“My advice to Giuliani would be to share what he got from Ukraine with the IC to make sure it’s not Russia propaganda,”[Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] added. “I’m very suspicious of what the Russians are up to all over the world.”
Phrenomythic Productionssays
It still baffles that a whole 40% still supports this Korrupt and Kallous Klown.
Here’s a link back to older comments in the previous chapter of this thread.
Comment 163. Scroll down from that comment to read additional posts.
Excerpt from comment 163: “The Internet’s Most Repulsive Men Are Throwing A ‘Make Women Great Again’ Convention And Oh My God It’s So SAD”
Coming this May, to a convention center of some kind in Orlando, Florida, the most repulsive and least self-aware men on the entire internet will come together to finally teach women a lesson.
A lesson in how to be the women of their dreams.
Yes! For the low, low price of $1,999 a ticket ($999 a ticket and a plus one if you act now!), you can learn all of the secrets to reeling in the kind of man who sits on YouTube all day whining about how women aren’t all barefoot and pregnant anymore. Men like Stefan Molyneux, Mike Cernovich, and organizer Anthony Dream Johnson who claims he is the 1st President of the Manosphere, along with a bunch of other creepy dudes […]
The conference is called The 22 Convention, and features the tagline “Make Women Great Again.” According to the website, it is “destined to be the mansplaining event of the century.”
Oh boy!
What I have learned, just from this website, is that allllllll of the women today are extremely unhappy because feminism told us that we had to be men and were not allowed to be feminine!
Hiding under a mask of fake progress, feminism today has become a radical assault on all forms of positive femininity – you know, the one hard coded into your DNA. Through an onslaught of anti-feminine propaganda spanning generations, women today have been pushed to act like men and DENY their own feminine nature. This has left millions of women feeling unhappy, confused, frustrated, and hopeless. At The 22 Convention, you will learn the truth that unhealthy militant feminists have been hiding from you your entire life.
[…] In their sad little YouTube fantasy lives, we’re all sitting around pining for them and going “Oh why oh why did we choose to work when we could have been barefoot and pregnant and married to a man who YouTubes all day about how much he hates women?”
Much more at the link.
nomdeplumesays
You have to wonder at the 4% who want impeachment but not removal…
Five people were stabbed in a rabbi’s home on Hanukkah. The NY Governor called the attack an act of “domestic terrorism.” That’s not the only attack on Jewish people and/or establishments run by Jewish people (a kosher market, for example) in the New York and New Jersey area.
In an act of what New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called “domestic terrorism,” five people were stabbed at a party celebrating Hanukkah when a man broke into a rabbi’s home in New York City Saturday. The Ramapo Police department has identified the suspect in custody as 37-year-old Grafton Thomas. According to police, Thomas faces five counts of attempted murder and one of count of burglary, NBC reported.
The attack occurred in the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, according to attendees there were over 100 people attending the party. All victims were taken to nearby hospitals with one remaining in critical condition, the Washington Post reported. The rabbi’s son was amongst those stabbed but is recovering. […]
Authorities found the suspect in a gray Nissan Sentra, hours after the attack in Harlem, Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel said during a press briefing following the attack. He was then arrested by New York City police and transferred to Ramapo.
In a statement, Cuomo acknowledged the attack as the state’s 13th anti-Semitic incident in the last few weeks, he added that the state police hate crime task force will further investigate the attack.
“This is an intolerant time in this country. We see anger, we see hatred exploding. It is an American cancer in the body politic,” he said in a statement Sunday. “Let me be clear: anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind are repugnant to our values of inclusion and diversity and we have absolutely zero tolerance for such acts of hate,” he added.
This attack follows a string of attacks against the Jewish community in the last few weeks. Earlier this week, a Florida man assaulted a man after making an anti-Semitic comment in Manhattan and on Friday three women were allegedly slapped by another woman because they were Jewish, ABC reported. Following the history of attacks, police patrol in neighborhoods and synagogues would increase with the rise of anti-Semitic violence, officials said Friday. […]
Two people are dead and others are injured after an attack at a church in Texas.
Two people are dead and a third is in critical condition following a shooting at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, on Sunday, according to The Dallas Morning News.
One person died at the scene of the shooting, another died on the way to the hospital and a third remains in critical condition, according to the newspaper, citing MedStar spokeswoman Macara Trusty. The shooter is believed to be one of the three, Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman Mike Drivdahl told the newspaper, but it was unclear which one.
In a since-removed livestream of the Sunday service at the West Freeway Church of Christ, a figure appears to draw a weapon and fire twice before a second person shoots back, according to WFAA-TV, which said other armed congregants also rushed toward the shooter. […]
Trump promised to revive manufacturing with tariffs. A Federal Reserve study finds he did the opposite.
[…] the manufacturing sector is worse off than it was before [Trump] began his protectionist trade policy.
Economists Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce, who describe their study as “as the first comprehensive estimates of the effect of recent tariffs on the US manufacturing sector,” argue that the data shows that any benefits from protection from foreign competition have been more than canceled out by retaliatory tariffs from trading partners and an increase in the cost of components sourced from abroad.
As a result, US manufacturing has seen job losses and higher prices for consumers. […]
The findings affirm predictions from trade economists across the political spectrum who have warned that Trump’s tariffs were more likely to damage the US economy than help it — particularly in a globalized economy, where any major departure from free trade norms comes with an array of costs.
The findings also directly contradict what Trump says the effects of the tariffs have been. Trump has argued that “the U.S. is taking in massive amounts of money” and has claimed “Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs.”
The study finds the tariffs he has imposed on things like steel, aluminum, and Chinese goods have not done this at all. Given Trump’s adversarial relationship with the Federal Reserve, it seems unlikely the president will be swayed by the work of his experts, meaning the study probably will not alter his calculus on trade policy. […]
yangbrothersays
Trump will be impeached and Yang will win 2020 election. Yang is an Asian supremacist who will use Superior Asian intelligence to defeat the shotgun wielding redneck.
Warren is a compromising shill and Bernie will soon be dead. Wake up and jump in with the Yang gang. $1000/month. Get that bag.
“Casually Homicidal Republicans Share Violent Fantasies Of Killing Us All If Trump Loses In 2020,” an article by Robyn Pennacchia, writing for Wonkette:
[…] as jaded as I might be, I am still quite taken aback by how very frank and casual many Trump supporters are about homicide being a thing that is on the table for them if they don’t get their way.
Today, The New York Times published an article titled “‘Nothing Less Than a Civil War’: These White Voters on the Far Right See Doom Without Trump” — a write up of Arizona’s “Trumpstock,” which took place this past October. Interspersed between descriptions of the event, of Arizona’s political climate, of speakers, of attendees, etc. were descriptions of and quotes about the various ways in which those attending or speaking at the event would like to murder some people.
Like this brief but jarring mention of a “North Carolina activist” who wished to murder Muslim people for some reason.
But this October morning was “Trumpstock,” a small festival celebrating the president. The speakers included the local Republican congressman, Paul Gosar, and lesser-known conservative personalities. There was a fringe 2020 Senate candidate in Arizona who ran a website that published sexually explicit photos of women without their consent; a pro-Trump rapper whose lyrics include a racist slur aimed at Barack Obama; and a North Carolina activist who once said of Muslims, “I will kill every one of them before they get to me.”
Then there was this guy who appeared to be very laid back about his desire to brutally murder Hillary Clinton: […]
The only “positive” thing I can think to say about Trump is that he’s consistently awful. In 2016, his playboy lifestyle, business showmanship, and attention seeking all pointed to him being an obnoxious, lying, realty-show-style president, who loves to be surrounded by adoring yes-men. His presidency predictably unfolded, with him appointing a long list of lobbyist stooges to his administration and him firing anyone who displayed a modicum of experience or sense of duty. His failure was guaranteed from the beginning.
From comment 10: “Yang is an Asian supremacist who will use Superior Asian intelligence to defeat the shotgun wielding redneck.”
Now that is some very strange use of capitalization, of the English language, and of overly broad (and possibly racist) memes. Are you a Russian bot? Just a troll? What are you actually trying to say?
What is going on here? The United States military struck five facilities in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon claims that the facilities belonged to a militia backed by Iran.
[…] The strikes came after repeated assaults by the militia, Kitaeb Hezbollah, on Iraqi bases, Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. The American operations will “degrade KH’s ability to conduct future attacks” against coalition forces, he said.
The actions underscore the continued unpredictability of U.S. involvement in Iraq and Syria, and raise the possibility of an escalation with the militia. The Pentagon says the group has links to Iran’s Quds Force, a special operations unit that U.S. officials say provides weapons and other support to proxy forces that help Iran extend its reach. […]
The Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command said four fighters, including the deputy commander, were killed in U.S. strikes on Kitaeb Hezbollah’s headquarters along the Iraq-Syria border.
Pentagon officials have raised concerns for weeks that Iranian-backed groups in Iraq were likely to attack U.S. forces. On Friday, more than 30 rockets were launched on an Iraqi base near the city of Kirkuk, killing the contractor and wounding several U.S. service members. […]
[…] The joint drills are likely to be perceived as provocative by Washington. Earlier this year US President Donald Trump proposed sending a US-led naval mission to the Gulf of Oman to protect economic interests in the region.
In a Twitter post on Thursday, Trump took aim at Iran, Russia, and the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, warning the three countries against military action in Syria.
“Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province. Don’t do it!” Trump wrote.
No I do not speak in meme. And it’s very clear what I was trying to say in my original comment. It is the flag waving redneck( and we all know which flag) who is responsible for getting Trump elected. Yang will defeat Trump in case Trump does not get impeached. I feel Warren is a WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING and will say whatever she thinks will get her elected.
And before you call me racist again, maybe reflect on your own self. I am a broke man and I learned the meaning of systemic racism when my best friend’s dad shoved wine corks into his nostrils and began to rhythmically beat a couch cushion in the style of African drum music. I’ve forgotten more about racism than you will ever know. Yang gang 2020.
This isn’t going to come as a surprise to anyone, but the strategy Donald Trump is going to use against his impeachment and in 2020 is to play the victim.
Everything that happens to him is because someone hates him. Whether it’s the media, the Democrats, the FBI, Nancy Pelosi, other Republicans, or some nebulous “deep state,” one thing remains the same: Everyone is out to get him.
He is the ultimate victim.
He seems to have picked up much of his shtick from victim pundits on AM radio or Fox News, where conspiracies abound and nothing is ever the fault of the Republicans they defend. Everything is some kind of conspiracy against these brave souls who sacrifice themselves for our country.
Like these victimization pundits, he targets easy scapegoats whom his audience often already dislikes rather than addressing actual issues.
You can’t reason with this victimization. But there are strategies for countering it. Especially because people don’t like to be known as victims. Here are a few strategies that I’ve found work.
1. Whenever someone tries to use this strategy, point out the victimization. “All you stupid libs have against Trump is evidence and several honorable witnesses and his admission and the admissions of Giuliani and Mulvaney and crap like that.” […]
2. Keep telling the same simple story that was confirmed in congressional hearings.
Everything in the whistleblower report was confirmed by testimony during the impeachment hearings.
Trump blocked and continues to block members of his staff with direct knowledge of the subject from testifying.
“If you’re having trouble following the impeachment hearings, let me summarize…
– Of those who were willing to testify under oath, ALL say Trump committed crimes.
– Of those who say Trump did NOT commit crimes; none were willing to testify under oath.
You wrote, “Superior Asian intelligence to defeat the shotgun wielding redneck.” Both “superior Asian intelligence” and “shotgun wielding redneck” are overly-broad categorizations that have been used as online memes to create divisiveness.
I will also point out that in comment 10 your immediate antecedent for “shotgun wielding redneck” was “Trump.” (Not his followers, but Trump himself.) Trump may appeal to rednecks, but he is not a redneck. He also does not, as far as I know, own a shotgun, nor does he wield one.
Not all of Trump’s followers are shotgun wielding rednecks.
Thank you for the clarification in comment 15.
I did not call you a racist.
Please be more careful in how you word your comments.
If you think Elizabeth Warren is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” please present the facts you have to back up that claim.
yangbrother: racist remarks will get you banned. Stop now.
unclefrogysays
well there is one thing that can said for sure whether trump gets removed in the Senate trial or not or or be re-elected or not he will eventually have to leave dead, he is old after all,or alive.
Other investigations will continue and the possibility of major legal action will persist. The Trump organization has all the markings of a criminal organization whose main business is money laundering and fraud.
In the long run he is screwed the question really is will the regressive policies that have so much favor from those who espouse conservatism will persist in influence or fade into history like the other failed ideas have.
uncle frogy
ORigelsays
@nomdeplume
I have long been against removing Trump from office because I thought Trump would be more likely to be voted out in 2020.
tomhsays
@ #10
“Trump will be impeached and Yang will win 2020 election.”
Trump has already been impeached, and Yang has to win the nomination before he can win the election. The chances of that are somewhere between slim and none.
chigau (違う)says
There is no link from the previous thread to this one.
Trump will never go to prison or even pay fines, even presuming that he does not die in office (he is showing signs of Alzheimers, and both his parents died of complications of that). Obama demonstrated that when a Republican President commits horrible crimes, it is the job of the next Democrat to give them a de facto pardon by refusing to investigate or prosecute. Heck, even doubling down and extending those crimes is something the party will aggressively ignore.
Of course, Trump’s crimes are both of the legal variety — which the DNC is happy to go along with — and against Good Taste, and it seems very much like the DNC and most Democratic loyalists are tremendously offended by offenses against Good Taste. Bush got a million people killed and wasted trillions of dollars by telling lies, but he doesn’t rate a prosecution. Trump has — so far — not equalled that, but he makes the average Democratic partisan much, much angrier than Bush ever did. So maybe Trump may take a fall after all. Assuming, of course, that Joe Biden’s self-proclaimed love for Republicans doesn’t distract him so much that he ends up giving Trump and Mitch McConnell a kiss on the lips instead.
chrislawsonsays
ORigel@20–
Don’t forget that Republicans are doing their damndest to stack the 2020 election. It is quite possible that Trump could win even if he loses even more of the popular vote than he did in 2016.
For instance, a federal judge has just approved the purging of 120,000 voters in Georgia for not having voted for 7 years saying, and I cannot emphasise this enough, that denying people the right to vote, doing as little as possible to inform them, and not allowing same-day registration has not been proved to violate their constitutional rights. This in a state that has already purged 1.4 million voter registrations over the last 6 years. A state with 9.7 million people so presumably about 6-7 million eligible voters.
unclefrogysays
@24 vicar
not all of his troubles are federal and i would add not all of them are exclusively U.S. either.
I think the new York state attorney his investigating serious crimes
His big problem really relates to his “success”. to be a crook like him and be involved with corruption and all it is good to be able to evade scrutiny but he has succeeded in becoming one of the most watched individual in the whole world . He has shown no signs of being able to moderate his behavior quite the contrary. He is following the teachings of his mentor who we must remember got disbarred following his own advice.
We can only hope that he will take some other worthy gents with him when the shit finally hits the f’n fan
uncle frogy
birgerjohanssonsays
“Trump Systematically Eliminating Science-Based Policy” https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/
Meh. Your Merican vandals are amateurs. Just wait until Boris Johnson really gets started.
Reginald Selkirksays
Disappointed in teh poll. “Impeached, then drawn and quartered” is not among the choices.
Akira MacKenziesays
$1000/month. Get that bag.
Yeah, $1000/month paid for with a regressive VAT and lowered for those who receive supplementary benefits. That’s really helpful to those who’d need it most. (/sarcasm)
kenbakermnsays
Here’s what I think is the best case scenario:
Pelosi is not convinced that the senate will provide a valid, impartial trial. Seeing that they intend to circle wagons around Donny rather than hold a real trial, she never sends the articles of impeachment to the senate. Consequently Donny T never gets acquitted and spends the next 11 months becoming ever more deranged and dysfunctional with frustration.
In Nov. 2020 he gets voted out and the maga-hats, finally seeing what a loser he really is, crawl back into their own assholes and die..
This is my fantasy anyway.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @8:
In a since-removed livestream of the Sunday service at the West Freeway Church of Christ, a figure appears to draw a weapon and fire twice before a second person shoots back, according to WFAA-TV, which said other armed congregants also rushed toward the shooter. […]
I know it is Texas, but it seems like there were a lot of guns at that church.
chigau @22, thanks for flagging that. I think PZ can fix that. In the meantime, you can use the link in comment 5 to travel back to the previous chapter of this thread.
16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg is so much smarter than Trump. Trump attacked on her Twitter earlier, but she took it in stride. In subsequent interviews she has demonstrated a practical approach when it comes to Trump: don’t waste your time.
[… n an interview with BBC radio’s Today program on Monday, Thunberg said that talking to Trump at a United Nations summit on global warming would be a waste of time, since he wouldn’t pay attention in the first place.
“Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me?” Thunberg said. “So I probably wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t have wasted my time.” […]
“Those attacks are just funny because they obviously don’t mean anything,” she said. “I guess of course it means something — they are terrified of young people bringing change which they don’t want — but that is just proof that we are actually doing something and that they see us as some kind of threat.”
Trump and Putin are still best buddies who talk on the phone all the time:
On Sunday evening, the nation learned that there had been another phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. That in itself might seem alarming, considering that Trump has just been impeached for taking actions against a U.S. ally [Ukraine], actions that supported Russian military efforts. But what’s really jaw-dropping in this case is how the nation learned of that phone call.
U.S. news agencies learned of the call in a release from the Kremlin. Because for a full day after the call, the White House did not release any readout of the conversation. In fact, it wasn’t until late on Monday morning, after Russian media had spent the evening reporting that Trump and Putin spoke on “matters of mutual interest,” that the White House even admitted that there had been a call.
The Kremlin readout indicates only that the call took place at 10:45 ET and was initiated by Putin, and that Putin “thanked Donald Trump” for information that supposedly helped prevent “the commission of terrorist acts in Russia.” Exactly what this information was is not clear, but two Russian nationals were apparently detained in St. Petersburg on Friday based on the information provided by the U.S. Also unclear is whether the release of this information generated a threat to U.S. intelligence sources or provided an excuse for Putin to move against political opponents. In September, Russian police made mass arrests of political opponents as revenge for losses in local elections.
The only comment from the White House echoes what the Kremlin said on Sunday—that the U.S. sent information to Russia that “helped foil a potential holiday terrorist attack.” According to CNN, this is the first time Putin and Trump have spoken since July. This is the second time that Trump has forwarded information that Putin credits with stopping terrorism in Russia, which suggests that Trump actually does believe U.S. intelligence agencies on Russia … when they’re not talking about him.
Trump has been dodging state-level criminal trials most of his adult life. (In large part, it must be admitted, because he seems to mostly operate in states where the criminal justice system can be bought as long as you’re rich enough.) And Bush can’t travel outside the US reliably, either. That hasn’t exactly made his life post-presidency miserable.
Five people were wounded Saturday at a Hanukkah party in Monsey, New York. This was the the ninth anti-Semitic attack in New York City during this year’s Hanukkah. It’s part of an alarming trend of anti-Semitic attacks around the country. […] hate crimes targeting Jews have risen 21 percent in the past year. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo put it bluntly at a press conference Sunday.
CUOMO [ New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo]: This is a national phenomenon that we are seeing and it’s frightening and it’s disturbing. If anyone thinks that something poisonous is not going on in this country, then they’re in denial.
If you want to observe folks in denial in their native habitat, you should swing by Fox News. […] made sure that the spotlight never wavered from CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIANS. When Jewish Americans are straight-up terrified, there’s no better time to insist — without evidence — that Christians are the most persecuted people who were ever persecuted. […]
Campos-Duffy described Christians as the most “persecuted religion on the planet right now” less than two minutes after the panel reported on the anti-Semitic attacks this weekend. What the hell kind of transition is that? They brought on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the matter and co-host Pete Hegseth asked him about the “persecution of Jews AND CHRISTIANS.” He just shoehorned Christianity in there […]
POMPEO: It’s important to put it into context. You’ve seen increased anti-Semitism around the world. We’ve all observed Christians under threat in the Middle East. […]
Pompeo reassured us that Sam Brownback, who handles “religious freedom issues,” is on the case. Brownback has a history of defining “religious freedom” as the right for bigots to kick LGBTQ Americans in the ass. After Hegseth forced Christians into the discussion, Campos-Duffy went ahead and ditched Jews entirely.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: We’ve seen over Christmas some horrific attacks on Christians — by the way, the most persecuted religion on the planet right now. Beheadings, a village attacked and seven killed there, as well as the kidnapping of the young teenage Christian girl. Why are we seeing this rise in attacks, specifically for Christians?
Doing his best to put Campos-Duffy at ease, Pompeo said the United States has a responsibility to protect Christians across the world. And that was it. The panel moved on to other things. Maybe Uncle Sam will get around to looking after Jews in Brooklyn. If not, they’ll just have to take care of themselves. […] when a machete-wielding asshole tried to kill people at a New York rabbi’s home this weekend, they managed to fight him off with an antique coffee table.
tomhsays
@ #34
“there’s even a chance that the DNC will actively sabotage the 2020 candidate to keep Trump in office”
Excerpts from an essay by former FBI director, and former deputy attorney general, James Comey:
[…] At first, the attack is stunning and rocks your world. Waking up to find the president has tweeted that you are guilty of treason or committed assorted other crimes and are a [insert any one of this president’s epithets here] is jarring and disorienting. That’s the first stage, but it doesn’t last.
The second stage is a kind of numbness, where it doesn’t seem quite real that the so-called Leader of the Free World is assailing you by tweet and voice. […]
But the longer it goes on, the less it means. In the third stage, the impact diminishes, the power of it shrinks. It no longer feels as though the most powerful human on the planet is after you. It feels as though a strange and slightly sad old guy is yelling at you to get off his lawn, echoed by younger but no less sad people in red hats shouting, “Yeah, get off his lawn!”
In this stage, […] Trump seems diminished, much as he has diminished the presidency itself. Foreign leaders laugh at him and throw his letters in the trash. […] The president’s “trusted” advisers all appear to talk about him behind his back and treat him like a child. Principled public servants defy his orders not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. […]
Even his secret weapon has lost power. Engagement with his Twitter account — the company’s measure of how often people read, share and comment on a tweet — has steadily declined. Americans have grown tired of the show. […]
I don’t mean to suggest Trump is not dangerous. The horrific betrayal of allies in northern Syria demonstrates that an impetuous and amoral leader can do great harm, even in shrunken form. And if he succeeds in redefining our nation’s core values so that extorting foreign governments to aid in one’s election is consistent with the oath of office, he will have done lasting damage to this nation […]
For the fourth, and final, stage, we need to fight through our fatigue and contempt for this shrunken, withered figure. Spurred by the danger he poses to our nation and its values, we have to overcome the shock and numbness of earlier stages. We must not look away. We must summon the effort necessary to protect this republic […]
From Greg Sargent, writing for the Washington Post:
[…] McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation. If Republicans bear the brunt of media pressure to explain why they don’t want to hear from witnesses [in Trump’s impeachment trial], that risks highlighting their true rationale: They adamantly fear new revelations precisely because they know Trump is guilty — and that this corrupt scheme is almost certainly much worse than we can currently surmise. […]
Among the story’s key points:
As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia
Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known. The Pentagon pushed for the money for months. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.” We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden. […]
Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.
Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”
Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.” […]
It’s impossible to square all this with the lines from Trump’s defenders — that there was no pressure on Ukraine; that the money was withheld for reasonable policy purposes; and that there was no extortion because it was ultimately released. [Release of the aid funds] only came after the scheme was outed. […]
What makes all this new information really damning, however, is that many of these officials who were directly involved with Trump’s freezing of aid are the same ones Trump blocked from appearing before the House impeachment inquiry.
This should make it inescapable that McConnell wants a trial with no testimony from these people — Democrats want to hear from Mulvaney, Bolton, Duffey and Blair […] [McConnell] wants to prevent us from ever gaining a full accounting. […]
Did you not notice the way that Blairite Labour — the equivalent of our “New Democrats”/DLC/Clintonite Democrats — deliberately undermined Corbyn for months leading up to the latest election in the UK? Did you ignore the way that Biden was saying in 2018, long after Trump had been screwing everything up, that if he is elected “nothing significant will change”?
In the last election we had a lot of people saying “listen when Trump tells you who he is”. Well, here are the DNC Democrats telling you outright that they are traitors who think Trump is better than any shift to the left.
(And, incidentally, this is nothing new: centrism as a political ideology goes back a long way — there were German centrists between the world wars, for example. Centrists don’t want a balance of power, they want to preserve existing power structures. Always. As such, they are inherently conservative and will always side with the right against the left, no matter how monstrous the right may be. The German ones sided with Hitler — it’s time to wake up and admit that the people who have been running the Democratic Party for decades, now, would rather side with Trump than permit even the weak-tea reforms Sanders proposes.)
Trump’s farm bailout was a failure in some ways. For some, the bailouts meant surprising profits, but for others, the bailouts offered little help. That was especially true for the neediest people in the farm belt. As is usual with Trump policies, the neediest people got the least help.
In 2019, the farm belt felt about as hospitable as the asteroid belt. Record rainfall turned fields to sludge and made it nigh-on impossible to plant corn and soybeans until long after the typical window had passed. […] Trump’s long-running trade war cut off farmers’ access to China’s enormous market. Across the farm sector, commodity prices remained in the doldrums.
Yet the Agriculture Department now estimates 2019 was farmers’ most profitable in five years. What happened?
Three words: Market Facilitation Program. Or, as it’s more commonly known, the farm bailout.
Without government assistance, U.S. farm income would have fallen about $5 billion from its already-low 2018 level. So the $14.5 billion in bailout funding announced so far represents a substantial reversal of fortune. About three-quarters of the funding already has been distributed. […]
Most farmers benefited from the bailout, Belasco said, but because bailout money is distributed based on acreage and not farmer’s need, about half of the money (47 percent) went to the largest 10 percent of operations. […]
Yes, lots of the money went to the top 10 percent of land owners who run farming operations.
[…] The disparity runs too deep to be solved by a government bailout, Belasco [Montana State University economist Eric Belasco] said. According to 2018 data, more than 70 percent of farm households had a high level of financial risk in 2018. But of those that qualify as very large (median income $756,000), only 25 percent fit into that same category. […]
“The philosophical question is: Should we have trade aid for farmers who are at a low risk of losing their farm?” Belasco asked. “Most other safety-net programs are income-adjusted,” he added later. “Farm policy doesn’t do that at all.” […]
In 2019, Fox News continued its spiral to the bottom with increasingly racist content, particularly in the prime-time hours, when big audiences are tuning in for nightly immigrant-bashing, overt racism, unhinged late-night rants, conspiracy theories, and even attacks on a 16-year-old climate change activist for having the audacity to work to make the world a better place for her future.
All of that is troubling for a national cable news outlet, but perhaps even more troubling is the fact that 2019 was a record-breaking year for Fox News viewership. […] according to Nielsen Media Research, peddling conspiracies and promoting racist content must be feeding a hungry audience, because Fox News saw its highest viewership in the 23-year history of the network in 2019, averaging 2.5 million viewers per night. Business Wire writes, “[…] Additionally, Hannity was the number one program in cable news for the third consecutive year with 3.3 million viewers.”
It gets worse. The notoriously racist shows featuring Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have a tight grip on conservative audiences, and they aren’t only talking to your older relatives. Said Business Wire, ”In cable news, FNC secured nine of the top 15 programs in total viewers and the 25-54 demo. Additionally, FNC’s The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity and The Ingraham Angle claimed four of the top five programs in the younger 18-49 demo.” […]
Sean Hannity has even taken the stage to address the crowds at Donald Trump’s political rallies. Can you imagine a prime-time host from another network having the audacity to display such blatant partisanship? Is there really a scenario in which Rachel Maddow, Chris Cuomo, or Anderson Cooper could be speakers at a political rally for a Democratic candidate? Their credibility would be shot, and they’d likely be looking for a new line of work. But not at Fox News. Let’s face it, the most-watched network in the country is little more than a Republican-operated super PAC. […]
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s slip in the 2020 primary polls has been accompanied by a dip in donations, with her campaign setting a rare public goal: aiming to raise $20 million for the fourth quarter of 2019 ending Tuesday, or about 20 percent less than what she raised in the previous three-month period.
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., meanwhile, has rebounded from a weak third quarter, in which he raised only $15.7 million and spent $2 million more than he took in. Now his campaign is trying to assert his front-runner status in the Democratic race, pushing in the final 48 hours of the year to post “our biggest fund-raising quarter yet,” as Mr. Biden wrote in an email on Sunday, by topping the $21.5 million he raised last spring.
[…]
Mr. Sanders is expected to remain a financial pacesetter in the 2020 contest. He is pressing toward a goal of five million contributions by the end of the year, and announced Monday that he was at nearly 4.9 million. If Mr. Sanders maintains the current average size of his donations, $18, the numbers suggest he has already raised about $26 million in the fourth quarter, more than any Democratic candidate has raised in any quarter this year.
No other 2020 candidate has announced reaching three million donations.
[…]
The next debate for Democratic presidential candidates is scheduled for January 14. Trump is planning to do counter programming by holding a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the same night.
Five candidates have qualified for the Jan. 14 debate in Des Moines so far:
Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Amy Klobuchar
Pete Buttigieg
davidc1says
There has been a sharp rise in anti Jewish feeling over here in good old GB ,mainly graffiti daubed on Jewish property .
In the latest attack there has been 911 spray pained on a synagogue ,some dimwits think the Jews were behind the attacks on 11/09/2001 .
Anyone got any ideas what to say to people who voted tory ,apart from telling them they are stupid gits ?
blockquote>Joe Biden told voters in New Hampshire on Monday that he would consider choosing a Republican as a running mate, but added, “I can’t think of one right now.”
Biden discussed the possibility after a woman told the former vice president that if he is the nominee, he will “have to pull out all the stops.”
“Our 21-year-old son said the other night, ‘I wonder if Joe Biden would consider choosing a Republican as a running mate,” the woman added.
“The answer is I would, but I can’t think of one now,” Biden replied. “Let me explain that. You know there’s some really decent Republicans that are out there still, but here’s the problem right now … they’ve got to step up.”
Over the past few months, Biden has offered several clues about who he might consider as his vice presidential pick if he earns the Democratic nomination. He previously said he would prefer to pick someone “of color and/or a different gender” as his potential running mate. Biden has also acknowledged he’d think about adding Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to his possible ticket.
“Whoever I would pick for vice president, and there’s a lot of qualified women, there’s a lot of qualified African-Americans. There really truly are. There’s a plethora of really qualified people. Whomever I would pick were I fortunate enough to be your nominee, I’d pick somebody who was simpatico with me, who knew what I, what my priorities were and knew what I wanted to,” Biden said in Exeter on Monday. “We could disagree on tactic, but strategically we’d have to be in the exact same page.”
No modern presidential campaign has featured a bipartisan ticket. The late Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, considered former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent, as a possible running mate, before settling on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick.
