, now senior adviser to President Donald Trump, did not respond to requests for comment about her involvement in the project, instead referring questions to the Trump Organization. In a statement, the company distanced itself from both Ventura and the Panama project.
…
But Ventura says that the Trump family, and Ivanka Trump in particular, was involved in the details of the Trump Ocean Club, and that she interacted with him extensively.
Ivanka Trump is featured in a promotional video for the Trump Ocean Club, made in 2011, in which she praises “the beautiful pool decks” and “our 10,000-square-foot spa.”
“Buenos días,” she says in the video. “Hello, I’m Ivanka Trump. Welcome to Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower, Panama, rising 70 stories above the glistening Panama Bay. We’ve taken inspiration from the beauty that surrounds us to create a new landmark for Panama.” She goes on to discuss such details as the “tropical color palette” and the carvings on the guestroom headboards.
“The Trump Organization has to approve everything because of his name on the project,” Ventura said, describing the project as Ivanka Trump’s “baby.”
…
Ventura says about half of the units he sold at the Trump Ocean Club were to Russians.
…
Ceballos, who says he investigated transactions related to the Trump Ocean Club during his stint as an anti-corruption prosecutor in Panama, describes the building as a magnet for international organized crime, particularly from Russia….
[…] White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders [said] that Donald Trump likes both of the competing tax plans being considered by the Republican-led House and Republican-led Senate. “Both bills achieve the president’s priorities,” she said. “That’s been his focus: tax cuts for middle-class families.”
The argument might be more compelling if it in any way reflected reality. The GOP plan in the House increases taxes on millions of middle-class households, and as the Washington Post reported, the Senate GOP’s tax plan moves even more aggressively away from Trump’s purported “focus.”
The tax bill Senate Republicans are championing would give large tax cuts to the rich while raising taxes on American families earning $10,000 to $75,000 over the next decade, according to a report released Thursday by the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official nonpartisan analysts.
[…] Tax increases for households earning $10,000 to $30,000 would start in 2021 and grow sharply from there, JCT found. By 2027, most Americans earning $75,000 a year or less would be forced to pay more in taxes, while people earning more than $100,000 a year would continue to pay less.
It’s worth emphasizing that the Joint Committee on Taxation is basically the Congressional Budget Office for tax bills. This isn’t a think tank or an advocacy organization; this is the congressional office responsible for scrutinizing tax bills for federal lawmakers.
And right now, that scrutiny is telling senators that the current Republican legislation would raise taxes on American households earning less than $75,000. If the GOP’s goal is “tax cuts for middle-class families,” the Senate Republican’s proposal does the exact opposite.
[…] the Joint Committee on Taxation’s report is, to a degree, incomplete, but not in a way GOP officials can credibly complain about. For example, the analysis didn’t include the Republican tax plan’s repeal of the estate tax, which exclusively benefits multi-millionaires, and it doesn’t include the impact of repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which will disproportionately punish the poor and middle class.
In other words, as damaging as the Joint Committee on Taxation’s latest analysis is for Republicans, the truth is actually a little worse.
[…] Republican leaders haven’t yet publicly acknowledged the evidence that suggests they had the entire story backwards.
Stunning. Horrifying. The attack on our judicial system is broader and more ambitious than we realized.
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.
The memo, co-authored by law professor and Federalist Society founder Steven G. Calabresi, proposes a monumental expansion of the federal judiciary. It also is not subtle about its motivations. As the memo states in its introduction, a major purpose of this court-packing scheme is “undoing the judicial legacy of President Barack Obama.” […]
The ambition of Calabresi’s memo is, at times, staggering. At one point he proposes doubling or tripling the number of federal appellate court judgeships — claiming that “the optimal number of active circuit court judgeships is at least double the current number of 167 authorized judgeships… and more likely between 2.5x and 3x the current number.” He also proposes adding 185 trial judges to the 673 currently authorized by federal law […]
The memo also seems to advise members of Congress to argue that this court-packing plan is necessary for politically neutral reasons, such as overworked courts. After a section captioned “Undoing President Barack Obama’s Judicial Legacy,” Calabresi follows up with this paragraph:
One of the most straightforward ways for Republicans to address this problem is to make the case for a new judgeship bill that would enable the President to appoint a sufficient number of new judges that would help to change the balance of power on each of the circuit courts back to a conservative majority. This memorandum helps make that case by focusing on the problem of the federal courts’ caseloads and unpublished opinions.
[….] Should Calabresi’s plan move forward, it could easily lead to the end of an independent judiciary in the United States. […]
With all of the attention to Roy Moore being a sexual predator and serial assaulter of girls, and to a lesser extent at the moment to his bigotry and lawlessness, we shouldn’t lose sight of his corruption; uncollegiality (he doesn’t appear to have been able to get along with colleagues in any sphere of his life – lived in fear soldiers in Vietnam would frag him! – but wants to join the country’s preeminent deliberative body); refusal to debate his opponent on the issues (the refusal preceded the allegations); shocking level of policy ignorance; or terrible, ill-formed policy ideas about health care, education, etc. which would do great harm to the people of Alabama.
SC @164, I think some of the voters in Alabama support Roy Moore as a way to say “fuck you” to Washington D.C., and to people they view as elitist and/or not godly.
I don’t think most of the voters really knew that much about Roy Moore. Maybe now they are learning a bit more.
I have always been surprised by how little voters know about the candidates they choose. This is just an extreme example of low-information-voting. Same old problem, but with potentially disastrous results if not solved in this case.
Also, it is amazing how some people are able to filter out negative information about their candidate. They just don’t hear it, don’t read it, don’t absorb it.
And further re #164 – people aren’t paying attention to Doug Jones and the fact that he seems like a good man and a capable, qualified candidate with thoughtful policy ideas that will help Alabamians.
Wilbur Ross, like Trump, lies about money and about how much money he has:
[…] Two weeks ago, Forbes magazine reported that Ross [Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross], one of the president’s billionaire cabinet members, appears to have been lying about being a billionaire. The article explained, in striking candor, that “Ross lied” to the magazine, and the “fibs, exaggerations, omissions, fabrications and whoppers” have been ongoing for over a decade.
This led the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to lower its net worth calculation for Ross to $860 million from $3 billion.
[…] Forbes reported this week:
Six Senate Democrats requested an investigation of Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Monday, following reports that he apparently lied about his net worth and held onto investments in a shipping company that does business with a Russian enterprise partially owned by associates of Vladimir Putin. […]
[…] Their letter asked the Commerce Department’s inspector general to examine “whether Secretary Ross has provided fabrications about other assets or shielded the existence of assets, and the extent to which false representations impacted the evaluation of and implementation of the ethics agreements he must now follow.”
[…] I’m reminded of something the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank recently wrote: “Ross has a problem I do not have…. He is in Trump’s Cabinet because he is a putative billionaire, and Trump respects only billionaires and generals.”
[…] At a rally over the summer in Iowa, Trump explained why his administration is led in part by several Wall Street billionaires. “Somebody said, ‘Why did you appoint a rich person to be in charge of the economy. I said, ‘Because that’s the kind of thinking we want … because they’re representing the country. They don’t want the money.”
“[…] those particular positions, I just don’t want a poor person.” In context, the “particular positions” included the Secretary of Commerce. Indeed, Trump added that Ross is a “legendary Wall Street genius.”
The question now is, will the president still hold Ross in high regard now that the evidence suggests his net worth is only $860 million?
“Doug Jones Could Win in Alabama”: “While Moore has been garnering all of the attention lately, it is important to keep in mind that Democrats didn’t simply put up a place holder to run against him. Doug Jones is obviously not the most electrifying speaker, but he is a strong candidate with an exemplary record as U.S. Attorney and is running a great campaign.”
[…]
Forensic voice experts have presented evidence to a Palermo court showing a man Italian prosecutors have claimed for 18 months to be one of the world’s most wanted people-smugglers is a victim of mistaken identity.
The voice of the Eritrean people-smuggling kingpin Medhanie Yehdego Mered, recorded in 2014, does not match that of the suspect arrested in Sudan last year […]
[…]
“The result suggests that the detained boy is not the human trafficker Mered,” Prof Milko Grimaldi of the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Research on Language at Salento University told the court on Thursday.
“We have used one the most accurate scientific methods in use around the world. With a margin of error of 1%, there is 99% certainty that Mered’s voice is not that of the man arrested — the highest result that can be obtained from this type of test.”
Italian prosecutors, who have persistently refused to acknowledge they may have made an error, also submitted a voice test in which they too tried to match [Medhanie Tesfamariam] Berhe’s voice to the wiretaps of Mered.
However, the software they used had no setting for Tigrinya, the language spoken by more than half of Eritrea’s population, and they instead carried out the test using Egyptian Arabic, an unrelated language with a different alphabet and pronunciation.
Egyptian Arabic was “the closest geographical reference population” to Eritrea, the prosecutor’s expert, Marco Zonaro, told the court. But his tests’ wildly inconsistent results meant he could neither confirm nor exclude the possibility that the two voices belonged to the same man.
[…]
Right. No witnesses to testify the suspect is Mered, Mered was in jail at the time of “his” arrest, Mered’s wife says the suspect is not Mered, the prosecutors won’t allow a DNA test showing the suspect is Berhe, the prosecutors’s own voice expert uses a rigged test but cannot confirm the suspect is Mered, unbiased tests confirm the suspect isn’t Mered, and so the prosecutors wiretap the Guardian.
[…] “It would be nice, just tonight, before we go home, to just acknowledge well this tax cut really is not for the middle class it’s for the rich,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said. “And that whole thing about higher wages, well it’s a good selling point, but we know companies don’t just give away higher wages just because they have more money […] corporations are sitting on a lot of money now, they’re sitting on a lot of profits now, I don’t see wages going up. So just spare us the bankshot, spare us the sarcasm and the satire.”
Brown was referring to the $4,000 dollar lie the White House and Congressional Republicans are using against Democrats who argue the bill is bad for middle class families. According to the GOP, cutting taxes for corporations would result in more jobs and higher wages resulting in a $4,000 dollar raise for the average American household. The brand of trickle-down economics, however, has proved itself to be unsuccessful.
This seemed to have struck a nerve with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the Senate Finance Committee chair, who lashed out at Brown by using his working-class past to argue the tax plan is not a giveaway to the wealthy.
“I come from the poor people, and I’ve been here working my whole stinking career for people who don’t have a chance,” Hatch shouted at Brown. “And I really resent anybody saying that I’m just doing this for the rich. Give me a break. I think you guys over play that all the time, and it gets old. And frankly, you ought to quit it.”
Hatch went on to tell Brown he was “sick and tired” of the “overplayed” argument that the tax plan will be a boon to only the wealthy. […]
During the exchange, Hatch was forced to fall back on claims about his own upbringing rather than dispute Brown’s substantive arguments. This is likely because there is no credible way to defend the tax plan, as study after study has proven it would actually raise taxes on middle class families. […]
Here’s a better transcript of Senate Finance Committee Sen. Orrin Hatch’s rant:
I come from the poor people, and I have been here working my whole stinkin’ career for people who don’t have a chance, and I really resent anybody that says I’m just doing it for the rich. Give me a break. I think you guys overplay all the time, and it gets old. And frankly, you ought to quit it.
I get kind of sick and tired of it. True, it’s a nice political play. It’s not true…. What you said was not right. That’s all I’m saying, I come from the lower middle class, originally. We didn’t have anything. So don’t spew that stuff on me. I get a little tired of that crap. Let me just say something. If we worked together, we could pull this country out of every mess it is in. We could do a lot of the things that you are talking about, too…. [T]his bullcrap that you guys throw out here really gets old after a while.
CBS News has learned that a Russian national requested a meeting with Donald Trump during the presidential campaign in May 2016, and the request is at the center of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s demand for more information from Jared Kushner.
…
A source familiar with the document request says the “dinner invite” referred to an email requesting a meeting with a man named Alexander Torshin and a woman reported to be Torshin’s assistant, Maria Butina. The source says both claimed in the email to be members of an all-Russian organization called “The Right To Bear Arms.”
According to the source, Torshin and Butina were hoping to meet then-candidate Trump and were eager for Mr. Trump to travel to Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The request was made through an intermediary who was attached to a National Rifle Association (NRA) event in Kentucky.
A source says the intermediary forwarded the five-page request to Trump campaign officials, including Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Eventually it was forwarded to Kushner. The source, who has seen the email, says Kushner declined the request for a meeting, apparently commenting that people claiming to carry messages to the campaign rarely are.
However, Torshin does have ties to the Kremlin….
Torshin and Butina in fact met with the campaign more than once during the campaign, as detailed here.
“Greg Gianforte misled police after assault of Guardian journalist, report reveals”: “US congressman Greg Gianforte misled police after his assault of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs in May, falsely stating that Jacobs had initiated physical contact and that the “liberal media … is trying to make a story”, according to the police incident report.”
Federal officials have serious questions about the credibility of a key witness in congressional investigations of Hillary Clinton’s role in the sale of a uranium-mining company to Russian interests, two sources knowledgeable about the case tell Yahoo News.
The witness, a Florida businessman and former FBI informant named William Douglas Campbell, was considered so unreliable that prosecutors* dropped him as a witness in an unrelated case involving Russian uranium sales, according to the sources.
…
Toensing, Campbell’s lawyer, said that Campbell would be able to tell Congress that discussions about the Uranium One sale were raised by Russian officials during his dealings with them. But sources who spoke to Yahoo News said that during the course of hours of interrogations by the FBI and Justice Department lawyers, Campbell never mentioned any connection between Mikerin’s dealings and the sale of Uranium One. Nor did he ever volunteer that he had documents or information relating to the Uranium One sale. The issue, one of the sources said, never came up.
“Turkey FM: @PreetBharara was ‘very close’ to Gulen and used the same indictment prosecutors filed against Zarrab in Turkey after corruption allegations shook the country in 2013.”
Bharara: “Turkey FM is a liar. Now let’s see what happens in court.”
While Kushner told Dearborn and other campaign officials on the email not to accept Torshin’s offer, Torshin was seated with the candidate’s son, Donald Trump Jr., during a private dinner on the sidelines of an NRA event during the convention in Louisville, according to an account Torshin gave to Bloomberg. Congressional investigators have no clear explanation for how that came to be, according to sources familiar with the matter.
and
One source familiar with Kushner’s testimony before congressional intelligence committees said he specifically denied, under oath, that he was familiar with any attempts by WikiLeaks to contact the campaign. But, according to the source, Kushner was sent an email by Trump Jr. about his conversations on Twitter with WikiLeaks, which were first disclosed by the Atlantic this week. Kushner forwarded an email about the WikiLeaks conversations to communications director Hope Hicks, the source said. A second source familiar with Kushner’s testimony did not dispute that account.
“Is this what Kushner forgot?
The subject line of the email, turned over to Senate investigators read:
‘Subject: Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’.”
I hate this tweet. Gabby Douglas isn’t a brand – she’s a human being. She’s 21, was raised in a very religious family, and has lived in a partitioned world. I said very similar things when I was older than she is now, because I was ignorant. She hasn’t “tanked” anything. She just made a mistake. Let her grow.
…In December of last year, Steele informed Luke Harding, a journalist for the Guardian, that “the contracts for the hotel deals and land deals” between Trump and individuals with the Kremlin ties warrant investigation. “Check their values against the money Trump secured via loans,” the former spy said, according to a conversation detailed in Harding’s new book, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. “The difference is what’s important.”
( Journalists seem to think there’s a requirement that any reference to the “dossier” has to include a stock adjective: infamous, notorious, salacious.)
Here’s Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell’s response to Feinstein and Grassley. The original request from the Committee was very clear, and these are pathetically unconvincing excuses for not producing documents that are responsive. I’m even more suspicious of Kushner after reading Lowell’s letter.
The Greater Birmingham Young Republicans voted Thursday to pull its endorsement of Roy Moore and censure the U.S. Senate candidate at its monthly meeting, saying it believes in the concept of innocent until proven guilty but not “electability until proven guilty.”
The group also called on the Alabama Republican Party Steering Committee, which has the power to decertify Moore’s ballot access and void his votes on Dec. 12, to do the same. Earlier on Thursday, the steering committee sent out a statement affirming its support of Moore, adding that Moore’s fate should be decided by voters and not “the media or those from afar.”
“#LEBANON: Hariri held talks (& family lunch) with Emmanuel Macron. On exit: ‘I will return to Beirut in coming days. I will participate in celebrations for our independence & it is there that I will make known my position on all issues’.”
More than 150,000 Russian-language Twitter accounts posted tens of thousands of messages in English urging Britain to leave the European Union in the days before last year’s referendum on the issue, a team of researchers disclosed on Wednesday.
More than 400 of the accounts that Twitter has already identified to congressional investigators as tools of the Kremlin, other researchers said, also posted divisive messages about Britain’s decision on withdrawing from the bloc, or Brexit, both before and after the vote.
Most of the messages sought to inflame fears about Muslims and immigrants to help drive the vote, suggesting parallels to the strategy that Russian propagandists employed in the United States in the 2016 election to try to intensify the polarization of the electorate.
The separate findings amount to the strongest evidence yet of a Russian attempt to use social media to manipulate British politics in the same way the Kremlin has done in the United States, France and elsewhere.
…
Taken together, the flurry of reports and accusations adds to growing pressure on Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies to disclose more of their internal records about advertising payments and account registrations, information essential to illuminating the extent of Russian meddling in the referendum on Brexit.
Any evidence that Moscow did, however, may also complicate the already vexed politics surrounding the issue.
Social media companies disclosed Russia’s role in the American election only after prodding by Congress….
…
But the British government, consumed by the negotiations for an exit from the European Union, has not yet obtained similar disclosures. Although a parliamentary committee recently asked the social media companies for information, many critics have argued that the government has little appetite for an inquiry that could muddy its mandate.
The social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter and Google, have had little incentive to volunteer information about the exploitation of their own platforms. And the predominantly right-wing, pro-Brexit British press, particularly the powerful tabloids, have little enthusiasm for undermining the validity of the referendum.
…On Thursday, the heads of three United Nations relief agencies called on a nine-nation military coalition led by Saudi Arabia to end a tightened blockade it imposed on Yemen after Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile into Riyadh, the Saudi capital, last weekend. “Closure of much of the country’s air, sea and land ports is making an already catastrophic situation far worse,” a joint statement issued by the United Nations Children’s Fund, World Food Program, and World Health Organization, said. “The space and access we need to deliver humanitarian assistance is being choked off, threatening the lives of millions of vulnerable children and families.”
The U.N. officials said that more than twenty million people, including more than eleven million children, are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance; at least 14.8 million lack basic medical care, and a cholera outbreak has infected more than nine hundred thousand….
…Cáceres, who won the Goldman environmental prize for her work with Copinh, was gunned down in her home in the early hours of 3 March 2016. She had led the protest against the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam in Río Blanco, western Honduras. Gustavo Castro Soto, a Mexican environmental activist, was injured in the attack.
Eight men have been charged with the murder of Cáceres, who was under state protection at the time after receiving numerous death threats. Two of the accused worked at the company leading the construction of the dam, Desarrollos Energéticos SA.
Cáceres’ family and supporters have always suspected the involvement of state officials in her killing. Last year, a Guardian investigation revealed the existence of leaked court documents linking the planning of the murder to military intelligence specialists connected with the country’s US–trained special forces.
Earlier this month, a report published by an expert group of lawyers concluded that senior managers in the company allegedly had a hand in her murder. The company has always denied any involvement. In response to the report, it said the company had never been involved in any violence and that information in the report had been taken out of context and “does not reflect reality”. The report was intended to create problems in the run up to the country’s elections later this month, it added.
…
Domínguez Madrid said that Cáceres’ death threw the international spotlight on the battle for land rights in Honduras – the deadliest place to be an environmental activist, according to the organisation Global Witness. More than 120 activists have been murdered for trying to protect the land or environment since the country’s 2009 coup. Copinh member Tomás García was murdered just months before Cáceres, and most attacks have gone unpunished.
…
Many more activists say they have been threatened with violence, or have faced intimidation and even sexual assault by police, members of the military or those paid to keep activists out of the way. Women, who have been at the centre of the protests in Río Blanco, face the added threats of abuse from their own families and communities, as machismo culture often relegates women to the sole role of homemaker.
…
Santos Domínguez knows that peace for the Lenca in Río Blanco will not come until those who authorised Cáceres’ murder are behind bars and the land rights for her people are recognised.
“Because we are poor they think we don’t know anything … But they are wrong because we are organised and we can protect ourselves from them,” she said.
“They murdered Berta and they thought that, with her dead, we would not continue – but we showed them we can.”
If it gives us nothing else positive, the Republican tax plan—and, in its Senate form, the health-care repeal—at least provides clarity. There is no debate. The middle class will, in the long run, pay more in taxes than under current law, and the rich will pay less. […]
The numbers are in and it’s clear: this tax bill helps the rich and hurts everybody else. Just ask the very people who wrote it. The U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation is run by the chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee—Representative Kevin Brady and Senator Orrin Hatch, respectively. The Joint Committee’s reports of this week make startling reading, or as startling as a series of spreadsheets of tax revenue data can be.
The report shows that this bill is much like a teaser rate on a new credit card: there are some goodies in the first couple of years, but those disappear fairly quickly, at least for those below the median income. In 2019, the first full year that this bill would be law, the benefits are concentrated on the bottom of the income stream, with middle-class people, on average, paying just under ten per cent less in taxes than they would if the law weren’t passed. With each passing year the benefits shift upward, toward the rich. By 2021, those making between twenty thousand and thirty thousand dollars a year are paying considerably more in taxes, those between thirty thousand and two hundred thousand see their benefit shrinking, and those making more start to see their taxes falling. By 2027, every income level below seventy-five thousand dollars a year sees a tax increase, while everybody above that level sees a continued decrease, with the greatest cut in taxes accruing to those making more than a million dollars a year.
The report shows that the rich benefit and the poor are hurt in every way that it measures. For example, the effective tax rate—meaning the percentage that people, on average, actually pay after they take all deductions—changes in a precisely regressive form. The poorer you are, the higher your effective rate will rise. […]
Producer hired team to investigate 91 film industry figures in attempt to stop harassment claims going public
The Observer has gained access to a secret hitlist of almost 100 prominent individuals targeted by Harvey Weinstein in an extraordinary attempt to discover what they knew about sexual misconduct claims against him and whether they were intending to go public.
The previously undisclosed list contains a total of 91 actors, publicists, producers, financiers and others working in the film industry, all of whom Weinstein allegedly identified as part of an extraordinary strategy to prevent accusers from going public with sexual misconduct claims against him.
The names, apparently drawn up by Weinstein himself, were distributed to a team hired by the film producer to suppress claims that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women.
The document was compiled in early 2017, around nine months before the storm that blew up on 5 October when the New York Times published a series of sexual harassment allegations against Weinstein.
Individuals named on the list were to be targeted by investigators who would covertly extract and accumulate information from those who might know of claims or who might come forward with allegations against the film producer. Feedback was then to be relayed to Weinstein and his lawyers.
The size of the list […] appears to corroborate claims that sexual misconduct allegations against the 65-year-old were an open secret throughout Hollywood.
Our Whiney Toddler in Chief is not happy with all of the feedback he is getting after three UCLA basketball players were released from custody in China:
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
What did LaVar Ball say?
[…] LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo Ball, a UCLA freshman who was detained in Hangzhou following allegations of shoplifting, on Friday said “Who?” when asked about Trump’s involvement in his son’s release from custody.
“What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing,” LaVar Ball told ESPN. “Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”
Trump should have just let that go. Also, the three players already publicly thanked Trump. Trump is a black hole of neediness. You can never praise him enough.
Newspapers in Alabama have condemned Roy Moore on their front pages. They have also endorsed Doug Jones. I hope this makes a difference in Alabama.
From The Birmingham News
This election is a turning point for women in Alabama. A chance to make their voices heard in a state that has silenced them for too long. […]
Every day new allegations arise that illustrate a pattern of a man in his 30s strutting through town like the cock of the walk, courting and preying on young women and girls. And though Roy Moore has denied the accusations of these women, his own platform and record is hostile to so many Alabamians.
Unlike the national party, the Alabama Republican establishment has chosen to stand by him, attacking and belittling the brave women who have come forward.
As a news organization, we have independently investigated stories of several Alabama woman who have spoken to us and the Washington Post about the abuse they say they suffered at the hands of Roy Moore decades ago.
The seriousness of these incidents, including one involving a 14-year-old child, cannot be overstated. […]
Do not let this conversation be muddled. This election has become a referendum on whether we will accept this kind of behavior from our leaders. […]
How can we look our neighbors, our parishioners, our colleagues, our partners, or our children in the eyes and tell them they are worth less than ensuring one political party keeps a Senate seat? How can we expect young Alabamians to have faith in their government or their church, when its leaders equivocate on matters as clear cut as sexual abuse?
A vote for Roy Moore sends the worst kind of message to Alabamians struggling with abuse: “if you ever do tell your story, Alabama won’t believe you.” […]
There is only one candidate left in this race who has proven worthy of the task of representing Alabama. He is Doug Jones.
A New Jersey constituent excoriated Republican House Rep McArthur:
[…]You have been the single greatest threat to my family in the entire world. YOU are the reason I stay up at night. YOU are the reason that I can’t sleep.
My wife was diagnosed with cancer when she was 40-years-old. She beat it, but every day, every day, she lives with it. […] Is it gonna kill me this time? Is it gonna take me away from my children?” Speaking of which, my children both have pre-existing conditions from birth: one cardiac, one thyroid.
What happens if I loose my job? […]
If I lose my job, I can’t afford Cobra. We can’t afford to get private insurance. We get it from my employer. If I lose it, it’s gone. If I lose my job on a Monday, if I’m lucky enough to find a job on Tuesday, which never happens, they will not have insurance ready for me. I will not be eligible for three to six months. If I lapse my coverage within 63 days, suddenly, I’m in a high-risk pool.
My pre-existing conditions which I don’t give a shit about—come after me. Come after me, I don’t care. But you came after my wife. You came after my wife and kids.
I work in healthcare and I know it’s complicated. The only one who doesn’t know it’s complicated is the orange-haired buffoon sitting in the White House. And you’re working with him to take something that he doesn’t understand, that he won’t be responsible for, because he’s going to be fine.
You’re working with him and your’e working with [Paul] Ryan. You’re working with people who don’t care about us! You want to make something better, you could have made the ACA better, directly. […]
Healthcare is not a “good.” You do not buy insurance the same way you buy a car or the same way you buy a house. This is the point—health insurance as a for-profit business is immoral. When I’m drowning and you insist I pay before you will save me? That’s immoral, Sir!
The first words you said in Waretown: “I’m not Donald Trump.” Well, I got an orange wig you might as well put it on. […]
[…] Dubinina [daughter of Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin] said she picked up her father at the airport. It was his first time in New York City. She took him on a tour. The first building they saw was Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, she told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. Dubinin was so excited he decided to go inside to meet the building’s owner. They got into the elevator. At the top, Dubinina said, they met Trump.
The ambassador—“fluent in English and a brilliant master of negotiations”—charmed the busy Trump, telling him: “The first thing I saw in the city is your tower!”
Dubinina said: “Trump melted at once. He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him [Trump] like honey to a bee.” […]
In Dubinina’s account she admits her father was trying to hook Trump. The man from Moscow wasn’t a wide-eyed rube but a veteran diplomat who served in France and Spain, and translated for Nikita Khrushchev when he met with Charles de Gaulle at the Elysée Palace in Paris. He had seen plenty of impressive buildings. Weeks after his first Trump meeting, Dubinin was named Soviet ambassador to Washington. […]
[…] Dubinin’s invitation to Trump to visit Moscow looks like a classic cultivation exercise, which would have had the KGB’s full support and approval. […]
Caine @210, that’s so nice of you to remember my birthday! Many thanks.
As far as the pain clinic goes, I can only wsth you the best possible outcome. May your pain be a little less, especially on your birthday. We celebrate your birth, and every day thereafter when you are here with us.
The President would have left American students in a foreign jail because their families didn’t lavish sufficient praise on him. How can someone in such a big office be so small?
KGsays
Happy birthday, Lynna! Best of luck at the clinic, Caine.
“Make Nepotism Great Again: 20 Families Got Jobs in Trump Administration”: “A Daily Beast examination of public records reveals that there are at least 20 families, joined by either blood or marriage, in which multiple members hold some federal post or appointment. They include the families of some of Trump’s most prominent campaign supporters and agency officials, including one cabinet officer. The posts range from senior White House staff to more ceremonial and advisory positions.”
Rep. Wilson: “General Kelly owes the nation an apology. When he lied about me, he lied to the American public.”
He does, and no one should let it go just because other news intervened. Kelly’s performance in this episode was appalling and dishonored every institution he represents.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating whether President Donald Trump sought to obstruct a federal inquiry into connections between his presidential campaign and Russian operatives has now directed the Justice Department to turn over a broad array of documents, ABC News has learned.
In particular, Mueller’s investigators are keen to obtain emails related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the earlier decision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the entire matter, according to a source who has not seen the specific request but was told about it.
Issued within the past month, the directive marks the special counsel’s first records request to the Justice Department, and it means Mueller is now demanding documents from the department overseeing his investigation….
