Would you like some happy news? DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE! » « Big Spunk makes babies!

Discuss: Political Madness All the Time

Lynna is your curator. How are you all holding up, America? Not well, I guess, since this is the hardest working thread ever. The frenzy is growing!

(Previous thread)(Next thread)

Would you like some happy news? DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE! » « Big Spunk makes babies!

Comments

  2. says

    Giuliani just tweeted: “Republican lawyer doesn’t do his own research and preparation, and is instead picking up Democrat lies, shame.

    Allow me to inform him: I have NO financial interests in Ukraine, NONE! I would appreciate his apology.”

    He’s already tweeted and deleted during the hearing. Where are his lawyers?

  11. says

    “MALONEY to Sondland: You’ve been very forthright, this is your 3rd try to do so, sir. Didn’t work so well the 1st time, did it? … Now we’re here a 3rd time … so all due respect, sir, we appreciate your candor, but let’s be really clear on what it took to get it out of you.”

  13. says

    The president who cried “Exoneration.”

    Impeachment Witch Hunt is now OVER! This Witch Hunt must end NOW.

    Nope. Nobody believes you, Trump.

    Commentary from Steve Benen:

    […] this began in earnest in March 2018, when Trump claimed that the House Intelligence Committee had completely exonerated him in the Russia scandal. That wasn’t true.

    Trump then said the Justice Department inspector general’s office had “totally” exonerated him in the Russia scandal. That was both wrong and kind of bonkers.

    He then claimed that the Senate Intelligence Committee had also exonerated him in the Russia scandal. That also wasn’t true.

    After Michael Cohen’s public congressional testimony, Trump said his former fixer exonerated him. In reality, what Cohen testified was that he didn’t have any direct evidence of cooperation between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign, though Cohen added that he believes Trump is “capable” of having committed the crime.

    The president convinced himself that Judge T.S. Ellis exonerated him, which did not happen. Soon after, he suggested Judge Amy Berman Jackson had done the same thing, and that wasn’t true, either.

    Trump later said the Mueller Report “totally” exonerated him, despite the special counsel literally and explicitly saying the report “does not exonerate” the president.

    Obviously, it’s impossible to see Sondland’s sworn testimony as being good for the White House, but with a track record like Trump’s, he shouldn’t be disappointed when no one believes him.

    Link

  15. says

    This is what we have been expecting:

    According to a report in Time magazine, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has let some of his fellow Republicans know he plans to give up his post and run for Kansas’ open U.S. Senate seat, but he’s not sure “how to get out” of the Trump administration “in one piece.”

    Gordon Sondland’s testimony today is not going to help Pompeo.

  17. says

    WTF, Devin Nunes? Have you no self awareness at all? Nunes said this:

    In their mania to attack the president, no conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats.

    Time and again, they floated the possibility of some far-fetched malfeasance by Trump, declared the dire need to investigate it, and then suddenly dropped the issue and moved on to their next asinine theory.

    What are some of these outlandish conspiracy theories according Trump Toady Nunes?
    – That Trump “received nefarious materials from the Russians through a Trump campaign aide”
    – That Trump had “a diabolical plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow”
    – That Trump “changed the Republican National Committee platform to hurt Ukraine and benefit Russia”

    Um, yeah. All those things are true. All those things are facts.

    Nunes characterized the facts as “false charges and “ludicrous accusations.”

    Some background info:

    […] Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign aide, was convicted of multiple felonies – just four days ago – and as part of the trial, other former Trump campaign aides said Stone was seen as the point person on learning about materials stolen by Russia.

    We also know that Trump really did have a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, which was an endeavor Trump pursued during his presidential campaign, and which was something the president lied about. [Don’t know if it was a “diabolical” plan, but it was a plan.]

    We also know that the Trump campaign really did change the RNC platform to hurt Ukraine and benefit Russia. […]

  18. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 14

    Especially if you’re a rank-and-file RWNJ who only get’s his news and information from Hannity and others like him.

  19. says

    SC @8, What!!?? Holy fuck.

    In other news, here is more commentary on today’s hearing (a few snippets worth remembering):

    […] the bigger picture is clearly going to be a problem for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who appears to have been far more involved in the extortion scheme than was previously understood.

    This is also another sign of trouble for Rudy Giuliani, who the ambassador [Sondland] is now saying was responsible for delivering a quid-pro-quo message to Ukraine. “Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president,” […]

    Sondland’s opening statement includes a simple five-word phrase Americans will likely hear many times in the near future. “We followed the president’s orders.” […]

    Sondland’s statement includes related phrases such as, “At the express direction of the president of the United States,” and “I followed the directions of the president.”

    What’s more, the same opening statement reads, “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ With regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.” […]

  20. says

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    The central allegation is that Mr. Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Viktor Shokin from his job as prosecutor general of Ukraine in order to shield the energy company Burisma from scrutiny. Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was a board member of Burisma at the time.

    Asked if there is any truth to Mr. Trump’s theory that Mr. Biden asked to protect his son’s interests, Mr. Kent replied: “None whatsoever.”

    Mr. Biden did push for Mr. Shokin’s removal. However, that was broadly in line with the policy of the United States and its international partners, who saw Mr. Shokin as insufficiently aggressive on corruption. Asked if Mr. Biden acted in the interests of the United States in pursuing policies in Ukraine, Mr. Kent replied: “He did.”

    From the Associated Press:

    Kurt Volker said he has known Biden as an honorable man for more than two decades, […]

    “The allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and non-credible,” Volker declared.

    Given the larger context, this was no small assertion: the “allegations” Volker was publicly dismissing as nonsense have come directly from the Oval Office.

  21. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 9.

    Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, was apparently tired of Gordon Sondland’s games in the sharpest questioning he’s yet faced from Democratic members of the House in the impeachment hearings into Donald Trump, after repeated back-and-forth in which Maloney was attempting to elicit a simple answer to a simple question.

    “Who would benefit from an investigation of the Bidens?” Maloney asked repeatedly.

    “I assume President Trump would benefit,” Sondland eventually answered.

    “There we have it!” Maloney replied. “Didn’t hurt a bit, did it?” Sondland tried to put on an indignant front, saying that he has been very forthright and “resents” the implication that he’s not been forthcoming in his interactions with the committee.

    Mistake. Maloney pounced. “Fair enough, you’ve been very forthright. This is your third try to do so, sir. Didn’t work so well the first time, did it? We had a little declaration coming after, you remember that? And now we’re here a third time, and we got a doozy of a statement from you, there’s a whole bunch of stuff you don’t recall. So all due respect, sir, we appreciate your candor, but let’s be really clear what it took to get it out of you.”

    Link

  22. says

    Believe it or not, there’s a second hearing today. This one’s with Laura Cooper and David Hale. Starts at 5:30 ET, so could easily run over into the Democratic debate, which begins at 8 ET.

    Tomorrow’s only witness is Fiona Hill, but she has quite a bit of knowledge and sounds like a character, so it could be interesting.

  26. says

    “HDP issued a declaration today against the ‘government’s recent attacks on the peoples’ will via the appointment of trustees in place of democratically-elected co-mayors’.”

    The declaration, which discusses the moves in the context of larger trends and projects, is well worth reading.

    Also,

    “LIVE BROADCAST.

    Event on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, with Ilham Ahmed of the Syrian Democratic Council, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Mark Warner.”

    This was this afternoon. Thread at the link has quotes from the senators and video clips.

  29. says

    Laura Cooper is bringing up new emails from the State Department to her office (DoD) about questions from the Ukrainian embassy about the assistance on July 25th (!) and other emails related to Ukrainian concerns about the security assistance.

  31. says

    Ryan Devereaux, Intercept:

    [Nov. 11] NEW: The retrial of humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren begins tomorrow.

    Prosecutors want all mention of Trump and his policies banned from court.

    New research shows those policies — specifically those criminalizing aid work — are deeply unpopular.

    Heading into court tomorrow, Scott Warren faces 10 years in prison for providing food, water and a place to sleep to two young migrants who crossed the desert in 2018.

    His case is part of a broader crackdown on humanitarian aid providers that began after Trump’s inauguration.

    “The government’s attempts to erase the political nature of this retrial is part of their continued efforts to hide what is truly happening along the border and evade responsibility for the violence they have caused.” — @NoMoreDeaths.

    …

    [Today:] BREAKING: Scott Warren not guilty on both felony harboring counts.

    Speaking to one of the jurors outside the court, she tells me, “I think we all agreed that what he and these people do is fantastic.”

    We also received a very significant decision in Warren’s misdemeanor case from earlier this year: the judge found that that Warren’s religious freedom defense overcame that charge he faced for leaving water for migrants on public lands.

    Multiple jurors tell me the same thing: the government needed to prove that it was Warren’s intent to break the law — not provide humanitarian aid — and they failed.

  34. says

    Natasha Bertrand:

    Laura Cooper says on July 25, House Foreign Affairs Committee emailed asking about Ukraine security assistance. 2 hours later, another email was sent saying “the Hill knows about the FMF [Foreign Military Financing] situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian embassy.”

    Needless to say, this is big, given Trump and his allies’ defense that the Ukrainians didn’t know about the withheld aid until after it was made public by @politico.

  35. says

    TPM – “Vindman’s Lawyer Urges Fox News To Retract Espionage Claim”:

    National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is defending himself from a Fox News guest accusing him of “espionage.”

    On Wednesday, Vindman lawyer David Pressman sent a letter to Fox News that requests a retraction or correction of a “a deeply flawed and erroneous” segment on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show last month that featured former Justice Department official John Yoo.

    Soon after Vindman’s prepared remarks in his closed-door impeachment deposition were released on October 28, Yoo accused Vindman “espionage” on Ingraham’s show. After Ingraham called attention to the “buried” detail in a New York Times report that “Ukrainian officials sought advice” from Vindman “about how to deal with Giuliani” due to his fluency in both Ukrainian and Russian, Yoo said that he found the detail “astounding” and that “some people might call that espionage.”

    Earlier this month, Yoo wrote in an opinion piece in USA Today that he “didn’t call Alexander Vindman a spy,” but that Ukraine engaged in espionage.

    Fox News said in a statement Yoo was “responsible for his own sentiments” in the segment, according to the New York Times.

    Pressman wrote that the segment “sparked a torrent of republications and copycat false charges” and that Vindman “had never in his decorated 20-year career of service to his country been accused of having dual loyalties or committing espionage.”

    Pressman added that the segment “created a false factual basis to render sinister otherwise innocuous facts” and has forced Vindman and his family to “ensure their physical security in the face of threats.”

    “LTC Vindman and his family have been forced to examine options, including potentially moving onto a military base, in order to ensure their physical security in the face of threats rooted in the falsehood that Fox News originated,” Pressman wrote in the letter.

    Pressman then urged Fox News to “take steps to ensure that it does not publish further defamatory falsehoods concerning LTC Vindman.”

    “Fox News has a responsibility to help put out the fire it lit when it falsely accused a decorated soldier of disloyalty to his country,” Pressman wrote in the letter. “Vindman, who has dedicated his life to defending America out of the public eye, deserves better than to be falsely attacked when compelled by law and duty to speak the truth.”…

  36. says

    Some genius at MSNBC apparently decided that since, in a historic first, all of the debate moderators are women, it would be a good look for them to have a panel of commentators who are all men and another man reporting from the debate (and for that man to be Chris Matthews).

  38. says

    Guardian – “Israel’s opposition leader fails to form coalition government”:

    Israel’s opposition leader, Benny Gantz, has failed to form a government, increasing the likelihood of the country holding an unprecedented third round of elections.

    Gantz had close to a month to forge a coalition after the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, failed to do so. Neither leader won a clear majority during a September election and both have sought to stall each other’s play for power.

    Under Israeli law, midnight on Wednesday was the deadline, after which Gantz was obliged to return the mandate to the president, Reuven Rivlin. The former Israeli army chief told Rivlin four hours before the deadline that he had not succeeded, his Blue and White party said in a statement.

    Politicians loyal to Netanyahu had blocked his attempts, Gantz said in a speech on Wednesday evening, “insisting only on the best interest of one person”. Gantz added he had sought to reach out to the prime minister, but his efforts had been met with “insults, slander and childish videos”, referring to Netanyahu’s frequent social media rants.

    Gantz’s failure does not automatically trigger elections. It kicks off a final 21-day period in which the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, can nominate any candidate to be prime minister, including Netanyahu or Gantz. However, the divided makeup of the Knesset would lead to a tough battle as no political alliance has a majority of 61 seats. After that period, Israelis will be on course to go to the polls again, the third time in a year.

    …

    Netanyahu also faces the possibility of court cases that could lead to jail time. Israel’s attorney general is deciding whether to indict him in three potential corruption cases. If he retains the role of prime minister, he will not be required to step down, even if indicted, and could use his position to push for immunity. Netanyahu has denied all allegations.

    Gantz had several ways of forging a coalition, including the possibility of courting politicians from Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up close to a fifth of the country’s population.

    To block this route, Netanyahu has claimed that a government propped up by Arab parties would be a “historic danger to Israel’s security” and accused Arab politicians of allegiance to Palestinian militant groups.

    Rivlin, who is tasked with overseeing the government formation, strongly rebuked Netanyahu for the campaign. “The characterisation of all Arab elected officials as a ‘threat’ to the existence of the state of Israel and as a ‘fifth column’ must be emphatically denounced,” he said this week.

  40. says

    Daily Beast – “Lev Parnas Helped Rep. Devin Nunes’ Investigations”:

    Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Rep. Devin Nunes in 2018, Parnas’ lawyer Ed MacMahon told The Daily Beast.

    Nunes aide Derek Harvey participated in the meetings, the lawyer said, which were arranged to help Nunes’ investigative work. MacMahon didn’t specify what those investigations entailed.

    Nunes is the top Republican on the House committee handling the impeachment hearings—hearings where Parnas’ name has repeatedly come up.

    Congressional records show Nunes traveled to Europe from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018. Three of his aides—Harvey, Scott Glabe, and George Pappas—traveled with him, per the records. U.S. government funds paid for the group’s four-day trip, which cost just over $63,000.

    The travel came as Nunes, in his role on the House Intelligence Committee, was working to investigate the origins of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election-meddling.

    Parnas’ assistance to Nunes’ team has not been previously reported. A spokesperson for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment.

    …

    Nunes has been at the center of the broader story about foreign influence in President Donald Trump’s Washington. When congressional investigators began probing Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, Nunes made a late-night visit to the White House and announced the next day he’d found evidence of egregious wrongdoing by Intelligence Community officials. The move appeared to be an effort to corroborate a presidential tweet claiming that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Nunes then stepped back from the committee’s work scrutinizing Russian efforts. Instead, he ran a parallel probe looking at the origins of Mueller’s Russia probe. The undertaking made him a hero to the president and Sean Hannity, and a bête noire of Democrats and Intelligence Community officials. That work was still underway when he traveled to Europe in 2018….

  41. says

    NBC – “Trump hosted Zuckerberg for undisclosed dinner at the White House in October”:

    President Donald Trump hosted a previously undisclosed dinner with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook board member Peter Thiel at the White House in October, the company told NBC News on Wednesday.

    The meeting took place during Zuckerberg’s most recent visit to Washington, where he testified before Congress about Facebook’s new cryptocurrency Libra. Zuckerberg also gave a speech at Georgetown University the week before, detailing his company’s commitment to free speech, and its resistance to calls for the company to crack down on misinformation in political ads.

    “As is normal for a CEO of a major U.S. company, Mark accepted an invitation to have dinner with the President and First Lady at the White House,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

    A source familiar with the dinner told NBC News that Thiel was also present. It is unclear why the meeting was not made public or what Trump, Zuckerberg and Thiel discussed.

    The White House declined to comment.

    The dinner was the second meeting between Zuckerberg and Trump in a month. Zuckerberg also met with the president in the Oval Office during a September visit to the capital.

    Thiel, one of seven Facebook board members, is one of the few outspoken conservative figures in Silicon Valley. A major donor to Trump’s campaign, Thiel is also the chairman of Palantir, a private data technology company that has become one of the largest recipients of government defense contracts with the United States government since Trump took office.

    Thiel famously bankrolled an invasion of privacy lawsuit that effectively bankrupted the gossip website Gawker. Zuckerberg’s speech at Georgetown, which he delivered on the same trip in which he met with Trump, was titled “Standing for Voice and Free Expression.”…

  42. says

    Daniel Dale: “Rep. Devin Nunes’ opening statements have been the most objectively inaccurate segments of the impeachment inquiry hearings.”

    It’s crazy – Schiff gives an evidence-based statement to introduce the major topics to be covered, and then Nunes lets loose a storm of incoherent lies and debunked smears. The Kremlin couldn’t have a better representative in congress.

  47. quotetheunquote says

    Re: Devin Nunes’ frothing at the mouth, @SC #40:
    Some of the responses to Dale’s tweet are golden. My favourite is

    he’s like if the infowars comment section got elected to congress

  48. quotetheunquote says

    Re: Devin Nunes’ frothing at the mouth, @SC #40:
    Some of the responses to Dale’s tweet are golden.
    My favourite:

    he’s like if the infowars comment section got elected to congress

    How people like Nunes actually get into positions like this is another question… do you think maybe the Rep. strategy is to put people like Nunes and Jordan out in front (to get mowed down), so that later they can look measured and reasonable by comparison? Won’t work on me, but I am guessing there are some sort-of “normal” republican voters (whatever that means!) who would be taken in by it.

  50. says

    In addition to all of the other evidence that makes it nearly impossible to believe that Sondland wasn’t aware of the Biden-Burisma connection, Holmes’s account of what Sondland said at the Kyiv lunch – that Trump only cares about “big things” that benefit him like the [Burisma/Biden] investigation – don’t comport with his claim of ignorance. Sondland doesn’t dispute the account other than claiming that he wouldn’t have said Biden because he didn’t know of that connection. But even if Sondland didn’t refer to Biden but only to Burisma, why would he think an (announcement of an) investigation of some company in Ukraine was “big” or would benefit Trump? It doesn’t make sense outside of the Biden connection.

  53. says

    Trump tweeted: “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”

  59. says

    “#BREAKING: Indictments against Israeli PM Netanyahu will be announced in 2 1/2 hours

    One hour later, Netanyahu will make a statement at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem. There is no communication entry, broadcast will be delivered directly to the systems through the contact company and the Prime Minister’s Facebook page.”

  61. says

    Josh Marshall: “The fact that a British accent still sounds smarter and more refined to most Americans means the American Revolution’s work is still not over. And I plead guilty here. #hegemony #airyfairystuff #falseconsciousness”

    Hill said in her opening statement that the US has offered her opportunities she wouldn’t have had at home, specifying that her accent would have held her back professionally. It’s difficult to describe how differently her accent is heard here. It just sounds…British.

  62. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 56

    Ugh, I Googled the term and evidently it is a thing; a verbal clunky and ugly thing that only a jingoistic dullard like Trump and his followers would either conceive of or use.

  63. tomh says

    Court Sets Aside New Health Care Conscience Rules

    In City and County of San Francisco v. Azar, a California federal district court set aside rules adopted earlier this year by the Department of Health and Human Services to give additional protection to conscience rights of health care providers. The court said in part:

    In reading the rule in question, the Court sees a persistent and pronounced redefinition of statutory terms that significantly expands the scope of protected conscientious objections. As laudable as that sounds, however, it would come at a cost — a burden on the effective delivery of health care to Americans in derogation of the actual balance struck by Congress.

    CA Attorney General’s press release commenting on the decision.

  66. says

    “#BREAKING Israel’s Attorney General announces decision to prosecute Prime Minister Netanyahu on the following charges:

    Case 1000 – breach of trust, fraud
    Case 2000 – breach of trust, fraud
    Case 4000 – bribery”

    “Per Ch12 Netanyahu WILL be indicted on bribery charges (as well as fraud & breach of trust). One more hour till AG himself confirms. This is worst case scenario for Bibi who will give his own statement later in eve.”

  68. says

    Sen. Murphy:

    It’s equal parts frightening and heartbreaking that Russia’s primary agent of propaganda dissemination is the President of the United States.

    Here is Trump’s e-mail today pushing the Russia created story that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election….

    At the link.

  71. says

    Natan Sachs:

    Israeli Attorney General now announcing live indictment of Prime Minister Netanyahu in criminal charges.
    He calls this a sad day. Says he has a heavy heart but no doubts about his decision.

    He announces charges of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud, in case 4000 (Bezek/Walla)

    Fraud and breach of trust in case 2000 (Yediot)

    Fraud and breach of trust in case 1000 (gifts of cigars and champagne worth hundreds of thousands of NIS).

    AG feels the need to make clear: The decision was based only on substantive issues. The reckless attacks on the judicial institutions must stop.

  72. says

    Politico – “Contractor proposed Glamour magazine profile for Medicaid chief”:

    Newly revealed correspondence shows that federal health officials discussed with contractors a publicity plan to feature President Donald Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid chief Seema Verma in magazines like Glamour, win recognition for her on “Power Women” lists and get her invited to attend prestigious events like the Kennedy Center Honors.

    The correspondence – emails between high-profile media consultant Pam Stevens, whose services cost hundreds of dollars per hour, and Verma and Brady Brookes, Verma’s deputy chief of staff — offers fresh insight into the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ use of federal funds to employ a range of communications contractors.

    Federal officials are prohibited from spending taxpayer dollars for publicity purposes, or using their public office for private gain. Verma has repeatedly stressed that CMS contracted consultants solely “to promote the programs that we have in place.”

    “All of the contracts that we have at CMS are based on promoting the work of CMS,” Verma testified to Congress last month, in response to questioning from Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.)

    But the emails obtained by POLITICO suggest that the contractors discussed with CMS efforts to boost Verma’s own public visibility as its administrator. The draft publicity plan submitted to CMS officials emphasized targeting “key women’s, leadership and general-interest magazines for potential interview/profiles” of Verma.

    The plan noted that Stevens had already successfully arranged for several profiles of Verma and pitched her to multiple media outlets, including AARP’s magazine and POLITICO’s “Women Rule” podcast. The plan also laid out in-progress efforts, like a pending article for Woman’s Day magazine and efforts to have Verma profiled as one of CNN’s “Badass Women of Washington.”

    Those “series of targeted media and externally facing opportunities” aimed to “highlight and promote [Verma’s] leadership and accomplishments,” according to a March 13 email that Stevens sent Verma and Brookes. POLITICO obtained the correspondence from a House staffer and confirmed its authenticity with multiple officials.

    …

    Verma has played a central role in crafting the Trump administration’s health agenda, having overseen the push for Medicaid work requirements and working to unwind parts of Obamacare. She’s also attacked Democrats’ “Medicare for All” proposals in a series of tweets and speeches, and positioned herself as a critic of wasted federal spending.

    …

    It’s unclear how many of the opportunities included in the publicity plan Verma ultimately pursued. The proposal suggested securing attendance to “notable events” — like the Ford’s Theatre Gala — as well as more traditional events federal officials typically attend, like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

    It listed various recognitions and awards that CMS could lobby for, including Verma’s selection as one of Washington Business Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business” and Washingtonian magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Washington.”

    In October, Washingtonian featured Verma as one of the six federal government officials to make its annual list.

    The plan also offered a month-by-month list of conferences and speaking opportunities that Verma could angle for, from health-focused gatherings like the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Health conference to events – such as the TEDWomen conference and FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit — with no direct ties to health care.

    The goal, according to the plan: “Position [Verma] as the thought-leader she is.”

    Reprehensible.

  73. says

    “NEW: In the wake of the 2013 West, Tex. fertilizer plant fire that killed 15 people, EPA adopted stricter safety rules. The agency just rolled those standards back saying they burdened industry and more public disclosure could aid terrorists.”

    WaPo link atl.

  75. says

    In response to SC’s comment 70: Propaganda! Propaganda paid for with taxpayer dollars.

    SC@58, well that adds to our understanding of why Devin Nunes own questioning of witnesses is so uninformed, and/or outright stupid.

  78. says

    SC @43, I know this won’t happen, but I sincerely wish that every Fox News host would read Fiona Hill’s opening statement aloud on live TV.

  89. says

    “Much like Trump, Netanyahu appears to believe that repeat-tweeting the same line over and over is effective messaging.

    He has tweeted ‘investigate the investigators!’ — which were the final words of his press conference — five times over the last half hour.

    And of course this is the exact line Trump has himself used…”

  98. says

    Guardian – “Clashes in Colombia as hundreds of thousands protest against government”:

    Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have taken to the streets in a show of support for the country’s embattled peace process with leftist rebels – and to protest against its deeply unpopular government.

    Pensioners, students, teachers and union members joined marches across the country in what in one of biggest mass demonstrations in recent years.

    In the capital, Bogotá, police helicopters whirred overhead, while riot police fired teargas at protesters who had blocked bus routes before dawn. Despite torrential rain, thousands of people thronged the city’s historic Plaza de Simón Bolívar, singing the national anthem.

    The marches began in Bogotá largely without incident, although a few clashes broke out near Bogotá airport between protesters and riot police around midday. As the rain cleared, more confrontations broke out across the city in the early evening. Explosions could be heard across the city. Teargas was fired in the Plaza de Simón Bolívar and at the campus of the National University, where protestors battled with security forces.

    The national strike was prompted by proposed cuts to pensions weeks ago. Though the reform was never formally announced, they became a lightning rod for widespread dissatisfaction with the government of president Iván Duque, whose approval rating has dropped to just 26% since he took office in August last year.

    Protesters also expressed anger at the perceived slow-walking of the rollout of the country’s historic 2016 peace deal with leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc). That accord formally ended five decades of civil war that killed 260,000 and forced over 7 million to flee their homes.

    Others say Duque has done little to protect social leaders and indigenous people, who are being murdered at alarming rates. Public fury has also been stoked by a recent airstrike against a camp of dissident rebel drug traffickers, which left eight minors dead.

    …

    And as in Chile, which has been mired in more than a month of unrest, many in the growing middle classes feel left behind as the economy continues to grow.

    “It is not the economy that is growing like Duque and his friends say. It is the profits of the bankers that are growing, which means that they are draining the economy,” tweeted Gustavo Petro, an opposition senator who ran against Duque for the presidency last year, ahead of the march.

    “I’m marching today because my generation need a pension when we grow old,” said María Rodríguez, a student who was marching with her colleagues. “We have to stand up for our rights.”

    …

    In the past, such protests have failed to attract large turnouts, which activists attribute to a fear of being demonized as hardline leftists or rebel sympathizers.

    “We have fought for generations to make sure we are no longer persecuted to speak,” said Mafe Carrascal, a prominent activist who attended the marches in Bogotá. “The peace process gave us a big tailwind in showing that to support peace is not to be a defender of the guerrillas.”

    Also in attendance was Jacqueline Castillo, a mother whose brother was murdered by the army before being falsely declared an enemy Farc combatant – one of thousands of so-called “false positive” killings that plagued the country from 2002-2008. Some reports say the practice may have returned.

    “We aren’t scared to fight for justice and peace, and we’ll take to the streets until we get it,” Castillo said. “The people do not surrender, carajo!”

  99. tomh says

    WaPo:
    White House and Republicans discuss limiting impeachment trial to two weeks
    By Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey
    November 21, 2019 at 1:02 p.m. PST

    A group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately Thursday to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks.

    Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Neely Kennedy (La.), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, according to the officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

    The meeting was organized by White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland, who was also in attendance along with advisers Pam Bondi and Tony Sayegh, recently hired to guide the White House’s impeachment messaging and strategy.

    No final decisions were made on strategy for a trial that, if it happens, would come in January at the earliest. But one prominent scenario discussed, according to officials, was a trial that would last for roughly two weeks, which several Senate Republicans view as the ideal option because they believe it would be long enough to have credence without dragging on too long.

    The scenario assumes the proceedings would end in acquittal in the GOP-controlled Senate.

    “I don’t want them to believe there’s an ability to dismiss the case before it’s heard,” Graham said Thursday following the meeting with Cipollone. “I think most everybody agreed, there’s not 51 votes to dismiss it before the managers get to call the case.”

    But even a two-week trial could run counter to what Trump has expressed privately. The president is “miserable” about the ongoing impeachment inquiry and has pushed to dismiss the proceedings right away, according to people familiar with Trump’s sentiments.

    “No final decision has been made,” one senior White House official said Thursday. Other options, including a longer trial, were discussed, and could still happen.

    During the meeting, there was also a discussion of whether to seek additional evidence or call witness such as Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and potential Trump 2020 rival Joe Biden. The House impeachment inquiry is centered on Trump’s alleged attempts to Ukraine to announce investigations of the Bidens to help his reelection.

    The senators and senior White House officials also discussed the potential of having limited or no defense on the president’s behalf — although several congressional allies have repeatedly stressed that they want ample time for Trump and his attorneys to make his case in public.

    The private meeting underscored the increased coordination between the White House and Senate Republicans as the House proceedings appear to point to likely impeachment as early as next month. Even if the House votes to impeach Trump — the third U.S. president in history with that mark — Democrats face a potentially insurmountable hurdle for conviction in the Senate, where 67 votes would be needed to remove Trump from office.

    Cruz, who confirmed he attended the meeting earlier Thursday with top White House officials, stressed that he believed it was imperative that both the House impeachment managers and the president’s attorneys get time to make their arguments.

    “If and when the matter comes to the Senate, I think it’s incumbent on the Senate to do much better,” Cruz said in an interview. “I expect the Senate to conduct proceedings that are fair, that respect due process and that allow both sides to present their case, to present their witnesses, to present their evidence and for the Senate then to render a judgment consistent with the law and Constitution.”

    Cruz declined to delve into details, but said the group discussed “where we are, what’s coming up next, what hurdles are likely to be.”

    The 53-member Senate Republican Conference has been divided on how long a Senate trial should be. Some align with Trump’s view, seeking to dismiss it as soon as possible. Others have sought a middle-of-the-road option like two weeks.

    Still others have toyed with a more drawn-out trial that has the potential to scramble the schedules of a half-dozen Democratic senators who are running for president but would be jurors in an impeachment trial.

    One show trial, coming up.

  100. says

    Nesrine Malik in the Guardian – “This is my first vote. I’m elated it’s in such an important election”:

    This is the first election in which I am allowed to vote. It has been an exasperating experience having to sit by and watch, election after election, restricted by a Home Office that was either sitting on my application or taking wrong decisions, delaying my naturalisation as a British citizen far beyond the moment when I felt like one. But a British passport arrived earlier this year, and Brexit has provided a bonus general election to slake an appetite built over years locked out of the democratic process. Whatever the opposite of jaded is, that’s what I am.

    My sense of exclusion has intensified over the past three years as a Brexit referendum and a general election have plunged the country into a state of instability that still seems to have no resolution. This election feels crucial to the point of angst. The stakes could not be higher. Not only does what happens with Brexit hang in the balance, but also the very character of the country and its ideological direction. After a decade in which austerity is estimated to have cost more than 120,000 lives, it is not an exaggeration to say that the coming election is a matter of life and death.

    It is baffling that so many consider this a vote between two parties and leaders that are as bad as each other. During the leaders’ debate on Tuesday night, my social media feeds were flooded with wry gloom. “What a choice we have been given!” despaired Gary Lineker, followed by a facepalm emoji. False equivalence merchant Jo Swinson retweeted this, adding the comment: “You do have a choice.” The Liberal Democrat tactic seems to be saying anything to secure votes, up to and including the falsehood that Labour and the Conservatives “merge into one” on Brexit, even though Labour promises a referendum with remain on the ballot. Facepalm emoji indeed.

    Mine isn’t a position born of a self-righteous attitude that people died for the right to vote, but of the obvious distress in which the Conservative party has landed the country. It is staggering that after the past two years, in which the Tory party has proved itself to be a clown car of liars, cynics, careerists and ghouls, anyone can think there is no distinction. This doesn’t mean that the choice we do have is a perfectly clean, binary one between a flawed governing party and an unimpeachable alternative, but how often is that the case? How many elections, to the floating voter in particular, are black-and-white choices? Those come around once in a lifetime. Not every election can have a “hope” candidate such as Barack Obama. We vote in the elections we are given, not the ones we wish we had.

    Neither candidate nor party has to fill you with passion for you to be excited about voting, or even just to acknowledge that in recent history a vote has never had so much potential to determine the future of the country. One may not like Jeremy Corbyn. One may think he is uninspiring or waffly, or that he wears wonky glasses. But against the backdrop of the Brexit-obsessed Conservative party, these are trivial concerns that reveal more about the kind of candidates and policies that are embraced in our political culture and the media.

    There is a petulance to the frustration that parties and candidates are not nailing the optics and supplying the charisma, especially when it is directed at those who have never even had a shot at government. This sulky false equivalence dominated the last US presidential election….

    …

    There is a certain privilege to the eyerolling. The Conservative party’s policies, as with Trump’s, have an impact on the more vulnerable in society, those who cannot afford to be cynical or ideologically purist about who gets to have a real effect on their lives.

    We know the danger of another five years of Conservative government. The alternative is, at worst, untried and untested. In addressing those who rail against measures to increase diversity in contemporary politics and culture, the author Hanif Kureishi captured this disdain for what still has not been demonstrated. “No one knows what a more democratic and inclusive culture would be like,” he wrote. “It is fatuously omniscient to assume it would be worse than what we already have.”

    See also #26 above.

  101. says

    Excellent piece in the Guardian – “Fiona Hill rebukes conspiracy theory – and emerges as a heroine for our times”:

    …Many people saw in Hill an antithesis, if not a cure, to some of the toxins corroding her adopted nation. She walked into the committee room in the Longworth building of the House of Representatives, a woman before an almost all-male panel, cool and forensic at a time of partisan vitriol, an emissary from the world of scholarship cast into the midst of a battle in which facts are in danger of being defeated by manipulated opinion….

    Deserves to be read i full. Subheading: “The Russia expert’s opening statement, delivered in her north-east England accent, stood out for its bluntness.” Hee.

  103. says

    Daily Beast – “Sacha Baron Cohen Uses ADL Speech to Tear Apart Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook”:

    Sacha Baron Cohen accepted the International Leadership Award at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now summit on anti-Semitism and hate Thursday. And the comedian and actor used his keynote speech to single out the one Jewish-American who he believes is doing the most to facilitate “hate and violence” in America: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    He began with a joke at the Trump administration’s expense. “Thank you, ADL, for this recognition and your work in fighting racism, hate and bigotry,” Baron Cohen said, according to his prepared remarks. “And to be clear, when I say ‘racism, hate and bigotry’ I’m not referring to the names of Stephen Miller’s Labradoodles.”

    …

    …Baron Cohen turned to the rise of demagoguery, conspiracy theories and hate crimes around the world, and pointed to what he sees as the most logical explanation for this dangerous trend. “All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history,” he said.

    And to him, no one bears more responsibility than the man who created Facebook. “It’s like we’re living in the Roman Empire, and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar,” he said at one point. “At least that would explain his haircut.”

    Baron Cohen spent the rest of his speech systematically dismantling a recent address given by Zuckerberg at Georgetown University in which he defended Facebook’s limited attempts to combat its massive problems and explained away its inaction as a defense of “free expression.”

    Calling that argument “ludicrous,” Baron Cohen said, “This is not about limiting anyone’s free speech. This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on earth, the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet. Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. Sadly, there will always be racists, misogynists, anti-Semites and child abusers. But I think we could all agree that we should not be giving bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.”

    The comedian went on to call Zuckerberg’s stance on Holocaust deniers “madness” and criticized Facebook’s apparent willingness to run false and misleading political ads unchecked.

    “Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem,’” he said. “So here’s a good standard and practice: Facebook, start fact-checking political ads before you run them, stop micro-targeted lies immediately, and when the ads are false, give back the money and don’t publish them.”

    Ultimately, Baron Cohen concluded by saying that “if we prioritize truth over lies, tolerance over prejudice, empathy over indifference and experts over ignoramuses” then “maybe, just maybe, we can stop the greatest propaganda machine in history, we can save democracy, we can still have a place for free speech and free expression, and, most importantly, my jokes will still work.”

    Here’s a link to video of the speech.

    In related news, Glenn Beck.

  105. says

    Two moments in yesterday’s hearing that haven’t received much attention:

    First, Hill was asked if she agreed with previous witness who’d said that they think Hunter Biden’s joining the board of Burisma created the appearance of a potential conflict of interest (few would argue that it didn’t). She framed her answer in general terms, about how all children of public officials should be alert to those issues. Recognizing how thoroughly that implicated the Trump clan, no one pursued that line of questioning further.

    Second, as they did throughout all of the hearings, the Trumpublicans tried to draw a false stark contrast between the security aid the Obama administration provided (which they continue to lie was only blankets and such) and what Trump did, particularly focusing on the Javelins. But Hill pointed out that she had earlier been opposed to supplying the Javelins because she didn’t think the Ukrainian military was developed or stable enough, and it was only after she came on in 2017 and was convinced of their progress by US military officials that she changed her mind. Then Holmes was asked to discuss the importance of the Javelins in detail and in his response noted that they weren’t actually being used in combat (see #s 8 and 17 above) and called them I think an “important symbolic asset,” which a later questioner changed into “important strategic asset” or something like that, gliding right past what his response had made clear to hit their talking point again.

  109. says

    So John Bolton is…tweeting today:

    “Glad to be back on Twitter after more than two months. For the backstory, stay tuned……..”

    “We have now liberated the Twitter account, previously suppressed unfairly in the aftermath of my resignation as National Security Advisor. More to come…..”

    The responses are pretty much everyone just telling him to testify.

  113. says

    George Conway:

    I have little doubt that, within the lifespans of many reading this tweet, students throughout the world will learn in their history books that a deeply psychologically unwell man—also a criminal—was president of the United States in the late 2010s.

    Many of those young people will see and hear clips of that man, like his interview on Fox & Friends this morning. And they will shake their heads in virtual disbelief.

    One of the responses is : “Your wife is an enabler. Your wife is a cheerleader. What kind of game do you think you’re playing?” To which Conway responds: “She’s both, but that doesn’t mean I’m playing a game.”

  114. says

    The Onion – “Congress Approves $3 Billion In Military Aid For Netanyahu To Defend Self Against Israeli Justice System”:

    Justifying the expenditure as necessary to preserve the only bastion of democracy in the Middle East, both houses of Congress voted unanimously Thursday to extend $3 billion in emergency military aid to Benjamin Netanyahu to defend himself against the Israeli justice system. “Today, we act decisively in support of our closest foreign ally in his fight against the threatening and potentially violent cabal of the Israeli legal system,” said Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) of the bill, which provides monetary and physical assistance to the prime minister against a recent unprovoked volley of corruption charges. “With this aid, the United States will be sending a fleet of F35s that will help stamp out current attacks and bolster the security of Netanyahu for years to come. Just like any political leader, the prime minister deserves a right to exist in peace, free from fear of laws. It is incumbent on us as Americans to extend protection to the most vulnerable among us, and for the world to recognize that an attack on Netanyahu is an attack on all of us.” At press, U.S. military forces in the area had been instructed to keep an eye on potential hotbeds of resistance for anti-Netanyahu forces such as courtrooms, law firms, and public records offices.

  115. Pierce R. Butler says

    SC… @ # 111 – Conway’s playing the game of “good-guy Federalist Society leader” – and nearly all “progressive” media are playing along.

  116. says

    Guardian – “Exclusive: Bolsonaro is turning back the clock on Brazil, says Lula da Silva”:

    Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has vowed to spearhead opposition to the country’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, warning that his country is backsliding on years of hard fought progress.

    “Bolsonaro has already made clear what he wants for Brazil: he wants to destroy all of the democratic and social conquests from the last decades,” he told the Guardian.

    In his first interview for a foreign newspaper since he was released from prison two weeks ago, the two-term president said his mission now was to “battle for democracy”.

    “The Worker’s party is preparing to come back and govern this country!” he said, slapping the table. But Lula made no clear indication he would run for president in the country’s next general elections.

    “In 2022, I’ll be 77. The Catholic church – with 2,000 years of experience – retires its bishops at 75,” he said.

    …

    Nearly forty years after leading metalworker strikes in São Paulo’s industrial suburbs during Brazil’s military dictatorship, Lula’s energy and passion for politics remain astonishing.

    But [?] he pulled few punches when talking about Bolsonaro – an outspoken supporter of Brazil’s military dictatorship and an admirer of Chile’s Pinochet as well as modern day authoritarian leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

    …

    The former president expressed dismay at alleged links between Bolsonaro and organized crime.

    Sine the murder last year of Marielle Franco, a popular Rio de Janeiro councilwoman, several photos have emerged of the president posing with suspects in the killing, who are allegedly linked to shadowy paramilitary gangs.

    “Once, talking about paramilitaries was a rare thing … today, we see the president surrounded by paramilitaries,” he said.

    And it’s not only national politics where Bolsonaro is going wrong, Lula said.

    “His submission to Trump and the US … is really embarrassing” he said.

    Lula’s opinion is shared by a generation of diplomats disgusted by the damage being inflicted on Brazil’s soft power status under Bolsonaro’s foreign minister Ernesto Araújo who believes climate change is Marxist plot.

    “Brazil’s image is negative right now. We have a president who doesn’t govern, who sits discussing fake news twenty-four hours a day,” he said. “Brazil has to have a role on the international stage.”

    Lula said he was “excited” to see left-leaning leaders back in office Argentina and in Mexico but was deeply saddened by the current crisis in Bolivia, where Evo Morales resigned under pressure amid allegations of voting fraud.

    “My friend Evo made a mistake by trying for a fourth term as president,” he said. “But what they did with him was a crime. It was a coup – this is terrible for Latin America.”

    …

    Lula said that he was able to survive detention thanks to dozens of supporters who camped outside the police headquarters in the city of Curitiba where he was held.

    “I left prison with a bigger heart … Because of the activists I didn’t get bitter inside,” he said.

    After his release, Lula addressed tens of thousands of supporters in Recife in the Workers’ party stronghold region of north-eastern Brazil. Another event this Friday in São Paulo was cancelled at the last minute due to bad weather but many more rallies are planned next year….

  117. says

    Pierce R. Butler @ #113, I believe he’s someone with many genuinely reprehensible political views, but that he also genuinely thinks Trump is a dangerous and “deeply psychologically unwell man—also a criminal” and wants to see him out of office as soon as possible.

  118. Pierce R. Butler says

    SC… @ # 115 – Pls let us know when/if you see Conway opposing any of DJT’s gawdoffal judicial nominees.

  120. says

    Pierce R. Butler @ #116, I don’t know if he opposes any, but that’s not inconsistent with what I said @ #115, because the two points @ #115 are consistent with one another. I’m saying that I think his recognition of who Trump is and his desire to see him out of office are real – that he’s not “playing a game” in that sense.

  125. says

    SC @82:

    “Fiona Hill is setting fire to all the GOP talking points for anyone who is paying attention or cares. I know GOP is trying to construct an alternate reality but she is burning it all down.”

    Quite true.

    Unfortunately, I think some Republicans simply didn’t listen to that testimony. They didn’t hear it, or they couldn’t hear it.

  128. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 122 and to my comment 123.

    Trump also ignored, or simply did not/could not hear Fiona Hill:

    TRUMP: You know, it’s very interesting. They have the server, right, from the DNC, Democratic National Committee, you know.

    KILMEADE: Who has the server?

    TRUMP: The FBI went in and they told them, get out of here, you’re not getting — we’re not giving it to you. They gave the server to Crowdstrike, or whatever it’s called, which is a country — which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. And I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company? Why?

    DOOCY: Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?

    TRUMP: Well, that’s what the word is. That’s what I asked actually in my phone call, as you know.

    Commentary:

    To the extent that reality still has any meaning, we already know that everything the president said about this conspiracy theory is both wrong and crackpot nonsense. There is no ambiguity: the claim Trump keeps peddling, publicly and to national audiences, is just crazy. Even White House officials have urged the president not to believe it. He doesn’t care.

    But it’s not just factually incorrect. In the shadow of the impeachment inquiry, it’s also an example of Trump asking people to believe a discredited claim, that is, in Fiona Hill’s words, “being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services.”

    Or put another way, the American president is helping advance Kremlin propaganda intended to hurt the United States.

    Indeed, Trump wouldn’t let it go. “Don’t forget, Ukraine hated me,” he added this morning. “They were after me in the election. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win.”

    I don’t honestly expect the president to have watched Fiona Hill’s testimony, and he obviously wouldn’t read a transcript if it were handed to him. But there’s probably room for a public conversation about why Trump seems so eager to stick to the Russian script Hill urged officials to avoid.

    Link

  129. says

    Fake bestseller: The Republican National Committee spent about $95,000 to help make Donald Trump Jr.’s book a bestseller.

    NY Times link

    When Donald Trump Jr.’s new book “Triggered” appeared at the top of the New York Times best-seller list this month, a debate erupted over how and why it had claimed the No. 1 spot.

    The book, a broad attack on his critics, Democrats and the news media, was published on Nov. 5. The following week, it topped the list. But some skeptics noted that Mr. Trump had gotten a boost from his father’s Twitter feed and from the Republican National Committee, which emailed supporters the day the book came out, asking them to purchase signed copies and touting it as the book the “left doesn’t want you to read.”

    Others noted a tiny dagger symbol that appeared next to the title on the list, indicating that bulk purchases of the book had boosted its ranking. (Of the 10 nonfiction hardcover titles currently on The Times’s best-seller list, “Triggered” is the only one featuring that symbol.) […]

    a financial disclosure form filed to the Federal Election Commission showed that the R.N.C. paid $94,800 to the bookseller chain Books-A-Million on Oct. 29, a week before the book went on sale. Disclosures filed by the R.N.C. indicate that the payment was for “donor mementos.”

    When asked about the disclosure on Thursday, Mr. Reed confirmed that the money went toward “Triggered” orders, and added that the party committee made additional purchases in November. […]

  130. says

    From Josh Marshall:

    The Ukrainian at the center of the “Ukraine collusion” conspiracy just posted a picture of himself hanging out with John Voight at the Trump DC hotel. Because of course he did.

    Link

  131. says

    Shep Smith’s First Big Move After Fox: $500k Donation For Press Freedom

    TPM link

    Former Fox News anchor Shep Smith has emerged for the first time following his abrupt resignation last month.

    […] Smith made his first public appearance since his resignation last month at the International Press Freedom Awards hosted by the Committee to Protect Journalists on Thursday night. During the event, Smith announced that he would donate $500,000 to the nonprofit group, while calling for the defense of independent journalism.

    “Intimidation and vilification of the press is now a global phenomenon. We don’t have to look far for evidence of that,” Smith said at the event, which was met with applause, according to the Times. […]

    “Our belief a decade ago that the online revolution would liberate us now seems a bit premature, doesn’t it?” Smith said. “Autocrats have learned how to use those same online tools to shore up their power. They flood the world of information with garbage and lies, masquerading as news. There’s a phrase for that.”

    Smith also urged the media to not fall prey to government encroachment on press freedom.

    “We know that journalists are sometimes wary of being perceived as activists for some cause,” Smith said. “But press freedom is not the preserve of one political group or one political party. It’s a value embedded in our very foundational documents. Journalists need to join hands to defend it.”

    […] CNN’s Jeff Zucker expressed interest in hiring the “very talented” Shep Smith as soon as his contract allows him work again. […]

  135. says

    “With all his old buddies in the senate gearing up to destroy his life in the name of shielding Trump from clear abuses of power, I wonder if Biden will recognize that Trump is the culmination of authoritarian trends in the Republican Party rather than an aberration.

    Biden’s only crime here was running against Trump, and in doing so, becoming the target of the president’s extortion scheme. For his treason against the king, and for this alone, he must be punished.”

  136. says

    From Wonkette:

    […] Trump did another of his marathon phone calls to “Fox & Friends” this morning where he ranted for nearly an hour, repeatedly ignoring the hosts’ subtle cues that now would be a good time to wrap up […]

    Along the way, he repeated his favorite debunked conspiracy about supposed Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, plus a lot of other stuff, prompting even Steve Doocy to make a pretense of asking him if he had any facts to back up his crazy claims. Trump. doesn’t need “proof,” so he just insisted he was right and kept talking, which is how logic works, after all. Let’s take a look at the weirdness!