From Susan B. Glasser, writing for The New Yorker: “Our year of Trumpschmerz”
[…] Even now, three years into the Trump Presidency, there is no language to fully capture the madness of all this, though many of my journalistic colleagues have gone to great lengths to record and codify just how disturbingly nutty 2019 has been. The Washington Post reports that Trump ended the year having made more than fifteen thousand four hundred false and misleading statements since his inauguration. CNN’s “Inside Politics” produced a four-page, single-spaced list of all the people and institutions Trump has attacked by name this year. There are online trackers for the unprecedented levels of turnover in Trump’s Administration and for the rapidly proliferating array of lawsuits involving Trump’s assertions of sweeping executive authority. […]
How will we explain to our future selves the sheer bizarreness of an American leader who rants at rallies about the evils of windmills and modern toilets, who brags that he and North Korea’s homicidal dictator “fell in love,” who repeats Russian propaganda from the Oval Office, and who issues major national-security decisions by fiat on Twitter without informing the Pentagon, State Department, or his own staff? All of that happened this year, too, and it’s not even what he was impeached over. […]
For a few days, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago tweetstorms were like thunderclaps on a distant horizon; I knew the weather was bad on the Internet, and I happily stayed away. I realize this attitude is increasingly held by the American public, at least that segment of the public which doesn’t follow the news for a living.
It turns out, however, that staying away from the daily distractions of Trump has not been restorative. You can turn off the Trump show, but the nagging, unfortunate reality is that the show goes on, with or without you. The President of the United States is still out there saying crazy, mean, inappropriate things at all hours of the day and night. This remains disturbing, even if one is divorced from the particulars. You can turn off your smartphone, delete the Twitter app, bake endless batches of cookies, and binge-watch Netflix: Trump is still there.
[…] By choosing not to immerse myself in the details of which conspiracy theorist Trump was retweeting, I had more time to think about the increasingly real possibility of Trump’s reëlection in November. By skipping the mini outrages, I had the mental bandwidth for the macro ones: time, that is, to consider what the Trump Presidency will look like after Democrats have tried and failed to convict and remove him from office, and what the impact will be, over the next several decades, of a federal judiciary remade by a President who is hostile to any interpretation of the Constitution that does not give him essentially unconstrained authority. I had time to think about what a second-term Trump will feel empowered to do […]
There must be one of those long German words for all that soul-sickening worry, right? Some tortured mouthful of consonants that captures the ceaseless anxiety and absurdity of Washington in the age of Trump? I asked my friend, the German scholar and writer Constanze Stelzenmüller, an astute observer of Trumpism at the Brookings Institution and especially of its toxic effect on the troubled transatlantic relationship. She said that, even in Trump-skeptical Berlin, there was no single, widely accepted word that describes this phenomenon but gamely offered up her own stab at it. The word she came up with is “Trumpregierungsschlamasselschmerz.”
My German is nonexistent, but a quick Internet search suggests that Constanze nailed it. In thirty-three letters, she managed to capture the whole damn mess. […] Trump and his Administration (“regierung” means government); the slow-motion car crash of constant controversies (“schlamassel”); and the continuous pain or ache of the soul that results from excessive contemplation of it all (“schmerz”). […]
On the brink of a new year, Trumpregierungsschlamasselschmerz has come to dominate our collective psyche. There is no taking a vacation from it. I confess that I have not yet figured out how to pronounce this unwieldy linguistic invention that so deftly captures our national Trump-soul-sickness. Luckily, I received a follow-up e-mail from Constanze, in which she proposed a shortened version that gets right to the angsty, anxious point: […] “Trumpschmerz.” Either way, in German or in English, it’s my nominee for the word of the year in 2019. I suspect it will be in 2020 as well.
Talking Points Memo handed out their “Golden Duke” awards.
[…] Best Scandal General Interest
The award goes to: Rep. Duncan Hunter! (with 3 out of 6 votes)
[…] Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) using donor money to bankroll his sexcapades
This story has everything: marital betrayal, vaping in Congress, sleeping with lobbyists, taking $600 from a campaign to take a rabbit on an airplane. […]
President Donald Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine
President Donald Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine. I don’t think there’s any competition here. This is it: the Omega Point, the Moby Dick of scandals. Leaving aside that it’s the grounds for only the third impeachment in American history, it is also the convergence point for all Trump’s scandals: it has Ukraine/Russia, Trump’s war with the Deep State, Rudy Giuliani, it’s got it all.
The multiple high-power players in Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit
[…] a sex trafficking ring run by a guy whose suspiciously close friends include Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, future president (LMFAO! WHAT!) Donald Trump, and many other wealthy and powerful men […] How much of the world is run by a group of rich men who would do basically anything to protect their access to young women to sexually victimize, and how many powerful people are complicit in allowing this to happen? […]
Members’ choice: President Donald Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine
This nominee won with a 59.7% majority of members’ votes.
Best Scandal Local Venue
The award goes to: The three drunk Indiana judges! (with 4 out of 6 votes)
[…] Three Indiana judges’ drunken brawl-turned-shootout
[…] Things seemed to have been really escalated by the non-judicial brawler who brought a gun to a judge fight, though. The poor judges just wanted some White Castle.
[…] The Texas House speaker’s secret crusade against members of his own party
This one might not have anything as immediately salacious as judges brawling outside a strip club, but the setting couldn’t be better. We’re watching a Texas statehouse that Republicans can’t take for granted in 2020, and the speaker is so nervous that he’s offering some nut a deal in exchange for media credentials. Who could imagine that the nut might have been recording that conversation, and then — comically — dangling it over the speaker’s head for an extended period of time, just to watch him squirm? […]
[…] Three Indiana judges’ drunken brawl-turned-shootout
So much to love about this story: the incongruity of judges behaving like buffoons, Indiana giving Florida a run for its money as the site of baffling and appalling behavior. I’m hoping for at least one movie to come out of it.
[…] The Baltimore mayor’s children’s book grift
[…] my choice for local venue scandal is one that is decidedly PG-rated: Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh’s children’s book grift. Of all the things to end your political career, imagine it being mediocre children’s books you wrote and then tried to force the city you run to buy. Imagine having the confidence to hold a press conference where you hawk associated licensed children’s wear. Now that’s the kind of confidence of a woman who would never fuck Duncan Hunter. Surely there’s a happy medium to be found.
[…] Three Indiana judges’ drunken brawl-turned-shootout
[…] I give the prize to The 3 Little Pigs, the Indiana judges’ public brawl-turned-shoot-out at the White Castle Corral. […] a judicial rat pack so wasted that even the renowned Indianapolis Red Garter Gentlemen’s Club refused them all entrance! These kids don’t remember getting in a White Castle gunfight with a strapped meth freak […]
Members’ choice: Three Indiana judges’ drunken brawl-turned-shootout
This nominee won with a 42.7% plurality of members’ votes.
Meritorious Achievement in the Crazy
The award goes to: Rudy, Lev and Igor! (with 3 out of 6 votes)
[…] Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman
Every disaffected New York liberal has their decades of grumblings about Giuliani’s fascist tendencies vindicated, […]
[…] Devin Nunes (R-CA)
Is it okay to say that the only thing keeping me interested by hour seven or eight of an Intel impeachment inquiry hearing this fall was Devin Nunes’ opportunities to speak? No? Well. The terse, self-hating sarcasm laced with references to fake-the-moon-landing conspiracies: This is why I wake up in the morning. What happened to Nunes? This was a Boehner leadership ally, with seniority on “grown-up” committees like Intel and Ways and Means, who would talk to any reporter for years, typically to trash the Freedom Caucus. Now he doesn’t talk to any reporters, treating them as spies for a liberal conspiracy. He sues cows from Twitter. […]
[…] Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman
As with the Indiana judges, this shows the power of trios. Call it the three stooges principle: three doofuses combined can outdo anything mere mortals can do. […]
[…] Devin Nunes (R-CA)
Devin Nunes is fascinating. I truly can’t understand what makes him tick, or what his end game is on all of this. What was he thinking, co-chairing the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings, knowing in the back of his mind that he was actively involved in the shenanigans that led to President Trump being impeached in the first place? What was going through his head as he sat up there? What does he think he’s going to get at the end of all this? A jawline?
[…] Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R)
Gov. Matt Bevin, come on down: You take the Crazy Cake, and all the decapitated ladies stuffed inside of it! […] Matt Bevin didn’t slam the door behind him before he pardoned ALL the incarcerated psychopaths on his Xmas list. Or, at least, anyone who ever put a lollipop in his campaign war chest. But who was Bevin’s special amnesty favorite, the man everyone wants back on the streets? Why, it’s Delmar Partin, a man convicted of murder for strangling his lover before beheading her and stuffing her corpse in a barrel. […]
Members’ choice: Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman
This nominee won with a 60.9% majority of members’ votes.
Most Valiant Trump Defender
The award goes to: Sen. Lindsey Graham! (with 4 out of 6 votes)
[…] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)
Tough competition between him and Graham, as both enthusiastically and energetically leap before cameras to defend Our President. But Graham — SHAME ON HIM — occasionally breaks from character and will chastise the president for, say, announcing a swift removal of troops from Syria because the Turkish president was nice to him on the telephone. A stain on your legacy, Mr. Graham! Jordan, meanwhile, served valiantly on both the Intel and Judiciary Committees, sitting in nearly every deposition and running the show behind the scenes during public hearings. It is he, Jim Jordan, who deserves the annual Presidential Belly Rub for Good Service.
[…] Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Nearly the entire GOP has debased itself for Trump, but Graham remains the champ chump because of his history and self-regard. […] He went out of his way to be the defining senatorial voice of Never Trump in 2016. This makes his transformation into a lap dog all the more stunning.
[…] Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
[…] What’s unique about Graham is that while Trump only humiliates him for his fealty, Linds just keeps popping back up, like a Gothic Plot Twist. […] He is not changing his mind about impeachment and he’s going to spread it on a cracker! No one has ever been more dead inside.
Members’ choice: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
This nominee won with a 46.9% plurality of members’ votes.
Wildest Press Conference Moment
The award goes to: The President’s concerns about toilets! (with 4 out of 6 votes)
[…] Trump laments how “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times”
I love that Trump admitted he has weird, huge dumps, then went back, denied his weird huge dumps, and accused his rally crowd in Battle Creek, Michigan of taking weird dumps instead. Projection, your honor.
[…] Mulvaney blatantly admits to a quid pro quo
He admitted it right there on TV, and then told everyone to “get over it.” Come on! Mulvaney has long had a reputation for vastly overstating his intelligence, but at least he had the good sense to obstruct Congress and not testify any further after that performance.
[…] Trump laments how “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times”
Do I like knowing that our big soft lazy president lays down toilet-challenging turds? No. I hate it. I truly hate knowing that a lot of his rage-tweeting and rage-governing comes from a place of total colon blockage brought on by a diet of fast food and carbonated brown sugar water. But knowing that it sometimes takes the president 10, 15 times to flush his golden toilet helps make a lot of his bad personality make sense. […]
[…] Trump laments how “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times”
A septic man of the people, our President is in the tank on this one. […] Little Trumpy has the look of a boy whose toilet training went awry, and now we all have to pay for it. Diaper Don’s toilet obsession has followed him his entire life. The public first became aware of his kink, pre-Presidency, when The Donald paraded his solid gold toilet fixtures before the press — a classic sign of the self-made turd. Vanity Fair covered the story. […]
Members’ choice: Mulvaney blatantly admits to a quid pro quo
This nominee won with a 43.7% plurality of members’ votes.
Literary Achievement in 280 Characters
The award goes to: Bret Stephens! (with 4 out of 6 votes)
[…] Bret Stephens’ meltdown over a tweet calling him a “bedbug”
[…] I need to know Bret Stephens’ skincare routine; how does he keep his hide so exquisitely thin?
[…] Bret Stephens’ meltdown over a tweet calling him a “bedbug”
Stephens gets this based solely on the position he occupies. It takes no great skill to publish something demented in the Washington Times or on twitter. But Stephens is a New York Times columnist. He published an utterly bone-headed and narcissistic piece in The New York Times, a column that was (it’s been reported) line edited by James Bennet, the head of the editorial page. That’s a real feat.
[…] The Washington Times’ “exclusive” article on AOC’s haircut
Okay, this is incredibly catty, and may count as “girl on girl crime.” But after that bizarrely bitchy article on AOC’s totally normal-cost-for-a-good-haircut-in-a-major-metropolitan-area haircut, I clicked through to see who the author of the article was. And to be frank, she has the hair of a woman who did not know how much a good haircut costs. If you catch my drift. The moral of the story is: “don’t start none, won’t be none.”
Members’ choice: Bret Stephens’ meltdown over a tweet calling him a “bedbug”
This nominee won with a 49.5% plurality of members’ votes.
Most Off-The-Walls Conspiracy Theory
The award goes to: Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for their Elizabeth Warren conspiracy theory! (with 4 out of 6 votes)
[…] Elizabeth Warren: Secret Cougar
Honestly, all the other conspiracies are so depressing […] Wohl and Burkman are a bumbling duo of neofascists, but their theory on Warren honestly made me like her more. Get it Liz!!!
[…] The Ukraine-Crowdstrike theory
I didn’t know what this was until I saw it in the Trump-Zelensky phone call readout, and it’s really fake-moon-landing level or beyond. […] He believes that there is a secret server in Ukraine hiding out in a motel, smoking a cigarette, with fake passports and some international currency all packed up in a getaway bag should the cops turn up.
[…] Elizabeth Warren: Secret Cougar
There are a lot of conspiracy grifters out there but Wohl and Burkman are in a class of their own in the sheer outlandish incompetence of their schemes as well as their resilience. Everything falls apart for them but they just dust themselves off and start anew. In that sense, they are the Wile E. Coyote of right-wing conspiracy grift. In this case, part of the stupidity at play was not realizing that spreading the story that Warren is an insatiable sex machine was not something that would hurt her.
[…] Elizabeth Warren: Secret Cougar
So many cool kids these days are saying Pete Buttigieg isn’t gay enough. Gay enough? Get real! The problem with most Democratic Presidential wannabes is that they aren’t STRAIGHT enough! The only candidate pulling her weight in libidinous gold is our lusty heroine, Liz Warren, accused of tricking with a bustin’-hot young Marine, […]. Yes, a thousand times yes. I want a cougar in the White House, who can rip the old boys’ network to shreds and then lick it off her fingertips like cream. Release the boy toys! Praise the Lord and pass the lubrication!
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to Ukraine—but we don’t know why he’s really going.
While Donald Trump nullifies the nation’s foreign policy in efforts to wring a bit of gain for himself, and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani continues a partnership with Ukrainian ex-officials and indicted criminals seemingly intended to destabilize the existing Ukraine government […], Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be traveling to Ukraine later this week to … well, we really don’t know.
[…] The official reason for Pompeo’s brief visit, which will include a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is to “reaffirm U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” But Pompeo will also be meeting with other officials to, The Washington Post reports, “discuss the [Ukrainian] government’s reform agenda.”
That last part, an alleged concern that the Ukrainian government show its commitment to anticorruption “reforms,” is the exact phrasing the Trump White House used throughout its effort to extort the Ukrainian government into opening “investigations” of Democrats, and notably of Joe Biden. And there’s the catch: This White House is notoriously dishonest, Trump himself has proven absolutely unable to stop committing unethical acts even when caught outright, and Mike Pompeo personally remains implicated in the original extortion effort against Ukraine. One that, for all we know, may yet be ongoing: One of Pompeo’s actions earlier this month was to order Ambassador William Taylor, who testified in the congressional impeachment inquiry, to leave Ukraine before Pompeo’s arrival.
[…] Official U.S. policy is to stand by Ukraine, a NATO ally, as Putin’s Russia continues its military assaults on that nation. Unofficially, however, multiple Trump Cabinet members have each assisted in a White House scheme to stall Ukraine aid, weaken congressional sanctions against Russia, and withhold most public messages of U.S. support for Ukraine until and unless that government was willing to do personal favors for the Oval Office tweeter. Pompeo is among them.
Which policy is Pompeo traveling to Ukraine to push forward? The State Department policy, or Rudy Giuliani’s version? None of us, in the press or in the public, truly knows. Pompeo is so compromised, by testimony against him and by his own refusal to testify to Congress, that he cannot be trusted as a noncorrupt player. He ought to have stepped down the moment he refused to answer Congress’ demands for his own testimony.
Thunberg said that talking to Trump at a United Nations summit on global warming would be a waste of time, since he wouldn’t pay attention in the first place.
“Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me?” Thunberg said. “So I probably wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t have wasted my time.”
It’d be a bit different with Thunberg, since Trump has picked her up as an enemy, but it’s clear that Trump cannot be persuaded on climate policy – not even by the kind of wealthy white men he sort-of respects. At least, not as long as he’s generally surrounded by anti-environmentalist lobbyists who keep turning his head.
I mentioned previously how Finnish president Sauli Niinistö has been seeking opportunities to persuade Trump on the climate issue. In an October interview, just after the latest White House visit, he claimed there’s been “visible progress” on that front. When I saw that claim in a newspaper, I took a pause and simply said “bullshit” to myself. At best, Trump made some conman show of taking his guest seriously.
Mind you, this would’ve been credible if I only knew of Trump what Finnish mainstream media writes. They treat him with silk gloves compared to US leftist journalists. Niinistö himself has been very diplomatic with both Trump and Putin, but I don’t think he’s naive. More likely he’s trying to take credit for trying something that’s patently impossible.
Kagehisays
@45
IS BIDEN TRYING TO LOSE?!?!?!?
I wish he was. Sadly, this is more likely to get him posted by the DNC as the “best candidate”, since they literally can’t seem to freaking comprehend what “liberal” actually means – seeming to think that it means, “Slightly less noxious conservative.”
Rudy Giuliani’s associate and co-conspirator in the Ukraine crime spree, Lev Parnas, asked a federal judge for permission to share data extracted from his iPhone and documents seized from his home with congressional impeachment investigators.
[…] Parnas has long sought to share evidence in his case with Congress. He and others have been charged with a conspiracy to funnel foreign money into American campaigns, but Parnas’ connection to Giuliani might mean that the information investigators recovered from him is relevant to the case against [Trump]
[…] “Review of these materials is essential to the Committee’s ability to corroborate the strength of Mr. Parnas’ potential testimony,” Bondy wrote.
Parnas helped Giuliani dig for dirt on Democrats in Ukraine, and with Giuliani’s effort to smear the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, whose ouster played a large role in the impeachment hearings.
In court earlier this month, prosecutors said they did not expect to object to Parnas’ request to share the evidence with House impeachment investigators. Judge Paul Oetken also said he would likely grant such a request. […]
Another court ruling heightens the potential for more Ukraine bombshells to drop:
[…] A Monday afternoon [yesterday] ruling dismissing a lawsuit filed in October by White House deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman served as a reminder that Trump’s house-of-cards claim to “absolute immunity” is likely to crumble in spectacular fashion in the new year.
Kupperman, the top aide to former national security adviser John Bolton, had asked the court to decide whether he should comply with a congressional subpoena for testimony or honor Trump’s assertion of absolute immunity. But U.S. District Judge Richard Leon declared the matter moot Monday after the House withdrew its subpoena in order avoid a lengthy court battle and the White House likewise argued for the case’s dismissal. Kupperman had urged Judge Leon to make a determination anyway, and the dismissal of the lawsuit means that the definitive ruling on the dispute between House Democrats and the White House is now the sweeping setback U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered to Trump in November in the case of former White House counsel Don McGahn.
Judge Jackson spent 118 pages spelling out the notion that “presidents are not kings” and “no one is above the law” in granular judicial detail. Jackson’s ruling is currently on hold as the Justice Department appeals it, but the implosion of Kupperman’s case attaches Bolton’s fate to a decision that roundly rejected Trump’s effort to summarily block any and all executive branch cooperation with Congress.
Former Justice Department official Neal Katyal told MSNBC Monday that he had “always” believed that getting the testimony of former Trump aides such as Bolton and McGahn was an “exceptionally high probability.” And hearing from Trump’s top aides became ever more pertinent with new reporting from The New York Times that firmly ties both White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and top budget officials to repeated efforts to block congressionally approved security assistance from being released to Ukraine.
[…] Democrats could very likely get a boost in their quest for a fair trial [in the Senate] by court rulings that shred Trump’s pervasive blockade of executive branch cooperation. But even if Senate Republicans succeed in blocking a meaningful trial from proceeding, they will still face the distinct possibility of major revelations continuing to surface in 2020 that ultimately haunt their reelection bids.
Nancy Pelosi was right to delay the transfer of articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate. Now there is more time for information that damns Trump and his lickspittles to emerge.
Bolton was probably just looking for an excuse to say that he was forced to testify. Now he has that excuse.
The U.S. embassy in Baghdad was besieged by hundreds of protesters following airstrikes that Trump ordered against targets in Iraq and Syria.
On Sunday, the United States conducted a series of airstrikes against sites in Iraq and Syria supposedly under control of a Shiite militia group supported by the government of Iran. But on Tuesday morning, protesters enraged by those airstrikes surrounded the U.S. embassy and set fire to a sentry box. In a scene that might have been lifted from 1979, dozens of protesters broke into the embassy compound itself, throwing bottles at embassy guards, while hundreds more surrounded the compound chanting “Down, down USA.”
As ABC News reports, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq was not in the building as the protesters encircled the area. Officials are preparing to evacuate the remaining staff.
The U.S. airstrikes came after a series of rockets were launched at an Iraqi base where several U.S. soldiers and contractors were present. One contractor was killed, and four soldiers were wounded. Donald Trump placed blame for the contractor’s death on Iran and said that the missiles fired by F-15 fighter jets represented a “strong response” to that action. A spokesperson from the Kataib Hezbollah militia indicated that the strikes killed 25 and wounded 20 others.
On Tuesday, Trump responded to the protests by again blaming Iran, which, he says, “is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.” Trump also issued a warning to the government of Iraq that he expected that nation to “use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”
Half an hour before the airstrikes on Sunday, the U.S. contacted the Iraqi prime minister to make him aware of the impending action. Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi responded by strongly objecting and insisting that the U.S. call off the strikes. Abdul-Mahdi called the U.S. action a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and worried that it could spark a conflict with Iran. However, the U.S. strike went ahead over his objections. It is unclear how willing Iraq is to risk its forces in a confrontation over an attack it did not endorse. It’s equally unclear how Trump will react should Iraq fail to protect the U.S. embassy. […]
The government in Iraq is weak. It does not really have the capability to protect the U.S. embassy.
Akira MacKenziesays
Lyanna @ 52
Not that I wish ill upon the staff at the Baghdad embassy, but after years of listening to RWNJs shriek and gibber about BENGAZI!!!, having something to throw back at them would be soooooo delicious.
Trump is responsible for weakening Ukraine. No matter how much Republicans insist that Trump’s actions, (and his inaction) did not harm Ukraine, real damage has been done.
[…] Trump’s decision to delay forwarding military assistance to Ukraine by 84 days [put Ukrainian lives at risk].
[…] it signaled to Vladimir Putin that he had a green light to carry on with his plans to dismantle Europe, rebuild the Soviet Union, and destroy that pesky idea of liberal democracy.
As NBC News reports, Ukraine’s five-year effort to hold back invading Russian forces has cost the lives of 13,000 people and left nearly 430,000 children displaced, orphaned, or otherwise traumatized. Meanwhile, the ever-shifting border has left 2 million people ringed-in by land mines and military forces. Against that backdrop, any sign that support from the United States is weakening is seen not as a temporary delay, but as an existential threat.
[…] The major factor that’s keeping Russian tanks from rolling into Kyiv is not Ukrainian forces on the ground in the Donbass; it’s the impression that behind those Ukrainian forces is an American commitment to expanding democracy. And it’s that basic assumption that Trump not only delayed—he destroyed it. […]
From the moment Trump dispatched Rudy Giuliani to begin Operation Suborn Perjury, he didn’t just put Ukraine at risk—he also inflicted permanent damage on Ukraine, on the United States, and on the greater effort to defend democracy against authoritarian rule.
Did you not notice the way that Blairite Labour — the equivalent of our “New Democrats”/DLC/Clintonite Democrats — deliberately undermined Corbyn for months leading up to the latest election in the UK? – The Vicar@39
True. But then, Corbyn had been deliberately undermining Corbyn for several years before that.
[…] a big part of the way the climate crisis is affecting Australia is also the most straightforward: It’s simply getting hotter. On Monday, every single state in Australia topped 40° C (104° F). Accompanied by stiff, bone-dry winds, the high temperatures are directing fires from inland and sending them roaring toward the coasts to engulf the areas where most Australians live.
So far in this fire season, 10 people have died directly from the flames, with an unknown number affected by the massive drop in air quality. Any efforts to quell or contain the fires have been hampered by the way the firestorm has literally become a storm, creating its own local weather in which dry lightning has sparked at least 70 new fires within just the last 24 hours. Even with firefighting crews bolstered by tens of thousands of volunteers, conditions are such that many fires simply cannot be contained. […]
New Hampshire has been spared one indignity: Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, announced that he will not run for Senate next year.
“After much consideration I have decided to forgo a campaign for the US Senate. While taking on a career politician from the Washington swamp is a tall order, I am certain I would have won. My priorities remain my family and ensuring that @realDonaldTrump is re-elected POTUS,” Lewandowski wrote in a tweet.
Yeah, yeah. Bullshit. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, would have won.
Shaheen has won five statewide races, serving three terms as governor, winning election to the Senate in 2008 and defeating former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)[…]
The U.S. military is sending additional forces to the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad after demonstrators breached the gates and set fire to the property Tuesday.
“We have taken appropriate force protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens, military personnel and diplomats in country, and to ensure our right of self-defense,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement Tuesday.
Multiple reports say about 100 Marines who are already in the region will be sent to the compound. Additionally, two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters flew over the embassy in a show of force, according to reports. […]
Thousands of demonstrators and supporters of an Iran-backed militia stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday in response to U.S. airstrikes on that militia over the weekend.
Demonstrators, some of whom were militia commanders or in militia uniform, chanted “Death to America” and set fire to the compound’s reception area, leading to the use of tear gas and gunfire, according to reports from the ground. […]
Stacey Abrams’s Org Loses One ‘Fair Fight’ Against Voter Purge
On Friday, a federal judge declined to reinstate nearly 100,000 voters to Georgia’s voting rolls after yet another voting roll purge by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.
[…] The challenge, led by Stacey Abrams’s voting rights organization, Fair Fight Action, had sought to ensure that people would not be unfairly denied their right to vote.
WTF, Georgia?!
If you’re feeling a sense of deja-vu right now, that’s because we’ve been here before. Georgia is at the very forefront of the voter suppression movement in America, and it has been for a while.
It’s very likely that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp would not have his position if he hadn’t done his damnedest to ensure that black voters and other people of color in Georgia could not exercise their right to vote. As secretary of State, Kemp engaged in all manner of ratfucking, from removing voters from the rolls to inviting hackers to mess with the state’s information.
In 2018, Kemp defeated Assembly minority leader and general badass Stacey Abrams. But Abrams has redoubled her efforts to fight for the disenfranchised people in Georgia. Abrams’s org, Fair Fight Action, was joined by several churches in challenging the most recent voter purge. […]
Although the federal court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims, it also all but invited them to re-file the case in state court. Due to issues of federalism, federal courts have to abstain from meddling in state affairs unless there’s a constitutional issue or conflict with existing federal law. But those same principles allow state courts to do exactly what the federal courts can’t.
Winning a voting rights challenge in state court in Georgia is no easy feat. Most of the state’s elected judges are Republicans who favor screwing over democracy in order to win elections.
But all hope is not lost. And with Stacey Abrams at the helm, there’s always hope. There is no one I would rather have leading the charge against racist ratfucking.
OK, I’m finally going to speculate about what Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson will do now he has won the UK general election, as I said I would on the previous thread. I should note that I’ve been wrong about the course of action he will choose more than once in the past few months. But one general principle can be stated with great confidence: Johnson will do whatever he thinks is in the best interests of Johnson – among abundant evidence for this, we have the considered opinion of right-wing journalist and writer Max Hastings, Johnson’s one-time boss, that he is unable to care about anyone other than himself, and does not distinguish truth from lies in either his public or private life.
Johnson has little in the way of ideology, beyond casual racist, misogynist and classist prejudices, and of course has access to many sources of information others do not. However, a few actions already taken (and others not taken) give an idea what his approach is likely to be over the next year or so.
1) On Brexit, he has altered the motion he was attempting to push through before the election by
a) removing protection for workers (the motion would previously have carried over EU protections into UK law),
b) reducing Parliament’s role in negotiations for a post-Brexit relationship with the EU, and
c) adding a clause ruling out any extension to the transitional period, due to end at the end of 2020.
The altered motion has been approved in principle by the Commons. The changes made confirm that he intends to go ahead with an ultra-hard Brexit, possibly making no deal at all on the post-Brexit relationship. This could be a feint to keep the ERG headbangers in line, but I don’t believe so – switching to a softer Brexit would be a bigger political risk than sticking with those who put him into the premiership.
2) He has dropped a previously announced internal party inquiry into Islamophobia. Clearly, he has no intention of challenging a pjeudice he shares with the majority of the party membership. British Muslims (and anyone who “could conceivably be Muslim” – in the words of Sam Harris) have far more reason for concern than British Jews would have had if Corbyn had been elected.
3) He has gone ahead with a planned increase to the minimum wage. This indicates that at least initially, he intends to go ahead with the abandonment of the rhetoric of “austerity”, and make gestures toward those on lower incomes, and toward protecting public services such as the NHS. However, he has not significantly changed the balance of his cabinet, which remains dominated by the hard “libertarian” right; so we can expect these gestures to be abandoned as soon as there is significant economic trouble, or as soon as he feels he can do so without political damage.
4) The Queen’s speech was heavy on “security” and “tough on crime” themes. We can expect increases in the prison population, and new “anti-terrorist” legislation that can and will be used in practice to harrass Muslim, limit the right to demonstrate, and step up surveillance, particularly online.
5) He will try to keep his distance from Trump in the run-up to the US presidential election. If Trump is re-elected, however, Johnson will cosy up to him.
From Greg Sargent, writing for the Washington Post:
One of the thorniest challenges of this moment is the difficulty of finding language adequate to capturing […] Trump’s actual, openly stated positions. They are often so profoundly ridiculous or nakedly corrupt, or so audaciously saturated with bad faith, that we struggle to find ways to clearly convey what he’s genuinely telling us.
Case in point: Trump is now openly calling for his impeachment trial to be converted into something that is purely devoted to serving his own political needs — one that only includes witnesses that will help him keep smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden, but has no meaningful relevance whatsoever to the corrupt conduct for which he has been impeached.
Incredibly, this comes as Senate Republicans push for a trial that features none of the witnesses who actually do have direct knowledge of that very same corrupt conduct.
Trump just made all this very explicit:
The Democrats will do anything to avoid a trial in the Senate in order to protect Sleepy Joe Biden, and expose the millions and millions of dollars that “Where’s” Hunter, & possibly Joe, were paid by companies and countries for doing NOTHING. Joe wants no part of this mess!
[…] Trump’s disinformation campaign
Let’s reiterate that Trump’s deeper claim — about the Bidens’ alleged corruption in Ukraine — has been widely debunked. This narrative holds that as vice president, Biden pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect Hunter — who got a lucrative contract to join Ukrainian company Burisma’s board — and withheld loan guarantees as leverage.