“BLATANT: @ACUConservative [the American Conservative Union, the organization that runs CPAC – SC] ADMITS it was paid $90k to illegally launder $1.71M from a mysterious LLC” to a GOP super PAC. The 3 entities were fined $350k for the scheme by the @FEC.”
I’m interested in whether some of these rightwing organizations have been involved in international money-laundering.
* The mysterious LLC is – you can’t make this up – Government Integrity, LLC.
SC @214, thanks! And I love that S&L segment. It’s the best. Laughter. That’s what I need for my birthday.
Also, to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on this thread, many thanks. What a treat it is to come here to catch up on the news and to find good wishes sent my way. Love you all … (most of the time).
“EXCLUSIVE: 30 Sources Expose Sexually Explicit Evidence of Harassment by Ohio GOP Rep Wes Goodman”: “Disgraced Ohio State Representative Wes Goodman — a Republican — in the wake of the lawmaker’s recently-revealed sex scandal and resignation is being accused by dozens of people of sexual misconduct. IJR has obtained testimonies from over 30 individuals who have had inappropriate and never-before-shared experiences with Goodman….”
Donald Trump’s recent Asia-Pacific trip was largely a bust. [Trump] helped China, watched helplessly as former U.S. trade partners forged a deal without us, and instead of taking a stand in support of human rights, cozied up to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Trump nevertheless […] boasted upon his return about […] Japan’s new investments in its own military. “This will include purchases of U.S. advanced capabilities,” he said at a White House event last week, including “jet fighters.”
The New York Times noted that Trump’s claim appears to be wrong.
The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency has yet to notify Congress of any intended sale, which must happen before negotiations can begin.
Japanese officials have also pushed back at the notion. In a report in The Japan Times last week, the Japanese chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said that Tokyo was following its existing defense procurement plan that was approved more than three years before Mr. Trump took office.
[…] And while this may seem like a fairly modest falsehood by Trump standards, this reminded me of a larger thesis: the president says a lot of weird stuff about airplanes.
For example, over the summer, Trump hosted a White House press conference alongside President Sauli Niinisto of Finland, in which the American leader proclaimed that Finland is “purchasing large amounts of our great F-18 aircraft.”
According to Finland, there is no such agreement in place.
Trump has also been caught falsely bragging about lowering the price of a new Air Force One. He’s also repeatedly claimed to have done extraordinary work saving taxpayers millions on F-35 fighter jets, which is also demonstrably wrong.
Last week, Trump even made up a bizarre story about Barack Obama, while aboard Air Force One, trying and failing to land in the Philippines last year. […]
Yeah, that’s a lot of lies centered around one topic.
From Josh Marshall, a discussion of the connections between Russia and the evangelical religious rightwing in the USA:
[…] many Russians have spent a decade cultivating relationships with the evangelical right in the United States. […] The evangelical right in the US – along with other rightist political formations in Western Europe – has come to see Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the logical head of a kind of white, Christian, authoritarian ‘international’, as the US and Europe have become less white and more culturally permissive.
An analogous building of bonds has taken place between Russia and the NRA, […] the gun rights and right-wing evangelical community overlap to a significant extent. […]
[…] in recent days we’ve seen Alexander Torshin’s name come up again in the Russia story. He’s a key player in ties between Russia and the NRA. He’s also close to Vladimir Putin and, allegedly, Russian organized crime. [Snipped reference to “Russian backdoor overture” and Jared Kushner.] That was Torshin’s approach to a West Virginia-based evangelical activist named Rick Clay. Clay wanted to “get two sides together to talk about Christian values.”
[…] Sam Clovis, an increasingly central player in the Russia story, had strongly pro-Russian views on Ukraine well before Trump’s campaign even started. Clovis came to Trump’s campaign as a major player in conservative evangelical political circles. […]
The relevance for today is that these were in many cases the channels through which approaches to the Trump world were made. It was furthered by the fact that Trump very early on made his tightest and most enduring political alliance with the evangelical right. It all fits together, not as a broad conspiracy necessarily but as different parts of a complex puzzle, all of which came together in 2016.
Since ties between Russia and the evangelical right are partly organic and vastly more broadly based than whatever relationship Russia has with the Trump family we should expect it to continue long after Trump.
More absolutely awful statements from the backers of Roy Moore in Alabama:
[…] “I don’t know how much these women are getting paid, but I can only believe they’re getting a healthy sum,” said pastor Earl Wise, a Moore supporter from Millbrook, Ala.
Wise said he would support Moore even if the allegations were true and the candidate was proved to have sexually molested teenage girls and women.
“There ought to be a statute of limitations on this stuff,” Wise said. “How these gals came up with this, I don’t know. They must have had some sweet dreams somewhere down the line.
“Plus,” he added, “there are some 14-year-olds, who, the way they look, could pass for 20.” […]
Since it talks about Moore’s absurd claim that (in the author’s words) “the founders were aware of no religion other than Christianity, and therefore, the First Amendment gave only Christians the right to free exercise” and also about Baptist founder Roger Williams, it’s worth noting that the Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI, has been there since 1763 and the Jewish cemetery there since at least 1677.
US sceptics [sic] are questioning the science behind air pollution and mortality, a trend that is starting to appear in countries where the air is much more toxic
Despite report after report linking air pollution to deterioration of the lungs, heart and brain, Prof Robert Phalen believes the air is “too clean” for children.
After all, everybody needs a bit of immune-system-boosting dirt in their lungs.
Modern air is a little too clean for optimum health, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) […] in 2012.
My most important role in science is causing trouble and controversy, he added.
No, it’s to sow FUD — Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt — probably for pay.
[…]
Last week, the Washington Post and E&E News published a list of people expected to be appointed as new scientific advisers by the EPA.
Some have operated within groups that have long denied climate change science. And now they are doing the same with air pollution.
For example, Stanley Young is a statistician at climate denial group the Heartland Institute. He wrote in a statistical blog in 2014 that the science literature{…} is on the side that increased ozone and PM2.5 are not associated with increased deaths. (He also states that temperature rise is good for humans.)
Now the director of the air pollution health effects laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, is set to be appointed as a scientific adviser by Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
[… a long list of examples from around the world …]
[… I]in the US, Janice Nolen, assistant vice-president at the American Lung Association (ALA), has already been noticing a difference since the Trump administration came into power.
The ALA is part of a coalition of groups now suing the EPA for delaying the implementation of smog standards. Nolan says that it is “unusual” for the government to miss the routine deadline.
“We are seeing a lot of things that were routinely done under previous administrations not being done under this one,” she says.
It’s unbelievably fast. It’s almost double the speed limit. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone going this fast on the road.
blfsays
Re @231, I’m certain I’ve seen people going about that speed (in the UK, where 119 mph is still significantly above the limit (70 mph at the time)). From memory, the record speeding was in Texas, something around 240 mph in a Swedish-built Koenigsegg (this was the first time I’d ever heard of that make of exotic & expensive car); I don’t recall what fine / penalty the driver got.
Together with recent information about Russian social media activity on Brexit during (and after) the vote, the hazy possibility of a campaign for a re-vote (as distinct from a second vote, on the outcome of negotiations) appears on the horizon. I still don’t think either is likely, but less unlikely than a couple of months ago.
KGsays
Merkel has failed to put together a coalition with a majority in the German Bundestag after the FPD (once classed as a “liberal” centrist party in European terms, now hardline-neoliberal in economics and increasingly anti-migrant) pulled out of negotiations with the CDU-CSU and the Greens. A new election looks likely. The SPD has reconfirmed that it will not enter a “grand coalition” with Merkel’s CDU-CSU (the last was electorally disastrous for them, and it would also make the proto-fascist AfD the official opposition), and Merkel does not seem to have the stomach for a minority government.
The UK Electoral Commission has reopened its investigation into possible breaching of the limits set on referendum spending by the official “Vote Leave” campaign, following pressure froma group of lawyers who have started a case against the Commission. It is already investigating spending by Farage’s outfit, Leave.EU, but also by the anti-Brexit campaign Britain Stronger in Europe.
Together with recent information about Russian social media activity on Brexit during (and after) the vote, the hazy possibility of a campaign for a re-vote (as distinct from a second vote, on the outcome of negotiations) appears on the horizon. I still don’t think either is likely, but less unlikely than a couple of months ago.
[… T]he right’s love affair with philanthropy and civil society has fizzled. Donald Trump — whose claims of generous giving were debunked during the campaign — has shown no interest in forging partnerships between government and philanthropy since taking office. He has wooed a parade of business executives and minor celebrities while largely ignoring leaders from the nonprofit world — save for allies on the religious right such as Jerry Falwell Jr.
The administration’s proposed cuts to agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Arts would choke off billions of dollars in grants that flow to universities, hospitals, museums and community development groups.
Now, Republicans in Congress are advancing tax proposals that would lower charitable giving by billions of dollars and deal a major blow to the nonprofit sector.
The Republican’s new cold shoulder toward nonprofits — which employ 10% of the labor force and enrich every corner of American life — isn’t so surprising. It reflects the rising grip of libertarianism within the party, as well as a tribal fixation with cultural enemies.
[…]
A Trump-dominated Republican party seems to have no such social conscience. And, increasingly, the populist right views the nonprofit world with hostility.
In other countries that have veered into authoritarianism, like Russia, civil society groups have faced outright suppression. Nothing like that is happening in the US yet, but Trumpist culture warriors have cast nonprofits and philanthropists as key villains in a narrative that pits coastal elites against the common (white) man.
[…]
According to an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation provisions of the recently passed House bill — specifically, a doubling of the standard deduction — 31 million taxpayers would no longer be incentivized to make charitable deductions, gutting a tax break that has helped spur giving for 100 years.
Scrapping the estate tax […] would lower donations by eliminating a major incentive for the wealthiest Americans to devote large fortunes to philanthropy.
[…]
The opinion column does point out there are some legitimate problems with charitable donations in the States, but that the thugs’s tax reform plans do nothing sensible to address or, at the least, not-exacerbate the problems. Instead new problems are added, and the existing problems possibly made worse.
This story may involve a complex web of connections, but it all comes back to Cambridge Analytica. It all comes back to Mercer. Because the connections must have been evident. “AggregateIQ may not have belonged to the Mercers but they exist within his world,” David told me. “Almost all of their contracts came from Cambridge Analytica or Mercer. They wouldn’t exist without them. During the whole time the referendum was going on, they were working every day on the [Ted] Cruz campaign with Mercer and Cambridge Analytica. AggregateIQ built and ran Cambridge Analytica’s database platforms.”
KG @234, I’m sorry to see that news. I thought of Merkel as a bulwark against Trumpism, but that is a role she can’t fill if the country she governs is unstable. This is bad news for all of us.
Germany’s far rightwing politicians tripled their share of the vote in the last election. That vote is still only 12.6%, but that’s enough to make the far-right the third largest party in Germany, which is a scary thing to contemplate.
I wish that journalists would stop calling the anti-democratic movements “populist.” Populism sounds half-assed positive, but it is a movement that supports regressive, suppressive and anti-democratic policies. Substitute “Trumpism” and you get the idea.
Travels by Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to meet with senior officials in Hungary during the 2016 presidential election are being closely examined by congressional investigators, given the increasingly close ties between Hungary and Russia and the role of the country as a hub for Russian intelligence activity. The Hungarian prime minister was the first foreign leader to endorse Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Though characterized as a low-level volunteer, Page held high-level foreign policy meetings with Hungarian officials before the 2016 presidential election, ABC News has learned.
The meetings included a 45-minute session in September 2016 with Jeno Megyesy, who is a close adviser to the Hungarian prime minister and focuses on relations with the United States, at his office in Budapest, where Page presented himself as a member of then-candidate Donald Trump’s foreign policy team.
Megyesy confirmed to ABC News in an interview Friday that he met with Page at the request of Reka Szemerkenyi, the Hungarian ambassador to the U.S….
…
When questioned by Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, during a hearing in early November, however, Page had only hazy memories of the trip. He said that he remembered seeing a Hungarian official, but he could not recall who it was.
…
Megyesy said no outsiders attended his meeting with Page, but when Schiff asked Page directly if he met with any Russians during his visit to Hungary, his answer was a bit more vague.
“There may have been one Russian person passing through there,” Page responded. “But I have no recollection because it was totally immaterial and nothing serious was discussed.”
OT, but I note that I am a motorbike rider (never got my car license), and… well, what’s the point of having a bike that can do 300Km/h if you don’t give it a bit of stick now and then? Just got to do it at the right time in the right place.
Re-cap: new investigation into Vote Leave, BeLeave & Vets for Leave. 2 wks ago: new investigation: Arron Banks’ donations. Ongoing investigations into: Leave.EU, Go, Goddard Gunster & Cambridge Analytica. And by ICO: CA + data + politics.
But other than that it all looks fine.
[…] Let SDS {Students for a Democratic Society} and the other clowns come at me, I will shut them down, [Ken Parker] wrote in the post that was accompanied by a photo in which Parker is shirtless and wielding a rifle. Tattooed on his chest is a large swastika.
Parker is a former Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and a member of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), according to an expose published by The Tab, a university news site for schools in the US and UK.
Speaking to the local Action News Jax, Parker defended his comments and said he did not believe they constituted a threat.
[…]
“Law enforcement practice is to request that there isn’t a counterprotest. There’s always a possibility of friction between the opposing parties,” [University of N.Florida (UNF) President John] Delaney added, urging both sides to “protest peaceably”.
In response, [SDS President Monique] Williamson […] said: “Do you really want students to not push back against Nazis on campus? That’s unacceptable.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) […], the NSM is the largest neo-Nazi organisation in the US and had 61 chapters in 35 states in 2009.
Speaking to Al Jazeera by email, NSM Commander Jeff Schoepp confirmed that Parker is a member of his organisation. He referred to the suspension of Parker [by UNF] for making the above-quoted threat on a BLM group’s Facebook page] as part of a political witch-hunt, pure and simple.
White nationalism is rising, and if these left-wing lunatics expect to be treated fairly when our time arrives, they had better quit their punch-a-Nazi-and-kill-white-people ideology right now{…} or it could come back to bite them later on when the tables have turned, Schoepp said.
[…]
The nazi march and anti-nazi counter-demonstration at UNF happens on “Monday”, which I think means today (20-Nov) — and since it’s now about 6pm, maybe has happened (or now is underway?).
blfsays
Speaking of motobikes, a past colleague of mine, who was an enthusiastic motorbiker in the States, said he like motorbiking in Canada for two reasons: (1) The highways (he rode on at that time) weren’t too busy; and (2) The speed limit, which is in kph, was a good indication, when read as mph, of the maximum safe speed. That is, a posted limit of, say, 100 kph (c.62 mph) meant it was safe to go at 100 mph. Uuggghhhhh…
While Americans are busy traveling, paying attention to Black Friday deals, and spending time with family, the Federal Communications Commission will be rolling out its least popular proposal of the year: its final plan to dismantle net neutrality — the set of rules that prevent internet providers from giving some websites and internet traffic an advantage over others. According to The Wall Street Journal, the FCC is expected to unveil its proposal this week, less than three months after the public comment period ended on the initial proposal. The process generated 22 million comments for the commission to read and consider.
The FCC’s final proposal is likely to completely undo the strict net neutrality rules that the FCC enacted just two years ago. To do that, the proposal will have to reclassify internet providers as information services, under Title I of the Communications Act, instead of common carriers, under Title II of the Act. This seemingly dull legal distinction is the difference between giving the FCC some oversight of ISPs (Title I) and the ability to place rigorous consumer protections on them (Title II)….
“More BREAKING: Federal judge NDCa [Northern District of California – SC] finds Trump, @TheJusticeDept funding cut-off for San Francisco, #SanctuaryCities is ‘unconstitutional on its face’, issues permanent injunction.”
…Following Tur calling Moore an “accused pedophile,” Nunberg tried to avoid the topic by stating that even with Moore’s vote, there was a strong possibility the new tax bill would fail in the Senate.
Then he brought up his own sister — which proved to be a big mistake.
“It’s not realistic to look at eight Democrats at all to support legislation. There’s only three Democrats voting for it because they’re up your re-election,” Moore explained. “I’ll say this about Roy Moore once again; I’m not here to defend him. It’s reprehensible what he did, if it’s true, and if he did it to my sister, I would be in jail for my reaction would be.”
“If he did it to your sister would you support the president campaigning with him?” Tur jumped in.
“If he did it to my sister would I support the campaign?” a stunned Nunberg replied. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Tur then pounced.
“So if it’s somebody else’s sister or daughter it’s okay,” she pressed.
“Because it was somebody else’s sister or daughter?” Nunberg repeated. “Look, these are accusations — look, if he did it. These are accusation. He’s not been charged.”
blf@248, given the speed some Canadians drive at I suspect they’re reading kilometers per hours as miles per hour.
John Moralessays
To be on topic politics: my own perception is that speeding on public roads is a politically-solvable problem.
(Why can I have a bike that can do 300 kph? How fast can your vehicle go?)
It’s quite technologically feasible to limit the maximum speed of pretty much any private vehicle with electronic systems (here in Oz, heavy vehicles are in fact speed-limited) or to retrofit older vehicles, yet every single vehicle (mopeds and personal mobility vehicles aside) sold here can easily exceed the (ridiculously low IMO) speed limit of (at most) 110 kph. Very easy to enforce, too — if you’re caught speeding, it’s obvious you bypassed the speed limiter and you get your vehicle impounded. For a first offense.
But it evidently ain’t politically feasible.
So, when politicians or police decry speeding (as they sanctimoniously do on a regular basis), I see utter hypocrisy.
(Speeding fines are a great source of income for governments)
—
In my personal experience, people travelling ~10-20 kph under the speed limit outside built-up areas are a more deadly menace that actual speedsters.
(And, in passing, my wife has a 3-y.o (bought new) totally stock Alfa Romeo Giulietta. A comparison between the speedometer and GPS (TomTom) shows that 100 kph reads 107 kph on the speedo, which is probably rather typical, and probably explains why everyone seems to be slothing it around)
KGsays
Lynna@241,
I don’t agree with your favourable view of Merkel. True, she acted relatively well over refugees (I say relatively, because she was also prominent in pushing the infamous deal with Turkey), but her neoliberal policies are in considerable part responsible for the rise of the proto-fascist right (“Trumpism”, as you dub it) within the EU, and she was the power behind the disgraceful treatment of Greece.
However, I agree that the instability within Germany is dangerous: a fresh election might well see the further advance of the AfD, although I can’t see it becoming the largest party. What is more likely is a sharp shift to the nationalist right by the CDU-CSU if Merkel goes, in an attempt to recover votes from the AfD. Some within the SPD (but not Martin Schultz, the current leader) apparently favour a resumption of the grand coalition – I imagine the idea is to prop up Merkel, avoid a new election, and hope for the best.
Instability in Germany could also react on the Brexit process. Any deal, or agreement to extend the negotiating period beyong 29th March 2019, has to be ratified by all 27 EU Parliaments, and that becomes less likely if there’s no strong lead from Germany.
KGsays
In my personal experience, people travelling ~10-20 kph under the speed limit outside built-up areas are a more deadly menace that actual speedsters. – John Morales@256
I suggest your “personal experience” is utter speed-hog bullshit. Do you have any actual evidence to support this claim?
John Moralessays
KG, nope. You have a point; it’s only my personal perception. I have no other basis upon which to justify it.
(Sorry, I do try to distinguish personal opinion from personal factual belief, but I failed here)
The Department of Homeland Security’s official watchdog is accusing his own agency of slow-walking the public release of a report about confusion that ensued earlier this year after President Donald Trump issued his first travel ban executive order.
The still-unreleased inspector general report found that senior managers at Customs and Border Protection were “caught by surprise” by Trump’s order and that agency officials “violated two court orders” limiting implementation of Trump’s directive to suspend travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, according to a letter sent to lawmakers Monday and obtained by POLITICO.
…
The unusual missive to Congress on Monday from Inspector General John Roth said his 87-page report was sent to DHS leadership Oct. 6, but officials have declined to authorize its release over the past six weeks.
Roth said officials informed his office that the report is under review for information that may be subject to attorney-client privilege or to a privilege protecting the agency’s “deliberative process.”
“I am very troubled by this development,” Roth wrote, referring to the deliberate process claim. “This is the first time in my tenure as Inspector General that the Department has indicated that they may assert this privilege in connection with one of our reports or considered preventing the release of a report on that basis….”
…
POLITICO obtained the letter Monday night from the office of Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), one of several dozen lawmakers who called for an IG probe into the impact of the first travel ban. She and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reacted to the letter by suggesting that the Trump administration is seeking to “bury” the unflattering assessment from the IG….
“So basically there’s a government agency that orchestrates coverups of harassment by congress members (and others they employ), a small group of people have access to its files, and at least one of them is a huge Cernovich fan.”
Remember that harmless radioactive cloud that mysteriously drifted across Europe back in September? Turns out it was from Russia after all and — at least at its point of origin — had radioactivity about 1,000 times higher than recommended levels.
What remains a mystery, however, is what produced this cloud, with the most likely culprit, a serial offender of a nuclear reprocessing plant, still denying any connection.
…
At the time, Russian authorities denied the existence of a leak and the state-owned Rosatom corporation said there had been no leaks in any of its plants.
On Tuesday, however, for the first time, Russia’s Meteorological Service confirmed that it recorded “extremely high contamination” with radioactive isotopes in the southern Urals region at the end of September, according to AP and AFP. Its researchers recorded radiation almost 1,000 times higher than normal levels there.
The confirmation largely matched the earlier assessment of French authorities, but Rosatom continues to dispute that it is responsible for the high radiation levels, although it operates a nuclear reprocessing plant in the area.
…
Tuesday’s announcement raises new questions about Russia’s commitment to transparency over nuclear issues and whether authorities have adequately dealt with this latest incident. It has prompted demands by Greenpeace’s Russian branch for a more “in-depth inquiry.” Radio Free Europe quoted local officials as saying that authorities did not inform them about a possible nuclear incident at the time.
Had a similar spike in radiation occurred in Europe, the French researchers wrote in the assessment earlier this month, the government would likely have ordered a local evacuation.
“Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe ‘resigns'”: “The surprise announcement came as lawmakers debated an impeachment motion against the 93-year-old leader in a joint sitting of parliament.”
KGsays
SC@270,
I wonder if Mugabe wrote the letter! He might have done, recognising that the impeachment was going to happen, but ZANU-PF and “Crocodile” Mnangagwa have motives for wishing to avoid impeachment: first, setting a precedent that Parliament can in practice, as opposed to constitutional fiction, remove the President; second, that to dismiss the President requires a 2/3 majority in both Houses, which would give opposition parties the opportunity to demand concessions.
Follow-up to SC’s comment 251, pertaining to a judge’s ruling regarding federal dollars that go to “sanctuary cities.”
Reaction from the White House:
[…] “Today, the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our Nation,” a late-night statement from the White House press secretary’s office declared.
“Once again, a single district judge — this time in San Francisco — has ignored Federal immigration law to set a new immigration policy for the entire country,” the statement continued. “This decision occurred in the same sanctuary city that released the 5-time deported illegal immigrant who gunned down innocent Kate Steinle in her father’s arms. San Francisco, and cities like it, are putting the well-being of criminal aliens before the safety of our citizens, and those city officials who authored these policies have the blood of dead Americans on their hands. […]
Nope, that is not a rant from an unhinged Fox News host, nor is it a knee-jerk reaction from Steve Bannon on Breitbart. That’s an official statement from the White House.
[…] court rulings from American cities the president doesn’t like are somehow inherently suspect.
But I was especially struck by the “unelected judge” criticism. It’s plainly true that U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick wasn’t elected, since no federal judge is ever elected. The underlying point from Team Trump, though, seems to be that the president was elected, and the judge wasn’t, so the latter shouldn’t have the authority to block the unlawful policies of the former.
Our system of government doesn’t work this way. […]
“Presidents have disagreed with court rulings all the time. What’s unusual is he’s essentially challenging the legitimacy of the court’s role. And he’s doing that without any reference to applicable law. That they are blocking his order is all the evidence he needs that they are exceeding their authority.” [Excerpt from a statement by Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor.]
“That’s worse than wrong,” Geyh added. “On some level, that’s dangerous.”
[…] Trump also told the public earlier this year that the American legal system “is broken” because his Muslim ban had failed in the courts. […] He’s even made the case that U.S. courts represent some kind of security threat. […]
Analysis from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, as summarized by the Associated Press:
[…] while all income groups would see tax reductions, on average, under the Senate bill in 2019, 9 percent of taxpayers would pay higher taxes that year than under current law. By 2027, that proportion would grow to 50 percent, largely because the legislation’s personal tax cuts expire in 2026, which Republicans did to curb budget deficits the bill would create.
The policy center, a joint operation of the liberal-leaning Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, found that low-earners would generally get smaller tax breaks than higher-income people.
In 2019, those making less than $25,000 would get an average $50 tax reduction, or 0.3 percent of their after-tax income. Middle-income earners would get average cuts of $850, while people making at least $746,000 would get average cuts of $34,000, or 2.2 percent of income.
The center also said the Senate proposal would generate enough economic growth to produce additional revenue of $169 billion over a decade. That’s far short of closing the near $1.5 trillion in red ink that Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated the bill would produce over that period. […]
It has been two weeks since Saudi Arabia imposed a land, sea and air blockade on Yemen, a country already devastated by two and a half years of Saudi bombing. Before the embargo, Yemen was suffering from the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations, with 7 million people on the brink of famine and another 900,000 stricken by cholera. Those conditions have now grown far worse — and yet the Saudis persist with their siege. It is time for the Trump administration, which has indulged the Saudi leadership for too long, to intervene.
…
The Trump administration, through the State Department, has objected to the ongoing blockade and called for “unimpeded access” for humanitarian supplies. But many in Yemen suspect, with some reason, that the White House is tolerating, if not encouraging, the crime. Shortly before the siege was announced, Jared Kushner paid a visit to Saudi Arabia and reportedly met late into the evening with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince. Even if it was unaware of the subsequent crackdown, the White House has the leverage to put a stop to it. It should act immediately, or it will be complicit in a crime against humanity.
The Temporary Protected Status program provides the sort of assistance the United States should be proud to extend to foreigners fleeing civil unrest, violence or natural disasters. Enacted by Congress in 1990, it currently offers safe and legal harbor to 437,000 people from 10 countries. Many stay for a long time, their status regularly extended because of continued turmoil in their homelands.
…
On Thanksgiving, of all days, the Department of Homeland Security is to announce whether it will extend the temporary protected status that was granted to about 50,000 Haitians when their country was devastated by an earthquake in 2010….
By any reasonable measure, Haiti is not ready to take them back….
Every member of Congress who represents South Florida, where most of these Haitians live, is in favor of extending their status. One of them, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Miami, is among the congressional members of both parties who have proposed legislation that would allow these immigrants to eventually apply for permanent residency, which is not possible under current rules.
…
Ms. Duke was right to resist the White House, and she was right to include in her decision a call on Congress “to enact a permanent solution for this inherently temporary program,” one that would make it possible for people under temporary protection to seek a more stable and permanent stay in America. And on Thanksgiving Day, the only right decision is to extend our welcome to the Haitians.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez swept into power in 2014, just five years after a military coup that had the tacit approval of then-President Barack Obama’s administration overthrew a populist government. This month, Mr. Hernandez will seek an illegal second term, despite constitutional prohibitions.
And the United States is openly supportive. That should not be the case.
…
Polls show Mr. Hernandez in the lead for the Nov. 26 election.
But his reelection would deal a serious blow to the rule of law in Honduras and undermine its fragile democracy. Indeed, his years-long flirting with a run and his eventual candidacy for a second term have already done severe damage.
And evidence of massive corruption alongside troubling human rights violations should further preclude United States support.
But President Donald Trump and his administration continue to provide aid to the Honduran military and have tacitly supported Mr. Hernandez for a second term despite his numerous negatives, all in the name of having a friendly leader in power.
Openness to U.S. economic interests should not be sufficient justification to help prop up yet another Latin American strongman regime.
There’s so much about what’s happened and is happening in Honduras that leaves me bitter and furious and heartbroken.
[…] voters were led to believe that of the two major-party candidates, Hillary Clinton was the one with the controversial charitable foundation.
Donald Trump used his charitable foundation money to buy giant portraits of himself. He also used foundation money to make illegal campaign contributions, settle private-sector lawsuits, […]
[…] the Trump Foundation admitted in official documents that “it violated a legal prohibition against ‘self-dealing,’ which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families.”
[Trump] has been caught lying about all of this, arguing publicly that “all” of the money the the foundation raised was “given to charity.” He added soon after that “100%” of the millions raised went to “wonderful charities.” Neither claim was consistent with reality.
[…] Trump’s charitable foundation, which last year admitted violating federal rules on “self-dealing,” is in the process of dissolving, according to newly filed documents […]
[…] the New York Attorney General’s Charities Division is currently investigating Trump’s foundation, which means the president and his team can’t close its doors just yet. A spokesperson for the state A.G. explained, “As the foundation is still under investigation by this office, it cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete.”