    Because we love you, we will not subject you to the full video […] The interview started off with the latest Shiny Object for wingnuts, the news that a minor FBI lawyer got shitcanned for turning in bad paperwork. Rightwing media are already running with the idea that the Justice Department’s forthcoming inspector general review of the Russia probe will be earthshaking, and Trump is definitely delirious over those tremors: […] “What you’re going to see, I predict, will be perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of our country.”

    Then it was time for Trump to insist yet again that Ukraine has the “hacked DNC server” hidden away, even though that’s multiply-debunked bullshit. […]

    “Trump’s ‘Missing DNC Server’ Is Neither Missing Nor a Server”:

    1) There’s no such thing as “the DNC server” that got hacked. It’s not a single machine that was broken into and then carted off and buried in a rich Ukrainian’s back yard.

    The “server” Trump is obsessed with is actually 140 servers, most of them cloud-based, which the DNC was forced to decommission in June 2016 while trying to rid its network of the Russian GRU officers working to help Trump win the election […] Another 180 desktop and laptop computers were also swapped out as the DNC raced to get the organization back on its feet and free of Putin’s surveillance.

    Anyone trying to explain to Trump […] that there was no single machine will of course be laughed off for making stuff up […]! And you certainly can’t hand a “cloud” over to a Ukrainian!

    2) The article then goes on to explain, in ittle bitty words, why the FBI wouldn’t have been able to just go in and grab all the DNC’s machines, because that’s not how computer networks even work, but you’ve already lost Trump. It was A SERVER, and “network” is just a lot of made-up wizard words to hide the truth.

    Also 3) Oh, yeah, and there’s no Ukrainian who “owns” Crowdstrike, either, as Axios notes:

    Trump also said that Crowdstrike is owned by “a very wealthy Ukrainian,” but it’s actually a publicly-traded company. Its largest outside shareholder is Warburg Pincus, a New York City private equity firm from which Trump plucked one of his top economic advisors.

    Why does Trump think Crowdstrike is owned by a “very wealthy Ukrainian”? Your guess is as good as ours! Its CEO, George Kurtz, is from New Jersey. Its co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a Russian expat, and is still the company’s chief tech officer, so we guess that’s close?

    Then it was time for the ranting and rambling and bad poetry. In a crazy kind of urgency, with Trump talking over the hosts and insisting he’s never met the people he appointed to top posts. And who the hell is this Sondland guy, who somehow moved from being EU ambassador and how the hell did he even get involved with Ukraine, it is all a mystery to Donald Trump! But he knows that Yovanovitch lady! She is very bad news! […]

    We feel compelled to transcribe just this one full-batshit ramble on the many (perceived) crimes of Marie Yovanovitch:

    This ambassador that everyone says is so wonderful, she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy. OK, she’s in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it! It took like a year and a half or 2 years for her to get the picture up. She said bad things about me, she wouldn’t defend me, and I have the right to change an ambassador. And Rudy didn’t say good things, but he wasn’t crazy about it, it wasn’t, like, a major topic, but, I have the right to change, this was an Obama person, wouldn’t, didn’t want to hang my picture in the embassy, it’s standard is you put the picture of the president of the United States picture in an embassy. This was not an angel, this woman, OK? And there are a lot of things that she did that I didn’t like. And we will talk about that at some time. But I just want you to know: This is not a baby that we’re dealing with.

    CBS News notes a member of Yovanovitch’s legal team said the embassy put up portraits of Trump, Mike Pence, and the Secretary of State “as soon as they arrived from Washington, D.C.” But the story also pointed out that 2017 Washington Post story that a lot of federal buildings in the US and worldwide lacked photos of Trump and Pence because eight months after taking office, Trump and Pence hadn’t yet sat for official photos to be distributed by the the Government Publishing Office. […]

    Trump also fretted Yovanovitch wasn’t beat up on enough by the Republicans in the hearings: “I said ‘why are you being so kind?’ ‘Well, sir, she’s a woman. We have to be nice,'” which you know is a lie because of the “sir.” […]

    Of course Trump may have to return to the hospital for more medical exams because he so upset about his picture not being hung in the embassy in Ukraine.

  138. says

    Brony @132, thank you. We appreciate the vote of confidence.

    From SC’s link in comment 131:

    Republicans have sought for weeks amid the impeachment inquiry to shift attention to […] Trump’s demands that Ukraine investigate any 2016 election meddling, defending it as a legitimate concern while Democrats accuse Mr. Trump of pursuing fringe theories for his benefit.

    The Republican defense of Mr. Trump became central to the impeachment proceedings when Fiona Hill, a respected Russia scholar and former senior White House official, added a harsh critique during testimony on Thursday. She told some of Mr. Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress that they were repeating “a fictional narrative” — and that it likely came from a disinformation campaign by Russian security services, which themselves propagated it.

    […] American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election […]

    The revelations demonstrate Russia’s persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries — and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points. […]

    Russia has engaged in a “long pattern of deflection” to pin blame for its malevolent acts on other countries, Dr. Hill said, not least Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. […]

    But the campaign by Russian intelligence in recent years has been even more complex as Moscow tries not only to undermine the government in Kyiv but also to use a disinformation campaign there to influence the American political debate.

    […] Russian intelligence operatives deployed a network of agents to blame Ukraine for its 2016 interference. Starting at least in 2017, the operatives peddled a mixture of now-debunked conspiracy theories along with established facts to leave an impression that the government in Kyiv, not Moscow, was responsible for the hackings of Democrats and its other interference efforts in 2016 […]

  141. says

    From the Washington Post:

    […] It’s time to drop the posture that Trump’s defenders can be shamed into accepting what has been unearthed, or that they can be shamed into arguing from a baseline of shared democratic values, or into arguing over how to interpret a comprehensive set of shared facts.

    Instead, let’s rhetorically treat Trump’s defenders as his criminal accomplices. Not just as “enablers” of Trump’s corruption but as active participants in it.

    Once this is accepted, it becomes obvious why they can’t be “won over,” because they are actively engaged in keeping the corruption in question from getting fully uncovered, in the belief that they, too, benefit from it, and that they, too, lose out if it’s exposed. […]

    on Fox News, Trump just boasted that Barr’s “review” of the origins of the Russia investigation will show a huge “scandal,” that is, show that he was right all along. We’ll soon see about that, but it’s plainly obvious that Barr and those allied with him in this project cannot be shamed into playing this one by facts.

    Instead, Barr is using the Justice Department to accomplish precisely the same rewriting of 2016 that drove Trump’s corrupt scheme in the first place — putting Trump’s reelection needs over the findings of our own intelligence services.

    The point here isn’t that describing Trump’s defenders in these ways has no truth or utility at all. Surely some might actually feel cowed by Trump voters or feel secret shame in smearing Vindman. Surely shaming smears has worth.

    Rather, the point is we need a much more fundamental change in our underlying treatment of the moment. We need to approach it from the premise that Trump’s defenders are not “gettable” because they are accomplices in the whole scheme — and forthrightly describe what’s happening in kind.

    Excerpted from a much longer article.

  144. says

    From Dan Spinelli, writing for Mother Jones:

    […] Giuliani would go on to embellish the tale further, suggesting in late September on several news shows that [George] Soros somehow masterminded the federal investigation into Manafort’s illicit lobbying for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

    […] Giuliani has described AntAC as “Soros’ NGO” and falsely claimed it “developed all of the dirty information that ended up being a false document that was created in order to incriminate Manafort.” The document Giuliani seems to be referencing is the so-called “black ledger,” which listed secret payments to Manafort for off-the-books consulting work related to Ukraine. But AntAC did not produce that information and wasn’t responsible for publicizing the document. Artem Sytnyk, director of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine, and Serhiy Leshchenko, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament, first disclosed the information, parts of which have since been verified by the Associated Press and other outlets. “My desire to expose Manafort’s doings was motivated by the desire for justice,” Leshchenko wrote in a September op-ed in the Washington Post. “Neither Hillary Clinton, nor Joe Biden, nor John Podesta, nor George Soros asked me to publish the information from the black ledger.”

    […] The implication, moreover, that AntAC is simply a tool for Soros to accrue power or wage political war on Trump is absurd. Soros was far from AntAC’s only donor. According to Daria Kaleniuk, the group’s cofounder, it has also received funding from the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and more than 500 Ukrainians, among others. […]

    Soros’ name has become so toxic in Republican circles that lobbyists—representing clients from Guatemala, Albania, and other countries—have taken to linking US diplomats they dislike to Soros. The Daily Beast reported last week that the attacks are “tailor-made to Trump’s idiosyncratic sensibilities.” Fiona Hill, formerly a senior official on Trump’s National Security Council, was accused by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone of being a “Soros mole.” During her public testimony on Thursday, Hill called the anti-Soros conspiracy theories an “absolute outrage” and compared them to the notorious, anti-Semitic propaganda known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

    Tamkin told me that for decades, critics have impugned Soros’ efforts to promote democracy in Europe, but that these more recent criticisms have entered the realm of “deeply anti-Semtic make-believe.”

    “He has funded work throughout the world. He does know different world leaders. All of that is true,” she said. “That’s different from him running the State Department, which is he is not doing.”

    Link

    Excerpted from a much longer article.

    Some background on AntAC:

    […] The argument here hinges on AntAC, the anti-corruption group […] which received roughly 17 percent of its funding through 2018 from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. In March, then-Ukrainian prosecutor-general Yuri Lutsenko told Solomon that he was handed a list by then-US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch of several individuals that Ukraine should not prosecute, including a founder of AntAC and two lawmakers supportive of its anti-corruption efforts. Shortly before Lutsenko took office, the prosecutor-general’s office was investigating whether $4.4 million in US aid had been misused by various recipients, including AntAC. As Solomon detailed it in the Hill, the supposed do-not-prosecute list looked like an Obama administration effort to shield Soros.

    Kent, in his capacity as the US embassy’s deputy chief of mission, told the prosecutor-general’s office in a letter that the United States had no concerns that its grant money had been misused and did not see any grounds for the investigation of AntAC. […] “The accusations were completely without merit,” Kent said, adding that his critics in the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office “fundamentally misunderstood how our assistance is administered.”

    The probe into AntAC was later dropped due to a lack of evidence. More importantly, the central conceit of the story—that Yovanovitch instructed Lutsenko not to prosecute various individuals—was retracted. Lutsenko eventually acknowledged to a Ukrainian news outlet that she never gave him a list of names. […]

  145. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Bolton accuses White House of blocking access to his personal Twitter account

    Former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday accused the White House of having blocked access to his personal Twitter account for more than two months.

    Returning to Twitter for the first time since September, Bolton said he was “speaking up.”

    “[S]ince resigning as National Security Advisor, the @WhiteHouse refused to return access to my personal Twitter account. Out of fear of what I may say? To those who speculated I went into hiding, I’m sorry to disappoint!”

    It is not immediately clear how the White House would have blocked access to a personal Twitter account.
    […]
    A person close to Bolton, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the tweets were sent by him.

    But of course he won’t testify without a court order. That way he can keep his credibility with the right wing wackos he ties himself to.

  146. says

    The kind of people of pay Trump money in order to hold their events at Mar-a-Lago:

    A far-right group that alleges that Islamic extremists are infiltrating the U.S. government is set to hold a banquet this weekend at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, according to permits for the event obtained by The Washington Post.

    The Center for Security Policy and its leaders have spread the lie that former President Obama is a Muslim and have also falsely alleged that Muslim organizations in the United States have anti-American beliefs, […] It is labeled a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    The group has rented a ballroom for Saturday at Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla. […]

    The permit obtained by the Post says the event will cost approximately $53,000. The organization told the newspaper that it is “a private event.” […]

    Link

  147. says

    The Awful Truth About Impeachment, an article in The New Yorker, written by susan B. Glasser.

    Facts be damned is Trump’s approach, and it’s working.

    […] The G.O.P. defense, in essence, is that facts are irrelevant, no matter how damning or inconvenient, and that Trump has the power to do whatever he wants, even if it seems inappropriate, improper, or simply wrong. […] Democrats on Thursday evening signalled that they will move ahead with impeachment by the full House anyway, and soon. It was a grim choice, made with the knowledge that the case against Trump will likely proceed without any Republican votes, or even testimony from key Administration witnesses who have obeyed the President’s command not to appear.

    […] From the start of the inquiry into his scheme to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations for his personal political benefit, the President has defined winning as making sure that impeachment remained an entirely partisan issue, with Democrats pushing it and Republicans standing with him to oppose it. By that standard, he was winning before the hearings—and he is still winning after them. If anything, his political hand is now even stronger as Republicans, presented with incontrovertible facts, have chosen not to accept them—and to become even more vociferous in Trump’s defense.

    On Thursday morning, in what was meant to be the powerful culminating moment of the hearings, [Fiona] Hill gave a searing statement to Republican members of the panel about the big lie behind Trump’s demand that Ukraine investigate its own alleged intervention in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, an obsession of the President’s because he hoped to disprove the massive Russian interference on his behalf in that campaign. Trump and his defenders, she made clear, are simply trafficking in Russian-fuelled conspiracy theories. It is a “fictional narrative,” Hill told the committee calmly and authoritatively, a hoax “perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.” […]

    Republicans, though, chose to dispute it. They had accepted this fact in the past, but now it was politically inconvenient for the President. Trump did not want to believe it, and so Republicans wouldn’t, either. If anyone thought that Hill’s stirring insistence on the facts would have any effect, that notion was quickly dispelled. By 11:23 a.m., the Trump campaign had sent out a “rapid response” to its e-mail list, with the subject heading “Ukrainian election interference.” It was a two-sentence missive, introducing a new conspiracy linking the House Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Adam Schiff, to the one that Hill had just so eloquently debunked. “There’s a simple reason Adam Schiff wants to deny Ukraine interfered in U.S. politics,” the e-mail said. “He was willing to collude with them.”

    […] Confronted after the hearing with Hill’s unequivocal statement that Ukraine had not interfered in the U.S. election, the House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, a man who once mocked Trump for being in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, simply refused to accept it. “I think they did,” he told reporters. […]

    If Republicans were now willing to disavow a fact they had previously acknowledged, it seemed more and more apparent that they could not be swayed by any of the actual evidence against Trump. On Wednesday, Sondland told the committee that Trump had personally directed him to work with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to force Ukraine’s hand on the investigations, leveraging a White House meeting sought by Ukraine’s new President. “Was there a quid pro quo?” Sondland testified. “The answer is yes.” But many committee Republicans simply twisted that statement around, repeating Trump’s misleading words to Sondland that there had been “no quid pro,” as if the President’s denial were the only proof needed of his innocence. […]

    […] Hill and Yovanovitch were fierce, smart, and uncompromising in their insistence on facts. They came to the center of political attention as genuinely apolitical experts who have remained nonpartisan over their long careers, which was almost inconceivable to the partisan warriors who dismissed their sworn testimonies because accepting their nonpartisanship would mean having to accept that there is a world beyond the you’re-with-me-or-against-me one that Trump has imposed upon the Republican Party. […]

    the panel heard from seventeen witnesses, a dozen of them in public sessions. Not one of them disputed the essential facts of the case. […]

  148. says

    Adam Serwer in the Atlantic – “Trump’s Crime Against America”:

    …All of these arguments, ranging from the weak to the false, obscure the core reason for the impeachment inquiry, which is that the Trump administration was engaged in a conspiracy against American democracy. Fearing that the 2016 election was a fluke in which Trump prevailed only because of a successful Russian hacking and disinformation campaign, and a last-minute intervention on Trump’s behalf by the very national-security state Trump defenders supposedly loathe, Trump and his advisers sought to rig the 2020 election by forcing a foreign country to implicate the then-Democratic front-runner in a crime that did not take place. If the American people could not be trusted to choose Trump on their own, Trump would use his official powers to make the choice for them.

    It was, in short, a conspiracy by Trump and his advisers to keep themselves in power, the exact scenario for which the Framers of the Constitution devised the impeachment clause….

    …

    …Trump was not concerned about “corruption” in Ukraine—his own Pentagon and State Department had certified that Ukraine had taken sufficient steps to root out corruption. Nor was Trump particularly interested in an actual investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden—what he wanted was a public accusation that he could use to cripple a political rival’s aspirations. Trump was not defying the bipartisan war lobby in an effort to extricate the U.S. from foreign entanglements, and he was not engaged in a dispute over policy with unelected bureaucrats pursuing their own agenda, because he was fundamentally uninterested in the policy in question, except in that it might be exploited to benefit him personally.

    Trump saw an opportunity to strong-arm a weaker country into helping him win reelection, he abused his presidential authority to coerce it into doing so, and then he and his advisers sought to hide what they had done in order to maximize the public impact of the conspiracy. This plot, spearheaded by Giuliani, had already drawn credulous coverage from sympathetic reporters, and would likely have succeeded had the anonymous whistle-blower not registered a complaint exposing the scheme on September 9, which forced the Trump administration to release the aid to Ukraine on September 11.

    …

    Trump’s defenders, having previously insisted that there was no “quid pro quo” involved in the president’s effort to extort Ukraine using taxpayer dollars, are slowly shifting to insisting, as much of the president’s base already believed, that Trump did nothing wrong. This is of a piece with the general anti-democracy trend in the Republican Party, which justly fears that the majority of the country no longer supports its agenda, and that extreme measures must be taken to shield its grip on power from democratic accountability.

    The Republican Party has responded to the increasing diversity of the electorate with an accelerating intolerance for ethnic and religious minorities, and with elaborate schemes to disenfranchise rival constituencies and rig election rules to its advantage. Crucial to this effort is its conviction that the Republican electorate is the only one that can confer legitimacy on elected officials, and that the party’s political opponents are no longer wrong but fundamentally illegitimate, faithless usurpers with no right to determine the direction of the country. This has manifested in the quasi-religious dogma that Trump represents the will of Real America, and therefore defiance of his will is itself a form of treason.

    Believing that Republican officials will be convinced by the evidence proffered by Trump’s own staff and political appointees is a mistake, because the underlying facts are not genuinely in dispute. Trumpists are not operating from an ethical framework that even allows acknowledgment that the president is capable of being guilty. Trump is the nation, and the nation cannot commit treason against itself. On the contrary, it is Joe Biden who is guilty of betrayal, defying the tribune of the people by seeking to run against him, and it is Trump’s treacherous staff who convict themselves of treason with every statement that implicates the president. The more evidence of Trump’s misdeeds the Democrats uncover, the more they reveal themselves as traitors. For Trumpists, there is no higher patriotism than bending to Trump’s will, and no more base corruption than defying it.

    The impeachment inquiry has revealed the president’s personal corruption, but it has uncovered a more abstract one as well. The broken reputations of weak, conniving men litter the Trump era like corpses on a Civil War battlefield. Each of them believed, as some Trump officials currently do, that the president’s racism and corruption might be bent toward legitimate ends, and each of them has paid the price for his folly.

    In only one sense have they succeeded: The president’s economic populism and his promises not to destroy the welfare state have been replaced with the traditional Republican agenda of providing low taxes for the wealthy, and freeing corporations from regulations designed to protect the public from their greed. But as the impeachment inquiry shows, it is Trump who has bent the establishment to his will, turning the party of Lincoln into little more than a subsidiary of the Trump Organization, with no higher purpose than executing the president’s corrupt schemes and shielding him from the potential consequences.

    The rest of the country, however, should not lose sight of why the president is being impeached, and it is not because of a good-faith dispute over Ukraine policy. Trump and his advisers conspired to rig the 2020 election on his behalf, scheming to defraud the American people of a free and fair election. A genuine republic cannot survive chief executives who utilize their powers to make anyone who might challenge their authority into a criminal by extorting weaker entities into leveling false charges at their political rivals. Indeed, the republic’s Founders foresaw such a circumstance, and created the impeachment clause as a last resort against it. The high crime that the president has committed is not against Ukraine, but against America.

    This may have little meaning to the minority of Americans who have decided that Trump is the only legitimate vessel of popular will, and that the only legitimate election is one that ends with Trump’s victory. But it matters to everyone else.

    I’ll once again link to my post “The Hugenberg Lesson.”

  149. says

    Daniel Dale and Tara Subramaniam at CNN – “Trump makes at least 18 false claims in ranting Fox & Friends interview”:

    Fox & Friends tried harder than usual — not especially hard, but harder than usual — to challenge President Donald Trump.

    It did not work very well.

    Trump ranted dishonestly for much of his 53-minute Friday interview with his favorite morning show, repeatedly refusing to let the show’s co-hosts get in a word in edgewise. When they did manage to make a semi-critical point, Trump brushed them off.

    When co-host Steve Doocy asked Trump if he was sure about his claim that the Democratic National Committee had given an important computer server that was hacked in 2016 to Ukraine (they had not), Trump said, providing no evidence and citing no sources, “That’s what the word is.”

    When co-host Brian Kilmeade corrected Trump’s claim that European countries haven’t provided aid to Ukraine, Trump didn’t respond. (Kilmeade had quickly moved on to the next question.) When Kilmeade corrected Trump’s claim that he has “pulled out” of Syria, noting that Trump is keeping hundreds of soldiers in the country, Trump again said nothing. (Kilmeade quickly moved on again.)

    Trump made at least 18 false claims in the interview — and that’s our initial count. We’re still looking into some other claims.

    The list so far:…

  150. says

    CNN – “House GOP disregards expert warnings that debunked Ukraine theory helps Russia”:

    Expert after expert in the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump testified about one key fact: That Ukraine had no role interfering in the 2016 elections to help Hillary Clinton. And one key witness sounded the alarm even louder.

    “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated by the Russian security services themselves,” said Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, in testimony that reflects what US intelligence officials have privately told lawmakers in recent months.

    But to House Republicans, that’s all just a bunch of talk.

    Asked after Hill’s testimony if he believed Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said: “I think they did.”

    McCarthy is hardly alone. Amid the impeachment fight where Trump is demanding loyalty from congressional Republicans, most are unwilling to break from the President — even on a matter that national security experts warn could help Russia in its efforts to undermine Ukraine.

    Moreover, US intelligence officials who briefed senators in recent months have reiterated the point that Russia has been engaging in a years-long effort to shift the blame of Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election to Ukraine, a message that has been echoed during public testimony by Hill and other witnesses in the impeachment inquiry.

    But even Republicans who have sat for the closed-door depositions before the impeachment probe refuse to accept the notion that Ukraine had no role in interfering in 2016. And asmid Trump’s continued criticism of the country, some won’t even accept the idea that Ukraine is a “key strategic ally.”

    “OK, suddenly they’re a key strategic ally?” said Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and participated in numerous depositions in the impeachment inquiry. “I never heard that before the last eight weeks — never heard that Ukraine was a key strategic ally.”

    Perry added: “I’m not disputing that they are a key ally and a strategic ally, but it’s just interesting how you phrase that in this context like they can’t survive without a White House meeting.”

    …

    If Republicans began to accept the belief among national security experts in the US government that Ukraine had no role in 2016, they would further isolate Trump and underscore the notion that he is embracing a conspiracy theory. Yet few Republicans see things differently than the President.

    “I do think there is ample evidence of Ukraine having engagement and involvement with things talking about a 2016 election,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who sits on the House Oversight Committee and sat through some of the closed-door depositions in the impeachment inquiry. “So, I think there is more than enough evidence on that.”

    Told about Hill’s testimony that such a theory bolsters Russia’s case, Roy shot back: “In what kind of universe, in what universe are these things mutually exclusive?”

    In a briefing for senators this fall that closely aligned with witness testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, senators were told that the Russian disinformation operation focused on a handful of Ukrainians who openly criticized or sought to damage Trump’s candidacy — efforts that were significantly less organized than the multi-faceted election interference push ordered by Vladimir Putin, one US official said.

    US intelligence officials also told lawmakers that Russia used intelligence operatives to spread now debunked conspiracies, along with established facts, to frame Ukraine for the interference in the 2016 campaign, the official said.

    Russian intelligence officers conveyed that information to prominent Russians and Ukrainians, including oligarchs, to pass along to US political figures and some journalists who likely were unaware of where it came from, according to the same official.

    Yet during the impeachment hearings, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee continued to embrace Ukraine’s role.

    “Look, we all know that Russia meddled in the election,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told CNN after the Thursday hearing. “But that’s not to say that Ukraine didn’t try to influence the election.”

    During two weeks of hearings, Ukraine’s alleged role was a constant refrain for the GOP.

    “What is the full extent of Ukraine’s election meddling against the Trump campaign in 2016?” California Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on House Intelligence, said at Tuesday’s impeachment hearing, citing one of the questions he says Republicans want answered….

  151. says

    CNN – “Biden: Lindsey Graham will ‘regret his whole life’ doing Trump’s bidding on Ukraine”:

    Joe Biden said he is “embarrassed” for South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham over the Republican’s willingness to do President Donald Trump’s bidding and investigate the former vice president’s actions in Ukraine.

    “Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life,” Biden told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview Friday in South Carolina.

    Asked what he would say to Graham, who in the past had expressed his admiration for his long-time Senate colleague, Biden said: “I say Lindsey, I just — I’m just embarrassed by what you’re doing, for you. I mean, my Lord.”

    Graham, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, this week requested documents related to Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s previous work in Ukraine. He is seeking documents from the State Department of Joe Biden’s phone calls with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in February and March 2016 — including whether there was any mention of the country’s investigation into the business activities of Mykola Zlochevsky, who owned the natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden served on the board. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

    “They have him under their thumb right now. They know he knows that if he comes out against Trump, he’s got a real tough road for reelection, number one,” Biden said of Graham.

    “I am disappointed, and quite frankly I’m angered, by the fact — he knows me; he knows my son; he knows there’s nothing to this,” Biden said. “Trump is now essentially holding power over him that even the Ukrainians wouldn’t yield to. The Ukrainians would not yield to, quote, ‘investigate Biden’ — there’s nothing to investigate about Biden or his son.”…

  152. says

    Scott Conroy re the video of Graham crying as he sings the praises of his great friend Joe Biden (atl):

    I see this video has been making the rounds on the World Wide Web today. A couple points of context, since it’s from an interview I did with Lindsey in 2015…

    1. We were in rural Iowa following Graham around on his presidential campaign. Remember when Lindsey Graham ran for president? Me neither. But he did.

    2. I barely mentioned Biden’s name, and he just went off like this, almost entirely unprompted. I’d never been around a politician speaking in such a heartfelt, obviously genuine way about another politician–let alone a politician from another party.

    3. I spent a lot of time with Lindsey during his presidential campaign (which , again, was an actual thing), and let me assure you: Lindsey Graham thinks that Donald Trump is a bully, demagogue, clown, a national joke. It’s another thing he’d bring up frequently, unprompted.

    4. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how someone with any integrity could beclown themselves so fully by boosting a President they know is a dangerous buffoon. And the most reasonable answer is the simplest: He wants to feel powerful/important, as he’s said himself. That’s it.

  153. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Blackburn attacks Vindman, calls him whistleblower’s ‘handler’

    Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) attacked Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the impeachment inquiry, alleging Friday that he was a “handler” for the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the impeachment probe.

    “Vindictive Vindman is the ‘whistleblower’s’ handler,” she wrote in a Friday tweet.

    Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient, testified Tuesday that he was alarmed by Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which Vindman called “improper.” He also testified under oath that he doesn’t know who the whistleblower is.

    Through her attack, Blackburn joins a chorus of Trump’s allies who have questioned Vindman’s loyalty to the United States. Some have cited the fact that he immigrated to the United States as a toddler from the Soviet Union.

    Responding to Blackburn on Friday, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said he “feels sorry for Senator Blackburn and for anybody who feels required by partisan politics to embarrass themselves by smearing the good name of a patriot.”

    By Michael Brice-Saddler

  156. says

    Politico – “State Dept. documents reveal contact between Pompeo and Giuliani”:

    The State Department released a cache of records Friday night revealing communication between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rudy Giuliani, even as the Trump administration continues to stonewall the House impeachment investigation.

    The 100 pages of documents show repeated contact in March between Pompeo and Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, with the help of White House officials. They were released at the eleventh hour of a court-ordered deadline as part of a lawsuit by the non-profit watchdog American Oversight to uncover records concerning Trump’s actions on Ukraine.

    A March 27 email in the released records revealed Trump’s former personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout helped put Giuliani in contact with Pompeo after Giuliani’s team had “been trying and getting nowhere through regular channels.”

    The documents back up bombshell testimony from Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland this week alleging senior administration officials were in the loop on Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

    Pompeo has distanced himself from Giuliani’s dealings with Ukraine as he weighs his own broader political ambitions, including a run for Senate in Kansas. The White House has said it will not cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry.

    …

    The documents also reveal Rep. Devin Nunes, an ardent Trump ally and the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was on Pompeo’s call list only a few days after Giuliani.

    …

    Publicly, Pompeo has largely kept quiet on the Ukraine saga, drawing criticism for silencing and not protecting his own staffers, including former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her post just as Giuliani was kicking off his pressure campaign in the country.

    The released documents also include a letter signed by six former U.S. ambassadors praising Yovanovitch.

    Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement that the records released Friday offer more damning evidence in the impeachment inquiry and called the administration’s continued efforts to blockade the investigation tantamount to obstruction of justice.

    “We can see why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress,” Evers wrote. “It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani’s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.”

    The documents are available here. Evers said they have “dozens” more FOIA requests outstanding.

  157. says

    CNN – “Exclusive: Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden”:

    A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden.

    The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.

    “Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,” said Bondy.

    Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases.

    Nunes is one of President Donald Trump’s key allies in Congress and has emerged as a staunch defender of the President during the impeachment inquiry, which he has frequently labeled as a “circus.” Nunes declined repeated requests for comment.

    Bondy tells CNN that his client and Nunes began communicating around the time of the Vienna trip. Parnas says he worked to put Nunes in touch with Ukrainians who could help Nunes dig up dirt on Biden and Democrats in Ukraine, according to Bondy.

    That information would likely be of great interest to House Democrats given its overlap with the current impeachment inquiry into President Trump, and could put Nunes in a difficult spot.

    Bondy tells CNN his client is willing to comply with a Congressional subpoena for documents and testimony as part of the impeachment inquiry in a manner that would allow him to protect his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

    Bondy suggested in a tweet on Friday that he was already speaking to House Intel though the committee declined to comment.

    …

    Parnas’ claims that Nunes met with Shokin, which has not been previously reported, add further context to a Daily Beast report that Parnas helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Nunes last year, citing another Parnas’ lawyer, Ed McMahon.

    Those revelations came to a head on Thursday when Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell raised the Daily Beast story publicly during the impeachment hearing.

    …

    Over the past two weeks, CNN approached Nunes on two occasions and reached out to his communications staff to get comment for this story.

    In the Capitol on Nov. 14, as CNN began to ask a question about the trip to Vienna, Nunes interjected and said, “I don’t talk to you in this lifetime or the next lifetime.”

    “At any time,” Nunes added. “On any question.”

    Asked again on Thursday about his travel to Vienna and his interactions with Shokin and Parnas, Nunes gave a similar response.

    “To be perfectly clear, I don’t acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime or the next lifetime,” Nunes said while leaving the impeachment hearing. “I don’t acknowledge any question from you ever.”

    CNN was unable to reach Shokin for comment.

    Congressional travel records show that Nunes and three aides traveled to Europe from November 30 to December 3, 2018. The records do not specify that Nunes and his staff went to Vienna or Austria, and Nunes was not required to disclose the exact details of the trip.

    Nunes’ entourage included retired colonel Derek Harvey, who had previously worked for Trump on the National Security Council, and now works for Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee. Harvey declined to comment.

    Bondy told CNN that Nunes planned the trip to Vienna after Republicans lost control of the House in the mid-term elections on Nov. 6, 2018.

    “Mr. Parnas learned through Nunes’ investigator, Derek Harvey, that the Congressman had sequenced this trip to occur after the mid-term elections yet before Congress’ return to session, so that Nunes would not have to disclose the trip details to his Democrat colleagues in Congress,” said Bondy.

    At the time of the trip, Nunes was chairman of the Intelligence Committee. In January, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff took over as chairman of the powerful committee, which is now conducting the impeachment inquiry.  

    Bondy says that according to his client, following a brief in-person meeting in late 2018, Parnas and Nunes had at least two more phone conversations, and that Nunes instructed Parnas to work with Harvey on the Ukraine matters.

    Parnas says that shortly after the Vienna trip, he and Harvey met at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where they discussed claims about the Bidens as well as allegations of Ukrainian election interference, according to Bondy.  

    Following this, Bondy says that in a phone conversation Nunes told Parnas that he was conducting his own investigation into the Bidens and asked Parnas for help validating information he’d gathered from conversations with various current and former Ukrainian officials, including Shokin. 

    Parnas says that Nunes told him he’d been partly working off of information from the journalist John Solomon, who had written a number of articles on the Biden conspiracy theory for the Hill, according to Bondy.  

    CNN reached out to Harvey on multiple occasions for comment. Reached by phone on Friday morning, Harvey refused to comment and directed CNN to contact the communications director for Nunes. That person, Jack Langer, did not respond to numerous requests for comment from CNN. A spokesman for Schiff declined to comment for this story.

    Bondy tells CNN that Parnas is also willing to tell Congress about a series of regular meetings he says he took part in at the Trump International Hotel in Washington that concerned Ukraine. According to Bondy, Parnas became part of what he described as a “team” that met several times a week in a private room at the BLT restaurant on the second floor of the Trump Hotel. In addition to giving the group access to key people in Ukraine who could help their cause, Parnas translated their conversations, Bondy said.

    The group, according to Bondy,  included Giuliani, Parnas, the journalist Solomon, and the married attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing. Parnas said that Harvey would occasionally be present as well, and that it was Parnas’ understanding that Harvey was Nunes’ proxy, Bondy said. 

    Solomon confirmed the meetings to CNN but said that calling the group a team was a bit of a mischaracterization. Solomon said that connectivity happened more organically, and that his role was only as a journalist reporting a story. 

    …

    Solomon no longer works at the Hill. After Solomon’s reporting came under intense scrutiny during the impeachment inquiry, the paper announced it is reviewing his work.

    …

    On Thursday, Bondy promoted the hashtag #LetLevSpeak on Twitter in response to a number of questions about whether Parnas would testify in front of Congress….

  158. says

    Time – “Exclusive: CEO of Ukraine State Gas Firm Preparing to Testify in Giuliani Probe”:

    The CEO of Ukraine’s state gas company, Naftogaz, is ready to give evidence in a U.S. federal investigation that is reportedly probing the business dealings of Rudy Giuliani, the CEO said in an exclusive interview on Friday.

    “I will with a high likelihood be invited to testify in this case,” Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev told TIME, citing his lawyers and contacts in the U.S. “If I am called, I would be willing to come and testify,” Kobolyev added.

    Federal prosecutors are investigating Giuliani for possible campaign finance violations and illegal lobbying, according to reports published in the past week by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, both of which cited unnamed U.S. officials and sources familiar with the matter.

    These reports claimed that the investigation stems from a federal case against two of Giuliani’s associates, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, who were indicted last month for allegedly violating campaign finance laws. Giuliani has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

    The planned closed-door testimony from Kobolyev, which has not previously been reported, could shed light on recent allegations from U.S. and Ukrainian energy executives that Parnas and Fruman tried to use their connections to Giuliani and the Trump Administration to replace the leadership of Naftogaz, which had resisted their efforts to land a lucrative gas deal in Ukraine.

    Asked whether he is preparing to give prosecutors information about Giuliani or about Parnas and Fruman, the executive said, “Both. Everything is connected.”

    Giuliani has simultaneously been acting as President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and diplomatic envoy while pursuing his own lucrative business interests. In one or several of those roles, Giuliani has been working with Fruman and Parnas.

    …

    Kobolyev declined to comment on what he planned to tell investigators about Giuliani or his two associates: “I would not want to preempt my testimony,” the gas executive told TIME.

    A spokesman for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on Friday.

    Any testimony from Kobolyev would come on top of the statements that another Naftogaz executive, Andrew Favorov, gave investigators on Thursday in New York City.

    Kobolyev interrupted his interview with TIME at his office in Kyiv Friday, saying he wanted to call his colleague Favorov on the phone to ask how his interview with federal investigators had gone, and whether Favorov would be going back on Friday to provide more testimony.

    “He finished yesterday,” Kobolyev said after finishing the mid-interview phone call. “He said it was a very unusual experience,” the CEO added, referring to Favorov. “He said he has never gone through questioning like that. I also heard these guys are very, um, very hard, the southern district prosecutors. They’re some of the best in the states.”

    …

    Despite [Parnas’ and Fruman’s] arrest and the ongoing investigation of Giuliani in New York, the head of Naftogaz says the political campaign to remove him from office may not yet be over. “Some pressure does probably exist,” Kobolyev tells TIME. “But whether it is connected to past events, something that is still inertia from what happened, from attempts that took place in the spring, I can’t say for sure.”

  160. says

    Reuters – “Exclusive: U.S. Navy secretary backs SEAL’s expulsion review, despite Trump objection”:

    U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said on Friday a Navy SEAL convicted of battlefield misconduct should face a board of peers weighing whether to oust him from the elite force, despite President Donald Trump’s assertion that he not be expelled.

    “I believe the process matters for good order and discipline,” Spencer told Reuters, weighing in on a confrontation between Trump and senior Navy officials over the outcome of a high-profile war-crimes case.

    …

    Last Friday, Trump intervened in the case, ordering the Navy to restore Gallagher’s rank and pay and clearing the way for him to retire on a full pension.

    But Navy brass notified Gallagher, 40, on Tuesday that a five-member panel of fellow Navy commandos would convene on Dec. 2 to review his case and recommend whether the decorated platoon leader is fit to remain in the SEALs.

    A decision as to whether Gallagher is ejected from the SEALs, stripping him of his special warfare Trident Pin, ultimately rests with the Navy’s personnel command in Washington.

    Gallagher would retain his rank but be assigned to other duty, though his lawyer has said he is eligible to retire soon.

    On Thursday, Trump lashed out at the proceedings, declaring on Twitter: “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”

    The Navy responded with a statement saying it would follow “lawful orders” from the president to halt the review but was awaiting further guidance, suggesting his Twitter post was not considered a formal directive.

    …

    Reached hours later by telephone, Gallagher’s civilian defense lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said he was “stunned” by what he called “open defiance of the commander-in-chief by a service secretary, on foreign soil, of all places.”

    …

    Parlatore said Spencer was running roughshod over the chain of command.

    “What he’s saying is that, for the sake of good order and discipline, we must disobey the president,” Parlatore, himself a naval officer before becoming a lawyer, told Reuters by telephone.

    He said Trump now had no choice but to fire both Spencer and the commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Admiral Collin Green, who ordered the trident review hearings for Gallagher, as well as for three immediate superiors in his SEAL team.

    Asked if Gallagher planned to appear next month for his own review hearing, which he is not required to attend, Parlatore replied, “Let’s see if Green and the Navy secretary are even still around tomorrow.”

    Parlatore formally contested the Navy’s move to oust his client in a complaint filed on Monday with the Defense Department’s inspector general, accusing Green of insubordination.

    He said he would file a similar complaint against Spencer over the weekend.

    Spencer acknowledged that Trump has the power to restore Gallagher’s SEAL status if Navy commanders decide to expel him, saying, “The commander in chief is the commander in chief … and he can do what he wants.”

  161. says

    Adam Schiff:

    The Secret Service spent over $250k at Trump properties in just 5 months.

    How much taxpayer money has gone into Trump’s pocket?

    We still don’t know. I’ve introduced a bill requiring disclosure.

    We should know the price tag for the President’s lack of basic ethics.

  163. says

    “Rep. Johnson, colleagues call on Trump Administration to support human rights and restoration of constitutional order in Bolivia”:

    On Friday, Rep. Hank Johnson and 13 House members sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on the Trump Administration to support democracy and human rights in Bolivia. The nation’s death toll continues to climb, and the country has descended into political turmoil since its contested elections held on October 20, 2019.

    The letter states that the events leading to President Evo Morales’ resignation and exile bear “the hallmarks of a military coup d’état”, and criticizes the Administration’s statements welcoming Morales’s departure, while recognizing Senator Jeanine Áñez as president, despite the unconstitutional manner in which she assumed power. Congressman Johnson expressed dismay that the Department of State has failed to condemn the killing of numerous protesters by state security forces, and the racist attacks targeting indigenous peoples and their traditions.

    “I am appalled by the Trump Administration’s reaction to the emerging crisis in Bolivia,” Rep. Johnson said. “Rather than supporting a military coup, our government should make it clear that the unconstitutional removal of an elected president is unacceptable, as is the persecution of individuals based on their race or political affiliations. This Administration is once again showing that it has nothing but disdain for democracy and human rights when they get in the way of President Trump’s agenda.”

    The letter expresses alarm that the de facto government of Bolivia has issued a decree protecting military units that engage in violent repression and threaten to prosecute journalists and political leaders for “sedition.” It encourages the Trump Administration to reverse course and push for restoration of constitutional rule, including holding new elections in which every voter and every candidate can safely and freely participate.

    In addition, the letter expresses concern regarding unsubstantiated and misleading statements made by Organization of American States (OAS) officials shortly after the October 20 elections which “contributed to further polarization at a moment in which violent politically motivated incidents were taking place throughout the country.” Johnson and his colleagues call on the Administration to “assess the merits of OAS officials claims before repeating them.”

    Johnson was joined on the letter by Congressmembers Ilhan Omar, Susan Wild, Raul Grijalva, Jan Schakowsky, Jared Huffman, Deb Haaland, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, James McGovern, Jesus G. “Chuy” Garcia, Bobby L. Rush, Ayanna Pressley, Alan Lowenthal and Eleanor Holmes Norton.

    Full letter atl.

  164. says

    Guardian – “Bolivia’s interim government accuses Evo Morales of terrorism and sedition”:

    Bolivia’s rightwing interim government has turned up the heat on former president Evo Morales, accusing him of committing acts of terrorism and sedition by fanning street protests and blockades.

    The country’s new interior minister, Arturo Murillo, announced on Friday that he had asked the public prosecutor’s office to open an investigation into Morales after the release of an audio recording supposedly showing the exiled leftist orchestrating plans for roadblocks designed to suffocate the country’s main city, La Paz.

    Morales, who resigned under pressure from the military and protesters on 10 November, has described the recording as “fake”, but protests by his supporters have piled pressure on the interim president, Jeanine Áñez, a former senator.

    On Friday a representative of Bolivia’s anti-drug trafficking council claimed drug money was being used to finance an “insurrection” against Bolivia’s new government – but offered no proof for the claim.

    “Evo Morales is an international criminal,” Leonardo Roca claimed on national TV.

    An editorial in the conservative newspaper Página Siete said on Friday: “No one doubts that Evo Morales has genuine support … but there is also ample evidence that the protests seeking to return him to power have degenerated into using violent methods.

    “The most serious thing is that Evo Morales himself directs these protest from exile,” it added.

    Two weeks after Morales fled the country, his followers have mobilized across the country, throwing up hundreds of roadblocks to prevent fuel and food reaching Bolivia’s de facto capital and thus force concessions – perhaps even Morales’s return.

    The protests have already started to bite, causing shortages of food and fuel – and huge queues outside bread shops and petrol stations.

    Authorities have been forced to mount an airlift, transporting some 1,400 tonnes of food to the besieged cities of La Paz, El Alto, Oruro and Sucre.

    …

    On Friday, Áñez pleaded with protesters to end a blockade at a natural gas plant that supplies La Paz.

    “I ask for reflection from brothers who are carrying out this unnecessary blockade,” she said. “We’re all Bolivians. You can’t punish the city of La Paz.”

    Eight people died in clashes with the military outside the gas plant on Tuesday. Two days later, thousands of Morales supporters carried the coffins of the dead into La Paz, where police fired teargas at them.

    Áñez reiterated that she will only stay in power long enough for there to be new elections. But her critics say her cabinet have overstepped the bounds of a caretaker government by making changes to foreign policy and threatening to punish Morales’s allies.

    Áñez is a vile racist liar. The people she’s cynically calling “brothers,” appealing to with how “We’re all Bolivians,” she’s called “Satanic,” and her supporters are burning the indigenous flag.

  165. says

    SC @154, that’s significant information. Pompeo looks indictable to me.

    From text quoted by tomh @151:

    Responding to Blackburn on Friday, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said he “feels sorry for Senator Blackburn and for anybody who feels required by partisan politics to embarrass themselves by smearing the good name of a patriot.”

    Buttigieg is right. I hope this kind of stupidity gets Blackburn voted out of office.

    She didn’t just smear Vindman, she increased the likelihood that an armed trumpian cult follower would try to harm Vindman.

  166. says

    A look at the timeline of the nefarious deeds of one Devin Nunes:

    News that Devin Nunes has been sitting through the House impeachment inquiry, pretending to act as a investigator, while actually being an active participant in the scandal might be more shocking if this was the first time. Or the second. But the history of Devin Nunes’ time on the House Intelligence Committee is one that features a nearly unbroken streak of lies, corruption, and plain old idiocy. […]

    Mar 21, 2017 — Nunes leaps from an Uber car at a stoplight, leaving behind a senior Intelligence Committee staffer without explanation and disappears into the night. Nunes swaps to another car, travels somewhere, and shows up hours later to tell Paul Ryan he has uncovered evidence supporting Donald Trump’s claims that President Obama “spied” on him.

    Mar 22, 2017 — Nunes launches the first of several press conferences in which he declares that he has secret information showing that the Obama administration spied on Trump. [… and Nunes publicly reveals classified information]

    Mar 23, 2017 — Nunes declares that his loyalty to Trump trumps any requirement that he either protect classified information or inform other members of his committee about his actions.

    Mar 24, 2017 — Nunes cancels hearings without informing other committee members, leaving his own committee sitting without him, while he continues to work with his secret sources […]

    Mar 28, 2017 — Facing demands from other members of the House Intelligence Committee that he come clean about his multiple visits to “brief” the White House and his secret sources of information on “spying,” Nunes declares a date for when he’ll let the rest of the committee in on his information: “Never.”

    Mar 29, 2017 — Nunes defends his series of bizarre acts and makes it clear that his goal is to halt the investigation into Trump’s Russia connections. […]

    Mar 30, 2017 — Nunes’ secret sources for his supposed information are revealed as White House attorney Michael Ellis and Michael Flynn protege Ezra Cohen-Watnick, proving that Nunes was pretending to brief the White House … on information coming from the White House. On the same day, it’s revealed that Nunes’ complaints about a “refusal” of FBI Direct James Comey to appear before the committee result from the fact that Nunes never actually sent Comey an invitation to appear. […]

    Apr 6, 2017 — Nunes supposedly “steps aside” from the Russia investigation, […] Nunes has barely ended the latest in his string of frothing press conferences when it’s clear that he’s actually under investigation by the Ethics Committee for repeatedly spilling classified information.

    Dec 7, 2017 — With the help of departing Republicans who hustled the action through before the House swapped into Democratic control in the coming year, the Ethics Committee simply closed the action against Nunes without having formal hearings—an act that Nunes declared a complete exoneration.

    May 8, 2018 — The FBI warns the White House that Nunes’ is endangering undercover assets […]

    Aug 28, 2018 — Nunes travels to London and asks to talk with heads of both MI5 and MI6 in an effort to find someone who will support conspiracy theories about the “Steele Dossier” and provide dirt on former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. (Spoiler: Neither intelligence chief would meet with him.)

    Nov 30, 2018 — Nunes travels to Ukraine along with three of his aids, and spends over $63,000 in a four-day visit in which it now appears that he met with corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for the express purpose of supporting Trump’s conspiracy theory against Joe Biden.

    Mar 19, 2019 — Nunes sues a cartoon cow, along with other parody accounts, in an effort to both silence critics and promote a conspiracy theory about “shadow banning” of conservative accounts on Twitter.

    Apr 19, 2019 — Nunes instructs Fox viewers to avoid confusion by not reading the actual Mueller report, and sticking to the “summary” provided by Bill Barr.

    Oct 29, 2019 — Nunes and other Republicans plant lies about the whistleblower into transcripts of House impeachment inquiry investigations, in the hopes of ‘poisoning’ those transcripts.