Here are the facts: The campaign to oust that prosecutor constituted an effort to root out corruption in Ukraine — that prosecutor was turning a blind eye to it. The push was U.S. policy widely backed by international institutions, which were also behind using loan guarantees as leverage. There was an investigation into Burisma, but Hunter Biden’s role was irrelevant to that, and it was dormant by the time of Joe Biden’s effort.
It’s fair to say Hunter Biden shouldn’t have joined Burisma. Obama administration officials worried it created the appearance that he was milking proximity to his father and selling influence over Ukraine policy. Joe Biden probably shouldn’t have allowed this — though it’s unclear what control he had over Hunter Biden — and it has created an aura of vague sleaze that Trump is exploiting.
But what’s not in dispute is what Joe Biden himself did in Ukraine, which is at the core of Trump’s false narrative.
Indeed, there’s a deep irony here: Biden actually did work for years to root out kleptocracy and corruption in Ukraine, explicitly describing this as essential to drawing it into the Western orbit, and away from Russian predation, serving our national interests.
By contrast, Trump actually does not care a whit about corruption in Ukraine. He used it as his cover story for extorting the Ukrainian president to help him advance his own kleptocratic and corrupt designs, subverting our national interests to his own.
Perversely, Trump has been weaponizing his fake concern about Ukrainian corruption to pressure Ukraine into helping him magically transform Biden’s actual efforts against Ukrainian corruption into the only “real” corruption in this whole saga. It’s pure disinformation warfare. […]
And it is disinformation warfare backed by Russia.
KGsays
An item I should have included at #60. Johnson intends to go ahead with introducing a requirement for photo ID in order to vote. As in the USA, this is a transparent attempt to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote. As in the USA, there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in the UK. We can certainly expect more of the same (e.g., i wolud expect it to be made harder to register if you move frequently), and to prevent students being able to register both at their parental home and their university residence. We can expect Trumplike efforts to pack the judiciary, and remove checks on the power of the executive. On the judiciary, there were rumours he would move to allow political appointment of judges as in the USA, but more likely, he will pack the Judicial Appointments Commission. Moves to limit judicial review of legislation are expected.
Georgia struck almost 100,000 voters from its rolls. In Wisconsin, a state with only 3.3 million registered voters, perhaps 200,000 are set to be purged. Some of them might have moved out of their respective states or died. But many will unjustifiably fall victim to Republicans’ relentless drive to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters on the pretext of preventing voter fraud.
A recent Georgia state law calls for people who have not voted or contacted election officials for several years to be removed from the rolls. About 100,000 people are subject to the loss of their registration status after three years of inactivity, before state lawmakers lengthened the period to five years. Voting advocates argue that those 100,000 should get the benefit of the lengthened five-year period. State officials disagree and want to continue with their purge. A federal judge ruled Friday that the state may proceed.
The legal wrangling should not disguise the bigger point: Georgia’s underlying law is wrong. The United States does not require people to vote. Americans may exercise their franchise or decline to do so. How often they do one or the other should not affect their access to the ballot box. States can keep their voter rolls clean without disenfranchising people who choose to vote occasionally or who missed a postcard informing them that their registrations were to be purged.
The disenfranchisement in Wisconsin is even worse. A Wisconsin judge ruled this month that 200,000 voters must be struck because they failed to respond within 30 days to notices sent from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which asked whether the voters had moved. These letters did not mention that voters who failed to respond would be purged, because the commission had not planned to remove them from the rolls, at least not anytime soon. After the commission sent its letters, a conservative activist group concocted a reading of state law that would require the commission to move to immediate purges, and a state judge ordered quick removal. Though the legal reasoning is a stretch, the conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court seems likely to agree.
The records on which the commission relied to target these 200,000 people were imperfect. Despite the tight turnaround period, 2,300 said they still live at the same address — in a state in which a margin of 23,000 swung its electoral votes to Donald Trump in 2016. Thousands more no doubt failed to respond because the commission’s notice got lost in the shuffle of their daily lives. At least Wisconsin allows Election Day registration — a hassle, but better than Georgia, which offers no such option.
It should not be up to Americans, on penalty of disenfranchisement, to help state governments with their record-keeping. Officials should strive to make voting easier, not harder. States should build automatic voter-registration systems that update voter rolls whenever people interact with motor vehicle departments or other state agencies, and they should impose no arbitrary time limits on those registrations.
If there were any sign of massive in-person voter fraud, the case might look different. But there is no evidence of such a threat — only of a disturbing push to purge voters who disagree with those in power.
Sadly, this is more likely to get him posted by the DNC as the “best candidate”, since they literally can’t seem to freaking comprehend what “liberal” actually means – seeming to think that it means, “Slightly less noxious conservative.”
As for the last 3 decades, you can either assume that the DNC is filled with people so incredibly stupid that for our own protection we should be demanding they step down, or that they know perfectly well what they are doing and are betraying us because — rhetoric aside — they love right-wing policy and would be Republicans if it wasn’t such a sweet deal to be hobbling any resistance to right-wing policy by suborning the other major party. Either way, we need to be rid of these people and fast.
Every major betrayal of the centrists now in charge of the party — the embrace of Reagan’s union-killing NAFTA, “the end of welfare as we know it” (what could be better than destroying the social safety net at the same time that you encourage good jobs to move out of the country with NAFTA?), the repeal of Glass-Steagall under the guidance of Libertarian Alan Greenspan (which led directly to the 2008 meltdown), the embrace of GWB’s Iraq invasion, the mass embrace of the creation and subsequent expansion of ICE, the PATRIOT Act (which was based on an omnibus anti-terrorism bill authored and defeated in the 1990s by Joe Biden) — has been accompanied by non-centrists telling us, up front, that these were bad ideas which would lead to disaster. In most cases, the opposition was even able to correctly identify in advance what the disaster would be and how it would manifest.
In short: objecting to centrists is not a “purity test”, as their defenders would have it, it’s an “intelligence test”. Anybody dumb enough to champion the policies which centrists have continuously gone for — and will presumably continue to go for — is somebody who should not under any circumstances be permitted to manage a Denny’s, let alone run the country. Whether the idiots who voted for the invasion of Iraq were “pure” is irrelevant; what’s important is that they were incredibly stupid, to the point of being dangerous. This applies to Joe Biden just as it did to Hillary Clinton. In order to deal with the problems we’re facing, we need leadership which has not already demonstrated overwhelmingly that it is dumb as a box of rocks — and the centrists don’t qualify. They haven’t qualified for decades. It’s time to dump them, completely and mercilessly, and look for somebody who isn’t an abject fool.
This is a funny, cogent, presentation of nominees and winners who left “impressive stains on modern American politics.” The article is difficult to excerpt, so I suggest just reading it at the link.
Kagehisays
@64 Beginning to think we need a whole new freaking party to get anything done. Personally I would start with these principles:
Personal liberty is key, so long as that liberty does not infringe on someone else’s.
Opinion isn’t relevant, only facts, and this applies to whether or not someone is actually “infringing” on someone else’s liberties from #1. Merely believing there is a problem, or that you have a some sort of solution, is not sufficient to deny someone rights, choices, or impose laws on someone.
Some trade offs may be necessary, but they should be based on the least harm, not the perceived “threat” from the powerful, if you don’t force everyone to abide by their rules. Doing so is what gives them that power, it is not something they simply “have”.
Organizations, in general, are not “people”.
The rules of any such organization should apply only to the organization, and those currently within its wall.
Such rules cannot, without infringing on personal liberties, be made to apply outside such organizations, to other people.
As much as it pains me to say, “some” organization may be allowed to have its “members” agree to have their behaviors defined by those rules, on their own choice, outside of the walls of such an organization, but this should not apply to places of business – what you do when not working “for” a company is not their business.
In the case of actual businesses, history shows that they lack the ability to self regulate, without infringing on the rights and well being of either their employees or the general public. As such, regulation must exist to curtail their excesses and protect the life and liberty of the public. As such, the government cannot govern unless it can specify what companies can, or can’t, do, with regard to such issues requiring regulation.
I would also add, as contentious as it might be: 9. A government cannot govern so long as the money flowing into its hands comes from special interests, whose goal is to coach the government into service of organizations, including corporations, nor can it function on mere scraps from the table, offered up from those who can least afford to have those scraps taken from their own mouths.
and 10. No agency can function, or regulate itself, or the things for which is was created to govern, while starving of resources and staff. Thus a priority must be to making sure that “existing” systems are repaired and function, over the invention of entirely new ones, which are invented to attempt to badly address the results of those existing agencies/programs being intentionally starved to death.
I am sure there are others, and more “lawyerly” ways of scrambling the above ideas into something appropriately confusing, vague, and “politically speechified”, but I would say that, just from a basic stand point of what the Rethuglicans are not doing at all, and the DNC is ignoring, while just throwing a new study, or some new this, or that, at problems, and allowing everything to keep decaying in the process, it is a minimum.
And, honestly, the first bit, where you need to freaking know what the F you are talking about first would solve a lot of damn problems. Because, even the, supposedly, super liberal, pro-women, Kamala Harris fell for a half dozen bullshit, and since debunk, bits of nonsense, when voting “in favor” of some bills, and ended up “hurting” women instead, because she thought it would somehow help end “trafficking”. And, if you side, even by accident, with the bigots and women haters, and so called “moralists”, because you “feel” you are right, then you are not an ally to the people you think you are saving. You have to do what is right, and what actually works, not what, “feels like it might be right”. And, our side, far, far, too often, falls prey to this irrational sort of “solution”, out of a desire to solve things, just as much as the right does (and often for the same BS).
Progress isn’t progress, to be frank, if you wear a blindfold, while sailing, and fail to notice, as a result, that the current is dragging you backwards, despite how loud your engines are running. A representative that intends to make things better needs to be capable, and willing to question “if” they are being told the truth, even if what they are being told matches their own inclinations. Doing otherwise is what makes the GOP so f-ed up in the first place – the abject refusal to admit, accept, or even consider, anything that contradicts what they want to be true.
In this case, I think the British Tories are directly copying Republican tactics. Both parties are facing similar problems, in that demographics can be expected to make it increasingly hard for them to retain power by democratic means. As I noted on the previous thread, an absolute majority of those under 35 who voted, voted Labour (unfortunately, not enough of them voted at all); the Tory “victory” – which, as I also noted, depended on our undemocratic electoral system – also depended largely on those over 55.
Pete Buttigieg raised more than $24.7 million during the final three months of 2019, his campaign announced early Wednesday morning — cementing his standing as one of the fundraising leaders of the 2020 Democratic presidential race.
[…]
In all, Buttigieg raised more than $76 million from more than 733,000 individuals in the last year, his campaign manager Mike Schmuhl said in a memo. He said the campaign has used the money to build a staff of more than 500 people nationwide and open 65 field offices in early voting states.
Other candidates have offered clues about their fundraising in recent days.
In a rare move, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign publicly announced late last month that it had collected more than $17 million. Candidates typically keep those numbers private, but Warren’s campaign released an early number in a bid to encourage supporters to help her hit the $20 million mark by year’s end.
[…]
Anyone who tells you you have a choice in insurance is lying to you.
Wendell Potter, the former health insurance industry executive turned single-payer advocate, came clean in a Twitter thread last week about how the big lie in every healthcare debate in the last decade—choice in private insurance—came to be. He says that when he was in the industry, “we were instructed to talk about ‘choice,’ based on focus groups” […] Because what would motivate people the most against a change that threatens the profits of the entire industry—the threat that something was being taken from them. Even though almost no one actually does have free will when it comes to their private insurance or their health care.
If you have employer-based coverage, your company chose a handful of plans for you to pick from and it only had a handful of possible offerings. Within those plans, you are limited as to which doctors, or specialists or hospitals you can choose, those who are “in network” and have negotiated rates with insurers. What’s more, you employer can change offerings every year and your “choice” will have to change with it. […] So-called “churn” in health insurance and in the system as a whole is just a given. Everything changes all the time and that makes the individual’s choices in the system limited at best.
That’s the reality that Potter said they set out to “muddy.” He says they “spent millions on lobbying, ads and spin doctors—all designed to gaslight Americans into thinking that reforming the status quo would somehow give them ‘less choice.'” They created an industry front group that launched a campaigned called “My Care, My Choice” to push the myth to Americans that they have a choice and that reform of the system was going to take that away. After the Affordable Care Act passed, they morphed that front group to the “Choice and Competition Coalition,” to lobby states against creating their own insurance exchanges with multitudes of plans.
Here’s what’s particularly galling in all of this—under Medicare for All, you actually would have more choice. Every doctor and every hospital would be on your plan because there would be one, all-encompassing and generous plan. If doctors want to keep working and getting paid, they have to take patients. […]
[…] There’s not a person in this country who looks forward to open enrollment season and their chance to pour through page after page of incomprehensible industry-speak and fine print. And when a candidate—Democrat or Republican—tries to tell you the status quo is better because you’ll have “choice,” you’ll know you’re being conned.
Spanish-language journalist who was detained by ICE for 15 months wins settlements:
Manuel Duran, the Spanish-language journalist who was jailed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than a year after he was arrested by Memphis, Tennessee, police while covering a pro-immigrant protest, has won two settlements totaling nearly $20,000.
The Washington Post reports that Shelby County, which jailed Duran before he was thrown into federal immigration custody, has paid him $10,000, while the city of Memphis has settled for another $9,000. It’s an important victory for the journalist—but nowhere close to the justice he deserves.
[…] While charges related to the protest were dropped, he continued to remain in immigration detention. Advocates said at the time that his imminent deportation wasn’t just an effort to kick him out of the country: It was an attempt to silence him, because Duran’s media outlet had published numerous pieces critical of ICE.
The mass deportation agency has a sordid history of targeting critics. The Nation reported that the agency tracked pro-immigrant demonstrators last summer, even spying on an anti-racism rally […]
Back in Tennessee, Manuel was freed from ICE custody in July, and the court decision granting him a stay of deportation has given him precious time he needs to pursue his asylum claim. “Lawyers argue that conditions have worsened for journalists in El Salvador and Duran could be in danger if he returns,” The Washington Post continued. But he’s feeling hopeful. “I feel like I’m reborn,” he said following his release.
[…] “Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities,” Trump tweeted. “They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!”
Trump declared that the embassy in Iraq was safe thanks to the deployment of U.S. military resources and a “rapid response” from the Iraqi government.
He called the incident the “Anti-Benghazi” in a follow-up tweet, a reference to the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Libya in which two Americans were killed. […]
Iraqi security forces reportedly did not intervene to stop the demonstrators from advancing until a commander arrived and issued orders.
No U.S. personnel were reported harmed amid the demonstrations, and a State Department spokesperson denied that evacuations were taking place. […]
How can we possibly pick just one person to be Wonkette’s 2019 Legislative Dickheel Shitcanoe Of The Entire Year? It would seem like a daunting task, and that’s why we are a professional and you are not.
You might think it should be Jim Jordan (last year’s winner) or Devin Nunes or Doug Collins or Matt Gaetz or any of the other Republican […] on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees who showed their asses during the impeachment hearings […] But they also are all kind of interchangeable dumbshit white dudes who do and say all the same things. […]
You might think it should be Lindsey Graham, and TBH, maybe it should be.
But as this post is not a democracy, and we are the decider-in-chief of it, for our money it’s gotta be the guy at the very top of the Senate, the one who overall has the most power to fuck America for Donald Trump, and boy oh boy does he exercise that power.
That’s right, Moscow Mitch McConnell, you get a prize!
Let us briefly tick off three or four reasons why:
ALLLLLL THE BILLS (He Refuses To Pass)
Did you know that, in theory, the Senate is supposed to take up legislation the House passes, for the good of the American people? Instead, McConnell has bragged about how he will be the “grim reaper” for all those bills, because he will make them die. […]
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer commented to Vox in November: “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.”
And some of those bills specifically deal with election security, in order to make sure we have truly free and fair elections in America, which is against the GOP platform these days, so McConnell won’t even bring them up, which brings us to …
ALLLLLLLLL THE MOSCOW MITCH-ING!
There is a reason Moscow Mitch got his name. […]
February 26: Mitch McConnell SO MAD Democrats Forced GOP To Cheat In North Carolina Election
July 26: Senate GOP: We Don’t Need No F*ckin’ Election Security! Also Senate GOP: Here’s How Russia Attacked Us In 2016
July 30: MOSCOW MITCH MAAAAD!
August 15: Nancy Pelosi Calls Moscow Mitch By His Name
September 5: Today Would Be A Good Day For Moscow Mitch To Go F*ck Himself With A Russian Matryoshka Doll
September 20: Moscow Mitch Does Absolute Least He Can Do On Election Security, DO NOT CONGRATULATE
Links embedded in the Wonkette article back up the February to September list of egregious acts, (or failures to act), above.
This is happening against the backdrop of a president who fluked his way into office on the back of a Russian attack on the 2016 election, who has invited Russia to interfere on his behalf again, and who literally just was impeached for hitting up another country, Ukraine, to meddle in the 2020 election on his behalf, partially in order to damage a likely election opponent, Joe Biden, and also partially to scapegoat that country (and not Russia) for the 2016 election attack. […]
Know what Mitch McConnell has found time to do?
ALLLLLLLLLL THESE 24-YEAR-OLD BIGOT JUDGES CONFIRMED FOR LIFE!
Donald Trump has held up his end of the bargain with Republican voters who might otherwise mildly disapprove of his lying and adultery and potty language, by nominating every fucking unqualified idiot he can find to lifetime appointments in the federal judiciary, in order to finally achieve their dream of killing Roe v. Wade and (more of) the Voting Rights Act and just about every other terrible thing you can imagine. And Mitch McConnell’s Senate can’t seem to find a problem with any of ’em, no matter how bad they are. Here, read about one of ’em! […]
Supporters of an Iranian-backed militia ended their siege of thr U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
The siege […] ended Wednesday after the militia ordered them to withdraw, bringing relief to the diplomats trapped inside and averting a potential showdown between the United States and Iran.
Supporters of the Kataib Hezbollah militia who had spent the night camped outside the embassy dismantled their tents and marched out of the area, saying they would instead continue to press for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in the nation’s parliament.
“Yay! We burned them!” they chanted as they headed away from the embassy, a reference to the fires set by the demonstrators that burned two embassy reception areas Tuesday.
The retreat signaled an end to a crisis in which thousands of angry militia supporters attempted to storm the embassy Tuesday, protesting the deaths of 25 militia members in U.S. airstrikes Sunday. Those strikes were conducted in retaliation for the death of a U.S. contractor in a rocket attack the U.S. military blamed on Kataib Hezbollah. […]
[…] fresh U.S. troop reinforcements headed to the region. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division’s Immediate Response Force were en route to the Middle East, with additional soldiers expected to follow in the coming days. […]
The 2010s were a lost decade for climate. We can’t afford a repeat, scientists warn.
At the start of the last decade, Kallan Benson was 5 years old, her favorite story was “The Secret Garden,” and Earth was in the midst of its warmest year on record. Benson had heard about climate change (her mother is an environmental scientist), but she didn’t know world leaders had just signed an agreement calling it “one of the greatest challenges of our time.” She cared about Earth, but she trusted adults to protect it.
She doesn’t feel that way anymore.
By the final year of the decade, the planet had surpassed its 2010 temperature record five times. Hurricanes devastated New Jersey and Puerto Rico, and floods damaged the Midwest and Bangladesh. Southern Africa was gripped by a deadly drought. Australia and the Amazon are ablaze.
See comment 70 also, for additional information about fires.
Global emissions are expected to hit an all-time high this year, and humanity is on track to cross the threshold for tolerable warming within a generation.
The 2010s were a “decade of disappointment,” said Benson, now 15 and a national coordinator for the youth climate organization Fridays for Future. If the world is to stave off further disasters, the next decade must be one of unprecedented climate action, she said.
“This decade that we’re going into now will be the most important of our lives,” Benson said. “We’re kind of running out of options. And we’re running out of time.” […]
Excerpts from an article by Sheelah Kolhatkar, writing for The New Yorker:
[…] Abigail Disney is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, who founded the Disney company with his younger brother, Walt, in 1923 […] Abigail’s parents owned a Boeing 737, one of the largest private-aircraft models on the market, and they let her use it for family trips. […] One day, when her children were older, she took an overnight flight from California to New York, where she lives. She was travelling alone, but there was a full staff on duty to cater to her needs. As she got into the queen-size bed and secured the safety belt that stretched across the mattress, preparing to sleep for the next few hours, an unpleasant feeling came over her. “I couldn’t help thinking about the carbon footprint of it, and all the fuel,” she said. “It just felt so wrong.”
It wasn’t the first time that Abigail, who inherited part of her grandfather’s fortune, had experienced discomfort about her wealth […] She eventually stopped flying on the private plane, although it took a year or two. (“These things are hard to give up,” she told me.) […]
In 2011, she joined an organization called the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who are concerned about rising income inequality and who speak out in favor of policies traditionally considered to be antithetical to their economic interests. She […] promoted higher taxes on the wealthy. She told me that she realized that the luxuries she and her family enjoyed were really a way of walling themselves off from the world, which made it easier to ignore certain economic realities. […]
In March, 2018, she received a Facebook message from a custodian at Disneyland who was asking for help. He said that many workers there were barely able to survive on what they were paid, and that their union was fighting for a fifteen-dollar-an-hour minimum wage, without success. […] That year, the Walt Disney Company had reported almost thirteen billion dollars in profit; the night janitor was estimated to have been earning thirteen or fourteen dollars an hour. […]
Abigail had told the union representatives that she didn’t want her visit to attract publicity, so some of the workers were summoned to the office without being told whom they were meeting. They sat in a circle and talked about their economic struggles. A full-time hair stylist named Rebekah Pedersen told Abigail that she, too, had often slept in her car. Abigail recalled that a thirty-year veteran of the park said that she had also recently been homeless for a time, and that some of the workers said that they were on food stamps. […]
Abigail spent the next few weeks working on an e-mail to Bob Iger, the company’s C.E.O. The Walt Disney Company is one of the largest and most profitable media businesses in the world, and in 2018 Iger, […] received almost sixty-six million dollars in total compensation. That was more than fourteen hundred times the median pay of a company employee. […] Abigail found the pay ratio disturbing. “It is something that the whole country is engaged in—shaving every benefit off workers’ lives, making sure they are living as close to the bone as is humanly possible,” she said.
In the U.S., executive compensation has increased, on average, by nine hundred and forty per cent since 1978, according to one estimate; during the same period, worker pay has risen twelve per cent. Income inequality hasn’t been this extreme since the nineteen-twenties. A recent study by the economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that, as a result of cuts to estate and corporate taxes, as well as the 2017 G.O.P. tax bill, the four hundred richest Americans pay a lower over-all tax rate than any other group in the country. In a Times Op-Ed, Saez and Zucman wrote, “This is the tax system of a plutocracy.”
[…] Disney is one of the highest-profile figures in the Patriotic Millionaires, which now has more than two hundred members in thirty-four states […] the group’s mission was initially a simple idea endorsed by a half-dozen rich people: “Please raise our taxes.”
The members now have the broader goal of pressuring their wealthy peers to confront what they believe are the destructive effects of trickle-down economics—the idea, which has driven U.S. policy decisions for several decades and has largely been debunked, that reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy will benefit low- and middle-income workers. Members of the Patriotic Millionaires lobby lawmakers and affluent individuals to instead support policies that would, for instance, increase the minimum wage and raise taxes on corporations and the rich. […]
People who support tax cuts for high earners and reductions to social programs are “very deliberately attempting to create a permanent underclass,” she [Erica Payne, founder of Patriotic Millionaires] said. “You want people to suffer and die earlier, because your greed is more important to you than another human being.” […]
Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign shrugged off a health scare and took in more than $34.5 million in the fourth quarter, a massive haul in the final stretch before nominating contests start.
[…]
The total for the last three months of the year easily tops the money raised by Sanders’ rivals who have announced their fundraising.
[…]
Newly leaked emails from the Pentagon add to the pile of evidence showing that […] Trump himself ordered a freeze on U.S. money destined to Ukraine, which officials have testified was part of an effort to pressure Ukraine to do Trump’s political bidding.
The emails, which were leaked to Just Security, show communications between the Pentagon and the White House Office Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
For example, after a key meeting between the Defense Secretary and Trump on Aug. 30, two days after the aid freeze had become public, OMB political staffer Mike Duffey emailed the Pentagon.
“Clear direction from POTUS to hold,” he said.
The brief, explosive sentence was one of several emails detailing the President’s orders.
The White House blocked the documents from the House of Representatives’ impeachment probe. […]
Trump ordered the money frozen just hours after his infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he pushed Zelensky to dig up dirt in Ukraine on Trump’s Democratic rivals.
The next day, a read-out of a meeting between Ukraine-focused officials at the Pentagon made Trump’s orders clear — the freeze had come at “the President’s direction via the Chief of Staff in early July.” Defense Secretary Mark Esper read the read-out and “has no further questions,” Esper’s assistant emailed. […]
By Aug. 26, McCusker complained in an email that the budget office’s general counsel Mark Paoletta “appears to continue to consistently misunderstand the process and the timelines we have provided for funds execution.”
In an email the next day to Esper’s chief of staff, McCusker said “OMB lawyers continue to consistently mischaracterize the process — and the information we have provided. They keep repeating that this pause will not impact DOD’s ability to execute on time.”
In other words — the Pentagon was running out of time to spend the money before the end of the fiscal year. But when Politico finally revealed the aid freeze publicly in a Aug. 28 article, the White House budget office emailed talking points to staffers, including the line, “No action has been taken by OMB that would preclude the obligation of these funds before the end of the fiscal year.”
McCusker replied that it was “just not accurate from a financial execution standpoint, something we have been consistently conveying for a few weeks.” […]
“Do you believe DOD is adequately protected from what may happen as a result of the Ukraine obligation pause?” she asked, adding that she was “concerned we have not officially documented the fact that we can not promise full execution at this point in the [fiscal year].” […]
McCusker, who’d dealt with weeks of the White House’s orders not to release any Ukraine money, appeared dumbfounded.
“You can’t be serious,” she replied. “I am speechless.” […]
This is a big deal. Paoletta is OMB’s general counsel. He lied to facilitate the cover-up on the eve of an impeachment vote. He should be on the witness list for the Senate trial as well. Who directed him to lie? Barr?
—————–
“Who directed him to lie? Barr?”
since he’s OMB, it would be Mulvaney (or Duffey, on Mulvaney’s instructions)
———————
Gonna be fun to see how Judge Kollar-Kotelly is going to view DOJ’s compliance with her order requiring these documents to be produced under FOIA. The redactions are obviously bad-faith attempts to cover up Trump and Mulvaney’s responsibility.
————————
“When he responded on Sept. 9, Duffey tried to blame the Pentagon.”
Isn’t it cute that Duffey of the Wisconsin GOP could think that he could out maneuver the DoD?
————————
Given the DOJ’s choice of redactions, they certainly attempted to paint DoD as the bad actor.
I understand why JustSecurity did not post the unredacted emails as they were leaked, but that investigation is going to come.
[…] It’s not just what the President did. It’s that he did it in full view of basically all his key foreign policy advisors and no one stopped him or did anything about it. This is not only true of people who were deeply complicit, like Mike Pompeo. It is also true of apparent “good guys” like acting Ambassador Bill Taylor or NSC Eurasia Director Fiona Hill, though both made their views clear or made real efforts to stop what was happening.
[…] A number of players clearly weren’t happy about what was happening (Bolton, maybe Pompeo). Others knew it was wrong and tried to nudge the effort in a less damaging direction (Bill Taylor, maybe Kurt Volker). But at the end of the day, Trump was able to do the whole thing. No one resigned and the whole thing would have remained secret if not for the now-pilloried whistleblower. […]
The evidence that he [Trump] did it is clear, overwhelming, incontrovertible. So here we see it again with this Pompeo, Esper, Bolton meeting. They knew exactly what was happening. They may not have cared that it was wrong. But they did want the aid released to Ukraine. They actually made an effort, for whatever motive. Trump said no. And that was that. We can only imagine the things that have already happened that we still don’t know about.
[…] 207 members of Congress, including 39 Republican senators, have filed an amicus brief asking that the Supreme Court revisit and potentially end abortion rights, including Roe v. Wade. That’s not hyperbole. In specific, the lawmakers claim an “unworkability” of the “right to abortion” found in Roe v. Wade. The brief:
[…] respectfully suggest[s] that the Fifth Circuit’s struggle to define the appropriate “large fraction” or determine what “burden” on abortion access is “undue” illustrates the unworkability of the “right to abortion” found in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and the need for the Court to again take up the issue of whether Roe and Casey should be reconsidered and, if appropriate, overruled.
That Republican lawmakers would ask the Supreme Court to undo the key decision establishing abortion as legal […] is not surprising. Republican lawmakers have defended and enabled the corruption of the Trump presidency precisely because stocking the court with justices who would do so was considered more consequential than any law breaking.
But the brief asks that Roe v. Wade contains a Democratic name, as well. Illinois Rep. Daniel Lipinski, a staunch abortion foe no matter what those in his own district desire, also signed the request. His name appears alongside those of Republican brothers such as Rep. Steve King, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and Rep. Mark Meadows.
[…] “One of my greatest honors was to have gotten CHOICE approved for our great Veterans. Others have tried for decades, and failed!” tweeted the Idiot in Chief.
Not true. Not even close to true. CHOICE was signed by President Barack Obama. It was something the late Sen. John McCain was a bit proud of, as well; how very surprising that Trump’s still-bizarre memory lapses somehow manage to erase his declared enemies and re-imagine things so that TRUMP, in big gold letters, turns out to be the only relevant human in history.
Trump’s contribution was to sign a modification slightly decreasing wait times. It may or may not have been done with a Sharpie. Whether he is intentionally lying, is suffering from delusions brought on by his well-documented narcissistic obsessions, or his jumbled and conflated memories are a product of a slow slide into dementia is, as usual, not clear.
But this is how the year is going to go. With this possibly confused, definitely crooked, now-impeached personification of humanity’s worst faults lying constantly, about everything, as Republicanism continues to adapt itself into a vehicle for disinformation, propaganda, and crime-doing. Then there will be an election.
[…] Trump [goes to Mar-a-Lago] to play golf, but on Wednesday he was angry, angry at the “lamestream Media” for reporting that he played golf during the siege of the American embassy in Iraq. Trump repeatedly huffed that he did not play golf on Wednesday. Which would be easier to believe, had he not been pictured in golf clothes, riding in a golf cart, with his golf clubs. […]
Trump isn’t letting anything less than a full brink-of-war event interfere with his critical schedule of sending the Secret Service scurrying for balls in the rough. CNN is just one of several sources that tallied up Trump’s time on the course at the end of 2019 and found that he spent a good 20% of his time directly out there riding around in carts. That’s 252 days at a Trump golf course and 333 days at a Trump resort since taking office. Well before he finishes out year four, Trump will have taken a full year of vacation. […]
Trump loves going to Mar-a-Lago for a very good reason. He may not be able to attend a major sporting event, or visit any other public venue, without meeting a rousing chorus of boos, but he can always be sure of support from those he calls “his people.” The members of Mar-a-Lago are not there for a golf course that doesn’t even rate in the nation’s top 100. They’re shelling out a quarter-million a year for access. Trump makes absolutely no bones about giving them that access. […]
As Politico reports, Mar-a-Lago allows Trump to invite who he wants, and talk as he wants, without the “gatekeepers” of Washington. To liven up the 2019 holiday season, guests included child-murdering Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, whom Trump forgave even after members of his own team saw him convicted of war crimes. And of course Rudy Giuliani was there to chat with Trump about the trip to Ukraine that he conducted right in the middle of Trump’s impeachment in the House, and the ongoing effort to cook up some dirt that can be used against Joe Biden. And Giuliani wasn’t the only lawyer who got to exchange a “Happy holidays.” Trump supporter, and former attorney to Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz was also there to chat in the buffet line. Like Trump, Dershowitz is accused of not just being an acquaintance of Epstein’s, but taking part in his underage sex trafficking. […]
Mar-a-Lago, where everyone present knows that the reason they’re in the room is because they’re paying to be close to Trump, gives Trump exactly the ego-boost he wants. As one regular reports, “The people around him are increasingly the true believers and it’s almost like a religious revival when he shows up there. They jump up and down, they shout, they scream his praises.” [OMFG]
Mar-a-Lago is a Trump rally where Trump spends almost a third of his time in a golden bubble of screaming adoration from people whose morality perfectly aligns with Trump’s. Which almost certainly makes it far more dangerous to the United States than either the Kremlin or Pyongyang.