What’s more, there’s no reason to assume that the investigation will end anytime soon. On the contrary, new details surrounding Trump’s charitable foundation continue to come to light: the Washington Post reported yesterday, “One of President Trump’s golf courses paid back more than $158,000 to Trump’s charitable foundation this year, reimbursing the charity for money that had been used to settle a lawsuit against the club, according to a new tax filing.”
As promised, Ajit Pai, the new far-right chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has taken the first action that will put the internet entirely in the hands of internet service providers, ending net neutrality protections for, well, everybody who uses the internet.
In a release, Pai said his proposal would prevent the government from “micromanaging the Internet.” In place of the existing rules, he added, the FCC would “simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices.”
The proposal would also shift some enforcement responsibility to the Federal Trade Commission, which can sue companies whose actions do not reflect the commitments or statements they have made to the public.
Because we all know how transparent Comcast and Verizon are, right? The providers couldn’t be more thrilled, but since they probably wrote the new proposed rules, they aren’t surprised. Says Verizon, “We’re very encouraged by Chairman Pai’s announcement today that the FCC will move forward next month to restore the successful light-touch regulatory framework for internet services.” For “light touch” read “nonexistent.”
If the full commission decides to adopt this order at its next meeting on Dec. 14, it means that there will be no more enforcement of the net neutrality protections [protections included: no blocking, no throttling, and no “fast lanes”] in the existing open internet order millions of us fought to achieve. The internet will be classified as a mere “information service,” and the only enforcement the FTC can provide would be slaps on the wrist for violations of truth in advertising claims from the providers. […]
Not all the facts are in, but this incident in which two border patrol agents were injured is being rapidly spun up by conservative media into a conspiracy theory.
[…] Early Sunday morning, Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez and his partner were on patrol on the remote Texas Interstate 10, around 90 miles east of El Paso. The pair said they were “responding to activity.” A short while later, Martinez’s partner radioed to say that they had both been injured and were in desperate need of assistance.
“Both agents sustained traumatic head injuries, along with other miscellaneous physical injuries such as broken bones,” a statement from the FBI’s El Paso field office read. “It was determined that both of the agents’ injuries were severe and required advanced medical care.” Despite doctor’s best efforts, Agent Martinez passed away. His partner remains hospitalized.
[…] The FBI confirmed that neither of the agents were fired upon, however on Monday the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) union released a strongly-worded and politically-minded statement saying that Martinez had been beaten to death by migrants with rocks.
“[Agent Martinez] appears to have been ambushed by a group of illegal aliens who he was tracking. Our agent’s report from the ground say that he was struck in the head multiple times with a rock,” the NBPC said. “These disgusting acts and complete disregard for human life need to stop immediately…. Family members of slain Agent Martinez will never get to see him come home again all because we have failed to secure our borders.”
However, according to the Associated Press, investigators now believe that Martinez and his partner may have sustained their injuries falling into a 14-foot culvert. The official added that the pair were patrolling after dark in an area where drugs were often hidden in storm culverts. Separately, a border patrol supervisor said that any reports about the agents being attacked were “speculation”. The local Sheriff, Oscar Carillo also stated that “the injuries to [Martinez], after talking to his doctors, were consistent with a fall. Very consistent with a fall.” […]
The idea that illegal aliens are trying to ambush border patrol agents sounds unlikely to begin with. The idea that they would use rocks as their weapons sounds even more unlikely.
I linked to an article in #205 about Trump’s 1987 trip to Moscow, writing “I wish this had something about his statements in those years about geopolitics.” Turns out it was excerpted from Luke Harding’s book Collusion (see also #112 and #127 above), which I read this weekend, and in the book he did talk about some of Trump’s statements on geopolitics in those years. The book is pretty good, particularly the chapters on Manafort’s work in Ukraine and Deutsche Bank. It’s incredible how much more information has been revealed since it was published a few days ago.
I was struck by this part, referring to a meeting Harding had with Christopher Steele after the “dossier” was published and Steele went underground:
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how Steele might return to normal life…. Steele had followed events in Washington closely and listened to the denials by Trump’s associates that they had anything to do with Russia.
“They are all lying,” he said simply.
The best answers to the story of collusion were to be found in Moscow, Steele felt, where there had been a major cover-up….
In the United States the FBI was making progress, we agreed, getting some evidence.
Of the wider Trump-Russia conspiracy, Steele said: “It’s massive. Absolutely massive.”
Sady Doyle: “I would just like to affirm how exceptionally painful it was to, like, SMELL the violent misogyny coming off certain media dudes during a woman’s run for President, get called crazy for noticing or reacting to it, and finally, to get confirmation now, when it’s too late to help.”
Angela Merkel is not going to resign as the Chancellor of Germany. “No, that’s not on the table,” she said, […]
Almost two months ago, her party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union, and its Bavarian partner, the Christian Social Union, came in first place in the elections for Germany’s legislature, the Bundestag. But they didn’t have a majority: the C.D.U./C.S.U. coalition won just less than thirty-three per cent of the vote, giving them two hundred and forty-six seats out of seven hundred and nine. The Social Democrats, the traditional center-left party, meanwhile, suffered a historic collapse, winning only about twenty per cent, its poorest result since the days of the Weimar Republic. And, worse, in keeping with the Weimar theme, the far-right Alternative for Germany came in third, with more than eleven per cent of the vote and ninety-four Bundestag seats.
A party so extreme hasn’t been in the Bundestag since the fall of the Third Reich. It is not an acceptable coalition partner, for Merkel or for anyone. The leaders of the Social Democrats didn’t want to form one, […] The obvious alternative was for the C.D.U./C.S.U. to form a coalition with two even smaller parties, the Greens, who have an environmentally focussed progressive agenda, and the Free Democrats, who are business-friendly conservatives. The Germans called this the Jamaika Koalition, because the colors of the parties were, respectively, black, green, and yellow, like the Jamaican flag, […]
On Sunday night came the fall of Jamaika […] After weeks of talks, and what Merkel, in interviews on Monday, said were dozens of pages of carefully worked-out agreements on everything from energy policy to kindergarten funding, the Free Democrats walked away from the negotiations.
This means that Germany, technically, has only a caretaker government at the moment, and Merkel has only some narrow options. She could try to govern with a minority […] She could call new elections, which wouldn’t happen until, perhaps, March. (“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Merkel said, […].) Or Merkel could, in fact, resign, and make it all someone else’s problem. […]
One reason that Germany is in this fix is that, after twelve years with Merkel in charge, there is no other obvious leader with her national, let alone international, standing. It is telling that one of the European concerns about the end of Jamaika is that no one but Merkel has the authority to get the Brexit talks done—until there is a settlement in Germany, those may be paralyzed, too. […]
The downstream effects on the Brexit talks was also noted up-thread, in comment 257 by KG.
In other news, thanks, SC for those book excerpts in comment 279. Both interesting and enlightening.
Oh – re the second editorial @ #275 above: “The Trump administration has given nearly 60,000 Haitians with provisional legal residency in the United States 18 months to leave, announcing Monday that it will not renew the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that has allowed them to remain in this country for more than seven years.”
Maddow and others have mentioned this line from a recent WaPo article, and it’s intriguing: “Witnesses questioned by Mueller’s team warn that investigators are asking about other foreign contacts and meetings that have not yet become public, and to expect a series of new revelations.”
Without mentioning Roy Moore’s name, Trump said during an impromptu press conference that we can’t put a liberal Democrat in that Alabama Senate seat. Trump also said that Doug Jones is soft on crime, anti-Second Amendment and so forth. Without actually saying the words, Trump told his supporters to vote for the guy accused of child sexual molestation, Roy Moore.
Trump also said, (again without mentioning his name), that Moore had denied all of the accusations. Apparently that’s good enough for Trump.
Trump brought up the importance of passing his agenda: taxes, etc.
[…] “We don’t need a liberal Democrat in that seat,” Trump said as he exited the White House Tuesday. “We don’t need a liberal person in there.”
“Roy Moore denies it. That’s all I can say. And by the way, he totally denies it,” Trump said when asked if he believes Moore or the nine women that have accused Moore of inappropriate sexual actions, many of them when they were teens. “And I do have to say, 40 years is a long time.”
Trump told reporters that he’ll announce “next week” if he’ll campaign for Moore ahead of the Dec. 12 special election. […]
Trump has definitely taken a different point of view when compared to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and even en his own daughter Ivanka.
[…] “You’ve got to understand, Alabamians, that the world is watching you,” Moore ally Dean Young said during the event. “The question is can you be tricked, can you be tricked, because all hell is coming to Alabama against Judge Roy Moore. … We have to show the world that we’re not a bunch of idiots, we’re not a bunch of sheep.”
And Young accused Jones for supporting transgender people, using an interesting line of attack given the allegations that Moore molested teenage girls.
“[Jones] is for transgenders going into little girls bathrooms, boys pretending they’re girls going into little girls’ bathrooms in the school,” he said.
“We believe Judge Moore, we don’t believe these women,” he continued.
[CBS News President David Rhodes] said he was “deeply disappointed and angry” and said the termination was “effective immediately.”
“Despite Charlie’s important journalistic contribution to our news division, there is absolutely nothing more important, in this or any organization, than ensuring a safe, professional workplace – a supportive environment where people feel they can do their best work. We need to be such a place,” Rhodes said. “I’ve often heard things used to be different. And no one may be able to correct the past. But what may once have been accepted should never have been acceptable.” […]
“I’m deeply disappointed and angry that people were victimized—and even people not connected with these events could see their hard work undermined,” he said. “If all of us commit to the best behavior and the best work – that is what we can be known for.” […]
Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s hatred of black and brown people has no bottom, which is why the Department of Justice is now prepared to bribe local police departments to turn over undocumented immigrants to federal immigration agents. […]
The overwhelming majority of local police departments were picked [for $98 million in grants] because they indicated in their applications that they’d be willing to collude with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and at the expense of public safety. […]
So, yeah, Trump pardoned two turkeys today. He now has three pardons on his list: Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Drumstick the turkey, and Wishbone the turkey.
“In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will grant a presidential pardon to a Turkey,” Trump announced. He compared himself to Harry Truman, the first president to receive a turkey from the National Turkey Foundation, who Trump said “refused” to pardon the turkeys. (This is true — the first president to actually pardon a turkey, according to Snopes, was George H.W. Bush.)
“He was a tough cookie,” Trump said, of Truman. “Today, I’m going to be a much nicer president.”
Trump tried a few other one-liners, including a joke about a lot “strange birds” visiting the White House and the “bright future” ahead for Drumstick, unlike his turkey buddies. One quip that didn’t quite land, maybe because it was a little too on the nose: A joke that Trump would undo last year’s turkey pardons simply because Obama did it.
“As many of you know, I’ve been very active in overturning a number of executive actions by my predecessor,” Trump said. “However, I have been informed by the White House Counsel’s office that Tater and Tot’s pardons cannot under any circumstances be revoked. So we’re not going to revoke them.”
(Most turkeys die within a year of their pardon, but Tater and Tot are still alive and accepting visitors at Virginia Tech.)
Trump thanked the military and law enforcement and added some additional Thanksgiving wishes before deciding Drumstick was thinking: “Enough talk, please pardon us.”
Trump walked to where Drumstick stood atop a harvest-themed bouquet and, very calmly, waited for his star moment.
“I feel so good about myself doing this,” Trump said as he stroked the turkey. Then, he finally declared: “Drumstick, you are hereby pardoned.” […]
Black people noticed right away that Britain let Smith and the white Rhodesians get away with their illegal declaration. The UK had dispatched troops when its darker-skinned subjects rebelled in places like Kenya and Guyana, but no paratroopers landed in Salisbury to quell the uprising. London confined its intervention in Rhodesia to meaningless words and idle threats. – From the link@284
I have read that Harold Wilson, the Labour PM at the time, was warned by the generals that the army would not follow orders to suppress Smith’s regime.
I spent two months in Zimbabwe in early 1991. I was at that time unsuccessfully trying to switch careers and become a journalist focusing on environmental politics, so I got around quite a bit and talked to a lot of people. Even at that time, there was deep disillusionment with Mugabe among black Zimbabweans. I found the white Zimbabweans (“Rhodies”) I had most to do with to be remarkably unpleasant – racist, mercenary, corrupt, two-faced.
Joy Reid: “Watching ‘man on the street’ interviews with Roy Moore supporters felt a lot like viewing clips of rank and file southern segregationists interviewed on TV in the 1950s. People in deep, thoughtless denial and completely unbothered about the judgment of history.”
Robert Mueller’s investigators are asking questions about Jared Kushner’s interactions with foreign leaders during the presidential transition, including his involvement in a dispute at the United Nations in December, in a sign of the expansive nature of the special counsel’s probe of Russia’s meddling in the election, according to people familiar with the matter.
The investigators have asked witnesses questions about the involvement of Mr. Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, in a controversy over a U.N. resolution passed Dec. 23 that condemned Israel’s construction of settlements in disputed territories, these people said.
…
The motivation for the Mueller team’s questions about the U.N. is unclear. Investigators typically ask a host of questions over the course of a probe, and inquiries don’t necessarily indicate suspicion. Mr. Kushner figures into several events that Mr. Mueller is investigating, including a June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer at Trump Tower.
…
Investigators have also asked witnesses about Mr. Kushner’s role in arranging meetings or communication with foreign leaders during the transition, the people said. The special counsel’s mandate gives Mr. Mueller a broad directive to examine any matters arising from the Russia investigation….
This would seem to be one of the new revelations alluded to in #283. I wouldn’t be too sure it’s not more directly connected to the Russia investigation. Netanyahu’s circle is multidimensionally corrupt, and Kushner at least has connections to people like Lev Leviev who span Russia and Israel. I hope we’ll learn more about these remarkably sketchy meetings.
Hee. I couldn’t understand why people were attacking this tweet, because I was reading it as referring to the women leaving the industry because of sexual misconduct/harassment/assault. Ay.
Q: “To what extent was it good journalism practice that Buzzfeed be at least comfortable that they knew where the documents were from?”
Marshall: “I defend them here. They took docs, used them as a map to confirm something as true. They didn’t rely on docs. Thats good work to me. There’s broader emerging issue which is the extent to which journalism is being infiltrated by various forms of info warfare whether practiced by corps or nation states. I don’t think we have good rules or frameworks for that yet. As a general matter reporters are looking for info. It’s not their responsibility or ability necessarily to know if someone somewhere did something wrong to lead the info to them. But certainly I think we’d have real questions if we knew some party had tortured someone to get info. That’s a hypo but I think it’s instructive. There are some basic questions I don’t think we have clear answers to that are being raised by pervasive hacking. But in the here and now I think BuzzFeed went by the book and did good work.”
It’s true that they confirmed before publishing, but the issues surrounding information warfare and information-gathering practices, and rules and frameworks for them, are of central importance right now. BuzzFeed noted their source hundreds of words into the article, and didn’t indicate in any way that they were interested in how this information was obtained.
After the past two years, this is journalistic malpractice. We know who their far-right, political operative, conspiracy theorist source is. We know about his misogyny and history of online harassment. We know his connections to a dangerous, well-funded rightwing hit operation. We have reason to wonder about the connections (witting or unwitting) between his operation/movement and the Kremlin. All of this is reason for BuzzFeed to a) investigate and b) publish an accompanying article examining this/his history. It’s not “good work” to merely confirm the authenticity of the documents under these circumstances, any more than it was “good work” to merely report on the hacked Democratic emails. At the very least, they should remark on the selectivity of the allegations “leaked,” given the nonpartisan nature of sexual harassment.
And this from the WaPo piece (@ #286) is a problem:
As Smith notes, Cernovich has in recent months broken several legitimate stories.
He was the first to report, for example, the news in July that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was about to be fired by Trump. He also was first to report in August on a memo written by erstwhile White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci outlining his press strategy.
Cernovich also first reported in April that former national security adviser Susan E. Rice had requested the “unmasking” of the identities of Americans, including some related to the Trump campaign and transition team, in classified intelligence reports. The revelation was celebrated by people in Trump’s orbit, including Donald Trump Jr., who suggested on Twitter that Cernovich should win a Pulitzer Prize for it.
But Cernovich has also been critical of administration officials, particularly national security adviser H.R. McMaster, whom Cernovich has called “a globalist warmonger” intent on regime change in Syria through an American military invasion.
The first “legitimate stories” described are WH gossip no doubt obtained via Bannon, Cohen-Watnick, and crew. The nonsense about Susan Rice is not a story but harmful rightwing propaganda. “Woman did her job” isn’t fucking news, or a revelation. Even the Republicans in congress have admitted that it was a non-story, and the reference to the Pulitzer Prize is embarrassing. The last sentence, about McMaster, is bizarre: BuzzFeed just published what clearly appears to be a hit piece engineered by the Bannon gang. That WaPo would present the hostility to McMaster as signifying some sort of independence or balance or criticism of Trump on the part of Cernovich is beyond naive. The McMaster episode(s) should make both BuzzFeed and WaPo more, not less, suspicious of the ways in which these people might be using them.
… We as taxpayers deserve to know how our money is being used, and we as voters deserve to know which elected officials are misbehaving egregiously at work. A culture that tolerates sexual harassment on Capitol Hill isn’t just bad for women who work there — it’s bad for members of the broader public, who have to live under laws written in a context that tolerates harassment.
Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, has brought forward legislation to bring transparency to the congressional settlement fund. But we also deserve disclosures from each individual office: Have you used regular operating funds to pay settlements, and in what amounts?
…
We deserve to know about these settlements before we decide whom to elect in 2018.
Neera Tanden again: “Misogyny is: Being a woman candidate against a man accused of assaulting 16 women, he physically stalks you on the debate stage and you don’t say ‘Get away from me’ bc the Mark Halperins of the world will judge you negatively. Instead you bear it.”
And millions of women comment on it while media men brush it off.
They came with their signs, their flags, their families and friends. Their chants echoed off the downtown Birmingham buildings as they walked through the city’s historic Civil Rights district.
Thousands of Alabamians joined the Women’s March on Washington in Birmingham today, filling Kelly Ingram Park for a rally before spilling into the downtown streets for a march to Linn Park and back.
“We are marching in the footsteps of those who went before us for civil rights and equal rights for all,” said Dalia Abrams, one of the Birmingham march organizers. A week ago, she told AL.com they were hoping to get a crowd of 200 to the march. Birmingham police estimated the crowd at 5,000.
“We hope they would be proud of what we’ve learned from them.”
…
…Signs advocated support of women’s health, LGBTQ rights, climate change, immigration, public education and myriad other causes. Many signs railed against Donald Trump, sexism and racism.
…
“I hope this message, particularly in Birmingham and the South, will accomplish the fact that we’re fed up and we don’t intend to take it anymore,” said Mary Jones of Birmingham. “We’re fed up and we’re going to continue this day by day, whatever it takes, to keep this thing going.”
…If BuzzFeed is doing business with Cernovich, no matter how thoroughly and independently they vetted the information he provided them, the reader needs to know that right up front. Put this together with the fact that ur-ratfcker Roger Stone apparently knew that the Franken accusations were coming, and the fact that a charge was lodged against Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal by someone who did not really exist, and it becomes clear that there are two important stories going on here that need covering.
The first, and most important, of course, is the story about sexual harassment (and worse) on the part of this ever-expanding list of powerful men in the media and in politics and in entertainment and in god-knows-where-else. There are brave women coming forward to talk about it for the first time, and there are (finally) reporters and publications willing to hear and transmit their stories. It hardly needs to be said that this is all to the good.
However, there also is a story in how this moment in time is being weaponized for partisan political purposes….*
…
On the electric Twitter machine Tuesday morning, Jake Tapper of CNN made a proposal that would solve the whole matter: the Congress should nullify the non-disclosure agreements that were attached to all those settlements. That would enable reporters to chase leads that didn’t come from a nest of pit vipers, and it simultaneously would limit the influence that Cernovich and Stone have over the coverage of an important story that deserves so much more than the likes of them.
* (There’s also the story about how the documents related to Conyers were obtained.)
Lynna: “So, yeah, Trump pardoned two turkeys today. He now has three pardons on his list: Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Drumstick the turkey, and Wishbone the turkey.”
Well, going from Arpaio to two real turkeys is a significant step up the evolutionary and moral ladder if nothing else.
“Watching the Sochi presser with Putin, Assad’s savior. A news ticker below scrolls details on Ratko Mladic, butcher of Srebrenica, and his life sentence for war crimes & genocide. May Syrians see such justice one day.”
As you recently announced, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under your leadership, soon will release rules to dismantle your agency’s existing “net neutrality” protections under Title II of the Communications Act, which shield the public from anti-consumer behaviors of the giant cable companies that provide high-speed internet to most people. In today’s digital age, the rules that govern the operation and delivery of internet service to hundreds of millions of Americans are critical to the economic and social well-being of the nation. Yet the process the FCC has employed to consider potentially sweeping alterations to current net neutrality rules has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans’ identities — and the FCC has been unwilling to assist my office in our efforts to investigate this unlawful activity.
Specifically, for six months my office has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities. Such conduct likely violates state law — yet the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence in its sole possession that is vital to permit that law enforcement investigation to proceed.
…
We all have a powerful reason to hold accountable those who would steal Americans’ identities and assault the public’s right to be heard in government rulemaking. If law enforcement can’t investigate and (where appropriate) prosecute when it happens on this scale, the door is open for it to happen again and again.
I encourage the FCC to reconsider its refusal to assist in my office’s law enforcement investigation to identify and hold accountable those who illegally misused so many New Yorkers’ identities to corrupt the public comment process. In an era where foreign governments have indisputably tried to use the internet and social media to influence our elections, federal and state governments should be working together to ensure that malevolent actors cannot subvert our administrative agencies’ decision-making processes.
Roy Moore’s supporters continue to say stupid and alarming things:
Judge Roy Moore graduated from West Point and then went on into the service, served in Vietnam and then came back and was in law school. All of the ladies, or many of the ladies that he possibly could have married were not available then, they were already married, maybe, somewhere. So he looked in a different direction and always with the permission of the parents of younger ladies. By the way, the lady he’s married to now, Ms. Kayla, was a younger woman. He did that because there is something about the purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that.
That’s Pastor Flip Benham speaking on an Alabama radio show.
Yes, he pulled out the “purity” card and waved it around like a true “Christian” patriarch.
Republicans actually are not that interested in the ethical/moral lives of their candidates.
[…] a Quinnipiac poll released yesterday suggests there’s a gap in how partisans perceive the seriousness of the issue [sexual misconduct]. The question read:
“If a political candidate has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, would you still consider voting for them if you agreed with them on the issues, or would you definitely not vote for them?”
In areas such as age and ethnicity, the differences were modest, but the partisan split was enormous. Among Republicans, a narrow plurality — 43% to 41% — would consider supporting a candidate accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.
Among independents, a 61% majority said they wouldn’t consider voting for such a candidate, and among Democrats, that number was 81%. […]
It looks like Democrats have expectations regarding sexual misconduct that do not exist in the Republican alternate universe. I think, though, that Republicans would selectively apply stricter standards to Democratic Party candidates.
From U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garvis of Maryland, (a George Bush appointee):
Another federal judge has concluded that President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military service is unconstitutional. […]
[…]
An unexpected announcement by the President and Commander in Chief of the United States via Twitter that “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military” certainly can be considered shocking under the circumstances. … A capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified tweet of new policy does not trump the methodical and systematic review by military stakeholders qualified to understand the ramifications of policy changes.
[…] Like Kollar-Kotelly, Garbis froze the ban as a probable infringement upon the constitutional rights of transgender service members.
[…] while Kollar-Kotelly focused only on equality, Garbis grounded his decision in both equal protection and due process. This analysis permits Garbis to explore a separate facet of the constitutional injury here: the government’s betrayal of transgender troops whom it had already invited to serve openly. […]
Trump’s tantrum, which was also mentioned up-thread:
It wasn’t the White House, it wasn’t the State Department, it wasn’t father LaVar’s so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence – IT WAS ME. Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man’s version of Don King, but without the hair. Just think LaVar, you could have spent the next 5 to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you. But remember LaVar, shoplifting is NOT a little thing. It’s a really big deal, especially in China. Ungrateful fool!
There’s a video of a North Korean defector running across the border to escape into South Korea: Link
[…] After he was shot, the defector collapsed against a wall on the South Korean side. South Korean troops crawled to his side, rescued him, and took him to a hospital in the nearby town of Suwon.
One North Korean soldier briefly stepped over the border, but the rest stayed put, for good reason: It’s illegal to cross the border, and would likely be seen as a sign of war by both South Korea and the US, which has 28,500 troops in the country.
The defector regained consciousness on November 21. He proceeded to ask hospital staff to turn on the TV in order to prove he was in the South. Doctors went so far as to hang up a South Korean flag in his room.
Hundreds defect from North Korea every year, but they usually go northward into China. This is the first North Korean defection over the demilitarized zone — as the inter-Korean border is known — since 2007.
The escape is a scene of hope: A North Korean defies all odds in search of a better life. But at the same time it’s a jarring reminder of just how dangerous the North-South relationship remains.
A former business associate of Michael Flynn has become a subject of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation for his role in the failure of Flynn’s former lobbying firm to disclose its work on behalf of foreign governments, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
Federal investigators are zeroing in on Bijan Kian, a partner at the now-dissolved Flynn Intel Group, and have questioned multiple witnesses in recent weeks about his lobbying work on behalf of Turkey. The grand jury convened for the investigation will soon have a chance to question some of those witnesses, the sources say.
…
Mueller’s team is interested in Kian’s role in the Inovo contract as well as foreign lobbying efforts that the Flynn Intel Group may have yet to disclose, according to the sources familiar with the investigation. Emails subpoenaed by the Special Counsel’s Office revealed a September 20, 2016, meeting between Kian, Flynn and pro-Russia Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
That meeting has been the subject of prosecutors’ recent questions to witnesses in the case, the three sources said….
The Flynn Intel Group did not disclose this meeting even after the company retroactively filed as a foreign agent under FARA, which has led to scrutiny by Mueller’s team, two people familiar with the investigation told NBC….
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! This woman should be freed immediately. I’m seeing that a number of celebrities are getting involved and calling for her release, so hopefully that will make the difference.
The bad news: A missing Argentine submarine could be running low on air Wednesday. The good news: The weather is optimal for the multinational search, and if the sub is anywhere near its last known location, it likely hasn’t sunk to its “crush depth.”
…
Eleven countries have joined Argentina in the search, contributing personnel, planes and boats. Meanwhile, merchant ships, scientific vessels and fishing trawlers have joined in the effort.
According to state-run Telam, Balbi said the conditions Wednesday were perfect for the aerial and nautical search, and he urged family members of the crew “not to lose hope.”
It’s not “good work” to merely confirm the authenticity of the documents under these circumstances, any more than it was “good work” to merely report on the hacked Democratic emails. At the very least, they should remark on the selectivity of the allegations “leaked,” given the nonpartisan nature of sexual harassment.
You’re right. They had this option. I was a bit on the fence about this (I prefer as broad a definition of legitimate whistle-blowing as possible, and political operatives leak information to journalists that will tarnish their opponents every single day, which is what distinguishes spin doctoring from ratfucking), but you’ve persuaded me that Buzzfeed got this wrong. Part of the story should have been about why it’s a story in the first place, about their reporters being courted by obviously tainted sources (that, in the past, have omitted or altered what they represented as evidence, often without disclosing whether it had been illegally obtained). And finding the origin is part of practicing due diligence. So, get those sources, anonymized as they likely prefer, on record or get them to decline an on-the-record conversation and include it. Or do what other outfits do, decline the offer, and pre-emptively print a story about sources shopping around for a hitpiece and a sympathetic news organization willing to legitimize it.
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.
…
Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.
The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Some lawyers withdraw from information-sharing arrangements as soon as they begin negotiating with prosecutors. And such negotiations sometimes fall apart.
Still, the notification led Mr. Trump’s lawyers to believe that Mr. Flynn — who, along with his son, is seen as having significant criminal exposure — has, at the least, begun discussions with Mr. Mueller about cooperating.
…
Mr. Flynn is regarded as loyal to Mr. Trump, but he has in recent weeks expressed serious concerns to friends that prosecutors will bring charges against his son, Michael Flynn Jr., who served as his father’s chief of staff and was a part of several financial deals involving the elder Mr. Flynn that Mr. Mueller is scrutinizing….
“The White House has said that neither Mr. Flynn nor other former aides have incriminating information to provide about Mr. Trump.” LOL.
So, get those sources, anonymized as they likely prefer, on record or get them to decline an on-the-record conversation and include it. Or do what other outfits do, decline the offer, and pre-emptively print a story about sources shopping around for a hitpiece and a sympathetic news organization willing to legitimize it.
Oh, I think they should have published it; they did confirm the authenticity of the information. But I think they should have been more upfront and far less naive about the sources in the article, and also should investigate and write about how these far-Right scumbags are trying to weaponize the Me Too activism.
“The Argentine Navy has confirmed the deaths of all 44 of the crew of the submarine ARA San Juan, an explosion onboard is understood to have been the cause of the accident.”
Norm Eisen: “I negotiated a cooperation deal for a target with Mueller’s office when he was US Atty and lemme tell ya, he’s not gonna give one to Flynn unless he implicates someone up the ladder. That means Kushner, Don Jr., or Big Daddy. They are all having indigestion tonight.”