    Oct 30, 2019 — Officials reveal that Nunes’ staffer Kashyap Patel has been pretending to be the NSC expert on Ukraine and bringing unsourced data directly to Trump to reinforce conspiracy theories while shutting out information from actual expert Alexander Vindman. […]

    Links to supporting documentation are included in this article by Mark Sumner.

  167. says

    An excerpt from a town hall event in South Carolina:

    CARLOS ROJAS: “The fact is that over those eight years, there were three million people that were deported and separated from their families.”

    JOE BIDEN: ”You should vote for Trump. You should vote for Trump.”

    ROJAS: ”I’m not going to do that.”

    Followup:

    “The first time that he said it, I thought I heard it right, but in my mind I was like, ‘That really can’t be his answer,’” Rojas said afterward, in an interview with MTV News. “When he said it again, I was thinking to myself, ‘Wow, he’s really telling us to vote for Trump.’ To me, that message just speaks to a candidate out of touch with the needs of the immigrant community.”

    You think?

    Another iffy moment for Joe Biden:

    ACTIVIST: ”Please don’t take money from corporate donors.”

    BIDEN: ”I do not take money from corporations. You listen to Bernie too much, man. It’s not true.” […]

    Biden’s campaign does rely heavily on large donations, some of which are easily tied to lobbyists. Further, a super PAC was launched on his behalf in October, which can raise and spend unlimited funds for the campaign.

    Link

  168. says

    From Andrew Yang:

    “Was asked to appear on @msnbc this weekend – and told them that I’d be happy to after they apologize on-air, discuss and include our campaign consistent with our polling, and allow surrogates from our campaign as they do other candidates’,” Yang tweeted.

    “They think we need them. We don’t.”

    Yang had six minutes and 48 seconds of speaking time in the Wednesday debate, the least of any candidate (there were 10) on the stage. Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg all spoke for about twice as long as Yang.

    I see this as less the fault of the moderators than the fault of the debate structure. Ten candidates is too many to have on a debate stage. I was, over and over again, irritated by the way candidates were forced to speak at hyper speed to try to fit their points into reduced amounts of speaking time. Kamala Harris was the candidate who refused, mostly, to speak at hyper speed.

  169. says

    Amazon lost a $10 billion Pentagon contract to Microsoft. Now it’s blaming Trump directly.

    Jeff Bezos’s company filed a legal claim on Friday to protest “interference” in the Department of Defense’s decision.

    […] “We … believe it’s critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence,” Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said in a statement last week when the company first announced plans to challenge the decision. “Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias — and it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”

    The two videos include comments by Trump at a 2016 campaign rally in Texas and more recent ones from a press conference in July of this year. During the July event, Trump told reporters that he was looking “very seriously” at getting involved in the decision, according to the New York Times.

    “Great companies are complaining about it,” Trump said at the time, “so we’re going to take a look at it. We’ll take a very strong look at it.”

    Amazon’s cloud computing arm — Amazon Web Services — had been the favorite to land the huge Pentagon contract, both because of its market-leading position in cloud computing and its previous work with the Central Intelligence Agency. […]

  170. says

    From Wonkette:

    HOLY COW! Devin Nunes is even deeper in the manure than even we thought! In a massive Friday night news dump […] CNN busted the GOP plot to smear Joe Biden wide open. Remember Thursday the Beast reported Devin’s four-day, taxpayer-funded field trip facilitated by Lev Parnas to A COUNTRY in Europe last December? Well! Turns out Devin and three congressional aides spent $4,000 per day, per person, of your money to jet off to Vienna and pump corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for dirt on Joe Biden. So Nunes has been part of this drug deal from the very beginning. […]

    Nunes himself spoke to Parnas at least three times about Ukraine, and he didn’t think that was worthy of mention in testimony that prominently featured Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas’s schemes? Instead he spent the entire hearing howling that Chairman Adam Schiff COLLUDED with the whistleblower by telling his lawyer to file a formal complaint?

    ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING US WITH THIS SHIT?

    […] According to Bondy, Nunes aide Derek Harvey (who’s been waging a campaign to leak the name of the suspected whistleblower) told Parnas that the trip was deliberately timed to avoid reporting to Democrats, while sticking the government with the tab.

    “Mr. Parnas learned through Nunes’ investigator, Derek Harvey, that the Congressman had sequenced this trip to occur after the mid-term elections yet before Congress’ return to session, so that Nunes would not have to disclose the trip details to his Democrat colleagues in Congress,” he told CNN. Nunes was so impressed with Shokin, the guy so rancidly corrupt that the European Union, International Monetary Fund, and the entire US government insisted that he be fired to save civil society in Ukraine, that he decided to join forces with Giuliani and Parnas’s anti-Biden campaign. […]

  171. says

    In Trump’s Washington, the rogue actors are the real players — and the experts are increasingly irrelevant.

    […] Trump shared a version of his foreign policy philosophy with a Fox News interviewer who asked about widespread vacancies at the State Department.

    “I’m the only one that matters,” the president said.

    Dozens of hours of impeachment testimony over the last two months have revealed the true import of Trump’s boast. [Trump] has turned the U.S. government into a version of the Trump Organization, full of wheeler dealers inside and outside the official ranks who exist to do his political bidding. In this version of Trump’s Washington, the rogue actors are the real players and the traditional, professional class in the National Security Council, the State Department and the Pentagon are largely irrelevant. […]

    [Fiona] Hill had labored in the White House for more than two years but said she didn’t fully grasp how the Trump administration actually operated until she watched Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor turned diplomat, testify before Congress last week.

    […] Hill had seen Sondland as an impulsive neophyte overseeing an off-the-books campaign to pressure Ukraine to open investigations that would be politically beneficial to Trump.

    Sondland’s testimony showed something else. As Hill watched, it dawned on her that Sondland was running a different policy channel that didn’t include her and was working, at Trump’s behest, toward a very different goal.

    “I realized that I wasn’t really being fair to Ambassador Sondland,” she testified. “He was carrying out what he thought he had been instructed to carry out.”

    He was the true actor; she was the outlier.

    […] The president, Nunes suggested, had turned to Sondland because the experts in his government had dismissed, as conspiracy theory, his real concerns about Ukrainian meddling on behalf of the Democrats in the 2016 election.

    “I understand that people at the NSC and people at the State Department had issues with that,” Nunes said. “But at the end of the day, isn’t it the commander in chief who makes those decisions?” […]

    Washington Post link

    Nunes again!

  172. says

    Trump is still trying hard to influence the impeachment “jury”: “Trump opens up Camp David as an ‘adult playground’ to woo GOP lawmakers during impeachment.”

    […] Trump, partial to gold and marble elegance, never took a shine to rustic Camp David. So acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney pitched to him an unusual idea at the start of the House impeachment inquiry: Use the secluded mountainous presidential retreat to woo House Republicans.

    Since then, Mulvaney and top White House officials have hosted weekend getaways for Republicans at the historic lodge, seeking to butter up Republicans before the big impeachment vote. The casual itinerary includes making s’mores over the campfire, going hiking, shooting clay pigeons and schmoozing with Trump officials, some of whom stay overnight with lawmakers.

    During dinners, Trump has called in to compliment members personally.

    “I’ve worked with a number of Republican presidents over various administrations . . . and I’ve never, ever been invited to Camp David,” said Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.). “It was amazing to go for the short weekend. So historic.”

    The excursions are funded by the U.S. government, administration officials say.

    The Camp David excursions are one prong of a broad White House charm offensive, meant to hold House and Senate Republicans in line through a House impeachment vote and a trial in the Senate that appears all but inevitable. […]

    The White House has made sure that a small clutch of Republican lawmakers have accompanied Trump to a trio of recent sporting events, whether at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York, the World Series in Washington or at the football game in Tuscaloosa, Ala., between the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University.

    In recent weeks, the White House has also invited a group of GOP senators every Thursday to have lunch with the president, where the mealtime conversation rarely centers on impeachment but inevitably veers toward it, according to participants. […]

    In all, Trump has met with or reached out personally to 100 GOP members of the House since the impeachment inquiry was launched, and 50 of the 53 Senate Republicans have attended a White House lunch […]

    The wooing appears to be working, particularly the Camp David effort.

    Multiple lawmakers who have visited the retreat — nearly 90 miles from Washington — have described the trips as “surreal” and “incredible,” according to a half-dozen lawmakers and aides familiar with the outings. An invitation is now considered “the envy of the conference,” according to one member who attended. […]

    Washington Post link

  174. says

    Update – NBC – “Navy secretary strongly considering resigning over Trump’s meddling in SEAL case”:

    Military leaders hoping to keep the Secretary of the Navy from quitting lobbied President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One to stop intervening in the case of a Navy SEAL accused of murder, say five current and one former military and defense officials.

    …

    Trump, who had previously restored Gallagher’s rank, denounced a new Navy administrative probe into whether Gallagher should remain in the elite SEAL corps….

    …

    Navy Secretary Richard Spencer responded Thursday by telling the White House that a tweet is not an official order and if the president is ordering the Navy to end the Trident Review Board of Gallagher, he needs to do so in writing, according to five current and two former military officials.

    The officials say he also explained to the White House that the Navy needs direction on whether the president also wants to suspend the review board for three other SEALS also scheduled to undergo the assessment.

    Four officials familiar with Spencer’s thinking say he is strongly considering resigning and will do so if Trump signs a written order to end the Navy probe. He conveyed those feelings to Pentagon leaders on Thursday.

    “He is deeply, deeply upset by this and believes it undercuts his authority,” one former Navy official said, adding that it also undercuts Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the Navy’s Special Warfare Command, who ordered the review and is trying to maintain good order and discipline in the SEAL community.

    Several of the president’s senior advisers and military leaders weighed in after Thursday’s tweet, explaining the consequences of ordering a halt to the review board, say officials.

    Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, Army Chief of Staff General McConville, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, and Sgt. Major of the Army Michael Grinston spoke with the president about the process on Air Force One Thursday night, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the conversation.

    The military leaders were with the president en route to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the return of two U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan earlier this week.

    They explained that the Trident Review Board is a peer review process and it’s best to let the process play out, the three officials said. The president did not know details of the process, the officials said, including how fellow sailors, usually Navy master chiefs, are the ones who make the recommendation.

    The president also asked about the cases of former 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Matthew Golsteyn. Earlier this month Trump dismissed murder charges against Golsteyn and pardoned Lorance, who was serving 19 years in federal prison for murder.

    Trump inquired about restoring Golsteyn’s status as an Army Ranger and special forces soldier. The leaders explained how Trump wading in could impact morale among troops, said the three officials. They stressed that the conversation was not contentious. The military leaders explained the process to Trump, who listened and asked pointed questions, including asking flatly asking the group what he should do.

    According to the officials, the leaders told him it was his decision as commander in chief, but they wanted him to understand the consequences.

    At the White House Friday, other Trump administration officials echoed Gen. Milley’s advice about Gallagher’s review board, said officials. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper both explained that the president ordering a halt could have wider consequences.

    Unless there is a written order, the Navy plans to move forward with the review process, the officials said. They do not expect Trump to issue that written order at this point, but concede he could change his mind….

  175. says

    Update update?: “BREAKING: @USNavy Secretary Spencer did NOT threaten to resign over Trump tweet telling Navy to drop disciplinary proceeding against recently pardoned SEAL, but Spencer won’t stop proceeding because doesn’t consider tweet a Presidential order, Spencer just told me at #HISF2019″

    I mean, the NBC article at least doesn’t say he threatened to resign. It says: “Four officials familiar with Spencer’s thinking say he is strongly considering resigning and will do so if Trump signs a written order to end the Navy probe. He conveyed those feelings to Pentagon leaders on Thursday.”

  176. says

    The NYT piece does say: “The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday.”

    I don’t have access so don’t know what precisely they mean by “have threatened to resign or be fired.”

  177. tomh says

    NYT:
    Navy Is Said to Proceed With Disciplinary Plans Against Edward Gallagher
    Top military officials threatened to resign or be fired if their plans to remove Chief Gallagher from the SEALs were halted by President Trump, administration officials said.
    By Maggie Haberman, Helene Cooper and Dave Philipps
    Nov. 23, 2019, 1:30 p.m. ET

    The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday.

    The Navy is proceeding with the disciplinary plans against the commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who counts Mr. Trump as one of his most vocal supporters. After reversing a demotion in recent days, the president suggested on Thursday that he would intervene again in the case, saying that the sailor should remain in the unit.

    The threats by the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, and the commander, Rear Adm. Collin Green, are a rare instance of pushback against Mr. Trump from members of the Defense Department. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, scrambled to come up with a face-saving compromise this past week in the hope that Mr. Trump could be persuaded to change his mind.

    On Thursday, Mr. Trump, referring to the pin that signifies membership in an elite force, said on Twitter that “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin.” He added: “This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”

    One argument that officials said may be relied on is the assumption that a tweet does not constitute a formal presidential order. Mr. Esper and General Milley conveyed to the president that if he followed up that tweet with a direct order, there would be huge consequences: Mr. Trump would lose Mr. Spencer and Admiral Green, further infuriate his top military leadership and do untold damage to decades of military justice doctrine, according to administration officials.

    Unlock more free articles.

    Administration officials said they now hoped that Mr. Trump would allow the proceedings to continue, but it is unclear whether the president will do so. The debate over Chief Gallagher comes as Mr. Trump, facing a difficult re-election battle and an impeachment inquiry, has increasingly sought to highlight his role as commander in chief.

    Chief Gallagher was accused of shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a hunting knife in Iraq, and threatening to kill SEALs who reported him, among other misconduct. His court-martial ended in acquittal on those charges.

    But the Navy ultimately demoted the chief, who was convicted of one charge: bringing discredit to the armed forces by posing for photos with the teenage captive’s dead body.

    Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the president was right to stop the process of ousting the commando because the Navy’s move was clear retribution, coming just days after the president’s decision to restore his rank.

    “With the timing, it’s difficult to see how this was anything but a direct, public rebuke to the president,” Mr. Parlatore said. “So I can’t see how the secretary of defense or anyone else is going to convince the president that is O.K.”

    On Friday, Mr. Spencer made clear that he wanted to move forward with the matter, which could strip Chief Gallagher of his Trident pin. “I believe the process matters for good order and discipline,” he told Reuters in an interview at a security forum in Nova Scotia.

    On Saturday, a Navy spokesman pointed to those remarks. “The secretary’s comments are in line with current White House guidance,” said Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the chief spokesman for the Navy.

    A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

    The gold insignia Trident pin is one of the most revered in the military. It features an eagle on an anchor, clutching a flintlock pistol and a trident, and represents the grit of sailors who made it through some of the toughest training in the Navy, and are given some of the riskiest missions. It stands for fidelity and sacrifice. Even in death, the pin plays a role: SEALs pound their pins into the wood of fallen comrades’ caskets.

    The Pentagon had already been quietly fuming this month after Mr. Trump cleared three members of the armed services, including Chief Gallagher, who were accused or had been convicted of war crimes, overruling military leaders who sought to punish them. All three were lionized by conservative commentators who portrayed them as war heroes unfairly prosecuted for actions taken in the heat of battle.

    Mr. Trump, who was lobbied heavily by the families of the three service members, announced on Nov. 15 that he was reversing the demotion of Chief Gallagher. He also ordered the full pardon of Clint Lorance, a former Army lieutenant who was serving a 19-year sentence in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth for the murder of two civilians; and of Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, an Army Special Forces officer who was facing murder charges for killing an unarmed Afghan he believed was a Taliban bomb maker.

    One of the jurors who convicted Chief Gallagher expressed dismay at the president’s actions in an interview on Friday, noting that the all-military jury had given Chief Gallagher the maximum punishment allowable under the law because it found his behavior so reprehensible. He spoke out for the first time to defend the decision of the jury.

    “People keep saying all he did is pose in a photo and there were lots of other guys in the photo,” said the juror, who asked that his name not be used to protect the privacy of the deliberations. “But he was the senior enlisted guy there, the oldest, the most experienced. He should have set an example for good order and discipline. He should have ensured stuff like that wasn’t happening. And he didn’t. He doesn’t deserve to wear chief’s anchors.”

    The juror said he hoped the Trident review process would be allowed to go forward, adding, “Let other SEALs decide if he deserves to be a SEAL.”

  178. says

    From Wonkette:

    Throughout the 2016 election, and indeed before that, we, as a nation, were treated to a million male opinions on “What Is Wrong With Hillary Clinton’s Voice” and how her voice made them feel, deep in their petulant but definitely not at all sexist little souls. […] It is hard to imagine one without very strong opinions on whether or not any of the women running for President are likable enough. None of them ever will be […]

    This week, after the debates, CNN political analyst referred to Elizabeth Warren as having a “hectoring” quality.

    We don’t hear much about the male candidates being likable […] We don’t hear about their voices or their tone of voice.

    I can tell you that I, personally, do not find Joe Biden likable at all. I would not want to hang out with him or have a beer with him or anything. He seems agitated all the time! However, generally speaking, it would even not occur to me that this is a thing that should matter or have anything to do at all with whether or not he should be president.

    But can we talk about it, for a minute? Can we at least talk about the fact that if any of the women talked like Joe Biden talked, that we would never hear the end of how “angry” they sounded or how dismissive and disrespectful or impatient-sounding they were? […]

    Could any of the women have gotten away with being as testy as Biden was on Wednesday when he was talking about how much the “Blamericans” loved him or during his closing statements? I do not think they could.

    I have gotten so tired of hearing about how women’s voices make men feel that every time a man — any man, really — opens his mouth, I am preemptively annoyed, on principle.

    I understand that at least part of this is not so much straight sexism as it is that everyone assumes that either Biden or Buttigieg is going to be the eventual nominee, and that therefore criticizing them should be off the table, so as not to give ammo to the Right. But if we’re going to play that game, it would be nice if everyone could stick to critiquing the other candidates based on their platforms and statements rather than on their demeanor and their voices and other things that have literally nothing to do with their campaigns. […]

  179. says

    Chris Hayes: “I’m not sure the best way to say this, but it really seems like there’s something…off with Rudy Giuliani right now. It’s not a personality thing, he’s basically always been this guy, but his acuity seems extremely diminished.”

    Relatedly, I’m reading about Stalin’s death (Rubenstein, The Last Days of Stalin), and the author notes that in his last months he “slurred his words – an evident sign of previous small strokes” (p.42) leading up to the large stroke that killed him.

  181. says

    Kurdistan 24 – “Coalition forces resume operations with SDF against ISIS after brief pause”:

    For the first time on Friday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in cooperation with the US-led Coalition, resumed large-scale joint operations against the so-called Islamic State in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province, the Coalition announced in a statement on Saturday.

    The statement marked another landmark as it was the first Coalition statement published in Kurmanji, the main Kurdish dialect spoken in northern Syria.

    Friday’s operation resulted in multiple Islamic State fighters killed and wounded, it added. Coalition forces accompanied hundreds of SDF commandos who cleared various compounds and captured over a dozen fighters.

    The SDF also confirmed on Friday that 25 terrorists were arrested during operations across different locations and against multiple sleeper cells.

    After US President Donald Trump ordered American troops to withdraw from northeastern Syria in early October, Turkey launched an attack on SDF forces along its southern border.

    As a result, the SDF temporarily halted operations against Islamic State sleeper cells to defend itself from Turkish attacks in the north.

    However, in late October, Trump reversed his decision and announced that the US would leave some forces in eastern Syria to maintain control of oil fields, and continue to work with the SDF.

    On Nov. 6, not long after that announcement, the SDF’s Commander-in-Chief, General Mazloum Abdi, said the SDF would resume its operations with the Coalition against the Islamic State.

    The US-led Coalition confirmed in Saturday’s statement that the recent tensions in northern Syria and the re-positioning of Coalition troops to eastern Syria “led to a brief pause in defeat-ISIS operations.”

    Elsewhere, Reuters reported on Saturday that US Central Command Chief General Kenneth McKenzie said 500 US personnel in eastern Syria were expected to resume operations against the Islamic State in the coming days and weeks.

    Coalition spokesperson Colonel Myles Caggins said the “US-led Coalition’s mission to disrupt and degrade ISIS remnants continued despite recent events in northern Syria.”

    “The planning and preparation of this operation is an example of a continued partnership between Coalition forces and the SDF to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS,” Colonel Caggins told Kurdistan 24….

    Also, Politico – “Pence touts ‘enduring bond’ with Kurds during unannounced trip to Iraq”:

    Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday reaffirmed U.S. support for Iraqi Kurds during an unannounced trip to Iraq, praising their “strong bonds” despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to withdraw U.S. troops from Kurdish-held territory in Syria.

    After meeting with American troops stationed in western Iraq, Pence flew to Erbil in the north to meet with Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the country’s Kurdistan region, and praised the “enduring bond that exists between the Kurdish people and the people of the United States.”

    “I also welcome the opportunity on behalf of President Donald Trump to reiterate the strong bonds forged in the fires of war,” Pence said.

    Pence’s trip may have been an attempt to smooth over the dismay among Iraqi Kurds over Trump’s repositioning of U.S. troops in northeast Syria, which has left Kurds at the mercy of a Turkish invasion, prompting an outflow of refugees to Iraq.

    Iraqi officials in both Baghdad and the Kurdish area have been trying to figure out how to persuade Trump not to abandon Syria completely.

    …

    Heightened tensions across the Middle East have seen popular protests in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran, with young people in particular rising up against corruption in their governments.

    In the Trump administration, the protests are all seen as somewhat linked to Iranian activity throughout the region, and aides to the president are trying to take advantage of the moment to encourage movements that could erode Iran’s influence.

    A Trump administration official said Pence likely avoided Baghdad because of the violence involved with the demonstrations.

    “We can’t hug the government too closely when the government is killing protestors,” the administration official said. “A vice presidential visit is a tremendous political hug.”

    Fifteen people have died and over 100 have been wounded during three days of fierce clashes in central Baghdad, according to officials cited by the Associated Press. Iraqi security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters Saturday, killing one person….

  182. says

    Guardian – “Malta’s PM urged to step back from case of murdered journalist”:

    A senior European monitor is calling for Malta’s prime minister to distance himself from the investigation into the killing of the prominent investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia due to a potential conflict of interest.

    Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, has the power to grant immunity from prosecution to a key witness who may have vital evidence about those who commissioned Caruana Galizia’s assassination two years ago.

    However, two current members of Muscat’s government have been linked to a businessman arrested on Wednesday in connection with the killing.

    “The suspicions of personal and political interest are too strong, and the potential influence of the prime minister of Malta on the criminal justice system is too great,” said Pieter Omtzigt, a special rapporteur appointed by the Council of Europe to monitor events in Malta.

    His comments came as businessman Yorgen Fenech was first released on police bail, and then re-arrested, giving police a further 48 hours in which to charge him. Fenech, who resigned as head of his family business last week, was apprehended while sailing away from Malta aboard his luxury yacht at around 5.30am on Wednesday morning.

    Just before her death, the journalist received a massive leak of data from an energy company co-owned by Fenech.

    The prime minister has taken a high-profile role in managing communications, making daily on-camera statements to the press since an apparent breakthrough in the case earlier this week.

    On Tuesday Muscat revealed he was prepared to seek a presidential pardon for a key witness, Melvin Theuma, who claims to have acted as a middleman between those who planted the car bomb that killed Caruana Galizia in 2017 and those who masterminded the killing. Muscat said his decision to grant the pardon would be conditional on the evidence given by Theuma.

    However, Omtzigt has joined the journalist’s family in voicing concerns that Muscat is conflicted.

    Investigations have revealed Fenech as the owner of a secretive offshore company, 17 Black, which Caruana Galizia was looking into at the time of her death. It was later revealed 17 Black was due to make payments to other offshore companies belonging to Konrad Mizzi, Malta’s then energy minister, now in charge of tourism, and Keith Schembri, Muscat’s current chief of staff….

  183. says

    Judd Legum

    Uh.

    Excuse me?

    Did Facebook extend HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN CREDIT to the Trump campaign so the campaign could keep running after it ran out of cash?

    [WSJ screenshot and link atl]

    Facebook will have an enormous impact on the 2020 election.

    And Facebook CONTINUES to establish policies to help Trump’s campaign.

    I’ll be covering this in detail over the next 12 months. Sign up for my newsletter to stay informed…

  184. says

    Julia Carrie Wong:

    Yesterday, I published a story on the continued presence of white nationalist outlets on Facebook. The article referenced but was not primarily about Breitbart News, which has now assigned a reporter to write about me. I stand by my reporting.

    One of the white nationalist groups I reported on is now tweeting about me so I’ll likely lock this account soon. If you would like to show any solidarity, please read and share my article on how Facebook is continuing to host white nationalists.

    And now I’m on the [D**ly St*rm*r]. The consequences of reporting on the far right are real and they take a toll. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent kind words.

    I also just want to say thank you and solidarity to the many freelancers who do this work with a fraction of the institutional backing and are always the first to show kindness and support.

    Seems like there’s just something about me that really sets these guys off though it’s hard to put my finger on what exactly it is…

    Screenshots atl.

    Here’s her Guardian piece: “White nationalists are openly operating on Facebook. The company won’t act.”

  185. says

    John Sweeney’s letter to OfCom:

    …To the Chief Executive, OfCom,

    Dear Ms White,

    I am writing to you as a reluctant whistle-blower to ask for a thorough investigation into BBC News and Current Affairs in regard to, firstly, a number of films relating to the far-right, Russia and Brexit that were not broadcast, secondly, films that were broadcast but were improperly compromised and, thirdly, a number of senior journalists who have been allowed to compromise BBC editorial values by taking financial inducements or benefits in kind.

    At the outset I should say that I have been informed, entertained and educated by the BBC my whole life. I worked for the BBC for 17 years and left last month and I feel grateful to many of my extraordinary colleagues who do great work for the public good. I pay the license fee and passionately believe in the BBC’s mission.

    It is exactly because of that belief that I feel compelled to share what I know from the inside of BBC News and Current Affairs. BBC management, led by Director-General Tony Hall, has become so risk-averse in the face of threats from the far-right and the Russian state and its proxies that due impartiality is being undermined and investigative journalism is being endangered. Films have been not broadcast or enfeebled. Senior journalists have taken money or benefits in kind from Big Tobacco, a dodgy passport-selling company, and proxies for the Russian state.

    My concerns centre on the following programmes or films:

    Our Panorama on far-right activist Tommy Robinson which should have been broadcast in February or March this year. It had fresh information on Robinson’s links with German far right sources and there was potential to explore how Robinson was being indirectly funded by Kremlin money. Robinson set out to intimidate the BBC. Not broadcast.
    Our Newsnight investigation into Lord Mandelson which caused him to change his House of Lords’ register recording money he got from a Russian company connected to the mafiya. After a direction intervention by Mandelson’s friend, then BBC Head of News, James Harding, the investigation stopped. Not broadcast.
    Our Newsnight investigation into the dubious connections between former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale MP and Dmitri Firtash, the pro-Kremlin oligarch currently fighting extradition to the United States. Not broadcast.
    Our Newsnight investigation into Henley & Partners, a dodgy passport-selling firm which sought to silence Daphne Caruana Galizia before she was assassinated. Outside a H & P event in London I was physically assaulted by security for the Maltese PM. Inside a BBC presenter was doing a paid corporate gig for H&P. Not broadcast.
    A Newsnight investigation into the pro-Russian sympathies of Labour spin doctor, Seumas Milne. Not commissioned. Not broadcast.
    A Panorama on Roman Abramovich: made and completed. I did not work on this but know of it. Not broadcast.
    A BBC News investigation into Brexit funder Arron Banks. I did not work on this but know of it. Not broadcast.

    Please note that roughly in the same time frame BBC News – not Current Affairs – did broadcast investigations into Cliff Richards and Lord Bramall and Lord Brittan on the basis of a fantasist. Both investigations should never have been broadcast.

    The BBC did broadcast films I made that were weakened by management. They include:

    A series of Newsnight films into Arron Banks, the man who helped fund Brexit and Nigel Farage. Some were broadcast but the strength of the journalism was enfeebled by management. One, exploring Nigel Farage’s worries about Mr Banks’ connections to Russia, was not broadcast. A second, on Katya Banks and how she came to the United Kingdom, was not broadcast.
    A Panorama on Russia called Taking On Putin. This was broadcast last year. In the course of making it the acting head of the BBC Moscow bureau told our Panorama team to leave the bureau though we had sensitive rushes on us and were being pursued by Moscow police. He then informed the Foreign Ministry that I had been filming without a press pass. Not giving me a press pass is a routine piece of administrative harassment by the Russian state. Our fixer was forced to leave Russia for good. It felt like our BBC Moscow colleagues saw the Kremlin as their friend and us as the enemy.

    On all the films above I worked on, I sought to complain to BBC management about failures to broadcast or weakening of editorial stance. Most did not seriously engage with my complaints. One senior manager did not reply to four emails I sent asking for a meeting so we never spoke.

    To be fair, BBC management have an extraordinary difficult task. Brexit has split the country and maintaining fairness and due impartiality under ferocious pressure, accelerated by social media, is exhausting. The problem is this exhaustion has led to corporate risk aversion and this is destroying investigative journalism at the BBC.

    Separately, I fear that BBC values have been undermined by the following senior editors and presenters. Jon Sopel, BBC North America, doing a paid corporate gig for US tobacco giant Philip Morris this year. Justin Webb, Today programme presenter, doing a paid corporate gig for Henley & Partners on two separate occasions.

    Sarah Sands, editor of the Today programme and Amol Rajan, BBC Media Editor, receiving benefits in kind from their former employer, Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev. They attended parties thrown by Lebedev in his Italian palazzo. A third guest was Boris Johnson, now prime minister. It seems impossible for any reporter on the Today programme to fully investigate widely reported stories that as Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson was seen as a “security risk” because of his attendance at Mr Lebedev’s parties if their editor was also a beneficiary of Mr Lebedev’s generosity. Amol Rajan as BBC Media Editor has reported on Mr Lebedev’s business affairs and he too has been a beneficiary of the oligarch’s generosity.

    None of this non-BBC work or benefits are for the public good.

    It is a characteristic of someone in my position to overstate the significance of their complaints. I do not want to do this. The vast majority of the BBC’s output is excellent.

    But the sorry history of investigations not broadcast I report above demonstrates a general pattern of risk aversion and fearfulness. This is a common complaint of BBC journalists. My particular concern is the ability of the Russian state and its proxies to cramp the BBC’s journalism when it investigates what the Kremlin & Co are up to. You cannot make a series of Panoramas on Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump without seeing the evidence of the Russian state and its proxies interfering with democratic politics around the world. That interference includes the United Kingdom. I note that Number Ten has indicated that blocked the publication of the Commons select committee on Russian interference today.

    Beyond these points there is a wider issue of the effective non-regulation of social media. The experience of being attacked by Tommy Robinson’s supporters – they behave like a cult – whilst the BBC did not broadcast our Panorama on him was maddening for me, literally so. A freelance colleague made a radio programme about one of his supporters. The stress of being a victim of the far-right online hate machine caused my colleague, who was heavily pregnant at the time, to have a panic attack so intense she mistakenly feared it was a miscarriage. Happily, mother and baby are fine. My observation as a front-line investigative journalist is that public interest broadcasting is over-regulated and social media hardly at all. Social media must be brought within the rule of law or our democracy will be poisoned.

    I have evidence to back up every point I make in this letter and practical suggestions to reform and develop the OfCom code if you decide to take the matters raised here further. Please let me know what your response is. I am separately writing to the chair of the House of Commons select committees on the media and copying in the chairs of the intelligence and foreign affairs committees.

    Yours sincerely,

    John Sweeney

  187. says

    Catie Edmondson, NYT:

    Maria Bartiromo asks Nunes “bottom line, were you in Vienna with Shokin?”

    Nunes says he really wants to answer “all of the questions” but can’t right now “because there is criminal activity here,” referring to… CNN?

    More Nunes: “Everyone’s going to know the truth… I can’t compete trying to debate this out with the public media when 90% of the media are totally corrupt.”

    “Because this is criminal in nature and because it’s so bad, it’s so slanderous. We’ve got all the facts on our side.”

    So…yes.

  188. says

    Re #155 above:

    Just want to point out that Devin Nunes spent nearly $57,000 of taxpayer money for the flight(s) he took with his 3 aides to allegedly dig for dirt on the Bidens.

    …

    That doesn’t include the $5,400 per diem (which includes lodging) and the $1,200 “other purpose” costs.

    THEY WERE THERE FOR LIKE 4 DAYS

    To put this into perspective, $57,000 is the average annual salary in Devin Nunes’ district.

    Devin Nunes spent the equivalent of the average annual salary in his district on a single trip to Europe to, allegedly, dig up dirt on Joe Biden.

    Sorry, median annual salary….my point stands….

  189. says

    RFERL – “Zelenskiy Says No Words To Describe Pain Of Holodomor”:

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said mankind [sic] has yet to come up with words to describe the pain Ukrainians experienced during the Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor.

    Zelenskiy made the remarks at a ceremony in Kyiv on November 23, as Ukrainians marked the 86th anniversary of the Holodomor, in which millions of people died of starvation blamed largely on Soviet policies of the early 1930s.

    Zelenskiy told the crowd that Ukraine “will never forget nor forgive the crime of the Holodomor, which was caused by the Stalin regime.”

    Ukrainians mark a Holodomur Remembrance Day every year on the fourth Saturday of November.

    Between 3 and 7 million people died in the Holodomor, or “death by hunger.”

    Millions died after Soviet authorities forced peasants in Ukraine to join collective farms by requisitioning their grain and other food products.

    “Today we honor the memory of the victims of the Holodomor — the crime of genocide committed by the totalitarian Stalinist regime against our people, against the people of Ukraine,” Zelenskiy told the crowd.

    Ukrainian organizers encouraged people to place lighted candles in their windows at 4:00 p.m. local time on November 23 to honor the Holodomor’s victims.

    Metropolitan Epiphanius, primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine that was granted autocephaly earlier this year, in a November 23 statement hailed the fact that “today we can speak the truth [about the tragedy] and must do it loudly, because evil should not be hidden, as was done for decades by the Soviet regime.”

    U.S. and Australian diplomats in Kyiv offered expressions of solidarity with Ukrainians and vowed never to forget the tragedy and its victims.

    “We join the people of Ukraine in solemnly remembering and mourning all those who lost their lives during the tragic 1932-33 #Holodomor,” the U.S. Embassy tweeted on November 23, along with a recorded message from acting U.S. charge d’affaires William Taylor.

    …

    The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in 2006 declared the Holodomor a “genocide” against the Ukrainian people.

    …

    At least 15 other countries have officially recognized the Holodomor as a “genocide,” but not the United States.

  191. says

    Ryan Goodman:

    Disinformation is worse than a lie

    It tries to kill faith that there is any truth.

    Question: “Who do you believe was responsible for hacking the DNC…was it Russia or Ukraine?”

    Senator Kennedy (R-La.) [on Fox this morning]: “I don’t know. Nor do you. Nor do any of us.”

    …Shame on Senator Kennedy.

    Russia hacked the DNC according to:

    Unanimous conclusion of Intelligence Community under Presidents Obama and Trump.

    Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee.

    Mueller indictments of Russians, based on ability to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Video atl. Kennedy 100% knows he’s lying.

  194. says

    Jim Sciutto responding to Kennedy’s comments @ #191 above: “This is a shocking acceptance by a sitting US senator of a theory that is both baseless and a deliberate act of Kremlin misinformation.”

    Kennedy is also the one who got up during Trump’s failed rally a couple weeks ago and proclaimed that he wasn’t one of those “globalist,” “latte-sipping” elites. I believe others have already pointed to his personal history which makes this pose laughable, but it’s also just a ridiculous thing to say in his state of Louisiana. From one travel site:

    Louisiana is home to some of America’s most colorful culture, including a huge Creole and Cajun population. The Spanish, French, African, and Native American influences are visible in every conceivable way. They speak their own language, have their own style of music and a uniquely delectable cuisine. While Cajun country only covers around 30 percent of the state, it’s traditions have a hand just about everywhere.

    In many parts of Louisiana, French and Creole are just as common as English. The farther off the beaten path you venture, the more the state starts to look and feel like a whole other country. In general, the residents take pride in their relaxed lifestyle and rich traditions. Festivals like Mardi Gras are taken as seriously as religion, and music never seems far removed from any household. New Orleans is the epicenter of almost all activity and a trip here is a memorable must.

  195. says

    “Just in: Extraordinary statement from Bloomberg News Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait about Bloomberg’s coverage plans of Mike Bloomberg’s candidacy: Bloomberg Editorial board suspended, no “investigation” of Mike, his family or foundation:…”

    Statement atl. Their “editorials have reflected his views”?!

  197. says

    Josh Kovensky at TPM – “EXCLUSIVE: Bud Cummins Tried To Interest U.S. Law Enforcement In Ukraine Dirt On Bidens In 2018”:

    As far back as October 2018, a former U.S. attorney acting on behalf of Ukrainian interests tried to get federal law enforcement to bite on bogus political dirt about the Bidens and on whether Paul Manafort’s notorious Black Ledger was a forgery.

    Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney in Arkansas, emailed the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York relaying a request for a meeting on the same topics into which President Trump would later demand Ukraine conduct investigations.

    TPM has been investigating Cummins’ role in attempting to serve as an intermediary between certain Ukrainian interests and federal law enforcement. Cummins’ involvement has not been previously reported. However, Rudy Giuliani sent a letter on Saturday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) claiming that a former U.S. attorney was ready to provide emails and memoranda about an attempt to get the FBI to investigate Biden and the list of Manafort bribes, called the Black Ledger.

    Cummins confirmed to TPM Sunday morning that Giuliani’s letter was referring to him.

    The meeting proposed by Cummins would have been between Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, and Manhattan U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman. Lutsenko waged a campaign to push out Marie Yovanovitch, the then-U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, in part by spreading the same allegations that he had sent to Cummins. Lutsenko has emerged as the figure who also channeled dirt to Giuliani as it made its way into the U.S. media ecosystem.

    The email proposing the meeting, which Cummins said he sent on Oct. 4, 2018, laid out allegations about Hunter Biden and his work for Burisma, and that the Black Ledger was falsified, Cummins told TPM in a phone interview.

    Cummins said that he received the information about Hunter Biden and Manafort from two intermediaries of Lutsenko in September 2018.

    “The information I gave to them was a request to meet with Lutsenko,” Cummins said, adding that he had a brief phone call with Berman and sent three follow-up emails after the information was sent.

    Speaking over the phone Sunday morning, Cummins expressed to TPM a mixture of dismay that Berman broke off contact and mild embarrassment at having dealt with Ukrainians whose motivations he admitted he did not understand. Cummins added that when he sent the email to Berman he “wasn’t advocating for the legitimacy of any of this.”

    “At the time, I didn’t know a whole lot about Ukraine. I didn’t make any real attempt to vet this.” He added “I didn’t care, that wasn’t my job” in a discussion of what may have been motivating Lutsenko.

    Lutsenko and a spokesperson for Lutsenko didn’t immediately return requests for comment. Berman’s office declined to comment.

    Cummins told TPM that he had tried to signal to Berman that he was not vouching for the credibility of the allegations themselves. He said that he suggested to Berman that Lutsenko could “delegate some investigators to meet with some line [prosecutors] in his office,” referring to Berman.

    Cummins called the lack of response from the Manhattan federal prosecutor a “breathtaking double standard,” given how the Mueller investigation “targeted” President Trump.

    A former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Cummins was one the federal prosecutors fired by the George W. Bush administration during the U.S. attorneys scandal. A New York Times editorial at the time described Cummins as “one of the most distinguished lawyers in Arkansas” who is “respected by Republicans and Democrats alike.” Cummins was pushed out of office in favor of a deputy to Karl Rove.

    In 2016, Cummins served as chair of Donald Trump’s campaign in Arkansas, then as a Trump whip at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He went on to serve on the Trump administration transition team.

    Cummins said that he believed that “mistrust of the FBI” was what led the Ukrainians to seek a back channel to the Justice Department. He said that his Ukrainian interlocutors — who he declined to name — apparently went to him because they believed the “FBI in Ukraine had either wittingly or unwittingly become the pawns of the ambassador and secretary of state and vice president, and they cannot be trusted.”

    Cummins declined to say if his actions were related to work for any particular client. Public records show he previously registered as a lobbyist for former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko….

  198. says

    Brandon Friedman:

    There is just an unbelievable amount of grift and insubordination in today’s Fox News Eddie Gallagher interview. Along with Gallagher attacking his own chain of command, he has the Nine Line Apparel guy with him and they’re both doing product placement.

    He accuses the Secretary of the Navy of “meddling in my case” and his own admiral of “showing complete insubordination.” Gallagher is on ACTIVE DUTY! And the whole time, Nine Line guy is sitting there during the interview. Why? We don’t know! But they’re wearing Nine Line shirts.

    To illustrate how bonkers this interview with Eddie Gallagher gets, at 6:11, the Nine Line Apparel guy sitting next to him decides, out of the blue, to call Colin Kaepernick a “man-child.”

    I was wondering why he would do a scheduled studio interview on this subject in a t-shirt and jeans! Seemed so disrespectful.

  199. says

    “SCOOP
    White House review of Ukraine records finds Chief of staff and OMB staff trying to figure out justification for @realDonaldTrump block on aid – after the fact and after an anonymous CIA complaint.”

    WaPo link atl.

  201. says

    Politico – “Forget the Oval. The real Trump action is in the residence.”:

    The Oval Office is the traditional epicenter of power for American presidents, but a new one is emerging that’s more exclusive, more secluded and more convenient.

    President Donald Trump is increasingly morphing the White House residence into a second Oval. It’s become the place where Trump feels most productive, where he avoids meddling by his staff and where he speed-dials his network of confidantes, GOP lawmakers and TV pundits.

    …

    Now he tends to go to the Oval Office and adjacent private dining room for five to six hours a day for formal meetings, lunches and ceremonial events, current and former administration officials say. But the bulk of his work in the mornings, late afternoons, evenings and weekends happens in his private quarters where Trump can call staff and advisers as early as 6 a.m. and up to midnight. Sometimes he or one of his aides will summon a senior staffer to the residence for an informal discussion or quick meeting to review a speech.

    He also uses it during working hours as a place to watch TV freely, tweet and serve as own his one-man communications director and political strategist. The residence serves like a bunker for his impeachment response and his real-time reaction to testimony, witnesses and public hearings.

    …

    A third former senior administration official insisted Trump’s heavy use of the residence was “not an attempt on the president’s part to hide things. He is a workaholic, so he wakes up early and works out of the residence. It’s just the way his internal work clock has been for decades,” the official said….

    I call bullshit on this whole normalizing piece. (Setting aside the fact that, as others have pointed out, it makes no mention of his wife and son or his spending any time with them.) He’s not a fucking workaholic, and there’s no evidence he works. What are the tangible results of this alleged work? What does it consist of? Deep dives on complex legislation? Global strategy sessions with his military advisors? Studying and analyzing conditions across the country? Sure. We do have evidence of how he spends his time: conspiring and other criming, tweeting, raging, propagandizing, golfing, watching TV, calling his lackeys and enablers, and various combinations thereof. He’s spending even more time hidden in the residence since his recent medical incident, and this is an attempt to spin that as a mere personal preference. Bullshit.

  202. says

    Guardian – “Hong Kong voters deliver landslide victory for pro-democracy campaigners”:

    Hong Kong’s voters turned out in record numbers to deliver a landslide for pro-democracy campaigners and a powerful rebuke to the government, in local elections that were widely seen as a proxy vote on the city’s protest movement.

    Both in absolute numbers, and in turnout rates, it was easily the biggest exercise in democratic participation that Hong Kong has ever seen, with many voters waiting more than an hour to cast their ballot.

    By the time polls closed at 10.30pm, nearly 3 million people had voted, representing more than 71% of the electorate and nearly half of Hong Kong’s entire population. Many had never voted before.

    As the first results trickled in from vote counts across the city, it was clear that Sunday marked a sea-change in Hong Kong politics.

    A string of prominent pro-Beijing politicians were evicted from what had been safe seats, among them Junius Ho, who has been widely reviled for shaking hands with a gang of thugs who attacked protestors and commuters in July.

    Pro-democracy counsellors took control of at least eleven district councils. Wan chai, on Hong Kong island, will now be led by Clarisse Yeung, an artist-turned-politician who announced the shift of power with tears in her eyes.

    She said: “I would not use the word happy, but we have made progress towards a situation where we can fight back against the government. It’s important because we all know that we have been sacrificing too much in the past few months.

    “Hong Kong people are no longer naive. We have to prepare ourselves, we have to have faith in ourselves to bring change.”

    She will be joined on the council by Cathy Yau, a former police officer who resigned from the force to fight on a pro-democracy platform.

    The pro-democratic landslide was a defiant rebuke to the government’s frequent argument that its hardline policies had the support of a “silent majority”, cowed by protestor violence. In a peaceful vote, the city’s people had turned against them. Many had never cast a ballot before.

    …

    Despite long queues outside polling stations a spirit of exhilaration gripped much of the city, perhaps because people had a chance to give private, peaceful verdicts on a showdown that has upended normal life.

    …

    The district councils are the only Hong Kong authority selected by full universal suffrage. The city’s leader is chosen by an electoral college and only some seats in the city’s legislature are selected in open ballots.

    …

    A last-minute surge in registration added to the electoral rolls nearly 400,000 voters – most of them young – and a wave of novice pro-democracy candidates meant that for the first time in Hong Kong’s history every seat was contested.

    Many pro-Beijing candidates were running on promises to “stop the violence” of the protests in which hundreds have been injured, some critically.

    Authorities have tried to paint the demonstrators as unreasonable extremists, and brush off calls for an independent inquiry into escalating police brutality.

    But even in establishment strongholds, support for pro-democracy candidates has grown.

    …

    A pro-democracy landslide will have few immediate political consequences, but in the long term it might slightly tip the balance of power in the city, because the councils play a role in choosing the chief executive and some legislators.

    Control of a majority of councils might allow pro-democrats to have greater leverage the next time the city chooses a leader, although they would still be far from a majority. And it may leave the government and authorities in Beijing scrambling for a response.

    “This will send the message to the government that they should be more humble. It’s your job to serve people, and not beat people up if they don’t listen to you,” said Stephen, a retired businessman in his 60s voting in the affluent Mid-Levels neighbourhood.

    “This government won’t respond to the voters but China should heed this message. They should make some concessions.”

  203. says

    Esper is asking for Navy Secretary Spencer’s resignation, for going to Trump and proposing a sort of compromise re Gallagher. So he’s being fired. Utterly outrageous and a very worrying development.

  207. says

    Tapes. ABC – “House Intelligence Committee in possession of video, audio recordings from Giuliani associate Lev Parnas”:

    The House Intelligence Committee is in possession of audio and video recordings and photographs provided to the committee by Lev Parnas, an associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who reportedly played a key role in assisting him in his efforts to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

    The material submitted to the committee includes audio, video and photos that include Giuliani and Trump. It was unclear what the content depicts and the committees only began accessing the material last week.

    “We have subpoenaed Mr. Parnas and Mr. [Igor] Fruman for their records. We would like them to fully comply with those subpoenas,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told CNN Sunday, with a committee spokesperson adding they would not elaborate beyond the chairman’s comments.

    An attorney for Parnas, Joe Bondy, also declined to comment, directing ABC News to a statement released earlier in the day Sunday reading in part, “Mr. Parnas has vociferously and publicly asserted his wish to comply with his previously issued subpoena and to provide the House Intelligence Committee with truthful and important information that is in furtherance of justice, not to obstruct it.”

    The statement goes on to say, “His evidence and potential testimony is non-partisan, and not intended to be part of a battle between the left and the right, but rather an aid in the determination by our government of what is in the best interests of our nation.”

    Sources tell ABC News the tapes were provided as part of that congressional subpoena issued to Parnas, and the former Giuliani ally also provided a number of documents both in English and Ukrainian to the committee in two separate productions, sources told ABC News.

    However, some of the material sought by congressional investigators is already in possession of federal investigators within the Southern District of New York and thus held up from being turned over, according to sources familiar with the matter.

    Parnas’ associate, Fruman, has not cooperated with the committee….