I say this without rancor. Even with empathy. This person is suffering some kind of neurological impairment. Whatever your politics, however opposed or supportive you may be, this shows a man needing serious medical evaluation & should not be in power.
Oh, no. Turkey is planning to send troops to Libya?
[…] Trump on Thursday warned his Turkish counterpart against sending troops to fight in Libya hours after the Turkish Parliament voted to authorize such a move.
Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed several “bilateral and regional issues,” according to a readout of the call released by the White House, as well as simmering tensions and ongoing instability in Libya that have been condemned by the top United Nations official there. […]
The offensive has split the international community: The rival regime led by commander Gen. Khalifa Haftar has been backed the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France and Russia, according to The Associated Press, while Sarraj’s government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
Erdogan and Sarraj recently signed a deal allowing Ankara to send military experts and personnel to the volatile region, the AP reported, and some in Turkey have argued that threats to the Libyan government could “spread instability to Turkey.” […]
Expect the price you pay for prescription drugs to increase:
Drug companies raised prices on a wide range of drugs to start the year, with an average increase of 5.3 percent so far […]
The drug price increases include some blockbuster drugs: the price of Humira, which treats arthritis and other conditions, rose 7.4 percent, and the price of Revlimid, which treats multiple myeloma, rose 6 percent, according to the data.
Drugmakers have traditionally raised prices at the start of a new year, and the data shows that the price increases are continuing, even as outcry over high drug prices rises in Washington. […]
Trump is messing around in AT&T’s business as a way of criticizing, and he hopes, damaging CNN:
[…] Trump is very mad about AT&T over CNN. The thousands of jobs it’s cutting, not so much.
The telecommunications giant, which acquired CNN through its $85 billion merger with Time Warner in 2018, has generated scrutiny among the press, organizers, and activists over job cuts it has made over the past several months. Most recently, Axios reported that thousands of AT&T workers were about to lose their posts after training foreigners in line to replace them this year. Trump has positioned himself as a job creator and a crusader against outsourcing, but when it comes to AT&T, he’s not saying anything — well, at least not about jobs. His focus is on his ongoing annoyance with CNN.
On Wednesday, three days after the Axios report, Trump took to Twitter to take a swipe at CNN after a supposed “ratings dive” and suggested parent-company AT&T “should make changes.” It’s not clear what specific changes he would want. […]
This is hardly the first time Trump has called for AT&T to do something about CNN — which presumably translates to shifting to coverage that’s more favorable to him. He spoke out against the AT&T-Time Warner merger from the get-go, and while there were plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose the deal — it marked a significant amount of consolidation in the media industry, and multiple lawmakers raised red flags about it — Trump’s animus toward CNN was evidently in play. He has called on AT&T to fire CNN chief Jeff Zucker, and over the summer, the president pushed for people to stop “using or subscribing” to AT&T in order to force changes at the network. […]
The president is normalizing conspiracy theories that portray his political opponents as satanist pedophiles.
[…] He broke personal records with the numbers of tweets he posted. And tweets he shared over the holidays indicate he’s feeling more shameless than ever about retweeting sketchy accounts that have promoted conspiracy theories portraying his political enemies as satanist pedophiles. […]
On December 27, the president attacked Sen. Bernie Sanders by retweeting an image of dog poop below a placard reading, “Bernie 2020: FREE SHIT.” […]
A cursory scan of the account Trump retweeted revealed some very sketchy characteristics. For one, its unwieldy handle — @DebPort03755076 — is the sort often used by bots. Second, the account was created just weeks ago and had relatively few followers (it has since been suspended), raising questions about how Trump came across the tweet in the first place. And third, during its few weeks on Twitter, the account had amplified content promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory, which, as Business Insider puts it, holds that “the world is run by a satanic cabal of elites and pedophiles led by Hillary Clinton and the so-called deep state, who Trump […] will eventually expose and defeat.” […]
Yes, Trump is retweeting disinformation from sketchy bots. Yes, Trump is retweeting stuff he has dredged up from the sludge on the internet.
[…] While we might hope that the president would do some basic vetting of the accounts he chooses to amplify on Twitter, a single mistake of this sort would be understandable. But Trump’s retweet was far from an isolated incident — on December 27 alone, he posted about 20 tweets from accounts that have promoted QAnon, including at least one from an account that also promoted the equally ludicrous Pizzagate conspiracy theory about Democrats running a sex trafficking ring out of a Washington, DC, pizzeria. […]
There are no good fact witnesses for Donald Trump. There’s no one he could send to Congress to vouch that his “perfect, perfect” shakedown call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and subsequent freeze on military aid to that country was totally kosher and only arose out of his deep-seated concern about corruption. It’s very clear why the White House stonewalled Congress and flatly refused to allow anyone to testify in the House impeachment inquiry. But it’s also clear that all their dirty, illegal shit is going to come out, and probably sooner rather than later.
To wit, Just Security’s Kate Brannen got hold of the unredacted version of emails released last month thanks to the Center For Public Integrity’s FOIA lawsuit. And SURPRISE!!!! it looks like Trump’s little helpers have been highly strategic with their Sharpies. Can’t let the public see an email saying, “Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold,” can we?
The White House has tried to present the freeze as a routine “pause” that was part of a regular and orderly process. Nothing to see here, folks! In fact, under all those black bars, the Defense Department accountants were flipping their shit at what they viewed as a dangerous and probably illegal seizure that had the potential to blow up in their faces if they didn’t get the money out the door and it wound up coming back to the Treasury.
As the New York Times reported, this all started back in June, when Donald Trump “discovered” the $391 million defense allocation for Ukraine in a Washington Examiner article and freaked out. He’d already signed bills in February 2019 and September 2018 authorizing it, but apparently it was news to him because … reading is hard. So (acting) Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney — who has refused to testify — called over to (acting) Office of Management and Budget head Russ Vought — who also refused to testify — and told him, “We need to hold it up.”
That same day, OMB’s National Security Programs chief, Michael Duffey, a political appointee, reached out to the Pentagon’s head accountant, Elaine McCusker, to determine the status of the DOD’s $250 million share of the Ukraine allocation. This began a months-long negotiation over the mechanics of the freeze, during which Duffey admonished everyone to keep it “closely held to those who need to know to execute direction,” theorized that Trump could simply withhold the money forever by shouting NATIONAL SECURITY, and threatened to blame McCusker if the whole thing went sideways and the money couldn’t be spent in time. […]
The Impoundment Control Act requires the president to promptly notify Congress and explain his reasoning if he decides not to spend money Congress has allocated. When career civil servant Mark Sandy objected to the hold over fears that it violated the law, Duffey seized control of the process. On July 25, 90 minutes after Donald Trump hung up the phone with Zelenskyy, Duffey announced the first of his “apportionment footnotes,” the mechanism by which he would withhold the money. […]
In the end, the whistleblower complaint forced Trump’s hand and the funds were released September 11. But not all of them, since McCusker wasn’t bluffing and DOD couldn’t get the last $35 million tranche out in time.
And this, right here, is exactly why Mitch McConnell isn’t calling any witnesses. Because if Democrats get McCusker and Duffey on the stand, they’re all up shit’s creek.
Classy as always, Elijah Cummings left a gift for poor kids in his will.
When Elijah Cummings died in October, his congressional campaign had about a million bucks in funds ready to go for his 2020 reelection campaign. And while it’s legal for campaigns of retired or deceased politicians to linger on for years, using unspent funds to influence future elections by supporting other candidates or political action committees, that’s not what’s going to happen with the money currently held by the Cummings for Congress Campaign
Committee. Campaign treasurer Ronald Thompson emailed the Baltimore Sun to let the paper know Cummings said he wanted the funds to go to programs for local youth, like helping poor kids pay for college.
The committee “is in the process of winding down operations,” Thompson wrote. “We contemplate that, in accordance with Congressman Cummings’ wishes, at the conclusion of this process, any ‘excess campaign funds’ will be transferred to educational and charitable organizations for the purpose of need-based college scholarships and youth leadership programs.”
That sounds like exactly the sort of thing Cummings, who went from being the child of sharecroppers to being a voice of moral clarity in Congress, would want. Even after he’s been gone for months, he can make us get a bit teary-eyed with his vision of an America that’s fairer and kinder for everyone. […]
And he’s on a mission to use the “authority” of the executive branch to stop it.
Why would a seemingly respectable, semiretired lion of the Washington establishment undermine the institutions he is sworn to uphold, incinerate his own reputation, and appear to willfully misrepresent the reports of special prosecutors and inspectors general, all to defend one of the most lawless and corrupt presidents in American history? And why has this particular attorney general appeared at this pivotal moment in our Republic?
A deeper understanding of William Barr is emerging, and it reveals something profound and disturbing about the evolution of conservatism in 21st-century America.
[…] In a Nov. 15 speech at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington, he accused […] Trump’s political opponents of “unprecedented abuse” and said they were “engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.”
[…] In his earlier stint as attorney general, during the George H.W. Bush presidency, Mr. Barr took on the role of helping to disappear the case against Reagan administration officials involved in the Iran-contra affair. The situation demonstrated that “powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office,” according to Lawrence Walsh, the independent prosecutor in that case. […]
Another view is that Mr. Barr is principally a defender of a certain interpretation of the Constitution that attributes maximum power to the executive. This view, too, finds ample support in Mr. Barr’s own words. In the speech to the Federalist Society, he said, “Since the mid-’60s, there has been a steady grinding down of the executive branch’s authority that accelerated after Watergate.” In July, when President Trump claimed, in remarks to a conservative student group, “I have an Article II where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” it is reasonable to suppose this is his CliffsNotes version of Mr. Barr’s ideology.
Both of these views are accurate enough. But at least since Mr. Barr’s infamous speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School, in which he blamed “secularists” for “moral chaos” and “immense suffering, wreckage and misery,” it has become clear that no understanding of William Barr can be complete without taking into account his views on the role of religion in society. For that, it is illuminating to review how Mr. Barr has directed his Justice Department on matters concerning the First Amendment clause forbidding the establishment of a state religion.
In Maryland, the department rushed to defend taxpayer funding for a religious school that says same-sex marriage is wrong. In Maine, it is defending parents suing over a state law that bans religious schools from obtaining taxpayer funding to promote their own sectarian doctrines. […]
In these and other cases, Mr. Barr has embraced wholesale the “religious liberty” rhetoric of today’s Christian nationalist movement. When religious nationalists invoke “religious freedom,” it is typically code for religious privilege. The freedom they have in mind is the freedom of people of certain conservative and authoritarian varieties of religion to discriminate against those of whom they disapprove or over whom they wish to exert power. […]
Using a U.S. military airstrike, Trump approved the killing of Iran’s Quds force at the Baghdad airport.
A top Iranian general was killed in an airstrike on Baghdad International Airport, a development that could skyrocket tensions in a region that has been roiled by a spike in violence this week.
Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was killed when Katyusha rockets hit the airport, The Associated Press reported, citing Iraqi TV and three Iraqi officials. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, was also killed in the attack. […]
Soleimani’s death could have widespread ramifications for the Middle East and Iran’s involvement in other country’s affairs. The general was involved in directing Tehran’s proxies in Syria and other countries in the region and began taking a more public role in Iran’s affairs, fueling speculation that he could rise in the country’s political ranks.
Soleimani’s activities throughout the Middle East made him a top target for criticism from Washington, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo comparing him to the founder of ISIS. The Quds Force which has been designated as a terrorist group since 2007, is estimated to have 20,000 members.
The nighttime attack on the airport came amid Iranian tensions with the U.S. after an Irani-backed militia stormed the American embassy in Baghdad, leading to a spike in security concerns and tensions between Washington and Tehran. […]
From the Washington Post: “Pentagon launched airstrike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, Defense Sec. Mark Esper says.”
BREAKING: Pentagon launched airstrike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, Defense Sec. Mark Esper says.
Esper said Thursday night that Soleimani was “actively developing plans” to attack US troops and diplomats.The killing of a senior figure linked to Tehran’s support for foreign proxy groups is certain to heighten tensions between the United States and Iran. This breaking story will be updated.
We now have apparent confirmation that the US mounted a retaliatory raid on a convoy in Iraq (unclear whether it’s a drone attack or missiles) that killed a leader of the Iraqi militia that menaced the US Embassy and critically also killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. There is apparent confirmation of Soleimani’s death on Iraqi TV. […] It’s chaotic and developing story. Perhaps we’ll new reports will change the picture. But it seems pretty clear that Soleimani is dead.
I hesitate to comment more than simply to say that this is a massive, massive escalation of the confrontation between the US and Iran. Soleimani is a very important figure in Iran. People will disagree about the wisdom of this action or its eventual consequences. But this is a big, big deal – a pandora’s box type escalation with consequences that are hard to predict.
This may well get lost in the shuffle because of the whole attempt to start a war with Iran (you think maybe Trump would stop if somebody pointed out that he’s doing what John McCain always thought was a good idea?):
The Trump administration will propose a new rule, as early as Friday, that would reduce the burden on local governments to meet their fair housing obligations, further scaling back civil rights enforcement.
Among the changes sought by the Department of Housing and Urban Development: redefining what it means to promote fair housing, eliminating the assessment used to examine and address barriers to racial integration, and encouraging cities to remove regulations that stand in the way of affordable housing, according to the proposed rule obtained by The Washington Post.
Fair housing advocates say the proposal reduces the financial pressure on local governments to end residential segregation and discrimination, as required by the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and is the latest erosion of Obama-era regulations designed to enforce the landmark legislation.
[…]
Thomas Silverstein, a fair housing attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said “discrimination and segregation will continue unabated when HUD doesn’t provide meaningful fair housing oversight of local governments.”
[…]
Trump briefed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and lickspittle Lindsey Graham ahead of the U.S. airstrike that killed Qassim Suleimani, but Trump did not brief Democrats.
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) railed against […] Trump for approving a fatal attack on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani without consulting Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he got a special early briefing while golfing with Trump in Florida.
“I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida,” Graham said Friday morning on Fox and Friends. “I appreciate being brought into the orbit.” […]
Graham was spotted golfing with Trump earlier this week at the President’s West Palm Beach golf club.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a member of the Gang of Eight, was not briefed on the attack before it happened, according to HuffPost. Pelosi is demanding a full congressional briefing before the administration makes any more moves.
This isn’t the first time Trump opted not to prepare congressional leaders before a highly sensitive strike. In October, he told the Russians — but not congressional leadership — about plans of the raid that culminated in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He made a crack at the time insinuating that he didn’t want congressional leadership to leak details of the plan.
The full Congress must be immediately briefed on this serious situation and on the next steps under consideration by the Administration, including the significant escalation of the deployment of additional troops to the region.
From Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (a known liar, like Trump):
I can’t talk too much about the nature of the threats but the American people should know that President Trump’s decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American live. No doubt about that. He was actively plotting in the region to take”‘big action,” as he described it, that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk. We know it was imminent. This was an intelligence-based assessment that drove our decision making process.
From Joe Biden:
This is a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region. […] Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox, and he owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep safe our troops and embassy personnel, our people and our interests, both here at home and abroad, and our partners throughout the region and beyond. We could be on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East.
From Elizabeth Warren:
Soleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans. But this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority must be to avoid another costly war.
From Bernie Sanders:
Trump’s dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars.
Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one.
Another Republican Congress critter, Phil Roe of Tennessess, has decided to retire. That brings the total number of Republican lawmakers giving up their seats before the 2020 election to 26. That’s three times the number of Democratic lawmakers retiring.
The White House can declare that the Quds Force was a terrorist organization. It can label Qassem Soleimani a terrorist. But attempts to paint his assassination on Jan. 3 outside the Baghdad International Airport as just another takedown of a terrorist leader, no different from the elimination of Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or many others, founder on a single point: Soleimani, Major General Soleimani, was also the head of the Iranian armed forces and a major figure in the government of a foreign power.
The operation to strike and kill Soleimani was planned days in advance. Donald Trump, along with everyone at the White House and Pentagon involved in the operation, was absolutely aware that this was an attack that risked involving the United States in a war against a country with the eighth largest official army on the planet. More than that: They had to be aware that the very thing they’ve accused Iran of again and again—the use of irregular forces around the globe to carry out military actions—meant that making the attack on Soleimani generated a threat to U.S. forces in Iraq, to American civilians everywhere in the Middle East, and to both American and allied assets around the world. […]
An new report indicates that Donald Trump’s loans from Deutsche Bank were backed by Russia.
[…] According to Forensic News, Trump’s loans from Deutsche Bank were underwritten by a Russian state-owned bank. That news reportedly comes from a whistleblower with access to documents from both Deutsche Bank and Russia’s state-owned VTB Bank. VTB Bank was also the proposed lender on the never-completed Trump Tower Moscow project.
The question of why Deutsche Bank would extend a series of huge loans to Trump has been dangling since before he ever announced his candidacy for president on a golden escalator ride. When Trump first went to Deutsche Bank, he was worse than broke. He had just finished bankrupting multiple casinos in New Jersey, and then had convinced investors to back a takeover of those casinos at a fraction of the original value. Then Trump deliberately allowed the investment group to go bankrupt so he could grab the whole deal himself at a fraction of what his investors had paid. Then he went bankrupt. Again. And along the way he was socked with a massive fine for money laundering at his now bankrupt (again) casino.
Trump was so fiscally radioactive that no American bank would let him in the door. But Deutsche Bank turned around and gifted Trump with loans that gave him a fresh start and an apparently miracle turnaround of his New York real estate empire. Those loans have always been the subject of head-scratching over just what Deutsche Bank could have been thinking. But if Forensic News is right, what Deutsche Bank was thinking was that it wasn’t risking a damn thing, because the Russian government was actually vouching for Trump through VTB Bank. If Trump didn’t come through, Vladimir Putin was offering to make it good.
The documents supposedly originated with the son of a former Deutsche Bank official who committed suicide, which is very much the kind of connection that raises concerns about the authenticity of the information. This only highlights the importance of efforts by Congress to gain access to information on these loans. The last appeals court ruling in the case instructed Deutsche Bank to turn over the information, but the Supreme Court stepped in to block the subpoena and hear the case. […]
this would show that Donald Trump was 100% dependent on the Russian government for his “big comeback.” It would mean that he was completely beholden to Putin for his real estate, for his golf courses, for his candidacy—for everything.
[…] nowhere was that praise more effusive than on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.
“This is a huge victory for American intelligence, a huge victory for our military, a huge victory for the State Department, and a huge victory and total leadership by the president,” Hannity, who was off for the evening, declared on Thursday during a phone-in appearance. Hannity’s guest host for the night, former Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), described the drone strike against Soleimani as measured and “proportional.”
Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary under George W. Bush and a leading figure behind the 2003 drumbeat to war in Iraq, also appeared on Hannity, where he predicted that Iranians are likely welcoming Soleimani’s killing, even as Tehran vowed retaliation. “I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani,” Fleischer said.
Oh, FFS. Ari Fleischer is delusional.
[…] While discussing the potential political and economic ramifications of Soleimani’s killing, Fox Business host Stuart Varney at one point appeared to suggest that impeachment proceedings against Trump should be halted. “Where does it leave impeachment? Varney asked. “Are we now going to try and impeach and remove from office the commander-in-chief who has just taken out one of the world’s leading terrorists?”
Akira MacKenziesays
Lynna @ 106
As I stated elsewhere, I had a taste of local Right Wing talk radio this morning and the hosts were practically climaxing over the airstrikes and the prospect of a new war with Iran.
Oh, FFS. Ari Fleischer is delusional.
Since Trump’s election, my RWNJ father has often (and loudly) claimed “Trump could cure cancer and the libs still want to impeach him!” Well, if he did something impeachable, FUCK YES!!! Why would curing cancer absolve you from crimes you’ve committed? Aren’t you the asshole who tried to raise me under absolutist Catholic moral dogma, Dad?
About 3,500 additional U.S. troops are now headed to the Mideast as Iran threatens retaliation. As expected. Sigh.
[…] The Pentagon said that it will deploy 3,500 additional troops to the Middle East after Iran vowed to exact “severe revenge” on the United States after a drone strike killed Qasem Soleimani, one of the country’s top military figures, early Friday near the Baghdad airport.
The targeted killing of Soleimani, a powerful figure among forces aligned with Iran’s Islamic Republic throughout the Middle East, increased tensions in the region and caused U.S. outposts and personnel to brace for retaliatory attacks. The attack also upset global markets and sent oil prices shooting upward. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad warned Americans in Iraq to leave “immediately.”
Iranian militias allied with Iran had been harassing U.S. forces in Iraq over recent weeks, including one attack on a base that killed a U.S. contractor. The United States has said that Soleimani was killed as he was planning new attacks and that […] Trump ordered the attack. […]
So far, no one, not one person in the Trump administration, has offered proof that Soleimani was planning new attacks, or that those attacks were “imminent” as Pompeo claimed. To be legal, such a assassination would have to be justified by proof of the imminent danger. There’s no proof. I think Trump and his lackeys are lying … or that they are, at best, exaggerating.
Soleimani has been a threat for decades. Why now? The timing is suspect.
No love from Russia:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that a drone strike that killed senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani was illegal and threatened Middle Eastern stability and peace.
“Lavrov emphasized that the targeted actions of a UN member state to eliminate officials of another UN member state, moreover, in the territory of a third sovereign state without its knowledge, flagrantly violate the principles of international law and deserve to be condemned,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Moscow urges Washington to abandon the illegal power methods to achieve its goals in the international arena and solve any problems at the negotiating table,” the statement said.
One of Rudy Giuliani’s best buddies when it comes to committing crimes in Ukraine, (or encouraging others to commit crimes in Ukraine), is Lev Parnas. Ever since he was arrested, Parnas has been cooperating with law enforcement, and he has been trying to give his iPhone and a lot of documents to the House Intelligence Committee. Now a federal judge has ordered that, yes, Parnas can give his intel to the House.
A federal judge allowed Giuliani associate Lev Parnas to hand over the contents of an iPhone and other documents to the House Intelligence Committee in a Friday morning order.
Manhattan federal district judge Paul Oetken granted an unopposed request from Parnas to share the contents of the iPhone that Parnas was carrying at the time of his October 2019 arrest in a jetway at Dulles Airport on campaign finances charges. Parnas will also be allowed to share documents that the FBI seized from his home.
Parnas and his longtime associate Igor Fruman face charges related to an alleged scheme to funnel foreign money and excess contributions into GOP campaign coffers.
Since his indictment, however, Parnas has shared some of what he knows with the public through his attorneys, saying he feels slighted after Trump claimed not to know him. Parnas had spent the past two years with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, helping the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York make contacts in Ukraine in a bid to generate political information helpful to President Trump.
Along the way, Parnas was hired by Ukrainian gas billionaire Dmytro Firtash. Prosecutors said that Parnas received a $1 million unsecured loan from Firtash’s attorney in September 2019.
Both Parnas and the House Intelligence Committee have said that the south Florida businessman has produced documents to the impeachment inquiry.
Joseph Bondy, Parnas’s attorney in the case, tweeted that his client would continue to petition the judge to allow him to transfer information to the House as the government continues to produce more evidence before trial. […]
On Friday morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was out to cheerlead in the wake of U.S. airstrikes that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. The action, said Pompeo, was in response to “imminent threats to American lives”; however, Pompeo would not describe those threats and, as of 1:30 ET, has still not explained those threats to Congress.
What Pompeo would say is, “The world is a much safer place today. I can assure you that Americans in the region are much safer.” Which is why the State Department has just released a security alert saying, “Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region,” American citizens are urged to “depart Iraq immediately.” As an even greater example of safety, the instructions are to “depart via airline while possible, and failing that, to other countries via land.“ Depart via airline while possible?
Actually, it may have already been impossible by the time the bulletin was issued. Royal Jordanian Airlines announced early on Friday that it had stopped all service between Amman and Baghdad “in light of the security situation.” And Bahrain’s Gulf Air has also suspended all service to Baghdad “until further notice due to safety.” Taken together, that would be half of the regular daily flights into Baghdad International Airport. At the time of this writing, Qatar Airways and British Airways still have scheduled departures for Friday evening. For those not lucky enough to snag one of the remaining flights, the opportunity to escape “to other countries via land” means a several-hundred-mile journey to Jordan or Saudi Arabia, or about an 80-mile jaunt from Baghdad to Iran.
For Americans who were thinking they might seek shelter at the embassy, think again. The State Department instructs that “U.S. citizens should not approach the Embassy.” Because that’s how much safer things are after Soleimani’s death.
Pompeo also said that the assassination of Soleimani was an attempt to “de-escalate the situation.” So maybe it will all look better if it’s given a little time. A little patience. […]
“We tell everyone be patient to see the dead bodies of Americans all over the Middle East,” says the new commander of the Iranian Quds Force Ismail Qaani.
[…] in order for this strike to be legal without congressional authorization, it would have to be in response to an imminent threat to the United States […]
Based on the preponderance of evidence that I’ve seen and my own understanding of how Iran and Soleimani work, it’s rather unlikely that he was signing off on an operation that was immediately going to target Americans as he was driving back from the Baghdad airport for meetings. Now, that is my definition of imminent, but other experts will disagree.
I’ll say this, though. Many of the people who have shaped our legal understanding of “imminent” over the years understood it to mean that the threat was unfolding right now and there’s no time to do anything other than to kill the person.
The Soleimani killing doesn’t appear to meet that threshold. […]
I am not so sure we can separate the legal discussion from the political discussion. We are, for better or worse, at a point where the majority of lawmakers have basically acquiesced to the administration’s interpretation of the law when it comes to war, and again, this goes back to the George W. Bush era. So if that’s the case, then eventually the law becomes whatever the current administration says it is. That’s where we are. […]
there were several AUMFs but none of them, in any way, were directed at Iran. Each of them very clearly gave the executive branch the power to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and later, ISIS in Iraq. And in fact, Iran has been on our side in the fight against ISIS and the Taliban. So there’s just no plausible legal justification under which you could stretch any of the AUMFs to include an attack on an Iranian official. […]
If the Iraqi government asked America to kill someone on its soil, and for whatever reason felt it was incapable of doing the job itself, then perhaps that’s permissible under domestic and international law. But simply having troops stationed in a country doesn’t give us blanket permission to kill anyone we feel like killing. And it’s also worth noting that Congress has approved a mission to fight ISIS in Iraq, not to kill Iranians. […]
Neither Congress nor the Iraqi government authorized the administration to target Soleimani. […]
So, Trump has spoken. To my ear, this sounds like the usual trumpian gaslighting:
[…] Trump accused Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani of plotting “sinister attacks” against U.S. personnel in the Mideast before a U.S. airstrike killed him.
“We took action last night to stop a war,” Trump said during remarks made from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “We did not take action to start a war.” […]
Since long before he was a politician, he’s lied frequently and even written in multiple books about his profound belief in the value of lying as a means to get ahead. And he’s good at it. After his Atlantic City casinos went bust, he successfully duped a bunch of mom-and-pop equity investors out of their money to get out of debt and had them pay him a salary for the privilege. He then got himself elected president and immediately started bullshitting about everything from the size of his inaugural crowds to the way NATO works to Chinese currency manipulation. […]
Part of Trump lying about everything is that he frequently says things specifically about Iran that are not true…. Trump, from time to time, even lies about his own past statements on Iran, spending one day last September complaining that the media reported he’d said he was willing to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions when he clearly said in both an interview with Chuck Todd and a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte that he was willing to meet without preconditions.
The point is that the probative value of a Trump statement about Iran is, to be generous, roughly zero. And Pompeo is no better…. Pompeo, too, engages in routine misstatements about Iran specifically, including lies about Iranian nuclear research.
This is important both because Pompeo has become the public face of the administration on this issue, and because though Pompeo does not engage in the range of dishonest statements that Trump does, his more focused dishonesty does include the policy topic at hand. […]
Remember Paul Manafort, currently in prison, previously Trump’s campaign manager? His name comes up again in today’s news. He is newly relevant thanks to the release of 356 pages of FBI interview notes from the Mueller investigation. As it turns out, and as has long been suspected, Manafort was deeply involved in the very beginnings of Trump’s pressure/bribery/extortion campaign against Ukraine.
[…] Over the course of two interviews on Sept. 11 and 12, 2018, Manafort ran prosecutors with the special counsel’s office through his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate of his from Kyiv who the FBI has described as having ties to Russian intelligence. […]
According to the notes from the interview, Manafort told the Mueller team about a meeting he held with Kilimnik in Madrid in February 2017.
At the meeting, the document says, Kilimnik updated Manafort “on the work of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, information from a ledger found with Manafort’s name written in it” as well as activities of the country’s then-President Petro Poroshenko. […]
These items came to be at the center of the pressure campaign launched by President Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani has said that he began to “look into” allegations of wrongdoing surrounding the Democratic Party and Ukraine because of the Manafort case in 2017. Much of that — both for Giuliani and the wider landscape of Trumpworld — focused on an allegation that the “ledger” which forced Manafort to resign as campaign chairman in August 2016 was fabricated, and part of a campaign by the Ukrainian government to hurt Trump.
The ledger was being investigated by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, an institution set up to be an independent graft prosecutor by the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. NABU’s involvement in Manafort’s downfall has become a pillar of theories that the Obama administration conspired with Ukraine to hurt the Trump campaign.
Key to Trump and his allies’ sense of grievance is that the New York Times quoted NABU officials in its August 2016 story breaking the news that Manafort’s name appeared next to $12.7 million in payments on the ledger. The NABU officials told the newspaper that Manafort’s name appeared on the ledger, fueling suspicion that the Ukrainian government was trying to tip the race towards Hillary Clinton.
The Mueller 302 reports summarizing interviews suggest that Manafort himself was interested in the theory, and was relying on his own contact in Kyiv to learn more.
Giuliani would later investigate the allegations himself, and reportedly was in contact with Manafort’s attorneys about the theory as part of a bid to defend his own client: […] Trump.
[…] The document suggests that Kilimnik assuaged any worry Manafort may have had about being prosecuted in Ukraine.
By spring of the following year, Ukraine general prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko had reportedly frozen the investigations into Manafort.