Preet Bharara: “If you’re dead to rights, flipping on others and cooperating with the prosecution is the only sane and rational move. Also, prosecutors accept cooperation only if you can provide “substantial assistance.” Higher up in the food chain. Stay tuned…”
Ron Klain – “”: “Conservatives have a new court-packing plan, and in the spirit of the holiday, it’s a turducken of a scheme: a regulatory rollback hidden inside a civil rights reversal stuffed into a Trumpification of the courts. If conservatives get their way, President Trump will add twice as many lifetime members to the federal judiciary in the next 12 months (650) as Barack Obama named in eight years (325). American law will never be the same.”
Eugene Robinson – “Congress must investigate Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct”: “If Congress is going to probe the conduct of members such as Conyers and Franken, it must also investigate the multiple, believable allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump. If they are true, the president must be censured.”
“At least 184 people were killed and another 125 injured in an attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai region on Friday, Egyptian state media reported, making it one of the deadliest attacks ever carried out against civilians in the province.”
Trump proves, once again, that he is petty and stupid:
Can you believe that the disrespect for our Country, our Flag, our Anthem continues without penalty to the players. The Commissioner has lost control of the hemorrhaging league. Players are the boss!
And in this instance, Trump combines promotion of two of his properties with an announcement (sort of) about foreign policy. One gets the feeling that the golf club is at the top of the list of priorities:
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. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!
After Turkey call I will be heading over to Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, to play golf (quickly) with Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson. Then back to Mar-a-Lago for talks on bringing even more jobs and companies back to the USA!
From Matt Shuham:
The White House on Wednesday told a pool reporter to correct her report that White House staff expected a “low-key day.”
“While the White House communications staff expects the press pool to have a ‘low-key day,’ the President will NOT have a low-key day and has a full schedule of meetings and phone calls,” the pooler wrote, correcting herself.
An hour later, the President arrived at another of his South Florida courses, the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
Trump demonstrates how confused he is by promoting a border wall between Mexico and the USA, and by promoting a Muslim ban, as part of his response to the terrorist attack in Egypt:
Will be calling the President of Egypt in a short while to discuss the tragic terrorist attack, with so much loss of life. We have to get TOUGHER AND SMARTER than ever before, and we will. Need the WALL, need the BAN! God bless the people of Egypt.
As mentioned up-thread, Trump is indeed setting his sights on “welfare reform,” by which he means stripping money and services out of safety-net programs.
[…] Trump wants to put his stamp on the welfare system, apparently in favor of a more restrictive policy. He says “people are taking advantage of the system.” […]
Paul Winfree, director of budget policy and deputy director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, told a recent gathering at the conservative Heritage Foundation that he and another staffer had been charged with “working on a major welfare reform proposal.” He said they have drafted an executive order on the topic that would outline administration principles and direct agencies to come up with recommendations. […]
Trump said in October that welfare was “becoming a very, very big subject, and people are taking advantage of the system.” […]
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at Heritage, said he would like to see more work requirements for a range of anti-poverty programs and stronger marriage incentives, as well as strategies to improve results for social programs and to limit waste. […]
Administration officials have already suggested they are eyeing anti-poverty programs. Trump’s initial 2018 budget proposal, outlined in March, sought to sharply reduce spending for Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies, among other programs.
Budget director Mick Mulvaney said this year, “If you are on food stamps and you are able-bodied, we need you to go to work.”
How did popular vote loser Donald Trump spend Thanksgiving? In the bosom of his family, in quiet introspection about the things for which he’s thankful? Of course not. […] No, he was stewing and tweeting about Obamacare.
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.
But do not worry. Even though the Dems want to Obstruct, we will Repeal & Replace right after Tax Cuts!
This is getting rather disturbingly repetitive, because in 11 months in office, he hasn’t learned how any of this works.
No, Obamacare is not a disaster. Enrollments are going along quite well, despite his best efforts to sabotage them. Premiums are increasing, but in part because of his sabotage, some people are able to get plans for free, and many more for less than $50 a month in premiums. That might be why enrollments are running at record levels in this year’s open enrollment.
And no matter how many times he yells it, Democrats aren’t going to be blamed if Obamacare does go down the tubes. It’s all his now. Oh, and repeal and replace wasn’t stopped by Democrats. It was stopped by all the people raising hell and three Republicans in the Senate who listened to them.[…]
It’s almost as if Trump isn’t capable of processing and learning. Let’s keep pushing him. The best resistance in the face of Trump’s ongoing stubborn stupid is making Obamacare enrollment a success. […]
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney called Trump a “bully” and a “punk”:
[…] Kenney called the decision to terminate the humanitarian status of nearly 60,000 Haitians who fled to the U.S. after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island in 2010 “un-American” and called on the administration to reverse the decision.
“There’s no compassion whatsoever in the White House,” Kenney said during a City Hall address in Philadelphia. “I’m just beside myself with sadness because our president is a bully, our president is a punk, and he just doesn’t get it.” […]
Some bullshit from Justice Department lawyers who are fighting on Trump’s side:
Justice Department lawyers representing President Trump said the Trump Organization’s decision to walk away from its Trump SoHo hotel supports the argument for dismissing a lawsuit alleging the president is in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan on Friday, the Justice Department said that the exit from the SoHo location “undermines” a lawsuit from competing hotels and restaurants arguing that Trump’s business empire, including his hotels, amount to an illegal receipt of money from foreign governments, Reuters reported.
“This development undermines the hospitality plaintiffs’ reliance on alleged competition with the Trump SoHo to demonstrate standing,” the letter reads, according to Reuters. […]
The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business runs an ongoing survey of top economists […] The panel includes multiple Nobel Prize winners, White House veterans, and former presidents of the American Economic Association. […]
The first question was straightforward. Would they agree that if the US passed a tax bill “similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate,” GDP would be “substantially higher a decade from now”? Of the 42 economists polled, only one thought the Republican bill would boost the economy. The plurality said it wouldn’t, and the remainder were uncertain or didn’t answer.
The survey includes an optional space for respondents to add a comment, and a few of the comments are notable. “Of course not,” wrote the University of Chicago’s Austan Goolsbee, who served as chief economist for President Obama. “Does anyone care about actual evidence anymore?”
A number of the economists argued that tax policy simply isn’t as powerful a lever as Republicans want to believe. “Tax policy appears to have little effect at the margin on GDP growth in OECD countries,” wrote MIT’s David Autor, an eminent trade economist. “Doubt it will substantially change things either way,” wrote the University of Chicago’s Anil Kashyap. “Aside from the redistribution of wealth, hard to see this changing much,” wrote Richard Thaler, who just won the Nobel Prize in economics.
The only economist to say the bill would increase GDP was Stanford’s Darrell Duffie, and he added the concern: “Whether the overall tax plan is distributionally fair is another matter.” […]
Adam Schiff: “Children’s health clinics are shutting down after congressional Republicans allowed CHIP to expire. 9 million kids at risk. But GOP still has time for corporate tax cuts. Nice priorities.”
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey needed to clear the Afrin region of northwest Syria of Kurdish YPG militia fighters, who have been in the forefront of the battle there against Islamic State insurgents.
…
“We need to cleanse Afrin of the structure there called the YPG terrorist organization,” Erdogan said.
…
Erdogan has previously said that Afrin would be on Ankara’s agenda after its current operation in Syria’s Idlib province, where Turkey and Russia have set up observation points under a “de-escalation” deal agreed by Ankara, Moscow and Tehran to ease the bloodshed in the six-year-old Syrian conflict….
It’s not an original idea, but my vote for Time‘s Person of the Year would go to the women of the US – of the Women’s March and the Resistance; of Me Too; at the town halls, at protests, making phone calls; of Run for Something, Indivisible, knocking on doors; fighting for health care; Carmen Yulín Cruz; Sally Yates; Rachel Maddow, Natasha Bertrand, Ashley Parker, Carol Leonnig, Jenna Johnson, Katy Tur, Maggie Haberman, Alexandra Petri, Nicolle Wallace, Kasie Hunt, Bianna Golodryga, Lauren Duca, Rukmini Callimachi, Masha Gessen, Joy Reid,…; Sherrilyn Ifill; Heather Heyer and her mother; women fighting for the Resistance on Twitter; Cecile Richards; Ava DuVernay; women in congress working to change sexual harassment procedures; women in national security; Never-Trump women; Maxine Waters; Frederica Wilson; Jackie Speier; Danica Roem;…
Norm Eisen (further to #329): “One more thing I learned about Mueller. When I was at State & he was at FBI we worked together on an investigation, & he loves surprises. Kushner, Donnie Jr. and the rest of the Trump crime family better keep their overnight bags handy. Pack shoes with no laces guys.”
…Visiting the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum is intense, shaming and shocking – just like the subject it covers – and it tackles its topic with unflinching, unapologetic rigour.
The first state-sponsored museum dedicated to the movement, it opens at 222 North Street, Jackson, on 9 December alongside the Museum of Mississippi History. The joint launch and shared entrance is no coincidence.
“We walk in together, and we see all of our history together,” says marketing director Stephenie Morrisey.
Topics overlap: slavery, the civil war, Jim Crow laws, the Delta blues. The result is a sweeping view of Mississippi’s history that puts the civil rights movement into context.
It will be 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination on 4 April 2018 and a series of events is planned throughout the south….
First, I’m befuddled and aghast by the refusal of Netflix to cancel or suspend Masterson’s show.
Second, the Hollywood police chief and department appear to have an unacceptable and potentially quite corrupt relationship with S***ntology.
Third, I can’t recommend Remini’s and Rinder’s series about S***ntology more highly. It’s so well done, and in this authoritarian moment insights into the functioning of this authoritarian organization are important.
Fourth, this from a 2004 police report about Masterson – “SUSP (acquaintance) sexually assaulted the victim while she was passed out. The victim woke up while the suspect was having sex with her and struggled with him. The suspect choked the victim until she passed out” – is beyond horrifying. Strangling someone to unconsciousness is arguably attempted murder. And Netflix is still producing and airing his series.
Hi, readers of the Political Madness All the Time thread,
I haven’t been able to contribute as much as I would like here. A string of disasters is taking up all my time.
My truck died and had to go to the shop to be resurrected; a suspicious spot on my face required surgery; my property taxes are due; and yesterday my home furnace died. Good news: the face surgery revealed a benign lumpy bit, no cancer, and the lumpy bit is gone. Bad news: I’m spending every spare moment working to make money, and I’m spending a lot time talking to various experts who can fix whatever has gone wrong with my vehicle (my only vehicle) and my furnace.
Once I emerge from the disaster zone, I’ll be able to spend more time on this thread. Many thanks to others who are posting and keeping track of the madness.
I just realized that my comment 355 sounds like I’m asking for pity. I’m not. It’s just an explanation. I’ll get through this. It just takes time and effort.
Though I mostly lurk, I’ll try to step up to share some political madness while you’re taking care of what you need to, Lynna.
There’s more uncertainty about the future of the CFPB today. Trump has picked Mick Mulvaney, current director of the Office of Management and Budget, to be the temporary head of the CFPB, until he can get somebody who will pass Senate confirmation hearings. But Richard Cordray, former head of the CFPB, appointed Leandra English as deputy director on Friday before he stepped down. Now English is suing to prevent Mulvaney from taking over. Who gets to lead the CFPB will have to be determined by the courts – will the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 take precedence, or will the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB?
KGsays
Of course the big news in the yoo kay today is the engagement of two showbizpersons: American actor Merkin MuffleyMeghan Markle and the comic relief in the long-running British soap The Royals: “Prince” Harry. This has naturally pushed out of the headlines the row between the UK and Irish governments over Brexit and the Irish border. Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) insists that Brexit negotiations cannot proceed to discussions of a post-Brexit trade deal until the Republic of Ireland has a written guarantee there will be no “hard border” (i.e., checks on movement of people or goods) between the Republic and Northern Ireland, which he thinks requires that the latter at least remain within the EU’s Customs Union, and preferably the Single Market. Conversely, Liam Fox, the corrupt UK Secretary of State for International Trade, insists the border question cannot be settled until there’s agreement on a trade deal. Arlene Foster, leader of the Protestant sectarian “Democratic Unionist Party” in Northern Ireland, which is proping up the UK Tory government, insists there should be no border controls or regulatory distinction between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (which would be one possible way round the problem) – although the DUP also say they don’t want a hard border. Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, the DUP being the only large party that campaigned in favour. Bizarrely, a fanatically pro-Brexit Labour MP of northern Ireland origin, Kate HooeyHoey, has Trumpeted that if the UK leaves the EU with no deal, , the Irish Republic should pay for any hard border. Meanwhile, there is a degree of political paralysis on both sides of the border: devolved government in Northern Ireland remains suspended because the DUP and Sinn Fein cannot agree a deal to govern together, as the Good Friday Agreement that largely ended political violence there requires, while in the Republic, Varadkar’s minority government could fall because of a threatened no-confidence vote in his deputy, Frances Fitzgerald. What larks!
A woman who falsely claimed to The Washington Post that Roy Moore, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, impregnated her as a teenager appears to work with an organization that uses deceptive tactics to secretly record conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets.
In a series of interviews over two weeks, the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15. During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public.
The Post did not publish an article based on her unsubstantiated account. When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists.
But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups. The organization sets up undercover “stings” that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias.
…
After Phillips was observed entering the Project Veritas office, The Post made the unusual decision to report her previous off-the-record comments.
“We always honor ‘off-the-record’ agreements when they’re entered into in good faith,” said Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor. “But this so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us. The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap. Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.”
Phillips’s arrival at the Project Veritas office capped a weeks-long effort that began only hours after The Post published an article on Nov. 9 that included allegations that Moore once initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old named Leigh Corfman….
“Breaking news: Colorado announces that it has started sending letters out to CHIP families warning them that their coverage is in jeopardy. This is the first state I am aware of.”
Of all of Trump’s tweets, this was one of the most anti-democratic. (CNNi wasn’t actually mentioned in the reports, which focused on plainly US-government-funded outlets (see #157 above), but he managed to take up the anti-democratic grenade and throw it.)
The senior State Department official charged with overseeing U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s effort to overhaul the agency has resigned after just three months on the job, according to a department official.
Maliz Beams was named counselor to the department on Aug. 17, according to her biography on the State Department’s website. She has decided to return to her home in Boston, and Christine Ciccone, Tillerson’s deputy chief of staff, will step in to lead the redesign effort, according to the official, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
The departure is a blow for Tillerson, who had brought in Beams to oversee the signature initiative of his term so far — a restructuring intended to eliminate inefficiencies and overlap at the department. The plan has run up against resistance within the department and in Congress, where critics say it has contributed to key positions going unfilled and plummeting morale….
!!! – The opposition coalition candidate Salvador Nasralla has the lead in the Honduran presidential election, and many are declaring victory. I won’t celebrate until the final results are in, but that would be an amazing development.
…The core of the bill is a huge redistribution of income from lower- and middle-income families to corporations and business owners. Corporate tax rates go down sharply, while ordinary families are nickel-and-dimed by a series of tax changes, no one of which is that big a deal in itself, but which add up to significant tax increases on almost two-thirds of middle-class taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the bill would partially repeal Obamacare, in a way that would sharply reduce aid to lower-income families and raise the cost of insurance for many in the middle class.
You might wonder how such a thing could possibly pass the Senate. But that’s where the scamming comes in….
The apparent encounter between Prince and Dmitriev offers yet another glimpse into the growing web of connections between the Trump administration and the Russian government, and raises the possibility that U.S. sanctions against Russia could have been violated if a business deal took place. Compliance lawyers and current and former U.S. officials say the mere presence of RDIF in a transaction that touches the U.S. financial sector or involves American individuals or companies risks violating sanctions.
North Korea has apparently launched a ballistic missile.
KGsays
More Brexit-related kerfuffle. The Commons voted a while ago that the Government must hand over the reports it commissioned on the economic results of a no-deal Brexit to the Select Committee dealing with Brexit, but it has refused to hand over the complete documents. This is of course vital to the process of returning sovereignty to Parliament.
The article @ #372 includes this detail: “on January 11, a Turkish-owned Bombardier Global 5000 charter plane flew Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, to the Seychelles, flight records obtained by The Intercept show.”
Is the fact that the plane is Turkish-owned (I’m not even sure what that means, tbh) have any significance, or is the reporter just providing all of the detail available from the flight records?
Donald Trump and Pocahontas,
Hmm, I may have some ideas as to why Trump is so obsessed with Pocahontas:
1) She’s probably the only female native American Trump knows about.
2) She was underage
What draws my attention in these stories is the group of people around Trump who ignore, laugh off, distract from, privately roll their eyes at, go along with, or try to make excuses for his absurd claims. That people are under intense pressure to do that kind of thing in repressive systems and dictatorships out of fear for their lives is a tragedy. That people would choose to demean and humiliate themselves like this in a democracy is just pathetic.
Of note: “Mr. Flake, who is not running for re-election, said in the interview that he was about to begin a series of speeches on the Senate floor outlining his concerns about Mr. Trump. The first, he said, will be dedicated to what Mr. Flake called the president’s disregard for the truth.” (I wonder if this will be before or after he votes for the tax scam.)
“President of United States re-tweeted three videos (depicting Muslim violence) from (British) White Christian supremacist, ultra-nationalist. Jayda Fransen’s goal in these videos is to incite violence against Muslims to lead to White Christian Britain.”
Re Corker’s tax trigger: “Amazing. We’re 2 days from a vote. No hearings, legislative text, or score. A totally new, dumb idea airdropped in at the last minute. Big impacts for 100% of the economy. cc: @SenJohnMcCain”
“Trump sharing Britain First. Let that sink in. The President of the United States is promoting a fascist, racist, extremist hate group whose leaders have been arrested and convicted. He is no ally or friend of ours. @realDonaldTrump you are not welcome in my country and my city.”
“Do not forget that the man who murdered Jo Cox shouted ‘Britain First’. Trump has gone beyond the pale today.”
Remember back when the Affordable Care Act was being debated and voted on? It seemed like every single one of the dozens of hearings included some GOP critter complaining about how Obama and the Dems were railroading this through congress too fast, with too little debate, with too little public input? Now we have severely limited debates, no hearings, no public input, and now we also have amendments added after the vote. Amazing.
Remember back when the Affordable Care Act was being debated and voted on? It seemed like every single one of the dozens of hearings included some GOP critter complaining about how Obama and the Dems were railroading this through congress too fast, with too little debate, with too little public input? Now we have severely limited debates, no hearings, no public input, and now we also have amendments added after the vote. Amazing.
Hearings, expert witnesses, voting on Republican amendments and including many, attempts by Obama to get Republicans on board,… And in return the Republicans lied about the process from the start, went to court so they could sabotage the act and keep people in Republican-dominated states from getting health care, and now are lying to the public and doing exactly what they falsely accused Democrats of doing with the ACA – for the purpose of taking away people’s healthcare and transferring even more wealth to the very rich. I don’t have words.
Time magazine’s cover story from its November 6th issue […] featured three swinging wrecking balls emblazoned with Donald Trump’s face and a tough-minded, fact-laden investigative report on three Trump Cabinet secretaries who were systematically dismantling protective regulations in their respective government agencies. The section on Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was particularly critical, […]
The sale of Time Inc. earlier this week, to the Meredith Corporation—a deal made possible by an infusion of six hundred and fifty million dollars from Koch Industries’ private-equity arm—has called into question whether such independent, accountability journalism from the media company will continue. For decades, Charles and David Koch have spent a staggering amount of money from their family’s private oil, gas, and chemical fortune to attack government regulations—particularly concerning the environment, where their company has a history of record-breaking violations. The brothers even helped sponsor Pruitt’s political career. As the New York Times reported, political operatives working for the Kochs also wrote the early blueprint for the Trump Administration’s rollback of Obama-era regulations, a corporate wish list called, “A Roadmap to Repeal.” And, as I reported, Pruitt placed Patrick Traylor, a lawyer for Koch Industries and other fossil-fuel companies, in charge of the E.P.A.’s enforcement of key anti-pollution laws. […]
[…] spokesmen for the Kochs and for Meredith say that the brothers intend to act merely as “passive” investors. They and their underlings will have no seat on the merged company’s board of directors, and play no managerial role other than meeting on a quarterly basis with senior management to discuss “financial and strategic matters.” According to an eighty-page agreement on the merger filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Kochs do, however, reserve the right to send an emissary to attend board meetings if Meredith fails to make good on its hefty 8.5-per-cent interest payments to the Kochs.[…]
Those familiar with the Kochs’ history, however, have reason to be skeptical about their professed passivity. Charles Koch, in particular, is known for the unusually tight control he exerts over Koch Industries, […] Murray Rothbard, once testified that Charles “cannot tolerate dissent” and will “go to any end to acquire/retain control.” His brother David, meanwhile, has been quoted saying that “if we’re going to give a lot of money, we will make darn sure they spend it in a way that goes along with our intent.” […]
Add this to the recent takeover of a lot of local broadcasting content by Sinclair; add this to Trump and his cohorts having successfully mainstream media to “fake news” in the minds of many. The situation worsens.
[…] The vote in the Budget Committee was taken before some of the legislation’s key details had been finalized, and before the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official keeper of the numbers on budget issues, had time to issue a proper analysis of the bill.
[…] The chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Mike Enzi, of Wyoming, summoned no experts, commissioned no studies, and held no public hearings to consider the bill. […]
Republicans[ in the Senate] know that their bill, like the bill that House Republicans have already passed, is a political stinker that will only get more unpopular as time goes by and more attention is focussed on it. Hence the continuing, and almost comical, effort to portray a huge giveaway to business as a boon to the toiling masses.
During a White House meeting with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan—the meeting at which Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi were no-shows—Donald Trump told reporters that “the biggest tax cut in history” was on the way. That was a blatant falsehood. Except for their giveaways to the heirs of large estates, the personal tax cuts in both Republican bills are pretty modest. As a share of gross domestic product, the Reagan tax cuts of 1981 were much bigger. Trump also claimed that the reform will motivate U.S. businesses to bring home four trillion dollars in capital that is sitting overseas for tax reasons. But, according to most estimates, U.S. companies are holding less than three trillion dollars offshore, and it is unrealistic to expect all of that money to be repatriated.
Trump also said that cutting the corporate tax rate to twenty per cent will allow U.S. companies “to compete . . . that means jobs, and it means lots of other things.” That last bit was true, anyway. The “other things” are likely to include more stock buybacks and higher dividend payments, as companies distribute some of their tax savings to their shareholders.
With the economy already close to full employment, and the cost of capital already at historic lows, most reputable economists don’t see the tax cuts resulting in big boosts to corporate investment, hiring, or G.D.P. growth. […] And if the budget deficit spirals and interest rates rise, it could end up being negative.
What can be stated for sure is that the Senate bill hurts the poor, does little for the middle class, and rewards the Republican Party’s wealthy donors. […] It is stuffed full of gimmicks to disguise its true cost, and it makes a mockery of the G.O.P.’s claim to being the party of fiscal discipline. Republican leaders dispute all this, of course, but at this stage they would say virtually anything to get a bill passed. We are witnessing twenty-first-century Republican politics in the raw, and it bears virtually no resemblance to responsible governing.
“The CBO just released a report that should worry Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski”: “‘If legislation were enacted that incorporated both the provisions of the Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act and a repeal of the individual mandate … the effects on the premiums and the number of people with health insurance coverage would be similar’, Keith Hall, the CBO’s director, wrote in a letter to Murray.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended those indefensible tweets from Trump.
The threat is real, and that’s what the President is talking about, is the need for national security, the need for military spending, and those are very real things, there’s nothing fake about that.
From Matt Shuham:
[…] Trump on Wednesday morning retweeted three videos from the deputy leader of the far-right ultranationalist political party Britain First. They purported to show violent acts from an “Islamist mob” and a “Muslim migrant,” though the latter subject is reportedly not Muslim.
Trump also retweeted the British politician’s video, “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” […]
Trump’s actions were denounced by British Prime Minister Theresa May, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and British media personalities like Piers Morgan. The widow of British Parliamentarian Jo Cox, whose assassin reportedly shouted “Britain First” as he murdered her a week before the Brexit vote, said “the President should be ashamed of himself.”
The far-right political party Britain First removed a series of pro-Putin posts from its website at some point in the last year, BuzzFeed News has learned.
The posts included one titled “GO PUTIN! Russian president’s popularity on rise in Czech Republic!” and “VIDEO: Putin backs our Brexit”….
…
The posts variously described Putin as a “no-nonsense leader” whose party was updating laws “to reflect the country’s traditional values”, noted that “Vladimir Putin’s popularity in the Czech Republic has surged and could now be higher than that of Angela Merkel”, and said he was “getting tough on terror”.
One post, which was shared on the site’s Facebook page two days after the EU Referendum vote, also specifically noted Putin backed “our Brexit” because “no-one wants to feed weak economies”….
Parliament and the Electoral Commission are currently conducting investigations on the role of Russian bots and misinformation in the EU referendum vote.
Consequences, Republicans, consider the consequences:
If the Republican [tax] bill becomes law, it will immediately trigger a $25 billion cut in Medicare. That’s because of mandatory spending cuts that will kick in as a result the tax bill’s $1.5 trillion increase to the deficit. The last time this happened, that Medicare cuts were forced, wasn’t that long ago. It was 2013. And as Sarah Kliff reminds us, what happened then was that cancer patients were turned away from clinics, because the clinics couldn’t afford the expensive chemotherapy drugs they were administering without Medicare offsetting the costs.
In 2013, it was temporary, part of the government shutdown. This time around it would be a permanent cut. In light of that, Kliff followed up with an oncologist who sees that threat again as a result of this bill.
I talked to one Long Island oncologist who said he and his staff held an emergency meeting earlier this week and decided they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business,” Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates, told me.
The Senate could pass separate legislation to skirt these rules that would require the automatic budget cuts […] [not likely]
[…] cancer clinics turning patients away could become real again. The tax bill could, for some seniors, become a bill that sharply limits their access to health care.
[…] Patients who thought they’d be okay because they’re covered by Medicare are now losing that assurance. […]
Update on the possible shutdown of the government: it looks like a game of chicken.
[…] Trump and congressional GOP leaders are daring Democrats to shut down the government over immigration rather than back a plan to extend funding into January.
[…] Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began hashing out a plan to pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government into January instead of funding it until before Christmas as expected. The measure would not include a fix for so-called Dreamers, something Democrats have demanded be part of any spending bill.
[…] the House would move first under this scenario, passing a bill with only Republican votes. The Senate would then try to follow suit, but it would need to pick off at least eight Senate Democrats to clear the chamber’s higher 60-vote threshold. Republicans believe that Schumer would come under heavy pressure from his own colleagues to avoid being blamed for a shutdown […]
Many Democrats have vowed to withhold their votes from any spending agreement that does not include a fix for the young undocumented immigrants brought to the country as minors. Democratic leadership sources have suggested that Pelosi and Schumer could back a one- or two-week CR. But they’re loath to move the deadline past Jan. 1. […]
Those three videos Drumpf retweeted? One comes from NL, is nearly half a year old and the perpetrator is a born and bred Dutch (and Non Muslim) dude. He also has been tried and convicted for this.
The Dutch embassy in the US advised Drumpf of this in the only way he can understand… With a reply tweet (sorry no link to the tweet because I don’t use Twitter).
Opening of the tweet… “Facts do matter.” > Snif snif< I smell something burning.
Incited violence against Muslims without reason or regret by retweeting unverified anti-Muslim videos.
Insinuated Joe Scarborough was involved in the death of a former intern.
Insinuated TV heads and critics should be investigated for unknown reasons….
And then flew off to tell boldfaced lies about the tax scam in a typically incoherent speech.
Alex the Pretty Goodsays
Ah… I see my post crossed with SC’s #409… Which did have the link.
Lauer was paid $25 million per year to act like a degenerate frat boy.
And it affected how the news was presented.
It’s shocking to begin to see the difference between the public persona and the private person. How furious the women who knew the truth must have been to watch everyone treating the public persona like it was real.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has postponed an anticipated grand jury testimony linked to his investigation into Michael Flynn amid growing indications of possible plea deal discussions.
Additional witnesses were expected to be questioned soon including a public relations consultant hired by Flynn’s lobbying firm who was given an early December date deadline to appear before the grand jury, according to a person at the company.
Ahead of the delay, the impression was that the testimony needed to happen soon, the source said….
“Hmmm, Marco Rubio says that the tax plan is just the first step before ‘instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare’ benefits to reduce the federal deficit.”
Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore co-authored a study course, published in 2011 and recently obtained by ThinkProgress, that instructs students that women should not be permitted to run for elected office. If women do run for office, the course argues, people have a moral obligation not to vote for them. The course is also critical of the women’s suffrage movement, which in 1920 secured some American women the right to vote.
The course, called “Law and Government: An Introductory Study Course,” includes 28 hours of audio and visual lectures given by Moore and others, as well as a study guide. The course is available for purchase on Amazon, where “Chief Justice Roy Moore” is listed as a co-author alongside Doug Phillips, Dr. Joseph C. Morecraft, and Dr. Paul Jehle….
(Alabama governor Kay Ivey has said she will vote for Moore.)
Trump: “.@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!”