  209. says

    Carl Bernstein (of Woodward and Bernstein) on CNN just now: “We are looking at a war on truth. That is really the story of this presidency. And if the Republicans are willing to go along and endorse and be part of a war on truth, they’re on trial, too, in the Senate. And whether or not it will be decades that they are tarred with being part of this war on truth, we’ll have to wait and see, if they go down the line and are unwilling to look at the evidence based on merit.”

  210. says

    Alternative account of Spencer firing.

    “…Official: Esper then decided that given all of the messy issues surrounding Chief Eddie Gallagher’s case that it would be impossible for him to get a fair hearing from military so he has decided to allow him to keep his Trident and retire at current rank from Navy….”

    Yeah, that makes total sense in the context of this account – Esper wanted to go ahead with the review which Spencer wanted to fix on Gallagher’s behalf, allowing him to keep his Trident and retire, so Esper had to fire Spencer and…cancel the review, allowing him to keep his Trident and retire.

  212. says

    “A humble request— If you are departing because you are not on the same page with the president on undermining the rule of law and the good order and discipline of the armed forces, do not go on to write that the president deserves a Navy Secretary who will undermine those things.

    The president doesn’t deserve to have henchmen who will undermine the rule of law out of personal fealty to him in high office. The American people deserve civil servants who will uphold their oaths to the constitution. If that’s too wordy, just say alright I’m out.”

    I was just thinking this! It’s not a policy dispute – it’s opposing war crimes vs. supporting war crimes.

  214. johnson catman says

    re SC @212: The Orange Toddler-Tyrant will never read that letter. It has WAY too many words and no pictures, and it doesn’t mention his name even once.

  216. says

    “In a segment titled ‘The Progressive case against Ukrainegate’, Krystal Ball suggest Pelosi and Dems are impeaching Donald Trump to keep Bernie Sanders off the campaign trial.

    Aaron Mate replies, ‘I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors’.

    If you want to watch the full segment of self-proclaimed progressives arguing against the impeachment of Donald Trump, using Republican talking points about Sondland’s testimony, and agreeing with Republican congressman Will Hurd – here you go:…”

  217. says

    CNBC – “Giuliani associate wants to testify that Nunes aides hid Ukraine meetings on Biden dirt from Schiff”:

    The lawyer for an indicted business associate of Rudy Giuliani said his client is prepared to testify under oath that aides to Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, scrapped a trip to Ukraine this year when they realized it would mean notifying Democratic Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff.

    Lev Parnas would tell Congress that the purpose of the planned trip was to interview two Ukrainian prosecutors who claim to have evidence that could help President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy, told CNBC. Nunes is one of Trump’s most outspoken defenders in Congress. Giuliani is one of the president’s personal lawyers.

    But when Nunes’ staff realized that going to Ukraine themselves would mean alerting Schiff to their plans, they instead asked Parnas to set up the meetings for them over phone and Skype, which he did, according to Bondy.

    …

    The Nunes team’s scrapped trip to Ukraine has not been previously reported, nor have the meetings that Bondy said his client arranged in place of the overseas trip. The meetings took place in late March, and Derek Harvey, a senior investigator for Nunes, represented the congressman, according to Bondy. One of the meetings was with Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, and it was held over Skype, Parnas would tell Congress. The second, Bondy said, was a phone call Parnas arranged for Harvey with a deputy in Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office, Konstantin Kulik.

    Both Kulik and Kholodnytsky have repeatedly claimed they witnessed corruption by Democratic operatives in Ukraine during the 2016 election. Neither official has produced evidence to support his account. A Nunes spokesman did not respond to several requests for comment about what Parnas would reveal to Congress.

    According to Bondy, Parnas says he began working with Harvey after Nunes, of California, and his staff traveled to Vienna in late November to meet with another potential source of political dirt on Democrats: former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who claims that Biden demanded his firing because Shokin was secretly investigating a company, Burisma, that employed Biden’s son Hunter.

    …

    The latest allegations about the planned trip to Ukraine this spring, however, suggest that Nunes’ purported efforts to dig up dirt on Biden and Democrats did not end with the Vienna trip.

    They also potentially implicate Nunes and his committee staff in the same events the committee is currently investigating. Specifically, the monthslong effort by Trump, Giuliani and others to get Ukrainian officials to help them dig up dirt on Biden, and to validate far-right conspiracies about Ukraine and the 2016 election.

    …

    Over the course of three days of public hearings last week, Nunes used the bulk of his allotted time to attack Democrats and the media, and to repeat the same unfounded claims about Democrats and Biden. At no point did Nunes ever mention that he or his staffers met with the three Ukrainian officials, some of whom were mentioned by name during testimony.

    Speaking to CNBC, Bondy said Parnas merely wants an opportunity to testify under oath before the Intelligence Committee about his and Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine. But so far, it’s not clear whether Schiff will call him in. Bondy said Parnas has responded to a subpoena he received this fall from the committee by turning over thousands of pages of records to back up his account of events.

    Asked whether he planned to ask Parnas in to testify, Schiff, of California, said Sunday that the committee wants to review the documents he produces first, before deciding whether to proceed with an interview. Schiff appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

    Meamwhile, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that Nunes would “likely” face a House ethics probe over allegations he sought to dig up dirt on Biden….

  218. says

    Sanjay Gupta at CNN – “The mystery of President Trump’s unannounced hospital visit”:

    President Donald Trump’s unannounced visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last weekend spurred speculation about his health from the public, and from doctors. In a statement late Monday night, the White House doctor said that the President underwent “a routine, planned” checkup and attributed “scheduling uncertainties” for keeping the trip off the record.

    Trump himself addressed the visit during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, saying, “I went for a physical on Saturday” because he had extra time. It was the first time he had been seen in public since that weekend’s visit.

    We know that Trump is 73 years old, has heart disease and is clinically obese. For any man of that age and medical history, an unexpected visit to the hospital is concerning.

    Over the past week, I have spoken to doctors who’ve previously worked at the White House and those who are currently in touch with the White House. They all say that what happened last weekend is unusual: an unscheduled hospital visit for what was characterized as very routine testing — testing that could have been done at the White House.

    …

    Given that the White House had previously given plenty of advance notice about the President’s past physical exams, last weekend’s visit to Walter Reed reportedly took everyone by surprise, including much of the staff at the hospital itself. Whenever the President is planning a visit to Walter Reed, an institution-wide notice goes out, making staff aware of certain road and corridor closings. According to a person familiar with the matter, that didn’t happen last weekend.

    Also striking: the fact that the president’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, rode with Trump in the presidential motorcade. Typically, the doctor rides separately from the President for security reasons. A former White House doctor told me it had never happened during their time there.

    …

    Despite Conley’s memo, there are reasons why questions continue about President Trump’s unannounced visit to Walter Reed.

    For starters, all the tests Conley described could’ve been performed at the White House instead of the hospital. Many blood tests require the patient to fast overnight and are thus performed first thing in the morning — not in the middle of the afternoon, as apparently happened with the President.

    And remember, the President had these tests just nine months ago. One of the reasons doctors wait a year to order labs for a routine physical is to better assess the impact of medication and lifestyle changes over a consistent interval of time. There is no benefit to drawing the blood early, unless there is a concern about something.

    Finally, there is no such thing as a phased physical exam, as Trump had described it in his tweet from last weekend.

    In Conley’s memo, he described the visit as a “routine, planned interim checkup,” not a “physical exam.” Dr. Jennifer Peña, who served as a physician to Vice President Mike Pence until 2018, told CNN’s Jeremy Diamond that these two characterizations are significantly different.

    “Routine annual is where we do a comprehensive history and physical exam, with any necessary labs and studies,” she said, while noting that an “interim checkup” suggests a “follow up” visit for a condition or medication that is being monitored.

    As both a physician and a reporter who has covered four administrations, none of this adds up…

    …

    Take a look back at what we’ve been told about Trump’s health over the years.

    I’ve reported in the past about doctors who seemed to cater to Trump’s whims….

    …

    So, the question remains: Why was there a need for President Trump to be at a hospital on a Saturday afternoon? Any doctor who heard about a man with a history of heart disease and clinical obesity making an unannounced visit to a hospital would be worried the patient may be having symptoms that warrant that visit.

    That is the reason why so many in the medical community remain concerned. Both a former White House doctor and a doctor currently in contact with the White House have raised their unease with me. “It’s concerning to me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, you know, to do that kind of testing at Walter Reed without, really without provocation,” said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, cardiologist to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Reiner is authorized by the White House to speak about last weekend’s incident but is not privy to all of Trump’s medical records. He and the other doctor I spoke with expressed concern that a full picture of the President’s health is not being revealed.

    …

    The greater concern here isn’t whether the White House medical team is being honest with the public. It’s whether the team is being honest with the President himself. If they are simply following the patient’s orders instead of acting independently, they are treating the President’s whims as much as they are treating his health.

    Much more at the link.

  219. says

    This Politico piece, “Judge slams feds over murky stance on McCabe,” came out on the 14th. It says:

    After the closed-door session Thursday, Walton did not indicate publicly what had transpired, but ordered DOJ to start releasing the documents demanded in the case. He also indicated that he planned to unseal a declaration the Justice Department filed in March explaining the ongoing enforcement proceedings that justified withholding the records CREW requested.

    11 days have passed. Have they released any documents? Has he unsealed the declaration? Have they had to inform McCabe of the status of his case?

  224. Akira MacKenzie says

    SC @ 221

    “God has used imperfect people forever’, but what Trump ‘has withstood is unlike what really any other mortal could understand’.

    Allow me to translate from American Fundamentalist to English: “We didn’t predict that this lecherous, foul-mouthed, obviously-corrupt, dullard would somehow become more popular among the Republican base than the usual batch of Bible-humpers we run, so we had to scramble to come up with a excuse as for why our omnipotent, morally pure, deity would allow this clown to become president instead of Ted Cruz. Then again, he’s voting the way we tell him to, so I guess it’s not so bad. “

  225. says

    CNBC – “‘They will destroy everything here’: Turkish advance forces Syrians to flee homes as winter looms”:

    Sleman Alshallah, 40, gathered his wife and five children outside his home with what little they owned — cooking pots, blankets and a rug — in the small northern Syrian farming village of Am Alkef last week. “We are ready to leave at any hour,” said Alshallah.

    It would be difficult to abandon his grandparents’ farm and only source of income, he said. He looked north, in the direction of Turkey and dull thuds of fighting, where a mile away was the last defense against the advancing Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA). The shelling often reaches his village, where bombs can land in an open field or someone’s home during the daily back-and-forth barrage.

    “They will destroy everything here like in other villages,” he said of the TFSA. His was the last inhabited village before the frontline and the latest border of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Residents expected the village to fall, maybe within the week. After that, the town of Tal Tamr, where thousands more reside, would be in the TFSA’s crosshairs.

    Heavy fighting has continued despite a cease-fire deal in northern Syria after Turkey vowed to clear SDF fighters from a 20-mile-deep “safe zone” between the border cities of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn in October. A cease-fire was brokered by Russia with Turkey to end fighting in late October. But the war never stopped, according to sources on the ground.

    According to the United Nations, more than 200,000 people have been displaced since the invasion last month. Only around 15,000 have made it to northern Iraq, while the rest search for clean water and shelter in Syria. Aid in many areas is nonexistent. Those displaced fear an approaching winter and the future of their autonomous region, which has enjoyed a brief period of peace since kicking out the Islamic State.

    …

    The sound of outgoing mortars from a nearby SDF position didn’t seem to cause concern for shoppers at the general store of Abdel Kareem, 38, in Tal Tamr. Kareem has worked in his small shop for 12 years. After IS left the area, he said the city began rebuilding. People returned and business resumed. “We shared happy days and sad days,” he said of the small population home to Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Kurds.

    Now residents are preparing for its fall, despite being outside of Turkey’s “safe zone.” In the distance, tire fires, lit by SDF, attempt to give cover from drones and jets. “Everyone is waiting to see whether they will leave their homes,” said Kareem, adding that while he plans to send his children away when the war arrives, he will remain: “I will be here until the end.“

    Those that flee the fighting have few places to turn. Most don’t have the money to reach camps in northern Iraq. Instead, they head away from the front, looking for buildings and homes abandoned during past fighting with IS, to prepare for the approaching harsh winter.

    Alshallah and his family found a new home around 15 miles west in a largely abandoned Christian village named Am Albaloa. Only a couple families remained from the original inhabitants, living amid a burned church and pockmarked homes.

    No one could say how the first family found the village, but as refugees began heading south after the invasion — with the majority coming from Serekani and the surrounding area — the Christian families opened their doors to their Muslim countrymen. Now around 200 refugees are crammed four or five families to a house, with more arriving daily by foot or in the back of trucks.

    Although they had found shelter, the recently displaced described a dire situation. The village is without clean water and electricity. Many houses don’t have windows or doors. They dread the coming winter.

    …

    Water and winter was also on 55-year-old Diak Mahmoud’s mind as he sat inside a public school now housing refugees in the city of Hasakah. His children only have summer clothes, while it gets colder by the week. Fighting has destroyed infrastructure and contaminated the water all the way to his new host city.

    …

    Serekani was beautiful before the war, Mahmoud said. They felt safe under SDF protection, and there was plenty of food and water. He worked as a mechanic. Now he has word from a relative that his garage and home have been emptied. Everything was stolen by the TFSA, claimed Mahmoud. “Everyone left in Serekani is poor.“

    His family expects to be asked to leave the relative warmth of the concrete school in the coming weeks for tents. He thinks he will return to Serekani one day. But he no longer trusts American or European leaders. “We just trust in [Syrian Democratic Forces] General Mazloum Abdi and Syria.”

    Talaat Younes, an official with the Syrian Democratic Council, said one must only look to the Kurdish enclave of Afrin to see what areas now under TFSA control will face. The World Health Organization estimates that 167,000 people were displaced in Afrin after a Turkish-backed invasion last year.

    “After the departure of Afrin’s population, the land and homes were given to strangers,” Younes said, describing reports of theft and acquisition of property by the TFSA. According to interviews with those who have fled the recent fighting, occupying TFSA soldiers have employed a similar strategy of widespread looting.

    Another cost of the invasion has been a decrease in security within a region finally enjoying a period of peace. Last week three car bombs exploded in the region’s de facto capital of Qamishli, killing at least six and wounding dozens. Within half an hour of the explosions, tractors were scrapping the street of debris while investigators picked through mangled steel.

    Now northern Syria’s newest refugees wait to see if they will share a similar fate to their countrymen in Afrin and, as a bitter winter approaches, if any countries with a stake in this sliver of land will act on their behalf.

  227. says

    A personal request: I would appreciate it if no one posted anything about the fucking turkey pardons. I find the whole tradition and everything surrounding it grotesque, and would very much like to avoid as many articles/jokes/pictures/memes about it as I possibly can.

  228. says

    Update to #202 – Guardian – “China issues warning over Hong Kong after election blow”:

    China’s government has responded to a stunning landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates in the Hong Kong elections by emphasising that the city will always be ruled from Beijing, and warning against further protest violence.

    The foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned against “attempts to disrupt Hong Kong”, as a few hundred people took to the streets again in support of protesters holed up in a university that has been under siege by police for over a week.

    “No matter how the situation in Hong Kong changes, it is very clear that Hong Kong is a part of Chinese territory,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “Any attempts to disrupt Hong Kong or undermine its stability and prosperity will not succeed.”

    The election results pose a dilemma for Beijing, and Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. Hand-picked to rule by party leaders, she is widely accepted to have coordinated her hardline response to protesters with China’s top leadership.

    Before the vote, Lam often claimed she had the support of a “silent majority”, as she refused to compromise. With that position untenable after pro-government candidates were swept from power across the city, holding on to barely one in 10 seats on district councils, she took a more conciliatory approach.

    On Monday, she promised to respect the election results and “listen humbly” to the views of the public. Refusing to compromise would almost certainly inflame residents and protesters further, nearly six months into a deep political crisis.

    But the resounding democratic rejection of China’s plans for Hong Kong presents the autocratic president, Xi Jinping, with one of the most serious challenges to his rule since he took power in 2012, and it is far from clear if he will be willing to climb down.

    Most Chinese media sidestepped mentioning the results when they reported on the elections, saying only that polls had closed in Hong Kong.

    Hours after Wang’s comments, a ministry spokesman Geng Shuang also avoided directly commenting on the results, but made a fresh attack on the protest movement, which China has repeatedly claimed is being supported by foreign powers seeking to undermine the country….

  229. says

    AP – “Esper says Trump ordered him to allow SEAL to keep status”:

    Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that President Donald Trump gave him a direct order to allow a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes to retire without losing his SEAL status.

    Esper told reporters at the Pentagon that Trump’s order was the reason he announced Sunday that Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher would be allowed to retire with his Trident Pin, retaining his status as a SEAL.

    Last week Trump had tweeted that he wanted Gallagher to be allowed to retire as a SEAL, but Esper’s comments Monday revealed that Trump had given the defense secretary a direct order to make this happen.

    …

    In his remarks, Esper also accused Navy Secretary Richard Spencer of secretly offering to the White House to rig the Navy disciplinary process to ensure that Gallagher not lose his Trident.

    Esper fired Spencer on Sunday, saying he had lost trust in him. Spencer has not responded to requests for comment on Esper’s accusation. However, in a resignation letter Sunday he gave a different version of his thinking.

    Spencer said he could not in good conscience follow an order that he believed would undermine the principle of good order and discipline in the military – suggesting that he had been ordered to stop the peer-review process for Gallagher.

    In announcing Sunday that he had dismissed Spencer, Esper said he acted after learning of Spencer’s secret plan to guarantee the outcome of the Navy SEAL peer-review board that was scheduled to convene Dec. 2 with the goal of recommending whether Gallagher should be allowed to retain his Trident.

    Spencer had “proposed a deal whereby if the president allowed the Navy to handle the case, he would guarantee that Eddie Gallagher would be restored to rank, allowed to retain his Trident and permitted to retire,” Esper said.

    This was “completely contrary” to what Esper and the rest of the Pentagon leadership had agreed to, he said, and contrary to Spencer’s public position that the Navy disciplinary process should be allowed to play out with no interference.

    Esper said he had previously advocated for allowing the Navy peer-review board go forward Dec. 2. But when Trump gave him a “verbal instruction” Sunday to stop the process, he did so.

    “The commander in chief has certain constitutional rights and powers which he is free to exercise, as many presidents have done in the past,” Esper said. “Again, these are constitutional powers.”…

    As I said @ #210 above, the WH/Esper story is transparent bullshit which is neither internally consistent nor fits with the other evidence we’ve seen. Its purpose appears to be to try to discredit Spencer who stood up to Trump and to provide cover for Esper’s own cowardice.

  232. says

    From NBC News:

    Amazon Web Services on Friday confirmed it has filed a lawsuit challenging the Defense Department’s decision to award Microsoft a major contract for cloud services.

    The JEDI, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, deal, which could be worth up to $10 billion, was hotly contested and marks a big win for Microsoft as it chases down AWS in cloud infrastructure.

    Commentary:

    […] It’s entirely possible that Microsoft won the contract strictly on the merits and there’s no concern about possible presidential corruption. That said, Donald Trump hasn’t exactly made it easy to believe the most benign interpretation of events.

    Let’s back up and review how we arrived at this point. About a year into Trump’s presidency, Axios spoke to five sources close to the White House who said the Republican was eager to “go after” Amazon.com and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. Referring to Trump, one source said at the time, “He’s obsessed with Amazon. Obsessed.”

    The article added, “The president would love to clip CEO Jeff Bezos’ wings. But he doesn’t have a plan to make that happen.”

    Trump’s preoccupation with Bezos has always been a little weird. It’s effectively a political bank shot of presidential contempt: the Republican hates the Washington Post’s coverage of his administration, which leads Trump to hate its owner, which then leads the president to also hate Bezos’ other businesses, including Amazon Web Services.

    It was against this backdrop that Trump announced in July – just as the Pentagon was reportedly prepared to announce a decision on the JEDI contract – that he was looking “very seriously” at intervening in the contracting process because unnamed people had told him “it wasn’t competitively bid.” […]

    Trump had no idea what he was saying. […]

    Defense Secretary Mark Esper [ahem … Trump Toady Esper] said he intended to review the contract. […] the Pentagon chief’s reexamination was the result of White House instructions and “11th-hour Oval Office intervention.” There were “concerns” in the West Wing, the article added, that the lucrative contract “would go to Amazon.”

    Not surprisingly, the president’s personal animus has not gone unnoticed by the lawyers representing the online retail behemoth. The Washington Post noted in its report on Friday’s developments:
    […]

    From the Washington Post:

    Amazon on Friday cited comments by President Trump at a rally and to journalists as it pursues its challenge to the Pentagon’s surprise decision to award a lucrative contract to rival Microsoft last month.

    For the first time, Amazon directly linked the president’s comments to the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, also known as JEDI, to Microsoft last month. Though Amazon filed its protest under seal, it also notified the Court of Federal Claims that it intends to use four videos as exhibits, including one of Trump at a February 2016 campaign rally in Texas, as well as one of a Fox News host urging him to prevent the Pentagon from awarding the contract to the online retail giant.

    More commentary:

    It was at that Texas rally that then-candidate Trump assured supporters, in reference to Amazon, “Believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems. They are going to have such problems.”

    One of the other exhibits notes a Fox News segment, which Trump promoted via Twitter, that criticized the JEDI contract as the “Bezos bailout.”

    Jon Chait recently described the president’s alleged intervention in the Pentagon contract as Trump’s “gravest abuse of power.” Given the competition in the category, that’s no small assessment.

    Link

  233. says

    About the firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer by Trump Toady Defense Secretary Mark Esper:

    […] Trump soon after weighed in with tweets suggesting Spencer’s ouster had something to do with “large cost overruns from past administration’s contracting procedures,” which the president said “were not addressed to my satisfaction.” [Bullshit]

    […] The Washington Post’s David Ignatius – who, incidentally, is the son of a former Navy secretary – added in his new column, “With Spencer’s firing, Trump has recklessly crossed a line he had generally observed before, which had exempted the military from his belligerent, government-by-tweet interference. But the Gallagher case illustrates how an irascible, vengeful commander in chief is ready to override traditional limits to aid political allies in foreign policy, law enforcement and now military matters.”

    Link

  234. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 199, regarding retroactive narrative construction, trying, once again, to bail Trump out.

    In the not-too-distant past, when Donald Trump was a reality-show personality, he was supposed to oversee dramatic scenes at the end of every episode of The Apprentice. The point, as viewers know, was for him to tell one of the contestants, “You’re fired.”

    In practice, however, Trump would routinely lose track of what he was supposed to say, which occasionally led him to fire the wrong people based on whims. […] the show’s producers would then turn to the fine art of “retroactive narrative construction”: producers and editors would comb through footage, hoping to reverse engineer a story that could be presented to viewers in a way that made Trump’s misguided decision appear sensible.

    Now that the reality-show personality is the leader of the free world, White House officials are doing eerily similar work.

    When Trump unveiled an imagined tax plan that didn’t exist, White House officials had to scramble behind the scenes to reverse engineer a policy. When the president made up stories about human traffickers, officials got to work looking for evidence that might confirm what Trump decided was true. When Trump announced plans for a “Space Force,” his team had to figure out a way to make it seem as if there was an actual plan in place for a Space Force. […]

    Link

    From the Washington Post:

    A confidential White House review of President Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal […]

    The research by the White House Counsel’s Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance, according to the three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

    Looks like the retroactive narrative construction failed big time.

  235. says

    From Josh Marshall, an attempt to present a coherent picture of the tangled web woven by Trump, Giuliani, and various other unethical asshats:

    […] We already knew that Giuliani was visiting Ukraine looking for anyone who would claim or manufacture evidence helpful to Donald Trump and use it to intervene in the 2020 election. This came in two forms: manufacturing evidence either against the Biden Family or claims about Ukraine being the guilty party in the 2016 election.

    Giuliani and his associates (DiGenova, Toensing, Solomon, Parnas, et al.) had the most luck with Dmitry Firtash, the exiled oligarch trying to escape deportation to the United States to face bribery charges. Giuliani brought in DiGenova and Toensing to plead Firtash’s case to Bill Barr and Firtash helped generate accusations against the Biden’s. Firtash was the source of an affidavit in which the corrupt prosecutor Shokin made his accusations against the Bidens.

    Firtash has strong ties to the Kremlin. […] He needs those US charges dropped and the American President’s confidant seems like a good shot at getting that done.

    We also knew that Giuliani tried to cut a similar deal with another oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But that approach didn’t go well and even led to a legal fight between Kolomoisky and Parnas and Fruman. […]

    Then there’s this report from Bloomberg News. Giuliani also sought work with a Ukrainian bank called Privatbank seeking to recoup lost assets from its previous owner, Igor Kolomoisky.

    This requires a brief history lesson. Kolomoisky’s rise was fueled by his ownership and looting of Privatbank. Cleaning this up was part of the US anti-corruption in the country. The problem was that Privatbank was so massive in the Ukraine economy it was too big to fail. So they ended up nationalizing the bank and taking most but not all of Kolomoisky’s corrupt gains. This is when he went into exile in Israel. He only returned when Zelensky became President. He is seen as a backer of Zelensky in part because Zelensky’s TV show ran on a channel owned by Kolomoisky. […]

    here is where it’s important to step a few paces back to see the big picture. Giuliani was going to various oligarchs looking for help for […] Trump and intervention in the 2020 election. In each of these cases the oligarchs had interests and in most cases legal trouble in the US. This was the basis of working together. The oligarch manufactures dirt and election assistance for President Trump and Giuliani tries to make their US legal problems go away. But at each stage Giuliani was also trying to hawk his own ‘legal services’ or more accurately trying to set up his own personal revenue stream, whether it’s with Firtash or the gas concessions Parnas and Fruman were trying to arrange or the battle between Privatbank and Kolomoisky.

    On multiple levels US foreign policy was being subverted to serve the personal legal ends of Donald Trump, the cash hunger of Rudy Giuliani and those of various corrupt oligarchs and public officials in Ukraine. […]

    Trump was getting legal and political help. Rudy Giuliani was getting money. They were both in exchange for changes to US foreign policy to assist indicted and/or corrupt officials in Ukraine. […]

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-big-big-picture

  236. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 187.

    CNN’s John King on Monday dismissed Rep. Devin Nunes’s (R-Calif.) remark that he can’t answer questions over his alleged meeting with a former Ukrainian prosecutor because the media is “corrupt.”

    “Forgive me, but horseshit,” King said, after playing a clip of Nunes speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” […]

  237. says

    William Barr Is Using the DOJ to Intimidate Ukraine Witnesses

    Attorney General Bill Barr seems to be wrapping up his investigation of the investigation of Russian interference in 2016. Yet the whole episode, combined with Republicans’ line of questioning in the impeachment inquiry, seems like a political ploy to supply a counternarrative to the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential elections. I[…]

    In this parallel universe, it was the Democrats who colluded with Ukrainian officials to leak damaging information about Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. And yet, despite this supposed effort to help Democrats, Ukraine, simultaneously, hacked the Democratic National Committee’s server in order to leak embarrassing emails. In this version of events, for which there is no actual evidence, Trump never could have colluded with Russia, because Russia never did anything wrong.

    In order for this counternarrative to stick, however, Trump and his associates need to destroy all trust in the intelligence community. That means making false allegations and stoking suspicions about those pesky civil servants who concluded that Russia mounted a massive influence campaign in 2016 […]

    Last month, media outlets reported that Barr’s investigation had become a criminal one. […]

    But, this was not the first threatening message sent to the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Trump and his supporters have already released several shots across the bow.

    The original cast of characters who first began investigating the Russian interference operation in 2016, and whether Trump or his associates had any connection to it, have all faced intimidation and retribution from the president and his supporters. [Comey, Flynn, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Jim Baker ….]

    […] The CIA has not fared much better. The president threatened to take away John Brennan’s security clearance as a consequence for the former CIA director’s public criticism of Trump. The White House also threatened to pull the clearances of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director Michael Hayden for their candid commentary. […]

    The situation has not improved as the Russia investigation has morphed into the Ukraine investigation (with Manafort casting his shadow over both). Trump tweeted a disparaging message about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch while she was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee last week about how Giuliani waged a smear campaign against her with the help of a corrupt prosecutor in Ukraine. […] The lawyers representing the whistleblower have been smeared in the right-wing media and have received death threats.

    For all the legends about cunning spies, tough FBI officers, and skilled diplomats, it can be easy to forget these officials are human beings. They have children, wives, husbands, mortgages, bills to pay, families to care for, and jobs that provide their livelihoods. Putting all that at risk is scary.

    […] What deterrent do the Trump team’s intimidation tactics, including Barr’s now criminal investigation, create for those still gunning for the truth? Knowing the personal risks involved in pursuing the collection of intelligence or the investigation of topics that might lead to Trump, are our civil servants doing it anyway? […] is bad behavior going to go unchecked this time because people are afraid to act, fearful of the personal consequences involved? […]

    The good news is these civil servants seem like they won’t be cowed. Yovanovitch and a slew of other officials are willingly testifying before Congress […]

    It is true that many people have chosen, instead, to leave these agencies. […]

  238. says

    From Jennifer Rubin, writing for the Washington Post:

    […] Trump has repeatedly dishonored the military. He sent troops to the southern border before the 2018 midterms in a xenophobic stunt designed to win votes. He seized funds for military construction to build his useless wall […] He humiliated our forces by announcing an impulsive retreat from Syria, betraying our allies and allowing Russians to seize and occupy our former facilities. Then came the case of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher.

    Joseph Kristol and Stephen Petraeus wrote for The Post:

    On Thursday, the president showed fresh contempt for the professional judgment of military officers, tweeting “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin.” […]

    Trump seems to think that condoning war crimes (as he did during the campaign) and freeing those who violate the code of conduct for our armed forces make him a tough guy, one of the boys and a hero to the military. The opposite is true. […]

    Then, on Sunday, something curious happened. The secretary of the Navy refused to go along with this abomination. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer was fired for allegedly trying to cut a private deal with the White House to “ensure that Gallagher retired as a Navy SEAL, with his Trident insignia, if they did not interfere with a review board convened to determine his fitness to stay in the elite force.” Spencer is accused of not relaying this proposal to the defense secretary, which differed from reports that he would resign unless the president relented.

    It is hard to tell what to make of this convoluted explanation. As my colleague Josh Rogin and others point out, the story does not make much sense, and one might surmise Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper may have been dispatched to find a pretext for firing Spencer. […]

    Spencer spoke for many military personnel and civilians when he wrote in a letter to Trump, “The lives of our Sailors, Marines and civilian teammates quite literally depend on the professional execution of our many missions, and they also depend on the ongoing faith and support of the people we serve and the allies we serve alongside.” He said he could not “in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took.” […]

    Trump’s juvenile conception of manhood and utter inability to conceive of laws, codes of conduct or professional responsibilities that constrain us and reinforce our deepest-held values make him uniquely unfit to lead. Just as he remains a menace to the rule of law and to our international alliances, he is doing his best to degrade the respect for our military and erode morale. […]

  240. says

    Jacqueline Thomsen:

    NEW: A federal judge has granted @publicintegrity a preliminary injunction in their FOIA lawsuit seeking OMB/Defense Dept docs on the withholding of Ukraine aid. She orders the agencies to release all non-exempt docs by 12/20, with first batch due 12/12.

    On impeachment: “The requested documents are sought in order to inform the public on a matter of extreme national concern. Only an informed electorate can develop its opinions and persuasively petition its elected officials to act in ways which further the aims of those opinions.”

    More: “In order to ensure informed public participation in the proceedings, the public needs access to relevant information…irreparable harm is already occurring each day the impeachment proceedings move forward without an informed public able to access relevant information.”

    To be clear, this order is to give @publicintegrity the documents. I’ve asked them if they plan to immediately release the information once they’ve received it.

  242. says

    Excerpt from an interview with Malcom Nance:

    QUESTION: “They put a set of rose-colored glasses on his face,” you recently stated about the Russian government. “Donald Trump sees the world only through Moscow’s point of view.” What did this mean?

    NANCE: Perception management is a technique in which you frame the information sphere around your opponent, whether it’s an individual or a nation, with so much information that is relatively credible to where your opponent adopts the framework that you are giving him, so that it’s sort of like a pair of rose-colored glasses, right? Only, instead of you needing them, they are created for you and customized around your personality, around how you see the world. And then that disinformation and propaganda—truths, half-truths, and lies—it’s been fitted around you slowly, like boiling the frog, to where you adopt a framework, which only benefits Russia.

    Donald Trump got his glasses fitted, so to speak, at that secret meeting at the Nobu restaurant with the twelve richest oligarchs in Russia, including a representative from Putin. [In 2013, Trump met with Russian businessmen at Nobu restaurant in Moscow.] No one knows what was said in it, but we can tell the parameters of it because of how he behaves. And, from that point on, there was nothing negative he could ever say about Russia or Vladimir Putin. So now the reason his perspective constantly complements Russia is because his own education on Russia, Ukraine, and that world has been crafted by Moscow. So he sees it from their world view.

    QUESTION: What about the idea, though, that he sees the world through the prism of his own self-interest, combined with a general preference for strongmen and autocracy, as we see when he talks about North Korea or Turkey?

    NANCE: This year, I went to Putin’s office when he [worked] in Dresden, and I learned quite a bit from the experts out there in Germany about how he behaved.

    QUESTION: This was the office from when he was a K.G.B. guy in East Germany?

    NANCE: In Dresden, right. Putin learned his ground-game human-intelligence activities very well. It gave him a very, very unique perspective on East versus West and how money motivated virtually every person. We have this acronym, mice, which you use to recruit spies. “M” is money, “I” is ideology, “C” is coercion or compromise, “E” is ego or excitement. And that’s how you get a person to betray their nation. Putin would have seen when “The Apprentice” came to Russia as a TV show—he would have called back and said to his intelligence staff, ‘Someone go get me the dossier on Donald Trump.’ And then they would have realized that they had been surveilling Donald Trump since 1977. He had an extensive K.G.B. folder.

    [No evidence has been found to substantiate this claim. According to the Guardian, the Czechoslovakian intelligence agency became interested in Trump as early as 1977. The article also notes that “it’s unclear to what degree the KGB and StB shared or coordinated Trump material.”]

    QUESTION: You’re saying that because he married a woman from Czechoslovakia, which was behind the Iron Curtain?

    NANCE: Of course. Every intelligence agency does this when you have people who are noteworthy. However, back in the Communist days and the Cold War, every Westerner who went to the East was evaluated for an intelligence recruitment. […]

  243. says

    “NEWS: Subpoenas indicate a broad federal investigation into possible money laundering, obstruction of justice & campaign finance violations. Among the entities the subpoenas seek records on: Giuliani Partners.”

  244. says

    CNN is reporting that David Pecker from the National Enquirer has been talking to New York prosecutors about Trump Organization hush money payments. They’ve also talked to Michael Cohen.

  245. says

    “Among entities named in subpoenas are Giuliani Partners.
    Subpoenas described to WSJ listed more than 6 potential charges under consideration

    obstruction of justice, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements to the fed’l govt, serving as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the Justice Department, donating funds from foreign nationals, making contributions in the name of another person or allowing someone else to use one’s name to make a contribution, along w/mail & wire fraud.”

  246. says

    Guardian – “Spain’s far-right Vox blocks violence against women declaration”:

    Spain’s far-right Vox party has refused to sign an all-party declaration condemning violence against women, drawing outrage from civil rights groups and embarrassing its allies in the conservative People’s party.

    Vox’s refusal to sign the declaration by Madrid city council on Monday meant that for the first time since a landmark 2004 law on gender violence, local authorities in the Spanish capital were unable to issue a joint all-party statement.

    This month’s national election saw Vox become the third-largest party in the Spanish parliament, after more than doubling its number of seats with its mix of nationalist, anti-Muslim and anti-feminist rhetoric.

    Javier Ortega Smith, a member of both Madrid city council and the national parliament, said the declaration on the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women addressed only one side of gender violence.

    In a speech greeted by shouts of anger from the audience in Madrid’s city hall, he condemned what he described as “denialists” on gender violence, adding: “There are also men who suffer violence from women and are killed by their wives.”

    Hours later thousands of people took to the streets across Spain to demand that authorities do more to address the issue.

    In Madrid, demonstrators brought traffic in the city centre to a standstill, waving signs saying “How many more women must die?” and chanting: “It’s not an isolated case; it’s patriarchy.”

    The remarks were also condemned by the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, from the centre-right [LOL] PP, whose conservative administration with the pro-business Ciudadanos relies on four Vox votes for a majority in the city council. “It is not politics what you have done here today; it is political posturing,” said Almeida.

    The PP’s national leader, Pablo Casado, also tried to distance his party from its far-right allies, urging other parties to “join forces to fight against abusers”.

    There was an even angrier reaction from civil rights activists, notably Nadia Otmani, head of an association that helps migrant women deal with gender violence.

    Otmani, who has used a wheelchair for 20 years after her brother-in-law shot her as she tried to defend her sister, approached Ortega Smith after his speech, saying: “You cannot do this! You cannot play politics with gender violence!”

    “Vox came mounting an important challenge to democracy and started with this one,” said the acting deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, from the centre-left Socialists.

    According to official statistics compiled since 2003, 1,024 women have been killed in Spain by their partners as of 22 October. To date this year, 52 women have been killed.

    The latest victim, a woman in Tenerife, was allegedly murdered by her partner on Monday.

  249. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 247.

    A federal judge on Monday ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn must testify before Congress, delivering a significant win to House Democrats amid their impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

    In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, an Obama appointee, said McGahn is obligated to comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena from April seeking to compel his testimony.

    But the legal fight over McGahn’s testimony is likely far from over.

    McGahn’s lawyer William Burck said in a statement that his client would comply unless there is a stay.

    “Don McGahn will comply with Judge Jackson’s decision unless it is stayed pending appeal. The [Department of Justice] is handling this case, so you will need to ask them whether they intend to seek a stay,” said Burck.

    The White House, though, has already said it would appeal the decision.

    “This decision contradicts longstanding legal precedent established by Administrations of both political parties. We will appeal and are confident that the important constitutional principle advanced by the Administration will be vindicated,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. […]

    “I am pleased the court has recognized that the Trump Administration has no grounds to withhold critical witness testimony from the House during its impeachment inquiry,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

    “Now that the court has ruled, I expect him to follow his legal obligations and promptly appear before the Committee,” Nadler said of McGahn. […]

    “As a matter of law, such aides do not have absolute testimonial immunity,” the judge wrote.

    Jackson also dismissed the Justice Department’s argument that the court and Congress are rendered powerless in the face of a White House decision to block senior aides from testifying under subpoena. She said the agency’s argument “promotes a conception of separation-of-powers principles that gets these constitutional commands exactly backwards.”

    “In reality, it is a core tenet of this nation’s founding that the powers of a monarch must be split between the branches of the government to prevent tyranny,” she added. […]

    Link

  250. says

    From David Kurtz, writing for TPM:

    […] The Supreme Court has put on hold enforcement of a congressional subpoena for President Trump’s accounting firm until the court gets a chance to decide whether to take up the case. The Supreme Court gave President Trump until Dec. 5 to ask it to consider taking up the case involving the House subpoena of the Mazars accounting firm. This is a procedural move, not terribly surprising, and reasonable under the circumstances. As Tierney Sneed points out, this could mean we have a Supreme Court decision on it this term.

    The more potentially consequential decision came from a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., who found absolutely no absolute immunity exists for high level executive branch officials under congressional subpoena. DOJ is already planning to appeal, and the Supreme Court may eventually weigh in, so this first go at the case will not be the final word. But it was a loud word. The judge blasted OLC precedent on executive branch power, thrashed the Justice Department’s position as ahistorical, and generally gave as sweeping a constitutional rejection of Trump’s maximal assertion of executive power as could be rendered in the case.

    I’d love to get excited about the district court ruling because it articulates a robust role for the legislative and executive branches in holding the executive branch to account. Here here! But there’s a long way to go legally before this matter is resolved, and the conservative Supreme Court is unlikely to take as tempered a view of the scope of executive power.

  251. says

    “Tucker Carlson: ‘Why do I care what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am’. Carlson says he was joking later, which is convenient, but watch here-it hardly appears to be a joke.

    Every sponsor needs to DROP HIM NOW.”

    Video clip atl.

    Ha:

    Tucker Carlson: I’m rooting for Russia.

    Conservatives: A true American patriot!

    Obama: (is black)

    Conservatives: Send that Muslim back to Kenya!

  253. says

    I stand corrected re #s 210 and 229 above. Apparently Spencer did do that. I continue to underestimate the levels of stupidity to which so many people can sink in trying to deal with Trump’s lawlessness. Alas.

  257. says

    What Mike Pompeo said during a press conference today:

    Asked if the U.S. and Ukraine should investigate whether “Ukraine and not Russia hacked the DNC,” Pompeo, who previously served as CIA director, replied: “Anytime there is information that indicates that any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down.”

    Text excerpted from a Daily Beast article.

    Commentary:

    […]It’s worth emphasizing that Pompeo did not explicitly endorse the unhinged conspiracy theory or accuse Ukraine, by name, of any wrongdoing.

    But the Kansas Republican’s rhetoric seemed to leave open the possibility that the discredited conspiracy theory has merit, enough to warrant official examination. Pompeo could’ve used this opportunity to make clear that the U.S. government holds Russia responsible for Russia’s attack on our elections – but he didn’t.

    Indeed, look at that quote again: “Anytime there is information that indicates that any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down.”

    Among the problems with this is the fact that there is no “Information that indicates” Ukraine “messed with American elections.” There’s only Russian disinformation, which Donald Trump, for some reason, has been a little too eager to embrace.

    By talking about “chasing that down,” Pompeo made it sound as if there was a credible lead worthy of real scrutiny. There wasn’t, and there still isn’t. […]

    Pompeo went on to say the United States would examine all allegations “whomever it is” and “whatever nation it is.”

    If he could just focus a bit and bring himself to acknowledge his own country’s findings, it’d be a step in the right direction. But it’s a step Pompeo appears reluctant to take, probably because his boss keeps publicly taking the nonsense seriously.

    Link

  259. says

    Delusional Trump appears to be deluded again about polls.

    […] [Trump] has convinced himself that Americans are finally starting to see things his way.

    On Monday morning, he offered some thoughts about polling on impeachment: “Support for Impeachment is dropping like a rock, down into the 20’s in some Polls. Dems should now get down to work and finally approve USMCA, and much more!”

    That tweet echoed one from Sunday, in which he declared that “polls have now turned very strongly against Impeachment, especially in swing states.” Polling now showed that only 25 percent of those surveyed supported impeachment, according to his tweet.

    The president published a related missive this morning, ostensibly quoting someone on Fox News describing the latest polling as “actually devastating to the Democrats.”

    Part of the problem with Trump’s pitch is that he seems to be pointing to data that does not exist outside of his imagination. There are no national polls, for example, that put support for impeachment at just 25%. Literally none show the national figure “down into the 20s.” Republicans were awfully excited about an Emerson poll showing support slipping to 43%, but (a) that poll appears to be an outlier; and (b) there’s a significant difference between 43% and 25%.

    Complicating matters is the other data we’ve seen since the president made his dubious declarations. The latest Politico/Morning Consult poll, for example, found 50% of Americans support impeaching Trump and removing him from office, a figure that’s up three points since the previous survey taken before last week’s hearings.

    The latest CNN poll, released this morning, also found 50% of Americans supporting Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. And while those numbers haven’t budged in recent weeks, they reflect a dramatic shift since the spring.

    Overall, FiveThirtyEight’s averages show proponents of Trump’s impeachment outnumbering opponents, with the gap getting wider, not narrower.

    As for why the president keeps pretending the polls say what he wants them to say, remember Trump’s guiding principle: “People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you.”

    Link

  260. says

    Trump does not understand how time works. And he may not know what “centennial” means.

    […] Trump signed the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, which directs the Treasury to issue a commemorative coin to honor the 100th anniversary of American women getting the right to vote. After signing the measure — which passed both the House and Senate unanimously — the president decided to take a moment to reflect on what he considered important: his own awesomeness.

    “I am curious why wasn’t it done a long time ago and also, well, I guess the answer to that is because now I am president and we get things done.

    “We get a lot of things done that nobody else got done.”

    Well, if Trump is “curious” why other presidents didn’t sign the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, I can help. In this country, the women’s suffrage movement led to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919, and its ratification in 1920.

    No one tried to honor the centennial of this because — and this is important — centennials mark the hundredth anniversary of things. In order to recognize the centennial of something that happened in 1920, we had to wait until around 2020, because that’s how time works. […]

    At yesterday’s bill signing, after Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) explained the process of getting the act passed, Trump again asked, “So why wasn’t this done a long time ago — years ago?” Perhaps the president was waiting for someone to give him credit for something he had nothing to do with?

    Link

  261. says

    From Wonkette:

    The Navy tried real hard to punish Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher for his grab bag of accused war crimes, which included randomly shooting Iraqi civilians and killing a captive prisoner. Although a jury found Gallagher not guilty of some of his crimes for reasons that escape us, the psychopath confessed to posing for selfies with the prisoner’s corpse. That’s the sort of Hannibal Lecter-type behavior that warrants a demotion. Donald Trump disagreed. […]

    The president then blocked the Navy’s attempt to expel Gallagher from the SEALs and strip him of his fancy Trident pin. Trump’s Secretary of the Navy, Richard V. Spencer, tried to arrange a secret deal with the White House for Gallagher to quietly retire as a SEAL if Trump would just not make a big scene about it. This blew up in Spencer’s face because the White House is its very own island of misfit crooks. Spencer was reportedly talking to White House (acting) Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who publicly confesses to crimes. He shouldn’t have expected this to end well, and it didn’t. Defense Secretary Mark Esper fired Spencer yesterday for going over his head. […]

    Esper has straight-up admitted that Trump ordered him to restore Gallagher’s Trident pin. […]

    [Trump] boasted yesterday that he got involved in Gallagher’s case because he has to “protect my war fighters.” Trump is a little man who confuses brutality with strength. […] Trump campaigned on the benefits of waterboarding and other forms of torture that only work if you’re a sick fuck and your goal is to inflict pain.

    Now he wants to campaign for re-election with his band of brothers in war crimes. The Daily Beast reported that Trump wants to bring Clint Lorance, Matthew Golsteyn, and Gallagher on the road with him for his hate rallies. He might even put them on stage at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte next year. […]

    It doesn’t bother Trump’s supporters that he considers himself above the law or that he pardons thugs in defiance of military protocol and discipline. President Trump is their middle finger to the world. They’ll never give that up.

  262. johnson catman says

    re Lynna @260: Would somebody PLEASE REPEATEDLY SMACK THE SHIT OUT OF THAT IDIOT!? The Orange Toddler-Tyrant is so fucking stupid that I think I am going insane.

  263. redwood says

    What I wish is that every news show in the US had people on saying that Turnip is a coward and if he had any guts he’d testify in the hearings, along with his staff of Mulvaney and Barr. Just pound it over and over again like the GOPhers do, forcing a response from him. It’s the kind of bait he can’t refuse to answer in some form. Of course all his advisers will tell him not to but then the good guys should just keep pounding away at it, calling him a loser and coward and asking what he’s afraid of. It’s something you’d think even his 35% could get behind—if he has nothing to hide, then he should get out there and tell his story under oath. All the late night comedians should do it, there should be a national movement. TESTIFY TRUMP! chanted over and over. Everywhere he went people would be shouting it.

  264. says

    Johnson catman @262, I understand the frustration, and the sentiment in general, but on this thread we ask that calls for physical violence be avoided … even those made in jest. Thanks.

    In other news, the Orange Toddler-Tyrant’s son-in-law has had his portfolio expanded again. Jared Kushner has failed at many impossible tasks handed to him by Trump, so of course he now has another impossible task: building Trump’s stupid border wall.

    Commentary:

    […] Trump has tasked Kushner with tackling, among other things, foreign policy, trade policy, criminal-justice reform, infrastructure, reimagining the Veterans Administration, tackling the opioid crisis, and striking a Middle East peace agreement.