The special counsel’s office later accused Manafort of lying about other portions of the February 2017 Madrid meeting, saying that the longtime GOP consultant lied about whether he and Kilimnik discussed a “peace plan” that could bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
Mitch McConnell has been insulting Nancy Pelosi. Ditto for Trump. Today, Pelosi issued a statement:
In December, the House upheld its Constitutional duty to defend democracy For The People, honoring the vision of our Founders for a Republic. In an impeachment trial, every U.S. Senator is required to take an oath to “do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.’”
For several months, the House has subpoenaed documents and witnesses which the President stonewalled. These cases are now in the courts. While the House nevertheless was able to obtain compelling evidence of impeachable conduct, Leader McConnell knows full well that the President’s obstruction of the House impeachment inquiry is unprecedented and in defiance of our system of checks and balances.
Today, Leader McConnell made clear that he will feebly comply with President Trump’s cover-up of his abuses of power and be an accomplice to that cover-up.
Leader McConnell is doubling down on his violation of his oath, even after the exposure of new, deeply incriminating documents this week which provide further evidence of what we know: President Trump abused the power of his office for personal, political gain.
The American people deserve the truth. Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the President or the Constitution. The GOP Senate must immediately proceed in a manner worthy of the Constitution and in light of the gravity of the President’s unprecedented abuses. No one is above the law, not even the President.
[…] She called him [McConnell] an “accomplice” in Trump’s cover-up, one who will “feebly comply” with the president’s ongoing criminal enterprises like some common trained seal flunky.
[…] Pelosi also sticks to the larger message that McConnell violated his Senate oath when he went on Fox News and promised the president a sham trial. She also leans on Republican senators to choose between Trump or their dignity. Most Republicans, like Lindsey Graham, already made their choice, but Pelosi clearly isn’t listening to the simpering advice of flakes in the media or her own caucus who say Democrats should just accept that Republicans are corrupt and go home. The Republican-controlled Senate might eventually clear Trump but they can’t clear themselves. She’s going to embarrass them like Chuck Schumer never could.
Thank God and not Tim Ryan that Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House. She’ll fight Trump all the way to the Senate, and she’s not afraid of Mitch McConnell.
Wonkette’s Doctor Zoom discussed Elizabeth Warren’s plan to help people with disabilities.
Elizabeth Warren keeps cranking out the policy proposals, because she has this funny notion that ideas matter, and being able to put them into action does too.
Her latest proposal takes on rights and equality for people with disabilities, which only sounds like a niche issue to people who’ve never tried to get around with a wheelchair or a walker or […] Like all of Warren’s plans, it’s an impressive look at how the machinery of government can be used to make life better and fairer for everyone […] And just like her other plans, this proposal is designed to work as a blueprint for governing, whoever the nominee is.
[…] the depth of research and awareness of unmet needs is impressive. […]
In one brief paragraph, Warren and her policy team call attention to several interlocking instances of why this all matters:
Right now, people with disabilities are excluded from economic opportunity and denied financial security. Adults with disabilities are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as those without a disability. The unemployment rate of people with disabilities seeking employment is also more than twice the unemployment rate of individuals with no disability – and Black and Native American people living with disabilities have the lowest rates of employment. Those that are employed are more likely to have part-time and hourly jobs, subjecting them to abusive scheduling practices, no benefits, and inadequate leave policies.
Warren points out that seriously outdated policies allow some employers to get away with paying workers with disabilities absurdly low wages, citing a 2013 NBC News investigation that found Goodwill Industries paid some workers with disabilities as little as 22 cents an hour, and some franchises paid even less, as low as four cents an hour. Yes, in this century. And it’s still legal under the loophole in employment law the company exploited. […]
As with some of her other plans, Warren would make sure the government workforce promotes inclusion and diversity. She notes that:
When President Obama prioritized recruiting and hiring individuals with disabilities for federal jobs, he was able to raise the level of people with disabilities in federal service to 14% of the overall workforce. […]
To make the economy work for people with disabilities, we must also take aim at the ways that the financial industry targets people with disabilities, who can face higher risks of identity theft, financial abuse, and financial fraud, as well as limited incomes, making them less likely to be banked and more likely to borrow from payday lenders.
[…] Warren would also overhaul outmoded eligibility rules for the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, since in their current form, they can trap people in poverty by eliminating all benefits if someone has income over a certain threshold; the same bureaucratic rules can keep people from marrying. […]
Yes, she goes into quite a bit of detail on the kinds of aides and resources needed, from elementary classroom aides to programs to help high schoolers transition to college or work.
And here’s one more thing that’s only surprising for half a second, and then you say, Oh shit, that’s not right:
The high school graduation rate for students with disabilities is still 18 points lower than the graduation rate for students without disabilities. And even among students with disabilities, there remain substantial racial gaps in graduation: whereas 74% of white students served under IDEA received a high school diploma in the 2016-2017 school year, only 70% of Latinx students with disabilities and 64% of Black students received a diploma.
[…] reversing the Trump/DeVos gutting of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which eliminated discrimination by refusing to notice any. […]
If companies that used government funding to develop their products are unwilling or unable to offer key assistive technologies at reasonable prices, my administration will use its authority […] to license patented innovations to companies that will ensure that technologies are available to the public on reasonable terms.
[…] Warren wants to make sure having a disability isn’t treated as a crime. How about training cops so they won’t shoot deaf people for “failing to comply” when cops shout orders? And how about we fully fund mental health care so cops are no longer America’s “de facto first mental health providers”?
And again, there are the stats we didn’t know about:
People who are incarcerated are three times more likely to report having a disability, and while incarcerated, individuals with disabilities often lack access to critical health and mental health services, as well as necessary accommodations.
Why yes, those problems are worse in private prisons. For fuckssake.
Thirty years ago, 60 activists set aside their wheelchairs and other assistive devices and crawled up the steps of the US Capitol to demand passage of the ADA. It’s kind of criminal that even now, there’s so much more that needs doing.
United Methodist Church Divorces Itself Over Same-Sex Marriage
For years, the United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant denomination in America and the third largest in the world, has been arguing about the role of LGBT people in its church. This week, that argument has been settled as they have officially decide to split the church into two separate denominations: One that accepts gay people, performs same-sex weddings, and permits LGBT clergy, and another, for the homophobes.
Last year, they held a conference to decide what to do about same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy. Should they allow them? Should they let individual churches decide which way they they wanted to go? They had a vote, and to the surprise of many, the plan that eventually won out was one that would not only ban both same-sex marriage and LGBT ordination, but also would institute harsh penalties on churches and clergy that refused to go along and be bigots with them. While the “traditionalists” in the church were very happy about this, many others were not. And who can blame them?
[…] The penalties for not being crappy to gay people were set to go into motion this week, but on Friday, after much deliberation and mediation, the church decided to split from itself.
Now the normal Methodists will be in the United Methodist Church and the “Straight Methodists Only!” people will have their own special “Traditionalist” church, to be officially named later. Those churches will continue to oppose same-sex marriage and to pretend that none of their clergy is gay. […]
According to those who devised the plan, it is: “the best means to resolve our differences, allowing each part of the Church to remain true to its theological understanding, while recognizing the dignity, equality, integrity, and respect of every person.”
That seems like a really nice and churchy way of putting “it was just easier to let the homophobes go.” […]
On March 4, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in one of the biggest cases of the new year: the challenge to the constitutionality of a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have the right to admit patients at a nearby hospital. Four years ago, the justices struck down a similar law from Texas, by a vote of 5-3. But the court has changed since then…
[…]
Yesterday the federal government weighed in, in a “friend of the court” brief in which it urged the justices either to throw the case out or, alternatively, to allow the admitting-privileges requirement to stand. And if necessary, the federal government told the justices, the Supreme Court should overrule its 2016 decision in the Texas case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which the federal government had argued in support of the abortion providers.
[…]
Not that I want to encourage anything so drastic as actual optimism, but the GOP 5 @ SCOTUS may save the world if they over-reach and provoke a strong pro-choice backlash persisting through November (but only if we still have elections then).
It has been reported that Boris Johnson, who has been celebrating the new year on the private Caribbean island of Mustique, was unaware that the attack was due. The prime minister made no immediate comment.
The Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, known as a Brexit hardliner, has urged de-escalation on both sides. But if Trump gets into a war with Iran, he and Johnson will face a crisis far beyond their experience, and in my view, their competence. Along with “Geting Brexit done”.
It has been reported that Boris Johnson, who has been celebrating the new year on the private Caribbean island of Mustique, was unaware that the attack was due. The prime minister made no immediate comment.
The UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, known as a Brexit hardliner, has urged de-escalation on both sides. But if Trump gets into a war with Iran, he and Johnson will face a crisis far beyond their experience, and in my view, their competence. Along with “Geting Brexit done”.
Thin-skinned and ultra narcissistic Trump ordered airstrikes in part because he was disappointed with media coverage of the fact that he halted an airstrike against Iran last year.
[…] According to a Washington Post report Friday night, after Trump was told at Mar-a-Lago that Soleimani was going to Baghdad — which senior officials viewed as a way to taunt the U.S. — calls between national security principals were set up by Vice President Mike Pence throughout the week after initial plans were made Sunday to kill Soleimani, a senior administration official told the Post.
The Post reported that officials then reminded Trump that he failed to respond after Iranians mined ships, downed a U.S. drone and allegedly attacked a Saudi oil facility last year. The officials argued that the time is ripe to act now to send Iranians a message that they can’t “get by with anything.” […]
Officials told the Post that Trump was also compelled to authorize the Soleimani strike due to what he viewed as negative coverage that ensued after his decision last year to call off the airstrike targeting Iran. Additionally, Trump held frustration over the details of his internal deliberations leaking out — which he felt made him look weak, […]
And there you have it. Trump is so weak that he is deathly afraid of he will “look weak.” And, so, the U.S. goes to war to salve Trump’s ego.
Trump also wanted an opportunity to make Obama look bad, (or so he thought in his twisted, barely functional mind), by comparison.
Lawmakers and aides who have spoken to Trump told the Post that the President’s fixation on Benghazi and the Obama administration’s response to it also played a role into his decision.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the Post in an interview that when he went to Mar-a-Lago on Monday, he could tell that “Benghazi has loomed large on his mind.” […]
Pompeo is complaining that the U.S.’s European allies have not backed up Trump’s latest stupid move in the Middle East:
During an appearance on Fox News […], Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw European allies under the bus for not coming around to President Trump’s authorization of the strike that killed top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani.
When Hannity asked Pompeo what other countries have been telling him after the strike that killed Soleimani, the secretary of state said that he’d been “talking to partners in the region” which has been “fantastic.” [Saudi Arabia?]
“I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance,” Pompeo said. “They’ve all been fantastic.” […]
“Frankly, the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be,” Pompeo said. “The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did — what the Americans did — saved lives in Europe as well.” […]
“Qassem Soleimani and his IRGC led assassination campaigns in Europe,” Pompeo said. “This was a good thing for the entire world and we are urging everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do: To get the Islamic Republic of Iran to simply behave like a normal nation.”
Earlier Friday, Trump attempted to justify his decision to authorize the strike that killed Soleimani by arguing that the move was intended “to stop a war.” The President’s comments came after the State Department urged all U.S. citizens in Iraq to depart the country immediately as the region braces for possible retaliation from the Iranian military. […]
It finally arrived. Not the New Year, rather the moment we have all been bracing for when Donald Trump would take unilateral and irrevocable military action that likely puts America on the path to another intractable war.
It’s a horrific redux of the haunting preemptive strike doctrine we have been paying for in blood and treasure ever since the last Republican president led us into a conflict that continues to this day. […]
They have yet to provide any real rationale for assassinating a top Iranian commander other than flimsy claims of an “imminent” attack on U.S. diplomats and soldiers in the works. No one briefed Congress in advance […]
“We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” Trump said, repeating claims of “imminent and sinister attacks” without providing any evidence. No administration official has even come close to explaining the “Why now?” of assassinating Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. He’s been on America’s radar for two decades and yet two presidents, Bush and Obama, opted not to kill him for the very reason that doing so might spiral into an endless conflict with Iran.
If it all weren’t so terrifying and consequential, it would be amusing. Apparently, every single person in the Trump administration is suffering from some kind of crippling brain disorder. Trump is precisely the least credible person on earth to make the case for escalating tensions with Iran […] Did they forget that lies spout from Trump’s lips like a city fire hydrant loosed in the blistering summer heat? In fact, when times are tough and the politics are dicey, you can absolutely count on Trump to lie (see: health care policy, personal taxes, hush money payments, Russian collusion, Russian interference, Putin convos, firing Mueller, North Korea denuclearization, Mexico border wall funding, Hurricane paths, tariffs/trade wars, Puerto Rico relief, the Bidens, and Ukraine, just to name a few). […]
As former Florida Congressman David Jolly noted on MSNBC Friday, Trump not only lies, he’s not temperamentally fit enough to be trustworthy in a moment of true national crisis.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are reportedly “relishing the optics” of Democrats’ push for a fair trial of Trump, whom Republicans have now elevated to wartime president status in their own minds. […]
Americans do usually rally around a wartime president, and Trump may manage to eke out a small bump in approval ratings from his military intervention. But Trump isn’t just any president—he is an eminently untrustworthy human being. […]
You can’t lie your ass off, rage against everything and everyone, toy with starting a war for reasons no one can explain, and not suffer a point or two at the ballot box—points Trump simply cannot afford to lose. That’s especially true when your incompetence leads to the betrayal of one of your biggest campaign promises—ending endless wars. Voters went to the polls in record numbers in 2018 to put a check on Trump, electing an historic number of Democrats to the House. Trump is once again reminding those voters just how imperative it will be to boot him from office once and for all in November.
It raises the question of whether Congress will intervene if military tensions escalate.
I just filed a resolution to prevent Trump from starting a war with Iran. The President wants to pretend that Congress doesn’t exist, but it’s our clear Constitutional duty to debate and vote before allowing him to rush into an unnecessary war.
Another consequence of Trump’s ill-considered actions:
NATO suspended its training mission in Iraq, the alliance said Saturday after a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad.
NATO has been advising the Iraqi defense forces on how to keep ISIS from regaining strength. However, those “training activities are temporarily suspended,” NATO spokesman Dylan White said in an emailed statement. […]
Remember what Ari Fleischer said: “I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani.” [delusional asshat]
Fact:
Thousands of mourners chanting “America is the Great Satan” marched in a funeral procession Saturday through Baghdad for Iran’s top general and Iraqi militant leaders who were killed in a U.S. airstrike. […]
The mourners, mostly men in black military fatigues, carried Iraqi flags and the flags of Iran-backed militias that are fiercely loyal to Soleimani. They were also mourning Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi militia commander who was killed in the same strike.
The procession began at the Imam Kadhim shrine in Baghdad, one of the most revered sites in Shiite Islam. Mourners marched in the streets alongside militia vehicles in a solemn procession.
The mourners, many of them in tears, chanted: “No, No, America,” and “Death to America, death to Israel.” Mohammed Fadl, a mourner dressed in black, said the funeral is an expression of loyalty to the slain leaders. “It is a painful strike, but it will not shake us,” he said. […]
On Saturday, billboards appeared on major streets in Iran showing Soleimani and carrying the warning from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that “harsh revenge” awaits the US.
Iranian state television also aired images of a ceremony honoring Soleimani at a mosque in the Shiite holy city of Qom, where a red flag was unfurled above the minarets. Red flags in Shiite tradition symbolize both blood spilled unjustly and serve as a call to avenge a person who is slain.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Soleimani’s home in Tehran to express his condolences.
“The Americans did not realize what a great mistake they made,” Rouhani said. “They will see the effects of this criminal act, not only today but for years to come.” […]
Illustrating Soleimani’s regional reach, Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, including the territory’s Hamas rulers, opened a mourning site for the slain general and dozens gathered to burn American and Israeli flags.
Ismail Radwan, a senior Hamas official, said the killing of Soleimani was “a loss for Palestine and the resistance.” […]
The New York Times’ first opinion editorial about war with Iran is by a guy who said there were no downsides to invading Iraq.
At 10 a.m. EST on Friday, the New York Times published its first op-ed about the United States airstrike that killed Iranian paramilitary commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, an attack that effectively constitutes a declaration of war against Iran. […] The piece describes Soleimani’s assassination as “long overdue,” asserting that his death will “make Iran much weaker” and create “hope” among Iranian dissidents and anti-Iranian factions in Iraq and Lebanon.
The author of the op-ed is Michael Doran […] Doran worked at the National Security Council and Pentagon during the presidency of George W. Bush. And as it just so happens, Bush also launched a war by promising that an operation against a Middle Eastern leader would eliminate threats to the the United States and create a domino effect of democratic reform. One of the threats Bush cited, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, turned out not to exist. Another, al-Qaida, never had a connection to Saddam in the first place, although his downfall cleared the way for a branch of the group to begin attacking U.S. forces in Iraq. That branch eventually became ISIS. Democracy did not spread through the Middle East.
Doran […] made arguments advancing the Bush-Cheney party line in a January/February 2003 Foreign Affairs op-ed and a May 2003 Council on Foreign Relations debate.
In the former, Doran dismissed the “chorus of voices” from “European and Arab capitals” that argued that deposing Saddam would trigger a regional backlash that could “wreak havoc on American interests.” In fact, he wrote, by “thwarting Saddam’s ambitions and continuing to root out [Osama] bin Laden’s henchmen and associates,” the U.S. would “demonstrate forcefully that challenges to its authority in the region will be defeated.” This, he said, would deter other Middle Eastern groups considering attacks against American interests. […]
Doran’s Foreign Affairs piece about why invading Iraq would not create a regional backlash against the United States was reprinted contemporaneously in the New York Times, which has now printed his new piece celebrating military action against one of the regional powers that was drawn to Iraq to attack U.S. forces after the invasion.
Space is presumably already reserved for his next article, in 2037, which will justify the invasion of Lebanon.
OMFG! Really? Vice President Mike Pence falsely linked Soleimani to 9/11 in an attempt to justify the Trump-approved assassination.
[…] Pence defended […] Trump’s decision to authorize a drone strike that killed Iran’s top intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani, in a series of tweets that pushed a conspiracy theory that ties the Sept. 11, 2001 attack to Iran even though there is no proof to make that connection.
[…] Pence called Soleimani “an evil man who was responsible for killings thousands of Americans.” The vice president went on to say that Soleimani “assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.” It is far from clear how Pence made that conclusion that is not supported by what is publicly known about both Soleimani and those who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. […]
it is also unclear how Pence can assert that Soleimani assisted the attackers in the first place. Even though he was already a powerful military leader in 2001, Soleimani isn’t mentioned once in the 9/11 Commission Report.
One thing the report does point out though is that “there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.” But the report also says there is “no evidence” that Iran or Hezbollah were aware of plans for the attack. The Post explains what Pence’s tweet could be referring to and why it is misleading:
Basically, it boils down to this: Iran adopted a policy of not stamping visas on al-Qaeda members’ passports, […] “Such arrangements were particularly beneficial to Saudi members of al Qaeda.” The hijackers essentially exploited a known policy.
So it’s technically correct to say that Iran “assisted” in their travel, but the impression could be left that it was knowingly assisting in what became the 9/11 attack.
Even if you want to make an argument that somehow Iran assisted the attackers though, Pence went beyond that and specifically said it was Soleimani who gave that assistance. When Pence’s office was asked for clarification, it referred to a document that once again refers to the way the Sept. 11 attackers traveled to Iran, but fails to mention Soleimani at all.
There’s also a small detail that raises questions about Pence’s statement. Soleimani was a Shiite, so why on earth would he come to the aid of a Sunni extremist group that had clear ties to al-Qaida? Soleimani even cooperated with the U.S. government briefly after Sept. 11, 2001 to target the Taliban in Afghanistan.
So what was behind the statement? It could simply be a way for the vice president to justify the assassination in a way that could appeal to the American public. But some experts say it could go beyond that and may be an effort to make the argument that the killing of Soleimani falls under a 2001 authorization for the use of military force that was approved by Congress. That broad law authorizes the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”
Extraordinarily, Johnson has remained silent and on holiday following the assassination of Soleimani. Almost before he’s got his feet under the table, he’s faced with a crisis right outside his experience, and I’d say, his competence. Various Tory ministers have been urging restraint on both sides, but the events reveal starkly how little the UK and Johnson count for in Washington.
Tim@130,
Well, it’s just about the only type of crime he hasn’t tried yet, so I suppose it’s natural for him to want to branch out. I suspect he’ll be a natural at war crimes, too.
Saadsays
It won’t be treated like a war crime if he does it.
lumipunasays
Americans, don’t export any more freedom to Middle east! You’re gonna face a domestic shortage.
Yes, Trump is publicly tweeting about committing war crimes.
[…] Destroying a country’s sites of cultural significance is classified as a war crime by not only the United Nations and the Geneva Convention, but also by Trump’s own Department of Defense per section 5.18 in its Law of War Manual.
The U.S. is on the brink of a full-scale war with Iran after Trump authorized a drone strike on Iraq’s Baghdad International Airport last week to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, a top general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Trump insisted he ordered the assassination to “stop a war” and that he has a “deep respect for the Iranian people.”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper claimed on Friday that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” he said.
Some media outlets are using headlines that say “52 sites,” and not “cultural sites.” This is unfortunate. We have to stress that Trump is talking about targeting cultural sites, as well as other targets in Iran. Also, Trump’s language that uses phrases like “hit them hard and fast” is an escalation.
The Trump tweet in question:
Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.
Predictable result of Trump throwing another tantrum:
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told parliament that Iraq’s government must establish a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops “for the sake of our national sovereignty.” His recommendation follows a U.S. strike that killed Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, and a key Iraqi leader of Iran-backed militias. “What happened was a political assassination,” Mahdi said of the strike. “Iraq cannot accept this.”
Ill just not that Putin wants US troops out of Iraq.
From the readers comments (link to article is in comment 137):
the Times is reporting that the air strike was presented as the worst option in a range of possible responses, and that’s the only one he wanted.
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I can’t wrap my head around what possessed these advisors to dangle that bait in front of him.
Or why they claim they were stunned he took it.
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I know! We’ve heard stories that critical info was held from him in briefings, because he’s such a blabbermouth. Why wasn’t this?
I wonder if his so-called WH advisors or other bad actors were whispering sweet nothings into his ear.
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If the Iraqis kick us out we’ll be humbled before the world. It’s a brilliant stroke, and we damn well brought it on ourselves.
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Ah, the second coming of ISIS at the behest of Little Donnie pitching a fit and showing the world he is a BIG man.
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David Corn (DavidCornDC)
.@realDonaldTrump found a novel way to withdraw US troops from Iraq and essentially hand over the country to Iran. Can’t wait to see how all those GOPers who once attacked Obama for pulling troops out of Iraq react to this. @LindseyGrahamSC, what say you? https://t.co/oKduKUl9cK
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Make American Genocidal Again.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Retweeted Donald J. Trump
This is a war crime. Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children – which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites – does not make you a “tough guy.” It does not make you “strategic.” It makes you a monster.
It is basically impossible to think that President Trump’s decision to authorize the dramatic assassination of Qasem Soleimani wasn’t influenced his looming impeachment trial. But we’re also getting more detail now on the precise chain of events leading up to it. […] The upshot is that the claim of disrupted future attacks was thin at best, inferences drawn from Soleimani’s travel itinerary placed in the context of the shadowy game of tit for tat the two countries have been playing for the last year.
From a different perspective, this is the kind of assemblage of evidence that gets made after you make a decision – justification rather than actual reason. […] this is after the fact justification meant to put the operation on a better legal and political footing.
Military advisors will present a President with a range of possible options [Trump went for the “far out option”] This apparently prompted a rushed and somewhat chaotic chain of events because the US didn’t know at that point precisely where Soleimani was or who he was with.
We know that Trump was chilled or highly defensive about claims that the Embassy attacks would or could be “another Benghazi”. That clearly seemed to play into this decision. […]
So big picture is that this does appear to have evolved out of an at least somewhat conventional military/policy-making process, to the extent those still exist in the Trump administration. But it saw the President opting for the most aggressive option given to him. And, as I said, I don’t think you can separate that from the domestic political situation in the United States.
Unnamed senior officials insist that they were “stunned” when Donald Trump decided to kill Iranian Major General Quassem Soleimani, as the attack was never considered a serious suggestion, the New York Times reported Saturday evening. As Mark Sumner noted earlier in the day, officials had previously described the deadly airstrike as the “far out” option, but the Times’ latest reporting notes that that the hit on Soleimani was not pitched to Trump as a viable course of action. Instead, the “most extreme” deed was intended to be a spoonful of sugar to nudge Trump towards better choices.
American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to […] Trump.
They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.
The “menu” of options was first presented to Trump at Mar-a-lago one day after the Dec. 27 military base attack that killed an American contractor, and included “strikes on Iranian ships or missile facilities or against Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq.” Pentagon officials “tacked on” the Suleimani hit, the Times reports, “mainly to make other options seem reasonable.” […]
“We will be bold in protecting American interests. […].”
[…] When asked about the tweets on CNN’s State of the Union, Pompeo backed the president. “The American people should know that we will not waver,” he said. “We will be bold in protecting American interests, and we will do so in a way that is consistent with the rule of law.” When host Jake Tapper asked about the potential violation of international law, Pompeo did not express concern over the chosen cultural site targets. […]
Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence reportedly had been among the most hawkish in their encouragement of the strike. […]
Hillary Clinton warned us all that an unstable reality TV host would make a piss-poor commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military. Unfortunately, she shrunk the testicles of insecure men in the rust belt, so here we are. Donald Trump, flush from killing Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, tweeted threats at Iran yesterday like a drunk-dialing Dr. Evil. Duck and cover, y’all. […]
See, this is why Kamala Harris wanted to take Trump’s Twitter away and send him to bed without his dessert. The fool’s playng the dozens with Iran on social media. He even has WARNING in ALL CAPS so Iran knows he’s serious. It’s bonkers. This ain’t how you foreign policy. It’s not even how you mobster. Cobra Commander at least took the time to broadcast his maniacal threats on live television in a freshly pressed super villain suit. Our so-called president just tweets out deranged gibberish […] Forget extorting Ukraine. This alone is the kind of crap presidents get impeached over in saner countries. Here, it’s another Saturday in the park. […]
Trump isn’t just playing 52 pickup. Iran held 52 Americans hostage in 1979, and Trump or either the morons surrounding him believe Iran will shiver from all the symbolism. Of course, deliberately targeting a nation’s cultural sites is a war crime. This isn’t some new snowflake theory. The precedent was established during the Civil War. We yelled at Nazis in Nuremberg for this crap. Trump obviously possesses neither the moral core nor working knowledge of the law to comprehend the flaws in his mad scheme.
However, wrecking buildings of cultural importance is old hat for Trump. Also back in 1979, Trump razed the Bonwit Teller building so he could construct that grotesque monument to his vanity, Trump Tower. The classic art deco building was built by the same architects who designed Grand Central Station. The top of the building featured two stunning limestone reliefs of dancing women that Trump promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its sculpture collection. Instead, he jackhammered them into oblivion […]
I’ve had a chance to check in with sources, including two US officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani. Here is what I’ve learned. According to them, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is “razor thin”.
In fact the evidence pointing to that came as three discrete facts: a) A pattern of travel showing Suleimani was in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq to meet with Shia proxies known to have an offensive position to the US. (As one source said that’s just “business as usual” for Suleimani)
More intriguing was b) information indicating Suleimani sought the Supreme Leader’s approval for an operation. He was told to come to Tehran for consultation and further guidance, suggesting the operation was a big deal – but again this could be anything.
And finally, a) and b) were read in the context of c) Iran’s increasingly bellicose position towards American interests in Iraq, including the attack that killed a U.S. contractor and the recent protest outside the American embassy.
But as one source put it a) + b) + c) is hardly evidence of an imminent attack on American interests that could kill hundreds, as the White House has since claimed. The official describes the reading of the intelligence as an illogical leap.
One official described the planning for the strike as chaotic. The official says that following the attack on an Iraqi base which killed an American contractor circa Dec. 27, Trump was presented a menu of options for how to retaliate. Killing Suleimani was the “far out option” […]
Another predictable result of Trump’s latest temper tantrum: “Iran announces it is suspending all commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal.”
BREAKING: Iran’s government said Sunday it was taking its final step away from the accord it negotiated with world powers, including the United States.
It plans to abandon limits on uranium enrichment, research and development and its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Iran will continue to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
For years, US tensions with Iran have held to a kind of brinksmanship. But the drone assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, widely understood to be the second most powerful figure in Iran, has dangerously escalated tensions. The world now awaits Iran’s response, which seems likely to make new use of a tool that the country has already been deploying for years: its brigades of military hackers.
In the wake of Thursday’s strike, military and cybersecurity analysts caution Iran’s response could include, among other possibilities, a wave of disruptive cyberattacks. The country has spent years building the capability to execute not only the mass-destruction of computers but potentially more advanced—albeit far less likely—attacks on Western critical infrastructure like power grids and water systems. […]
Iran has ramped up its cyberwar capabilities ever since a joint US-Israeli intelligence operation deployed the malware known as Stuxnet in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in 2007, destroying centrifuges and crippling the country’s nuclear efforts. Iran has since put serious resources into advancing its own hacking, though it deploys them more for espionage and mass disruption than Stuxnet-like surgical strikes. […]
The most likely form of cyberattack to expect from Iran will be the one it has launched repeatedly against its neighbors in recent years: so-called wiper malware designed to destroy as many computers as possible inside target networks. Iran has used wipers like Shamoon and Stone Drill to inflict waves of disruption across neighboring countries in the Middle East, starting with an attack in 2012 that destroyed 30,000 Saudi Aramco computers. In 2014, Iranian hackers hit the Las Vegas Sands corporation with a wiper after owner Sheldon Adelson suggested a nuclear strike against the country. More recently, Iran’s hackers have hit private-sector targets in neighboring Gulf states like the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, as well as Saipem, an Italian oil firm for whom Saudi Aramco is a major customer.
“From what we know to date of their capabilities, they’re still really focused on IT-targeted wipers.” says Joe Slowik, an analyst at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos […]
Dragos and other cybersecurity firms like FireEye and CrowdStrike have recently observed Iranian hacking groups like APT33, known also as Magnallium or Refined Kitten, looking for points of ingress into potential targets in the US, including the Department of Energy and US National Labs. […]
[head/desk] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to blame Barack Obama for Trump’s escalation of war with Iran.
[…] “Jake, we’re trying to restore deterrence that frankly is a need that results directly from the fact that the previous administration left us in a terrible place with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Pompeo told CNN’s “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper.
[Pompeo] said the Obama administration had “appeased Iran,” which he claimed “led to Shia militias with money, Hamas, the [Palestinian Islamic Jihad], hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed by Soleimani himself.”
“This was the place we find ourselves in when we came in,” Pompeo said.
He accused Obama of being too soft on the Iranians by entering the U.S. into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aka the Iran nuclear deal, from which the Trump administration withdrew as part of its “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran. […]
The blame game continued during Pompeo’s other morning show appearances.
“We’re trying to correct for what was the Obama administration’s appeasement of Iran,” he said during an interview with “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos. “And we have to-we have to do that. We have to continue to do that, or Americans will be less safe.”