A deeply felt fuck you to the wire services reporting on the election in Honduras, who can barely be bothered to note the corruption and illegitimacy, much less the shady covert dealings over the last 24 hours, of the ruling regime, and take their statements at face value. Fuck you and your undermining of democracy.
Trump: “The House of Representatives seeks contempt citations(?) against the JusticeDepartment and the FBI for withholding key documents and an FBI witness which could shed light on surveillance of associates of Donald Trump. Big stuff. Deep State. Give this information NOW! @FoxNews”
I hope All In</ with Chris Hayes posts thing 1/thing2. It shows Barak Obama saying repeatedly in many settings saying "merrry Christmas". I'll link if I find the video, probably tomorrow morning.
The failed effort by conservative activists to plant a false story about Senate candidate Roy Moore in The Washington Post was part of a months-long campaign to infiltrate The Post and other media outlets in Washington and New York, according to interviews, text messages and social media posts that have since been deleted.
Starting in July, Jaime Phillips, an operative with the organization Project Veritas, which purports to expose media bias, joined two dozen networking groups related to either journalism or left-leaning politics. She signed up to attend 15 related events, often accompanied by a male companion, and appeared at least twice at gatherings for departing Post staffers.
Phillips, 41, presented herself to journalists variously as the owner of a start-up looking to recruit writers, a graduate student studying national security or a contractor new to the area. This summer, she tweeted posts in support of gun control and critical of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants — a departure from the spring when, on accounts that have since been deleted, she used the #MAGA hashtag and mocked the Women’s March on Washington that followed Trump’s inauguration as the “Midol March.”
…
Phillips’s sustained attempt to insinuate herself into the social circles of reporters makes clear that her deception — and the efforts to discredit The Post’s reporting — went much further than the attempt to plant one fabricated article.
Phillips’s encounters with dozens of journalists, which have not been previously reported, typically occurred at professional networking events or congratulatory send-offs for colleagues at bars and restaurants. She used three names and three phone numbers to follow up with Post employees, chatting about life in Washington and asking to be introduced to other journalists.
In one case, Phillips kept a conversation going for five weeks with a Post employee over text message, repeatedly asking whether she and her husband could meet Phillips for dinner. After the employee shared that she was experiencing a family tragedy, Phillips wrote: “Let me know if I can do anything to help, even if just to talk or something small. We’d like to send flowers or a donation… Thoughts & prayers.”…
In pitching the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, has said repeatedly that the plan will pay for itself through a surge of economic growth and that over 100 people in Treasury are “working around the clock on running scenarios for us.”
Mr. Mnuchin has promised that Treasury will release its analysis in full. Yet, just one day before the full Senate prepares to vote on a sweeping tax rewrite, the administration has yet to produce the type of economic analysis that it is citing as a reason to pass the tax cut.
Those inside Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, which Mr. Mnuchin has credited with running the models, say they have been largely shut out of the process and are not working on the type of detailed analysis that he has mentioned. An economist at the Office of Tax Analysis, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his job, said Treasury had not released a “dynamic” analysis showing that the tax plan would be paid for with economic growth because one did not exist.
…
The Trump administration could come under renewed pressure this week to justify its claims about the economic growth and revenue that it says the Republican tax plans will create. The Joint Committee on Taxation is rushing to finish its own analysis of the Senate bill before a vote, and many analysts expect that the results will fail to match the optimistic assumptions being made by lawmakers….
quotetheunquotesays
RE: #409, #410:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has (of course) shown how little regard Hair Furor’s administration has for facts:
Whether it’s a real video, the threat is real,” she says, adding that the president’s “goal is to promote strong border security and strong national security.
When I heard about this, first thing this morning, it immediately brought to mind the Gleiwitz incident. This was a real (historically verifiable) false-flag operation, ordered by the Gestapo in 1939, as a pretext for the invasion of Poland. In this incident, some Dachau inmates and a local farmer were dressed up as Polish soldiers, killed, and had their bodies placed around a German radio antenna to make it appear as though Polish Forces were threatening Germany.
It was an entirely manufactured incident, but hey, no doubt those people living in eastern Germany at the time felt that those Poles living across the border were a “real threat” – so, I would have to assume that SHS would be good with it …
NPR Moscow correspondent Lucian Kim: “Press tour designed to dispel fears of radiation cloud is canceled abruptly. (Disclosure: I asked to take part but was told foreign correspondents will get their own tour.)”
…Perhaps the most important thing for Intelligence Committee members and staffers to keep in mind, as they try to pry information from Prince, is this: Prince is a fabricator.
…
…During a Breitbart radio appearance four days before the election, Prince, citing a “well-placed source” in the New York Police Department, said that emails discovered on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman then separated from Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide, included evidence of Clinton perversion and criminality: “They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times.”* He maintained these emails held proof “of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress.” He claimed that Abedin had “flipped.” If Clinton were to be elected, Prince warned, there would be a “constitutional crisis.”
Prince’s unsubstantiated comments were quickly embraced by far-right extremists pushing the particularly crazy Pizzagate conspiracy theory that claimed Clinton and Podesta were part of a covert pedophilia ring operating out of the basement of a Washington pizzeria. That day, conspiracy con-man Alex Jones, citing Prince’s interview, exclaimed, “When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped . . . yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children.” And WikiLeaks tweeted, “Astounding claims from Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater on Clinton & NYPD.” (A month later, a man armed with guns entered the pizzeria to investigate Pizzagate and fired several shots, harming no one, before he was arrested.)
Prince, once mostly known for owning a company that employed private military contractors who committed a 2007 massacre in downtown Baghdad, has become a fabulist who has used his national security credentials to dress up and legitimize the most outlandish and paranoid fantasies of the far right…. No matter what Prince says when he’s sitting before the interrogators of the House Intelligence Committee, they ought to remember this valuable guideline: consider the source.
The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, perhaps within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday.
Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters, according to the White House plan. Mr. Cotton has signaled that he would accept the job if offered, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations before decisions are announced….
“EVERYONE: CODE RED ON THE TAX FIGHT & ACA REPEAL RIGHT NOW. THREAD about what’s coming and how to fight it; please share & follow along if interested…”
“careful consideration”:
– no hearings
– no final legislative text
– no official JCT score
– no Treasury analysis
– secret changes reordering hundreds of billions of the economy
Tillerson is supposed to travel to Europe next week for NATO and OSCE meetings to discuss NK and…Russian aggression. The whole mission is now effectively nullified.
Putting Tom Cotton in charge of the CIA is not a good idea.
Ousting Tillerson from the State Department may or may not be a good idea. Replacing Tillerson with Pompeo seems like a guarantee of more chaos in the State Department. Also, does Trump think that Pompeo will be more efficient at gutting the State Department?
What a mess.
SC @446, Steve Benen called this “legislating while blindfolded.” So sorry to see McCain fold like that.
From the New York Times:
Mr. Mnuchin has promised that Treasury will release its analysis in full. Yet, just one day before the full Senate prepares to vote on a sweeping tax rewrite, the administration has yet to produce the type of economic analysis that it is citing as a reason to pass the tax cut.
Those inside Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, which Mr. Mnuchin has credited with running the models, say they have been largely shut out of the process and are not working on the type of detailed analysis that he has mentioned. An economist at the Office of Tax Analysis, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his job, said Treasury had not released a “dynamic” analysis showing that the tax plan would be paid for with economic growth because one did not exist.
quotetheunquote @436, Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe she is just susceptible to brain washing.
I used to feel sorry for her. Her job requires that she defend Trump, or at least she thinks her job requires that she defend him. Now I think that she is a true believer when it comes to her bigoted comments about Muslims. Her brainwashing started long ago, in childhood. Some time ago, SC pointed out that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is also a former Republican presidential candidate, is Sarah’s father. That’s all you really need to know.
Having Sarah move into the justifying-Trump job just made things worse for her. She is doomed when it comes to developing a sense of perspective, and in terms of developing the kind of personal integrity you would expect in an adult.
If the ‘Tillerson swapped out for Pompeo and then Pompeo replaced by Tom Cotton‘ shakeup actually happens, it will be amazing the degree to which Trump’s core campaign message – disengagement from aggressive, regime change-oriented policies in the Middle East – turned out to be unmitigated bullshit.
[…] Trump campaigned as a champion of middle class ‘real Americans’ against Wall Street and coastal elite fat cats. He’s ended up presiding over an extreme Club for Growth handouts to Wall Street economic policy. But Trump’s anti-Middle East interventionism seemed a bit more core to his beliefs.
[…] No personality so driven by impulse and the need to dominate would have a remotely pacific or, frankly, sane foreign policy. But if you had to pick one member of the current US Senate most in line with, most identified with the militarist, neoconservative foreign policy that drove Bush foreign policy in his first term, it’s Tom Cotton. […]
What it all boils down to is that racism – white racial grievance, immigration restriction, generalized bashing of basically any political or cultural assertion by African-Americans – is the only consistent and persistent line connecting the campaign to the presidency. […] for Trump, that’s clearly the only thing that isn’t opportunistic and situational. […] ethno-nationalism and racism. It’s the real him.
That more or less explains why I was so disturbed by the idea of putting Tom Cotton in charge of the CIA. (My comment 449.)
Roy Moore knows who to blame for allegations of sexual misconduct against him:
When I say they who are “they”?
They’re liberals. They don’t hold conservative values. They are the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender who want to change our culture. They’re socialists who want to change our way of life, putting man above God and then government is our God.
They’re the Washington establishment that simply wants to keep their jobs, do the same thing and do everything the same, so they don’t lose their position, their power, their prestige.
Moore does not blame himself for assaulting Beverly Young Nelson when she was 16 years old; nor does he blame himself for initiating sexual conduct with Leigh Corfman when the was 14 years old.
As the mayor of this great diverse city, I have previously called on Theresa May to cancel her ill-judged offer of a state visit to President Trump. After this latest incident, it is increasingly clear that any official visit at all from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed.
The prime minister of our country should be using any influence she and her government claim to have with the President and his administration to ask him to delete these tweets and to apologise to the British people.
[Trump promoted] a vile, extremist group that exists solely to sow division and hatred in our country.
It beggars belief that the President of our closest ally doesn’t see that his support of this extremist group actively undermines the values of tolerance and diversity that make Britain so great.
“Rex Tillerson’s exit and the Trump administration’s inevitable drift toward yes-men”: “In one fell swoop, Trump would be removing one of three people who Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said is helping “separate our country from chaos” and promoting two men who would move the Trump administration conspicuously in the direction of Trump allies and yes-men.”
[brief rant]
I swear wire-service reporting on Latin America will be the end of me. This new Reuters piece actually ends with: “Nasralla is one of Honduras’ best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a coup in 2009 after he proposed a referendum on his re-election.” NO HE FUCKING DIDN’T. He was going to hold a non-binding referendum on whether the people wanted to convene a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, which would then itself have to be voted on months if not years later. The referendum was to take place at the same time as people were electing a new president, so it couldn’t possibly have been about his re-election. What they’re claiming is not even possible. How the hell can they still be parroting this dangerous lie 8 years later? And THEN, the corrupt ruler of the current regime turned around and did what they falsely accused Zelaya of trying to do, by packing the court with people who would agree to let him run for a second term even though it’s in violation of the constitution. That’s why he’s a candidate in the current election – because they’re liars and cheaters.
And the Reuters reporters just basically accept their tall tale about the results, despite the sudden silence of the electoral tribunal after the opposition candidate was shown to be 5 points ahead, the long and unusual delay in reporting any additional results after that even though the population of the small country is less than 10 million (the election was on Monday, FFS, and the alleged final results still haven’t been announced), the expressed concerns of European monitors, the military mobilization, the claims of computer glitches and ballot-transport delays, and the very clear history of anti-democratic corruption of JOH and his gang (see the second link @ #373 for history and context). Sure, Nasralla’s large lead was erased and eclipsed during the past three days of delays and secrecy – nothing suspicious there.
They’ve just developed these habits of non-reporting and refuse to break with them.
[/brief rant]
SC @457, I hear you. This is no time for sloppy reporting.
In other news, Senator Susan Collins has not committed to a yes vote on the Republican tax bill.
There are a lot of concerns I want to fix. I am not committed to vote for this bill. Who knows what’s going to happen on the Senate floor during the vote-a-rama.
An undercover operative whose work for a conservative activist group was exposed this week spent months trying to infiltrate the Washington Post and other mainstream news outlets, the newspaper reported Thursday.
From July until this week, when she was exposed trying to convince the Post to publish a fabricated sexual misconduct allegation against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), Jaime Phillips joined some two dozen journalism and left-leaning networking groups.
This effort was apparently undertaken on behalf of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, an organization with a track record of using secret, deceptively edited videos to try to discredit liberal targets.
Using three pseudonyms and several different telephone numbers, Phillips tried to get close to individual journalists, presenting herself alternately as the owner of a start-up looking to recruit writers, a graduate student and a contractor new to Washington, D.C., according to the Post. She even showed up at events for departing Post staffers, and sent condolences to a Post employee experiencing a family tragedy. […]
Scam artists. People with no ethical core. Fools and doofuses.
Brian Schatz: “Republicans are about to vote to transfer literally trillions from regular people who work at regular jobs to around 5,500 people with estates, and the largest and most profitable global corporations in human history. Don’t be despondent. Be angry.”
Dianne Feinstein: “UPDATE: We may vote on the Republican tax bill TONIGHT. We don’t have the final bill. We don’t have analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation as to whether or not the bill would boost the economy. We don’t have a Treasury Department analysis. This is OUTRAGEOUS!”
Jeff Sessions is being very cagey and slippery during questioning today:
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee expressed concern Thursday after Attorney General Jeff Sessions declined to answer whether President Trump ever asked him to obstruct the Russia investigation.
“I asked the attorney general whether he was ever instructed by the president to take any action that he believed would hinder the Russia investigation and he declined to answer the question,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters after the closed-door meeting concluded. […]
Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore co-authored a study course […] that instructs students that women should not be permitted to run for elected office. If women do run for office, the course argues, people have a moral obligation not to vote for them. The course is also critical of the women’s suffrage movement, which in 1920 secured some American women the right to vote.
The course, called “Law and Government: An Introductory Study Course,” includes 28 hours of audio and visual lectures given by Moore and others, as well as a study guide. The course is available for purchase on Amazon […]
The curriculum was a product of Vision Forum, a now-defunct Texas-based evangelical organization headed by Doug Phillips, which taught “Biblical patriarchy”, a theology that prescribes strict, unequal gender roles for men and women. According a statement on the Vision Forum’s website, “Egalitarian feminism is a false ideology that has bred false doctrine in the church and seduced many believers.” […]
Donald Trump is promoting paramilitary extremism in Northern Ireland through his tweets.
[…] There’s an unexplored angle to Trump’s latest Twitter controversy. Trump began Tuesday morning by re-tweeting three Islamophobic (and inaccurate) videos from Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of the far-right extremist group Britain First. But by re-tweeting Fransen, Trump isn’t just spreading Islamophobia. He’s also promoting a group that has repeatedly held rallies in Northern Ireland and has ties to loyalist, sectarian groups in the region.
Britain First is contributing to destabilizing the security situation in Northern Ireland which, nearly 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement, remains precarious. Protestant loyalists, who want to remain part of the U.K., and Catholic republicans, who want to be part of Ireland are still acrimonious towards each other and live in segregated communities. In 2016, the Police Service of Northern Ireland dealt with roughly one bomb threat per week, and anti-terror raids are still a regularly feature of the Northern Irish landscape.
In the midst of this, Jayda Fransen’s group is advocating the type of paramilitary-style extremism that was responsible for decades of death and destruction in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles.” […]
Since…”BREAKING: Treasury Department Inspector General has opened inquiry on why tax analysis hasn’t been released to the public, @SalehaMohsin reports.”
The New England woman told Jezebel she came forward in an effort to encourage Franken to take responsbility for his actions, but didn’t wish to be named.
“I want my name associated with my own accomplishments,” she told us, “and not publicly linked to a man’s bad behavior.”
Re Joe Barton: I was holding back during the initial discussions about the pictures that were posted online (and shouldn’t have been), when people were responding that what were described were consensual relationships and more power to him or whatever. It seemed to me at the time that there might well be something more going on, and it appears there was. Barton has announced that he won’t run for re-election, so that’s not so much of an issue anymore. But from a report several days ago it seemed that he sent nude pictures and videos of himself to at least one woman after he asked her if she wanted them and she said no. Regardless of whether they later had a consensual relationship, this is a problem, and especially so because he started communicating with her when she posted something about politics on his FB (IIRC) page. It’s looking like it was fairly common practice for him to sexualize his exchanges with women who were his constituents who posted about or were involved with politics. From a recent article: “Canon did say she believes it’s ‘inappropriate for a congressman to be talking to a constituent like that. … He wouldn’t say that if I was a guy’.” The many tweets saying things like “You do you, Joe Barton” don’t address the problem with this.
Elizabeth Warren re #471: “I’m glad @USTreasury’s IG responded quickly to my request. Either Treasury used taxpayer funds to conduct analyses it won’t release because they contradict Mnuchin’s claims that this bill grows the economy, or Mnuchin misled the public about the analysis. Either is a big problem.”
One of the ministers who serves a Theodore church where Roy Moore spoke Wednesday night was federally convicted of trying to block an investigation involving claims his son molested children in Honduras.
Rev. Bill Atkinson led the music portion of the Moore event at the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church, where the U.S. Senate candidate spoke for over 20 minutes and was interrupted twice by people in the audience.
In 2012, Atkinson was found guilty of obstruction and conspiracy for ordering two of his children to destroy a hard drive of a digital video recorder, which held evidence that incriminated his son for child molestation. At the time, William James “Will” Atkinson IV was in a Honduras jail awaiting trial on charges that he molested children at an orphanage the Atkinson family owned. Those allegations came to light when his younger brother, Jonathan Atkinson, set up a secret surveillance system in Will’s office after some of the children said they had been touched inappropriately.
Authorities maintained that the eldest Atkinson then tried to get his son out of Honduras and back to Theodore….
Interesting contrast between earlier (see #457) and later Reuters reports:
The bullshit
“Nasralla is one of Honduras’ best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a coup in 2009 after he proposed a referendum on his re-election.”
has become
“Nasralla is one of Honduras’ best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in the 2009 coup.” (The earlier reference to the coup doesn’t make the false re-election claim and also mentions that the coup was “military-backed.”)
Both the AP and the Reuters reports are showing some signs of improvement. I’ll try not to get too optimistic.
Steve Schmidt: “This tax bill demonstrates,once again, the total collapse of all and any rigor around the policy making process in the GOP congress. It is built on a foundation of lies. It adds more than a trillion to the debt. No real conservative should vote for this.”
“Trump Pressed Top Republicans to End Senate Russia Inquiry”: “President Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a half dozen lawmakers and aides. Mr. Trump’s requests were a highly unusual intervention from a president into a legislative inquiry involving his family and close aides….”
These Republicans have zero credibility. When Wray and Rosenstein testified before them, they demanded that they be informed by those Justice officials if Trump or anyone at the WH tried to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation. Trump has spent months trying to interfere with their own investigation, and what have they been doing? Playing it down, making ridiculous excuses for it, hiding it from their Democratic colleagues. It’s an outrage.
“BREAKING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL: The court has scheduled a plea hearing for Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), 58, of Alexandria, Va., at 10:30 a.m.”
He’ll plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI.
“NEWS: FLYNN will plead GUILTY to making false statements to the FBI about his conversations with KISLYAK.”
From the page Bertrand provides, this concerns lying about his request to Kislyak for the Kremlin to moderate their response to Obama’s sanctions and Kislyak’s responding that they would do so. Wow.
The charges against Flynn can be read here – the Special Counsel’s web site. The first charge is described @ #491 above. The second appears to relate to the 12-23-16 UNSC resolution condemning and expressing grave concerns about Israeli settlements. According to the document, Flynn asked Kislyak “to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution” and subsequently lied to the FBI about it and about whether he received the Kremlin’s response from Kislyak.
Erik Prince is on MSNBC right now. He’s a liar, and a bad one.
“Just now: @BrianRoss on @ABC News Special Report: Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify that candidate Trump ‘directed him to make contact with the Russians’.”
Reuters: “MORE: Prosecutors say Flynn spoke with a ‘senior official’ of Trump’s transition team who was at Mar-a-Lago resort in December 2016 to discuss what to communicate to Russian ambassador.”
I don’t think Trump can run fast enough to escape the fallout from the Flynn plea deal and charges to which Flynn pled guilty.
In other news, during a debate on the floor of the Senate about the tax bill, Senator Orrin Hatch said this in relation to the CHIP funding:
Let me tell you something: we’re going to do CHIP. There’s no question about it in my mind. It’s got to be done the right way. But we, the reason CHIP’s having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore. […] I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves — won’t lift a finger — and expect the federal government to do everything.
From Steve Benen:
[…] as the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell recently explained, The Republican tax bill is often described as being weighted toward ‘the rich.’ But that’s not the full story. It’s actually weighted toward the loafer, the freeloader, the heir, the passive investor who spends his time yachting and charity-balling. In short: the idle rich.”
The price tag for the GOP tax plan is roughly $1.5 trillion.
Meanwhile, there’s the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which needs $15 billion. In other words, CHIP costs literally 1% of the overall cost of the Republican tax package.
And yet, there was Orrin Hatch, a supporter of his party’s tax cuts, making the case on the Senate floor that CHIP’s “having trouble” because “we don’t have money anymore.”
The second lie – about Flynn’s request that the Russians delay or block the UNSC resolution re Israel – is interesting. I wonder if this investigation will extend to Netanyahu and his dealings with Kushner….
A new lawsuit has been filed against the Education Department, thanks in large part to actions by Education Secretary Betsy Devos:
Talking Points Memo link
“Roy Moore supporter Brandon Moseley of @ALReporter on CNN just now compared sexual touching of a 14-year old to stealing a lawnmower, stressing it was a misdemeanor.”
This is disgusting and also false when applied to the Moore case – as the WaPo article said quite clearly: “The law then and now also includes a section on enticing a child younger than 16 to enter a home with the purpose of proposing sexual intercourse or fondling of sexual and genital parts. That is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”
Another woman is accusing Roy Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor:
Washington Examiner link
Here’s an upcoming court case that we should keep our eye on:
https://thinkprogress.org/supreme-court-deceptive-cpc-97bb4f8f133b/
Oh, FFS.
The Hill link
“Woman Says Roy Moore Tried to Rape Her at 16; He Signed Her Yearbook Two Years Later.”
Follow-up to comment 3 and to SC’s comment 6. The Hill link.
Nelson told her sister and mother about the encounters at the time. A bit later, she told her soon-to-be husband. There is corroboration.
Her lawyer said that Nelson is not pursuing civil or other litigation. She is asking for a hearing, during which she can testify under oath.
Follow-up to comment 7.
Talking Points Memo link
Roy Moore’s response, as relayed by his campaign chairman:
A correction to comment 7. Nelson did not tell her sister and mother right away. She kept the sexual assault secret because she feared Roy Moore. She thought he would do something to her or to her family.
While Alabama Republicans continue to back Roy Moore, other Republicans are urging that Moore withdraw from the Senate race, or that he face some consequences:
Link
Follow-up to comment 10.
Daily Kos link
France24 is saying that in an interview with Fethullah Gülen in July, he said he had been informed of an apparent bribe paid by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law to Flynn’s company, Exclusive: US-exiled cleric Gülen says he knew about Turkey’s ‘Flynn bribes’ (I’ve corrected the spelling of the surnames Gülen and Erdoğan):
There is a video at the link.
Neither the son-in-law nor the company is named in the report, and it is unclear if France24 ever followed-up on this. The company is presumably Flynn Intel Group.
Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak is reported to have been involved in shady tax evasion maneuvers in Malta, Erdoğan’s son-in-law set up Malta accounts to avoid millions in tax (Erdoğan’s surname corrected):
Mr Albayrak is married to Esra Erdoğan (the older daughter). The younger daughter is Sümeyye Erdoğan, who is married to Selçuk Bayraktar. Mr Bayraktar seems to keep himself out of the news (at least in English). Which of those two men is the “Erdoğan son-in-law”, Gülen meant is unclear, albeit the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Albayrak seems probable.
As an aside, Malta has come up before, as a place where Joseph Mifsud has claimed especial expertise. The Grauniad (Joseph Mifsud: more questions than answers about mystery professor linked to Russia) notes Mifsud is a Malta native, so that is perhaps to be expected.
SC@491, Lynna, OM@498,
A key point about the TPP is that it excluded China. Undoubtedly it had the aim SC points out, of allowing corporations to sue governments for “compensation” for loss of expected profits as a result of regulatory changes – but it also had a geostrategic aim: to bind as many of China’s neighbours as possible into a pact with the USA. I’m currently reading Jude Woodward’s The US vs China: Asia’s New Cold War?. Woodward’s central argument is that China’s booming economy has caused most of its neighbours to reorient their own economies, and their foreign policy, toward China and away from the USA. Most of them still want to keep good relations with the USA, but they won’t be drawn into the policy pf “containing” China, promoted by Obama (and Clinton, when she was Secretary of State). The American foreign policy establishment has been promoting a picture of China as an aggressive power in a military sense, although there’s actually scant evidence of this: since China is on course to overtake the USA as the world’s largest economy decades before it could even think about matching it militarily, it makes no sense for China to militarise competition for influence between the two. It will be interesting to see if any replacement for TPP negotiated by the other states involved includes China.
blf@13,
This si completely speculative, but I wonder if there’s any connection between any of Mifsud’s activities and contacts, and the recent assassination of the Maltese investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Unreal – “The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks”:
KG@15, A similar thought had occurred to me. Ms Caruana Galizia was pursuing quite a number of different corruptions in Malta, and it’s not inconceivable she, or her son Matthew, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, had encountered something linked-to or involving Mifsud. She had found Russian-connected corruptions, for example, from The Economist (The death of a crusading journalist rocks Malta):
A reader’s comment here (University investigated Joe Mifsud for financial irregularities) claims:
That same blog also notes Mifsud keeps popping up in a dubious fashion in Maltese affairs (The mystery professor), which would seem to make it quite likely she was aware of him.
Her own blog Running Commentary does mention a number of people with the surname Mifsud, but it’s not clear if any of them are the mystery professor. (I have the impression Mifsud is a rather common Maltese name.)
However, as you say, drawing a link to her assassination is very speculative. And has a whiff of paranoid conspiracy theory about it.
† MLP = Malta’s ruling party, led by PM Joseph Muscat.
Allred was in law school when Roe v. Wade was decided. There’s no mention of it in her WP bio.
“Locals Were Troubled by Roy Moore’s Interactions with Teen Girls at the Gadsden Mall”:
Another, from AL.com – “Gadsden locals say Moore’s predatory behavior at mall, restaurants not a secret”:
There are photographs of an individual identified as Norma McCorvey (Roe)’s attorney “Gloria Allred” (Norma McCorvey, ‘Roe’ in Roe v Wade case legalizing abortion, dies aged 69 and January 22, 1973: In ‘Roe v. Wade,’ the Supreme Court Legalizes Abortion in All Fifty States). However, those photographs are dated to 1989, not 1973, and are presumably related to the 1989 attempt to overturn the decision (Supreme Court, 5–4, Narrowing Roe v. Wade, Upholds sharp state limits on abortions).
The 1989 “Gloria Allred” (more precisely, Gloria Rachel Allred) appears to be the same person Roy Moore is bellowing about. Ms McCorvey’s attorneys in 1973 were Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington.
“The Republican National Committee Hasn’t Yet Dumped Roy Moore”: “…About a dozen national party staffers are on the ground in Alabama, handling field organizing duties for next month’s special election between Moore and Democratic nominee Doug Jones, an RNC official told BuzzFeed News….”
Catalan independence: EU experts detect rise in pro-Kremlin false claims (the Grauniad’s edits in {curly braces}):
[a DM sent on October 14, 2016, after which Jr. tweeted out the link Assange had sent him and the same day “Pence denies Trump camp in cahoots with WikiLeaks” was published]
Sorry – I have the dates wrong and it was Trump Sr. who tweeted it (which is even more inculpatory). The correct details are in the article.
“Donald Trump Jr. made senior Trump campaign staff, including Kushner and Bannon, aware that he was in touch with WikiLeaks”:
“Looks like Fox News is ready to throw Roy Moore overboard. Judge Napolitano endorses Jeff Flake call to vote for the Democrat.”
Renato Mariotti’s analysis of the Ioffe story @ #16.
(Ioffe will be on Chris Hayes’s show on MSNBC within the hour.)
(Mariotti will also be on with Chris Hayes.)
‘Tobacco at a cancer summit’: Trump coal push savaged at climate conference:
I believe this is a video of the protest song.
LOL.
The Ioffe segment was excellent. I’ll give a link when it’s available.
Chuck Rosenberg, a lawyer who knows and worked with Jim Comey, and recently retired from the DEA, is on Rachael Maddow. I’ll post a link if one comes available.
Used-book shopping today, I came across a 2009 book by Michelle Malkin with the actual title Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. Really – this exists.
This story is awful.
Hahaha – “GOP megadonor Adelson publicly breaks with Bannon”:
Tweet o’ the day. (Cheating a bit, but still.)