    Part of the problem is that Kushner isn’t succeeding and many of his plans have crumbled. The other part of the problem is that the president isn’t done adding to his son-in-law’s to-do list. The Washington Post reported yesterday:

    President Trump has made his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the de facto project manager for constructing his border wall, frustrated with a lack of progress over one of his top priorities […]

    Kushner convenes biweekly meetings in the West Wing, where he questions an array of government officials about progress on the wall, including updates on contractor data, precisely where it will be built and how funding is being spent…. The president’s son-in-law and senior adviser is pressing U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite the process of taking over private land needed for the project as the government seeks to meet Trump’s goal of erecting 450 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of 2020.

    […] If Trump’s goal of 450 miles of new fencing is going to be met by Election Day, Kushner and his colleagues won’t just have to seize private land and redirect funds away from military families, they’ll also have to construct about a mile of barriers per day, every day, between now and Nov. 3, 2020. […]

    there’s little to suggest Kushner has a plan to succeed. In fact, given his other recent failures, Kushner’s track record does not inspire confidence.

    The New York Times’ Frank Bruni concluded this morning, “Remember how he and Ivanka were going to contain the president’s ego, blunt his cruelty, whisper sweet moderation in his ear? That was then. Now he’s devoting himself to an exorbitant, unnecessary monument to Trump’s nativism and xenophobia. There’s an upside, though. With Jared in the saddle, this horse won’t go far.”

    Link

  265. says

    Uh-oh. If I were Rudy Giuliani, I’d be worried. We’ve seen this pattern from Trump before (ahem… Michael Cohen).

    Donald Trump denied directing Rudy Giuliani to go to Ukraine to look for dirt on his political rivals, in an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.

    “No, I didn’t direct him, but he is a warrior, he is a warrior,” Trump told O’Reilly in an interview streamed on the internet on Tuesday.

    Asked by O’Reilly what Giuliani was doing in Ukraine, Trump said “you have to ask that to Rudy.”

    Link

    Commentary:

    […] [Trump] added, “Rudy has other clients, other than me.”

    When the host asked, “You didn’t direct him to go [to Ukraine] on your behalf?” Trump replied, “No.”

    First, this probably wasn’t the answer Giuliani was hoping to hear from his client. Second, the president’s line is literally unbelievable.

    As Jon Chait explained last night, listening to Trump’s claim is “a vertigo-inducing experience. The notion that an unpaid attorney holding no government job or foreign policy experience took control of American policy in a crucial region to the extent that diplomats in two countries spent months attempting to placate him – and did this all on his own – is so preposterous that merely to describe the scenario is to debunk it. Obviously, obviously, Giuliani was acting on Trump’s behalf.”

    Chait went on to note some of the instances in which Giuliani boasted about his efforts on Trump’s behalf, and the sworn testimony of a variety of officials who confirmed that Giuliani was acting on Trump’s behalf, but as Rachel noted at the top of last night’s show, we can also take the president’s rhetoric at face value: the White House released a call summary of Trump’s July 25 phone meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump talked about coordination between Kyiv and Giuliani on Trump’s behalf.

    [Trump said] “I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call.”

    And now Trump wants people to believe he had nothing to do with Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine? Seriously?

    Postscript: Twice in recent weeks Giuliani has referenced an “insurance” policy he believes may help him in the event of political trouble. One wonders if he’s checking the terms of that policy this morning.

    Link

  266. johnson catman says

    re Lynna @264: The wall pieces that were constructed according to the choice of The Orange Toddler-Tyrant have already been shown to be ineffective to climbing and cutting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-sections-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/01/25bf8ce0-fa72-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html

    SAN DIEGO — Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump’s border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage.

    The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier’s steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.

    After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.

    Not to mention that people that own the private land don’t want to sell. And wildlife will be harmed because it will cut off their normal travel paths. Etc. etc. etc.

  267. johnson catman says

    re Lynna @265: Giuliani who? Barely knew the guy. Must have met him at some campaign event or something.

  268. says

    Two White House officials resigned over Trump’s batshit crazy Ukraine scheme:

    The leverage part of Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal has already come into sharp focus. The publicly available information makes clear that the president and his team tried to extort a vulnerable ally, withholding military aid unless Ukraine agreed to help Trump’s domestic political scheme.

    What’s less understood is the process through which the Republican and his operation withheld the aid in the first place. With this in mind, the U.S. House yesterday released two more deposition transcripts, including one from Mark Sandy, the deputy associate director for national security programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

    To put it mildly, Sandy, the first OMB official to testify as part of the congressional impeachment inquiry, gave lawmakers some important insights that we did not previously know.

    [He] told impeachment investigators that two budget staffers left the agency after expressing frustrations about the unexplained hold on Ukrainian aid […]

    As the scandal has unfolded, there’s been considerable debate about the seriousness of the allegations and the degree to which they meet constitutional standards for impeachment. But these latest details lead to different questions: what prompted Trump to put a hold on the congressionally approved military aid and was that legal?

    Mark Sandy’s testimony sheds light on both lines of inquiry.

    He told investigators, for example, that two OMB officials who left the department believed the president’s scheme was at odds with the Impoundment Control Act, a relatively obscure federal law that dictates how the executive branch allocates federal funds.

    Yes, Trump may have broken yet another law, the Impoundment Control Act.

    In other words, Congress appropriated military aid for Ukraine, which obligated the Trump administration to disperse those funds.[…]

    two White House budget officials quitting in frustration. One of them reportedly concluded that the president’s efforts were illegal. Sandy himself did not resign, but he too testified that he was concerned about the illegality of the Trump gambit and took those concerns to his superiors.

    It was at that point that the White House transferred power away from Sandy and to the former chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, political appointee Mike Duffey – a move without precedent at the OMB.

    Right. A classic Trump move. If the career professionals won’t break the law for you, just fire them or change their job descriptions … and then replace them with a lackey.

    A Washington Post report added, “Sandy’s testimony is the first public confirmation that the dispute at the OMB over the handling of the Ukraine aid became so intense that it contributed to resignations from the agency.”

    Sandy also testified that it was the president who personally ordered the pause on Ukraine aid, not for policy reasons, but because he’d seen a media report in June. […]

    So where does that leave us? Trump ordered the hold on Ukraine aid; officials in the White House budget office thought this was illegal; two of them resigned and one of them was cut out of the allocation process; and there’s a paper trail that backs up all of this.

    Link

  269. says

    johnson catman @267, right. LOL

    johnson catman @266, “Not to mention that people that own the private land don’t want to sell.” Right. And I think that Jared is going to find that’s a bigger problem than anticipated. All sorts of people, including some ranchers who voted for Trump, are going to refuse to cooperate. Court battles will spring up across Texas.

    Followup to comment 268. More on Trump’s penchant for withholding funds:

    […] As the website Just Security makes clear, there are only a very few things that can be used to justify a delay in disbursing funds that have been authorized by Congress, signed into law, and certified as meeting the requirements set forth in legislation. None of them applies in this case. Trump’s hold on funds to Ukraine is an “abuse of its apportionment authority and constituted an illegal deferral.” And, as Sandy testified, the Trump White House was made well aware that the hold was illegal—and it did it anyway.

    During the impeachment hearings, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, and others on the Republican bench attempted to diminish the scale of what Trump did in Ukraine by pointing out that assistance to other countries either was on hold or had been delayed. That’s true—and in some cases it wasn’t illegal, because the legislation in those cases included additional circumstances that allowed a deferral of assistance. But there’s at least one other instance in which Trump has delayed assistance that is at least as bad as the case of Ukraine.

    […] Trump has pulled all funds that were supposed to go to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). After years of being torn apart by proxy forces from Iran and Syria, […] Lebanon is poised to bring itself together around a unified force that crosses religious boundaries and pushes back against extremists on both sides. Congress has authorized $105 million to assist the LAF in reducing the role of Hezbollah and pushing back against growing threats of Russian invasion. But Trump suspended that aid, without providing a reason.

    […] Hezbollah’s role in the war-torn country is weakening, and that the LAF has “responded with admirable courage, restraint, and independence in defying calls by Hezbollah leaders and private pleas from the presidential palace to clear the streets.” These protests were a welcome sign of growing freedom and respect for human rights in an area where military force has all too frequently given power to extremists.

    Lebanon and the LAF […] can protect themselves from forces coming in from Syria—including Russian forces. […]

    By withholding funds, Trump is leaving the protesters open to attack by Hezbollah, and opening the nation to invasion by forces that, just as in Ukraine, see the delay in the disbursal of U.S. funds as a sign that the United States is no longer interested in acting as a partner.

    Lebanon is a nation on the brink. Donald Trump is pushing it in the wrong direction. Just as in Ukraine, he could be opening them up to Russian control. And he’s not even bothering to provide an excuse.

    Link

  270. tomh says

    NYT:
    Trump Keeps Losing in Court. But His Legal Strategy Is Winning Anyway

    As fights over the president’s stonewalling of Congress play out slowly in courts, he is reducing the prospect that voters learn new damaging facts about him before the 2020 election.
    By Charlie Savage
    Nov. 27, 2019

    WASHINGTON — Critics of President Trump cheered on Monday when a federal judge ruled that the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II must testify to Congress — and scathingly labeled “fiction” the administration’s arguments that top White House aides are immune from congressional subpoenas.

    Indeed, the outcome was the latest in a string of lower-court losses for Mr. Trump as he defends his stonewalling of lawmakers’ oversight and the impeachment investigation. Other fights are playing out in the courts over Mr. Trump’s financial records and grand-jury evidence in the Russia investigation.

    But from a realist perspective, Mr. Trump is winning despite losing.

    That is because it is now late November — not May, when Mr. McGahn, on Mr. Trump’s directions, first defied the subpoena, or even August, when the House asked the judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to enforce its subpoena.

    The proceedings before Judge Jackson consumed nearly a third of the year as she took briefs, conducted oral arguments and then composed a 120-page opinion. And her ruling was merely the end of the first step.

    The Justice Department immediately filed an appeal and sought a stay — virtually ensuring that the fight over Mr. McGahn will remain bogged down for the foreseeable future. And even if he someday is forced to show up, a new cycle of litigation will inevitably start over whether specific information he might testify about is subject to executive privilege.

    Meanwhile, time is on Mr. Trump’s side. The realistic window for Congress to consider impeaching him is closing, with the 2020 election less than a year away. If the overriding goal is to keep information from coming out while his term and potential re-election hang in the balance, the Trump legal strategy is succeeding despite all the adverse rulings.
    […]

    Like a football team up late in a game whose defense hangs back to prevent big plays while letting its opponent make shorter gains, Mr. Trump’s legal team is looking to run out the clock, putting forth aggressive legal theories often backed by scant precedent. The strategy risks periodic bad headlines in the short term and could lead to definitive rulings that hamstring future presidents — but it is demonstrably advantageous for consuming time.

    The theories include asserting that Congress lacks legitimate legislative authority to conduct oversight of whether government officials are engaged in wrongdoing, even though lawmakers have done so for generations; that impeachment investigators cannot gain access to grand-jury evidence, even though an appeals court permitted just that during Watergate; and that senior presidential aides are immune from subpoenas, even though a judge rejected that theory in 2008.
    […]

    The Democrat leading the investigation into the Ukraine affair, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, has made clear that lawmakers will move forward with weighing articles of impeachment rather than getting bogged down in courts. He used another sports metaphor, the tactic of boxers who lean against the ring ropes and trick their opponents into exhausting themselves by ineffectively pummeling them.

    “We are not willing to go the months and months and months of rope-a-dope in the courts, which the administration would love to do,” Mr. Schiff said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, explaining that he and his colleagues view their investigation as urgent because Mr. Trump has solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election. Because of that, Mr. Schiff said, they will not wait even for witness testimony and documents they would like to obtain.
    […]

    Mr. Trump suggested he instead had a more principled motive than running out the clock on Tuesday, claiming in a series of tweets that he would be happy to let his current and former aides tell Congress what they know, and insisting that he is only blocking them from talking to ensure that “future Presidents should in no way be compromised.”

    “I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President,” Mr. Trump said. “Other than that, I would actually like people to testify.”
    […]

    To be sure, Mr. Trump may also be hoping that the Supreme Court — with its majority of five justices appointed by Republicans now including two by him — could eventually rule for him, just as it ultimately voted, 5 to 4, to permit a watered-down version of his travel ban even though lower courts had blocked it.

    Many administrations have sometimes made privilege and immunity claims to fend off or delay congressional attempts to pry information out of the executive branch, Mr. Lederman noted. But prior presidents, unlike Mr. Trump, were willing to resolve disputes through negotiation and compromise long before they could reach the Supreme Court.

    “If the Supreme Court justices decide they want to drag these disputes out, they can,” Mr. Lederman said.

  271. says

    A federal court just blocked Trump’s attempt to quietly cut legal immigration by up to 65%

    Federal courts have prevented […] Trump from implementing a proclamation he signed last month that would make White House adviser Stephen Miller’s dreams of restricting legal immigration a reality.

    Previously scheduled to go into effect November 3, Trump’s proclamation would have make getting into the US much harder for immigrants sponsored by family members, a process Trump has excoriated as “chain migration.”

    It would have done so by throwing up a barrier to those coming through the diversity visa lottery — the subject of Trump’s “shithole countries” rant — which allows the US to accept 55,000 immigrants annually from countries with historically low levels of immigration. And it stated immigrants who do not have health insurance and cannot afford to pay medical care costs would not be able to move to the US permanently.

    But in Oregon, US District Judge Michael Simon temporarily stopped the proclamation from going into effect on November 2. And Simon solidified that block on Tuesday night, preventing the Trump administration from implementing the policy nationwide while lawsuits filed by immigrant advocates challenging it make their way through the courts.

    Simon found that Trump likely overstepped his executive authority in issuing the proclamation because it conflicts with provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act determining who is ineligible to apply for US visas. […]

    the proclamation could bar roughly 375,000 immigrants annually, according to Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. […] The proclamation targets immigrants who have come to the US legally under policies Trump and his advisers often attack. […]

    How the rule would work
    Some immigrants, mostly family members of US citizens or green card holders, can apply for lawful permanent residency abroad and obtain a green card almost immediately. […]

    In order to get a green card, an immigrant will have to prove to a consular officer that they will obtain health insurance within 30 days of their arrival in the US. If they can’t, they must demonstrate that they will be able to pay for their medical expenses.

    The proclamation does not lay out clear procedures for determining whether immigrants meet the proclamation’s requirements […]

    But based on insurance coverage alone, the majority of adults who were granted green cards over the last three years would have been shut out under the proclamation. […]

    Thus far, the proclamation’s journey through the courts has not proceeded as the Trump administration would have liked. But with a Supreme Court that has already recognized this president’s broad powers to restrict immigration where the administration can provide a rationale, there’s no telling whether the justices will view this case differently when it finally comes before them.

    Link

    More at the link.

  272. says

    From Wonkette:

    It looks like children don’t like Melanie Trump any more than I do, and children eat their own boogers. […] at the B’More Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness yesterday, and a roomful of students greeted her with boos. If you think that’s shockingly rude, keep in mind she was in Baltimore, Maryland, a city Donald Trump […] called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” […]

    Melania told the middle and high school students in attendance that “I’m in this fight for you, and I’m fighting for you.” Some of the younger kids might still believe in Santa Claus, but none of them were dumb enough to believe this. She proceeded to share some warmed-over stale “just say no” pablum. The best thing I can say about her speech is that her coat was fierce.

    The holiday season is starting, so we all need to spend quality time with our families watching kids boo Melania Trump. Enjoy! […]

    Video available at the link.

    […] This morning, on “Fox & Friends,” Tomi Lahren decried the vulgar children who booed the queen consort. She wondered where these kids learned to “disrespect” others. I think they might’ve picked it up from the president who pissed on their hometown. […]

    LAHREN: They learn that because they don’t believe they have to respect Melania or anyone with the last name of Trump, because the media and congressional leaders and Democrats have told them that they don’t have to. […]

    Sure, lady, Baltimore schoolchildren follow the lead of House Democrats. “What would Schiffy do?” is something you frequently hear on the basketball courts. […]

    LAHREN: This is an epidemic in this country. Not just of people like anyone with the last name of Trump, but just with young people being completely disrespectful.

    That is such absurd melodrama they should play “The Young & the Restless” theme in the background. I don’t think people have a problem with everyone who’s named Trump. They take issue with specific and uniquely terrible people who share that name. […]

    Lahren also played the tiresome “imagine if she were Michelle Obama” game. Barack Obama didn’t insult the entire city of Baltimore. […] If she wants a world where everyone’s treated equally regardless of their actual actions, she can become the strawman socialist everyone on Fox News mocks. There are no participation trophies for politicians, either. […]

    Before we go, here’s a clip of Melania Trump “respectfully” spreading birther bullshit about Obama in 2011.

  274. says

    Trump’s “No Quid Pro Quo” Statements Are Clear Evidence of His Ukraine Motives

    A new report shows the president was launching his cover story, not telling the truth.

    Republicans claim that two private remarks by President Donald Trump clear him of wrongdoing in the Ukraine scandal. The first remark, supposedly made on Aug. 31 to Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, was that Trump would “never” require Ukraine to do anything for him in order to get military aid he had suspended. The second remark, made on Sept.7 or Sept. 9 to Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was that Trump wanted “nothing” from Ukraine. These two statements, according to Republicans, prove that Trump didn’t withhold the aid or a White House meeting as leverage to extract favors […]

    But now it turns out that by the time Trump spoke to Johnson, the president already knew he was under investigation for extorting Zelensky. This discovery, reported on Tuesday night by the New York Times, inverts the meaning of Trump’s statements to Johnson and Sondland. Trump wasn’t telling the truth. He was launching his cover story.

    […] Sondland had written back: “Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind.”

    Trump cited these texts as proof of his innocence. On Oct. 4, the morning after they were released, he boasted to reporters that Sondland “said there was no quid pro quo. That’s the whole ballgame.”

    […] “When I asked the president about that, he completely denied it,” Johnson recalled on Meet the Press. “He vehemently, angrily denied it. He said, ‘I’d never do that.’ ” […]

    Tuesday night’s Times story guts this narrative. It shows that in late August, days before Trump’s call with Johnson, White House lawyers told the president about the whistleblower complaint. The lawyers did so, according to the article, in order “to determine whether they were legally required to give [the complaint] to Congress.” […]

    This revelation flips the meaning of what Trump told Johnson and Sondland. He knew exactly what he needed to say, and he said it. No quid pro quo. I want nothing. I would never do that.

    At face value, Trump’s statements to Johnson and Sondland never made sense. Why would he say “I want nothing” while simultaneously demanding that Zelensky “go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations” of Biden and the Democrats? Why would he deny wanting anything from Zelensky after asking the Ukrainian president, in the July 25 call, for the investigations as “a favor”? And why would Trump introduce the lawyerly Latin phrase “quid pro quo,” which neither Johnson nor Sondland had used? California Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, has noted the oddity of Trump’s words. Saying “There’s no quid pro quo” in response to vague queries, Swalwell observed last week, is “like being pulled over for speeding … and saying, ‘I didn’t rob the bank. I didn’t rob the bank.’ ”

    Once you understand that Trump knew about the whistleblower complaint, everything falls into place. The real story was the extortion. The fake story was what Trump told Johnson and Sondland. By then, the cover-up was underway. After telling Trump about the complaint, White House lawyers decided, according to the Times, “that the administration could withhold from Congress the whistle-blower’s accusations because they were protected by executive privilege.” And Trump needed to snuff out any leads. So when Johnson asked Trump whether the aid was being held up to get something from Ukraine, Trump asked what any crook would ask: “Who told you that?”

    Jordan is right: Trump’s words to Johnson and Sondland are clear evidence of his intent. His intent was to cover up his crimes.

  275. says

    Trump’s Ukraine Server Delusion Is Spreading

    Even secretary of state Mike Pompeo has given credence to Trump’s demonstrably wrong theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC.

    The article is by Brian Barrett, writing for WIRED.

    Look, we’ve written this before. So have a bunch of other outlets, for weeks on end, including today. Even Fox and Friends raised an eyebrow at the idea. But since Donald Trump persists, along with, now, his secretary of state […] we will write it once again: Ukraine does not have a DNC server. […]

    The story, as Trump recently posited on a marathon call-in to Fox and Friends, goes something like this:

    “A lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine,” Trump said. “It’s very interesting. They have the server, right? From the DNC, Democratic National Committee. The FBI went in, and they told them, ‘Get out of here, we’re not giving it to you.’ They gave the server to CrowdStrike, or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”

    A light edit for coherence: Trump believes—and by all indications this is true belief, not posturing—that after the Democratic National Committee was hacked in 2016, the DNC gave a physical server to Ukrainian cybersecurity company CrowdStrike and refused to let the FBI see the evidence. Trump further argues that the server in question now physically resides in Ukraine. Inside that server, Trump suggests, one would find evidence, gleaming like a Pulp Fiction briefcase, that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the DNC in 2016.

    “Are you sure they did that?” asked Fox and Friends host Steve Doocey.

    To which Trump replied: “Well, that’s what the word is.”

    Almost every aspect of this is demonstrably wrong. CrowdStrike is not a Ukrainian company. Its cofounder and chief technology officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, was born in Russia and has lived in the US since his teenage years. The company is based in Sunnyvale, California, and went public this summer.

    As is standard in this sort of incident response, CrowdStrike never took physical possession of any DNC server. Its analysts instead captured an “image” of the hard drives and memories of affected machines, exact replicas that it could examine for signs of malfeasance. It handed all of that forensic evidence over to the FBI, which Department of Justice deputy assistant attorney general Adam Hickey confirmed just last month. […] the company counts the Republican National Congressional Committee among its clients.

    So: Not Ukrainian. No physical server. Not only was the FBI directly involved, but the DOJ indicted the Russian hackers responsible and laid out in exquisite detail how they did it—and how CrowdStrike fought them off.

    The indictment is available at the link.

    […] Or read Volume I of the Mueller Report. Or the court documents from the lawsuit the DNC filed against Russian hackers, which lay bare the extent of the damage it suffered: more than 140 servers decommissioned, all software removed and reinstalled from 180 computers, 11 servers fully rebuilt. Not one of them currently residing in Ukraine. […]

    Trump’s Ukraine server conspiracy theory is a chair with no legs. […]

    In some ways, this is all well-trod territory for the president, whose lies since taking office numbered over 12,000 as of August, an average of 13 false or misleading claims per day. But few are as easily disprovable, as demonstrably outlandish, as the Ukraine server conspiracy. More worrying still is that the conspiracy appears to have metastasized.

    Look at the impeachment proceedings, when members of the House Intelligence Committee—each of them privy to sensitive information by virtue of their assignments,[…]—repeatedly winked at Ukraine conspiracies.

    […] look at secretary of state Mike Pompeo, formerly head of the Central Intelligence Agency, who in a press conference on Tuesday said that “anytime there is information that indicates that any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down.” He was responding to a question about whether Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the DNC.

    The Ukraine server conspiracy matters not only because it’s wrong, or because it empowers and absolves Russia, or because it weakens the strategically vital relationship between the US and Ukraine for no discernible benefit. It also matters because it puts in sharp relief how divorced the president is from reality, […]

    The torrent of lies Trump and his enablers have sent rushing over the DNC server story threaten to wear the truth to a nub. So yes, we’ll keep writing about it. There’s no “server.” It’s not in Ukraine. The story is the same, and always will be.

  276. says

    From Trump’s rally in Florida last night:

    “They’re pushing that impeachment witch hunt, and a lot of bad things are happening to them,” Trump told rallygoers. “Because you see what’s happening with the polls? Everybody said, ‘That’s really bulls**t.'”

    The crowd erupted into a cheer and began chanting “bulls**t,” echoing the president.

    According to FiveThirtyEight’s latest analysis, public support for impeaching Trump and removing him from office is between 45% and 50%.

  277. says

    OMFG. Trump is now using “deep state” propaganda to weaken military standards.

    Last week, Donald Trump appeared on Fox News’ morning show and complained about “very, very bad people” in his own country’s government. “You know, a lot of people say ‘deep state,'” the president said. “I don’t like to use the word ‘deep state.’ I just say they’re really bad, sick people.”

    Trump has actually used the phrase many times — including during the same interview in which he claimed to avoid the phrase. Yesterday, at a campaign rally in south Florida, the president referenced it again.

    Mr. Trump also defended his decision this month to absolve three service members of war crimes, arguing that he had “stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state.”

    It’s important to understand the nature and context of comments like these. According to Trump, he intervened in support of accused war criminals because there were nefarious government bureaucrats — including the Navy secretary whom Trump chose for the post — who were too committed to military discipline, the rule of law, and the integrity of the Uniform Code of Military Justice system.

    Or put another way, the current Commander in Chief believes proponents of his own country’s military justice system are members of a “deep state” that he’s proud to fight against. […]

    Link

  278. says

    “The president of the US is a narcissistic, delusional megalomaniac. And he has sole control of a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity 100 times over. Happy Thanksgiving!”

    Image at the link. The only semi-comforting thought is that the process seems to rely on his remembering the nuclear codes, which…

    Quoted in Lynna’s #265 above:

    “No, I didn’t direct him, but he is a warrior, he is a warrior,” Trump told O’Reilly in an interview streamed on the internet on Tuesday.

    He’s been talking about how Gallagher and the other war criminals he abets are warriors all week. At this point in his cognitive decline a limited number of simple concepts, words, and phrases just get stuck in his head and he repeats them regardless of context. I think he tried to clean it up by saying Giuliani was an anti-corruption warrior, but the pattern is more evident every day.

  279. says

    Scapegoats for Trump’s obvious failure to come up with a healthcare plan:

    The one thing that might prevent the Trump administration from doing more harm to our health care is the astounding pettiness of the people Donald Trump has put in charge of handling it. Politico reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Seema Verma have been at each other’s throats, which has supposedly “delayed the president’s long-promised replacement proposal for Obamacare and disrupted other health care initiatives central to Trump’s reelection campaign.”

    Bullshit.

    That’s the story from administration officials, anyway. That there actually would be any effort at all to come up with a replacement plan is a stretch of the imagination. Other than tariffs and putting babies in cages, this administration hasn’t cooked up any actual policies it had promised—see, for example, infrastructure. Likelier, the politicos around Trump are looking to place blame on someone other than Trump for being incompetent.

    Which isn’t to say that these two aren’t capable of the ego clashes ascribed to them. The story goes that they are so competitive for Trump’s favor they are sabotaging one another. Supposedly Verma had a plan ready to go this summer, but Azar killed it before she could put it in front of Trump. This is how petty it all is, Politico is told: “This fall, Azar blocked Verma from traveling with Trump on Air Force One from Washington to Florida in early October for the unveiling of a high-profile Medicare executive order—an initiative largely drawn up by Verma’s agency—said six officials with knowledge of the episode, which played out over days.” Verma supposedly had to go directly to White House staff to get on the plane. […]

    Link

    Pettiness and incompetence prevail.

  280. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Nunes’s Democratic challenger says donations soared after impeachment hearings began

    Phil Arballo, a Latino business executive seeking the Democratic nomination to unseat Nunes in California’s 22nd Congressional District, said Wednesday he saw a huge spike in donations, social media followers and general interest in his campaign since the Intelligence Committee’s high-profile impeachment hearings began.

    In those two weeks, Arballo said he received $310,000, nearly doubling his year-to-date fundraising. He also said he saw a 127 percent increase in signups on his website and saw his Twitter followers surge to 150,000.

    Nunes, as ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, became the face of Trump’s defense during the hearings.

    Arballo told The Washington Post that constituents in the district see Nunes as more concerned about Trump’s well-being than their own.

    “We want to show people this is who he is now,” Arballo said. “It’s not as an active representative of the 22nd, it’s as a protector of this administration, its scandals and its corruption.”

    Nunes’s district leans conservative, and he won his reelections by double digits until last year, when he beat his Democratic challenger by 5.5 percentage points, giving Democrats hope that it’s a seat that could be in reach.

    “If he loses it’ll be because he’s his own worst enemy,” Arballo said. “He’s using the seat as a platform, he’s using it as a vehicle to spread his propaganda. It’s not about helping people in the district anymore. I think people see right through it.”

    By Colby Itkowitz

  281. tomh says

    And the stall goes on.

    WaPo:
    Appeals court stays ruling that former White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with House subpoena
    By Spencer S. Hsu
    November 27, 2019

    A federal appeals court on Wednesday evening stayed a lower-court ruling that former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with a House subpoena after the administration appealed, arguing the battle poses great consequences for the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an administrative stay while it considers a longer-term order, and fast-tracked oral arguments in the case for a hearing Jan. 3.

  282. says

    tomh @281, well that’s a brief hold in terms of working it’s way through the courts. Still, Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi were right to just proceed apace on their own impeachment track. Trump would love to stall forever.

  283. tomh says

    @ 282
    When the SC takes it, a decision will wait until the end of their term in June. Or next year.

  284. Pierce R. Butler says

    tomh @ # 283 – You should read this pair of articles at Talking Points Memo.

    The gist, to my limited & non-lawyerly understanding: John Roberts, either as Chief Justice/swing vote or as official presiding officer during the Senate’s trial of the impeachment charges, will get to make such procedural calls anyway – and moving along with impeachment may result in fewer delays than working within the SCOTUS schedule.

  285. says

    Makes you wonder if assaulting women is a prerequisite for joining Trump’s team of swamp creatures:

    Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland will not resign after three women came forward with detailed accounts of his sexual misconduct.

    According to Politico, an associate said that he has “no intention” of resigning in the future. Sondland has also denied all of the accusations.

    The accusations were first published Tuesday by Portland Monthly, a magazine based out of Sondland’s hometown, in partnership with ProPublica. Sondland, a hotel magnate, is a prominent businessman in Portland and has multiple hotels there.

    In all of the cases, spanning 2003 to 2011, the women claim that they were working with Sondland for professional reasons when he made sexual advances. All three say that they brushed him off, prompting his professional retaliation.

    Nicole Vogel, the owner of Portland Monthly, originally met Sondland 16 years ago when trying to obtain funding for the magazine. Her connection to the magazine prompted its editorial board to work with ProPublica, to ensure an independent report.

    At the time, he took Vogel to dinner and told her that he would invest, before taking her across the street to see one of his hotels. In the hotel room, she said that he lunged at her and forcibly kissed her. […]

    Jana Solis, a hospitality safety engineer, met Sondland in 2008. A business associate set up a lunch for the two of them, which Solis said Sondland ended by “slapping” her “on the ass.”

    He then invited her to evaluate his art collection, which she agreed to in order to keep the account. At one point, when she came back from the bathroom, he allegedly was naked from the waist down. She tried to figure out how to reject the advance without losing a major business account and her ride home, and apologized if she’d given him the wrong impression. […]

    After that, Sondland allegedly called Solis, screaming at her about her job performance. A colleague came upon Solis sobbing at her desk as Sondland’s raised voice streamed in through the speakerphone. […]

    Sondland has denied all three women’s accounts, and his lawyer said that they are trying to damage his standing as a witness in the impeachment inquiry.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sondland-sexual-misconduct-allegations

  286. says

    A chain of sporting goods stores wins out over the National Rifle Association … good news.

    […] After the Parkland shooting, the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ed Stack, promised the kids to stop selling all assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. (There is no reason for anyone outside the military to have these.) But he went further. He worked with Everytown for Gun Safety, he signed a letter endorsing gun safety legislation, hired lobbyists to push Congressional action, and even destroyed $5 million worth of unsold assault rifles. He made it clear that he was standing with the students against the NRA.

    The fair and balanced media tried to do what they always do, and warned everyone that Dicks’ awoke a sleeping giant. Oh no, the NRA is going to boycott!! Those always work! The NRA promised that they would ensure that Dick’s sales would plummet. Sure enough, the NRA geniuses were out in force with dozens of YouTube videos blowing up $300/$1000 Yeti coolers —that they had already paid for—to, you know, “own” the libs.

    The promised backlash was intense, for about two weeks. After all, Dick’s caters to hunters and outdoorsmen, who tend to be the target audience for the NRA. It was a bold stand. Then something amazing happened: Dick’s found their sales growing significantly, quarter after quarter after quarter. Their stock skyrocketed, and they have consistently doubled Wall Street expectations this year. […]

    Dick’s keeps growing, and their profits keep increasing. I can’t stress enough how bad this looks for the NRA. The one thing they could always count on is to get their minions to mobilize and strong-arm against any action whatsoever to stop gun massacres. I guess that’s not a thing anymore. The NRA is now a toxic brand, and it’s about damn time. […]

    Link

  287. says

    Of course:

    […] CBS reported Monday that Caliburn International, a for-profit company that holds federal contracts to operate detention facilities for undocumented children, had booked a holiday party at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. The company’s board of directors includes former Homeland Security secretary and White House chief of staff John Kelly, who helped implement the administration’s family-separation policy. Caliburn made plans to hold the party at a different venue after CBS’s report was published. […]

    Link

  289. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 287

    Caliburn made plans to hold the party at a different venue after CBS’s report was published they were caught making an obvious Emollients Clause violation.

    FTFY.

  290. says

    Yes, the Medicaid expansion offered to states as part of Obamacare worked. It was good policy.

    “States that expanded coverage to low-income adults under the Affordable Care Act saw a 3.5% reduction in annual ‘ambulatory-care sensitive’ condition discharge rates, and a 3.1% drop in inpatient days in 2014 and 2015.” That means there were fewer hospital admissions in expansion states, shorter hospital stays, and lower hospital costs. The states that expanded saw a drop of 3% in hospital costs for health conditions that can be treated in out-patient settings, especially “chronic respiratory conditions, diabetes-related complications, and bacterial pneumonia.”

    That also means healthier people and lower hospital costs, which is good. “This study is another piece of evidence that Medicaid expansion gets people more care, so people with chronic conditions can stay out of the hospital,” said Dr. Benjamin Sommers, a health policy professor at Harvard University. “We can probably stop arguing about whether expanding Medicaid helps people. It’s pretty clear it does.”

    But by now we all know that for Republicans, it’s not about helping people. Unless it’s a loved one or a potential campaign donor, they don’t care and they don’t believe people are deserving of help. The good news is that voters are on to them. The 2018 and 2019 elections made it very clear that voters think Medicaid expansion and health care are worth fighting for.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/29/1897711/-Medicaid-works

  291. says

    Now that people are cutting through Trump’s border wall, he wants to spend even more money on it.

    Donald Trump’s administration is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on “quality assurance” after U.S. officials said that smugglers had used commercially available power tools going for $100 to slice through his replacement fencing along the southern border—and you can bet your ass that’ll be U.S. taxpayer money, just like the stolen funding he wants for his wall.

    “The US Army Corps of Engineers, which is supervising the construction of the president’s long-promised border wall, will be awarding up to $300 million in contracts to monitor the quality of the wall’s construction along the southern border of the United States, according to a pre-solicitation released Nov. 5,” […] The tasks include, among other things, ‘analysis of construction contractor claims,’ identifying ‘potential construction issues,’ and “material testing.’”

    […] a medieval wall doesn’t solve shit when it comes to our broken and unfair immigration system, and that was made pretty clear when officials said that smugglers were cutting through the fencing […]. Breached sections were repaired, officials said, but were again being targeted because the people cutting through knew the areas could again give way.

    So, up to $300 million to fix this damned thing, even though the administration claims it was forced to axe things like the successful Family Case Management Program—a detention alternative where 99% of families showed up to their court dates—because of fiscal concerns. In reality, “FCMP cost approximately $38 each day per family unit,” said the Women’s Refugee Commission. What a joke—and this $300 million is a joke we all have to pay for.

    Link

  292. says

    Violent Republicans being violent on Twitter … and getting banned:

    Twitter permanently suspended Danielle Stella, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) Republican challenger, on Thursday after she tweeted several times that Omar ought to be “hanged” if baseless conspiracy theories about her are true.

    “The account was permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules,” a Twitter spokesperson told TPM.

    […] Stella had posted threatening tweets about Omar while peddling bogus conspiracy theories accusing the Muslim congresswoman of acting as a double agent for governments in the Middle East.

    “If it is proven @IlhanMN passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged,” Stella tweeted […]

    Several hours later, the Republican candidate posted an article from a far-right site with the headline “Omar Challenger Says She Should be Hanged for Treason if Reports of Qatari Recruitment True.” Stella included a digital drawing of a hanged figure in the tweet.

    “My suspension for advocating for the enforcement of federal code proves Twitter will always side with and fight to protect terrorists, traitors, pedophiles and rapists” Danielle said in a statement.

    The Republican, who’s aiming to unseat Omar in Minnesota’s Fifth District, has a checkered history: She was arrested twice this year for allegedly shoplifting from Target, and she also hinted that she was a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory, though her former campaign staffer told the Daily Beast she only did so “to get attention.”

    Link

  293. says

    Followup to comment 292.

    From the readers comments:

    This is so very uncharacteristic for a Republican.

    Threats of violence wrapped in racism […]?

    Weird…
    ——————–
    “accusing the Muslim congresswoman of acting as a double agent for governments in the Middle East.”

    Did she mean like Toadglans, Kushner, Ghouliani, Flynn et alia?
    ——————–
    Omar’s district is one of those bastions of intelligence that Trump lost by 55 percentage points. And this woman is only being paid any attention because conservatives aren’t worried about winning the race and can use her to forward the most vile and disgusting thoughts they have.

  294. says

    From Rachel Maddow: “Trump/McConnell Supreme Court poses new threat to Roe v. Wade”

    The video is 2:53 minutes long.

    Rachel Maddow looks at the states most likely to be affected if the Supreme Court, with its new conservative majority installed by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump, overturns or undermines Roe v. Wade, which may be imminent as the Court considers a case over a Louisiana anti-abortion TRAP law.

    Following segment. The video is about six minutes long.

  295. says

    “Trump Stages Photo-Ops As Counter-programming To Impeachment Proceedings”
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-photo-op-impeachment-inquiry

    In the midst of impeachment proceedings that he dubs as a “hoax,” President Trump has come up with a new distraction strategy: photo-ops.

    […] Trump and his aides have staged photo opportunities and public events with the purpose of showcasing the President on the job — an election strategy aimed at convincing voters that he is hard at work for them while Democrats ramp up impeachment proceedings. […] Trump served turkey to U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving and that he is scheduled to meet with European allies in London next week.

    “I’m working my ass off,” Trump said during a re-election rally in Sunrise, FL on Tuesday night, according to the Post. “The failed Washington establishment is trying to stop me because I’m fighting for you and because we’re winning. It’s very simple.” […]

    “This is the right strategy for the President: Show the American people that he is focused on doing his job while Washington Democrats chase the great white whale of impeachment,” Michael Steel, a former senior aide to former House speaker John Boehner (R-OH), told the Post.

    Trump’s strategy reminds me, in a way, of his demand that the bogus investigation of the Bidens by Ukraine be announced on TV by the Ukrainian president. Trump wanted the appearance of an investigation more than he wanted a real investigation. Gordon Sondland even said so in his testimony before Congress.

    Comments from readers:

    POTEMKIN VILLAGE WORK: This is an administration working hard at pretending to work hard. It’s hardly any real work at all.
    ———————–
    Just completely off into the Fake Reality Zone. There was never any reason to believe a single flapping word out of this guy’s mouth the last 40 years. No single reason to believe a word he said his entire campaign. And about 13,000 public lies while in office, as the highest elected official in the land. And now he is moving on to faked video presentations of his amazing work ethic, effectiveness, and Working For You promotions. That this works on ANY percentage of the electorate proves how dangerous TV, Video, and mass propaganda really are and how they have been abused by the folks who own the cameras and broadcast towers. We have reached the point where literally the world’s greatest liar and the only person whom you cannot believe a single word that comes from his crumb-hole is manipulating the manipulable like so many millions of puppets. I don’t think this will work enough to turn the tables for Chump […]
    ————————–
    And the mainstream media eats it up and dutifully front pages every one.
    —————————
    With the shit eating grin and thumbs up .
    Same as when he visited the El Paso wounded.
    —————————–
    Marketing vs. facts, image vs. law. I guess this is the test of our times. Can a President get away with whatever he wants as long as he can look good while breaking laws in plain sight? We shall see.

  296. says

    The quid pro quo is still on:

    Ukrainian officials are reportedly discussing how to improve their country’s relationship with […] Trump in the midst of tensions from the impeachment inquiry. […]

    CNN noted, however, that it’s unclear what those potential investigations would exactly cover or when they would be announced. […]

    On Wednesday, general prosecutor of Ukraine Ruslan Ryaboshapka said that Attorney General William Barr has made no official move to request an investigation into Burisma and the Bidens. The investigation would be part of an effort by Trump and his allies to manufacture false allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who previously sat on Burisma’s board of directors. […]

    Link

  297. says

    Yet another aspect of the Joe Biden campaign that bothers me: that he is charging $2,800 for a selfie photo with him at some campaign events:

    There are campaigns that are built on building grassroots armies of supporters and donors, ones that allow any attendee to take a picture with the candidate. Then there’s the other kind. Here is Joe Biden, in a Bay Area swing: […]

    See the link for an image of the event schedule and prices.

    […] Asking $2,800 for a selfie is unconscionable. But it will set you back just $1,000 to get in the room (for the first two events) if you don’t care about a photo. Then again, Biden just had a brutal fundraising quarter, putting into question his ability to even compete past the early states in February.

    Link

  298. says

    Pelosi doing what Trump should be doing:

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will lead a delegation of congressional Democrats to the United Nations climate change conference in Madrid next week, her office announced Saturday.

    Pelosi and 14 other Democrats from both chambers of Congress will attend the 2019 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also called COP25, her office said.

    “It is a privilege to accompany a high-level Congressional delegation to Spain to combat the existential threat of our time: the climate crisis,” Pelosi said in the statement. […]

    The Trump administration this month began the process of formally withdrawing from the Obama-era climate pact. The move from President Trump, who has long criticized the agreement and vowed to exit it during a Rose Garden speech in 2017, begins a yearlong process to formally withdraw the U.S. from the accord. […]

    Link

  299. says

    House Democrats have passed nearly 400 bills. Trump and Republicans are ignoring them.

    Legislative paralysis gripped Capitol Hill well before impeachment started.

    […] Trump has fired off tweet missives accusing House Democrats of “getting nothing done in Congress,” and being consumed with impeachment.

    Trump may want to look to the Republican-controlled Senate instead. Democrats in the House have been passing bills at a rapid clip; as of November 15, the House has passed nearly 400 bills, not including resolutions. But the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee estimates 80 percent of those bill have hit a snag in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is prioritizing confirming judges over passing bills.

    Congress has passed just 70 bills into law this year. Granted, it still has one more year in its term, but the number pales in comparison to recent past sessions of Congress, which typically see 300-500 bills passed in two years (and that is even a diminished number from the 700-800 bills passed in the 1970s and 1980s).

    Ten of those 70 bills this year have been renaming federal post offices or Veterans Affairs facilities, and many others are related to appropriations or extending programs like the National Flood Insurance Program or the 9/11 victim compensation fund.

    This has led to House Democrats decrying McConnell’s so-called “legislative graveyard,” a moniker the Senate majority leader has proudly adopted. McConnell calls himself the “grim reaper” of Democratic legislation he derides as socialist, but many of the bills that never see the Senate floor are bipartisan issues, like a universal background check bill, net neutrality, and reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

    “From raising the minimum wage to ensuring equal pay, we have passed legislation to raise wages. And we have passed legislation to protect and expand health coverage and bring down prescription drug prices,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in a statement to Vox. “We continue to urge Senator McConnell to take up our bills, many of which are bipartisan.” […]

    Much more at the link, including a comprehensive list of the bills that have been passed.

  300. says

    From Wonkette: “London Bridge Terrorist Taken Down By Narwhal Tusk And Fire Extinguisher-Wielding Bystanders”

    Yesterday, 28-year-old Usman Khan killed two people in a terroristic knife attack on London Bridge, while out on parole after having served time for his part in a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange. Ironically, Khan was reportedly there to attend a conference organized by the University of Cambridge on rehabilitating offenders.

    He was shot and killed by police after revealing what appeared to be a suicide bomber vest, but which later turned out to be a fake.

    However, prior to the police shooting Khan, some bystanders managed to actually tackle him, get his knife away from him and hold him down, preventing him from hurting anyone else. Said bystanders included a Polish immigrant chef known only as “Luckasz,” who works at the Fishmonger’s Hall building on the London bridge, a 24-year-old tour guide named Thomas Gray, and convicted murderer James Ford, 42, who reportedly tried to save the life of a woman who was stabbed. In the scramble, Luckasz wielded a 5-foot narwhal tusk he had gotten from somewhere inside the Fishmonger’s Hall, while another man sprayed Khan with a fire extinguisher, and I think that might be the most impressive thing I have ever seen or heard of in my life. […]

    From Rav Wilding:

    Lots of people blaming “immigration” for the awful London Bridge attack.

    To be clear, the murdering terrorist was British, but one of these heroes, who was injured whilst apprehending him, is called Lukasz, a Polish immigrant chef.

  301. says

    From Adam Gopnik, writing for The New Yorker, “Stop saying that impeachment is political.”

    […] Impeachment in this sense is anti-politics; it presumes that there exists a constitutional principle that overrules the politics of popularity. The point of an impeachment is not to do the popular or the poll-tested thing but to have the courage to do an unpopular thing, because what is at stake is a larger, even existential matter. […]

    When the Founders were writing the Constitution, an impeachment that seems to have loomed large in their minds was that of Warren Hastings, the first British Governor General of India. In a trial that ran, intermittently, from 1788 to 1795, in the British Parliament, Hastings was charged with a series of high crimes and misdemeanors that included corruption and what we would now call war crimes. Edmund Burke, a Whig member of the House of Commons—who was once a hero of the American right, though not usually because he was passionate about the well-being of colonized people against their colonizers—led the fight against him. […]

    Hastings took for a major aspect of his defense what, essentially, Attorney General William Barr has imagined for Trump’s defense. In Hastings’s case, this meant that, as the magistrate in power, he had a right to act without impediment. Executive power, being his, was his to use. Hastings claimed that right by appointment, although Trump does so by election. But both men claim arbitrary power to act without any system of law or procedure to constrain them.

    This, for Burke, was a mortal sin in government. No one could act by “whim” or desire outside a framework of fixed and transparent law. “Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity,” he told the Lords. “Name me a magistrate, and I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office, the [idea of] duty is included.” All power is bound by duty; no magistrate—or President—can act badly and then just say that they do so by right. Impeachment is not a substitute for politics; it appeals to the principles of law and duty that make politics possible.

    It is the unprecedented gravity of our moment, still perhaps insufficiently felt, that makes this confrontation essential, whatever the political consequences. Pelosi, too, now acknowledges this fact. As she told The New Yorker in September, about Trump, “He has given us no choice. Politics has nothing to do with impeachment, in my view.”

    The political consequences of impeachment are no longer the primary or even the secondary issue at stake; more important is the survival of the principle of the rule of law against the unashamed assertion of arbitrary power. […].

    Link

    More at the link.

  302. says

    An excerpt from a very interesting article by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, writing for The New Yorker:

    […] Not a few scholars of politics and law, in those years, began to try to understand what was happening to the world’s borders. Perhaps the most prescient was Wendy Brown, whose book “Walled States, Waning Sovereignty,” was published in 2010. Brown noted the burgeoning popularity of walled borders, years before Trump’s rise, and predicted that nativist politicians would continue to build boundaries that, she argued in a preface to the 2016 edition, would “not merely index, but accelerate waning state sovereignty.” What she meant was that nation-states were reacting to their dwindling ability to control the movement of information, money, and humans over their territory by building “visual emblem[s] of power and protection that states increasingly cannot provide.” But by doing so, they only highlighted their lack of control, enriching the traffickers and syndicates that have profited from having to find new ways to get their desperate clients and wares, obstacles be damned, where they want to go. […]

    Link

    That short excerpt does not do justice to the scope of the article, which deserves to be read in its entirety.

  303. says

    Coming soon … the House Intel Committee’s impeachment probe report!

    The House Intelligence Committee is slated to hold a vote to approve its report on the impeachment investigation into […] Trump on Tuesday evening.

    According to the committee’s schedule, the vote will be held on Tuesday at 6:00 PM EST.

    […] committee members will begin reviewing a draft of the report on Monday.