“The risk of terror is increased by appeasement,” Pompeo told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” anchor Margaret Brennan. “That’s what the Obama-Biden administration did. It’s what President Trump will never do, Margaret.”
“What we are now having to correct for is the enormous economic activity that took place during this Iranian nuclear deal that President Trump rightly got out of in May of 2018,” he said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd. […]
“It may be that there’s a little noise here in the interim, that the Iranians make the choice to respond,” Pompeo told Todd. “I hope that they don’t. President Trump has made clear what we will do in response if they do, that our response will be decisive and vigorous, just as it has been so far.” […]
Liar! There was no need to exit the JCPOA -none. What a sane administration would have done is gather allies and begin negotiation on the other issues wrt Iran’s adventurism. The Iranian people were extremely upset with the government, Soleimani and the economy before Trump exited the JCPOA. Unfortunately, this administration made Soleimani a martyr and has for now united the factions in Iran against the U.S. This is the height of stupidity and Pompeo needs to be out on his ass tomorrow.
Authoritarianism, and the rise of a dictator, just took another step in Venezuela.
The government of President Nicolás Maduro staged a de facto takeover of Venezuela’s legislature on Sunday, swearing in its own candidate as head of the National Assembly in a move apparently orchestrated to rob international credibility from Juan Guaidó, who had led the body and has staked a rival claim as head of state.
[…] Opposition officials declared the move an effective “parliamentary coup” meant to consolidate Maduro’s near-dictatorial powers.
“Today, they dismantled the rule of law, assassinating the republic, with the complicity of a group of traitor lawmakers,” Guaidó told reporters outside the parliamentary building.
The replacement of Guaidó amounted to a bait and switch. On Sunday, he began the day anticipating his reelection as head of the National Assembly, viewed internationally as the last democratic institution in the authoritarian South American state. Guaidó’s claim as the nation’s true president — recognized by nearly 60 countries, including the United States — has been based on his status as the assembly’s chief.
But security forces loyal to Maduro formed a cordon around the assembly building in central Caracas, blocking opposition lawmakers — who control the chamber — from entering. Lawmakers who back Maduro — including several allegedly involved in a government plot to buy votes — were allowed to pass. At one point, Guaidó sought to scale the spiked wrought-iron fence surrounding the assembly, trying to force his way in and shredding the jacket of his business suit. […]
And, of course, the criminals are taking over as if they were legitimate politicians:
[…] At the same time, Luis Parra — a former opposition politician who was one of several lawmakers accused last month of accepting government bribes — announced his surprise candidacy against Guaidó on Twitter on Sunday morning. Hours later, his swearing-in was suddenly shown on state television. […]
[…] Lawmakers joined protestors at the demonstration organized by dozens of advocacy and Jewish community groups chanting “No hate, no fear, our Jewish families are welcome here,” as they marched across lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Images and video clips shared on Twitter showed thousands of people coming out in support of the protest of the rise in hate crimes against Jews. […]
Trump is still blustering and posturing on Twitter:
The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation!
They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!
Things beyond Johnson and Raab’s competence? Now there’s a hole with no bottom.
Given that Trump is well-known for holding grudges, I think that the chances of the UK getting a “special deal” with the US — which Johnson has always claimed would happen — came to a definite end when Johnson mocked Trump at NATO.
@#124, Lynna, OM:
This is nothing new — look how long the Vietnam war went on because both major parties feared that admitting defeat would have made us “look weak”. Or how we’ve persistently built up our useless and dangerous nuclear arsenal because dismantling even a portion of it would make us “look weak”. Or how Democrats have voted for all those military budget increases and wars because voting against them would “let the Republicans say we’re weak” (as though that stopped the Republicans!). If anything, this is another piece of continuity with pre-Trump policy.
@#130, Lynna OM:
I didn’t know Joe Biden was writing for the NY Times. Oh, wait, that’s right, after thirteen years he finally admitted that invading Iraq was a bad idea, and now he’s bashing Trump with it.
@#134, a_ray_in_dilbert_space:
Trump has already committed war crimes, repeatedly. (Just for a start, the treaties we signed at the end of World War II make it a war crime to shelter a war criminal, and Trump didn’t hand over anybody from the Bush or Obama administrations for war crimes trials. But he’s also done a bunch of the usual more active stuff since then.) If the US cared about war crimes, Trump would have been gone pretty quickly… but then, if we cared about war crimes, there hasn’t been a president in my lifetime who wouldn’t have been on trial at the very least, and probably locked away where the dogs don’t bite.
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!
“Disproportionate”! Sheesh.
And no, I don’t think Trump just announcing this part of his shitstorm on Twitter is “legal notice.”
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 152: …I don’t think Trump just announcing this part of his shitstorm on Twitter is “legal notice.”.
Consider it a revival of the Nixon Doctrine: if the president does it, it’s legal.
The Iraqi PM has said that Soleimani was invited to Iraq specifically at the request of Trump, to mediate a deal with the Saudis and reduce tensions. (Mentioned briefly in this NPR report, and some more details in this Twitter thread.) (Sorry, just using links which I found conveniently elsewhere; Google can probably pop up more if you’re interested.)
KGsays
Sorry for the repetition upthread – #122 and #123 didn’t appear to post when I submitted them. UK Foreign Secretary Raab has now been slapped down for daring to deviate from a straight pro-US line on the assassination.
Former national security adviser John Bolton said Monday that he is “prepared to testify” if called as a witness by the Senate… “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify.”
Apparently, a Senate subpoena is more powerful than a House subpoena.
Bolton’s Monday statement only referred to his willingness to testify in the Senate and did not address how the former national security adviser would respond to a House subpoena if one were issued.
When asked whether Bolton would testify if subpoenaed by the House, his lawyer, Charles Cooper, responded by directing reporters to the statement Bolton posted earlier Monday. Cooper declined to provide more information.
Commentary on just why it is that our European allies are not cheering Trump’s undiplomatic moves in Iraq, and in reference to Iran:
[…] our European allies partnered with the United States on the international nuclear agreement with Iran; they held up their end of the bargain; and they helped ensure that the JCPOA policy was a success. When Donald Trump signaled his intention to abandon the agreement, our European allies took a variety of steps to make the American president happy, strengthening the deal in order to secure the Republican’s support.
Trump blew then off, ignored their efforts, and rejected the effective policy for reasons he struggled to explain.
When European leaders scrambled to salvage a working agreement with Iran, the Trump administration threatened our allies with sanctions.
Months later, when Trump moved forward with a dangerous new policy that created new national security risks for our allies, the White House didn’t bother to give them a heads-up. And now they’re not being “helpful”? Imagine that.
Pompeo apparently wants everyone to know he’s disappointed. It’s a safe bet that there are officials in London, Berlin, and Paris who are feeling the same way.
Julian Castro endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren for president this morning. Castro ended his own campaign last week.
There is one candidate I see who is unafraid to fight like hell to make sure America’s promise will be there for everyone.
No one is working harder than you are, not only in meeting people but in listening to people. And also bringing the goods, saying, “OK, this is what I’m going to do about it.”
Just to round up and summarize the effects of Trump’s ill-considered mission to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani:
Shiite politicians in Iraq passed a resolution urging the Prime Minister to rescind Iraq’s invitation to U.S. forces. (Kick U.S forces out of Iraq, in other words.)
Iran announced that it was ending its commitment to limit enrichment of uranium … no more nuclear deal. (Our European allies had been trying to hold that agreement together in spite of Trump having walked away from it earlier.)
The American-led coalition to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria has halted that fight in order to prepare instead for retaliation that is expected to come from Iran.
American citizens have been evacuated from Iraq.
Iranian citizens, who had previously been demonstrating in favor of greater democracy and/or freedom in their country, are now solidly in support of Iranian leaders and government officials. Trump’s actions united them.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are seriously worried. Saudi diplomats are in Washington D.C. now, trying to tamp things down, trying to prevent war.
Putin received a bounty of presents: a further weakened U.S./Europe alliance; more pressure to remove U.S. troops from the Middle East, which makes more room for Russian influence; more divisive attitudes within the U.S. population; and a strengthening of goodwill between Russia and Iran.
More proof that Trump is a dolt.
Trump’s reputation with our European allies sunk even lower.
More American troops deployed to the Middle East.
Akira MacKenziesays
Details are forthcoming, but Reuters is reporting that U.S.-led coalition tells Iraqi military it will withdraw from Iraq out of respect for the nation’s sovereignty.
I’m inclined to think that John Bolton’s statement that he would comply with a subpoena from a Senate impeachment trial is largely meaningless. First of all, it only matters if he is in fact subpoenaed by the Senate — which is the whole question currently being debated. There’s little sign that this contingency will ever come to pass.
[…] The more interesting question is why Bolton felt the need to say this at all. It is certainly being seen by commentators as a big deal. And it could perhaps add some pressure to Senate Republicans. But that’s really a political question. And as for what Bolton is trying to accomplish, I’m really not sure.
I think Bolton is teeing up sales orders for his upcoming book. I also think Bolton feels relatively secure in the idea that there won’t be 4 Republican senators who break ranks from Mitch McConnell and vote to have witnesses testify in Trump’s impeachment trial.
John Bolton correctly acknowledged that he needs to comply with a Senate subpoena to compel his testimony, if issued. It is now up to four Senate Republicans to support bringing in Mr. Bolton, and the other three witnesses, as well as the key documents we have requested to ensure all the evidence is presented at the onset of a Senate trial.
From Adam Schiff:
Bolton is an important witness to misconduct involving Ukraine that he called a “drug deal.”
Bolton refused to testify in the House, following Trump’s orders.
Now he is willing to come forward. The Senate must allow testimony from him, Mulvaney and others. The coverup must end.
Schumer’s full statement:
Momentum for uncovering the truth in a Senate trial continues. John Bolton correctly acknowledged that he needs to comply with a Senate subpoena to compel his testimony, if issued. It is now up to four Senate Republicans to support bringing in Mr. Bolton, and the other three witnesses, as well as the key documents we have requested to ensure all the evidence is presented at the onset of a Senate trial. Given that Mr. Bolton’s lawyers have stated he has new relevant information to share, if any Senate Republican opposes issuing subpoenas to the four witnesses and documents we have requested they would make absolutely clear they are participating in a cover up.
From the readers comments:
Sneed [Tierney Sneed, author of the article] says “Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has countered that the Senate should follow the example of the Clinton impeachment trial, where decisions on witnesses weren’t made until after the Senate had finished the initial stages of the proceedings.”
This is disingenuous. Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno, appointed an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, to investigate the Clintons’ business deals. There has been no DOJ investigation into Trump’s Ukraine extortion scandal and Trump has completely stonewalled the impeachment. Since these two impeachments are not the same, the proceedings cannot be the same and still be fair.
———————
All of the witnesses in the Clinton [case] had already testified and given sworn statements in the House impeachment hearings and that information was relayed as part of the impeachment articles to the Senate. McConnell is attempting to distort the truth again and if we don’t fight back with how the Clinton impeachment really went down then who is going to get the truth out […]
Donald Trump Junior posed with an assault rifle that referenced the Crusades, and that also featured the Hillary Clinton “lock her up!” image on the ammunition clip.
[…] “Inspired by some of the most fierce warriors who fought in nearly 200 years of epic conflicts known as the Crusades,” a description from the company reads. “This lower honors the warrior mindset. Technology evolves, warriors never change.”
The “Hillary for Prison” magazine, sold by Spike’s Tactical, shows Clinton peering out from behind prison bars. The product riffs on the “lock her up!” chant Trump popularized as a 2016 candidate for president. It’s since become an all-purpose meme, applied to other rivals of Trump’s like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
The receiver, which features a Jerusalem Cross, resembles the “great helm” helmets worn by the Christian soldiers as they went to battle in the Middle East. A Rare Breed Firearms video introducing the product a year ago featured audio of solemn Latin chanting. The company also sells Crusader shirts and stickers. […]
A disturbing photo is available at this TPM link, and on Junior’s Twitter feed, to which I will not link.
[…] As Josephine Livingstone noted in The New Republic last year, “the chivalric paraphernalia of the Crusades has been repurposed by Trump-supporting hate groups, while rightwing terrorists, from Anders Behring Breivik to the Christchurch shooter, have used their manifestos to bemoan Muslim ‘invasions’ of white culture. The KKK’s newsletter is called The Crusader.” […]
Yep. More white supremacist paraphernalia in Junior’s hands.
The first-blush reactions to John Bolton saying he will testify if subpoenaed in a Senate impeachment trial were understandably skeptical. The GOP controls the Senate and has shown no appetite for subpoenaing new witnesses, after all, so it may mean next to nothing.
But even if his Senate testimony may still be a long shot, what about potential testimony in the House?
[…]
Constitutional scholar Heidi Kitrosser of the University of Minnesota said this could make it much more difficult for Bolton to fight a potential House subpoena.
“By stating that he would testify if the Senate subpoenas him, Bolton has effectively waived any argument against testifying should the House subpoena him,” Kitrosser said. “Bolton had no plausible claim for absolute immunity from showing up to testify in the first place. But even if he previously had such a claim, there is no plausible basis on which it would apply only against a House subpoena and not against a Senate subpoena.”
[…]
So, subpoena him already. What are they waiting for?
[…] Merely calling Trump Jr.’s post insensitive hardly gets across the severity of the situation. Jared Yates Sexton, an author and political analyst, used more certain terms to describe Trump Jr.’s recent social media imagery on Twitter Monday. “All right. Let’s talk about Donald Trump, Jr. posing with a gun adorned with crusader iconography as America teeters on the brink of a religious war, why the imprisoned Hillary Clinton image plays into apocalyptic white identity Christianity, and how this country got so screwed up,” Sexton tweeted.
Kelsey Atherton, a military tech blogger at C4ISRNET, gave his own take on the concept in a tweet Monday: “In light of Don Jr.’s ‘my divorce is going fine, thank you’ assault rifle, time to dust off this history of Tacticool that I co-wrote with @iboudreau for @waypoint back in March 2018.” “We are living in the age of tacticool, and the AR-15 pattern rifle is the weapon of the age,” Atherton and cowriter Ian Boudreau wrote in the piece.
It’s unfortunate that while people like Trump Jr. are quick to boast about big guns and casually make light of death, the thousands of people who die as a result of gun violence each year in this country seldom attract a blink of their gun-enamored eyes. American troops, apparently, get the same lack of consideration. […]
On Sunday afternoon, […] Trump achieved what might be the apex of a weekend full of reckless Twitter diplomacy. As best I can tell (bear with me, it’s a weird one, folks): The president went to Twitter…to tell Congress…that he can attack Iran…without its permission (?)
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!
Setting aside the fact that these assertions are based on a backward reading of the Constitution (Congress gives the executive branch the “legal notice” to declare war, not the other way around), what are we even supposed to make of memos to Congress delivered via Twitter? What if some lawmakers are practicing mindfulness in the new year and turned off their notifications? What is a “Media Post?” What the hell is any of this?
Yesterday, Trump tweeted that he was contemplating some international war crimes. Today, his brain is just leaking onto his phone keyboard. […]
An update on Trump’s mistreatment of immigrants who are seeking asylum:
[…] Officials received guidance indicating Mexican asylum-seekers were to be included in a controversial program that began sending asylum-seekers to Guatemala in late November […]
Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli said in December that Mexicans would be included in the program.
While the program was originally planned for just the El Paso, Texas, area, it was extended to the Rio Grande Valley. Forty-three asylum-seekers from El Salvador and Honduras have been deported to Guatemala as of late December, […] the plan was initially supposed to only apply to adults but was expanded to include families on Dec. 10.
[…] advocates and asylum officers [said] that sending the asylum-seekers to Guatemala is not legal and could put them in jeopardy.
Migrants go through interviews with asylum officers, in which they have no access to legal counsel, that will determine if they can be deported to Guatemala, […] The asylum-seekers need to outright say they are afraid of persecution or torture in Guatemala and prove that is “more likely than not” to happen in order to avoid being deported, it added.
[…] Last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. was planning to send asylum-seekers to Honduras, regardless of whether they were from there, to prevent them from making claims to stay in the U.S. […]
[…] Former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller tells me, “There is no legal difference between a subpoena issued by the House and one issued by the Senate, and if Bolton is willing to comply with one, the same should be true for the other.” He adds, “As a political matter, however, it probably makes sense for the House to delay any subpoena to keep the pressure squarely where it belongs — on Senate Republicans.” Vowing to call Bolton in the House could actually make the pressure that much more intense.
Matters never should have gotten to this point. The bogus assertion of “absolute immunity,” already knocked down in the case of former White House counsel Donald McGahn by a district court judge, does not give current or former administration figures the right to avoid showing up or the administration the right to withhold documents and instruct witnesses not to testify. […]
In Virginia we may be seeing a preview of what will happen if Republicans lose a lot of political races in 2020.
Gun rights advocates and militia members from around the country are urging thousands of armed protesters to descend on Virginia’s capital later this month to stop newly empowered Democrats from passing gun-control bills.
What began as a handful of rural Virginia counties declaring themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries” has jumped the state’s borders and become an Internet phenomenon. Far-right websites and commenters are declaring that Virginia is the place to take a stand against what they see as a national trend of weakening gun rights. […]
And so a Nevada-based group called the Oath Keepers said it’s sending training teams to help form posses and militia in Virginia. The leader of a Georgia militia called Three Percent Security Force has posted videos and calls to arms on Facebook, urging “patriots” to converge on Richmond. The right-wing YouTuber “American Joe Show” warned without evidence that Virginia will cut the power grid to stop the army of protesters — one of a host of false and exaggerated rumors spreading online. […]
Who among us has never accidentally clicked send on a draft and made an embarrassing faux pas—like, say, prematurely ordering U.S. troops out of Iraq?
On Monday afternoon, Reuters and the Washington Post’s Liz Sly reported that the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq sent a letter suggesting that U.S. troops would soon be pulling out of the country.
“Sir, in deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CJTF-OIR will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement,” read the letter signed by Marine Brigadier General William H. Seely III. The missive added: “We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.”
[…] later followed up on Twitter, quoting Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as saying that the letter had been a draft and that releasing it had been a mistake—but that it had been sent to the Iraqi military and then released by the Iraqi prime minister’s office. Whoops!
[…] There’s no formal basing agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, like there was before the last troop withdrawal in 2011. U.S. troops returned to the country in 2014 to fight ISIS and around 5,000 remain at the Iraqi government’s invitation.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi spoke in support of the measure, but the legislation isn’t binding and it’s not clear how he would proceed with forcing U.S. troops out, or how much he even wants to. […] Trump reacted angrily to the vote, threatening sanctions against Iraq and to charge the country for the cost of building U.S.
bases. [JFC]
[…] Soleimani fought for nearly two decades to force the U.S. out of Iraq. Is the U.S. really going to grant him his wish just days after killing him?
The vagueness of the draft statement gives the U.S. a lot of wiggle room to avoid a full troop withdrawal. At this point, we should know better than to take troop-withdrawal announcements from this administration at face value.
It seems more likely the Trump administration is considering calling the Iraqi government’s bluff by keeping its troops in the country for the foreseeable future. It should probably figure out if that’s what it actually wants to do—and until it does, stay away from that send button.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper denied Monday that U.S. troops would withdraw from Iraq after a letter circulated online suggested otherwise. […]
Pentagon spokeswoman Alyssa Farah added in a tweet that “there has been no change in US policy with regard to our force presence in Iraq.”
“We continue to consult with the Iraqi government regarding the defeat-ISIS mission and efforts to support the Iraqi Security Forces,” Farah said. “We remain committed to the D-ISIS coalition and ensuring a safe, secure, and prosperous future for the Iraqi people.”
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Trump administration and states challenging Obamacare to respond by Friday to an appeal filed by defenders of the health care law.
Such a highly abbreviated timeline — the rules normally allow a month for filing a response — gives the court the option to take up the case during its current term, which would mean a ruling on a contentious issue this spring, just as the presidential campaign heats up.
Nineteen blue states, led by California, asked the Supreme Court last week for a quick decision on whether to take the case. They’re appealing last month’s ruling by a federal appeals court that said Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the rest of the law cannot survive without it. […]
Donald Trump Junior posed with an assault rifle that referenced the Crusades, and that also featured the Hillary Clinton “lock her up!” image on the ammunition clip.
I think that DJTjr should relocate to the front lines in Afganistan and prove his mettle with his assault rifle.
Ready to skip 2020 and go straight to 2024? In a SurveyMonkey poll for Axios, Republican voters chose children of President Trump — Don Jr. and Ivanka — as two of the top four picks for president in four years.
Junior got 29%, second to Pence, and Ivanka polled at 16%, just behind Nikki Haley.
Ragutissays
johnson catman
6 January 2020 at 5:48 pm
I think that DJTjr should relocate to the front lines in Afganistan and prove his mettle with his assault rifle.
That’s not an assault rifle. To him its just a masturbatory aid.
Imagine how different the world could be if genetics had gifted these last few generations of Trump men with decent sized penises. Or at least half a well-developed brain, even if they had to share the one.
Ragutissays
tomh
6 January 2020 at 6:38 pm
How wacky are Republicans? This much.
Axios:
2024 lookahead poll: GOP voters eye Trump dynasty
Which, if any, of the following Republicans would you consider voting for in the 2024 general presidential election?
Ready to skip 2020 and go straight to 2024? In a SurveyMonkey poll for Axios, Republican voters chose children of President Trump — Don Jr. and Ivanka — as two of the top four picks for president in four years.
Junior got 29%, second to Pence, and Ivanka polled at 16%, just behind Nikki Haley.
I would be chortling with glee and popping champagne at the self-destruction of the Republican party, if only they weren’t dragging the whole damn country down with them.
At least they’re not even considering Eric.
KGsays
Imagine how different the world could be if genetics had gifted these last few generations of Trump men with decent sized penises. – Ragutis@176
Sneering about the supposed small penises of unpleasant men (and of course we don’t have any actual information about those of the Trump men) is just another aspect of the toxic masculinity these men embody.
Elizabeth Warren unveiled a plan to overhaul existing bankruptcy laws. It is worth noting that Joe Biden helped write a flawed bankruptcy law in 2005.
Elizabeth Warren wants to make it easier for you to file for bankruptcy. […]
[…] a direct challenge to rival Joe Biden over landmark legislation from more than a decade ago that she opposed and he supported.
“I’m announcing my plan to repeal the harmful provisions in the 2005 bankruptcy bill and overhaul consumer bankruptcy rules in this country to give Americans a better chance of getting back on their feet,” Warren wrote in the plan, which the campaign posted on the blogging platform Medium. The plan does not mention former Vice President Biden by name.
Warren was, as an academic, and one of the nation’s leading scholars of bankruptcy law, teaching at Harvard Law School and other universities, before she won her seat in the Senate. […]
The fight over the law was one of the precipitating factors behind Warren’s transition from academia into public office and is one of the central policy differences animating the clash between her and Biden […].
“My plan streamlines the process, reduces costs, and gives people more flexibility in bankruptcy to find solutions that match their financial problems.”
[…] She would do away with paperwork requirements in the bill that she said “imposed the same onerous paperwork requirements on a middle-class American filing bankruptcy that it did on a wealthy real-estate developer.”
The plan would do away with filing fees for those who are below the federal poverty line and allow Chapter 7 filers to pay attorneys’ fees during or after bankruptcy, rather than just up front. […]
The plan takes particular aim at Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which Warren characterizes as “longer and less generous” than Chapter 7. Warren noted that black bankruptcy filers are disproportionately drawn to Chapter 13, citing data reported by the investigative outlet ProPublica.
Chapter 7 bankruptcies cost about $1,200 while Chapter 13 bankruptcies cost about $3,200, Warren wrote, but Chapter 7 bankruptcy requires filers to have the cash up front, while those in Chapter 13 can pay over time.
Under Chapter 7, a bankrupt individual’s assets, such as their homes, are sold by a trustee, while Chapter 13 allows for them to stop foreclosure proceedings. But Warren wrote in the plan that many opt for Chapter 13 because it’s “the only way they can afford to pay their bankruptcy lawyer.”
“Forcing people into Chapter 13 because they cannot afford to pay their lawyer up front is a ridiculous way to run a consumer debt relief system,” Warren wrote.
[…] “When people file for bankruptcy, they would disclose all of their debts, assets, and income, just as they do now,” Warren wrote. “And just as under the current system, creditors must stop all collection actions against the debtor outside of bankruptcy court.” […]
Washington (CNN)–A Republican congressman on Monday posted a fake photo of former President Barack Obama shaking hands with the Iranian president and later acknowledged that the image was falsified.
“The world is a better place without these guys in power,” Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar said in his caption of the doctored photo.
Obama, who left office in 2017, never met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is still in power. The image was photoshopped from Obama’s 2011 meeting with former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Gosar later defended himself, saying that it was not implied that the photo wasn’t altered. “…no one said this wasn’t photoshopped. No one said the president of Iran was dead. No one said Obama met with Rouhani in person,” Gosar said on Twitter.
Nothing in the original post indicated it was fake. The image dates back to at least 2015 when Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) used it in a television ad that aired in Wisconsin
After Trump threatened to hit Iranian cultural sites, he tells the pool [press pool on Airfare One]: “They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs…And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”
For what it’s worth, I find it hard to believe the Pentagon would provide Trump targeting options that include Iranian cultural sites. Trump may not care about the laws of war, but DoD planners and lawyers do…and targeting cultural sites is war crime.
Oh, FFS. Now Trump is trying to bully Iraq as well.
Senior administration officials have begun drafting sanctions against Iraq after President Trump publicly threatened the country with economic penalties if it proceeded to expel U.S. troops, according to three people briefed on the planning.
The Treasury Department and White House will probably take a lead role if the sanctions are implemented, the officials said. Such a step would represent a highly unusual move against a foreign ally that the United States has spent almost two decades and hundreds of billions of dollars supporting.
[…] The Post spoke with Peter Kucik, who served in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which implements sanctions policy, under the Bush and Obama administrations, who said, “I’m astounded by what’s even being discussed. You don’t typically use force against your allies. We are threatening to use extreme coercive policy tools against countries with whom we are allied.” […]
On Sunday morning, Iraq’s parliament voted to expel American forces from their country. On Sunday afternoon, Trump threatened Iraq with sanctions as punishment. […]
What Marco Rubio said in reference to a subpoena of former White House national security adviser John Bolton, and to Bolton’s proposed testimony before the Senate:
I wouldn’t because… I believe you should be constrained by the information that those articles are based on. If the House wants to start a new impeachment inquiry or pull it back and add additional elements to it, that’s their choice to make.
No, no, no Marco. That’s all wrong. And it doesn’t make sense. Steve Benen explains:
[…] In the impeachment process, the U.S. House effectively plays the role of a grand jury. It considers the available evidence, weighs the seriousness of the allegations, and makes a decision whether to charge the accused. If a majority of the House votes to impeach, that creates an indictment, which heads to the U.S. Senate for a trial.
As Rubio – who graduated from law school – sees it, after the House votes on whether to bring charges, the search for truth ends. Even if the case against the accused gets stronger, as is true in the current controversy, it doesn’t matter. If the grand jury didn’t have access to certain facts, then those facts have to be excluded from the subsequent trial.
Why? Because March Rubio says so.
There’s nothing in the American system of justice to support such a position. Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which a person is suspected of bank fraud. Prosecutors present evidence to a grand jury, which decides the evidence is sufficient for an indictment. The accused is charged and the case heads to trial.
Then imagine, during this hypothetical trial, investigators uncover an email from the defendant in which he told a business partner, “I totally committed bank fraud, and I hope to get away with it. Please don’t tell anyone.”
Under Rubio’s approach to justice, that email should have no role in the accused fraudster’s trial. As the senator put it, the “testimony and evidence considered” by the grand jury is all that matters. Nothing else.
It’s as if a “heads-in-the-sand” caucus is taking shape in the Senate, and the Florida Republican is eager to be its leader.
As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake put it, the senator envisions a trial “in which you can only use information gleaned from the investigation phase.”
Republicans can support a fair trial and a search for the whole truth, or they can choose to exclude relevant facts. They cannot do both.
Well, Mike Pompeo tried to blame Barack Obama for Trump’s airstrike that killed Soleimani, so why shouldn’t some other dunderheaded Republican blame House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (a Democrat)?
That’s exactly what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did.
[…] After the “Fox and Friends” hosts brought up Schiff’s Monday afternoon tweet in which he took issue with both the Soleimani strike and Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian cultural sites […], McCarthy was quick to criticize Schiff’s call for more congressional hearings and suggested that if the House intelligence chair didn’t focus so much on impeachment, then Trump wouldn’t have authorized the strike against Soleimani.
Cough. Bullshit!
“You know what, he’s the chairman of the Intel Committee,” McCarthy said. “Maybe had he spent the last year working on that — trying to protect us from what was happening in Iran from the bombing of the tankers, Saudi Arabia taking down our drone — instead of taking that committee and making an impeachment, he would never have made that comment.” […]
McCarthy added that “the world is safer today because this President took action and he stopped something from creating in the future” while also taking another whack at House Democrats.
“I don’t think it’s a place for them to play politics,” McCarthy said.
Isn’t McCarthy admitting (albeit unintentionally) that Trump only ordered the hit as a response to – and to deflect from – the impeachment action against him?
—————–
Unbelievable. Schiff made him do it?! This is just beyond batshit crazy. McCarthy is one of Murrica’s “elected representatives?” Really, I want to retch.
——————–
Don’t forget [McCarthy] lost his chance to be Speaker because he admitted on camera that the Benghazi hearings were being done to affect Hillary’s poll numbers.
——————–
There seems to be a concerted effort on the right now to blame the Dems for the Soleimani assassination. They’re working the refs in advance of the inevitable Iranian blowback that Trump was too stupid to foresee when he ordered this clusterfuck.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 180
““…no one said this wasn’t photoshopped.
Yeah, but you didn’t say it was, cupcake.
No one said Obama met with Rouhani in person…
Perhaps not, but you sure did imply it.
Akira MacKenziesays
Lynna @ 181
“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs…And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”
I think Shakespeare put it best in Henry V (Act IV, Scene 1):
If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,
look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb? in your own conscience, now?
Then again, Trump is not the literary, much less the literate, sort.
tomhsays
Re: #180
Gosar has a history of fakery. He was a birther, of course, but more recently, in November he boosted the theory that the whistleblower was George Soros’s son. About the same time he posted an acrostic to his account that spelled out the phrase “Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
And in a 2017 interview with HBO, he spread the conspiracy theory that a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which left one person dead, was actually planned by a supporter of former President Barack Obama, and another debunked conspiracy that liberal financier George Soros sold out his fellow Jews to the Nazis during the Holocaust.
It doesn’t sit well with his family. All six of his siblings appeared in campaign ads for his opponent in the last election. Thanksgiving dinners must be fun.
But Republicans. He won with almost 70% of the vote.
Akira @187, I like the “prating coxcomb” description for Trump. That made me laugh. When I was growing up, my mother would say, “If your classmates jump off a cliff, does that mean you should jump?”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo justified the U.S. airstrike on Qassim Soleimani by claiming there was intelligence showing an “imminent attack.” Pompeo can’t back that claim up. Here’s what happens when he is asked:
[A reporter asked], “American officials have failed to provide any evidence to show what might have been targeted, or how soon an attack was expected.”
“If you’re looking for imminence, you need look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Suleimani,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters at the State Department on Tuesday.