KG:
I’m still befuddled by Obama’s pushing it in 2015/16. It wasn’t just harmful; the Democratic grassroots and progressive intellectuals openly objected to it. Bernie Sanders published an oped in early July 2016 about the Democratic platform, saying in part:
It seems like so many liberal pundits have forgotten about both the problems with the process and substance of the TPP and its plain unpopularity with the Democratic base, in the months leading up to an election. If Obama had been less concerned with “containing” China and more concerned with…anything he professed to care about, this wouldn’t have been such a disaster.
* Yes, his campaign. In July. In this moment he was selfish, shortsighted, reckless, and stupidly doctrinaire. But his objections to the TPP were genuine and substantive.
Honestly? I don’t understand why people think it’s funny or acceptable to make fun of someone’s lisp, regardless of how terrible they are. Am I missing something important here?
Hee – “Suspicious Account Behind Viral Roy Moore Conspiracy Theory Deletes All of Its Tweets.”
Do not pass Go. Do not collect 1000$.
Nixon Now, More than Ever.
Patton Oswalt: “If everyone who followed ME gave @GDouglasJones $1, we could all wave bye-bye to #RoyMooreChildMolester.”
November 12, 1939: “9 Polish Boy Scouts have been arrested by Germans for putting up posters of Polish national anthem in town of Zielonka. All are to be shot. Nazis have banned ‘Polish nationalism’.”
November 10, 1939:
“Tonight an estimated million Britons are tuning in to English-language Nazi propaganda from ‘Germany Calling’, radio station in Hamburg.”
“People know ‘Germany Calling’ is exaggerated & often lies, but it gives information on British sea & air losses- suppressed by UK government.”
Link to Rachael Maddow’s interview with Chuck Rosenberg.
Here’s the link to Julia Ioffe being interviewed by Chris Hayes last night.
Jeff Sessions will testify at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing at 10 this morning ET.
News from the Yoo Kay:
1) The EU (Withdrawal) Bill returns to the Commons today, with literally hundreds of amendments to be discussed – many put down by Tory MPs. The lazy and ignorant David Davis, the minister in charge of the bill, has attempted to head off possible defeats by making a completely empty offer: Parliament will get a vote on the final deal – but if it’s voted down, the result will be the UK leaving the EU without any deal at all! This “offer” has been met with scepticism.
2) Theresa May has deviated from the Trumpist line by accusing Russia of “election meddling”. This is in large part to get the EU to give the UK what it wants in negotiations (all the advantages of membership with none of the costs or responsibilities), on the grounds that “a strong economic partnership between the UK and EU would be a bulwark against Russian agitation in Europe.” (That quote is from the BBC article linked, not direct from May.)
This does not surprise me at all. Well, I’m sure that a Sessions-appointed special cousel to investigate the Clinton Foundation and the uranium will be handled with the same professionalism, bipartipartisanship, and lack of any political agenda as every thing else Team Tang has done.
The response from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is classy. The Ministry of Defense also accused the US military of supporting ISIS based on a screenshot from a video game. Banner day for Russian propaganda.
“Duterte spokesman: Trump offered to return Philippine fugitive during bilateral talks”:
This is the third (known) alleged instance of Trump or one of his minions offering to hand someone over to an authoritarian regime: Gulen, Guo, and now this person. There’s also the recent incident with Bill Browder’s visa.
“Before He Was Tapped By Donald Trump, Controversial Judicial Nominee Brett J. Talley Investigated Paranormal Activity”: “On his questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee, a copy of which was provided to The Daily Beast, Talley says that he was part of The Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group from 2009-2010. The group, according to its website, searches for the truth ‘of the paranormal existence’ in addition to helping ‘those who may be living with paranormal activity that can be disruptive and/or traumatic’.”
…”Talley’s work in this field is not the typical biographical detail found on the resume of a federal court nominee.”
Man, is Goodlatte a hack.
Sessions’ high-dudgeon act is really tired and unconvincing at this point.
“In his written opening statement Jeff Sessions said he has never changed his story. Just an extraordinary, disqualifying fiction.”
Conyers just read out some of Trump’s recent tweets pressuring the DoJ to go after Clinton (and expressed his disgust at “Pocahontas” – says at least when Nixon said such things about minorities he did it in private). “In a functioning democracy, is it common for the leader of the country to order the criminal justice system to retaliate against his political opponents?”
Sorry – that was the wrong link in #54. This is the right one. (That one was to the Lawfare liveblog of Sessions’ testimony, in case anyone’s interested.)
Oh goody, another nutcase meltdown. I like nutcase meltdowns, watching a few tightly-twisted garments flung through the air over some reasonable thing. In this case, First hijab-wearing Barbie based on Ibtihaj Muhammad:
As the article notes, Mattel is quite late here.
Hate crimes rose by nearly 5 percent in 2016: FBI:
LOL.
Sessions’ animation when he’s talking about deporting people is really distasteful. He’s practically bouncing in his chair.
Dr Singham here at FtB notes there are also apparently allegations of improper finances against Ray Moore, I am enjoying watching Mitch McConnell squirm. Quoting an editorial at AL.com (somehow related to the Birmingham News), Our view: Roy Moore grossly unfit for office:
This is apparently referring to a recent investigation by the Washington Post, Undisclosed deal guaranteed Roy Moore $180,000 a year for part-time work at charity:
There are numerous more details at the latter link.
(I don’t recall seeing this bit of sleaze by Moore mentioned before — I certainly wasn’t aware of it — apologies if it’s already been covered previously.)
Josh Marshall: “So Rep. Jim Jordan is purposely reading obvious falsehoods into the congressional records.”
Correct. He’s one of the worst.
From SC’s link in comment 58:
Worth repeating for the laughs. We need all the laughs we can get.
I noticed that Republicans questioning Jeff Sessions have been prefacing their questions with falsehoods like, “the thoroughly debunked and scurrilous dossier” in reference to the Steele dossier. Nope. Not debunked. So far, the dossier has held up well. I think “politically motivated” was thrown in there too. Republicans really want to investigate Clinton in connection with the production of the dossier.
Hank Johnson is asking good questions about the AT&T merger and efforts to prevent future foreign election interference. I hope someone follows up on the question about whether anyone in the Trump administration/campaign has contacted him or the DoJ about the merger. Sessions is good at shifting the answer away from the question asked; they should tell him he can address his other points after he answers the basic question, because he uses up the time and it doesn’t get answered.
It’s amazing how clearly and quickly he can answer questions about deportations, in contrast to his befuddlement and stammering when answering Democrats’ questions.
Follow-up to comment 51.
More on Brett Talley, who has been nominated by Trump for a lifetime position on the federal bench in Alabama:
Link
It has, but it’s worth raising again. I was just thinking this morning about how much of the Right – and especially the Religious Right – involves blatant grift. Trump, Sekulow, Moore, Huckabee,… People support them unwaveringly and in return get fleeced.
Since Sessions expressed that he doesn’t think the DoJ should be interfered with for political purposes, someone should ask him why neither he nor Rosenstein have pushed back publicly on Trump’s efforts to interfere (they could show the recent emails again).
Thirty countries use ‘armies of opinion shapers’ to manipulate democracy — report:
“So sad that Jeff Sessions suffers from that debilitating brain disorder where you can only remember things after someone proves you lied about it. Should we set up a charity walk or something?“
Rep. Bass is doing a great job questioning Sessions about the focus on so-called Black Identity Extremists and the ignoring of real, violent White Identity Extremists. She’s getting the facts on the record.
Hope someone asks about the request for Boente to resign.
Jeffries confronting Sessions with his “I don’t recalls” and changing story was beautiful. Sessions is doing the high-dudgeon routine again. It’s stale.
Cicilline asked whether anyone in the WH contacted the DoJ about the AT&T deal or any other deal. Sessions just refused to answer about any contacts with the WH. Goodlatte said that’s fine.
India supreme court ‘in crisis’ over retired judge corruption case:
The article is at pains to point out there is no allegation that “Misra or any other supreme court justice behaved corruptly”, only that one of the problems is “a possible likelihood of bias if Misra was to consider a case with some connection, however tenuous, to him or other judges.”
Trolls force shutdown of French anti-harassment hotline (about two weeks ago; the Grauniad’s edits in {curly braces}):
Related, Allegations of sexual violence soar in France after Weinstein scandal:
“Secret Finding: 60 Russian Payments ‘To Finance Election Campaign Of 2016′”:
“These are the GOP officials who have spent the most at Trump properties “:
Jayapal has a good manner when dealing with Sessions. She just cuts him off and keeps rolling.
Good! Cicilline is calling Goodlatte out on allowing Sessions to simply refuse to answer questions with no justification.
“Whoa. Member of GOP senate leadership John Thune says repeal of individual mandate will be in tax bill.”
These fuckers.
Ben Wikler:
“BREAKING: CBO: Tax bill will automatically cut Medicare by $25 billion per year almost immediately.”
Neera Tanden: “This is repeal with no replace. Millions will lose health care in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. Just in time for Christmas.”
How a Russian ‘troll soldier’ stirred anger after the Westminster attack:
The article notes these trolls tend “to activate accounts early and leave them dormant until they are needed”, which reminds me of the suspicious activity that’s been noticed in Ireland.
Roy Moore challenged Alabama law that protects rape victims, documents reveal :
Like the four-year-old boy consented or something?! What a creep.
Tweet o’ the day.
“Fox News’ Shepard Smith debunks Uranium One lie peddled by his own network.”
I saw this being held up behind Gohmert during the hearing. One of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. It hurts my brain.
“RNC cuts off Moore”: “The RNC is pulling out of a joint fundraising agreement it had with Moore, according to a senior party official briefed on the decision. It is also canceling a field program it had set up ahead of the state’s Dec. 12 special election. The committee had about a dozen paid canvassers in Alabama working for Moore. It will no longer transfer any money to the race.”
SC @86, Shepard Smith deserves a medal.
In other news, there’s been a mass shooting in northern California.
NBC News link
“Australians approve same-sex marriage: county’s Bureau of Statistics just announced 62% YES in referendum, with 80% turnout.”
“This doesn’t legalize same-sex marriage. But Prime Minister said he’d get parliament to do it soon if ‘yes’ wins.”
This made my day.
I still can’t get over Rep. Speier’s describing the process for making sexual harassment claims in Congress.
“WOW==> US congresswoman @JackieSpeier (D-CA) tells Chuck Todd: ‘there is about 15 million dollars that has been paid out by the House on behalf of harassers in the last 10-15 years’ to settle sexual harassment claims… by the way that is US taxpayer money that was used!”
And the victims have to sign an NDA before they’re even able to go into mediation, so the public doesn’t know who its money is being used to protect!
More about the hearing on sexual harassment, including:
“California Congresswoman Jackie Speier revealed that two current members of Congress, who she wouldn’t name, have sexually harassed staffers.”
“Between 1997 and 2014, a little known Congressional fund paid out $15.2 million to 235 people who made sexual harassment claims in Congress.”
JFC – the House is planning to vote on the Republican tax monstrosity on Thursday?! People barely even know this is going on, much less what’s in the bill, and much of what people have heard is lies.
There might be a military coup going on in Zimbabwe.
“Richest 1% now owns half the world’s wealth.”
“The world’s millionaires are expected to do the best in the coming years.”
Another amazing fake story emerged from Trump’s muddled brain. He thinks that President Obama, onboard Air Force One, flew to the Philippines but was not allowed to land.
From Steve Benen:
From the Washington Post:
Trump is confused, delusional. And he always tries to pull other people into his delusion, to make them complicit in his lies, “You know what happened. Many of you were there, and you never got to land.” Yes, other people were there, and they know what happened. Reality is/was nothing like the drivel Trump spouts.
Trump arrived from his Asian trip looking haggard and then tweeted about the shooting in…Sutherland Springs.
Rachel Maddow last night: “Former KGB Putin friend hired for US Moscow embassy security.”
(The historical lead-in is great.)
More about the @Umpire43 account – “The Troll Smearing Roy Moore’s Accuser Stole a Dead Navy SEAL’s Identity.”
(It bugs me how weird lines keep ending up in otherwise decent articles. “Minutes after Guccifer 2.0 released a new blog post, Lewis tweeted his support of the hacking collective, which U.S. intelligence officials believe was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee that was distributed by Wikileaks last year.” Hacking collective? Believe? The intelligence agencies, along with multiple independent experts, concluded that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and “Guccifer 2.0” was their front.)
Follow-up to SC’s comment 81.
The GOP tax plan will have lots of unintended consequences. The plan has no explicit rules/provisions that cut Medicare, but that is exactly what will happen:
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/tax-bill-2017/card/1510696375
More details and an explanation are available at the link.
Britt Lawson, a registered nurse from Pittsburgh, is fighting one instance of injustice perpetrated by the Trump administration:
https://thinkprogress.org/j20-defendants-face-trial/
Much more at the link, including this explanation from Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology and the coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College:
Oh, FFS. We really don’t need less regulation on banks.
Link
WikiLeaks Set Off an Attack on Our Trump-Russia Project—Right After Messaging Donald Trump Jr. About It
The New York Times covered Trump’s recent trip to Asia quite well. As a result, Trump indulged in a hyperbolic Twitter rant against the Times:
Possible explanation for what triggered the rant:
Link
Oh, FFS. Really, Donald? Needy toddler syndrome.
Link
This article is outstanding:
“The Making of an American Nazi: How did Andrew Anglin go from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll and propagandist—and how might he be stopped?”
It’s incredible how much it reads like a contemporary “Childhood of a Leader”! It also alludes to, but unfortunately doesn’t emphasize, the likelihood that Anglin was raised in an abusive environment. And of course there’s a Russia angle (which is by no means gratuitous).
(This one, too, has one of those inexplicable weird passages:
O’Brien earlier describes the antifascist protesters outside Anglin’s father’s office as including his preschool teacher. I doubt many of them are death-threats-from-untraceable-accounts types. What this part of his history actually shows is an early manifestation of his psychology: in a variety of contexts throughout his life, he’s been prone to whipping up mobs and encouraging others to vilify, harass, threaten, and commit violence against his targets. People with tendencies like this can exist in more socially progressive movements – we’ve certainly seen some in the atheist/secular/pro-science movements over the past several years – but they tend to have less success. They find their true home in rightwing authoritarian movements.)
Roy Moore threatened to sue some more people. So far, everyone he has threatened to sue is not backing down.
Link
Six Democrats are now calling for Trump to be impeached:
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/15/trump-impeachment-democrats-244927
Popehat: “People are suggesting I write about Roy Moore’s lawyer’s threat letter. Write what? How would I begin? Would you footnote a sunset over the water? Would you airbrush a rose? That letter is the Mona Lisa of unselfconscious imbecility.”
southpaw put in the work.
The lawyer, Garmon (who I think technically represents Moore’s wife and scammy charitable foundation), was on MSNBC with Ali Veshi and Stephanie Ruhle this morning. I was rushing around an unable to catch the whole thing. Everyone is focusing (with reason) on this part – “Roy Moore’s Lawyer to MSNBC’s Ali Velshi: Your ‘Background’ Should Help You Understand Underage Dating.” But the “banned from the mall” discussion was also interesting. Garmon actually suggested that rural Alabama malls are somehow a gold standard for security practice and record-keeping. I think he implied that he’d contacted the mall and that they told him that they didn’t have a list of banned people with Moore’s name on it from that time. (I believe the articles and interviews I’ve seen presented it as an unofficial policy that everyone knew about, so this wouldn’t necessarily be significant anyway.) Ruhle was a bit confused after he referred to his dealings with the mall on behalf of other clients, but in the process of clarifying I’m pretty sure he said that there had been reports to the mall about Moore’s behavior, but that the mall security people must not have thought they rose to the level needed for a ban. That seems like quite an admission. I don’t know if Moore told him that or if the people from the mall did, but it sounded like he was saying there had been reports. He doesn’t express himself very clearly, and as I said I was doing other things while it was on, but it seemed like that’s what he said.
Wow – ” How Trump walked into Putin’s web: The inside story of how a former British spy was hired to investigate Russia’s influence on Trump – and uncovered explosive evidence that Moscow had been cultivating Trump for years.”
Quite an article. This I didn’t know:
I also didn’t know (among several other details) that Steele had been brought in and had started looking at Manafort in early spring 2016, before the Democrats took over the Fusion GPS contract. I’m still confused about whether the Democrats contracted with Fusion GPS in April or May.
This is interesting. There might have been irregularities in a VA House of Delegates vote on which control of the House hinges.
“Hillary Clinton on Trump’s Special Counsel Threat: ‘This Is Such an Abuse of Power'”:
Tweet o’ the day.
WaPo – “Two more women describe unwanted overtures by Roy Moore at Alabama mall.”
Intercept – “We Knew Julian Assange Hated Clinton. We Didn’t Know He Was Secretly Advising Trump.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren is on Rachael Maddow talking about the alleged rethug tax plan. Might not be able to get a link until the morning.
Jon Stewart on Loius CK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVW9Z4RcUc
Elizabeth Warren on Consumer Chief resigning.
Elizabeth Warren on the Rethug Tax Bill.
The new democratic chair in OK who is flipping seats.
“Taxpayers pay legal bill to protect Trump business profits”:
SC in comment 114: Clinton’s comments are so spot on. And it’s like her to look at the bigger picture, at the consequences. Even Trey Gowdy said that he didn’t think the standard had been met to justify opening an investigation into Hillary Clinton. When Gowdy is hesitant to open an investigation you know that investigation is not legit.
Nerd @120, I enjoyed the Warren interview on Maddow’s show. Warren knows the issues inside and out. She doesn’t put up with any bullshit. Her laughter was also a great moment.
I love this so much.
“Senator Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It.”
Neera Tanden re #117: “Now that the Intercept knows wikileaks was colluding with Trump, they can go back and update every story they ever wrote using wikileaks to attack people.”
Republicans are lying repeatedly about their tax plan. Steve Benen looked at the lies of one particular Republican, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise:
I think we were all far too quiet about the disgusting Benghazi farce – since we knew it was a baseless witchhunt, we let it take its course, even after they publicly admitted it was meant to hurt Clinton politically. This is now so far outside the bounds, so unsuited to a democracy.
In related news, Luke Harding, who wrote the article in #112 above, has a new book out today: Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. Brian Klaas also has a new book out this week: The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy. They were both on MSNBC this morning, and I believe Harding will be on “The Last Word” tonight at 10 on MSNBC. (I haven’t read either yet, so can’t criticize or recommend.)
Tweet o’ the day.
SC, #124
And his response is trash too:
“I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann,” he said. “As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Nice gaslighting attempt there. If he’s calling her a liar about that rehearsal, then why apologize for it?
Also, I’m pretty sure that photo is wrong because of the sexual attack and misogyny and not because it wasn’t funny. He says it like he’s sorry because it didn’t get a big laugh.
Overall, a pretty standard notpology as expected from a man.
Franken has released a longer statement. There will be an ethics inquiry, which the Democrats I’ve seen so far fully support. Franken says he’ll cooperate fully with the inquiry.
The photo is frankly enough.
White Nationalists Freak Out After Losing Their Verified Twitter Status
Pity the poor, persecuted white supremacists.
More sabotage of Obamacare by team Trump:
Link
David Mendels, former CEO of Brightcove, and an Adobe executive, debunked some of the Republican lies about the GOP tax plan. First, the lie, as summarized by Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
The reply from David Mendels:
Link
I honestly still can’t believe they’re voting on this sick, POS tax bill TODAY. It’s so outrageous it makes my head spin.
Yet another power outage has hit Puerto Rico:
Bloomberg link
From Carmen Yulin Cruz (translated):
Details of some past mistakes made by FEMA:
Link
SC, same here. I keep trying to get the word out, but there’s a torrent of disinformation blocking real discussion in most media outlets.
Haley Byrd: “What I’ve learned in the past few weeks: Sexual harassment is rampant on Capitol Hill. Few people are immune, even lawmakers. Abusers are well known, but good luck getting victims on record or on background. My heart breaks for all the stories I’ve heard. But keep them coming.”
Trump faith adviser compares having a Bible signed by Roy Moore to being healed by Jesus
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-faith-adviser-roy-moore-jesus-0be2bf95f702/
From Mike Conceal:
Much more at the link.
“Trump Organization worth one tenth of value previously reported”:
Autocorrect got me in comment 139. Mike’s last name is Konczal, not “conceal.”
Just for laughs, here is Wonkette’s coverage of “Baked Alaska” and others whining about being banned from Twitter.
Scroll down to watch the video of Baked Alaska losing it.
The French government is saying Macron will meet with Hariri in Paris on Saturday.
They passed the sick, POS tax bill.
Hmm…: “All the signs out there today suggesting Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab either entered a guilty plea/made a deal with prosecution on Iranian sanctions violation case. His Turkish lawyer cannot reach him but American one can. He didn’t appear today in court.”
It looks like Kushner has been holding back a number of documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee, including his SF-86 forms. The specific requests listed in the letter from Grassley and Feinstein are very interesting.
Natasha Bertrand has an article about #145:
Lithuania passed a Magnitsky Act. Now five countries have.
Oil leak in South Dakota: TransCanada: “We are currently responding to an incident in Amherst, SD. We have activated emergency response procedures and dispatched ground crews to assess the situation.”
SC:
Wait, that cannot be! Impossible!!11!!! They said it would be the bestest and most leakproofiest pipeline ever builded and that leaks and spills were a non-issue because they cannot happen. Does this mean that a for-profit company lied? Or maybe it is god’s punishment for all those evil libruls in South Dakota who tried to stop pipelines because leaks and spills can happen . . .
“Congressional Office of Compliance releases year-by-year breakdown of harassment settlements and awards:…”
I know – inconceivable! The earlier press release said 50,000 barrels; a more recent one says 210,000. Who knows what the real figure will turn out to be.
Re #150: those are all the employment settlements – not just harassment settlements.
I think it is a spill of 50,000 barrels, which equals 210,000 gallons. Still, the size of the spill is likely to be adjusted in the next few days.
I think it is a spill of 50,000 barrels, which equals 210,000 gallons.
Ah – you’re right. Thanks.
Fixed:
Ah – you’re right. Thanks.
Maddow is saying that Engel is going to have a scoop tomorrow night on MSNBC (at 9 PM ET, presumably).
“Russia names nine U.S.-backed news outlets likely to be labelled ‘foreign agents’.”
OK.
“More than a dozen top Trump campaign officials subpoenaed in Mueller probe”:
This, I assume, is the Engel story referred to in #156 above – “A Panama tower carries Trump’s name and ties to organized crime”:
More truth about the GOP tax plan:
Link
Stunning. Horrifying. The attack on our judicial system is broader and more ambitious than we realized.
Link
“IBM urged to avoid working on ‘extreme vetting’ of U.S. immigrants.”
IBM, with its history, should stay miles away from this vile project.
Hee.
With all of the attention to Roy Moore being a sexual predator and serial assaulter of girls, and to a lesser extent at the moment to his bigotry and lawlessness, we shouldn’t lose sight of his corruption; uncollegiality (he doesn’t appear to have been able to get along with colleagues in any sphere of his life – lived in fear soldiers in Vietnam would frag him! – but wants to join the country’s preeminent deliberative body); refusal to debate his opponent on the issues (the refusal preceded the allegations); shocking level of policy ignorance; or terrible, ill-formed policy ideas about health care, education, etc. which would do great harm to the people of Alabama.
Why do the people at MSNBC feel like they need to air Roy Moore’s wife speaking at an event live?
SC @164, I think some of the voters in Alabama support Roy Moore as a way to say “fuck you” to Washington D.C., and to people they view as elitist and/or not godly.
I don’t think most of the voters really knew that much about Roy Moore. Maybe now they are learning a bit more.
I have always been surprised by how little voters know about the candidates they choose. This is just an extreme example of low-information-voting. Same old problem, but with potentially disastrous results if not solved in this case.
Also, it is amazing how some people are able to filter out negative information about their candidate. They just don’t hear it, don’t read it, don’t absorb it.
And further re #164 – people aren’t paying attention to Doug Jones and the fact that he seems like a good man and a capable, qualified candidate with thoughtful policy ideas that will help Alabamians.
Wilbur Ross, like Trump, lies about money and about how much money he has:
Link
This is very good – “The myth of the male bumbler.”
“Doug Jones Could Win in Alabama”: “While Moore has been garnering all of the attention lately, it is important to keep in mind that Democrats didn’t simply put up a place holder to run against him. Doug Jones is obviously not the most electrifying speaker, but he is a strong candidate with an exemplary record as U.S. Attorney and is running a great campaign.”
A follow-up to @435(previous page), about the outrageous case of apparent mistaken identify in Italy, Voice analysis ‘shows Italy has wrong man in people-smuggling case’:
Right. No witnesses to testify the suspect is Mered, Mered was in jail at the time of “his” arrest, Mered’s wife says the suspect is not Mered, the prosecutors won’t allow a DNA test showing the suspect is Berhe, the prosecutors’s own voice expert uses a rigged test but cannot confirm the suspect is Mered, unbiased tests confirm the suspect isn’t Mered, and so the prosecutors wiretap the Guardian.
“Clovis Expressed Staunchly Pro-Russian Views A Year Before Campaign”: “One of the many mysteries of the Trump/Russia story is how Clovis fit into the Trump campaign’s pro-Russian tilt and indeed why Russia was so central to the campaign so early.”
Tweet o’ the day.
Yes, this is the lesson.
Republican senator launches into angry diatribe after being confronted with basic facts of tax plan.
Follow-up to comment 175.
Here’s a better transcript of Senate Finance Committee Sen. Orrin Hatch’s rant:
Whoa – “Senate panel interested in Russians’ request for Trump meeting during campaign”:
Torshin and Butina in fact met with the campaign more than once during the campaign, as detailed here.
“Greg Gianforte misled police after assault of Guardian journalist, report reveals”: “US congressman Greg Gianforte misled police after his assault of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs in May, falsely stating that Jacobs had initiated physical contact and that the “liberal media … is trying to make a story”, according to the police incident report.”
For review – I remember linking to these two stories back in April:
“The Spanish connection with Trump’s Russia scandal: Alexander Torshin, deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia and investigated in Spain for money laundering, has infiltrated the US president’s circle.”
“White House pulled out of meet and greet with ‘conservatives’ favorite Russian’ over suspected mob ties.”
“Doubts surface about key witness in Uranium One probe of Clinton”:
* The lead prosecutor was Rod Rosenstein.
“Turkey FM: @PreetBharara was ‘very close’ to Gulen and used the same indictment prosecutors filed against Zarrab in Turkey after corruption allegations shook the country in 2013.”
Bharara: “Turkey FM is a liar. Now let’s see what happens in court.”
NBC story about #177 contains the following:
and
Well done, humans.
For the record.
Also for the record, Orrin Hatch.
“Is this what Kushner forgot?
The subject line of the email, turned over to Senate investigators read:
‘Subject: Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’.”
I hate this tweet. Gabby Douglas isn’t a brand – she’s a human being. She’s 21, was raised in a very religious family, and has lived in a partitioned world. I said very similar things when I was older than she is now, because I was ignorant. She hasn’t “tanked” anything. She just made a mistake. Let her grow.
“The Ex-Spy Behind the Trump-Russia Dossier Left a Clue for Mueller”:
( Journalists seem to think there’s a requirement that any reference to the “dossier” has to include a stock adjective: infamous, notorious, salacious.)
Here’s Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell’s response to Feinstein and Grassley. The original request from the Committee was very clear, and these are pathetically unconvincing excuses for not producing documents that are responsive. I’m even more suspicious of Kushner after reading Lowell’s letter.
Anger and shame.
“The Uncounted.”
How is this possible when he doesn’t watch TV?
Now Trump is retweeting people thanking him for reversing his own decision to get rid of protections for elephants after public backlash.
“Birmingham Young Republicans censure Roy Moore, pull endorsement”:
“#LEBANON: Hariri held talks (& family lunch) with Emmanuel Macron. On exit: ‘I will return to Beirut in coming days. I will participate in celebrations for our independence & it is there that I will make known my position on all issues’.”
“Signs of Russian Meddling in Brexit Referendum”:
This is starting now – “WATCH: Faith leaders to hold event against Roy Moore at 10 a.m.”: “Alabama faith and moral leaders will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. to condemn Roy Moore after the allegations recently reported against him….”
“The Catastrophe of Saudi Arabia’s Trump-Backed Intervention in Yemen”:
Tweet o’ the day.
“‘We lost a great leader’: Berta Cáceres still inspires as murder case takes fresh twist”:
From Adam Davidson, writing for The New Yorker:
Harvey Weinstein had secret hitlist of names to quash sex scandal:
Our Whiney Toddler in Chief is not happy with all of the feedback he is getting after three UCLA basketball players were released from custody in China:
What did LaVar Ball say?
Trump should have just let that go. Also, the three players already publicly thanked Trump. Trump is a black hole of neediness. You can never praise him enough.
Newspapers in Alabama have condemned Roy Moore on their front pages. They have also endorsed Doug Jones. I hope this makes a difference in Alabama.
From The Birmingham News
Link
A New Jersey constituent excoriated Republican House Rep McArthur:
Link
Video available at the link. Powerful.
” The Hidden History of Trump’s First Trip to Moscow: In 1987, a young real estate developer traveled to the Soviet Union. The KGB almost certainly made the trip happen.”:
I wish this had something about his statements in those years about geopolitics.