    The House Judiciary Committee, led by committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), will then hold its own impeachment hearing on Wednesday as part of its process to draw up articles of impeachment.

    Comments from readers:

    Adam Schiff knows how to roll mob families.
    —————–
    I think it all boils down to the GOP has NO defense of Trump and his actions.
    —————–
    Republicans live and breathe to support Trump’s fantasies and figments of his imagination.
    —————–
    We just learned that Sondland’s September 9th “no quid pro quo” phone call was never made – or it is questionable at the very least.
    ——————
    Somehow I think that if everyone knew who the whistleblower was, it would have leaked by now, and most certainly trump would have tweeted it as soon as someone told him.

    From the Washington Post:

    The White House does not have a record of a Sept. 9 conversation described by Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and other witnesses describe an earlier call with a very different emphasis.

    Link

  304. says

    Why the fight against disinformation, sham accounts and trolls won’t be any easier in 2020.

    […] Russia-backed trolls notoriously flooded social media with disinformation around the presidential election in 2016, in what Robert Mueller’s investigators described as a multimillion-dollar plot involving years of planning, hundreds of people and a wave of fake accounts posting news and ads on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube.

    This time around — as experts have warned — a growing share of the threat is likely to originate in America.

    “It’s likely that there will be a high volume of misinformation and disinformation pegged to the 2020 election, with the majority of it being generated right here in the United States, as opposed to coming from overseas,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

    Barrett, the author of a recent report on 2020 disinformation, noted that lies and misleading claims about 2020 candidates originating in the U.S. have already spread across social media. Those include manufactured sex scandals involving South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and a smear campaign calling Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) “not an American black” because of her multiracial heritage. (The latter claim got a boost on Twitter from Donald Trump Jr.) […]

    “A lot of the disinformation that we can identify tends to be domestic,” said Nahema Marchal, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute’s Computational Propaganda Project. “Just regular private citizens leveraging the Russian playbook, […]

    […] policing domestic content is tricky

    U.S. law forbids foreigners from taking part in American political campaigns — a fact that made it easy for members of Congress to criticize Facebook for accepting rubles as payment for political ads in 2016.

    But Americans are allowed, even encouraged, to partake in their own democracy — which makes things a lot more complicated when they use social media tools to try to skew the electoral process. […]

    Plus, the line between foreign and domestic can be blurry. Even in 2016, the Kremlin-backed troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency relied on Americans to boost their disinformation. […] Trump’s promotion of the theory that Ukraine significantly meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, a charge that some experts trace back to Russian security forces.

    […] Bad actors are learning

    […] The election interference tactics that social media platforms encounter in 2020 will look different from those they’ve trying to fend off since 2016.

    […] the “underlying motivations” of undermining democratic institutions and casting doubt on election results will remain constant, but the trolls have already evolved their tactics.

    For instance, they’ve gotten better at obscuring their online activity to avoid automatic detection, even as social media platforms ramp up their use of artificial intelligence software to dismantle bot networks and eradicate inauthentic accounts. […]

    Researchers have already observed extensive efforts to distribute disinformation through user-generated posts — known as “organic” content — rather than the ads or paid messages that were prominent in the 2016 disinformation campaigns.

    […] trolls impersonating journalists or other more reliable figures to give disinformation greater legitimacy. […]

    […] Tech companies say they have gotten better at detecting and removing fake accounts, particularly those engaged in coordinated campaigns.

    But other tactics may have escaped detection so far. NYU’s Barrett noted that disinformation-for-hire operations sometimes employed by corporations may be ripe for use in U.S. politics […]

    Real-life examples include a hyper-partisan skewed news operation started by a former Fox News executive and Facebook’s accusations that an Israeli social media company profited from creating hundreds of fake accounts.

    […] Not all lies are created equal

    […] enforcement has been more varied when it comes to material that is arguably misleading. […]

    One example is the flap over a Trump campaign ad — which appeared on Facebook, YouTube and some television networks — suggesting that former Vice President Joe Biden had pressured Ukraine into firing a prosecutor to squelch an investigation into an energy company whose board included Biden’s son Hunter. In fact, the Obama administration and multiple U.S. allies had pushed for removing the prosecutor for slow-walking corruption investigations. The ad “relies on speculation and unsupported accusations to mislead viewers,” the nonpartisan site FactCheck.org concluded. […]

    Jesse Blumenthal, who leads the tech policy arm of the Koch-backed Stand Together coalition, said expecting Silicon Valley to play truth cop places an undue burden on tech companies to litigate messy disputes over what’s factual. […]

    social media sites have generally granted politicians considerably more leeway to spread lies and half-truths through their individual accounts and in certain instances through political ads. […] Democrats say tech companies shouldn’t profit off false political messaging. […]

    Link

  305. says

    From Amy Davidson Sorkin, writing for The New Yorker:

    […] Trump’s support within the Party is getting louder—and weirder. Last week, Senator John Kennedy argued on Fox News that, if the President believed that someone—namely, Joe Biden—who “happens to be a political rival” was corrupt, then asking the Ukrainians to investigate that person would be “in the national interest.” Senator Lindsey Graham is now demanding that the focus be on Biden’s son, Hunter, and his connections to a Ukrainian gas company. “I am not going to create a country where only Republicans get investigated,” Graham told Fox News. When reporters asked him about those remarks in light of his long friendship with Joe Biden, Graham said, “My conscience is clear.” Defending Trump has required Republicans to become increasingly comfortable with the conspiratorial; these days, they barely seem persuadable. But this is not the moment to stop trying; even one Republican vote for a conviction would shift the historical record.

    In the Intelligence Committee, Schiff limited the number of witnesses in order to lay out a coherent story, and he succeeded in doing so. If he had been less disciplined, the Republicans, led by Devin Nunes, the ranking member, and Jim Jordan, might have turned the hearings into a slander-filled mêlée. […]

    One way to counter the President’s complaints about being denied “due process” would be to give him room to make whatever case he has; based on all that we know, this would only expose its weaknesses. […]

    Republicans’ complaints about the process, particularly their not being free to call witnesses, are largely disingenuous; the President has ordered a dozen officials with direct knowledge of the Ukraine matter to stay silent. […]

    But what’s going on in the courts is consequential in its own right, and some judges are moving quickly. Last Monday, the D.C. district-court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ordered McGahn to appear before the Judiciary Committee, and wrote that her decision also applies broadly, to other officials. She rebuked the Administration’s lawyers for trying to argue that “the President wields virtually unchecked power,” adding that “Presidents are not kings.”

    The Administration is appealing the decision, and there is no way to know how fast the higher courts may act. These cases have the potential to establish important precedents regarding Presidential power, and there is value in letting them play out. […]

    Link

  306. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Republicans to mount aggressive campaign against impeachment as spotlight turns to Judiciary panel
    By Mike DeBonis and Felicia Sonmez
    Dec. 1, 2019 at 11:19 a.m. PST

    As the impeachment inquiry into President Trump moves to the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans signaled Sunday that they will mount an aggressive campaign to delegitimize the process, accusing Democrats of rushing the proceedings as the White House debates whether to participate at all.

    Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Rep. Douglas A. Collins (Ga.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, indicated that the GOP would continue its all-out effort to attack the Democratic-led impeachment process. But he declined to say whether Republicans would take advantage of the complete range of opportunities they will have to make their case against Trump’s removal.

    The remarks from Collins and other Republicans on Sunday reflected a conflict inside the GOP over the extent to which Trump and his congressional defenders ought to participate in a process they have spent more than two months attacking as unfair and corrupt.

    Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), a Judiciary Committee member, said on ABC News’s “This Week” that he thought it “would be to the president’s advantage” to have counsel participate in the upcoming hearings.

    “But I can also understand how he is upset at the illegitimate process that we saw unfold in the Intelligence Committee,” he added.

    Collins attacked the speedy timeline that Democratic leaders are pursuing, one that appears aimed at concluding an impeachment vote in the House before Christmas rather, he argued, than providing appropriate due process for the president.

    “They want to get this president right now before everybody completely sees through the process sham of the elections for next year,” Collins said. “So we’re rushing this.”
    […]

    The Judiciary Committee is set to hear Wednesday from four constitutional scholars who are expected to testify on the standards for impeachment — three chosen by Democrats, one by Republicans. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the panel’s chairman, has not yet named the witnesses, prompting protests from Collins, despite the matter being handled in accordance with House rules.
    […]

    Collins said Sunday that he was not sure whether Trump would avail himself of the due-process protections that Nadler has offered, including the right to present evidence, suggest witnesses, and cross-examine those whom Democrats call to testify. In a Friday letter, Nadler set a Dec. 6 deadline for the White House to decide on the scope of its participation.

    “We’re certainly hoping that the president, his counsel, will take advantage of that opportunity if he has not done anything wrong,” Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) said on “This Week.” “We’re certainly anxious to hear his explanation of that.”
    […]

    Collins said Sunday that he understood why the White House might skip participating in the Wednesday hearing, calling it “just another rerun” covering ground already surveyed in previous Judiciary Committee hearings.

    “This is a complete American waste of time right here,” he said.

    But he added that Republicans would be more keen to participate in future hearings — particularly one examining the findings of the House Intelligence Committee as prepared by its chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.).

    The panel is set to meet Tuesday to approve the release of its report on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

    Collins on Sunday renewed calls for Schiff personally to testify, indicating that he would face intense questioning from Republicans on the role his committee played in shepherding the whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s irregular dealings with Ukraine, among other matters.

    The Republican congressman noted that Schiff has compared the panel’s fact-finding process to that of the independent prosecutors who examined matters that led to impeachment proceedings against president Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. In those cases, Collins noted, those prosecutors subjected themselves to congressional questioning.

    “He’s put himself into that position,” Collins said. “It’s easy to hide behind a report. It’s easy to hide behind a gavel and the Intelligence Committee’s behind-closed-door hearings. But it’s going to be another thing to actually get up and have to answer questions.”

    Demings said Democrats were “not going to play any games” with Republicans and called on Trump to end his stonewall of Democrats’ witness and document demands.

    “They want to … play a political game and tie the process up in the courts as long as they can and run the clock out,” she said. “We’re not willing to play that game.”

    Some Democrats on Sunday intensified their criticism of Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine.

    Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who is running for president, described the impeachment inquiry as a constitutional obligation and likened the president’s actions to a “global Watergate.”

    “James Madison said that the reason we needed impeachment provisions is that he feared that a president would betray the trust of the people to a foreign power,” Klobuchar said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “That’s why this is proceeding. I see it simply as a global Watergate.”

    Just as Nixon delegated people to get dirt on a political opponent, Klobuchar added, “that’s basically what this president has done on a global basis.”

    Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), meanwhile, argued that both Russia and Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election, despite the intelligence community’s assessment that only Russia did so.

    The comments mark Kennedy’s latest attempt to shift the focus away from the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia worked to help elect Trump, following a Fox News Channel interview last week from which he later backtracked.

    “I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election,” Kennedy told host Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

    Todd pressed Kennedy on whether he was concerned that he had been “duped” by Russian propaganda, noting reports that U.S. intelligence officials recently briefed senators that “this is a Russian intelligence propaganda campaign in order to get people like you to say these things about Ukraine.”

    Kennedy responded that he had received no such warning.

    “I wasn’t briefed. Dr. Hill is entitled to her opinion,” Kennedy said, referring to former National Security Council Russia adviser Fiona Hill, who testified in the impeachment inquiry last month.

    In her public testimony, Hill had warned that several Trump allies had spread unfounded allegations that Ukraine, rather than Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

    “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services,” she said.

  307. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Trump’s counsel says president won’t participate in House Judiciary’s first impeachment panel, calling it unfair
    By Mike DeBonis and Felicia Sonmez

    On Sunday evening, White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone told the House Judiciary Committee in a five-page letter that Trump would not participate in its first impeachment hearing, scheduled for Wednesday. The invitation from Chairman Jerrold Nadler “does not begin to provide the President with any semblance of a fair process,” Cipollone wrote.
    […]

    The Trump administration’s response suggests it will continue taking a defiant approach to the impeachment proceedings, betting that Republicans will stick together behind a noncooperation strategy meant to cast the inquiry as a partisan witch hunt.
    […]

    Sounds like a good bet.

  308. says

    A followup, of sorts, to tomh’s comment 306.

    This is analysis from Steve Benen:

    […] Last week, Sen. John Kennedy [said]: “The reason I’m offended by what’s going on in the House, this will be the first partisan impeachment in the history of our country.”

    If the word “partisan” is going to be at the heart of the debate in the coming weeks, it’s worth pausing to appreciate its meaning and relevance.

    […] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a longtime skeptic of pursuing Trump’s impeachment, initially argued that bipartisanship was a prerequisite to drawing articles. It’s also true that polling shows roughly 1 in 10 Republican voters support the ongoing impeachment process, and that’s clearly a low number.

    Pelosi shifted her position, however, when evidence emerged that Trump extorted a vulnerable U.S. ally, hoping to pressure a foreign government into helping him cheat in the 2020 election. Or put another way, the House Speaker revisited her impeachment standards, at least as they relate to public-opinion polling, when Trump’s brazen abuses of power left her little choice.

    But Kennedy’s point is the more problematic one. As the Louisiana Republican sees it, the House’s impeachment inquiry isn’t just “partisan,” it’s “the first partisan impeachment in the history of our country.”

    First, as a matter of history, this is difficult to take seriously. As historian Kevin Kruse recently explained, “Only two presidents have actually been impeached by the House, and both times it unfolded in an overwhelmingly partisan process.”

    Second, Kennedy’s underlying point seemed to be that if members of the White House’s party stand with their scandal-plagued president, that should effectively end the matter. A legitimate process, the argument goes, is one in which both sides are in broad agreement about the merits and seriousness of the allegations.

    That may seem like a nice idea, but in contemporary politics, it creates a dynamic in which one party, guided by tribalism and fear of a right-wing backlash, expects to effectively wield veto power over impeaching their own party’s president, regardless of the evidence against him.

    […] Kennedy’s complaint gets the story backwards. As the senator sees it, Trump’s impeachment is wrong because Republicans oppose it. Given the mountain of evidence against the president, isn’t the better question why GOP lawmakers are prepared to ignore Trump’s brazen abuses? Isn’t that far more offensive than Democrats moving forward with a process on their own?

    Link

  309. says

    Trump made shit up when he talked about his approach to a political solution to end the war in Afghanistan:

    […] After a bilateral meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Trump declared, “The Taliban wants to make a deal. And we’re meeting with them, and we’re saying it has to be a ceasefire. They didn’t want to do a ceasefire, but now they do want to do a ceasefire, I believe. And it will probably work out that way. And we’ll see what happens. But we’ve made tremendous progress.”

    No one had any idea what he was talking about, and the idea that the Taliban “wants to do a ceasefire” appears to have been made up entirely.

    […] Trump pointed to “tremendous progress” that he suggested has already occurred […] The Washington Post reported, “On Friday neither the Taliban nor the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani indicated that a cease-fire was near, or even being discussed in resumed U.S. negotiations.”

    […] given everything we know about Donald Trump and his familiarity with policy disputes and current events, it seems far easier to believe the American president just blurted this out with no forethought. In fact, it’s likely the Republican didn’t know what his administration’s position was, didn’t know any of the elements of the recent talks, and didn’t know that his comments made a deal less likely. […]

    Link

    From the New York Times:

    Demanding a cease-fire would amount to a big shift in the American position and require a significant new concession from the Taliban – one that the Americans have little leverage to extract.

  310. says

    Ukrainian president slams Trump decision to delay military aid

    Donald Trump this morning turned to Twitter to announce what the president described as “breaking news.” […] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “has just again announced that President Trump has done nothing wrong with respect to Ukraine and our interactions or calls.”

    […] “If the Radical Left Democrats were sane, which they are not, it would be case over!”

    […] the Ukrainian president did not say what Trump claimed he said.

    Q: When did you first sense that there was a connection between Trump’s decision to block military aid to Ukraine this summer and the two investigations that Trump and his allies were asking for? Can you clarify this issue of the quid pro quo?

    ZELENSKY: Look, I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo. That’s not my thing. … I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.

    Far from exonerating Trump, that sounded like the Ukrainian president was criticizing Trump for withholding U.S. military aid for our vulnerable ally.

    In the same interview, the Ukrainian president also took aim at Trump’s rhetoric about Ukrainian “corruption” Zelensky believes Trump’s claims undermined Ukraine in the eyes of international observers and investors – before concluding, “I don’t trust anyone at all.”

    It’s not just a reminder that Trump’s tweets are not to be accepted at face value; it’s also evidence of a Ukrainian president making his dissatisfaction with Trump known for the first time.

  311. says

    From Navy Secretary Richard Spencer:

    [The president ] has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices. […]

    Our allies need to know that we remain a force for good, and to please bear with us as we move through this moment in time.

    Washington Post link

    From Chris Shumake, a former sniper who served in Gallagher’s platoon (Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL and accused war criminal):

    It’s blown up bigger than any of us could have ever expected, and turned into a national clown show that put a bad light on the teams. He’s trying to show he has the troops’ backs, but he’s saying he doesn’t trust any of the troops or their leaders to make the right decisions.

  312. says

    Lisa Page Speaks Ahead Of DOJ IG Report: There’s ‘No Fathomable Way’ I Broke The Law

    As with most unsavory moments in the Trump administration […], the American public quickly moved on in October when Trump, in front of thousands of supporters, acted out having an orgasm while pretending to be former FBI agent Peter Strzok yelling the name of ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

    But the moment, like most other attacks dealt by [Trump], hit Page with more weight than most. After months of focused attacks and insult from the President of the United States, that crude, unprecedented act in October was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” […]

    “It’s almost impossible to describe,” she told the Daily Beast, reflecting on the President’s lingering attacks. “It’s like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”

    “But it’s also very intimidating because he’s still the President of the United States. And when the President accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there’s no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he’s still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life. It never goes away or stops, even when he’s not publicly attacking me,” she added.

    In coming days, the Justice Department’s inspector general report on the origins of the Russia probe will be released. While IG Michael Horowitz is expected to criticize at least one low-level FBI lawyer — who altered a document in his FISA court request to surveil Carter Page — the report is largely expected to exonerate Page of any wrongdoing, a finding she’s maintained since the IG first opened a review of her text messages.

    “[…] having an opinion and sharing that opinion publicly or privately with another person is squarely within the permissible bounds of the Hatch Act. It’s in the regs. Yeah, it says it plainly. I’m thinking, I know I’m a federal employee, but I retain my First Amendment rights. So I’m really not all that worried about it.” […]

    Lisa Page is the former legal counsel to former FBI Director Andrew Mc Cabe.

  313. says

    Followup to comment 312.

    From the readers comments section:

    Right out of the toolkit of the serial sex offender: first label any woman you have attacked as a slut.
    ——————-
    we who are thankfully anonymous on this board have no experience of what it’s like to have a Trumpist attack ranged against us. It’s not his tweet per se–it’s the death threats, the turmoil, the reporters, the atmosphere in the workplace etc etc. There are all kinds of costs that we can’t imagine.
    ———————
    When Trump targets you that’s like a signal to all his followers. But this piece also signaled to me that he targets people for a clear political purpose. Change the political value to him and he goes away.
    —————–
    Trumpworld has a special place in Hell for American women who want equality. When he says the word ‘woman’ he spits it out. That’s not powerful…it’s pathetic.
    ——————
    Axiomatic: every Trumpista accusation is in fact an admission of guilt. Every. Time.

  314. says

    Oh, FFS. Trump expanded his trade wars. He added tariffs on metal from Brazil and Argentina.

    Donald Trump is taking his impotent impeachment rage out on familiar territory for him, opening up a new front in South America in his trade wars. The White House announced Monday that it would reimpose steel and aluminum tariffs on Brazil and Argentina in retaliation for “a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers.”

    The tariffs on imported metals from the two countries is effective immediately. In addition to lashing out against the two countries, Trump attacked the Federal Reserve, saying it should “act so that countries, of which there are many, no longer take advantage of our strong dollar by further devaluing their currencies. This makes it very hard for our [manufacturers] & farmers to fairly export their goods. Lower Rates & Loosen—Fed!”

    The U.S. is one of Brazil’s largest steel markets, accounting for about $2.6 billion last year for the country, which is suffering a stagnant economy and unemployment above 10%. Likewise, Argentina’s economy is struggling, with high inflation and a plummeting peso. The surprise tariff move shocked leaders in those countries and could complicate efforts to get a deal on the remade North American Free Trade Agreement with the House.

    The announcement also contradicts Trump’s own Treasury Department, which reports twice annually on the currency policies of the rest of the world’s major economies, on the lookout for currency manipulation. It’s at least the second time Trump has popped off with the charge against other countries—in August it was China—in contradiction of Treasury’s findings.

    Link

  315. says

    This is kind of funny. One thing Tom Steyer has done right:

    Tom Steyer’s presidential campaign says the Democratic billionaire candidate landed a special Cyber Monday deal — nabbing the http://www.keepamericagreat.com domain name under his campaign’s own branding.

    The Steyer campaign, in a release Monday, said, “Trump’s campaign prides itself on hoarding websites of political opponents, but they forgot to pick up the URL for their signature re-election slogan, ‘Keep America Great.'”

    The result: A visit to the website with the Trump slogan now reveals the headline, “Trump is a fraud and a failure.” It offers the opportunity to purchase a bumper sticker which the campaign says “highlights what a majority of Americans already know about Donald Trump,” that he’s “borrowed billions of dollars to bankrupt businesses.” […]

    Link

    A good use of Steyer’s money.

  316. says

    Carter Page lost another court battle.

    Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page has struck out again with his lawsuit claiming he was a victim of terrorism in the form of media reports linking him to Russian efforts to influence the Trump campaign.

    With just a week to go before release of a hotly anticipated Justice Department watchdog report on the FBI’s targeting of Page in a series of surveillance warrants, a federal appeals court made evident Monday that it saw little, if any, merit in Page’s civil suit. […]

    the three judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals — which included two Trump appointees — ruled that a district court judge acted properly when she tossed out Page’s suit over a series of defects.

    “As the district court correctly held, Page failed to allege any facts suggesting that the articles in question were intended to intimidate or coerce civilians, influence government policy, or affect government conduct,” the appeals court wrote in an order. “Page’s conclusory assertions that defamation and propaganda are acts of terrorism are insufficient to plausibly state a claim under the ATA [Anti-Terrorism Act.]”

    […] they concluded that another claim Page leveled at the Agency for Global Media, the new name for the entity overseeing Radio Free Europe, was barred because he failed to inform that outlet he was seeking damages before filing suit. […]

    Link

  317. says

    Court refuses to block North Carolina GOP’s new House gerrymander in a setback for fair elections.

    In a setback in the fight against Republican gerrymandering in North Carolina, a state court panel has unanimously refused to block the congressional map [map available at the link] that Republicans passed last month after the same 2-1 Democratic panel had blocked their previous gerrymander from being used for 2020.

    Ruling that there was insufficient time remaining to adjudicate the facts of the plaintiffs’ challenge to the new map, the court did not issue a finding on whether it was constitutional or not, but the judges allowed the GOP’s new map to enter into effect for the March 2020 primary. Consequently, the court opened the candidate filing period that it had previously frozen.

    Daily Kos Elections has calculated the 2004-2018 statewide election results and a handful of demographic statistics for the GOP’s new districts, and they indicate that the new map is likely to elect an 8-5 Republican majority, barring a Democratic wave even larger than 2018. While that’s a much fairer split than the previous map’s 10-3 Republican advantage, it likely precludes Democrats from winning a majority of seats even in years in which they’re winning more votes, like 2018. […]

  318. says

    Senator Elizabeth Warren offered a personal answer to a question about being accepted by loved ones. She replied to a question from a young woman: “I was wondering if there was ever a time in your life where somebody you really looked up to maybe didn’t accept you as much and how you dealt with that?”

    Yeah. My mother and I had very different views of how to build a future. She wanted me to marry well. And I really tried and it just didn’t work out. And there came a day when I had to call her and say, “This is over. I can’t make it work.” I heard the disappointment in her voice. I knew how she felt about it. But I also knew it was the right thing to do, and sometimes, you just gotta do what’s right inside. And hope that maybe the rest of the world will come around to it. And maybe they will and maybe they won’t. But the truth is, you gotta take care of yourself first and do this. Give me a hug.

    https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1201523273202327552

    Video available at the link.

  319. says

    Followup to comments 312 and 313.

    Trump is attacking Lisa Page again.

    When Lisa Page, the lover of Peter Strzok, talks about being ‘crushed’, and how innocent she is, ask her to read Peter’s ‘Insurance Policy’ text, to her, just in case Hillary loses. Also, why were the lovers text messages scrubbed after he left Mueller. Where are they Lisa?

  320. johnson catman says

    re Lynna @317: I mean it is TOTALLY FAIR for the fucking republicans to keep submitting gerrymandered maps until the clock runs out. Have I expressed lately how much I hate republicans?

  321. says

    johnson catman @320, Republicans continue to run that same play. They cheat because they can’t win on a level playing field.

    In other news, additional charges are likely in the case of Lev Parnas, Rudi Giuliani’s buddy in crime in all Ukraine-related issues.

    Federal prosecutors said in court Monday in Manhattan that they expect to file additional charges in the case against Rudy Giuliani pals Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.

    Parnas, who was arrested alongside fellow Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman in October, is “under investigation for additional crimes,” prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors also said Monday that they expect to allow Parnas to provide evidence for the ongoing impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

    Parnas and Fruman helped Giuliani look for dirt in Ukraine and elsewhere that would be helpful to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. Parnas, Fruman and two others have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to violate federal election law by funneling a foreigner’s money to various U.S. political campaigns and committees. […]

    Parnas has already handed “audio and video recordings and photographs” over to House investigators, ABC News reported last week, but Bondy said Monday that “we don’t have the lion share of these materials” that were seized by prosecutors.

    Zolkind said separately that a superseding indictment in the case “was likely” and “something that we continue to evaluate.” […]

    Most of Monday’s status hearing concerned the ongoing discovery process — prosecutors said a “voluminous” amount of evidence had been seized from the defendants.

    Parnas, prosecutors said, was arrested with multiple cell phones and an iPad. A search of his residence turned up a Macbook, more phones, another iPad, and external storage devices. Evidence collected from Fruman included a satellite phone and multiple SD cards.

    Defense attorneys complained about the slow pace at which they were being provided evidence, though Fruman’s attorney Todd Blanche said he had received 70,000 pages from the government.

    “If any of the defendants want to receive that discovery on a much, much quicker time table, they can give us passwords” to their encrypted devices, Zolkind said. He said separately that prosecutors had asked Parnas’ attorneys multiple times for his passwords. […]

    Link

  322. says

    No delays for McGahn, according to the court. That’s good news for Congress.

    The federal judge in Washington who ordered former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with a congressional subpoena will not put that ruling on hold while it’s appealed.

    U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson denied Monday the administration’s request for a stay. The administration has already asked an appeals court to put on hold her order from last week that McGahn testify. […]

    On Monday, the judge said that the Justice Department could not “make a persuasive showing of irreparable harm in the absence of a colorable argument that McGahn’s mere appearance before the Judiciary Committee would, in and of itself, be harmful.”

    She also brought up the House Judiciary Committee’s emphasis, in opposing the stay request, on the possibility that McGahn could testify for the ongoing impeachment proceedings.

    “[T]the Judiciary Committee would almost certainly lose the chance to question McGahn as part of the present impeachment inquiry if a stay order issues, which would unquestionably harm the ongoing investigation that the Judiciary Committee is conducting, and by extension, would also injure the public’s interest in thorough and well-informed impeachment proceedings,” she said. […]

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/don-mcghan-stay-denial-district-court

  323. says

    Republican ‘defense’ of Donald Trump is 123 pages worth of House Republican talking points.

    The New York Times got hold of the draft of Republican defense of Donald Trump in the ongoing impeachment inquiry investigating his evident extortion of the Ukrainian government. There is also his withholding United States aid and a presidential meeting with the at-war ally. This all as Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and other administration officials pressured them to publicly announce “investigations” of two conspiracy theories aimed at undermining U.S. intelligence reports of Russian election interference and damaging one of Trump’s potential 2020 election opponents.

    According to the Times, the report is nothing more than a 123-page written version of what top Trump defenders Reps. Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan have been attempting to gaslight the public with since the beginning of the inquiry. It recognizes none of the evidence against Trump, declares all those that have spoke out to provide that evidence to be secretly or unsecretly working to undermine Dear Leader, and insists that even if Trump did do all the things the evidence now documents he did (for example, the “transcript”), it is because Donald Trump, yes, that Donald Trump, was so consumed with worry over Ukrainian corruption that he was justified in asking for two very specific public “investigations” that would just happen to mesh absolutely perfectly with his own campaign plans. […]

    Well, that’s that then. Republicans are totally into gaslighting the public, and totally into defending the indefensible.

    [Republicans] will not be backing off the Nunes-Jordan plan of simply declaring that none of the testimony, from any quarter, is valid. This is while top witnesses and collaborators in the scheme, from chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the White House lawyers that worked to bury the evidence, each assert an “absolute immunity” to investigations of the United States Congress.

    […] We can expect to hear that (Republican) presidents are allowed to break certain laws, that Congress is forbidden to so much as investigate, that there is a new absolute immunity of any and all members of the executive branch to subpoenas if Donald Trump says there is, and that all of the things the public heard in public impeachment proceedings to date did not, in fact, happen. […]

    It is a party that is not only devoid of shame or reason, but which nurtures and in fact requires the same traits in the public. The Republican defense is simply that all those who have damaging information about Dear Leader are naturally his enemies and must therefore be dismissed. […].

  324. says

    “When Joni Ernst says she wants to address Social Security behind closed doors, she is speaking in code to Wall Street donors,” said Linda Benesch, Social Security Works communications director, in an email. “The only reason to act in secret is to overthrow the will of the American people by cutting earned benefits. Our mobile billboard exposes Ernst’s real plans.”

    https://twitter.com/SSWorks/status/1199719899989446656

  326. says

    Senate panel look into Ukraine interference comes up short

    Some Republican senators recently questioned whether Kyiv tried to sabotage Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016. But the GOP-led Intelligence Committee looked into the theory, and found scant evidence to support it.

    […] the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee thoroughly investigated that theory, […] and found no evidence that Ukraine waged a top-down interference campaign akin to the Kremlin’s efforts to help Trump win in 2016.

    The committee’s Republican chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, said in October 2017 that the panel would be examining “collusion by either campaign during the 2016 elections.”

    But an interview that fall with the Democratic consultant at the heart of the accusation that Kyiv meddled, Alexandra Chalupa, was fruitless, […]

    The Senate interview largely focused on a POLITICO article published in January 2017, according to a person with direct knowledge of the closed-door hearing, in which Chalupa was quoted as saying officials at the Ukrainian Embassy were “helpful” to her effort to raise the alarm about Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort in 2016. […]

    More details at the link, including a summary of testimony from Alexandra Chalupa.

    […] the article did not allege that Poroshenko “actively worked” for Clinton, as Kennedy claimed.

    In her Senate testimony, Chalupa denied serving as an intermediary between the Ukrainian embassy and the DNC and said she had been targeted by a Russian active measures campaign. Intelligence officials have since briefed senators on Russia’s attempts to pin blame for the 2016 interference on Kyiv as part of a disinformation operation, according to a source familiar with the briefings, which were first reported by the New York Times. […]

    […] there’s been absolutely no validity to this crazy conspiracy theory that Ukraine was behind the 2016 intervention. […]

  327. says

    SC @325, that’s an impressive group. Republicans are claiming that those people are appearing before the committee because there are no witnesses who can provide evidence that Trump did anything wrong. [hollow laughter]

  328. says

    AP – “Trump administration quietly releases Lebanon military aid”:

    The Trump administration has quietly released more than $100 million in military assistance to Lebanon after months of unexplained delay that led some lawmakers to compare it to the aid for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

    The $105 million in Foreign Military Financing funds for the Lebanese Armed Forces was released just before the Thanksgiving holiday and lawmakers were notified of the step on Monday, according to two congressional staffers and an administration official.

    All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly to the matter.

    The money had languished in limbo at the Office of Management and Budget since September although it had already won congressional approval and had overwhelming support from the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council. The White House has yet to offer any explanation for the delay despite repeated queries from Congress.

    Lawmakers such as Rep. Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., had been pressing the administration since October to either release the funds or explain why it was being withheld. The State Department had notified Congress on Sept. 5 that the money would be spent.

    Earlier this month, the delay came up in impeachment testimony by David Hale, the No. 3 official in the State Department, according to the transcript of the closed-door hearing. Hale described growing consternation among diplomats about the delay.

    The White House and the Office of Management and Budget have declined to comment on the matter. The State Department had offered only a cryptic response to queries, defending the assistance but also calling for Lebanese authorities to implement economic reforms and rein in corruption.

    …

    The aid is intended to help counter Iran’s influence in Lebanon, which is highlighted by the presence of the Iranian-supported Shiite Hezbollah movement in the government and the group’s militias, officials have said.

    “Holding the money weakened the Lebanese military just at the moment that they were holding the country together,” Sen. Murphy said in response to the release. “There’s literally nothing in the Middle East this White House can’t screw up.”

    Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., who joined Engel in demanding an explanation for the delay, said he was “pleased to see this critical aid finally resuming. Our assistance is crucial to help Lebanon counter Iran-backed Hezbollah and other groups threatening the region.”

    Some pro-Israel members of Congress have sought to defund the Lebanese military, arguing that it has been compromised by Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has long advocated cutting the assistance and is expected to introduce legislation that would bar such aid as long as Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s government.

    The Pentagon and State Department reject that view, saying the army is the only independent Lebanese institution capable of resisting Hezbollah.

    IIRC (and I might not), Hale was asked about it by Castor or a Republican committee member basically to try to get him to say that this type of hold was completely normal and explicable, but when Hale responded that in fact no one had explained why these funds were being withheld, either, the questioner thought better of pursuing it further. It alerted more people to this instance, which probably led to more pressure to release the aid.

  329. says

    Lynna @ #327, last week I read Neal Katyal’s new book Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump (which he wrote in a few weeks, but he was only able to because he’s been working on and teaching about this for so long). It’s a quick and lucid read, and I recommend it. It’s almost like the people who wrote the Constitution could foresee Trump personally. Will be interesting to hear what the Wednesday witnesses have to say.

  332. says

    From the 302s released to BuzzFeed:

    “NEW: When Michael Cohen told Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow that there were more conversations with Russian officials than reflected in his testimony + that he even talked to a woman from the Kremlin abt Trump Tower Moscow project, Sekulow’s response was blunt: ‘so what'”

    “John Kelly told Mueller about the ‘tense’ Oval Office meeting with Trump and McGahn after the NYT first reported that Trump tried to fire Mueller. Kelly recalled that Trump told McGahn to ‘correct the record’, but McGahn insisted that there was nothing for the NYT to fix.”

  333. says

    NBC – “GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, after claiming ‘witch hunt,’ to plead guilty to misusing campaign funds”:

    U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter says he will plead guilty to misusing campaign funds — a criminal case he’d once decried as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

    The Republican lawmaker will formally enter his guilty plea in a hearing in federal court in San Diego on Tuesday morning, his court docket shows.

    …

    Prosecutors had charged Hunter and his wife “converted and stole” more than a quarter million dollars in campaign funds for their own use, including trips to Hawaii and Italy, bar tabs, theater tickets and school tuition for their kids. Prosecutors have also charged that Hunter used campaign money to finance romantic flings with lobbyists and congressional aides.

    Both Hunters pleaded not guilty last year, but the Republican congressman and Iraq war vet appeared to blame his spouse for their problems in an interview on Fox News soon after.

    “When I went away to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave her power of attorney. She handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when I got into Congress,” Hunter said on “The Story.”

    “She was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did, that’ll be looked at, too, I’m sure, but I didn’t do it.”

    Hunter’s wife, Margaret, pleaded guilty to conspiring to misuse campaign funds in June, and was expected to testify against her husband at his trial, which had been scheduled for Jan. 22.

    …

    Hunter is a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, and was the second sitting member of Congress to endorse his 2016 presidential campaign.

    The first, Rep. Chris Collins of New York, pleaded guilty last month to federal charges related to insider trading and resigned his seat. Like Hunter, he had taken a page from the Trump playbook and said the investigation into his actions was “a political witch hunt.”

    Hunter, who’d been running for re-election next year, was vague when asked what would happen with his seat.

    “We’re going to pass it off to whoever takes the seat next. I think it’s important to keep the seat a Republican seat,” he said. “President Trump right now needs support more than ever.”

  334. tomh says

    Scotusblog:
    Argument analysis: Justices focus on mootness in challenge to now-repealed New York City gun rule
    Amy Howe
    Posted Mon, December 2nd, 2019 1:53 pm

    This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a challenge to the constitutionality of a New York City rule that barred gun owners from taking their licensed guns outside the city. The gun owners argued that the rule violated their right to “keep and bear arms” under the Constitution’s Second Amendment. But it’s not clear that the justices will reach the merits of the gun owners’ complaint. Instead, it seemed possible (although far from certain) that they could throw out the case because the dispute is now moot – that is, no longer a live controversy – after the city repealed the rule last summer.

    The main purpose of the suit is to bring a 2nd Amendment case before the Court, and Alito and Gorsuch seem hell-bent to plow forward with it, in spite of the fact that the plaintiffs have already received everything they wanted, and they now want an opinion on a law “that is not on the books anymore,” in Ginsburg’s words.

    A detailed description of the oral argument is at the link, and the piece ends with, “if the justices don’t reach the Second Amendment question this time around, there are several other cases waiting in the wings.”

  335. says

    Guardian – “Berta Cáceres murder: seven convicted men sentenced to up to 54 years”:

    The seven men found guilty of killing the Honduran indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres have been sentenced to 30 to 54 years.

    Cáceres, a winner of the Goldman prize for environmental defenders, was shot dead late at night on 2 March 2016 – two days before her 45th birthday – after a long battle to stop construction of an internationally financed hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River.

    In November 2018, the court ruled the murder was ordered by executives of the Agua Zarca dam company, Desa, because of delays and financial losses linked to protests led by Cáceres.

    On Monday, more than a year after the guilty verdict, the four paid hitmen – Elvin Rapalo, Edilson Duarte Meza, Óscar Torres, and Henry Javier Hernández – were each given 34 years for the murder. They were also sentenced to 16 years and four months for the attempted murder of Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist who was shot in the same attack but survived by playing dead.

    Sergio Ramón Rodríguez, the communities and environment manager for Desa, and Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, a former Desa security chief and ex-US trained army lieutenant, were given 30 years and six months for their participation in the murder.

    Mariano Díaz Chávez, a US-trained special forces major who served with Bustillo, was found guilty by omission and given 30 years. In last year’s five-week trial, wiretap conversations suggested that Díaz participated in reconnaissance missions with Bustillo, and in February 2015 provided logistical support and a gun for a plot to kill Cáceres. That attempt was aborted at the last minute because she was at home with her daughters.

    At the time, Díaz – an army major on active service and in line for promotion to lieutenant colonel – was under investigation for drug trafficking and kidnapping.

    Monday’s sentences were welcomed by Cáceres’s family and supporters as an important step, but outside court they reiterated demands that justice be delivered against the masterminds and financiers of the plot.

    “From the outset, the path to justice has been painful, as our rights as victims have not been respected. These sentences are a start in breaking the impunity, but we’re going to make every effort to ensure that all those responsible – the company executives and state officials identified in the trial – are prosecuted,” said Bertita Zúñiga, Cáceres’ second-eldest daughter.

    Cáceres, the coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh), was best known for defending indigenous territory and natural resources, but she was also a respected political analyst, women’s rights defender and anti-capitalist campaigner.

    David Roberto Castillo, a US-trained former military intelligence officer and Desa’s president, has been indicted as an “intellectual author” of her murder. Castillo was arrested on the second anniversary of the murder and is alleged to have coordinated with, and provided funds to, the killers.

    This year, Cáceres’ children applied to a US federal court to subpoena bank records linked to a $1.4m luxury house in Texas purchased by Castillo eight months after the killing, arguing the documents could help identify yet unknown individuals involved in the crime.

    Castillo has also been indicted on multiple corruption charges linked to the Agua Zarca dam concession, which was awarded without proper consultation or environmental assessment…. Construction of the 21-megawatt dam stopped after the murder, but the licence has not been revoked.

    The Agua Zarca dam was among scores of environmentally destructive mega-projects sanctioned after the 2009 coup, which ushered in a pro-business government that unleashed a wave of repression against communities who opposed the plans.

    Cáceres’s murder triggered widespread condemnation but failed to stop the bloodshed: at least 24 environmental and land defenders have been murdered since March 2015, and Honduras remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world outside an official warzone. Meanwhile, the National party remains in power despite mounting allegations of election fraud, illegal campaign financing and links to drug trafficking.

  336. says

    Guardian – “‘Jack would be livid his death has been used to further an agenda of hate'”:

    The father of Jack Merritt, who died on Friday at London Bridge, writes that the attack has been used to reinforce the worldview his son fought against

    Dave Merritt

    Jack was proud. Jack was absorbingly intelligent. Jack was fiercely loyal. Jack loved music, art, eating good food with his family, and having more than one pint with his mates. Oh, and in case you haven’t realised by now … he was also devilishly handsome.

    But Jack was also angry, frustrated, selfless, stubborn. He was angry because he saw our society failing those most in need. He was frustrated because the political elite have forgotten why it is important to be fair. He was selfless in his dedication to make things right in every second of his life. Jack devoted his energy to the purpose of Learning Together: a pioneering programme to bring students from university and prisons together to share their unique perspectives on justice. Unlike many of us, Jack did not just go to work. He lived and breathed fire in his pursuit of a better world for all humanity, particularly those most in need.

    If Jack could comment on his death – and the tragic incident on Friday 29 November – he would be livid. We would see him ticking it over in his mind before a word was uttered between us. Jack would understand the political timing with visceral clarity.

    He would be seething at his death, and his life, being used to perpetuate an agenda of hate that he gave his everything fighting against. We should never forget that. What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens.

    That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences, or convict people on joint enterprise. Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge. Where we do not consistently undermine our public services, the lifeline of our nation. Jack believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and felt a deep social responsibility to protect that. Through us all, Jack marches on.

    Borrow his intelligence, share his drive, feel his passion, burn with his anger, and extinguish hatred with his kindness. Never give up his fight.

    To Jack Merritt. Now, and forever.

  337. says

    Business Insider – “Boris Johnson said UK’s poorest communities are made-up of ‘chavs,’ ‘burglars,’ ‘drug addicts,’ and ‘losers'”:

    Boris Johnson wrote that the poorest 20% of British society is made-up of “chavs,” “losers,” “burglars,” “drug addicts,” and “criminals,” in a newspaper column unearthed by Business Insider.

    Johnson, who was a Conservative MP and editor of the Spectator magazine at the time, wrote in the Telegraph in 2005 that poorer voters who live on “run-down estates,” only continued to vote for Labour due to the “deluded hope of bigger hand-outs.”

    He added that this “bottom” one-fifth of British citizens “supplies us with the chavs, the losers, the burglars, the drug addicts and the 70,000 people who are lost in our prisons and learning nothing except how to become more effective criminals.”

    In an aside aimed at his political opponents, he said that some Labour MPs only wanted to ban the smacking of children due to their “revulsion when they see a chav belting her kids in the supermarket.”

    Earlier this week, it emerged that Johnson had labelled the children of single mothers “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate,” and accused their fathers of being too “feeble” to “take control of [their] woman.”

    Labour’s David Lammy told Business Insider that Johnson’s comments revealed a “disdain for working-class people across the UK.”

    “Before becoming Prime Minister, Johnson used the privilege of high profile newspaper columns to spew bigoted abuse at Muslim women, black people, single mothers, working-class people and other groups.

    “This history makes him unfit to be Prime Minister, especially at a time when our country is divided and desperately needs to come back together again.”

    …

    Johnson has also previously claimed that income inequality may be inevitable due to the lower intelligence of some poorer people.

    “Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests,” Johnson told the Centre for Policy Studies in 2013, “it is surely relevant to a conversation about inequality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85 while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130,”

    Johnson argued that “I don’t believe that economic equality is possible” because “human beings who are far from equal in raw ability.”…

  339. says

    “SCOOP: Barr doesn’t accept key inspector general finding about FBI’s Russia investigation”

    WaPo link atl.

    Susan Hennessey:

    Get read[y] for the Barr summary 2.0. AG Barr again poised to insert himself into yet another process designed to avoid political influence for the purpose of shaping the conclusions in a manner politically advantageous to the president.

    Barr couldn’t get what he wanted from IG Horowitz so he tried to see if Durham could do it for him. Now that it’s looking like both are turning up empty, Barr’s just going to declare his own conclusions.

    Special Counsels exist to avoid appearance of political conclusions. Barr eroded that by falsely spinning Mueller report & inserting his own legal conclusions.

    IGs exist to avoid appearance of political conclusions. Now Barr plans to erode that by inserting his own conclusions.

    It is difficult to overstate what an incredibly corrosive and bad actor Barr has turned out to be. He will leave the Department of Justice damaged and warped in ways that will take years and years to repair.

  341. says

    Thanks, SC, for the link in 330 to the interview with Katyal.

    This reply from Katyal impressed me:

    […] maybe the most important thing in our entire democracy — is our fair election system. And if you can allow a president or anyone, but particularly an incumbent president with all the powers of the commander in chief, to leverage those powers to guarantee or to help him in the re-election, we’re not living in a democracy anymore, we’re not living in a fair system in which our political system checks the abuse that we’ve known to expect in our lifetimes. […]

  343. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 333.

    I’m sure Hunter’s wife Margaret is the one who use campaign funds to pay for hotel stays in which Hunter had sexual relations with several women who were not Margaret.

  344. says

    Raise your eyebrows at this one. Putin is restricting journalism is yet another way:

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed into law a bill allowing Moscow to label individual journalists or bloggers as “foreign agents.” […]

    “The new norms allow the Russian government to block websites of foreign agents or legal entities established by them in case the information published by foreign media outlets violates Russian regulations,” Russian state media site TASS wrote.

    Outlets labeled as foreign agents need to fulfill financial reporting obligations to the Russian government or face large fines, according to NPR. Critics fear the measure will be used to silence outlets critical of the Russian government.

    Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the law in a statement published in November.

    “This legislative initiative will have a detrimental impact on the already restrictive environment for independent journalism in Russia and should be dropped,” the statement read.

    Link

  345. says

    “REP. RANDY WEBER (R): Is CrowdStrike in part owned by a Ukrainian?

    CHRIS CUOMO: No!

    WEBER: … … really?

    CUOMO: Yes!

    WEBER: That’s not the information that we have.

    CUOMO: You have bad information!”

    Video atl. Also, when he asks “Chris, was CrowdStrike involved in the DCCC hacking?” he seems to be suggesting that they were involved in the actual hacking rather than the investigation of the hacking. They, and everyone else, attributed the hacking to Russia.

    Their disinformation chamber is so well fortified that they’re willing to go on national television and make fools of themselves parroting this debunked nonsense. The National Republican Congressional Committee is a CrowdStrike client, ffs.

  346. says

    Politico – “Senate panel look into Ukraine interference comes up short”:

    With the impeachment inquiry charging forward, President Donald Trump’s allies have defended his demand for political investigations from Ukraine by claiming that the government in Kyiv tried to sabotage his candidacy and boost Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    …

    But the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee thoroughly investigated that theory, according to people with direct knowledge of the inquiry, and found no evidence that Ukraine waged a top-down interference campaign akin to the Kremlin’s efforts to help Trump win in 2016.

    The committee’s Republican chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, said in October 2017 that the panel would be examining “collusion by either campaign during the 2016 elections.”

    But an interview that fall with the Democratic consultant at the heart of the accusation that Kyiv meddled, Alexandra Chalupa, was fruitless, a committee source said, and Republicans didn’t follow up or request any more witnesses related to the issue.

    The Senate interview largely focused on a POLITICO article published in January 2017, according to a person with direct knowledge of the closed-door hearing, in which Chalupa was quoted as saying officials at the Ukrainian Embassy were “helpful” to her effort to raise the alarm about Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort in 2016.