OMFG. That doesn’t make sense, and it does not even imply “imminent,” let alone fit even a broadened definition of “imminent.”
Commentary:
[…] In “the days that led up to” the airstrike that killed the Iranian general, there was considerable unrest in Baghdad, where large groups of Iraqis held enraged protests at the U.S. embassy in response to earlier U.S. airstrikes, which came in response to the death of an American contractor in Iraq.
In time, those protests dissipated. They do not represent evidence of an “imminent attack.”
Similarly, in the days before the airstrike targeting Soleimani, there was deadly violence in Syria and Lebanon, but that’s not evidence of an “imminent attack,” either. The whole point of the word “imminent” is that it’s prospective, not retrospective. Those looking for evidence of something that’s poised to happen in the future shouldn’t necessarily look backwards.
[…] it doesn’t inspire confidence to hear Pompeo and his colleagues struggle to present any evidence, or even talk about this in mildly persuasive ways.
All of which again leads us to a familiar point: if the official White House line about the reason for the attack appears dubious, we’re left to wonder about the actual motivation for Donald Trump doing what he did.
Oh, the Trump administration’s letter informing Iraq of the U.S.’ withdrawal from the country was actually just “an honest mistake”? Too bad.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that even though the Pentagon clumsily retracted Marine Corps Brig. Gen. William Seely’s letter on Monday and told reporters there was “no decision whatsoever” to leave Iraq, the Middle Eastern country expects the U.S. to go through with it anyway.
“We don’t deal with statements [made] in the media,” an unnamed senior Iraqi official told the Post. “As a state, we deal with the official letters that we receive, and we will act in accordance with this letter.”
According to the official, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi believes there is “no way to organize Iraq stably” while foreign troops are still in the country.
“We will tell the U.S. to put in place a timeline to implement this withdrawal,” the official said. […]
From the readers comments:
Also there were two copies -one in English the other in Arabic. Just when you think it could not get any worse, it does.
———————
But Madhi said that the draft he got was signed and is binding.
——————
Louisa Loveluck (leloveluck)
In comments to Iraqi cabinet, PM Abdul Mahdi confirms @Mustafa_salimb’s reporting that the Americans sent two versions of the “withdrawal letter last night – the first included a mistranslation. https://t.co/6AEtJIF2Dx
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This is a sign of dysfunction at the highest levels of the military and probably the result of Trumpism’s impact on it.
From Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif:
They killed one of our most revered commanders and most senior commanders, and they took responsibility for it.
This is state terrorism, this is an act of aggression against Iraq, and it amounts to an armed attack against Iran. And we will respond, but we will respond proportionately, not disproportionately, because we are committed to law. We are law-abiding people, we are not lawless like President Trump.
He needs to wake up and apologize. He has to apologize. He has to change course.
He’s showing to the international community that he has no respect for international law — that he is prepared to commit war crimes because attacking cultural sites is a war crime. Disproportionate response is a war crime. But he doesn’t care, it seems, about international law.
The completely non-transparent Trump administration is outed one again by media postings from other countries:
The White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) on Tuesday slammed the White House for a lack of transparency after it failed to disclose President Trump’s meeting with a Saudi official in the Oval Office.
“A meeting with a foreign leader in the Oval Office should, at the very least, be on the public schedule with a read-out of the meeting released after it is over,” WCHA President Jon Karl said in a statement. “This has been the long-standing precedent for presidents of both political parties.”
Trump met Monday with Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi vice minister of defense, amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The meeting was not listed on Trump’s public schedule, and the White House did not provide a readout of the discussion.
News of the meeting broke when Salman shared photos of it on social media.
“It is disturbing to see the government of Saudi Arabia have more transparency than the White House about a meeting with the President in the Oval Office,” Karl said in a statement. […]
Khalid tweeted that he delivered a message to Trump from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Moments after the WHCA issued its statement, Trump tweeted that he had a “very good meeting” with Khalid to discuss trade, military issues, oil prices and the situation in the Middle East. […]
Dinesh D’Souza Branches Out, Gets Iran History Wrong Too
It’s been a good week for rightwing shitposter, convicted/pardoned felon, and habitual liar Dinesh D’Souza. Donald Trump, who D’Souza unironically compares to Lincoln, retweeted D’Souza’s funny joke that it was perfectly fine that Democratic congressional leaders weren’t informed in advance of the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani because after all, “Neither were the Iranians, and for pretty much the same reason.” Haw haw, both are sworn enemies of the USA, how true this is!
Over the weekend, D’Souza departed from his usual schtick of explaining that Democrats love slavery and Jim Crow because history stopped in 1964, and offered a very smart historical take on the current unpleasantness, explaining that if only Jimmy Carter had propped up the Shah of Iran in 1979, Donald Trump wouldn’t have to be fixing things now.
“Let’s remember how this whole thing started. Thanks to Jimmy Carter pulling the Persian rug out from under the Shah of Iran, Islamic radicals in 1979 took charge of a major country. If ever a president deserved an award for global nincompoopery, Carter takes first prize”
If nothing else, D’Souza stands in his complete wrongness as a pretty useful proxy for how Americans think about history and foreign affairs, especially the notion that US-Iran problems started with the Shah’s ouster and the hostage crisis in 1979. Add to that the dubious idea that American presidents have the power to shape world events, and you might end up with a deeply stupid conclusion, like claiming Jimmy Carter singlehandedly allowed the rise of Islamic fundamentalist radicalism because he was weak. You might also have to be super dishonest and partisan to get there, too, which is Dinesh D’Souza’s special talent.
To be clear, there’s no real value in simply pointing out how very wrong D’Souza is, because his only game is stirring up rightwing anger and selling his distorted versions of history to the rubes. But it’s worth looking at the actual history of the Iranian Revolution, since it really does, unlike D’Souza, offer useful context for what’s going on right now. Pity that the “president” of the USA doesn’t read, though.
For starters, there’s the seriously bad take that “this whole thing started” in 1979. A whole bunch of people replied to D’Souza that a far better starting point for the Iranian revolution was 1953’s CIA-run coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was deeply disliked by Great Britain because he’d nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The CIA only officially acknowledged its role in the coup 60 years later, in 2013. […]
Fun fact: in 1953, the mullahs helped the CIA oust Mosaddegh, so they could have influence once the Shah was restored. By 1979, it was to the clerics’ advantage to argue that a popular uprising would actually fulfill the democratic dreams of Mosaddegh. Iranians had a lot of nationalist nostalgia for Mosaddegh, and Khomeini and the leaders of the Islamic Revolution promised they’d bring back Iran’s democratic glory days. Or at least be way better than the Shah, who was a prime example of the sort of murderous tyrant the US liked to ally itself with in the developing world. […]
Now, as to whether Jimmy Carter “pulled the Persian rug out from under the Shah,” that there is some bullshit. Fortunately for anyone who wants to read up, last January marked the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution, and plenty of outlets published timelines of the events leading up to the rise of Khomeini and the Islamic Republic. Here’s a pretty good one from the Brookings Institute.
The big takeaway is that, no, Islamic radicals didn’t take over Iran primarily because Jimmy Carter betrayed the Shah. Iranians had been demonstrating and rioting against the Shah’s authoritarian rule for years, and he had a nasty habit of sending the military and secret police to shoot into crowds, killing hundreds of protesters. Carter, like most US Presidents, had praised the Shah’s Iran as “an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world” in December 1977, but as the cycle of protest and repression got worse, Iranians wanted the Shah gone. […]
For that matter, the Shah was busy dying of cancer, a fact Carter and other Western leaders knew quite well. He died in 1980, but some right-leaning folks argue that somehow, Carter should have propped up the dynasty until the Shah’s son was old enough to become a dictator in his own right. […]
Heck, maybe Carter should have just bombed cultural sites in Iran. […]
Many of the same myopic people are lining up to propagandize for war with Iran, the same people who supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Ben Mathis-Lilley takes a trip down memory lane:
Judith Miller, Karl Rove, Tom Friedman, Joe Lieberman, and an armada of other journalists and political figures who supported the invasion of Iraq are back on TV and in major newspapers. They are arguing that attacking Iran is necessary to eradicate threats against the U.S., that demonstrating military power will advance American interests in the Middle East, and that the Iranian population will ultimately be grateful for our intervention in its affairs. These are near-verbatim versions of the same arguments the same people made in 2003 about the invasion of Iraq, which in fact created a terrorism-incubating multifaction civil war in which thousands of Americans and many more thousands of Iraqis were killed.
It’s a nice trip down memory lane, for those who like their lanes lined by IEDs and blocked by a checkpoint at which soldiers have just accidentally shot a 9-year-old. But as a country, we’re not only reliving 2003. Much of what’s happening right now is actually more stupid and unreal than what was happening then.
For one, the president is Donald Trump. George W. Bush was a shallow and belligerent chief executive with contempt for details, but he was surrounded by people who projected (falsely, it turned out) the sort of competent ruthlessness that news organizations and pundits and much of the public associated with strong foreign policy. The Bush administration presented detailed (though untrue) arguments about invasion being a matter of national security, recruited at least some international allies to the cause ahead of time, and made a point of emphasizing its concern about human rights and respect for Islamic faith and culture. None of this prevented the invasion from being a brutal bungling disaster, or even made it look like a good idea in advance, but it gave a lot of influential people a lot of excuses to go along with it.
Trump doesn’t even provide the war enthusiasts with this protective cover. He says he is prepared to order the destruction of historic cultural sites in Iran, which is a no-doubt-about-it war crime. […]
Meanwhile, the White House has already backed away from its claim that Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Friday’s Baghdad airstrike, was planning imminent attacks on Americans. After asserting that Soleimani’s death would prevent further conflict with Iran through deterrence, the administration now says it expects “a little noise“—i.e., retaliatory attacks—and has deployed additional troops to the Middle East because of the heightened danger. […]
In sum, it’s not 2003 again; it’s 2003 as interpreted by 2020, which means more fascism and, somehow, even less competence.
The brutality and idiocy of it run so deep, they become a source of hope. Polling says that Trump is 15-odd points less popular now than Bush was before the invasion of Iraq. The Democratic Party’s anti-war caucus, […] is much stronger and more confident than it was then. […] the mainstream pro-war figures mentioned above have already been deluged with disbelief and outrage. […]
There is obviously no good reason to do it, and there are not even bad, political reasons to let it happen. Could that be enough, this time, to keep it from happening?
A whole bunch of people replied to D’Souza that a far better starting point for the Iranian revolution was 1953’s CIA-run coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was deeply disliked by Great Britain because he’d nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The CIA only officially acknowledged its role in the coup 60 years later, in 2013.
Knowing D’Souza I wonder which he hates more: Socialism or former colonial puppets getting uppity and telling Westerners to go fuck off.
tomhsays
The American political system, where any billionaire can run for president.
Michael Bloomberg and President Trump’s 2020 campaigns have both secured 60-second advertising spots during the Super Bowl on Feb. 2 at a likely cost of at least $10 million each, Politico reports.
The buy highlights Bloomberg’s massive spending power, as the billionaire continues to pump millions of his own money into his campaign. And it’s just the start of what’s likely to be a huge spending year for Trump.
Bloomberg has already spent $170 million on ads this election cycle, according to Advertising Analytics.
The Republican National Committee last week announced that it raised $463 million in 2019 and has nearly $200 million cash on hand.
The Super Bowl is just one day before the Iowa caucuses.
Yes, Iran did fire ballistic missiles at a military base in Iraq, a base that includes both Iraqi and American forces. Iran state TV, and the official Twitter account of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have claimed responsibility for the missiles fired at American forces.
Iran said earlier that they would respond to Soleimani’s killing by directly attacking a U.S. military target, and they said they would not hide the source of the attack.
[…] Trump was briefed Tuesday evening after Iran claimed responsibility for the launch of unspecified projectiles at an Iraqi military base housing U.S. troops, a marked escalation in the conflict between the two countries following the U.S.’s killing of a top Iranian general.
“The fierce revenge by the Revolutionary Guards has begun,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement Tuesday on the IRCG Telegram channel, according to the New York Times.
The Associated Press reported Iranian state TV had claimed credit for the attack on Ain Assad air base.
“We are aware of the reports of attacks on US facilities in Iraq,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “The President has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team.”
Tehran vowed it would retaliate after the Friday killing of Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad. Shortly after the killing, Iraq’s parliament took a nonbinding vote to expel U.S. troops, while President Trump vowed that if Iran retaliated, the U.S. would target sites of cultural significance to Iran before appearing to walk back the threat Tuesday. […]
There is no way that Trump can be trusted to NOT escalate further.
US official confirms to ABC that ballistic missiles have been fired from inside Iran at multiple US military facilities in Iraq including Erbil in northern Iraq and Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, the official said. No information on casualties – @Elizabeth_McLau @LMartinezABC
This is all Trump’s fault. He is responsible for this mess.
Iran launches missile attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq, according to Iranian state media
Al Asad air base in western Iraq, which houses U.S. troops, was hit by at least six rockets, according to a U.S. defense official. The White House said it was aware of reports of attacks on American facilities in Iraq and that President Trump is monitoring the situation and consulting with his national security team.
This breaking story will be upated.
Pentagon now says that “more than a dozen ballistic missiles” were fired from Iran toward joint Iraqi/U.S. military bases in Iraq. Two military bases were struck.
SC @205, JFC! indeed. That’s all we need. A blustering, stupid speech from Trump will pour gasoline on what is, so far, a smallish fire.
We are in the escalation spiral.
Commentators on Chris Hayes’ “All In” show made the point that, prior to all this mess, the Trump administration had also destroyed most our official and our back channels with Iranian leaders. So, now we have no way to communicate. (Unless you count threats issued via Twitter.)
We are in a limited hot war with Iran. Trump is not the man who can get us out of this. Trump is not the man who will slow down or limit the damage.
It is looking more and more likely that Lebanon (using Iranian proxy forces) will attack Israel after Trump inevitably strikes back (again) at Iran.
Closely monitoring the situation following bombings targeting U.S. troops in Iraq. We must ensure the safety of our servicemembers, including ending needless provocations from the Administration and demanding that Iran cease its violence. America & world cannot afford war.
From Ilan Goldenberg:
statement from the IRGC.
– this is our response. Don’t hit us back
– regional players stay out or suffer consequences
This may not be an escalation just the response they felt they needed to make. Again everyone CHILL
Good to note: Iran actually attacked Iraqi bases. Yes, American troops are housed there, but this could be spun by a wiser Trump (who does not exist) as an attack on Iraq, not on America proper.
Are we expecting that the same Trump who threatened to strike cultural sites in Iran will get off the escalation spiral and calm things down? Also, Pompeo is NOT a voice of reason that can help here.
Republicans in the Senate need to speak out loudly and clearly against escalation. [bitter laughter]
We have to start on a very sober note. [Warren spoke at an event in Brooklyn] For any of you who haven’t been able to follow it, within the last hour, the Iranian government has announced that it has sent missiles to attack our military bases in Iraq.
This is a reminder of why we need to de-escalate tension in the Middle East. The American people do not want a war with Iran.
After years of casting himself as the leader to end America’s decades-long wars, President Donald Trump is now trying to use his administration’s aggressive military strike against Iran to his political advantage — as a tool to batter his Democratic rivals.
Trump and his conservative allies are hitting the airwaves and social media to portray Democrats as Iran sympathizers for questioning the president’s decision to kill Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, leaning into patriotism and national security threats ahead of the 2020 election as a way to cast the Democrats as the weaker party.
“The president took out the world’s most threatening terrorist and the Democrats are trying to take out the president. He wins!” said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president. “The alarmists and apologists show skepticism about our own intelligence and sympathy for Soleimani.”
[…]
Apart from calling Soleimani a “monster” and speaking in broad terms about an imminent threat, the Trump administration has not yet offered up a detailed explanation about why it opted to kill the Iranian general at this particular juncture.
[…]
We’re attacking Iran for Iraqis invading our embassy. Iraqis who wanted help because they don’t want us there. We’re an occupying force. We’re villians.
I can get less polite. It’s worth it on facebook.
Ragutissays
No American or Iraqi casualties officially reported as of yet (unless you’re watching Iranian state TV). Seeing much speculation that there was forewarning and some careful targeting designed to minimize the chances of actually killing anyone and further escalating the situation. This pot just might not boil over, if Trump is smart enough to turn the dial the right way. Then again, he’s got Pompeo and Graham whispering in his ears. Anyway, he’s supposed to make a statement sometime this morning. As soon as Fox and Friends is over, I’m guessing.
Ragutissays
176 dead after plane en route to Kyiv crashes after takeoff in Tehran:
Victims of the crash included 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons[…]
The Boeing 737-800, operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, took off from Imam Khomeini international airport at 6.12am Tehran time on Wednesday, after being delayed by almost an hour. It took off to the west, but never made it above 8,000ft and went down about 10 minutes later, according to flight-tracking websites.
A video purportedly of the crash circulated by Isna showed the aircraft burning as it fell from the sky.
Iranian officials said the plane’s engine had caught fire, causing the pilot to lose control. A statement initially posted on the website of the Ukrainian embassy in Iran ruled out an act of terror and said the crash had been caused by an engine malfunction. However, this was later redacted, with the embassy stating that all information would be provided by an official commission.
The black box containing vital records of how the plane crashed has been located in a field among the debris outside Tehran, but Iran said it would not hand the device over to plane maker Boeing. It is not clear whether Iranian authorities are disputing the legality of handing over the black box to Boeing, a US company, or whether they are seeking to inspect the box themselves.
The news has fueled speculation that there was something suspicious about the downing of the plane[…]
The plane was less than four years old and had been checked two days before the accident, according to Ukraine International Airlines, which has indefinitely suspended flights to Tehran..
This was yesterday, hours before the missiles, but kind of got lost once the fireworks started.
“The worst national security team that I’ve ever seen.”
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, sat down with Brian Williams last night and reflected on the White House team responding to the crisis in the Middle East. She characterized Donald Trump’s existing operation as “least experienced, the least effective, and the smallest” in recent memory.
Mitchell, a veteran journalist who’s covered a variety of Democratic and Republican administrations, concluded that the current president has “the worst national security team that I’ve ever seen.”
[…] Trump’s team, to the extent that it can even be called a “team,” is woefully incomplete. As Garrett Graff noted yesterday, the Trump administration does not currently have, for example, a Senate-confirmed director of National Intelligence or a deputy director of National Intelligence.
There’s also no Senate-confirmed Homeland Security secretary or deputy secretary. There’s no Senate-confirmed undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs or assistant secretary for arms control, verification, and compliance.
At the Pentagon, meanwhile, there’s been a scramble of top officials resigning, including six notable departures in the last five weeks.
For several of the aforementioned positions, the White House hasn’t even nominated anyone to fill the posts. […]
some of the officials who make up Trump’s current national security team fail to inspire confidence.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who appears to effectively be running the show, is a far-right hawk who’s set his credibility on fire. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is still fairly new to the job, and he arrived at the Pentagon following a stint as a lobbyist.
They’re answering to a former reality-show personality who tends not to listen to intelligence briefings, who’s never demonstrated any familiarity with the basics of international affairs, and routinely struggles to understand current events.
The question isn’t whether this is “the worst national security team” we’ve ever seen; the question is how anyone could possibly disagree.
An update on Trump’s ridiculous “all is well” tweet, and on messaging coming out of Iran:
[…] There have also been reports that this Iranian offensive represents the totality of Tehran’s planned response to the airstrike that killed Soleimani — Iran’s foreign minister said in a tweet that the country has “concluded” its attacks on U.S. forces and does “not seek escalation or war” — though Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes were not sufficient retaliation.
For his part, Donald Trump, who green-lit the Soleimani mission for reasons that are still unclear, published a tweet assuring the public, “All is well!” Referring to the damage assessment in the wake of the Iranian missile strike, the American president added, “So far, so good!”
[Trump] seemed to suggest that there were no American casualties. But all things considered, it’s difficult to look at the landscape and agree that “all” is “well.”
An American enemy has fired ballistic missiles at facilities housing U.S. troops. Our ostensible allies in Iraq seem awfully eager to kick Americans out of their country. NATO has begun removing some troops from Iraq for their safety. The Trump administration finds itself isolated from several of our traditional allies, while it struggles to keep its story straight when trying to explain the president’s dangerous and nebulous new policy. The military campaign against ISIS, meanwhile, is now on hold.
A variety of phrases come to mind when describing these conditions. “So far, so good!” isn’t among them.
That said, there is a possible off-ramp. Iran appeared eager to find a “Goldilocks” response to Soleimani’s slaying – not so aggressive as to start a full-fledged hot war, not so tepid as to appear weak in the eyes of its own people – and Tehran may be satisfied that last night’s missile strike met the standard
At least in theory, if no Americans were killed in the blast, Trump could shrug off the Iranian strike, and we could see a de-escalation. Alternatively, Trump, who warned Iran not to retaliate, may now feel the need to respond to Iran’s response, continuing the cycle.
Yesterday evening, in the midst of these deadly serious events, Speaker Pelosi put out another statement saying she has no intention to end her political game playing. At the very same time a global crisis was unfolding in real time, she published another “dear colleague” letter saying she intends to keep our commander-in-chief in this limbo indefinitely.
McConnell is not the only Republican using Trump’s self-made conflict with Iran to pretend that the impeachment trial is not important, or not a priority, or that it should be stopped. That’s not logical, to my mind. Trump’s disastrous actions against Iran have, so far, fallen short of all-out war thanks to the fact that Iranian leaders are more reasonable than he is. We have more reason to impeach Trump than ever.
Background:
[…] Pelosi’s letter addressed McConnell’s Tuesday announcement that he has the requisite votes to go forward with his rules proposal for the impeachment trial, which would delay deciding whether or not to call witnesses until after the proceedings had started.
“It is important that he immediately publish this resolution, so that, as I have said before, we can see the arena in which we will be participating, appoint managers and transmit the articles to the Senate,” Pelosi wrote.
Pelosi also denied McConnell’s refrain that the Senate trial for Trump would follow the blueprint of the Clinton impeachment, saying that “witnesses were deposed” in the Clinton trial.
Democrats have doubled down on their witness demands after former National Security Adviser John Bolton said that he would testify during the trial if subpoenaed. McConnell has been intractable in his opposition, and at least so far, successfully kept his members most likely to defect to the Democrats on a tight leash.
Remember, the guy who wants you to believe that Iran was planning an imminent threat to the United states, is the same guy that used a Sharpie to try to get you to believe that Hurrican Dorian was an imminent threat to Alabama.
Trump has started his speech. He is huffing, puffing and sniffing more than usual.
Puerto Rico has been rocked by aftershocks from the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit the island Tuesday, killing one and knocking out power and water in some areas. Residents have been sleeping outside in case the aftershocks cause more damage. According to Jose Ortiz, executive director of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, most of the island is without power, which has been restored to about 100,000 customers, including “most hospitals.”
According to CNN, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced that aid will be made available in response to the earthquake. But that promise can’t be taken at face value, since the Trump administration has refused to release all of the disaster recovery money allocated after 2017’s devastating Hurricanes Maria and Irma. In fact, about $18 billion Congress appropriated for disaster aid has not been provided, including funding for rebuilding both housing and the electrical infrastructure.
Democrats in Congress are calling on Trump to finally release all of that funding. In a statement, the Democratic chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, praised the residents of Puerto Rico who have “repeatedly shown strength and resiliency,” but said that their their responses “are no substitute for adequate government assistance.” “The Trump administration’s indifference and incompetence have already cost residents of Puerto Rico their lives and their livelihoods […]
From Wonkette: “Liveblogging Trump Taking Responsibility For Latest F*ckup Hahahahahahaha Just Kidding”
11:05: Surprise, he is late. […]
11:14: STILL LATE.
Remember when Obama was late all the time but it was OK because when he finally arrived he was smart and well-spoken and sexxxy and good?
This is not that.
This is like being roped into going on a blind date with somebody who smells like raw sewage but you did it as a favor for somebody you care about, dunno why they asked you to do this, but anyway, the raw sewage person is late for the date you don’t actually want to go on. […]
11:26: PREVIEW OF ACTUAL (NOT ACTUAL) TRUMP SPEECH:
“Hey remember how a few weeks ago, Iranians were literally in the streets protesting their bad government, but now they are romance married to their government again because of my poor decisions? Wow!”
Anyway, all the idiots just walked out and so did Dipshit.
11:28: HERE WE GO!
TRUMP: “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. Good morning.”
11:30: Blah blah blah Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and will never have a nuclear weapon, even though I pulled out of the Iran deal that Iran was complying with, and now because of what I did, Iran has announced its intentions to stop complying with what was left of the nuclear deal, I am bad and I should feel bad.
Anyway, Soleimani was bad.
11:32: Blah blah I still don’t understand that the money Iran got back as part of the nuke deal was actually THEIR MONEY, THEIR OWN UNFROZEN ASSETS.
Yep. Trump went on an on about that money. He claimed that Iran used the money Obama gave them to buy the missiles they shot at the Iraqi base last night. He also claimed that the money was like a gift from Obama that allowed Iran to support more terrorists.
Trump just said GIIIIIINA should also pull out of the Iran deal, because Iran did the terrorism and Iran said “death to America,” etc.
Trump says he’s going to ask NATO for help with this, because of how he’s always been so nice to NATO and is in such a position to ask NATO to help prop up his fuckups.
11:36: Trump have big missile but Trump dunnot want to use big missile! Also he killed the head of ISIS, which reminds him of another thing he wanted to say, which is “Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children,” except for how he will never be able to say that, because that’s what Barack Obama was doing with one hand behind his back while Obama made fun of Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
And that’s it!
And the fucker actually didn’t take questions, which, all things considered, including the status of the president’s brain, is probably wise.[…]
[…] Trump [promised “punishing economic sanctions” but added that the nation “appears to be standing down.”
Trump said that the American people should be “grateful and happy” that no soldiers were killed in Iran’s strikes fired at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers Tuesday night.
He also spent some minutes praising his and his administration’s killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, a man who he said has American blood on his hands and should have been taken out “long ago.”
He urged American allies including German and the U.K. to join the U.S. in pulling out of the Iranian nuclear deal to forge a new pact. […]
Some in the administration suspect that Iran purposefully aimed the weapons at areas largely devoid of Americans during the attack. [Seems likely, especially when one considers their recent, extremely accurate missile strike on Saudi oil field.]
[…] Trump argued to aides that the strike would be politically popular, and that Iran wouldn’t “do anything too stupid” in response.
Many European allies to the U.S. have responded to the strike with apprehension, and the Iraqi parliament voted to boot American troops from the country in an attempt to keep the country from becoming a battleground. Despite a mistaken letter to the contrary, the U.S. has no current plans to leave.
Iranian leaders are saying just this morning that the missile strike last night was “just a slap in the face,” and that more retaliatory actions are to come.
Q: Will you be okay if John Bolton testifies? He indicated yesterday that he would if he is subpoenaed.
TRUMP: Well, that’s going to be up to the lawyers. It will be up the Senate. And we’ll see how they feel. [Bolton] would know nothing about what we’re talking about….
Facts:
[…] Bolton is a first-hand witness to Trump’s Ukraine scheme, participating in a late-August meeting with the president in which Trump was urged to release the military assistance to our vulnerable ally. According to Tim Morrison, the former top National Security Council official for Russia and European affairs, Bolton and Trump also had a one-on-one meeting that month about the aid package that the president delayed.
Bolton’s lawyer added in November that the former White House national security adviser was also “part of many relevant meetings and conversations” pertaining to the impeachment investigation that have not yet been made public.
There have also been multiple media reports about Bolton balking behind the scenes at the Ukraine scheme, and according to former White House analyst Fiona Hill, Bolton condemned Trump’s political plot as a “drug deal” he didn’t want to be caught up in.
It’s against this backdrop that Trump argued yesterday that Bolton “would know nothing” relevant to the scandal. There’s a whole lot of evidence suggesting otherwise.
Just to note, Rudy Giuliani wants Trump to force regime change in Iran:
I am for regime change. Down with the tyrants in Iran. Down with the ayatollah and the mullahs and all the crooks.
Rudy said that at the U.N. back in September 2019.
More from Rudy, posted on January 8, 2020:
The Ayatollahs’ 40 year #REGIMEOFTERROR is, and has been throughout, the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world.
The Obama-Biden administration practiced appeasement.
The Dems want to return to appeasement. The only way to avoid war is to stand up to them.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @230:
The only way to avoid war is to stand up to them.
I say we should give Rudy a ticket to the front lines and some body armor and let him do his best to stand up to them. My bet is that he would be cowering in fear behind the biggest pile of sand he could find.
Some bits and pieces of political news, from Steve Benen:
* More than five weeks after his guilty plea, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) submitted his resignation letter yesterday. […]
* Republican officials in Wisconsin yesterday agreed to exclude Donald Trump’s primary rivals from the state’s GOP primary ballot. State Republican Parties in Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina have done the same thing. [Rigging the primary process.]
* Trump’s re-election campaign is reportedly poised to spend $10 million to advertise during the Super Bowl, and according to Politico’s report, the message is “expected to run early in the game, when viewership is likely to be at its highest.” […]
* Michael Bloomberg’s Democratic presidential campaign also announced yesterday that it, too, has bought Super Bowl ad time, investing $10 million in a 60-second spot.
* The next debate for Democratic presidential candidates is six days away, but DNC Chair Tom Perez said yesterday that if the presidential impeachment trial is underway, the party is prepared to postpone the event. Of the five candidates who’ve qualified to participate, three are sitting U.S. senators.
An amazing campaign-finance statistic: Tom Steyer’s Democratic presidential campaign has spent more on advertising than 12 of the other Democratic candidates combined. Michael Bloomberg’s campaign, meanwhile, has more than doubled Steyer’s ad spending.
And while Joe Biden leads the Democratic field with 31 congressional endorsements, McClatchy News made a notable observation yesterday: at this point four years ago, Hillary Clinton had 181 congressional endorsements.
While Trump gave his speech this morning, he had Vice President Pence plus an array of Pentagon brass stand behind him. Rudy, pretend warrior, was not there.
More details:
[…] Trump, echoing what has been the standard patter from Republicans over the last days, described President Barack Obama as having given Iran $180 billion, and repeated claims that Iran’s missiles were paid for by funds provided by the last administration.
In an apparent echo of the way in which Trump attacked NAFTA only to turn around and adopt the same outline of actions for his own version of the treaty, Trump called on signatories to the Iran nuclear deal to pull out of that deal and join the U.S. in creating another deal. Trump also indicated that he wanted NATO to be more involved in the negotiations … a complete flip of his previous positions. At the same time, Trump indicated that he would increase sanctions against Iran, though it was unclear how.
In the middle of the speech, Trump talked about how “big, powerful, lethal and fast” American missiles are, and indicated that there was a new generation of hypersonic missiles on the way—which is genuine news, and amounts to the unveiling of a top-secret weapons system. Russia has been publicly demonstrating hypersonic technology purposely designed to thwart missile defense systems. But until this speech, the United States had not made any announcement that it intended to deploy similar technology.
Trump also made statements about the size and effectiveness of the U.S. military, which he claimed had been “completely rebuilt” on his watch. Trump also said that he didn’t want to use those forces.