From March 1986:
I should have left them in jail!
I know this isn’t an original sentiment, but he’s a sickening disgrace.
Fixed:
I know this isn’t an original sentiment, but he’s a sickening disgrace.
Tweet o’ the day.
Lynna, I won’t be around tomorrow (I get to go to the pain clinic for my birthday), so Happy Birthday to You! I hope it’s a good one.
Caine @210, that’s so nice of you to remember my birthday! Many thanks.
As far as the pain clinic goes, I can only wsth you the best possible outcome. May your pain be a little less, especially on your birthday. We celebrate your birth, and every day thereafter when you are here with us.
SC @208, Representative Adam Schiff got it right:
Happy birthday, Lynna! Best of luck at the clinic, Caine.
Happy belated birthday, Lynna! I hope you had a great birthday weekend!
This is hilarious.
Oh, I just noticed that it’s actually today! I hope you’re having a great day! :)
“Make Nepotism Great Again: 20 Families Got Jobs in Trump Administration”: “A Daily Beast examination of public records reveals that there are at least 20 families, joined by either blood or marriage, in which multiple members hold some federal post or appointment. They include the families of some of Trump’s most prominent campaign supporters and agency officials, including one cabinet officer. The posts range from senior White House staff to more ceremonial and advisory positions.”
“Exclusive: NYT White House correspondent Glenn Thrush’s history of bad judgment around young women journalists.”
“Woman says Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010.”
“Now wondering how Trump is going to manage to turn the ‘turkey pardoning’ event into something even more horrible and wrong than it already is.”
Rep. Wilson: “General Kelly owes the nation an apology. When he lied about me, he lied to the American public.”
He does, and no one should let it go just because other news intervened. Kelly’s performance in this episode was appalling and dishonored every institution he represents.
“Special counsel sends wide-ranging request for documents to Justice Department”:
“BLATANT: @ACUConservative [the American Conservative Union, the organization that runs CPAC – SC] ADMITS it was paid $90k to illegally launder $1.71M from a mysterious LLC” to a GOP super PAC. The 3 entities were fined $350k for the scheme by the @FEC.”
I’m interested in whether some of these rightwing organizations have been involved in international money-laundering.
* The mysterious LLC is – you can’t make this up – Government Integrity, LLC.
SC @214, thanks! And I love that S&L segment. It’s the best. Laughter. That’s what I need for my birthday.
Also, to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on this thread, many thanks. What a treat it is to come here to catch up on the news and to find good wishes sent my way. Love you all … (most of the time).
“EXCLUSIVE: 30 Sources Expose Sexually Explicit Evidence of Harassment by Ohio GOP Rep Wes Goodman”: “Disgraced Ohio State Representative Wes Goodman — a Republican — in the wake of the lawmaker’s recently-revealed sex scandal and resignation is being accused by dozens of people of sexual misconduct. IJR has obtained testimonies from over 30 individuals who have had inappropriate and never-before-shared experiences with Goodman….”
Trump touts another airplane deal that doesn’t exist.
Yeah, that’s a lot of lies centered around one topic.
From Josh Marshall, a discussion of the connections between Russia and the evangelical religious rightwing in the USA:
I didn’t link to this story – “Sources: McMaster Mocked Trump’s Intelligence In a Private Dinner” – because it felt like a whisper campaign. Catz has political differences with McMaster on Israel, and now I learn that Cohen-Watnick works at Oracle.
More absolutely awful statements from the backers of Roy Moore in Alabama:
Link
Conclusion: some Alabama pastors do not even know that preying on 14-year-old girls is wrong.
LOL – Hillary Clinton has resigned the Fox News presidency.
“I know Roy Moore. He’s always been a con artist.”
Since it talks about Moore’s absurd claim that (in the author’s words) “the founders were aware of no religion other than Christianity, and therefore, the First Amendment gave only Christians the right to free exercise” and also about Baptist founder Roger Williams, it’s worth noting that the Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI, has been there since 1763 and the Jewish cemetery there since at least 1677.
Another hair furor appointment targeting life on the planet, : the rise of air pollution denial:
No, it’s to sow FUD — Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt — probably for pay.
It’s unbelievably fast. It’s almost double the speed limit. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone going this fast on the road.
Re @231, I’m certain I’ve seen people going about that speed (in the UK, where 119 mph is still significantly above the limit (70 mph at the time)). From memory, the record speeding was in Texas, something around 240 mph in a Swedish-built Koenigsegg (this was the first time I’d ever heard of that make of exotic & expensive car); I don’t recall what fine / penalty the driver got.
The UK Electoral Commission has reopened its investigation into possible breaching of the limits set on referendum spending by the official “Vote Leave” campaign, following pressure froma group of lawyers who have started a case against the Commission. It is already investigating spending by Farage’s outfit, Leave.EU, but also by the anti-Brexit campaign Britain Stronger in Europe.
Together with recent information about Russian social media activity on Brexit during (and after) the vote, the hazy possibility of a campaign for a re-vote (as distinct from a second vote, on the outcome of negotiations) appears on the horizon. I still don’t think either is likely, but less unlikely than a couple of months ago.
Merkel has failed to put together a coalition with a majority in the German Bundestag after the FPD (once classed as a “liberal” centrist party in European terms, now hardline-neoliberal in economics and increasingly anti-migrant) pulled out of negotiations with the CDU-CSU and the Greens. A new election looks likely. The SPD has reconfirmed that it will not enter a “grand coalition” with Merkel’s CDU-CSU (the last was electorally disastrous for them, and it would also make the proto-fascist AfD the official opposition), and Merkel does not seem to have the stomach for a minority government.
It’s crazy dangerous.
Re @235, “It’s crazy dangerous.” Yes.
Now that is welcome news.
“If Alabama had expanded Medicaid, 435,000 people would have health care, and most of them are white. Many of them are veterans.”
Why is Donald Trump launching a withering attack on nonprofits?:
The opinion column does point out there are some legitimate problems with charitable donations in the States, but that the thugs’s plans do nothing sensible to address or, at the least, not-exacerbate the problems. Instead new problems are added, and the existing problems possibly made worse.
The dogged Carole Cadwalladr links to this BuzzFeed article from almost a year ago giving the background on the Vote Leave investigation. Here’s a piece from her this May (I’m sure I inked to it at the time) talking about the connections with the Mercers:
KG @234, I’m sorry to see that news. I thought of Merkel as a bulwark against Trumpism, but that is a role she can’t fill if the country she governs is unstable. This is bad news for all of us.
Germany’s far rightwing politicians tripled their share of the vote in the last election. That vote is still only 12.6%, but that’s enough to make the far-right the third largest party in Germany, which is a scary thing to contemplate.
I wish that journalists would stop calling the anti-democratic movements “populist.” Populism sounds half-assed positive, but it is a movement that supports regressive, suppressive and anti-democratic policies. Substitute “Trumpism” and you get the idea.
“Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page held high-level meetings with Hungarian officials in Budapest”:
This seems like a worthwhile warning.
re #228, I admit I actually chortled. Very droll.
—
OT, but I note that I am a motorbike rider (never got my car license), and… well, what’s the point of having a bike that can do 300Km/h if you don’t give it a bit of stick now and then? Just got to do it at the right time in the right place.
Cadwalladr:
John Morales @ #244:
Thanks so much for sharing – I didn’t have enough to worry about right now.
Florida university students to counter neo-Nazi rally (Al Jazeera edits in {curly braces}):
The nazi march and anti-nazi counter-demonstration at UNF happens on “Monday”, which I think means today (20-Nov) — and since it’s now about 6pm, maybe has happened (or now is underway?).
Speaking of motobikes, a past colleague of mine, who was an enthusiastic motorbiker in the States, said he like motorbiking in Canada for two reasons: (1) The highways (he rode on at that time) weren’t too busy; and (2) The speed limit, which is in kph, was a good indication, when read as mph, of the maximum safe speed. That is, a posted limit of, say, 100 kph (c.62 mph) meant it was to go at 100 mph. Uuggghhhhh…
“FCC is expected to unveil its plan to destroy net neutrality during Thanksgiving week”:
This is everything from countries around the world being used to search for the missing submarine in Argentina.
“More BREAKING: Federal judge NDCa [Northern District of California – SC] finds Trump, @TheJusticeDept funding cut-off for San Francisco, #SanctuaryCities is ‘unconstitutional on its face’, issues permanent injunction.”
These are the conditions under which they’re searching for the lost submarine.
“She Said That A Powerful Congressman Harassed Her. Here’s Why You Didn’t Hear Her Story.”
John Conyers. We can’t allow this process to be stage-managed by the (misogynistic) rightwing hit machine. We need to know all of these stories.
They’re a bottomless pit:
(Why is anyone interviewing Nunberg?)
blf@248, given the speed some Canadians drive at I suspect they’re reading kilometers per hours as miles per hour.
To be on topic politics: my own perception is that speeding on public roads is a politically-solvable problem.
(Why can I have a bike that can do 300 kph? How fast can your vehicle go?)
It’s quite technologically feasible to limit the maximum speed of pretty much any private vehicle with electronic systems (here in Oz, heavy vehicles are in fact speed-limited) or to retrofit older vehicles, yet every single vehicle (mopeds and personal mobility vehicles aside) sold here can easily exceed the (ridiculously low IMO) speed limit of (at most) 110 kph. Very easy to enforce, too — if you’re caught speeding, it’s obvious you bypassed the speed limiter and you get your vehicle impounded. For a first offense.
But it evidently ain’t politically feasible.
So, when politicians or police decry speeding (as they sanctimoniously do on a regular basis), I see utter hypocrisy.
(Speeding fines are a great source of income for governments)
—
In my personal experience, people travelling ~10-20 kph under the speed limit outside built-up areas are a more deadly menace that actual speedsters.
(And, in passing, my wife has a 3-y.o (bought new) totally stock Alfa Romeo Giulietta. A comparison between the speedometer and GPS (TomTom) shows that 100 kph reads 107 kph on the speedo, which is probably rather typical, and probably explains why everyone seems to be slothing it around)
Lynna@241,
I don’t agree with your favourable view of Merkel. True, she acted relatively well over refugees (I say relatively, because she was also prominent in pushing the infamous deal with Turkey), but her neoliberal policies are in considerable part responsible for the rise of the proto-fascist right (“Trumpism”, as you dub it) within the EU, and she was the power behind the disgraceful treatment of Greece.
However, I agree that the instability within Germany is dangerous: a fresh election might well see the further advance of the AfD, although I can’t see it becoming the largest party. What is more likely is a sharp shift to the nationalist right by the CDU-CSU if Merkel goes, in an attempt to recover votes from the AfD. Some within the SPD (but not Martin Schultz, the current leader) apparently favour a resumption of the grand coalition – I imagine the idea is to prop up Merkel, avoid a new election, and hope for the best.
Instability in Germany could also react on the Brexit process. Any deal, or agreement to extend the negotiating period beyong 29th March 2019, has to be ratified by all 27 EU Parliaments, and that becomes less likely if there’s no strong lead from Germany.
I suggest your “personal experience” is utter speed-hog bullshit. Do you have any actual evidence to support this claim?
KG, nope. You have a point; it’s only my personal perception. I have no other basis upon which to justify it.
(Sorry, I do try to distinguish personal opinion from personal factual belief, but I failed here)
“Watchdog says Homeland Security bottling up travel ban report”:
Class war presented as populism.
Yesterday’s tweet o’ the day.
“The Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced it is freezing all ties with the US as a result of the State Department’s announcement on Friday that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) can no longer operate its Washington office.”
Assad met with Putin in Russia yesterday. This morning, Putin will talk to Trump.
LOL. Thank you, Australia.
“So basically there’s a government agency that orchestrates coverups of harassment by congress members (and others they employ), a small group of people have access to its files, and at least one of them is a huge Cernovich fan.”
Is it possible the agency was hacked?
“That ‘harmless’ radioactive cloud over Europe did come from Russia after all”:
Update to #s 250 and 252 – conditions have improved in the search for the submarine. Today will be a crucial day.
Here’s more on the submarine and search.
“Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe ‘resigns'”: “The surprise announcement came as lawmakers debated an impeachment motion against the 93-year-old leader in a joint sitting of parliament.”
SC@270,
I wonder if Mugabe wrote the letter! He might have done, recognising that the impeachment was going to happen, but ZANU-PF and “Crocodile” Mnangagwa have motives for wishing to avoid impeachment: first, setting a precedent that Parliament can in practice, as opposed to constitutional fiction, remove the President; second, that to dismiss the President requires a 2/3 majority in both Houses, which would give opposition parties the opportunity to demand concessions.
The BBC’s scare quotes suggest they have their doubts. Here’s the moment when the letter was read aloud to the parliament.
Follow-up to SC’s comment 251, pertaining to a judge’s ruling regarding federal dollars that go to “sanctuary cities.”
Reaction from the White House:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/federal-judge-stops-administration-from-enforcing-part-of
Nope, that is not a rant from an unhinged Fox News host, nor is it a knee-jerk reaction from Steve Bannon on Breitbart. That’s an official statement from the White House.
From Steve Benen:
Analysis from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, as summarized by the Associated Press:
Three editorials:
WaPo – “Children are starving in Yemen. The White House should intervene.”:
NYT – “Let the Haitians Stay”:
And a remarkable one from the Charleston Post and Courier – “Danger to Honduran democracy”:
There’s so much about what’s happened and is happening in Honduras that leaves me bitter and furious and heartbroken.
Update on Trump’s
charitablescam foundation:Link
From Joan McCarter, writing for Daily Kos:
Not all the facts are in, but this incident in which two border patrol agents were injured is being rapidly spun up by conservative media into a conspiracy theory.
Link
The idea that illegal aliens are trying to ambush border patrol agents sounds unlikely to begin with. The idea that they would use rocks as their weapons sounds even more unlikely.
I linked to an article in #205 about Trump’s 1987 trip to Moscow, writing “I wish this had something about his statements in those years about geopolitics.” Turns out it was excerpted from Luke Harding’s book Collusion (see also #112 and #127 above), which I read this weekend, and in the book he did talk about some of Trump’s statements on geopolitics in those years. The book is pretty good, particularly the chapters on Manafort’s work in Ukraine and Deutsche Bank. It’s incredible how much more information has been revealed since it was published a few days ago.
I was struck by this part, referring to a meeting Harding had with Christopher Steele after the “dossier” was published and Steele went underground:
Sady Doyle: “I would just like to affirm how exceptionally painful it was to, like, SMELL the violent misogyny coming off certain media dudes during a woman’s run for President, get called crazy for noticing or reacting to it, and finally, to get confirmation now, when it’s too late to help.”
From Amy Davidson Sorkin, writing for The New Yorker:
The downstream effects on the Brexit talks was also noted up-thread, in comment 257 by KG.
In other news, thanks, SC for those book excerpts in comment 279. Both interesting and enlightening.
Oh – re the second editorial @ #275 above: “The Trump administration has given nearly 60,000 Haitians with provisional legal residency in the United States 18 months to leave, announcing Monday that it will not renew the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that has allowed them to remain in this country for more than seven years.”
Maddow and others have mentioned this line from a recent WaPo article, and it’s intriguing: “Witnesses questioned by Mueller’s team warn that investigators are asking about other foreign contacts and meetings that have not yet become public, and to expect a series of new revelations.”
“Robert Mugabe and the Poisonous Legacy of British Colonialism: Britain left behind two evil legacies when Zimbabwe gained independence: the harsh lesson that violence works, and a grotesquely unequal distribution of farmland.”
Tweet o’ the day.
Two articles about the source of the Conyers story:
“Mysterious Twitter account appears to be involved in leak of Conyers’ sexual harassment settlement.”
“Why BuzzFeed teamed with a far-right figure to break the John Conyers scandal.” (“While news organizations need to be wary of any tipster’s motives, [BuzzFeed editor Ben] Smith said, they can’t ignore newsworthy information, no matter the source.” JFC.)
Without mentioning Roy Moore’s name, Trump said during an impromptu press conference that we can’t put a liberal Democrat in that Alabama Senate seat. Trump also said that Doug Jones is soft on crime, anti-Second Amendment and so forth. Without actually saying the words, Trump told his supporters to vote for the guy accused of child sexual molestation, Roy Moore.
Trump also said, (again without mentioning his name), that Moore had denied all of the accusations. Apparently that’s good enough for Trump.
Trump brought up the importance of passing his agenda: taxes, etc.
Correction to comment 287, and some additions.
Trump did say Roy Moore’s name once:
Link
Trump has definitely taken a different point of view when compared to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and even en his own daughter Ivanka.
From the defenders of Roy Moore:
CBS has fired Charlie Rose.
Link
Sessions wants to financially reward police departments that turn in undocumented immigrants.
So, yeah, Trump pardoned two turkeys today. He now has three pardons on his list: Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Drumstick the turkey, and Wishbone the turkey.
Link
SC@284,
I have read that Harold Wilson, the Labour PM at the time, was warned by the generals that the army would not follow orders to suppress Smith’s regime.
I spent two months in Zimbabwe in early 1991. I was at that time unsuccessfully trying to switch careers and become a journalist focusing on environmental politics, so I got around quite a bit and talked to a lot of people. Even at that time, there was deep disillusionment with Mugabe among black Zimbabweans. I found the white Zimbabweans (“Rhodies”) I had most to do with to be remarkably unpleasant – racist, mercenary, corrupt, two-faced.
Joy Reid: “Watching ‘man on the street’ interviews with Roy Moore supporters felt a lot like viewing clips of rank and file southern segregationists interviewed on TV in the 1950s. People in deep, thoughtless denial and completely unbothered about the judgment of history.”
Well done for decency.
“Special Counsel Mueller Probes Jared Kushner’s Contacts With Foreign Leaders”:
This would seem to be one of the new revelations alluded to in #283. I wouldn’t be too sure it’s not more directly connected to the Russia investigation. Netanyahu’s circle is multidimensionally corrupt, and Kushner at least has connections to people like Lev Leviev who span Russia and Israel. I hope we’ll learn more about these remarkably sketchy meetings.
Hee. I couldn’t understand why people were attacking this tweet, because I was reading it as referring to the women leaving the industry because of sexual misconduct/harassment/assault. Ay.
I can’t entirely agree with Marshall here:
Q: “To what extent was it good journalism practice that Buzzfeed be at least comfortable that they knew where the documents were from?”
Marshall: “I defend them here. They took docs, used them as a map to confirm something as true. They didn’t rely on docs. Thats good work to me. There’s broader emerging issue which is the extent to which journalism is being infiltrated by various forms of info warfare whether practiced by corps or nation states. I don’t think we have good rules or frameworks for that yet. As a general matter reporters are looking for info. It’s not their responsibility or ability necessarily to know if someone somewhere did something wrong to lead the info to them. But certainly I think we’d have real questions if we knew some party had tortured someone to get info. That’s a hypo but I think it’s instructive. There are some basic questions I don’t think we have clear answers to that are being raised by pervasive hacking. But in the here and now I think BuzzFeed went by the book and did good work.”
It’s true that they confirmed before publishing, but the issues surrounding information warfare and information-gathering practices, and rules and frameworks for them, are of central importance right now. BuzzFeed noted their source hundreds of words into the article, and didn’t indicate in any way that they were interested in how this information was obtained.
After the past two years, this is journalistic malpractice. We know who their far-right, political operative, conspiracy theorist source is. We know about his misogyny and history of online harassment. We know his connections to a dangerous, well-funded rightwing hit operation. We have reason to wonder about the connections (witting or unwitting) between his operation/movement and the Kremlin. All of this is reason for BuzzFeed to a) investigate and b) publish an accompanying article examining this/his history. It’s not “good work” to merely confirm the authenticity of the documents under these circumstances, any more than it was “good work” to merely report on the hacked Democratic emails. At the very least, they should remark on the selectivity of the allegations “leaked,” given the nonpartisan nature of sexual harassment.
And this from the WaPo piece (@ #286) is a problem:
The first “legitimate stories” described are WH gossip no doubt obtained via Bannon, Cohen-Watnick, and crew. The nonsense about Susan Rice is not a story but harmful rightwing propaganda. “Woman did her job” isn’t fucking news, or a revelation. Even the Republicans in congress have admitted that it was a non-story, and the reference to the Pulitzer Prize is embarrassing. The last sentence, about McMaster, is bizarre: BuzzFeed just published what clearly appears to be a hit piece engineered by the Bannon gang. That WaPo would present the hostility to McMaster as signifying some sort of independence or balance or criticism of Trump on the part of Cernovich is beyond naive. The McMaster episode(s) should make both BuzzFeed and WaPo more, not less, suspicious of the ways in which these people might be using them.
Neera Tanden: “Enough is enough. Today demonstrated we are fighting for the soul of the country. And no one can be on the sidelines.”
I actually agree with Josh Barro – “We deserve to know what Congress is paying out settlements for”:
Neera Tanden again: “Misogyny is: Being a woman candidate against a man accused of assaulting 16 women, he physically stalks you on the debate stage and you don’t say ‘Get away from me’ bc the Mark Halperins of the world will judge you negatively. Instead you bear it.”
And millions of women comment on it while media men brush it off.
This is one of the cutest pictures I’ve ever seen.
“#UPDATE Lebanon’s PM Saad Hariri says he had agreed to suspend his surprise decision to resign, pending talks on the political situation.”
Worth remembering, from January – “Thousands parade through Birmingham streets for Alabama Women’s March”:
“Congress Must End All Non-Disclosure Agreements: That way, we have a truly transparent view of sexual harassment in government.”:
* (There’s also the story about how the documents related to Conyers were obtained.)
Update to #223 – I would like to know this, too.
Lynna: “So, yeah, Trump pardoned two turkeys today. He now has three pardons on his list: Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Drumstick the turkey, and Wishbone the turkey.”
Well, going from Arpaio to two real turkeys is a significant step up the evolutionary and moral ladder if nothing else.
“Watching the Sochi presser with Putin, Assad’s savior. A news ticker below scrolls details on Ratko Mladic, butcher of Srebrenica, and his life sentence for war crimes & genocide. May Syrians see such justice one day.”
New York AG Eric Schneiderman – “An Open Letter to the FCC:”:
Well said.
Here are the last words of the speech Kennedy was to give the day he was assassinated 54 years ago today.
Tweet o’ the day.
Roy Moore’s supporters continue to say stupid and alarming things:
That’s Pastor Flip Benham speaking on an Alabama radio show.
Yes, he pulled out the “purity” card and waved it around like a true “Christian” patriarch.
Republicans actually are not that interested in the ethical/moral lives of their candidates.
Link
It looks like Democrats have expectations regarding sexual misconduct that do not exist in the Republican alternate universe. I think, though, that Republicans would selectively apply stricter standards to Democratic Party candidates.
From U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garvis of Maryland, (a George Bush appointee):
Link
Trump’s tantrum, which was also mentioned up-thread:
There’s a video of a North Korean defector running across the border to escape into South Korea: Link
John Rogers, Roy Moore’s communications director, has resigned.
I’m laughing at how many of the responses to #4 here are exactly the same as my own. Women* don’t want these pictures. Really ever.
* I can only speak about women. Men spouses might well want them.
“Mike Flynn business partner Bijan Kian now subject of Mueller probe”:
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! This woman should be freed immediately. I’m seeing that a number of celebrities are getting involved and calling for her release, so hopefully that will make the difference.
More re #320 – “Why Celebrities Are Rallying Behind Cyntoia Brown, a Woman Spending Life in Prison.”
Update on the missing submarine:
It’s up to four now
@SC, 298
You’re right. They had this option. I was a bit on the fence about this (I prefer as broad a definition of legitimate whistle-blowing as possible, and political operatives leak information to journalists that will tarnish their opponents every single day, which is what distinguishes spin doctoring from ratfucking), but you’ve persuaded me that Buzzfeed got this wrong. Part of the story should have been about why it’s a story in the first place, about their reporters being courted by obviously tainted sources (that, in the past, have omitted or altered what they represented as evidence, often without disclosing whether it had been illegally obtained). And finding the origin is part of practicing due diligence. So, get those sources, anonymized as they likely prefer, on record or get them to decline an on-the-record conversation and include it. Or do what other outfits do, decline the offer, and pre-emptively print a story about sources shopping around for a hitpiece and a sympathetic news organization willing to legitimize it.
I’m thankful for this – “A Split From Trump Indicates That Flynn Is Moving to Cooperate With Mueller”:
“The White House has said that neither Mr. Flynn nor other former aides have incriminating information to provide about Mr. Trump.” LOL.
Oh, I think they should have published it; they did confirm the authenticity of the information. But I think they should have been more upfront and far less naive about the sources in the article, and also should investigate and write about how these far-Right scumbags are trying to weaponize the Me Too activism.
“The Argentine Navy has confirmed the deaths of all 44 of the crew of the submarine ARA San Juan, an explosion onboard is understood to have been the cause of the accident.”
Re #327 – Evidently they haven’t actually confirmed the deaths of the crew, but have confirmed an explosion (making it unlikely that anyone survived). They’re still searching for the submarine, although the weather has deteriorated again.
Norm Eisen: “I negotiated a cooperation deal for a target with Mueller’s office when he was US Atty and lemme tell ya, he’s not gonna give one to Flynn unless he implicates someone up the ladder. That means Kushner, Don Jr., or Big Daddy. They are all having indigestion tonight.”
Preet Bharara: “If you’re dead to rights, flipping on others and cooperating with the prosecution is the only sane and rational move. Also, prosecutors accept cooperation only if you can provide “substantial assistance.” Higher up in the food chain. Stay tuned…”
High-quality trolling on a serious matter.
“Featuring Donald Trump Jr.”
Recommended: “The Nationalist’s Delusion.”
Opeds:
Ron Klain – “”: “Conservatives have a new court-packing plan, and in the spirit of the holiday, it’s a turducken of a scheme: a regulatory rollback hidden inside a civil rights reversal stuffed into a Trumpification of the courts. If conservatives get their way, President Trump will add twice as many lifetime members to the federal judiciary in the next 12 months (650) as Barack Obama named in eight years (325). American law will never be the same.”
Eugene Robinson – “Congress must investigate Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct”: “If Congress is going to probe the conduct of members such as Conyers and Franken, it must also investigate the multiple, believable allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump. If they are true, the president must be censured.”
Jesus. I need breakfast. The title of the Klain oped is “Conservatives have a breathtaking plan for Trump to pack the courts.”
“At least 184 people were killed and another 125 injured in an attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai region on Friday, Egyptian state media reported, making it one of the deadliest attacks ever carried out against civilians in the province.”
You never know about an ally, indeed – “Trump told Recep Tayyip Erdogan US will no longer provide arms to Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, says Turkish foreign minister”: “Mr Cavusoglu also said that Russia, Iran and Turkey would decide jointly who would attend Syrian peace talks. Turkey has said it would not accept the presence of YPG representatives.” Treacherous anti-human destructive thugs.
SC @336, so the Kurds are screwed again. Trump is ignorant. It sounds like Trump is doing whatever Putin told him to do on that recent phone call.
Trump proves, once again, that he is petty and stupid:
And in this instance, Trump combines promotion of two of his properties with an announcement (sort of) about foreign policy. One gets the feeling that the golf club is at the top of the list of priorities:
From Matt Shuham:
Trump demonstrates how confused he is by promoting a border wall between Mexico and the USA, and by promoting a Muslim ban, as part of his response to the terrorist attack in Egypt:
As mentioned up-thread, Trump is indeed setting his sights on “welfare reform,” by which he means stripping money and services out of safety-net programs.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-welfare-reform
From Joan McCarter:
Link to “Open Enrollment Street Team”
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney called Trump a “bully” and a “punk”:
Link
Some bullshit from Justice Department lawyers who are fighting on Trump’s side:
Link
Out of 42 top economists, only 1 believes the GOP tax bills would help the economy.
This is great: “In honor of Thomas Friedman’s latest love letter to Saudi here is 70 years of the NY Times describing #Saudi royals in the language of #reform.”
Adam Schiff: “Children’s health clinics are shutting down after congressional Republicans allowed CHIP to expire. 9 million kids at risk. But GOP still has time for corporate tax cuts. Nice priorities.”
One week ago – Erdogan threatened to eradicate Kurds from Afrin, using terms like “clear” and “cleanse”:
Josh Marshall: “Another thing to be thankful for: that you were alive in a moment when you have the opportunity to try to save your country.”
It’s not an original idea, but my vote for Time‘s Person of the Year would go to the women of the US – of the Women’s March and the Resistance; of Me Too; at the town halls, at protests, making phone calls; of Run for Something, Indivisible, knocking on doors; fighting for health care; Carmen Yulín Cruz; Sally Yates; Rachel Maddow, Natasha Bertrand, Ashley Parker, Carol Leonnig, Jenna Johnson, Katy Tur, Maggie Haberman, Alexandra Petri, Nicolle Wallace, Kasie Hunt, Bianna Golodryga, Lauren Duca, Rukmini Callimachi, Masha Gessen, Joy Reid,…; Sherrilyn Ifill; Heather Heyer and her mother; women fighting for the Resistance on Twitter; Cecile Richards; Ava DuVernay; women in congress working to change sexual harassment procedures; women in national security; Never-Trump women; Maxine Waters; Frederica Wilson; Jackie Speier; Danica Roem;…
Please feel free to add to the list.