    …

    In her Senate testimony, Chalupa denied serving as an intermediary between the Ukrainian embassy and the DNC and said she had been targeted by a Russian active measures campaign. Intelligence officials have since briefed senators on Russia’s attempts to pin blame for the 2016 interference on Kyiv as part of a disinformation operation, according to a source familiar with the briefings, which were first reported by the New York Times.

    Chalupa confirmed to POLITICO that she was questioned by the panel. A spokesperson for Burr declined to comment. A spokesperson for the ranking member, Mark Warner, pointed to Warner’s recent comments to PBS.

    “I take very seriously the responsibility of, what I hear in classified settings needs to stay classified,” Warner told the outlet. “But I think it is very clear to me, and this has been testified to by every leader of law enforcement, [and the] intelligence community, that there’s been absolutely no validity to this crazy conspiracy theory that Ukraine was behind the 2016 intervention.”

    In a brief hallway interview after this story was published, Burr declined to say if he believes Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. But, he said, “The elected officials in Ukraine had a preference. Her name is Hillary Clinton.”

    Senate Intelligence Committee member Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, declined to comment on what the committee has or hasn’t investigated.

    But he said in an interview that he’s “probably been to between 20-30 briefings and hearings on this subject of election interference in 2016, and I have never heard one word about any culpability on the part of Ukraine.”

    …

    Republicans have also pointed to the publication of the so-called black ledger outlining off-the-books payments Manafort received from Ukraine’s pro-Russia Party of Regions as evidence of a Ukrainian interference plot. The revelation led Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign, which was already under scrutiny for its Russia ties.

    But the ledger was released by an independent Ukrainian government agency, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, and publicized by Sergii Leshchenko—a Ukrainian member of Parliament who, despite Senator Kennedy’s claims that Poroshenko “worked” with Clinton in 2016, grew to oppose Poroshenko and accused him of launching a politically motivated investigation into the ledger’s release to curry favor with Trump. That investigation was spearheaded by ousted Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.

    Leshchenko recently described his motivations in publicizing the black ledger in an article for the Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper in Ukraine. “On May 31, 2016, I gave a press conference and released the 22 pages [of the ledger] that I had,” Leshchenko wrote. “Manafort was not mentioned there. His role became known only three months later, in August 2016, when the New York Times reported about it.”

    “In Ukraine, it was no secret to anyone that Manafort worked for Yanukovych and was generously paid,” he continued. “And since Manafort at that time became the head of Trump’s campaign, it was predictable enough that American journalists would dig for Manafort’s name in Yanukovych’s black ledger.”

    Ukraine’s Sixth Administrative Court of Appeals canceled a court ruling in July that said Leshchenko and the head of NABU, Artem Sytnyk, had unlawfully interfered in the 2016 election by publicizing the fact that Manafort’s name and signature appeared on the ledger, according to the Kyiv Post.

    The Ukrainian lawmaker who initiated the court case alleging interference in the U.S., Boryslav Rozenblat, was himself under investigation on corruption charges when he filed the suit, raising questions about its legitimacy.

    Trump’s request to Zelensky to investigate Ukraine’s election interference, however, invoked a debunked conspiracy theory that few Republicans have entertained—that the Democratic National Committee gave its server to a “Ukrainian company” to examine after it had been hacked, ostensibly in an effort to frame Russia for the attack.

    In reality, the DNC hired CrowdStrike—a cybersecurity firm used by Democrats and Republicans that was co-founded by a Russian—to investigate, and the company shared the forensic evidence, which demonstrated Russia’s involvement, with the FBI.

    Trump’s own former homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, has described his fruitless attempts to convince the president that the Crowdstrike theory was bogus. “It’s not only a conspiracy, it is completely debunked,” Bossert told ABC in September. “And at this point I am deeply frustrated with what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunked theory to the president. It sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again and for clarity here … let me just again repeat that it has no validity.”

    Asked about CrowdStrike’s work with the DNC and coordination with the FBI, Adam Hickey, the deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Security Division, told the House Judiciary Committee in October that “it’s pretty common for us to work with a security vendor in connection with an investigation of a computer intrusion.”

    Asked by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) “what other countries had shown an interest or tried to interfere in the 2016 election,” Hickey replied, “based on what I’ve read, both from what the IC has put out and also investigations by Congress, what I’ve seen only refers to Russia, that I’m aware of.”

    The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report—after conducting “interviews of key individuals who have provided additional insights into these incidents—that Russia hacked the DNC, and agreed with the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment that “Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton.”

    Two volumes of the committee’s final report, entitled “Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election,” have been released so far, and neither address the theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

    In Volume 2, however, which focuses on Russia’s use of social media to wage disinformation campaigns, the committee flagged another episode in which Russia sought to blame Ukraine for its own misconduct: specifically, the “menu of conspiracy theories and false narratives” Russia introduced in 2014 to account for the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17.

    Russia has repeatedly pointed the finger at Kyiv, despite the conclusion by a team of international investigators that the plane was destroyed by Russia-backed Ukrainian separatists—aided by three Russians close to Russian intelligence services—operating in separatist territory using Russia-provided weapons systems.

    More atl.

  347. says

    From last night: “Tucker: I should say for the record that I’m totally opposed to these sanctions and I don’t think we should be at war with Russia and I think we should take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine”

    Video clip atl.

  349. says

    “Gorka, to Charlie Kirk: ‘Have you done that genetic testing that looks at your gene code? Because i need to know are you also of German-Irish descent like the president? … Because there’s no other way to explain how you have a similar energy level’ to Donald Trump.”

    Video atl. Quite a week in rightwing media.

  351. says

    Bellingcat thread:

    BREAKING: @Bellingcat & its investigative partners have identified the killer of Georgian Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who earlier this year was shot in Berlin by an assassin arriving on a bicycle, as Vadim Nikolaevich Krasikov, a Russian citizen aged 54.

    In previous reports, we had proven that the killer used the fake identity of Vadim Sokolov, 49, which had been fabricated by Russian authorities. No records of such person ever existing could be found, yet he was able to receive state-issued travel documents and obtain an EU visa

    …

    So how was it that a murder suspect was allowed to travel extensively within and outside Russia, and then given a fake new identity a month before murdering a person whom Russia had declared a foe? It’s a question Moscow will have to answer to German investigative authorities.

    As German media reported today, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office has taken the unusual step to escalate the murder investigation to a federal level – a step reserved for suspected state crimes. A formal announcement of the step – and its rationale – is expected this week….

  357. says

    Trump finds more ‘anonymous validators’ to tell him how right he is.

    In the UK for a NATO summit, Donald Trump spoke with reporters this morning, where he was proud to point to unnamed scholars who – wouldn’t you know it – recently told the president how right he is about impeachment.

    “All you have to do is read the transcripts, you’ll see there was absolutely nothing done wrong. I had legal scholars looking at the transcripts the other day and they said, ‘These are absolutely perfect, Trump is right when he uses the word.’ … Those calls that we made – two of them – were absolutely perfect calls.”

    Bullshit.

    At this point, we could once again explain that the transcripts aren’t transcripts. And that the call summary of Trump’s July 25 phone meeting was quite incriminating. And that the president’s Ukraine scandal is far broader than a couple of conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. […]

    But in this case, what I found especially entertaining was Trump pointing to alleged conversations he had “the other day” with “legal scholars” who not only told him how impressed they were with the transcripts that aren’t transcripts, but who also endorsed the president’s use of the word “perfect.”

    And who, pray tell, are these scholars? Well, Trump didn’t say. They are, to borrow a phrase, his latest “anonymous validators.”

    It was a Bloomberg News report that coined the phrase in this 2018 report, which continues to resonate.

    One of the biggest supporters of President Donald Trump’s trade policies, according to the president, is the unnamed chief executive officer of a mystery company.

    “I was with one of the greatest companies in the world. The chief executive officer. Very short while ago. And it really affects him,” Trump said at a July 31 campaign rally in Tampa, referring to his controversial use of tariffs. “He said ‘You know what, this does affect our company. But, Mr. President, keep going. You’re doing the right thing.”’

    Trump didn’t identify his supporter, and the White House won’t say who it is. […]

    I’m sure there are some who’ll believe that these conversations actually occurred. I’m less sure why they’ll accept Trump’s obvious ridiculous claims at face value.

    Link

    More examples of anonymous validators at the link.

  358. says

    Trump lies about knowing Prince Andrew:

    […] This morning, Donald Trump commented on the controversy, telling reporters, “I don’t know Prince Andrew, but it’s a tough story; it’s a very tough story.” The American president, in London for a NATO summit, added, “I don’t know him, no.”

    From the New York Times:

    During his state visit to Britain in June, Mr. Trump toured Westminster Abbey in London with the prince, and they were photographed laughing together.

    There are also photographs of the two men together closer to the time and the social circles that Ms. Giuffre has spoken about.

    Mr. Trump and his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss — who is now the first lady — were seen with the prince at least twice in 2000: once at the opening of Hudson Hotel in New York and, more intimately, at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

  359. says

    SC @345, Republicans do not understand their own conspiracy theories. They’ve had all kinds of time to get their story (stories) straight, but they just can’t do it.

  360. says

    Ah, yes. Of course corruption rears its ugly head when it comes to repairing or building Trump’s wall on the southern border.

    […] look no further than Donald Trump intervening in the government contracting process, so that a company he likes will build border barriers across an Arizona wildlife refuge. The Washington Post reported overnight:

    North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel won the contract to build in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Yuma County, Ariz., the Defense Department said, with a target completion date of Dec. 30, 2020.

    Trump has repeatedly pushed for Fisher to get a wall-building contract, urging officials with the Army Corps of Engineers to pick the firm — only to be told that Fisher’s bids did not meet standards. Trump’s entreaties on behalf of the company have concerned some officials who are unaccustomed to a president getting personally involved in the intricacies of government contracting.

    The government contract to build 31 miles of barriers is worth $400 million.

    The first signs of trouble emerged in May, when Trump “personally and repeatedly” starting lobbying U.S. officials, including the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to award government contracts to Fisher Industries. […]

    As we discussed in the spring, the fact that Fisher’s CEO, Tommy Fisher, is a Republican donor seems like an obvious issue. I[…]

    But in this case, that’s only part of the problem. The latest reporting suggests Trump didn’t support Fischer because of campaign contributions; rather, the president intervened because he saw Fisher on Fox News.

    […] “Trump has been enamored with Tommy Fisher, the company’s chief executive, who has made multiple appearances on Fox News to promote his firm and insists that it would do a better job than those the government had already chosen.”

    Philip Bump took a closer look in May at how the North Dakota company reached the White House’s radar:

    To reach [Trump], Fisher appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” for a sit-down interview on March 5. He was on Maria Bartiromo’s morning show on Fox Business Network on April 3. Early the next morning, he was interviewed on the Fox News early morning talk show “Fox and Friends First.” Asked if he supported Trump’s effort to build the wall, Fisher said he did.

    On April 16, his company was covered on Fox News’ show “Special Report with Bret Baier.” The segment was used the next morning in another “Fox and Friends First” segment. On April 21, the news show “Fox Report” covered Fisher’s proposal, including a pretaped interview with him.

    The pinnacle of that effort, though, came on Sean Hannity’s program on April 25.

    There’s no shortage of examples of Trump making substantive decisions based on things he saw on Fox News, but this is ridiculous.

    Link

  361. says

    From Talking Points Memo:

    […] Trump parroted that talking point while speaking to reporters before his departure Monday, calling the NATO summit — an agreement he routinely derides as irrelevant — “one of the most important journeys that we make as president.”

    Commentary from Steve Benen:

    […] Trump suggested to reporters that it’s outrageous for Congress to advance the process [of impeachment] at “the exact time” he will be abroad for a NATO gathering. The president added on Twitter that it’s “not nice” for Democrats to “purposely schedule” a hearing during the summit.

    Predictably, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Fox News’ morning show to echo the new talking points, as if they had merit.

    They don’t.

    For one thing, there is no inherent conflict. The affairs of state continue, even when a president is abroad, and there’s nothing stopping White House officials from participating in impeachment proceedings, regardless of a president’s physical location.

    Congressional Republicans proceeded with the impeachment process in 1998, even as Bill Clinton attended international meetings, so there’s already a precedent to follow.

    What’s more, the idea that House Democrats deliberately scheduled hearings to coincide with NATO discussions is plainly foolish. Dems are moving quickly because of the calendar, not because of Trump’s travel plans.

    But even putting aside these relevant details, what’s truly amazing is Trump’s willingness to pretend to be a champion of NATO – an alliance he’s been hostile toward throughout his limited political career, including last week – purely as a matter of political convenience. As of this morning, the American president seemed to expect others to play along with his newfound love of the alliance.

    President Trump on Tuesday slammed as “very very nasty” and “very disrespectful” recent comments by his French counterpart about the diminished state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance.

    Referring to comments President Emmanuel Macron made last month in an interview with The Economist – in which Macron described the “brain death” of NATO due to lack of American support – Trump attacked Macron during his first remarks on the first day of the NATO 70th anniversary summit in London, calling the comments “very insulting.”

    “You just can’t go around making statements like that about NATO,” Trump said, sitting next to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a one-on-one meeting between the two leaders Tuesday morning.

    Trump has been going around making statements like these about NATO for years.

    Link

  362. says

    Followup to comments 237 and 339.

    Republicans have been eagerly anticipating a document generally known as the Horowitz Report. At issue is an independent review launched by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz into the FBI’s decision to open an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections […]

    Maybe, the president and his cohorts have said, Horowitz will turn up evidence of a vast conspiracy, launched by the FBI’s “deep state,” to undermine Trump. Or maybe there will be proof of widespread wrongdoing from FBI leaders such as James Comey. Or maybe the evidence will point to the bureau “spying” on Team Trump. […]

    the inspector general’s probe found no evidence of political bias tainting the Russia probe. A week later, there was a related report noting that Horowitz will also knock down Trump’s claims about FBI spying.

    […] Attorney General Bill Barr has already begun telling associates that he disagrees with at least some of the inspector general’s core findings: that the FBI “had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign.” […]

    Not to put too fine a point on this, but if the reporting is accurate, the result is a ridiculous dynamic: a sitting attorney general objecting to the results of a Justice Department investigation into the baseless conspiracy theories the attorney general prefers to believe are true. […]

    The attorney general’s behavior regarding the Russia scandal has already been indefensible, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s reached rock bottom.

    The Horowitz Report is scheduled to be released next week. Buckle up.

    Link

  363. says

    Followup to SC’s comment 356.

    […] The appeals court, however, issued a very narrow directive to the district court setting up a process allowing for the non-disclosure of sensitive personal details in the records. The appeals also said another category of subpoenaed documents may be excludable, and set up a process for handling that.

    The rest of the documents requested by the House “shall be promptly transmitted to the Committees in daily batches as they are assembled, beginning seven days from the date of this opinion,” the court said.

    The seven days, the appeals court said, would afford Trump the time to seek Supreme Court review.

    In a statement, Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow said that “we are evaluating our next options including seeking review at the Supreme Court of the United States.“

    “We believe the subpoena is invalid as issued,” he said.

    Tuesday’s decision is the latest loss in court Trump has suffered in trying to shield his financial records from scrutiny. The Supreme Court is currently weighing how to handle two other cases where appeals courts have upheld subpoenas of Trump’s accounting firm for his tax returns.

    In the Deutsche Bank case, Trump was fighting the subpoena in his personal capacity, but the Department of Justice filed a friend-of-the-court brief largely aligned with his position. […]

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/appeals-court-deutsche-bank

    From the readers comments:

    Even if he keeps losing these court cases, its all about delay delay delay.
    ——————
    Wake me when Don McGahn or the tax returns actually see the light of day. I am not really convinced that the Judiciary is a guarantor of equal protection under the law – power and money have allowed Trump to have his way with Lady Justice through three quarters of his presidency thus far.
    ———————–
    I will be fascinated to see what this means: “sensitive personal details.” It appears to be a lifeboat for him.
    —————–
    My personal conspiracy theory is that Justice Kennedy resigned to avoid eventual recusal in this case.

    His own son approved ruble-laundering loans to Trump that no other bank would grant.

    Recusal would have meant a 4-4 tie, upholding lower court rulings against President Clownwig.

    Replacing Justice Moneylaunder with Justice Rapeydrunk neatly avoided that.
    ————————-
    His accounting firm has his tax records and they will want to still be in business long after Trump is gone. His accountants are going to do what the courts tell them to do.

  364. says

    More Evidence Emerges That Ukraine Knew Early On About U.S. Aid Freeze

    A former Ukraine official told the New York Times that she learned of the Trump administration’s hold on military aid on July 30, a claim that undercuts a GOP talking point in defense of President Trump while corroborating other evidence in the impeachment probe that Ukraine was aware of the aid freeze before it was made known publicly.

    The account of Olena Zerkal, a former deputy foreign minister who left the Ukrainian government last week, is the first on-the-record acknowledgment from a member of the Ukrainian government that it knew of the aid freeze soon after Trump’s July 25 call with President Zelensky, in which Trump requested investigations into his political rivals.

    Zerkal described to the Times why the Zelensky administration wanted to avoid commenting on the pressure campaign in a way that would further strain Ukraine’s relationship with President Trump. The Zelensky administration has assumed the Senate will acquit the President if he is impeached and that he could be re-elected, she told the Times. She claimed that a top aide to Zelensky told her to “keep silent” on the matter, according to the Times. […]

    She told the Times that she learned of the aid freeze in a diplomatic cable from the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, and that she even read the cable aloud to top Ukrainian officials. She asked to discuss the cable with a senior Zelensky aide, she told the Times, while claiming that the Zelensky administration was also copied as a recipient of the cable.

    Zarkal’s account is in line with last month’s congressional testimony of Laura Cooper, a top Department of Defense official. Cooper said that her staff received two messages on July 25 that indicated that the Ukrainian embassy was aware of an issue with the military aid. Later in August, Cooper’s staff was told by an embassy contact that the topic might come up in upcoming meeting with a Ukrainian official, though it ultimately did not. […]

  365. says

    Axios – “Former deputy foreign minister says Ukraine knew of aid freeze in July”:

    Ukraine’s former deputy foreign minister Olena Zerkal told the New York Times in an interview that Ukraine’s government was aware of the Trump administration’s decision to freeze military aid in July.

    Why it matters: Zerkal’s account is the first acknowledgment from a Ukrainian official that the government knew Trump was withholding security assistance as early as July, supporting a similar revelation from Pentagon official Laura Cooper’s public testimony last month.

    …

    Zerkal’s account also acknowledges that the Zelensky administration tried to prevent the Trump administration’s pressure campaign from surfacing to avoid getting sucked into domestic U.S. politics.

    Details: As deputy foreign minister, Zerkal reviewed diplomatic cables from embassies around the world. In July, she read a cable that said the Trump administration had frozen military aid to Ukraine.

    Zerkal could not recall the exact date she read the cable, but she said asked for a meeting with a senior aide to Zelensky to discuss the freeze on July 30, according to the Times. She said her ministry received the cable at the same time as Zelensky’s presidential administration.

    Zerkal also said Zelensky’s advisers blocked a trip she had planned to Washington to meet with members of Congress, fearing that she would discuss impeachment.

    Zerkal said she resigned last week in protest of the Ukrainian government’s “back channel diplomacy with both the Trump administration last summer and Russia this fall,” according to the Times….

  366. says

    Elizabeth Warren has a plan to end employer abuses of part-time workers.

    Senator Elizabeth Warren has released another plan […] to help the millions of part-time workers who are subject to, in her words, “unpredictable work schedules that leave them with too few hours to afford necessities and no control over their time.” She lays out the problem: “work assignments change by the hour, based on factors like customer demand, the time of day, the time of year, or even weather.”

    That leaves workers unable to budget, not knowing how many hours they’ll work in any given month, with difficulty trying to schedule child care or appointments or running errands or furthering their own education. She cites a study of 30,000 retail and food service employees that found 80% of workers have “little to no input” in their work schedules and 70% who are essentially on-call at all hours.

    […] “workers of color—especially women of color—bear the brunt of these abusive scheduling practices. […] Women of color have a 5-10% greater exposure to scheduling instability even when controlling for educational attainment and comparing workers within the same company.”

    To combat this, Warren will require all employers who have 15 or more employees to give two weeks of advance notice of work schedules; employees will have the right to decline work hours outside of that schedule and will be compensated for changes during those two weeks. Additionally, “employers that employ more than 15 workers will be required to consider in good faith their workers’ scheduling requests, including requests related to the number of hours they want to work and the timing and location of their shifts—and provide a justification if they can’t accommodate a request.” Her plan also prohibits forcing employees to work back-to-back shifts—having to work both the closing and opening shifts in one 24-hour period—by requiring 11 hours of break between shifts, and overtime pay for workers who volunteer to work within that window.

    To combat the practice of very large employers bringing in new part-time hires or contractors to avoid having regular part-timers work more hours that would qualify them for benefits, she would also require that they schedule those hours of work to qualified existing part-time workers before they could bring in new workers. Finally, she would require benefits for part-time workers. “Workers who have worked for their employer for at least 12 months will have access to Family Medical Leave Act leave and protection, regardless of whether they are part time or full time. Workers who work at least 500 hours for two consecutive years will also have access to employee retirement plans.”

    Link

  367. tomh says

    @ #356
    “Appeals Court rejects Trump’s attempt to block Deutsche Bank from complying with congres[s]ional subpoena.”

    Unfortunately, the court gave them 7 days to appeal to the SC, so that will give them a nice long stall.

  368. says

    Trump is at the Nato summit to confirm that he is stupid, lacks diplomatic skills, and is a bully.

    Take, for example, this exchange which took place during trump’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron:

    “Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I can give them to you,” Trump said with a slight smile at the meeting, which was carried live on cable news. “You can take every one you want.”

    “Let’s be serious,” Macron replied sternly, reasoning that most ISIS fighters came from Syria, Iraq and Iran and disputing Trump’s common refrain that the terrorist group had been defeated. […]

    The French president insisted that the number of European ISIS fighters was a “tiny” part of the overall problem of addressing destabilization in the region. He was also adamant that the terrorist group had not entirely been defeated, a break with a common declaration from Trump.

    “I think [the] No. 1 priority, because it’s not finished, is it to get rid of ISIS,” Macron said.

    “That was one of the greatest nonanswers I ever heard,” Trump said after Macron had concluded. “And that’s OK.” […]

    Trump emphasized his “very good relationship” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after Macron noted disagreements between Turkey and the rest of the alliance on their definition of terrorism.

    “I can only say we have a very good relationship with Turkey and president Erdoğan,” Trump said when asked about Turkey’s standing in NATO. “We have a very good relationship.”

    Macron interjected shortly thereafter: “We have lost cooperation with Turkey.”

    The French president demanded “clarification” from Ankara on how it could be a member of the NATO alliance and also purchase Russian S-400 missile systems amid NATO opposition. Macron also said Turkey wanted to “blow up” the summit if the other alliance members did not recognize Ankara’s view of groups that are terrorists.

    When Trump suggested that his predecessor, former President Obama, pushed Turkey toward purchasing the Russian missiles by refusing to sell Ankara the Patriot missile, Macron shot back, saying it was Turkey’s “own decision” to purchase the missiles after Europe offered another option that was compliant with NATO.

    […]

    “When you speak about NATO, it’s not just about money,” Macron said. “We have to be clear on the fundamentals of what NATO should be.”Link

    Macron fact-checked Trump in real time.

  369. says

    Update to #351 – Guardian – “Germany suspects Russian agencies over Chechen exile killing”:

    Germany’s chief public prosecutor suspects Russian intelligence agencies to be behind the killing of a former Chechen insurgent in Berlin and plans to take over investigations into the case, various German media outlets have reported.

    Coming three months after Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was shot in broad daylight in a Berlin park, such a move would amount to the German state officially accusing the Kremlin of carrying out a political assassination on German soil and likely lead to a similar diplomatic fall-out as over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the UK in March 2018.

    According to a report by Der Spiegel on Tuesday, Germany’s highest general prosecutor in Karlsruhe decided to take on the case after forensics experts identified the assassin as the same person, Vadim Krasikov, who was sought over the murder of a Russian businessman in 2013.

    The Kremlin has until now categorically denied its involvement in the murder, and some German officials initially mooted the Moscow link could be a red herring planted to sow discord between Russia and Europe.

    But the Russian government’s unwillingness to illuminate the case raised suspicions….

  376. tomh says

    Axios:
    Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) broke with some of his Republican colleagues on Tuesday, telling reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday he has seen “no evidence” Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

    “I saw no evidence from our intelligence community, nor from the representatives today from the Department of State, that there is any evidence of any kind that suggests that Ukraine interfered in our elections. We have ample evidence that Russia interfered in our elections.”

  380. says

    There’s a new Alexei Navalny video. (Came out yesterday – already has more than 3 million views.)

    “From the head of a government-owned Russian bank, a $4 million mansion, a 200-foot yacht and $470,000 in private jet flights in one month alone to his girlfriend, a Russian state TV reporter who creates fluffy, mindless pieces interviewing Putin’s buddies.

    ‘We don’t know about this investigation’, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said on Monday when asked about Mr. Navalny’s video. ‘As a result, we can’t comment on it at all’.

    The government-run news agencies RIA Novosti and Tass published articles on Mr. Peskov’s response. By Tuesday, those articles were removed from the agencies’ websites.”

  383. says

    johnson catman @ 382, I agree! A rather startling and complete case of projection. Thanks, SC, for posting that in comment 379. I truly felt sorry for Trudeau.

    In sort of related news, Robin Wright, wrote about Trump’s failures to make any meaningful diplomatic deals—anywhere.

    Donald Trump meets with twenty-eight of America’s closest allies this week, for a nato summit in London, with less leverage than he’s had at any time in his Presidency. Trump is floundering as much globally as he is at home—and they all know it. His foreign policies—from North Korea and the Middle East to Venezuela—have, so far, largely flopped. Even in areas where allies support U.S. goals, many view the President as tactically reckless, rhetorically vulgar, and chronically disorganized in day-to-day diplomacy. In July, the media in London quoted cables from the British Ambassador in Washington in which he called Trump “insecure,” “incompetent,” and “inept,” and the White House “uniquely dysfunctional.” […]

    The diplomatic disarray was evident again on Thanksgiving, when Trump made a quick trip to Afghanistan—his first. He spent less than four hours on the ground with the troops who are fighting America’s longest war, now in its eighteenth year. [see the link for details]

    […] Trump appears to have overstated his own diplomacy. After he left Afghanistan, the Taliban told the Washington Post that its terms had not, in fact, changed. “We are ready to talk, but we have the same stance to resume the talks from where it was suspended,” a Taliban spokesman said.

    In the three years since his election, Trump has certainly redefined diplomacy. Quick-hit photo ops have replaced long-term engagement; snarky tweets have replaced the steady slog of negotiations. Decisions often seem based more on personal impulses than on historic practices. But the President’s unconventional tactics are taking a toll. His imperious rants no longer intimidate adversaries; his bullying no longer gets them to cede diplomatic turf. […]

    In the past three months, the President has been rebuffed—conspicuously—by both friend and foe on other pivotal initiatives. On Thanksgiving, North Korea launched its thirteenth missile test of 2019, making it one of the busiest years for testing missiles. So much for Trump’s comments, last summer, that he had a “very special bond” with Kim Jong Un. […]

    In October, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spurned repeated appeals from Trump—by phone, in a letter, and during an Oval Office visit—not to invade Syria or install sophisticated Russian missiles that could jeopardize U.S. aircraft and technology. […]

    The list of failures gets longer by the month […] Even his political crisis at home stems from the messy shadow policy run by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani […] Trump has done nothing to get Moscow to end its annexation of Crimea or its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. And, as State Department officials testified during the House impeachment hearings last month, Ukrainians are still dying in the fight to hold Russia back. […]

    New Yorker link

    More at the link.

  384. says

    Oh, FFS. Trump’s re-election campaign announced that it will no longer give press credentials to reporters from Bloomberg News. Trump’s re-election campaign falsely accused Bloomberg News of political “biases” because Michael Bloomberg’s owns it.

  385. says

    Another analysis of Trump’s behavior in London:

    Donald Trump’s public behavior continues to get worse with each passing week. Whether caused by the escalating strain of an impeachment trial, a severe case of jet lag or something (cough) medical, Trump’s performance in London earlier Tuesday was a spray of nonsense, bizarre claims, bullshitting, gaslighting, and possibly straight-up forgetting his own supposed policies. Pity other world leaders, forced to sit alongside […] Pity us, for being governed by one.

    Some, I repeat some, of the most bizarre moments:

    • Asked whether the United States supports Iranian protesters challenging their government: “I don’t want to comment on that, but the answer is no. But I don’t want to comment.” Aside from the indistinguishable-from-parody phrasing, both Trump’s secretary of state and Donald Actual Trump himself publicly stated the exact opposite position in the last 24 hours. Does Trump even know what protesters the questioner was taking about? Did he forget his own stance? We don’t know—but he soon reversed that position yet again. […]

    • Trump straight-up embraced the imperialist argument his staff apparently used as leverage to convince him to keep some U.S. troops in Syria, claiming that “We have taken the oil. I’ve taken the oil. We should have done it in other locations, frankly, where we were. I can name four of them right now, but we’ve taken the oil … our great soldiers are right around the oil where we’ve got the oil.” […]

    • He refused to confirm that the United States would come to the aid of other NATO members who came under military attack.

    • On climate change: “Climate change is very important to me. I’ve done many environmental impact statements over my life and I believe very strongly in very, very crystal clear, clean water and clean air. That’s a big part of climate change.” Donald Trump has previously declared climate change to be a “hoax” propagated by China in an attempt to weaken American industry. Further, pollution levels in the United States have increased during Trump’s tenure, due in part to Trump administration refusals to enforce violations of the Clean Air Act. […]

    • He again revised his claims of how much his own actions have hurt China, claiming the Chinese economy is “down $32 trillion” because of his acts. This unexplained number continues to vary every time he makes the claim; since China’s total gross domestic product in 2017 was $12 trillion, Trump is claiming that he harmed China to the tune of roughly three times their annual GDP. […]

    That “$32 trillion” that he pulled out of his ass is funny in the context of China’s total gross domestic product of $12 trillion. Laughable.

    • He mused that in the future, when there is a “Democrat” president and a Republican House, Republicans will “hopefully” impeach that president in retaliation for the current impeachment inquiry. “They’ll do the same thing. Because somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator and you don’t like it, so let’s go and impeach him.” This is a baffling statement in any number of ways, but is perhaps dangerous to dwell on.

    This is just from one morning’s worth of press appearances. He appears to have no idea what his own policies are, no recollection of what they were, and is still inventing invisible supporters and imaginary successes. And he is still, and with fervent Republican support, in charge of the nation’s military and its nuclear weapons.

    Link

    More at the link.

  386. says

    “Stop Saying This!,” by Josh Marshall:

    I just heard – to my great chagrin and distress – one of my favorite CNN hosts say “clearly President Trump doesn’t think he did anything wrong.” Not only is this not “clear” it is almost certainly false. We shouldn’t say this because it’s not true. He certainly knows he did something wrong. He simply doesn’t care.

    Trump is basically a con-man, which is to say an extreme and unethical salesman. […] you say what gets you to a sale. Period. Find what the target audience needs to hear and tell it to them. […]

    What this means is that Trump likely has far less cognitive dissonance than you or I would – or anyone else without a personality disorder. But he knows it’s wrong. He knows it’s not allowed. He knows it’s illegal. His efforts to hide his acts tells us all we need to know on that front. It’s just that he doesn’t care. It’s not a framework that matters to him. He’s used to breaking the law.

    Mobsters also know their rackets are ‘wrong’.

    They know they are against the law. They know they need to hide them. They know society at large views them as wrong. They just don’t care. That’s Donald Trump. We shouldn’t treat him like he is somehow delusional or was raised by wolves and was never acquainted with the law. He doesn’t care. He’ll say anything. He does that every day.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/stop-saying-this

  388. says

    SC @387, I admit to enjoying considerable schadenfreude when I see Devin Nunes in a vise made of facts. That doofus Nunes looks likely to end up being censured, if not indicted.

    I bet we will see Nunes contorting himself in all kinds of ways to keep Lev Parnas from testifying.

  390. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Democrats quietly debate expanding impeachment articles beyond Ukraine
    By Rachael Bade

    House Democrats are debating whether to expand articles of impeachment to include charges beyond abuse of power in the Ukraine controversy, setting up a potential internal clash as the party races to impeach President Trump by Christmastime.

    Members of the House Judiciary Committee and other more liberal-minded lawmakers and congressional aides have been privately discussing the possibility of drafting articles that include obstruction of justice or other “high crimes” they believe are clearly outlined in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report — or allegations that Trump has used his office to benefit his bottom line.

    The idea, however, is running into resistance from some moderate Democrats wary of impeachment blowback in their GOP-leaning districts, as well as Democratic leaders who sought to keep impeachment narrowly focused on allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely.

    The debate is expected to play out in leadership and caucus meetings this week, as the House Intelligence Committee prepares to hand the impeachment inquiry to the House Judiciary Committee.
    […]

    But the Judiciary Committee also has asked other investigative panels to send any findings of Trump-related misdeeds that they believe are impeachable. And many of the committee members are hoping articles will refer to and cite their own months-long investigation into the Mueller report, which described 10 possible instances of obstruction by the president.
    […]

    I really hope they do this. The idea that the American public can only absorb one little detail (crime) at a time and any more will just confuse them is beyond condescending. And any representatives so worried that their districts will punish them just need to keep pounding on how many times Trump has broken the law.

  392. says

    Update to #369 – Guardian – “Germany expels two Russians over killing of Chechen separatist in Berlin”:

    Germany has expelled two employees at the Russian embassy after state prosecutors announced they had “sufficient evidence” that Moscow or the Chechen government sanctioned the assassination of a a Chechen separatist in Berlin.

    The federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe, which deals with crimes against the state, on Wednesday declared the shooting of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in broad daylight in August a deed of “highest relevance to state security” and said it would take over investigations.

    The German foreign office on Wednesday morning informed the Russian ambassador to Berlin, Sergei Netschajew, that two of his employees were considered personae non gratae with immediate effect, citing the Kremlin’s refusal to cooperate in investigations into Khangoshvili’s murder.

    In what has been called a “second Skripal case” after the 2018 attack on the former Russian spy in Salisbury, 40-year-old Khangoshvili was shot dead in a Berlin park just before midday on 23 August. Russian intelligence had classified Khangoshvili, an ethnic Chechen from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, as a member of the terrorist organisation “Caucasian Emirates”, the German federal prosecutor said on Wednesday.

    The killing fits a pattern of hits on Chechen separatists who fought Russian forces that have often had signs of Russian state involvement.

    …

    The federal prosecutor said he decided to take on the case after forensics experts identified the assassin as the same person, Vadim Krasikov, who was sought over the murder of a Russian businessman in 2013.

    The suspect had flown from Moscow to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle[] airport on a work visa which stated that Sokorov worked as a structural engineer for the St Petersburg-based company ZAO RUST. Research by German prosecutors, however, found that the same company only had a single employee and that a fax number linked the business to the Russian Federation’s defence ministry.

    The German federal prosecutor said there were no signs the killing had been commissioned by a non-state actor, nor that investigations had found a personal motive or links to terrorism or organised crime.

  393. says

    Going well at the NATO summit:

    Top of the agenda on Wednesday is Turkey’s threat to block a Nato plan for the defence of the Baltics and Poland unless Nato denounces the Syrian Kurds, and by extension endorses the Turkish incursion in October into north-east Syria.

    Trump met privately with Erdoğan a little while ago, after which he told reporters a slew of defamatory lies about the situation at the Syrian border. He also called Justin Trudeau “two-faced” (see the link above).

  394. says

    HuffPo – “William Barr Says Those Who Don’t Show More Respect To Cops May Not Get Police Protection”:

    U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday that if some communities don’t begin showing more respect to law enforcement, then they could potentially not be protected by police officers.

    The country’s top cop made the questionable remarks while giving a speech at the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing.

    “But I think today, American people have to focus on something else, which is the sacrifice and the service that is given by our law enforcement officers,” Barr said. “And they have to start showing, more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deserves ― and if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.”

    The Justice Department did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for clarification on who specifically Barr was referring to when he mentioned “communities” and what he meant by people finding themselves without police protection.

    But American Bridge, a liberal super PAC that first flagged the comments, said the attorney general was referring to communities of color that have historically had a contentious relationship with law enforcement due to police brutality, mass incarceration and racial profiling.

    “The Attorney General isn’t being subtle and that shouldn’t surprise us considering this administration’s record,” American Bridge spokesperson Jeb Fain told HuffPost in a statement. “When it comes to communities of color, he sees justice and equal protection under the law as subject to conditions.

    “Barr’s words are as revealing as they are disturbing ― flagrantly dismissive of the rights of Americans of color, disrespectful to countless law enforcement officers who work hard to serve their communities, and full of a continuing disregard for the rule of law.”

    The attorney general has proved before that he does not support the more humane criminal justice reform that’s coming to states, counties and local jurisdictions across the country….

    …

    Barr is also behind the Justice Department’s push to reinstate the federal death penalty, something that hasn’t been put to use since 2003. The attorney general scheduled five executions for this month and the next, though a district judge ordered a preliminary injunction while some of the people Barr wants to put to death legally challenge his workaround for reinstating capital punishment at the federal level. The injunction was upheld this week by a federal appeals court. The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to make a ruling.

    Bill “Respect Their Sacrifice and Service” Barr has spent his entire tenure as AG serving as a henchman for the lawless Trump and traveling the globe on a mission to discredit the FBI and its career officials, and is now preparing to dispute the finding of his own department’s IG that the Russia-Trump investigation was properly predicated and not politically motivated.

  400. says

    Chris Collins in his opening statement is managing to live down to the low standards of Devin Nunes. They’re just completely bankrupt.

    OMG, he just said that today “America will see why most people don’t go to law school.”

  404. says

    Karlan is on fire. She’s asking what if you were in a district in Texas or Louisiana prone to hurricane damage and the president told your state’s governor that he’d allow congressionally approved disaster relief if the governor agreed to smear the president’s political opponent.

  411. tomh says

    Nunes going for the title of biggest clown in Washington.

    WaPo:
    Devin Nunes sues CNN for $435 million, alleging ‘false hit piece’
    By Deanna Paul and Hannah Knowles
    Dec. 4, 2019 at 4:36 a.m. PST

    Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) filed a lawsuit against CNN on Tuesday, seeking $435,350,000 in damages and claiming that the outlet defamed him last month when it published a “demonstrably false hit piece.”

    The Nov. 22 story reported that in December 2018, while serving as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes traveled to Vienna and met with Ukrainian former prosecutor general Victor Shokin to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden — which Nunes’s complaint says is untrue.

    The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleged violations of Virginia’s law against insults and said CNN reporter Vicky Ward, who wrote the article, and anchor Chris Cuomo, who discussed its details on air, conspired with the network “to boost CNN’s ratings and further the House Democrats’ impeachment ‘inquiry.’”

    “In promoting fake news about secret meetings in Vienna with a corrupt former Ukraine prosecutor, CNN pandered to lurid curiosity,” the complaint said. “CNN is the mother of fake news. It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.”
    […]

    Before publishing the story, CNN asked Nunes to comment, but he declined repeated requests, according to the article.
    […]

    CNN is the most recent defendant in a handful of defamation suits filed by the lawmaker this year.

    In March, Nunes filed a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, claiming the platform, two parody Twitter accounts and a Republican political consultant defamed him with mean tweets. He sued the McClatchy news organization, alleging defamation in August, and sued Ryan Lizza and Hearst Magazines for $77 million two months later, claiming that a story in Esquire about the Nunes family farm in Iowa defamed him.

  415. says

    Good news: update to #393 – Guardian – “Turkey agrees to back Nato plan for Baltic states and Poland”:

    Turkey has dropped its opposition to a plan to bolster the defences of Baltic states and Poland against Russia, the Nato secretary general has said, as the alliance attempted to paper over the cracks at the end of a summit in London.

    Jens Stoltenberg told a press conference that Nato leaders did not discuss the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey views as a terrorist organisation.

    Before the summit marking the 70th anniversary of Nato, Ankara had refused to back a Nato defence plan for the Baltics and Poland until it received more support for its battle with the YPG, including other alliance members recognising it as a terrorist group….

  416. says

    I loved the graphic Eisen had up (I think it was his and not the witness’s, but I might have missed something). From memory:

    Abuse of power

    Betrayal of the public trust

    Corruption of elections

  418. says

    Susan Hennessey: “The Democrats should use a few rounds of their time just allowing the other witnesses to respond to Turley. Each one can and will thoroughly demolish it as nonsense.”

    First response: “And the rest of the time quoting Turley from the Clinton impeachment.”

  421. says

    Uh… The Trumpublican counsel is quoting from Katyal’s book where he says that he thinks what Hunter Biden did was wrong. He had a board put up with the partial-paragraph quote on one side and the cover of the book – which is, again, Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump – on the other. Don’t know if promoting a book that presents one of the strongest cases for impeachment is really the best use of their visual aids, but I’m all for it.

  423. says

    TPM – “Kennedy Says He’s Done Pushing DNC-Ukraine Conspiracy After Retracting His Retraction”:

    Silence is golden.

    After appearing to retract his DNC-Ukraine conspiracy theory retraction, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) claimed that he’s done pushing the debunked conspiracy touted by President Trump.

    According to a CNN report Tuesday night, Kennedy said that has “nothing else” to say about his wishy-washy stance on whether Ukraine attempted to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election.

    “There’s nothing else I’m going to say on it,” Kennedy told reporters while passing through a crowded Capitol basement to take an elevator to the Senate floor for a vote, according to CNN.

    When CNN pressed Kennedy on whether that meant he won’t bring up the conspiracy theory again, the Louisiana Republican said “no” before saying that people are entitled to their opinion.

    “Reasonable people can disagree,” Kennedy said, according to CNN. “I believe what I believe and some people believe otherwise and they are entitled to it.”

    CNN reported that Kennedy then tried to get an elevator operator to help him escape reporters….

    I’m livid about this. These aren’t opinions – they’re claims of fact. No one is entitled to false fucking fact claims, and pretending unevidenced fact claims and evidenced fact claims are equivalent “opinions” is just the worst sort of epistemic immorality. I wish I had the money to send every legislator a copy of Allen Wood’s “The Duty to Believe According to the Evidence.”

  424. says

    Neal Katyal:

    Wow. I just watched Republicans lie about my book in the impeachment hrng. Compare what they said my book said w/what I actually said. They’re trying to distract from their cowardice re a lawless president who tried to cheat to win reelection. They omitted the yellow highlighted

    [image atl]

    This is what Republicans flashed on screen. If a lawyer did this, they may face disciplinary action for such a misleading representation of what a source said.

    [image atl]

    The Republicans have no defense of the President. They have to resort to lies like this. It won’t work. Trump’s guilty. He will be removed.

    I hope one of the representatives reads the whole section and uses it as an opportunity to recommend Katyal’s book.

  425. says

    Oh, dear. Rudy Giuliani is headed to Budapest to meet with former Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko. Don’t stop digging, Rudy. That hole isn’t deep enough yet.

    Common sense suggests Rudy Giuliani should probably take it easy for a while, and perhaps consider a lower profile. […] Trump’s personal attorney is reportedly facing a possible criminal investigation, and […] the former New York City mayor is at the center of a highly scandalous scheme.

    […] The New York Times reported today on his latest trip abroad and the extension of his misguided mission in eastern Europe.

    Even as Democrats intensified their scrutiny this week of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s role in the pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry, Mr. Giuliani has been in Europe continuing his efforts to shift the focus to purported wrongdoing by President Trump’s political rivals.

    Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, met in Budapest on Tuesday with a former Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who has become a key figure in the impeachment inquiry. He then traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday seeking to meet with other former Ukrainian prosecutors whose claims have been embraced by Republicans, including Viktor Shokin and Kostiantyn H. Kulyk, according to people familiar with the effort.

    […] Giuliani published a tweet this week, announcing that he’d begun work on “an important project” with the One America News Network (OANN), which is effectively a media outlet for those who see Fox News as a bit too moderate.

    […] the project intends to “bring before the American people” information that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and his recent proceedings “covered up.”

    If this is starting to sound a little kooky, it gets much worse.

    […] Giuliani is still trying to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, and to that end, he’s in eastern Europe this week, talking to “witnesses” who’ve been eager to promote highly dubious claims about Biden, Marie Yovanovitch, and those who helped convict Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

    […] “Some of the Ukrainians interviewed by Mr. Giuliani were sworn in on camera to ‘testify under oath’ in a manner that the network claims ‘debunks the impeachment hoax.’”

    In case this isn’t obvious, these interviews are not official legal proceedings. […]

    If Giuliani expects this embarrassing display to help change the impeachment debate, he should probably start lowering expectations now.

    Link

  426. Akira MacKenzie says

    These aren’t opinions – they’re claims of fact. No one is entitled to false fucking fact claims, and pretending unevidenced fact claims and evidenced fact claims are equivalent “opinions” is just the worst sort of epistemic immorality.

    Haven’t you heard? Everything is an opinion until EVERYONE agrees that’s it’s a fact. Until then, you are entitled to believe whatever you want, pedantically debating even the most ludicrous brain farts as if they were substantive until everyone (including yourself) agrees it’s wrong or your right.

    What’s that you say? Demonstrable evidence? Trickery and deception by the shadowy forces out to control us! Forgeries! Deep fakes! Photoshopped! No, I must be right because it is right and you are wrong! It must be the truth because I am a brave, god-fearing American, and you… YOU are a godless commie out to destroy this great country with your lies!

    After years of dealing with Creationists, fundies, homoeopaths, psychics, and other merchants of woo woo, we should all know the strategies the fraudsters and credulous loons use. Why would it be different with political and legal woo?

  427. says

    “FOX News host Tucker Carlson wants to know, ‘Why is Putin such a bad guy?’

    So we asked @GQMagazine’s @juliaioffe to answer the question for him….”

    Video atl. What she says at the end is correct. One of the best things about The Man in the High Castle (the series – I don’t know if it’s the same in the book) is how it portrays J. Edgar Hoover, in the alternative reality in which the Nazis won the war, happily scheming in the upper echelons of the American Reich. That’s exactly what he would be. Carlson is a lickspittle and propagandist who would cheerfully adapt to an authoritarian regime, foreign or domestic.

  428. says

    About that video of other leaders at the NATO summit slagging Trump and making fun of him, let’s remember that Trump said this about two years ago: “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be. They won’t be.”

    Other >instances of world leaders laughing at Trump, (a Washington Post link).

    It was a key talking point during President Trump’s 2016 campaign, and even before it: The idea that other countries were laughing at the United States. “The world is laughing at us,” he said in May 2016. “They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity,” he said of Mexico in his campaign launch speech. He used the phrase “laughing at us” more than 50 times between 2011 and his election as president. Trump, the argument went, was going to make it stop.

    Instead, Trump has been the object of repeated jest and even mockery by fellow world leaders. And it’s been caught on tape — again.

    The most recent example came Tuesday, when the leaders of Canada, France, Holland and the United Kingdom seemed to be recounting Trump’s lengthy — and occasionally wild — interactions with reporters earlier in the day.

    “He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the video, which was first released by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. […]

    More at the link, including relevant video.

  429. tomh says

    NYT:
    Hundreds of Thousands Are Losing Access to Food Stamps
    By Lola Fadulu
    Dec. 4, 2019

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, brushing aside tens of thousands of protest letters, gave final approval on Wednesday to a rule that will remove nearly 755,000 people from the federal food-stamp program by strictly enforcing federal work requirements.

    The rule, which was proposed by the Department of Agriculture in February, would make states enforce work requirements for able-bodied adults without children that governors have routinely been allowed to waive, especially for areas in economic distress. The economy has improved under the Trump administration, the department argued, and assistance to unemployed, able-bodied adults was no longer necessary in a strong job market.
    […]

    The rule tightening waiver requirements is the first of three department efforts to scale back the food stamps program, and so far, Trump administration officials appear unmoved by the protests flooding in. More than 140,000 public comments were submitted on the rule that was finalized Wednesday, and they were overwhelmingly negative.
    […]

    Another proposal would cut $4.5 billion from the program over five years by adjusting eligibility formulas, affecting one in five struggling families. That one received 90,000 comments.
    […]

    If the Agriculture Department finalizes the other two rules, nearly 4 million people would lose food assistance and nearly one million school children would lose access to free or reduced price school meals, according to a new study by the Urban Institute.