Norm Eisen (further to #329): “One more thing I learned about Mueller. When I was at State & he was at FBI we worked together on an investigation, & he loves surprises. Kushner, Donnie Jr. and the rest of the Trump crime family better keep their overnight bags handy. Pack shoes with no laces guys.”
“Mississippi’s bold new Civil Rights Museum offers unflinching view of US history”:
LOL.
“More than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments were Likely Faked: I used natural language processing techniques to analyze net neutrality comments submitted to the FCC from April-October 2017, and the results were disturbing.”:
A few comments about this article – “Leah Remini Calls ‘Bullsh*t’ on the LAPD and Danny Masterson”:
First, I’m befuddled and aghast by the refusal of Netflix to cancel or suspend Masterson’s show.
Second, the Hollywood police chief and department appear to have an unacceptable and potentially quite corrupt relationship with S***ntology.
Third, I can’t recommend Remini’s and Rinder’s series about S***ntology more highly. It’s so well done, and in this authoritarian moment insights into the functioning of this authoritarian organization are important.
Fourth, this from a 2004 police report about Masterson – “SUSP (acquaintance) sexually assaulted the victim while she was passed out. The victim woke up while the suspect was having sex with her and struggled with him. The suspect choked the victim until she passed out” – is beyond horrifying. Strangling someone to unconsciousness is arguably attempted murder. And Netflix is still producing and airing his series.
Hi, readers of the Political Madness All the Time thread,
I haven’t been able to contribute as much as I would like here. A string of disasters is taking up all my time.
My truck died and had to go to the shop to be resurrected; a suspicious spot on my face required surgery; my property taxes are due; and yesterday my home furnace died. Good news: the face surgery revealed a benign lumpy bit, no cancer, and the lumpy bit is gone. Bad news: I’m spending every spare moment working to make money, and I’m spending a lot time talking to various experts who can fix whatever has gone wrong with my vehicle (my only vehicle) and my furnace.
Once I emerge from the disaster zone, I’ll be able to spend more time on this thread. Many thanks to others who are posting and keeping track of the madness.
I just realized that my comment 355 sounds like I’m asking for pity. I’m not. It’s just an explanation. I’ll get through this. It just takes time and effort.
Carry on.
Though I mostly lurk, I’ll try to step up to share some political madness while you’re taking care of what you need to, Lynna.
There’s more uncertainty about the future of the CFPB today. Trump has picked Mick Mulvaney, current director of the Office of Management and Budget, to be the temporary head of the CFPB, until he can get somebody who will pass Senate confirmation hearings. But Richard Cordray, former head of the CFPB, appointed Leandra English as deputy director on Friday before he stepped down. Now English is suing to prevent Mulvaney from taking over. Who gets to lead the CFPB will have to be determined by the courts – will the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 take precedence, or will the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB?
Of course the big news in the yoo kay today is the engagement of two showbizpersons: American actor
Merkin MuffleyMeghan Markle and the comic relief in the long-running British soap The Royals: “Prince” Harry. This has naturally pushed out of the headlines the row between the UK and Irish governments over Brexit and the Irish border. Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) insists that Brexit negotiations cannot proceed to discussions of a post-Brexit trade deal until the Republic of Ireland has a written guarantee there will be no “hard border” (i.e., checks on movement of people or goods) between the Republic and Northern Ireland, which he thinks requires that the latter at least remain within the EU’s Customs Union, and preferably the Single Market. Conversely, Liam Fox, the corrupt UK Secretary of State for International Trade, insists the border question cannot be settled until there’s agreement on a trade deal. Arlene Foster, leader of the Protestant sectarian “Democratic Unionist Party” in Northern Ireland, which is proping up the UK Tory government, insists there should be no border controls or regulatory distinction between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (which would be one possible way round the problem) – although the DUP also say they don’t want a hard border. Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, the DUP being the only large party that campaigned in favour. Bizarrely, a fanatically pro-Brexit Labour MP of northern Ireland origin, KateHooeyHoey, has Trumpeted that if the UK leaves the EU with no deal, , the Irish Republic should pay for any hard border. Meanwhile, there is a degree of political paralysis on both sides of the border: devolved government in Northern Ireland remains suspended because the DUP and Sinn Fein cannot agree a deal to govern together, as the Good Friday Agreement that largely ended political violence there requires, while in the Republic, Varadkar’s minority government could fall because of a threatened no-confidence vote in his deputy, Frances Fitzgerald. What larks!Lynna, seeing “benign” in your comment brought joy to my ears. Hope your mechanical issues are resolved soon.
This is amazing – “A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.”:
Go to hell, Jaime T. Phillips.
Lynna, seeing “benign” in your comment brought joy to my ears.
Uh…please substitute “hearing” or “eyes.” :)
I saw Get Out this morning. Everyone should see it. Don’t read anything about it first – just watch it.
“Breaking news: Colorado announces that it has started sending letters out to CHIP families warning them that their coverage is in jeopardy. This is the first state I am aware of.”
Of all of Trump’s tweets, this was one of the most anti-democratic. (CNNi wasn’t actually mentioned in the reports, which focused on plainly US-government-funded outlets (see #157 above), but he managed to take up the anti-democratic grenade and throw it.)
“Tillerson’s Redesign Chief Quits After Three Months”:
What fresh hell is this?
!!! – The opposition coalition candidate Salvador Nasralla has the lead in the Honduran presidential election, and many are declaring victory. I won’t celebrate until the final results are in, but that would be an amazing development.
Paul Krugman – “The Biggest Tax Scam in History”:
SC @361, I thought maybe the good news prompted joyful music to sound in your ears only. Works for me.
One disaster has been overcome … check face-surgery off the list.
And more good news, my furnace has been repaired. The cost was less than expected, and the ice age in my house is over.
More disasters need to be checked off the list, but I’m getting there.
Thanks again to others who are keeping this thread up to date.
A major Roy Moore super PAC is funded almost entirely by one rich guy from Illinois, Richard Uihlein.
That’s good news, Lynna!
It made sense to me when I typed it, so maybe that’s what I was thinking. :)
Erin Banco at the Intercept is reporting that Erik Prince’s Seychelles meeting was probably with Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev.
“European observers worried by silence on Honduran election.”
The electoral court hasn’t given any updates since preliminary results last night showed Nasralla 5 points up. It’s troubling given the ruling regime’s corruption and willingness to cheat.
North Korea has apparently launched a ballistic missile.
More Brexit-related kerfuffle. The Commons voted a while ago that the Government must hand over the reports it commissioned on the economic results of a no-deal Brexit to the Select Committee dealing with Brexit, but it has refused to hand over the complete documents. This is of course vital to the process of returning sovereignty to Parliament.
The article @ #372 includes this detail: “on January 11, a Turkish-owned Bombardier Global 5000 charter plane flew Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, to the Seychelles, flight records obtained by The Intercept show.”
Is the fact that the plane is Turkish-owned (I’m not even sure what that means, tbh) have any significance, or is the reporter just providing all of the detail available from the flight records?
Eric Boehlert:
“when GOP passed tax bill under Reagan, 30+ House committee hearings, 100’s of expert witnesses.
ALL of that has been flushed by GOP. press doesn’t even mention the radical nature any more.”
Party-line vote (12-11) in the Senate Budget Committee to advance the tax scam.
Donald Trump and Pocahontas,
Hmm, I may have some ideas as to why Trump is so obsessed with Pocahontas:
1) She’s probably the only female native American Trump knows about.
2) She was underage
This phenomenon is strange and scary – “‘Rot in Hell’: One YouTube Star’s Fan Club Is Menacing Cleveland.”
Their instinct is always to take the lowest road.
“Trump Once Said the ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape Was Real. Now He’s Not Sure.”
What draws my attention in these stories is the group of people around Trump who ignore, laugh off, distract from, privately roll their eyes at, go along with, or try to make excuses for his absurd claims. That people are under intense pressure to do that kind of thing in repressive systems and dictatorships out of fear for their lives is a tragedy. That people would choose to demean and humiliate themselves like this in a democracy is just pathetic.
Of note: “Mr. Flake, who is not running for re-election, said in the interview that he was about to begin a series of speeches on the Senate floor outlining his concerns about Mr. Trump. The first, he said, will be dedicated to what Mr. Flake called the president’s disregard for the truth.” (I wonder if this will be before or after he votes for the tax scam.)
Reports that the UK government is now offering to pay some where betweeen 40 billion and 55 billion euros to settle its financial obligations to the EU. both before and after the referendum, the leading Brexiteers were saying nothing would be paid: the EU “Could go whistle” in MIchael Gove’s words.
“President of United States re-tweeted three videos (depicting Muslim violence) from (British) White Christian supremacist, ultra-nationalist. Jayda Fransen’s goal in these videos is to incite violence against Muslims to lead to White Christian Britain.”
“NBC Fires Matt Lauer Over Sexual Misconduct Allegation.”
I love that the NYT went with the photo of Lauer questioning Hillary Clinton at that atrocious military town hall during the campaign.
More about Fransen (apologies to British people who know this already).
Re Corker’s tax trigger: “Amazing. We’re 2 days from a vote. No hearings, legislative text, or score. A totally new, dumb idea airdropped in at the last minute. Big impacts for 100% of the economy. cc: @SenJohnMcCain”
David Lammy, Labour MP:
“Trump sharing Britain First. Let that sink in. The President of the United States is promoting a fascist, racist, extremist hate group whose leaders have been arrested and convicted. He is no ally or friend of ours. @realDonaldTrump you are not welcome in my country and my city.”
“Do not forget that the man who murdered Jo Cox shouted ‘Britain First’. Trump has gone beyond the pale today.”
:).
Trump might have violated 18 USC 610 in telling Conway to go after Doug Jones. It’s punishable by up to three years in prison.
This is fucking ridiculous.
SC @391:
Remember back when the Affordable Care Act was being debated and voted on? It seemed like every single one of the dozens of hearings included some GOP critter complaining about how Obama and the Dems were railroading this through congress too fast, with too little debate, with too little public input? Now we have severely limited debates, no hearings, no public input, and now we also have amendments added after the vote. Amazing.
This is a crazy story: “Slobodan Praljak reported dead after drinking poison.”
Hearings, expert witnesses, voting on Republican amendments and including many, attempts by Obama to get Republicans on board,… And in return the Republicans lied about the process from the start, went to court so they could sabotage the act and keep people in Republican-dominated states from getting health care, and now are lying to the public and doing exactly what they falsely accused Democrats of doing with the ACA – for the purpose of taking away people’s healthcare and transferring even more wealth to the very rich. I don’t have words.
From Jane Mayer, writing for The New Yorker:
Link
Much more at the link.
Add this to the recent takeover of a lot of local broadcasting content by Sinclair; add this to Trump and his cohorts having successfully mainstream media to “fake news” in the minds of many. The situation worsens.
From John Cassidy, writing for The New Yorker:
Link
Garrison Keillor has been fired from Minnesota Public radio over impropriety allegations.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/garrison-keillor-fired
“The CBO just released a report that should worry Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski”: “‘If legislation were enacted that incorporated both the provisions of the Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act and a repeal of the individual mandate … the effects on the premiums and the number of people with health insurance coverage would be similar’, Keith Hall, the CBO’s director, wrote in a letter to Murray.”
Follow-up to SC’s comment 388.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended those indefensible tweets from Trump.
From Matt Shuham:
“The Far-Right Group Retweeted By Donald Trump Deleted A Bunch Of Pro-Putin Posts From Its Website”:
Consequences, Republicans, consider the consequences:
Link
Here’s the CBO director’s letter to Sen. Murray referred to in #398. Collins and Murkowski now have no cover – they can’t claim they didn’t know the effects of the bill before they voted.
Update on the possible shutdown of the government: it looks like a game of chicken.
Link
I mean, what can even be said at this point? People voted for this man to represent them, to legislate responsibly in their best interests. This is beyond nuts.
Sam Brownback at the Senate describing the Kansas tax experiment: “What we did actually worked.”
Meanwhile, in reality, the Kansas City Star editorial board: “Kansans beg Sen. Jerry Moran: ‘Why take this failed experiment nationwide?’”
Some aren’t even trying to pretend anymore: “Trump’s Tax Promises Undercut by CEO Plans to Help Investors.”
Topher Spiro responding to Trump’s tax speech: “We’ve never seen before, and we’ll never see again, such routine epic, brazen lying of this magnitude in public life.”
“NEW analysis from @AARP:
5.2 million seniors would see TAX HIKES under the #GOPTaxPlan.
and Medicare cuts on top of that.”
“With one retweet, Trump has managed to cause an international incident with two allies. Impressive efficiency.”
Dutch.
British.
Those three videos Drumpf retweeted? One comes from NL, is nearly half a year old and the perpetrator is a born and bred Dutch (and Non Muslim) dude. He also has been tried and convicted for this.
The Dutch embassy in the US advised Drumpf of this in the only way he can understand… With a reply tweet (sorry no link to the tweet because I don’t use Twitter).
Opening of the tweet… “Facts do matter.” > Snif snif< I smell something burning.
Jonathan Swan at Axios:
And then flew off to tell boldfaced lies about the tax scam in a typically incoherent speech.
Ah… I see my post crossed with SC’s #409… Which did have the link.
Here’s Variety‘s story about Matt Lauer.
But yours had the information that the assailant in the video wasn’t Muslim.
Together we rounded out the information. :)
Lauer was paid $25 million per year to act like a degenerate frat boy.
Maddow’s first two segments last night are both worth linking to:
“Facing widespread protest GOP pushes tax bill in party-line vote.”
“List of Trump campaign Russia contacts continues to grow.”
And it affected how the news was presented.
It’s shocking to begin to see the difference between the public persona and the private person. How furious the women who knew the truth must have been to watch everyone treating the public persona like it was real.
Here’s the context for another of the videos Trump tweeted.
Melissa McEwan posted this – “Matt Lauer Is a Fucking Dirtbag” – in 2012. I have new respect for Anne Hathaway.
“Special counsel delays grand jury testimony amid signs of Flynn deal talks”:
“Hmmm, Marco Rubio says that the tax plan is just the first step before ‘instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare’ benefits to reduce the federal deficit.”
Evil.
Deserves to be recorded here: “Orrin Hatch calls Trump ‘one of the best presidents i’ve served under’.”
“Textbook co-authored by Roy Moore in 2011 says women shouldn’t run for office”:
(Alabama governor Kay Ivey has said she will vote for Moore.)
Comments on this thread aren’t appearing on the “Recent Comments” sidebar again. Alright.
Trump: “.@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!”
A deeply felt fuck you to the wire services reporting on the election in Honduras, who can barely be bothered to note the corruption and illegitimacy, much less the shady covert dealings over the last 24 hours, of the ruling regime, and take their statements at face value. Fuck you and your undermining of democracy.
Trump: “The House of Representatives seeks contempt citations(?) against the JusticeDepartment and the FBI for withholding key documents and an FBI witness which could shed light on surveillance of associates of Donald Trump. Big stuff. Deep State. Give this information NOW! @FoxNews”
Something’s probably going down. Also, 25th Amendment.
I hope All In</ with Chris Hayes posts thing 1/thing2. It shows Barak Obama saying repeatedly in many settings saying "merrry Christmas". I'll link if I find the video, probably tomorrow morning.
Sorry about the hypertext borking. My bad.
Speaking of Hayes, random personal opinion: Jill Wine-Banks is delightful and insightful on MSNBC,* and Betsy Woodruff is great.
* A little while ago, she tweeted from the set that Renato Mariotti was teaching her how to thread tweets. It was so sweet.
Geraldo Rivera today, responding to Lauer’s firing, said that “news is a flirty business” and that people seem to be conflating “courtship” with harassment (see the article @ #413 above). Here’s Bette Midler 20 years ago accusing Rivera of groping her.
“Fox News Statement on @GeraldoRivera’s tweets:
‘Geraldo’s tweets do not reflect the views of Fox News or its management. We were troubled by his comments and are addressing them with him’.”
It’s difficult even to take in all of the ways this bill would be a disaster for the country – “It Started as a Tax Cut. Now It Could Change American Life.”
“Woman’s effort to infiltrate The Washington Post dated back months”:
“Ahead of Vote, Promised Treasury Analysis of Tax Bill Proves Elusive”:
RE: #409, #410:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has (of course) shown how little regard Hair Furor’s administration has for facts:
When I heard about this, first thing this morning, it immediately brought to mind the Gleiwitz incident. This was a real (historically verifiable) false-flag operation, ordered by the Gestapo in 1939, as a pretext for the invasion of Poland. In this incident, some Dachau inmates and a local farmer were dressed up as Polish soldiers, killed, and had their bodies placed around a German radio antenna to make it appear as though Polish Forces were threatening Germany.
It was an entirely manufactured incident, but hey, no doubt those people living in eastern Germany at the time felt that those Poles living across the border were a “real threat” – so, I would have to assume that SHS would be good with it …
Creep: “Matt Lauer Told Meredith On Camera … ‘Keep Bending Over, Nice View’.”
NPR Moscow correspondent Lucian Kim: “Press tour designed to dispel fears of radiation cloud is canceled abruptly. (Disclosure: I asked to take part but was told foreign correspondents will get their own tour.)”
Erik Prince is talking to the House Intelligence Committee today.
“Will the House Intelligence Committee Get the Truth From Erik Prince?”:
I doubt there’ll be any Republican interrogators.
* Coincidentally enough, here’s a new article about an interview Trump did in 2000 – interviewers joined him as he went to pick up…Jeffrey Epstein.
I can’t even with this article. It’s somehow a real thing someone wrote and others published in 2017.
Tweet o’ the day.
“White House Plans Tillerson Ouster From State Dept., to Be Replaced by Pompeo, Within Weeks”:
“EVERYONE: CODE RED ON THE TAX FIGHT & ACA REPEAL RIGHT NOW. THREAD about what’s coming and how to fight it; please share & follow along if interested…”
There will be a protest at the Capitol in DC today beginning at 3 PM and lasting until the Senate votes.
John “Regular Order” McCain is a Yes on the tax scam – “says he’s pleased that the bill ‘was considered through the normal legislative processes’.”
Pelosi is now calling on Conyers to resign. He’s in the hospital due to stress.
Topher Spiro to McCain:
I completely approve of the sneakiness of this tweet.
Tillerson is supposed to travel to Europe next week for NATO and OSCE meetings to discuss NK and…Russian aggression. The whole mission is now effectively nullified.
SC @442, replaced by Tom Cotton. Tom Cotton?!
Putting Tom Cotton in charge of the CIA is not a good idea.
Ousting Tillerson from the State Department may or may not be a good idea. Replacing Tillerson with Pompeo seems like a guarantee of more chaos in the State Department. Also, does Trump think that Pompeo will be more efficient at gutting the State Department?
What a mess.
SC @446, Steve Benen called this “legislating while blindfolded.” So sorry to see McCain fold like that.
From the New York Times:
quotetheunquote @436, Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe she is just susceptible to brain washing.
I used to feel sorry for her. Her job requires that she defend Trump, or at least she thinks her job requires that she defend him. Now I think that she is a true believer when it comes to her bigoted comments about Muslims. Her brainwashing started long ago, in childhood. Some time ago, SC pointed out that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is also a former Republican presidential candidate, is Sarah’s father. That’s all you really need to know.
Having Sarah move into the justifying-Trump job just made things worse for her. She is doomed when it comes to developing a sense of perspective, and in terms of developing the kind of personal integrity you would expect in an adult.
From Josh Marshall:
That more or less explains why I was so disturbed by the idea of putting Tom Cotton in charge of the CIA. (My comment 449.)
Roy Moore knows who to blame for allegations of sexual misconduct against him:
Moore does not blame himself for assaulting Beverly Young Nelson when she was 16 years old; nor does he blame himself for initiating sexual conduct with Leigh Corfman when the was 14 years old.
From London Mayor Sadiq Khan:
Jim Clyburn is now (finally) calling on Conyers to resign, so I assume it’s just a matter of time.
Meanwhile, Joe Barton has announced that he won’t run for re-election.
“Rex Tillerson’s exit and the Trump administration’s inevitable drift toward yes-men”: “In one fell swoop, Trump would be removing one of three people who Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said is helping “separate our country from chaos” and promoting two men who would move the Trump administration conspicuously in the direction of Trump allies and yes-men.”
LOL.
[brief rant]
I swear wire-service reporting on Latin America will be the end of me. This new Reuters piece actually ends with: “Nasralla is one of Honduras’ best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a coup in 2009 after he proposed a referendum on his re-election.” NO HE FUCKING DIDN’T. He was going to hold a non-binding referendum on whether the people wanted to convene a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, which would then itself have to be voted on months if not years later. The referendum was to take place at the same time as people were electing a new president, so it couldn’t possibly have been about his re-election. What they’re claiming is not even possible. How the hell can they still be parroting this dangerous lie 8 years later? And THEN, the corrupt ruler of the current regime turned around and did what they falsely accused Zelaya of trying to do, by packing the court with people who would agree to let him run for a second term even though it’s in violation of the constitution. That’s why he’s a candidate in the current election – because they’re liars and cheaters.
And the Reuters reporters just basically accept their tall tale about the results, despite the sudden silence of the electoral tribunal after the opposition candidate was shown to be 5 points ahead, the long and unusual delay in reporting any additional results after that even though the population of the small country is less than 10 million (the election was on Monday, FFS, and the alleged final results still haven’t been announced), the expressed concerns of European monitors, the military mobilization, the claims of computer glitches and ballot-transport delays, and the very clear history of anti-democratic corruption of JOH and his gang (see the second link @ #373 for history and context). Sure, Nasralla’s large lead was erased and eclipsed during the past three days of delays and secrecy – nothing suspicious there.
They’ve just developed these habits of non-reporting and refuse to break with them.
[/brief rant]
SC @457, I hear you. This is no time for sloppy reporting.
In other news, Senator Susan Collins has not committed to a yes vote on the Republican tax bill.
Project Veritas Recruit Spent Months Trying To Infiltrate Washington Post
Scam artists. People with no ethical core. Fools and doofuses.
“CORKER: ‘I don’t want to state where we are or what we’re doing’.”
Democracy dies in darkness.
Brian Schatz: “Republicans are about to vote to transfer literally trillions from regular people who work at regular jobs to around 5,500 people with estates, and the largest and most profitable global corporations in human history. Don’t be despondent. Be angry.”
Dianne Feinstein: “UPDATE: We may vote on the Republican tax bill TONIGHT. We don’t have the final bill. We don’t have analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation as to whether or not the bill would boost the economy. We don’t have a Treasury Department analysis. This is OUTRAGEOUS!”
Is someone drugging them, blackmailing them – what?
Happy birthday, Bette.
On top of everything, I’ve missed so many opportunities to use “on a shoogly peg” today. :(
Jeff Sessions is being very cagey and slippery during questioning today:
The Hill link
Roy Moore’s views on women are patriarchal:
Think Progress link
Donald Trump is promoting paramilitary extremism in Northern Ireland through his tweets.
Think Progress link
Here we go – “JCT dynamic score says the Senate tax bill would lose $1 trillion over a decade, even after accounting for growth.”
And that’s a generous accounting.
Susan Collins was greeted with such warmth and appreciation after she voted against the last bill, I wonder how she thinks voting for this catastrophic garbage bill and lying to her constituents about it will be received.
On the bright side, it’s no longer illegal to say “Merry Christmas.”
Earlier…”Elizabeth Warren says Steve Mnuchun ‘grossly misled the public’, is calling for the Treasury I.G. to investigate whether the department formally analyzed the GOP tax plan and if there was ‘political interference’.”
Since…”BREAKING: Treasury Department Inspector General has opened inquiry on why tax analysis hasn’t been released to the public, @SalehaMohsin reports.”
Meanwhile…they’re barging ahead with the bill.
Hahahahahahaha.
“New England Elected Official Says Al Franken Tried to Give Her A ‘Wet, Open-Mouthed Kiss’ Onstage.”
From the article:
There’s a great episode of Scandal that addresses this.
This is insanity.
Re Joe Barton: I was holding back during the initial discussions about the pictures that were posted online (and shouldn’t have been), when people were responding that what were described were consensual relationships and more power to him or whatever. It seemed to me at the time that there might well be something more going on, and it appears there was. Barton has announced that he won’t run for re-election, so that’s not so much of an issue anymore. But from a report several days ago it seemed that he sent nude pictures and videos of himself to at least one woman after he asked her if she wanted them and she said no. Regardless of whether they later had a consensual relationship, this is a problem, and especially so because he started communicating with her when she posted something about politics on his FB (IIRC) page. It’s looking like it was fairly common practice for him to sexualize his exchanges with women who were his constituents who posted about or were involved with politics. From a recent article: “Canon did say she believes it’s ‘inappropriate for a congressman to be talking to a constituent like that. … He wouldn’t say that if I was a guy’.” The many tweets saying things like “You do you, Joe Barton” don’t address the problem with this.
“Medical Medium.”
Elizabeth Warren re #471: “I’m glad @USTreasury’s IG responded quickly to my request. Either Treasury used taxpayer funds to conduct analyses it won’t release because they contradict Mnuchin’s claims that this bill grows the economy, or Mnuchin misled the public about the analysis. Either is a big problem.”
Ah, a heartwarming tale bringing together two news stories covered here – “Minister who sang for Roy Moore lied for son accused of molesting Honduran orphans”:
Interesting contrast between earlier (see #457) and later Reuters reports:
The bullshit
“Nasralla is one of Honduras’ best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a coup in 2009 after he proposed a referendum on his re-election.”
has become
“Nasralla is one of Honduras’ best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in the 2009 coup.” (The earlier reference to the coup doesn’t make the false re-election claim and also mentions that the coup was “military-backed.”)
Both the AP and the Reuters reports are showing some signs of improvement. I’ll try not to get too optimistic.
There won’t be any more votes on the bill until tomorrow. And…how could there be? They literally don’t have a text. What would they be voting on?
Brian Schatz: “We are done for tonight. No bill yet. Keep burning up the phone lines. Thank you.”
Steve Schmidt: “This tax bill demonstrates,once again, the total collapse of all and any rigor around the policy making process in the GOP congress. It is built on a foundation of lies. It adds more than a trillion to the debt. No real conservative should vote for this.”
“Trump’s Tweets Manage a Rare Feat: Uniting Britain, in Outrage”: “One member of Parliament called him a ‘fascist’. Another described him as ‘stupid’. A third wondered aloud whether President Trump was ‘racist, incompetent or unthinking — or all three’….”
A tad late, but but a link of my #428 showing Obama as president saying “merry Christmas”.
Whoa.
“Trump Pressed Top Republicans to End Senate Russia Inquiry”: “President Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a half dozen lawmakers and aides. Mr. Trump’s requests were a highly unusual intervention from a president into a legislative inquiry involving his family and close aides….”
These Republicans have zero credibility. When Wray and Rosenstein testified before them, they demanded that they be informed by those Justice officials if Trump or anyone at the WH tried to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation. Trump has spent months trying to interfere with their own investigation, and what have they been doing? Playing it down, making ridiculous excuses for it, hiding it from their Democratic colleagues. It’s an outrage.
Hahahahahahaha part 2.
Hee.
The best: “Why Alabamians should consider eating Democrats’ babies.”
President Rapist’s apple didn’t fall far from the tree and tweeted this a few years ago:
Erin Gloria Ryan – “Geraldo Rivera’s 1991 Memoir Is a F*ckfest-Filled Bible of Workplace Harassment.”
“BREAKING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL: The court has scheduled a plea hearing for Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), 58, of Alexandria, Va., at 10:30 a.m.”
He’ll plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI.
“NEWS: FLYNN will plead GUILTY to making false statements to the FBI about his conversations with KISLYAK.”
From the page Bertrand provides, this concerns lying about his request to Kislyak for the Kremlin to moderate their response to Obama’s sanctions and Kislyak’s responding that they would do so. Wow.
The charges against Flynn can be read here – the Special Counsel’s web site. The first charge is described @ #491 above. The second appears to relate to the 12-23-16 UNSC resolution condemning and expressing grave concerns about Israeli settlements. According to the document, Flynn asked Kislyak “to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution” and subsequently lied to the FBI about it and about whether he received the Kremlin’s response from Kislyak.
Erik Prince is on MSNBC right now. He’s a liar, and a bad one.
Hee.
“Just now: @BrianRoss on @ABC News Special Report: Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify that candidate Trump ‘directed him to make contact with the Russians’.”
Reuters: “MORE: Prosecutors say Flynn spoke with a ‘senior official’ of Trump’s transition team who was at Mar-a-Lago resort in December 2016 to discuss what to communicate to Russian ambassador.”
The Dow is dropping like a stone on the Flynn news.
Tweet o’ the day.
I don’t think Trump can run fast enough to escape the fallout from the Flynn plea deal and charges to which Flynn pled guilty.
In other news, during a debate on the floor of the Senate about the tax bill, Senator Orrin Hatch said this in relation to the CHIP funding:
From Steve Benen:
Link
The second lie – about Flynn’s request that the Russians delay or block the UNSC resolution re Israel – is interesting. I wonder if this investigation will extend to Netanyahu and his dealings with Kushner….