  430. says

    “Uhh it seems pretty relevant that, even back in February, Jonathan Turley was tweeting and writing in the Hill about ‘Ukraine collusion’?

    He has also written extensively in the Hill about the Steele Dossier and supposed Clinton collusion.

    The Hill is such a disinformation rag. Maybe they can ‘review’ these articles along with John Solomon’s.”

    Turley is shockingly intellectually dishonest.

  431. says

    “NEW: Under the superficial froth, big decisions were agreed at @NATO leaders meeting. Perhaps most significantly NATO has for 1st time said ‘Russia’s aggressive actions constitute a threat to Euro-Atlantic security’. Before Russia’s actions were described merely as a challenge.”

  433. says

    “BREAKING: Senate Republicans just confirmed Trump judicial nominee Sarah Pitlyk, who opposes not only abortion but also surrogacy and even fertility treatment.

    Every Democrat present voted in opposition, as did Susan Collins. But it wasn’t enough….”

    More atl.

  441. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Barr’s handpicked prosecutor tells inspector general he can’t back right-wing theory that Russia case was U.S. intelligence setup

    By Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett
    Dec. 4, 2019 at 3:16 p.m. PST

    The prosecutor handpicked by Attorney General William P. Barr to scrutinize how U.S. agencies investigated President Trump’s 2016 campaign said he could not offer evidence to the Justice Department’s inspector general to support the suspicions of some conservatives that the case was a setup by American intelligence, people familiar with the matter said.

    Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office contacted U.S. Attorney John Durham, the prosecutor Barr personally tapped to lead a separate review of the 2016 probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, the people said. The inspector general also contacted several U.S. intelligence agencies.

    Among Horowitz’s questions: whether a Maltese professor who interacted with a Trump campaign adviser was actually a U.S. intelligence asset deployed to ensnare the campaign, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the inspector general’s findings have not been made public.

    But the intelligence agencies said the professor was not among their assets, the people said. And Durham informed Horowitz’s office that his investigation had not produced any evidence that might contradict the inspector general’s findings on that point.
    […]

    The previously unreported interaction is noted in a draft of Horowitz’s forthcoming report on the Russia investigation, which concludes that the FBI had adequate cause to launch its Russia investigation, people familiar with the matter said. Its public release is set for Monday.
    […]

  445. says

    Ashley Feinberg in Slate – “Republicans Invade Barron Trump’s Privacy, Drag Him Into Politics.”

    (I disagree with her on one point: It wasn’t at all “an awful pun.” It was a perfect pun. This connotation is precisely why Trump is obsessed with the name, using it for one of his fake personas (both “John Barron” and “John Baron”) for years.

    Susan Hennessey: “Any member of the media who treats this utterly fabricated, faux outrage with one ounce of seriousness should be embarrassed. The comment was not offensive. They are not actually offended. Nice try. Let’s move on.”

  449. says

    AOC re the video @ #448:

    To our friends in the UK: please cherish, protect, & continue investing in your healthcare system!

    Once Big Pharma & special interests get their hands on it, it could take generations to regain.

    Millions of people in the US are fighting to have a system half as good as the NHS.

  451. says

    “#Breaking: PM Netanyahu’s personal attorney & confidant indicted for money laundering in $2.2 billion ‘Submarine Affair’. Businessman accused of bribing former Navy commander to tune of $160,000. Case involves massive military acquisition.”

  452. johnson catman says

    re SC @445: The republicans are so outraged that someone DARE mention the name of the last offspring of The Orange Toddler-Tyrant in an off-hand comment that they reference it OVER AND OVER. They don’t do logic very well do they? It is almost like they are trying to use anything at all to promote outrage just to try to take the focus off of the crimes that have been committed. How fucking ridiculous!

  453. johnson catman says

    Zimmerman sues Trayvon Martin’s family, attorneys:

    Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, is suing the teen’s parents, family attorney, the attorney’s book publisher and prosecutors who tried his case, claiming he was defamed when they allowed a witness to give false testimony in an attempt to incriminate him.
    …
    Zimmerman’s lawyer in the lawsuit, Larry Klayman, was planning a news conference in South Florida on Thursday to discuss the complaint. The lawsuit, filed in a central Florida county where Zimmerman is now living, seeks $100 million for allegations of malicious prosecution and conspiracy.

    https://www.wral.com/zimmerman-sues-trayvon-martins-family-attorneys/18811756/
    .
    I am not sure if Zimmerman has ever heard of Larry Klayman, but he should know that having Klayman for your lawyer almost guarantees that you will lose.

  455. says

    Update – Guardian – “Three men admit taking part in attack on Guardian columnist Owen Jones”:

    Three men have admitted being involved in a late-night assault on Guardian journalist Owen Jones outside a pub in Islington, north London.

    At a short plea hearing on Wednesday afternoon at Snaresbrook crown court, James Healy, 39, from Portsmouth, Liam Tracey, 34, from Camden, London; and Charlie Ambrose, 29, from Brighton, all pleaded guilty to affray.

    Healy admitted a further charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He denies the attack was motivated by homophobia and will now face a trial of issue in front of a judge to decide whether that was the case.

    The three men face the possibility of custodial sentences following the attack on the journalist and political activist in the summer.

    Jones, 35, said he had been celebrating his birthday with friends when he was attacked at about 2am outside the Lexington public house in Islington, north London, on 17 August.

    At the time of the incident, Jones has said he believes he was targeted because of his anti-fascist politics and warned that divisive rhetoric is emboldening some on the far right to become violent.

    …

    At a previous hearing at Highbury magistrates court, prosecutors said Jones had been subject to a group attack and that this meant it would be calling for a sentence of the highest end of the range for the offences, which was one and a half years.

    The defendants have previously argued they didn’t know who Owen Jones was….

  456. says

    Vice – “Neo-Nazi Terror Group Harbouring Missing Ex-Soldier: Sources”:

    According to information VICE has learned from confidential sources, a U.S.-based neo-Nazi terrorist group is currently harbouring a missing ex-soldier from Canada.

    The information suggests members of The Base are hiding Patrik Mathews, 26, whose whereabouts have been the focus of much speculation. Mathews allegedly crossed into the U.S. illegally from his native Manitoba with the help of the group, which has since taken steps to conceal his location.

    Mathews went missing after being outed as a recruiter and organizer for The Base by Winnipeg Free Press reporter Ryan Thorpe. Federal authorities raided his home and seized multiple firearms. The former soldier was last seen by his family on August 24 with his abandoned car found less than 10 miles from the American border shortly thereafter.

    The news illustrates how The Base, previously a mostly online collective of hardcore neo-Nazis, is evolving into a bonafide terror network with a recruitment structure, a paramilitary training apparatus, and the capacity to covertly ferry members across international borders to fit its insurgent ambitions.

    While not charged with any crimes, U.S. police warned the public not to approach Mathews if he was spotted. When asked about the current status of Mathews, the FBI declined to comment.

    The RCMP, the Canadian federal police, wouldn’t comment on Mathews’ presence in the U.S., reiterating the former soldier was still the subject of a missing person’s investigation and urging anyone with information on his location to contact them. A source in the Department of National Defence in Canada confirmed to VICE that military intelligence has an open investigation into Mathews.

    VICE, which obtained the encrypted contacts for The Base, requested comment multiple times, but never received a response from the group. Soon after those messages were sent, two social media accounts affiliated to The Base posted a death threat against a VICE journalist.

    Recently, an anti-racist organization in Canada heavily criticized authorities for not taking the pursuit of Mathews seriously. A 2018 VICE investigation documented the internal machinations of The Base, which is purportedly led by an Afghanistan and Iraq war veteran, as members exchanged bomb-making and weapons manuals and discussed plans for future terrorist attacks.

    Other information VICE has learned points to Mathews participating in a combat training camp with close to a dozen members of The Base in Georgia this past summer, where he allegedly helped train other members of the group. As a combat engineer, Mathews was taught explosives and weapons skills during his career in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve at 38 Canadian Brigade Group in Winnipeg.

    …

    Joshua Fisher-Birch, a research analyst specializing in white nationalist terrorism at the Counter Extremism Project, said that if Mathews was an ISIS member the significance of his alleged, illegal entry into the U.S. and his training of other members would have likely garnered a more extreme response from authorities.

    …

    While it describes itself as a “survivalist” collective, The Base is a global, accelerationist organization intending to hasten the collapse of society through a future armed insurgency, and establish a caucasian ethno-state from the chaos of a “race war.” The Base is unique in the extreme-right ecosystem as it aims to create a coalition of online neo-Nazis, pooling members from street skinheads to other U.S. based terror groups like Atomwaffen Division, which has already been linked to a string of murders.

    The Base has released a spate of violent propaganda online as it attempts to expand and recruit new members to its cause. The latest video, posted this week, showed scenes of heavily armed, masked men in military fatigues training in several paramilitary exercises, ending with death threats towards VICE reporters and other journalists who have covered the group.

    In the last six months, U.S. federal investigations against white nationalists have spiked, as authorities worry the upcoming 2020 presidential election will inspire a surge in homegrown terror attacks.

    Fisher-Birch pointed out that the group’s blatant disregard for federal laws and its undertaking of organized paramilitary training on U.S. soil represents a serious threat to public safety….

  457. says

    “You will keep hearing this flawed analysis in the media: only 50% want Trump impeached, that number isn’t changing so does it matter? Yes. It’s huge. At the start of Watergate hearings, only 19% for Nixon’s impeachment. A year later the highest was 57% without Fox News.”

    Support for Clinton’s impeachment remained around 25-32% throughout. Support for impeaching Trump is already around 50%. 61% of women want him impeached and removed. 61%!

  458. says

    JFC.

    LOL at “if you went to work with a jackhammer or a welding machine.” Can’t decide if this attack is more infuriating or hilarious. Karlan was like the most down to earth law professor imaginable. It’s just totally disconnected from reality, like the claim that Elizabeth Warren is full of rage.

  461. says

    “Rudy Giuliani has met with an MP formerly from the pro-Russian Party of the Regions in Kyiv.

    Andrii Derkach is the name of the MP. He’s been pushing the ‘Ukrainian interference’ line for a while…”

    “Rudy Giuliani has met with Derkach since 2017 and tried to get him to promote investigations against Trump opponents then, which he did based on the Kremlin’s 2016 Ukraine election conspiracy. Derkach trained at the KGB Academy in Moscow and his father was a top KGB official.”

  463. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 456

    Talk about a lack of originality. “Al Qaeda” roughly translates to “The Base.”

  464. says

    BuzzFeed – “Rudy Giuliani Made A Surprise Visit To Kyiv And Nobody There Is Happy About It”:

    Rudy Giuliani has made a surprise visit to Kyiv — but the city isn’t buzzing with his arrival, it’s groaning.

    Giuliani arriving with his shady band of conspiracy theorists — just as Democrats move to officially file impeachment charges after President Donald Trump — is the last thing Ukrainians who have tried desperately to stay out of the drama unfolding in Washington wanted. Kyiv is trying to focus on upcoming peace talks with Russia to end the war simmering in its east, but Giuliani’s visit meant the headlines were all about impeachment once more.

    Officials from the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky to the US embassy to everyone in between know that the arrival of the bombastic mayor is nothing but trouble.

    “Holy shit. I don’t believe in such coincidences,” Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Daria Kaleniuk wrote of Giuliani’s arrival on Facebook, noting that it comes just days ahead of long-anticipated peace talks between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris on Monday.

    Giuliani, who is being investigated by federal prosecutors looking into whether he violated federal lobbying laws, is on a mission to “destroy” the Democrats’ impeachment narrative via a documentary series on the vehemently pro-Trump One America News Network (OAN). But judging by the questionable cast of Ukrainian characters he’s meeting, whatever information he manages to dig up is likely to be extremely dubious. “I’m just a country lawyer trying to show his client is being framed. I will do it,” Giuliani told Fox News. He didn’t answer calls or text messages seeking comment on Thursday.

    …

    An official in Zelensky’s office said the president was caught off guard by Giuliani’s arrival, learning about it from the media. The official emphasized that there are “no official meetings” planned with him. Zelensky refused to meet with Giuliani in May, causing him to back out of his last planned trip to Kyiv. This is Giuliani’s first trip since his backchannel Ukraine campaign put the country on the map for many Americans.

    Equally shocked by his arrival was the US Embassy, according to a US diplomat who said there would very likely not be a meeting between Giuliani and Bill Taylor, the current top US diplomat in Kyiv who replaced the former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and has provided key testimony in the impeachment inquiry, or anyone else at the embassy, for that matter. Giuliani arrived in Kyiv at the same time that Philip Reeker, an acting assistant State Department secretary who testified in closed-door hearings for the impeachment inquiry. Reeker was meeting with current Ukrainian officials as part of the State Department’s official channel “to discuss Ukraine’s impressive progress on reforms, including of the Prosecutor General’s Office,” the embassy tweeted.

    Giuliani’s Eastern European trip is only just beginning, but in typical Giuliani style, it has already been surreal.

    He began in Budapest, where he met Tuesday with Yuriy Lutsensko, a discredited former Ukrainian prosecutor general who has emerged as a key figure in the impeachment inquiry. Giuliani is filming the three-part program, Ukrainian Witnesses Destroy Schiff’s Case for OAN, hosted by Chanel Rion, inside a series of “undisclosed safe houses” for no discernible reason.

    Rion on Thursday tweeted a photo of herself with Giuliani and Lutsenko at one such location in the Hungarian capital.

    “Concluded an extensive interview with Yuri Lutsenko in Budapest,” she wrote. “Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko: Ambassador #Yovanovitch lied under oath to the American people in #AdamSchiff’s impeachment inquiry.”

    Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and now a lawyer for President Trump, flew from Budapest to Kyiv on Wednesday on the low-cost airline WizzAir,…

    He is expected to meet with Viktor Shokin and Kostiantyn Kulyk, two other former Ukrainian prosecutors who were fired for poor performance and alleged corruption.

    Shokin, Kulyk, and Lutsenko have helped Giuliani push a bogus conspiracy theory that Ukraine — not Russia — interfered in the 2016 election and have spread unfounded corruption accusations against former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, whose previous work on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma is being used by Republicans to try to undermine the candidacy of his father. Lutsenko, Shokin and Kulyk couldn’t be reached for comment.

    …

    …[O]n Thursday morning, Kyiv got its first look at Giuliani at work in the city when he met with Andriy Derkach, a shady Ukrainian lawmaker who was once a member of former president Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Party of Regions. Derkach, who graduated from an academy run by the KGB, the Soviet successor to Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, posted photographs on Facebook of the two men meeting at an undisclosed location.

    Derkach, who held two press conferences in recent weeks during which he waved unsubstantiated documents in front of news cameras that he claimed would prove that Burisma had paid Joe Biden himself for lobbying, said they’d discussed “the creation of the inter-parliamentary group Friends of Ukraine: STOP Corruption.”

    Derkach also said that he’d told Giuliani about sending letters asking for support for the group to three top Republicans: Senator and current Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham, Representative and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

    Giuliani is traveling with Andriy Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat at the country’s embassy in Washington and a close confidant of Giuliani who shares his love of cigars….

    When asked how long Giuliani would be in Kyiv, Telizhenko said, “not long.” He declined to say where Giuliani was staying and didn’t want to disclose their plans. Instead, Telizhenko wanted to talk about how “Soros people”— a common refrain from conspiracy theorists — at the US Embassy in Kyiv are trying to “block” his return to Washington, apparently by refusing to process his visa paperwork….

    The casual references to “Soros people” are seriously disturbing.

  466. says

    “PELOSI: ‘This isn’t about Ukraine. This is about Russia. Who benefited by our withholding that military assistance? Russia. It’s about Russia. Russia is invading eastern Ukraine … All roads lead to Putin. Understand that’.”

    Video (and other video clips from her press conference) atl.

  467. says

    “Scoop

    #Russia and #US are working on a possible #Lavrov’s visit to #Washington on December, 10- sources told @rianru
    #Ryabkov just confirmed, but told me that ‘the question is still not closed'”

  468. says

    “Asked if she ‘hates the president,’ Nancy Pelosi fires back: ‘I don’t hate anybody … As a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone … Don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that’. Via CBS”

    Video atl. The guy who asked was too much of a sexual harasser for Fox, which is difficult to imagine, and is now at Sinclair.

  469. says

    SC @464, this excerpt from the text you quoted makes me think that Trump and Rudy are still doing Putin’s bidding. They are trying to weaken Ukraine.

    “Holy shit. I don’t believe in such coincidences,” Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Daria Kaleniuk wrote of Giuliani’s arrival on Facebook, noting that it comes just days ahead of long-anticipated peace talks between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris on Monday.

    This visit from Rudy emphasizes the idea that Trump does not wholeheartedly back Ukraine against Russia. It brings up in people’s minds all the facts from previous months. Furthermore, it now has the added effect of reminding everyone that Trump himself is weakening, and is likely to be impeached, and that few in the U.S. will be focused on supporting Ukraine against Russia at this time.

    Maybe Putin suggested to Trump that it would be a good time for Rudy to stir up trouble in Ukraine some more, and for Rudy to visit a bunch of like-minded criminals in Ukraine?

  470. says

    Guardian – “Revealed: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib targeted in far-right fake news operation”:

    Two Muslim US congresswomen have been targeted by a vast international operation that exploits far-right pages on Facebook to inflame Islamophobia for profit, a Guardian investigation has found.

    A mysterious Israeli-based group uses 21 Facebook pages to churn out more than a thousand coordinated fake news posts per week to more than a million followers around the world. It milks the traffic for revenue from digital advertising.

    Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who earlier this year became the first Muslim women to serve in the US Congress, have been singled out for vicious attacks by the coordinated effort.

    Somali-born Omar is the most frequent target. She has been mentioned in more than 1,400 posts since the network began two years ago. Tlaib has been mentioned nearly 1,200 times. Both totals are far higher than any other member of Congress.

    Omar and Tlaib are members of a group of progressive women of color known as “the squad” that also includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. They have been subject to racist insults from Donald Trump.

    The Guardian uncovered contacts between a group of mysterious Israel-based accounts and 21 far-right Facebook pages across the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, Austria, Israel and Nigeria.

    The posts exacerbate Islamophobia by amplifying far-right parties and vilifying Muslim and leftwing politicians. Their content is a blend of distorted news and pure fabrication.

    An analysis by Queensland University of Technology’s digital media research centre indicated a single entity is coordinating the publication of content across the Facebook pages.

    Using web archiving services and domain registry information, the Guardian has been able to confirm a key figure in the network is Ariel Elkaras, a thirtysomething jewelry salesman and online operator living on the outskirts of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

    Several of the network’s websites were either taken down or had large amounts of content removed soon after the Guardian approached Elkaras for comment. Public posts on his Facebook profile were also deleted.

    Elkaras did not respond to multiple requests for comment via email and phone, but the Guardian was able to track him down in the Israeli town of Lod, near Tel Aviv, where he denied involvement in the network. “It’s nothing related to me,” he said through a translator.

    The uncovering of the network is likely to fuel concerns that Facebook is failing to tackle disinformation and hate groups ahead of next year’s presidential election in the US.

    …

    When the Guardian notified Facebook of its investigation, the company removed several pages and accounts “that appeared to be financially motivated”, a spokesperson said in a statement.

    “These pages and accounts violated our policy against spam and fake accounts by posting clickbait content to drive people to off-platform sites,” the spokesperson said.

    “We don’t allow people to misrepresent themselves on Facebook and we’ve updated our inauthentic behavior policy to further improve our ability to counter new tactics.

    “Our investigations are continuing and, as always, we’ll take action if we find any violations.”

    More at the link.

  471. johnson catman says

    re SC @464: Rudy:

    I’m just a country lawyer trying to show his client is being framed.

    GTFO! How the fuck does he classify himself as a “country lawyer”? For freak’s sake, he was mayor of one of the largest cities in the world, and he was a prosecutor in SDNY. Does he just not want to be associated with the word “urban”?

  472. says

    “JUST NOW: I asked @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy if he still believed what he said in 2016 when he told @HouseGOP colleagues that @realDonaldTrump was one of two prominent Republicans (along w/ @DanaRohrabacher) who ‘Putin pays’.

    He claimed that he was joking at the time (He wasn’t).”

    Video atl. Good question! What’s the joke supposed to be?

  475. says

    tomh @429, compare that to the approximately $16 billion that the Trump administration handed out to farmers to mitigate losses due to Trump’s trade war. And furthermore, there’s all kinds of corruption in that $16 billion subsidy, since it has gone mostly to large corporations, and mostly to large farm operations in southern states where the crops most affected by the trade wars (soybeans for example) are not grown. Farms in the midwest have benefited less.

    Trump is giving away $16 billion, while poor people on food stamps are losing all their benefits ($4 billion+). Four times as much money is going towards the farm subsidies. And Congress pressed Trump NOT to alter the food stamp (SNAP) regulations.

  476. Saad says

    It’s amazing that Trump asking the SCOTUS to block the House subpoena isn’t a violation in itself.

  477. says

    “Breaking: Trump lawyers ask Supreme Court to take up case concerning a subpoena for his financial documents. Argue the case ‘raises important separation of powers questions concerning Congress’s authority to subpoena the personal records of a sitting President’.”

    They shouldn’t and it doesn’t.

  478. says

    johnson catman @471, Rudy uses that “country lawyer” line all the time. It is one of his go-to lies he tells when he is being pressured about his questionable behavior. Con men have a stock of familiar lies. Rudy is like Trump. Your “GTFO” is the right response.

    In other news:

    Apparently trying to make up for lost time, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg is investing “tens of millions of more dollars” in a new television ad campaign in support of his Democratic presidential bid that will air in all 50 states.

    I do not really think that Bloomberg is going to be able to buy a win in the Democratic primary. In the best case scenario, Bloomberg’s ads will inform enough voters about Trump’s perfidy that Trump will weaken—and that will increase the chances of a win for a more viable Democratic candidate.

  480. says

    Trump stumbled and he turned to Jared Kushner to catch him. This article about trade deals, and new duties (yes, more duties!) for Kushner, is from Reuters:

    […] Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has added another role to his long list of White House duties – U.S.-China trade negotiator – as Washington and Beijing try to reach an initial agreement to avoid new U.S. tariffs on Dec. 15.

    People familiar with the talks said Kushner … has increased his direct involvement in the negotiations with China over the past two weeks…. A White House official confirmed Kushner’s involvement, but declined to provide specific details on the influence he has had on the negotiations. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Kushner has recently met with Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States. […]

    Commentary from Steve Benen:

    Nearly two months ago, Donald Trump delivered a speech in which he touted his ability to do “great things.” As proof, the president said, “Look at what we did yesterday with China.”

    The comments came about 24 hours after Trump told reporters, “So, we just made what, I guess, is one of the biggest deals that’s been made in a long time, with China.” The president went on to say, “[I]f you look at the deal, the deal is so incredible. The deal is a great deal.”

    In reality, there was no deal. Trump had already abandoned plans for a comprehensive trade agreement with Beijing, choosing instead to pursue a more modest “phase one” trade deal that he hoped would lead to additional progress. In October, the Republican bragged as if that initial “phase” was complete, but no such agreement was reached.

    Indeed, Trump was forced to concede this week that the trade deal he said was finished in October may not come until after next year’s U.S. elections. […]

    See the excerpt from Reuters to bring us up to date.

    From The New Yorker:

    According to current and former officials briefed on U.S. intelligence about Chinese communications, Chinese officials said that Cui and Kushner, in meetings to prepare for the summit at Mar-a-Lago, discussed Kushner’s business interests along with policy. Some intelligence officials became concerned that the Chinese government was seeking to use business inducements to influence Kushner’s views.

  481. says

    Followup to comments 429 and 475.

    […] An analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities fleshed this out further, noting that the “draconian rule” adversely affects “the poorest of the poor”: Americans whose average income “is just 18 percent of the poverty line.” Currently, their average monthly SNAP benefits total about $165 per month.

    And now, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis added, the Republican administration is ending “basic food assistance for nearly 700,000 of the nation’s poorest and most destitute people.”

    In case this weren’t Dickensian enough, let’s also note for context that the news is reaching the public just a few weeks before Christmas.

    What’s more, as New York’s Sarah Jones explained, this isn’t the only element of the Trump administration’s plans to restrict low-income Americans’ access to food assistance:

    Another proposal, which the USDA is likely to finalize, would take food stamps from another 3 million people. Right now, households with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level can receive food stamps. The New York Times explained, for reference, that this guideline extends food aid to families of four with a household income of about $50,000. Households with assets of at least $2,250 would also no longer be eligible for aid.

    The USDA itself has admitted that its reforms would cost almost half a million children their free school lunches, since eligibility is often determined by a household’s receipt of food stamps. The Urban Institute has estimated that the administration’s three rule changes, if finalized, will deprive around 3.7 million people total of food aid.

    The president occasionally likes to present himself as a champion of the downtrodden. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” Trump declared in his inaugural address.

    In reality, he seems convinced that low-income families lack any kind of political capital – in addition to lacking actual capital – which leads Trump administration officials to target them with new punishments, even as the wealthy and big corporations enjoy their generous GOP tax breaks.

    Link

  482. says

    Axios – “Scoop: Sen. Cramer blocks Armenian genocide bill at request of White House”:

    The White House directed Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) to block an effort by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday to pass a resolution via unanimous consent formally recognizing Turkey’s genocide of the Armenian people, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

    Why it matters: This is the third time that the White House has directed a Republican senator to block the resolution, a symbolic measure already passed by the House that would infuriate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

    Cramer said on the Senate floor that he doesn’t think this is “the right time” to pass the resolution, noting that President Trump has just returned from meeting with Erdoğan at the NATO summit in London, and that the resolution could undermine the administration’s diplomatic efforts.

    Cramer’s objection is especially noteworthy given that he was a co-sponsor of a similar resolution during the last Congress….

  484. says

    From Wonkette, some sarcasm, and some facts:

    At least OJ Simpson had the courtesy to wait until after the murder trial was over to write that book about how he would have murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend IF HE DID IT. Rudy Giuliani is right this very minute, as the impeachment is ongoing, in Ukraine filming If Trump Colluded With Shady Ukrainians To Frame Joe Biden. Subtle!

    Fox’s first cousin […] One America News Network (OANN) has been filming a documentary with a bunch of corrupt prosecutors who got shitcanned by Ukrainian presidents Poroshenko and Zelenskyy for being dirrrrrrty. Apparently this heroic act of journalisming has been going on for some time and we never heard about it because THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW. Just ask VRY SRS investigative journalist Chanel Rion — not her porn name, apparently! — seen here conducting a “deposition.” [see the link for photo of phony “under oath” reality TV bit]

    Have we heard of this person before? WE HAVE. Robyn wrote about the lovely Chanel and her creative biography two years ago when her fiancé Courtland Sykes was running for Senate in Missouri and told reporters, “I want to come home to a home-cooked dinner at six every night, one that she fixes.” Sadly, Mr. Sykes fell short in his bid to secure the Republican nomination and now faces the prospect of having to make his own dinner while his lady is off chasing conspiracy theorists all over Eastern Europe. But Mr. Sykes should have expected as much when he took up with a woman who flogs Pizzagate, the Seth Rich murder conspiracy, and bizarre claims about “spirit cooking,” as the Daily Beast points out. [see the link for the OAN-related tweet and image]

    The network just had to retract a Rion story falsely claiming that Lisa Page had an affair with Andy McCabe, but for sure this one is on the up and up.

    The New York Times reports that Rudy met Tuesday with Yuriy Lutsenko, the former chief prosecutor who slimed Marie Yovanovitch and then immediately retracted his story. Then Wednesday it was on to Kyiv to meet with Viktor Shokin, the corrupt prosecutor pushed out by the IMF, EU, and the entire US government who conveniently now blames Joe Biden; and Konstiantyn Kulyk, a prosecutor fired last month who’s been working with Lev Parnas, journalist John Solomon, and Nunes aide Derek Harvey on the Biden smear. And if those names mean nothing to you, just take our word that they’re part of the motley crew of characters who’ve been working for a year to leverage the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office to take out the president’s opponent.

    Giuliani, who is currently under investigation by his former colleagues in the Southern District of New York for possible violation of campaign finance laws and the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for his work with shadyass Ukrainians, is kicking it up another notch. This time he’ll be conspiring on camera! No doubt he’ll still claim attorney-client privilege for the conversations, since everything he does serves only to prove that Trump is totally innocent and Joe Biden is the real collusion. […]

    The Times reports that, “Mr. Giuliani’s trip has generated concern in some quarters of the State Department, coming amid scrutiny of his work with American diplomats earlier this year on the pressure campaign.” Which is diplomat-speak for GOD, PLEASE, NO! WHY??? STOP! Or, as broken clock Gordon Sondland put it, “Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and fucks everything up.” Factcheck: True!

    But America’s Mayor can’t stop, won’t stop. Here he is in an image posted to Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach’s Facebook page this morning. [See the link for the image.]

    The Washington Post notes that “[a]nalysts have dismissed Derkach as spreading disinformation to support a conspiracy theory,” but he’s willing to vouch that Joe Biden personally benefitted from a money laundering scheme involving Burisma, so you know he’s Rudy’s guy. And what does Rudy have to say for himself?

    “If S.D.N.Y. leaks and Democrats’ threats stopped me, then I should find a new profession,” he texted the Times. Yeah, maybe like manufacturing license plates. That seems more appropriate.

  485. says

    TPM – “Another House GOPer Jumps Ship: Rep. Tom Graves Announces He Won’t Run For Reelection”:

    Following the stream of departing House Republicans, Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) announced on Thursday that he will not seek reelection in 2020.

    …

    The House’s GOP caucus has seen a wave of retirement announcements over the past several months, most notably among Texas Republicans, which the Republican lawmakers blame on their minority status in the chamber.

    Graves’ decision may be the starting point for other retirements that typically arise during the holiday season.

  486. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Johnson Catman: “GTFO! How the fuck does he classify himself as a “country lawyer”?”

    Rudy IS a country lawyer. It’s just that the country is Russia.

  487. says

    a_ray @486, Ha! that’s a good point.

    In other news, John Kerry endorsed Biden.

    In other, other news, a new poll suggests a winning message for Democrats in 2020:

    […] the Center for American Progress and pollster GBAO offers guidance on what kind of message will put the eventual nominee and party in the best position for the general election.

    […] “We see widespread support on reducing college costs, taxing the wealthy, checking corporate power and ensuring people have access to the basics,” John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and one of the report’s co-authors, told me.

    […] majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans agree on many things. Seventy percent or more of those surveyed, including majorities of Republicans, agreed with each of the following statements:

    College education is too expensive, and states should do more to “help people afford a college education without getting buried in debt.”

    “Rich families and corporations should pay a lot more in taxes than they do today, and middle-class families should pay less.”

    People who don’t receive health insurance from an employer should be allowed to buy into a public plan, and pharmaceutical companies should be “penalized” if drug prices increase faster than the rate of inflation.

    Increase “good jobs” with a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure, including both roads and “expanded production of green energy.”

    Reduce inequality with a 2 percent “wealth tax” on net worth in excess of $50 million.

    That’s not all. People of every political persuasion give President Trump negative marks on his handling of health care and poverty. When asked what they believed is the most important issue that Trump and Congress should address in the coming year, “making health care more affordable” was cited by a majority of voters. Only a third of the entire electorate supported cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in an effort to address the national debt. And 8 in 10 Democrats and three-fourths of independents believe corporations have too much power and should be “strongly regulated” — something even 49 percent of Republicans also signed off on. […]

    As Halpin noted, “When it comes to the specifics of cutting off people’s access to food, housing assistance or health care, even pretty hardcore Trump supporters kind of back off.” […]

    Washington Post link

    Media should cover very heavily the fact that the Trump administration is cutting people’s access to food stamps right before Christmas, and that includes many children who depend on free lunch at school.

  488. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 469

    As a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone…

    UGH! Spare us the pious bullshit, Nancy!

    Personally, I go with honesty myself. “It doesn’t matter whether or not I personally like or dislike the president. I personally despise the fascist bastard and his slimy family, but being a callous bigoted jackass is not against an impeachable offense. Extorting Congressionally approved aid money from allied leaders in exchange for dirt on a political opponent on the other hand is impeachable. Trump could be my best friend, or even a beloved brother, but if he did these acts, I would still demand to see justice done and Trump removed from office.”

  489. says

    Another Trump nominee rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association has been approved by the Senate.

    […] in a near-party-line vote Tuesday, the Senate approved the nomination of Sarah Pitlyk, making the conservative lawyer the newest federal judge for the U.S. District Court in St. Louis. […]

    Pitlyk’s confirmation is a victory for Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who have sought a dramatic and deeply consequential reshaping of the federal judiciary, installing a dizzying number of judges […]

    Pitlyk is a Federalist Society member.

    Pitlyk is also the latest of Trump’s nominees to receive a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association, which has long reviewed the competence of nominees for the federal bench. In a Sept. 24 letter to lawmakers, William Hubbard, chair of the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, wrote that Pitlyk’s “experience to date has a very substantial gap, namely the absence of any trial or even real litigation experience.”

    “Ms. Pitlyk has never tried a case as lead or co-counsel, whether civil or criminal,” Hubbard wrote. “She has never examined a witness. Though Ms. Pitlyk has argued one case in a court of appeals, she has not taken a deposition. She has not argued any motion in a state or federal trial court. She has never picked a jury. She has never participated at any stage of a criminal matter.”

    Her experience does, however, include clerking for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was a federal appellate court judge — just like Justin Walker, another recently confirmed federal judge the ABA deemed unqualified. […]

    Washington Post link

    Pitlyk is anti-abortion, anti-surrogacy, and anti-in vitro fertilization.

    […] “Pitlyk’s record is extremely troubling and raises a number of questions about her ability to be a fair and impartial judge,” Feinstein said.

    Pointing to dubious claims about abortion, the senator added: “It is disqualifying for any judicial nominee to make unfounded and unsupported claims, especially in a court of law.”

    […] “She is exactly the type of judicial nominee that Trump promised to fill the courts with: an individual who threatens reproductive rights and access to abortion,” Gupta, now the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement. “With Pitlyk’s confirmation, the administration is betting on her to carry out their agenda for decades to come.” […]

  490. says

    Yes, people are climbing Trump’s new wall. No problem.

    https://twitter.com/fotornelas/status/1202065077328924672

    From Mother Jones:

    “Me, I don’t want to climb mountains,” […] Trump said in September, standing in front of construction of a new portion of his border wall in California. That’s why, he said, he’d hired a team of 20 “world-class mountain climbers” to test the various wall prototypes. “Some of them were champions. And we gave them different prototypes of walls, and this was the one that was hardest to climb. And we’ve all seen the pictures of young people climbing walls with drugs on their back—a lot of drugs. I mean, they’re unbelievable climbers. This wall can’t be climbed. This is very, very hard.” […]

    Despite the valiant efforts of the president’s crack team of climbers and his careful monitoring of drug-carrying athletes, no one could have anticipated that in just a matter of months, migrants would hit upon an ingenious solution: ladders. What’s more, the idea that humans could slide down a pole had yet to be tested, even by the most skilled of Trump’s completely real, not-made-up elite climbing force.

  491. says

    CNN – “More than 140,000 people worldwide died from measles last year, most of them younger than 5”:

    As the number of measles cases continued to soar, more than 140,000 people across the globe died from measles last year, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.

    Most deaths were among children younger than 5, according to WHO.

    The number of deaths last year was an increase from the estimated 110,000 measles-related deaths that occurred in 2017, based on WHO data.

    The new report, released on Thursday, was based on public health data from the WHO, CDC and the United Nations Children’s Fund. Even though the global numbers of measles cases and deaths have declined in two decades, there is more work needed before the measles viruses can be eliminated worldwide.

    “I’m not so much surprised as I’m disappointed,” Dr. Robin Nandy, principal adviser and chief of immunization at UNICEF, said of the report’s findings.

    Nandy added that the best way to prevent measles from spreading is to get vaccinated against the virus, but levels of vaccination coverage recently have stalled in “almost all” regions of the world, according to the report.

    “We shouldn’t be in this position in 2019 when we have had a safe and inexpensive vaccine for decades,” he said. “We’re seeing outbreaks in very different contexts and different types of countries … irrespective of income level of country.”

    …

    “The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable children,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in a press release that accompanied the new report.

    “To save lives, we must ensure everyone can benefit from vaccines – which means investing in immunization and quality health care as a right for all,” he said.

    The report estimated that during 2000 to 2018, measles vaccination averted about 23.2 million deaths.

    …

    The government of Samoa shut down for two days this week so that all civil servants — except for those who help supply water and electricity to the country — can participate in a vaccination campaign by offering assistance to public health officials to help quell a deadly measles outbreak.

    Because of the outbreak, schools have been closed indefinitely since mid-November and children have been banned from public gatherings and places were people congregate.

    More than 4,200 cases of measles have been reported across the Pacific island nation in recent weeks, including 62 deaths — with two fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to official statistics. None of the victims were vaccinated, the government said.

  492. says

    Guardian – “India: woman set on fire on way to testify against alleged rapists”:

    An Indian woman has been set on fire on her way to a court hearing to testify against two men who had allegedly raped her.

    The 23-year-old is in a critical condition in hospital with 70% burns after she was set upon by five men in the city of Unnao in Uttar Pradesh. They dragged her to a field, doused her with petrol and set her alight.

    It is the latest in a series of brutal attacks against women in India that have caused a wave of outrage across the country. Last week, a 26-year-old veterinary doctor in Hyderabad was gang-raped then asphyxiated to death and her body burned and dumped. Days later, in the state of Bihar, a teenager was allegedly gang-raped and killed before her body was set on fire. In response, thousands have taken to the streets in protest this week, demanding better protections for women.

    In the assault on Thursday, two of the attackers were said by police to be the same men the victim filed rape charges against in March. The young woman was on her way to a hearing to testify against her alleged rapists when the five men grabbed her by the railway station. One of the accused was out on bail while the other had been on the run from police.

    “The two men set fire to the 23-year-old alive to take revenge,” said a senior police officer, SK Bhagat.

    …

    Sakshi Maharaj, the MP from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) for Unnao, described the incident as “really unfortunate”. He echoed the popular BJP view that the rapists should face capital punishment for their crimes.

    The recent series of attacks and killings have once again brought to the fore India’s problem with sexual violence: more than 32,000 rape cases were reported in 2017, according to government figures, but the real figure is believed to be far higher. However, activists have expressed frustration at calls by the government to deal with the problem simply by introducing the death penalty for rapists, arguing that it does not tackle the underlying social causes of violence against women and the misogynistic attitudes underpinning the crimes.

    Such views were on full display in a series of social media posts by the Indian film director Daniel Shravan, who, in response to the Hyderabad rape case, suggested that “rape is not a serious thing, but murder is inexcusable” adding that “the government should legalise rape without violence for the safety of women”.

    The posts, now deleted, addressed women, telling them: “If you are about to get raped, hand over a condom to the rapist and cooperate with him while he fulfils his sexual desire. That way he will not try to harm you.”

    The comments attracted an onslaught of condemnation online….

  493. says

    From Wonkette: “Donald Trump Giving 700,000 Americans The Gift Of No Food This Christmas.”

    This week, the Trump administration announced that, come April, it will be implementing new work requirements for people receiving SNAP benefits, which will result in over 700,000 Americans losing said benefits and perhaps starving to death. What a lovely way to celebrate the holiday season!

    Under the current rules, SNAP recipients who are not disabled and who do not have children are required to work for 20 hours a week for at least three months over 36 months in order to qualify. However, states are allowed to grant areas with high unemployment a waiver. These new rules would eliminate that ability, limiting the waivers to areas with unemployment rates of 6 percent or higher.

    Such a rule is an especially big problem given that the gig economy tends to artificially inflate employment rates — there are a lot of people out there taking gig jobs like ride sharing or food delivery that allow them to be technically “employed” (whether they are working or not) while not actually being on a payroll. If you don’t have a car, as is the case with many poor people, you can’t even get one of those “gigs,” anyway.

    Naturally, it’s being presented as the Trump administration actually doing all these poor people a big favor.

    Via NBC:

    Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Brandon Lipps, the deputy undersecretary for the USDA’s Food Nutrition and Consumer Services, spent about 18 minutes on a call with reporters outlining the changes to the rule that will take effect April 1.

    “We’re taking action to reform our SNAP program in order to restore the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population and be respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program,” Perdue said. “Americans are generous people who believe it is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch. That’s the commitment behind SNAP, but, like other welfare programs, it was never intended to be a way of life.”

    This is not about saving money — because really, this is a drop in the bucket, money-wise. It is certainly not about helping people discover “the dignity of work,” as if they are idiots who are only on food stamps because they don’t know they would be better off having a job. It is about a particular worldview that helps the Right retain power despite being very, very wrong about everything.

    […] Poverty is horrifying, so people like to ignore it as much as possible. I once saw a man on Michigan Avenue, out in front of the freaking Ralph Lauren Store, with a four-inch-icicle hanging off of his nose. I called 311, obviously, but imagine how many people had to walk by that guy, in the middle of the holiday season, for a four inch icicle to be there, hanging off his nose. How many people had to force themselves to find him invisible? How many people rationalized seeing a man on his way to freezing to death with some kind of assumption about his character?

    When people do think about poverty, they like to think that it is something people bring upon themselves by being lazy or morally failing in some other way. […]

    Another appealing thought is the idea that if we simply stop helping poor people, they will learn to fly on their own, discover the joys of personal responsibility, and become heartwarming bootstraps tales to inspire us all. […] It doesn’t matter that it’s not true […] The important thing is that they get to believe it is true.

    The fact is, if you are poor enough to be on food stamps, it is likely that you are practically too poor to go job hunting. Job hunting, as I learned when I was on unemployment (and thus, technically, making “too much” to qualify for food stamps), is not cheap. Also, most of the jobs you can get quickly are jobs with unpredictable hours that do not pay a living wage. This means that not only could taking one put you in a worse position financially than you are currently in, it would also prevent you from being able to interview for a better job that actually would pay you a living wage. These are the kinds of things you need to calculate when you are poor. […]

    […] it’s pretty hard to go job hunting or fill out a resumé when you are starving.

    The issue isn’t that all these people are just sitting around living high off the food stamp hog (average benefits for an individual, per month, are $127) […]

    It is so, so incredibly easy to become poor in this country, for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with how good you are at doing “personal responsibility.” Your boss can legally fire you for no reason. You can get sick and end up with impossibly expensive medical bills. […] As long as people look at billionaires and go “that could be me!” and never look at poor people and go “that could be me!” they can get away with anything.

  494. says

    Akira MacKenzie @ #488:

    UGH! Spare us the pious bullshit, Nancy!…

    Nah, she’s extremely faithy, and was clearly offended by the insinuation (both about herself and about what’s motivating the impeachment). She did basically say what you said (minus the part about her alleged feelings about Trump) in that clip, which was consistent with the larger message of both of her press appearances this morning. The question treated everything she had said about their Constitutional obligation and how she’s going into this with a heavy heart like it was a smokescreen for a partisan attack, which isn’t in keeping with anything she’s said or done.

  496. says

    Topher Spiro:

    BREAKING: House Dem bill lowers prices for top drugs by **55%**. For the first time, caps drug costs and adds vision, dental, hearing benefits to Medicare.

    Trump opposes the bill, breaking his promise on Medicare negotiation.

    [link to H.R. 3 at the link]

    I am informed that CBO has scored the bill as saving $750 billion to $1 trillion in total drug spending across all payers. That is a pretty big deal.

  497. says

    BBC – “General election 2019: Andrew Neil issues interview challenge to Johnson”:

    The BBC’s Andrew Neil has issued a challenge to Boris Johnson to take part in a sit-down interview with him before next week’s general election.

    Mr Johnson is the only leader of a main party not to have faced a half-hour, prime-time BBC One grilling by Mr Neil.

    The Conservative leader has denied claims he is avoiding scrutiny.

    But Mr Neil addressed the PM directly at the end of his fourth leader interview at this election, with Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.

    “It is not too late. We have an interview prepared. Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say,” he said, in a monologue.

    “The theme running through our questions is trust – and why at so many times in his career, in politics and journalism, critics and sometimes even those close to him have deemed him to be untrustworthy.

    “It is, of course, relevant to what he is promising us all now.”

    Mr Johnson has also declined an invitation to be grilled by ITV’s Julie Etchingham, as part of her series of leader interviews.

    …

    Mr Johnson was quizzed by the BBC’s Andrew Marr on Sunday, on why he had not yet agreed to be interviewed by Andrew Neil.

    He denied avoiding prime-time scrutiny, saying he had done TV debates, interviews and a “two-hour phone-in”.

    Separately, on Thursday evening, The Labour Party complained about BBC bias, in a letter to Director General Tony Hall.

    Labour’s co-campaign coordinator Andrew Gwynne highlighted Mr Johnson’s failure to be interviewed by Andrew Neil.

    In his letter, Mr Gwynne claimed the Conservatives were being allowed to “play” the corporation, making the BBC effectively “complicit in giving the Conservative Party an unfair electoral advantage”.

    He said Labour had agreed Mr Corbyn’s interview with Mr Neil based on the “clear understanding” that Mr Johnson had agreed the same terms.

    “Instead, the BBC allowed the Conservative leader to pick and choose a platform through which he believed he could present himself more favourably and without the same degree of accountability.”

    The BBC is expected to respond in writing to the Labour complaint….

    Excellent 3-minute video and more at the link.

  498. says

    NBC – “Russian agents planned hit from assassins’ lairs in French Alps, say intel officials”:

    A group of elite Russian military intelligence officers, including some of those who planned the poisoning of a defector in Britain, have been operating out of picturesque villages in the French Alps, Western intelligence officials tell NBC News.

    Confirming a report in France’s Le Monde daily that could have been ripped from the pages of a John le Carré spy novel, the officials said European and American intelligence agencies had been tracking up to 15 members of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU who had lived for a time in France. Le Monde published what it said were the names of the officers, some of which had already been published by Bellingcat, an open source investigative group.

    Le Monde reported that among the Russians who stayed in France’s Haute-Savoie department in the Alps were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — the alleged cover names of the two GRU agents accused of carrying out the attack on Skripal. French officials told the newspaper they considered the area to have been the unit’s rear base for covert operations in Europe.

    “It’s good that our European partners are taking the Russian threat so seriously,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA officer with expertise in Europe and Russia. “Russia behaves at times like an outlaw regime, attempting to kill dissidents abroad and fomenting unrest in European democracies. It takes the sustained efforts of European security services working together to counter this threat.”…

  500. says

    Hospitals Sue Trump to Keep Negotiated Prices Secret, a New York Times article.

    The administration wants to require hospitals to reveal the rates they privately negotiate with insurers for all sorts of procedures, amid the public outcry over surprise medical bills.

    The nation’s hospital groups sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over a new federal rule that would require them to disclose the discounted prices they give insurers for all sorts of procedures.

    The hospitals, including the American Hospital Association, argued in a lawsuit filed in United States District Court in Washington that the new rule “is unlawful, several times over.”

    They argued that the administration exceeded its legal authority in issuing the rule last month as part of its efforts to make the health care system much more transparent to patients. The lawsuit contends the requirement to disclose their private negotiations with insurers violates their First Amendment rights.

    “We make the case that the burden placed on our members to come up with this information is extensive,” Tom Nickels, an executive vice president with the American Hospital Association, said in an interview.

    The administration wanted the disclosure rule, which would go into effect in 2021, to allow patients to better shop for deals on a range of services, from M.R.I.s to hip replacements.

    “Hospitals should be ashamed that they aren’t willing to provide American patients the cost of a service before they purchase it,” Caitlin Oakley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement. “President Trump and Secretary Azar are committed to providing patients the information they need to make their own informed health care decisions and will continue to fight for transparency in America’s health care system.” […]