In an odd twist, Trump appeared to appeal to Iran to assist in fighting ISIS at the same time he repeated past claims that ISIS had been 100% destroyed. […]
Trump did not threaten any immediate response to Iran’s missile launch. But neither did he extend an offer for negotiations to de-escalate the situation. […]
Trump also berated Iran for not “saying thank you to the United States.” Sheesh.
Susan Rice called Trump’s references to Obama “despicable lies.”
Trump may have spilled top secret details: ” Trump talked about how “big, powerful, lethal and fast” American missiles are, and indicated that there was a new generation of hypersonic missiles on the way—which is genuine news, and amounts to the unveiling of a top-secret weapons system.”
[…] both right-wing radio and Fox News have been filled with voices calling for more action, more attacks, more kill, kill, kill. That includes the specter of Ollie North, the man who once personally saw that missiles were delivered to Iran, calling for retaliation for Iran making use of a later generation of those same missiles. And it includes Trump’s late-night phone pal Sean Hannity practically chewing apart his stage set in his demands for additional strikes against Iran. […]
re Lynna @234: Chickenhawks all of them. Give them some body armor and send them with Rudy. They don’t give a rat’s ass if US soldiers get killed as long as they personally don’t get so much as a hangnail.
Hours before Iran launched a missile attack on U.S. troops in Iraq, Vladimir Putin visited Syria to huddle with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad over the mounting U.S.-Iran crisis. Russia has repeatedly condemned the U.S. airstrikes that killed Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani. It’s fair to assume that leaders in Moscow are seeking to turn the situation to their advantage.
[…] Russia and Iran have grown closer through military cooperation in Syria. Moscow’s expanding influence in Syria suggests that a conflict between the United States and Iran could advance Russia’s power and reputation in the region. At the very least, Russia will be able to paint the United States as an erratic aggressor, leading regional actors and international allies to question cooperation with Washington.
Russia has helped the Assad regime maintain control in Syria, even as the U.S. and its NATO allies demanded Assad’s ouster. […] Russia’s triumphs from that conflict include drawing Turkey away from its NATO allies, building a reputation as a valuable foreign backer, and emerging as a kingmaker—all at the expense of the United States. […]
Beyond strengthening Russia’s position, the Soleimani strike contributes to Russia’s goals of driving a wedge between Washington and its partners and advancing global perceptions of the United States as volatile and belligerent. […]
Moscow could also benefit if the U.S. strikes create more disunity between Washington and its European allies. Numerous U.S. decisions in the Middle East have frustrated allies, particularly its withdrawal from the nuclear deal. Reports suggest that the Trump administration even failed to warn Britain and other allies ahead of the strikes on Soleimani. […]
Ultimately, U.S. actions will strengthen Russian leadership: first, by removing American competition, and second, by turning regional and global sentiment against the United States. Provided Moscow continues cooperating with all regional states and maintains stability in Syrian territory where Russian forces are present, Russia stands a good chance of supplanting U.S. influence in the Middle East—no matter what happens next.
In Boquist v. Oregon State Senate President Peter Courtney(D-OR), an Oregon federal district court rejected claims by Oregon state senator Brian Boquist that his constitutional rights, including his 1st Amendment rights, were violated when state Senate leaders imposed a requirement that he give 12-hours notice before entering the Capitol building. [Me–This was to give officials time to arrange for additional state troopers to ensure the safety of employees and the public.]
The notice requirement was imposed in reaction to statements made by Boquist. All of this occurred during a political battle in which Republican senators left the Capitol in order to prevent a quorum from being present in the Senate, and the governor ordered state police to arrest them and bring them back. [Me–The walkout was over a climate change bill.]
Rejecting Boquist’s 1st Amendment claims, the court said in part:
[…]Remarkably, Plaintiff argues that his statement to Defendant Courtney— “if you send the State Police to get me, Hell’s coming to visit you personally”—was a statement of religious expression….
[…]
Plaintiff also said that if the State Police were to arrest him, they should “send bachelors and come heavily armed.”… These statements, apart and together, resonate more as threats than the expression of theological ideas.
More comments on some of the stranger parts of Trump’s speech that was delivered this morning:
[…] Instead of claiming the high road, acting in a presidential manner, and striving for some semblance of national unity, Trump told Americans this morning, for example, that last night’s missiles “were paid for” with funds “made available” by the Obama administration.
That’s absurd, and it’s part of a bogus claim Trump has been repeating for many months.
He went on to take credit for “destroying 100% of ISIS,” which is plainly false, since ISIS hasn’t been destroyed. He also boasted, “We are now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world,” which is true, though it’s a status the United States reached in 2012.
Just as alarming, Trump seemed eager to step on his own message. While embracing the idea of de-escalation, he added, “The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem, will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward.”
In the next breath, Trump suggested involving NATO in … something related to the Middle East. It wasn’t at all clear what exactly he had in mind.
Look, I don’t mean to sound picky. There was a real possibility that Trump could’ve rattled a saber and made matters vastly worse this morning, and I’m glad he didn’t. But this was also the latest in a series of missed opportunities for the president: facing a credibility crisis, he lied. Facing a divided domestic electorate, he took partisan cheap shots at his predecessor. Facing questions about whether he’s up to the task of leadership, he struggled with his trusted teleprompter and mispronounced a series of words.
Once again, Trump is the president who just can’t seem to help himself.
From Joby Warrick, writing for The Washington Post: “How a ‘quantum change’ in missiles has made Iran a far more dangerous foe.”
When a swarm of drones and cruise missiles attacked Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil facility on Sept. 14, an outraged Trump administration quickly blamed Iran for what it called an “unprecedented attack” on global energy supplies. But the real surprise was the strike’s accuracy: Of 19 weapons used, all but two scored direct hits.
When the smoke cleared, Saudi officials counted 14 holes where incoming projectiles had sliced through petroleum storage tanks. Three other critical parts of the oil-processing facility had been hit and disabled, shutting it down and temporarily cutting Saudi oil production in half.
In subsequent reports, U.S. analysts would describe the attack as a kind of wake-up call: evidence of a vastly improved arsenal of high-precision missiles that Iran has quietly developed and shared with allies over the past decade. […]
“They’re saying, ‘We can now hit those,’ ” said Fabian Hinz, an expert on Iran’s missile program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif. “What we’ve seen in Iran in the past few years is a change from missiles that were mainly political or psychological tools to actual battlefield weapons. This is a quantum change.” […]
Because Iran has provided its advanced missiles and bombmaking technology to proxy groups, it also possesses options for harming its adversaries while limiting the risk of reprisals. In the past, Tehran frequently tasked pro-Iranian militant groups — chiefly the Lebanon-based Hezbollah but also proxies and sympathizers based in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain — with carrying out a wide range of covert actions on its behalf, including bombings and missile strikes, kidnappings and cyberwarfare. […]
The Trump administration is seeking to delay a Democratic effort to require the Secret Service to disclose how much it spends protecting President Trump and his family when they travel — until after the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the discussions. […]
Mike Lee is a Republican senator from Utah. This is what he had to say after the Trump administration briefing on the assassination of a top Iranian commander:
It was probably the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate. […]
I find it insulting, and I find it demeaning to the Constitution of the United States to which we’ve all sworn an oath
They [the briefers] left after 75 minutes, while they’re in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public.
I find that absolutely insane.
More details:
[…] “I think we need to have a debate about separation of powers,” he said.
Both senators [Rand Paul and Mike Lee] said they would support Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) war powers resolution in the Senate, with some amendments. The House will also take up a war powers resolution on Iran.
“That briefing is what changed my mind,” Lee said. “I walked into the briefing undecided, I walked out decided, specifically because of what happened in that briefing.”
“It’s un-American, un-Constitutional and wrong, and I hope and expect that they will show greater deference to their own limited power in the future.” […]
58 times. He sniffed 58 times during his address. Here are all of them.
I wish I could read that general’s mind… I can’t tell if he’s just trying to figure out Trump’s hair or terrified of what he’s hearing. Or maybe he’s trying to figure out what he’s hearing and terrified of Trump’s hair.
tomhsays
Republicans: If we can’t have an all-out war, let’s just coninue to destroy the environment.
WASHINGTON — The White House on Thursday introduced major changes to the nation’s benchmark environmental protection law, moving to ease approval of major energy and infrastructure projects without detailed environmental review or consideration of climate change.
[…]
Under the law, major federal projects like bridges, highways, pipelines or power plants that will have a significant impact on the environment require a review, or environmental impact statement, outlining potential consequences. The proposed new rules would narrow the range of projects that require such a review.
[…]
The changes would also eliminate the need for agencies to consider the “cumulative impacts” of projects, which in recent years courts have said include studying the planet-warming consequences of emitting more greenhouse gases.
[…]
Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, called the changes a giveaway to the fossil fuel industries.
[…]
“Our country is at a pivotal time for American energy,” said Anne Bradbury, chief executive of the American Exploration & Production Council, an oil and gas trade association.
She praised the administration for clarifying the regulations and creating what she described as a more-efficient process that “removes bureaucratic barriers that were stifling construction of key infrastructure projects.”
The driving force behind this giveaway? Interior secretary, David Bernhardt, former oil and gas lobbyist.
Ragutis @243, I interpreted the General’s thought as, “Oh, fuck.” Repeated over and over again. When I was watching the entire speech, I noticed the General’s eyes slide to one side and widen when Trump claimed that money Obama gave Tehran paid for those missiles. He knows that’s a lie.
The General may think in time-honored military terms, “SNAFU!” Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
Members of the Trump administration presented a closed-door, classified briefing to Congress yesterday. Congress critters at that briefing have clearances that allow them to hear classified information. And yet, Robot Lickspittle Vice President Mike Pence made a ridiculously claim:
On NBC’s “TODAY,” Pence told Savannah Guthrie that the administration could not provide Congress with some of the “most compelling” intelligence behind the administration’s decision to kill Soleimani because doing so “could compromise” sources and methods.
“Some of that has to do with what’s called sources and methods,” Pence said. “Some of the most compelling evidence that Qassem Soleimani was preparing an imminent attack against American forces and American personnel also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence that we have — it could compromise those sources and methods.”
The Gang of Eight can hear even more sensitive information, but the Trump administration didn’t tell them either.
One can only conclude that Pence’s “most compelling” intelligence does not exist.
Some commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters yesterday that lawmakers, including some of his GOP colleagues, who balked after yesterday’s briefing are “empowering the enemy.”
At the root of the senator’s argument is the same dubious pitch that Pence peddled: Trump deserves the benefit of the doubt. To question the president’s decision, Graham suggested yesterday, is to undermine U.S. national security interests.
What’s unclear is why in the world anyone would take such an argument seriously. Donald Trump hasn’t just engaged in uncontrollable lying throughout his brief political career, but the Trump administration has struggled to keep its story straight about the airstrikes in question, offering competing and contradictory explanations for why the president risked a war.
To see Trump as credible is to ignore everything we’ve seen, heard, and learned in recent years. To see Trump as credible on life-and-death national security matters is folly.
Russia, if you’re listening, Facebook announced this morning that is doubling down on its current advertising policies, which allow candidates to lie to the public.
Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders continues her unbroken streak of making ill-informed comments that stroke Trump’s ego:
You know, I can’t think of anything dumber than allowing Congress to take over our foreign policy…. I think the last thing we want to do is push powers into Congress’ hands and take them away from the president. […]
T]he last thing I want to do is see them take power away from President Trump and put it into their own hands. I don’t think anything could be worse for America than that.
Those powers, Sarah, are already in Congress’ hands because that’s what the Article 1 Section of the U.S. Constitution says. To the legislative branch of Congress is given the power “to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water” [and to] “raise and support armies,” “provide and maintain a navy,” and “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.”
Confidence in President Donald Trump to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs remains broadly negative, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
The Washington-based Pew study, released Wednesday, found that among people it polled in 32 countries, 29% express confidence in Trump. Sixty-four percent say they lack confidence in the White House occupant.
The figures stand in marked contrast to the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when a median of 64% expressed confidence in Trump’s predecessor to direct America’s role in the world in a positive manner.
Yeah, I thought he was lying when he said that. Then, soon after, when reporters questioned him about the sanctions, Trump said, “You’ll see.” That’s one of Trump’s “I’m lying” tells.
More details:
[…] In a White House address yesterday, Trump said, “As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.”
I made the case yesterday that no one should necessarily assume that these “additional punishing” sanctions are real. As it turns out, as of this morning, their existence is very much in doubt.
Ordinarily, when an administration is poised to impose economic sanctions on a foreign country, there’s some kind of briefing, usually involving the Treasury Department. There was no such briefing yesterday. CNN reported, “[I]t was not immediately clear what shape those sanctions would take. The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.”
The New York Times added this report overnight:
He said instead that he would ratchet up sanctions on Iran, although administration officials said later that they had no specific plan to do so. The administration has already imposed so much economic pressure on Tehran that it was unclear if additional measures would make a meaningful difference.
Oh. So when Trump told the world that the United States is “immediately” imposing “powerful” sanctions, he may have been referring to sanctions that are not, in reality, real.
Making matters slightly worse, there’s a degree of familiarity to these circumstances.
In June, after Trump backed off military strikes against Iranian targets, he declared via Twitter that he’d just added “biting” new sanctions on Iran. While it’s true that the administration eventually added sanctions, the president’s specific claim in that tweet wasn’t true, either.
More about Trump’s presser on environmental policies:
So much for staying on message.
During his press conference announcing new environmental regulation policies Thursday, […] Trump seemed to be in a particularly bizarre mood, referring to a “rough neighborhood” around Tehran and at one point talking about the “YMCA” song.
Twitter speculated about the President’s appearance while he spoke at length about a variety of topics unrelated to the matter at hand. When he was asked about what happened to the Ukrainian plane that crashed outside Tehran this week — killing all 176 people on board — Trump didn’t hide the fact that he doesn’t buy the belief that the plane suffered a mechanical issue.
“Well, I have my suspicions,” he said when asked about the flight, just minutes before multiple credible news outlets reported that American officials believe the flight was downed by an Iranian missile.
“I don’t want to say that, because other people have their suspicions also. It’s a tragic thing when I see that. It’s a tragic thing. But somebody could have made a mistake on the other side, could have made a mistake,” he said. “It was flying in — not in our system, it has nothing to do with us. It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood and somebody could have made a mistake. Some people say it was mechanical. I personally don’t think that’s even a question, personally.”
He then went on a near-incoherent rant about his rationale for renaming various global alliances — NATO and the USMCA — claiming he told people they should think of the YMCA song to remember the USMCA abbreviation.
“I actually had a name. NATO, right? And then you have M-E. Middle East. You’d call it NATOME,” he said. “I said, ‘What a beautiful name.’ NATOME. I’m good at names, right? USMCA. Like the song YMCA. Nobody could remember USMCA. I said, ‘think of the song YMCA.’ Now everybody says it.”
Trump eventually got back around to the initial point of the press conference, which was to announce new environmental regulatory rollbacks, all in line with his ongoing approach to environmental policy — to dismantle protections put in place by the Obama administration.
“I’m a big believer in that word, the environment,” he said. “I’m a big believer, but I want clean air and I want clean water, I also want jobs, though. I don’t want to close up our industry because somebody said, you know, ‘you have to go with wind’ or ‘you have to go with something else.’ It’s not going to be able to have the capacity to do what we have to do.” […]
[…] According to CBS, U.S. satellites detected two missile launches shortly before the plane exploded. CNN reported that unnamed U.S. officials believe Iran mistakenly shot down the plane. CNN called it a “working theory” among U.S. brass.
Newsweek also reported on unnamed U.S. officials’ beliefs that the plane was shot down by a Russian-built anti-missile system. […]
The plane crash, which claimed the lives of all 176 people on board — Iranians, Canadians, Ukrainians and others — was shrouded in mystery and contradictory statements in the hours following the incident. The plane crashed hours after Iran fired missiles that struck two U.S. bases in Iraq. […]
Various aviation experts have expressed the possibility of foul play with the Tehran crash, citing the circumstances of the incident and photographic evidence from the crash site.
There’s also some talk that a Russian-made missile shot down the plane. Iran does buy military equipment from Russia.
From the readers comments:
I wonder if the missile batteries are manned by the Russians. You know, like when they shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine.
—————–
The BBC reports US satellite caught two blips – believed to be missile launches – followed by the blip from the explosion.
Moscow Mitch McConnell spent his Wednesday evening hanging out at the White House with Donald Trump to talk impeachment […]
To collude with Trump regarding how to get him absolved of all his wrong doing.
But don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, because, as CNN reports, McConnell “has not shared with the White House the text of the resolution that would set up the trial, according to one of the sources, who insists there’s no negotiation with the GOP leader’s office on how the language should be drafted.” Which is entirely believable. Sure. Especially when you read this: “We want this to start as quickly as possible,” said Eric Ueland, the White House legislative director. “We want the President to be acquitted as quickly as possible.”
Acquittal is a foregone conclusion. We knew that already, because McConnell has been saying so for weeks. They’re not even trying to pretend otherwise in the White House. That makes McConnell’s brazen statements that he is plowing over the 47 Democratic senators and writing his own resolution without their consultation even more striking. Strikingly bad.
“I don’t want to say that, because other people have their suspicions also. It’s a tragic thing when I see that. It’s a tragic thing. But somebody could have made a mistake on the other side, could have made a mistake,” he said. “It was flying in — not in our system, it has nothing to do with us. It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood and somebody could have made a mistake. Some people say it was mechanical. I personally don’t think that’s even a question, personally.”
The fact that he’s trying to play it as a mistake makes me wonder. If it wasn’t him, then why would he play down the responsibility? That’s hardly his style.
Also, “It was flying in — not in our system, it has nothing to do with us.”
It sounded guilty when I read it and it sounded guilty when I went and saw the video. “Not in our system.” Why is he denying something that wasn’t asked?
Perhaps the correct interpretation is that this was a screw-up. Some local commander got antsy and blew up a civilian plane. Oops. Now what?
LykeX @254, people in Iran are pushing the theory that the CIA shot the plane down. Doesn’t make sense, but that’s what they are saying.
Also, the plane was not flying in, it was taking off. The “pretty rough neighborhood” comment makes no sense. Sounds like Trump trying to muddy the waters.
It’s also possible that Putin has been in touch with Trump, and has pushed Trump in the direction of, “It was a mistake.” With Trump, you never know.
Also, Trump may really want this to have been a mistake so that he is not pushed to retaliate, not pushed to escalate the war. I really think Trump wants two contradictory things: he wants to appear tough, as if he is not letting Iran get away with anything; and at the same time he is deathly afraid of starting a full-blown, Middle-East-encompassing war.
We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. This may well have been unintentional.
Trump is still trying to create a show trial that deflects attention away from his obvious crimes:
I’m going to leave it to the Senate, but I’d like to hear the whistleblower, I’d like to hear “shifty” Schiff, I’d like to hear Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.
About John Bolton testifying, Trump said:
When we start allowing national security advisers to just go up and say whatever they want to say, we can’t do that. People can’t go up and say whatever my thoughts are, whatever your thoughts are about us, countries, views. You don’t want that to be out.
[…] Warren has just released videos and interviews with both Elle AND ALSO Cosmo, a day apart […]
We’ll start with the Cosmo because of how Warren again threatens to dance, saying she really loves it when the selfie line starts because they play Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” and she just has a hard time not dancing to that.
This heads into a full-throated defense of Warren’s approach for actually achieving Medicare For All, and a discussion of money in politics, where Warren notes that on the very day Kamala Harris dropped out of the race because she didn’t have enough money, “a billionaire bought his way onto the debate stage.”
It’s not that she hates rich people — far from it! — she just wants them to contribute their fair share in taxes, and not contribute more than their fair share to our democratic process […]
This was followed by wonky details about Warren’s wealth tax and all kinds of discussions of I Have A Plan For That, etc.
Warren also addressed the killing of Qasem Soleimani, noting that he “was a bad guy but a high-ranking Iranian government official,” and that Trump’s actions “[have] not made America safer.” It’s funny, because Chris Cillizza was just telling us the other day how Warren was a big flip-flopper about Soleimani, and there she is, saying literally everything she’s been saying about it from the beginning. Huh. […]
Elizabeth Warren, what is your New Year’s resolution, besides “be president”?
Elizabeth Warren: Walk more, more exercise. I’m trying to up my mileage, my daily mileage.
Jessica Pels: From where to where?
Elizabeth Warren: Well, I don’t know. My eyes may have been bigger than what I can manage here, but I want to go from six and a half miles to seven every day.
Elizabeth Warren walks more than you do. That is what we take from that.
Warren tells Cosmo that out of all the Little Women, she is a “Jo,” and that out of all the coffee shops, she is a “Dunkin’ Donuts.” She also says she’ll bring her dog Bailey to the White House if she wins, and that you really should make her win, because if she does, we all get eight full years of Kate McKinnon playing her on “Saturday Night Live.” (This may be the best campaign platform she’s come up with yet, TBH.) […]
Warren answers questions for readers, like should this one woman keep pursuing a guy who basically quit talking to her, but still watches her Instagram stories (DROP HIM); how can another person get their non-dog-interested roommate into the idea of getting a dog (Warren encourages the devious trickery of taking the roommate to a dog shelter and causing them to accidentally fall in love with a specific dog); and how to make it up to your friend whose birthday you forgot (GROVEL AND BRIBE WITH CHOCOLATE). […]
Hey, know what video you can watch right here? This one from Warren’s campaign page on Facebook, where she takes a question from an oh-so-earnest evangelical white dude voter whining about how nobody will respect his right to ban women from making their own bodily decisions. Her answer is masterful […]
From Wonkette: “Kansas Expanding Medicaid. Yes, That Kansas!”
In Kansas, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and the Republican leaders of the state legislature announced today they’ve reached an agreement to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. It’s not only honest-to-God bipartisanship, but in a genuine surprise, the more than 100,000 Kansans who’ll get Medicaid coverage won’t even be subjected to poor-people punishing work requirements that are all the rage in red states these days. […] Kelly’s predecessor, Sam Brownback, repeatedly blocked Medicaid expansion and crashed the state’s revenues through deep tax cuts that somehow never resulted in prosperity.
Now, of course, the Kansas Lege still has to actually pass the legislation, so Kansans making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level may not want to go scheduling any “I got live-saving surgery without going bankrupt” parties yet. Still, with Republican leaders on board, it looks hopeful.
[…] The 10 percent of costs that the state would kick in for expanding Medicaid will be paid for through a hospital surcharge so Rs won’t whine too much about taxes, and even the hospitals are in support.
Even so, as soon as the plan was announced, some Republicans started invoking fears of creeping socialism. […]
The compromise also included a provision that Medicaid beneficiaries would be referred to employment resources, but not forced to meet work requirements. As we point out every damn time “work requirements come up,” most Medicaid recipients ALREADY WORK. And while Republicans just looooove them some poor-shaming, work requirements often cost so much to administer that they eat up funding that could go to services. Some states throw up so many dumb hurdles — like online registration, regardless of whether applicants have internet access — that they keep qualified people from using the program. […]
Some Republicans may have been persuaded to support expansion because it’s just about the only thing likely to prevent rural hospitals from closing, a trend that has measurably increased mortality rates in rural areas. With up to 30 percent of Kansas’s rural hospitals at risk, the federal money seems like maybe a good damn idea. […]
War powers vote: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that the House would send a clear statement to President Donald Trump on Thursday saying that he should not take any further military action against Iran without getting approval from Congress.”
Oh, FFS. The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for the state Republican Party to exclude Trump’s primary rivals from the GOP ballot in March. Minnesota will join Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina in limiting Republican primary voters to a single candidate.
Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.
Well, that makes more sense tan the other, shifting, and sometimes contradictory explanations offered by Trump and his lickspittles.
U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest In Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.
The trend has nothing to do with Trump. This is from USA Today:
Gary Reedy, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, pushed back against Trump’s insinuation, stating that “The mortality trends reflected in our current report, including the largest drop in overall cancer mortality ever recorded from 2016 to 2017, reflect prevention, early detection, and treatment advances that occurred in prior years.”
He continued that “Since taking office, the president has signed multiple spending bills that have included increases in funding for cancer research at the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute — though the impact of those increases are not reflected in the data contained in this report.”
That article also points out that Trump’s proposed budgets would have cut billions of dollars from National Institute of Health funding, cuts that would, in turn, have negatively affected the National Cancer Institute.
From Joe Biden:
You tried to slash nearly $1 billion for cancer funding. We’re lucky that the cancer rate is down, but we’re luckier that Congress stopped you.
The life expectancy of Americans has declined during Trump’s administration. Maybe he can take credit for that.
A New York judge has rebuffed […] Trump’s bid to throw out a lawsuit filed against him by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accuses him of hurting her career and reputation in denying her claim that he raped her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
In a ruling made public on Thursday, Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected Mr. Trump’s argument in a filing last week that New York’s courts lack jurisdiction to hear the case because he was not in New York and did not live in the state when he made the comments that Ms. Carroll says defamed her.
Weak!
Commentary from Steve Benen:
The Times’ article added that judge in the case noted that Trump failed to provide anything — “not even a tweet, much less an affidavit” — to support his position. The judge also cleared the way for the discovery process to continue.
For those who may need a refresher on the controversy, Carroll spent years as a prominent writer, media figure, and advice columnist, including having hosted a show on America’s Talking, which later became MSNBC. As regular readers may recall, in June, she also joined a long list of women who’ve accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Indeed, in a recently published book, Carroll described an alleged encounter in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, which the writer described as a violent sexual assault committed by the future president. Though definitively proving or disproving Caroll’s claim is difficult – there is no security footage to review and no physical evidence to scrutinize – the writer said she confided in two friends shortly after the alleged incident, telling them at the time what she said occurred. Those friends soon after came forward with on-the-record accounts.
The president has denied the claim, arguing, among other things, that his latest accuser is a “liar” who isn’t his “type.” Two months ago, Carroll sued Trump for defamation.
For her part, the plaintiff said in November that she was “filing this lawsuit for every woman who’s been pinched, prodded, cornered, felt-up, pushed against a wall, grabbed, groped, assaulted, and has spoken up only to be shamed, demeaned, disgraced, passed over for promotions, fired, and forgotten.”
Carroll added, “While I can no longer hold Donald Trump accountable for assaulting me more than twenty years ago, I can hold him accountable for lying about it and I fully intend to do so.” […]
There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani. And we don’t know precisely when and we don’t know precisely where, but it was real.
A politically-driven DOJ “review” of the Clinton Foundation and other warmed-over Clinton-related stories, which President Donald Trump demanded in 2017 as the Mueller probe heated up, has essentially concluded with nothing to show for its work.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, John Huber, has finished the probe and found no criminal conduct to pursue […]
The review followed an intense public push in 2017 by Trump and his allies in Congress to appoint a second special counsel — counter-programming for special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems..”
More background details:
The same month that Trump tweeted a push for a probe of Clinton, November 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote to Huber, telling him to review existing evidence.
“Your recommendations should include whether any matters not currently under investigation warrants the opening of an investigation, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources or further investigation, and whether any matters would merit the appointment of a Special Counsel,” Sessions said.
The Justice Department claimed no such written directive to Huber existed; it was ultimately surfaced through a public records lawsuit by the watchdog group American Oversight. [Yeah, the Justice Department lied.]
In addition to other seemingly never-ending probes, like one into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, Huber pursued the non-scandal surrounding the Canadian mining company called Uranium One.
Uranium One’s chairman had donated to the Clinton Foundation, which fueled conservative conspiracy theories that Clinton had meddled in the approval process for the company’s acquisition by Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom during her time as secretary of state.
Clinton didn’t meddle in the deal — an independent board consisting of the the State Department and eight other federal agencies approved it — but it was a useful attack line for Republicans in 2016 and beyond.
Like many anti-Clinton attacks, the Uranium One story began with Peter Schweizer, the Breitbart contributor whose group, Government Accountability Institute, was founded by Steve Bannon, funded by the pro-Trump mega-donor Robert Mercer and chaired by Mercer’s daughter Rebekah. […]
Yep. The Mercers paid for that dirt in much the same way that Rudy Giuliani and Trump tried to orchestrate payment for dirt on Joe Biden. Except that the Mercers used their own money, and Trump was trying to use taxpayer funds allocated by Congress. Heaven forbid that he should use his own money to finance his crime spree. And Giuliani was, at least in part, paid by Russian/Ukranian oligarchs.
Pelosi seems to be almost ready to send articles of impeachment to the Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated Friday that she planned to bring a resolution to the floor “next week” to transmit the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate. Pelosi outlined the timing in a “Dear Colleague” letter, saying Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had shown his “true colors” Thursday when he signed on to a resolution that would dismiss the impeachment charges outright without even holding a trial.
“A dismissal is a cover-up and deprives the American people of the truth,” Pelosi wrote. “Leader McConnell’s tactics are a clear indication of the fear that he and President Trump have regarding the facts of the President’s violations for which he was impeached.”
Pelosi also highlighted important pieces of new information that have emerged since the House voted to impeach Donald Trump:
On December 20, new emails showed that 91 minutes after Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, a top Office of Management and Budget (OMB) aide asked the Department of Defense to “hold off” on sending military aid to Ukraine.
On December 29, revelations emerged about OMB Director and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s role in the delay of aid, the effort by lawyers at the OMB, the Department of Justice and the White House to justify the delay, and the alarm that the delay caused within the Administration.
On January 2, newly-unredacted Pentagon emails, which we had subpoenaed and the President had blocked, raised serious concerns by Trump Administration officials about the legality of the President’s hold on aid to Ukraine.
And on January 6, just this week, former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton announced he would comply with a subpoena compelling his testimony. His lawyers have stated he has new relevant information.
She closed by saying she was “proud of the courage and patriotism” her caucus had demonstrated in defense of the Constitution and reminding everyone that U.S. senators must take an oath to “do impartial justice” during an impeachment trial.
”Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the President or the Constitution,” Pelosi concluded.
[…] Pelosi got exactly what she wanted: a clear indication that McConnell planned to rig the Senate trial, even to the point of not holding one at all.
Hey, there was a Trump Hitler rally last night, you hear about it? No you didn’t, you have a life. […]
From Ashley Parker:
“Where’s Hunter? Where’s Hunter?” Trump says to the crowd, referring to Biden’s son Hunter.
“Check the crack house,” shouts out a rally attendee, adding: “Report that, you frauds. He’s in the crack house!”
More from Wonkette:
Neat, Trump supporters who go to Trump rallies continue to be just the best people. Well done.
Anyway, the rally was the first Trump rally of 2020, and it was in “town” in “heartland” (Toledo). And he played all his greatest (senile dementia authoritarian lie) hits!
The usual suspects (Aaron Rupar) live-tweeted the affair, let’s find out what happened (cheat off Aaron Rupar’s paper).
Mike Pence started out the whole hoo-hah […] explaining why Trump bombed the shit out of Iran’s second most powerful government official, none of which was about how we were about to be attacked. Instead it was “no more Benghazis!” or something, because Trump wingnuts are well known for making Pavlov’s Dog rage-gasm sounds when you say “BENGHAZI!11!1!!!!”
Anyway, Donald Trump eventually took the stage and he said the Trump things and he pretended he accomplished a veterans thing that was actually accomplished by Barack Obama and there was a protester and Trump told the crowd the protester was “goin’ home to mommy” when he was booted out.
All normal so far.
Here is Trump saying we are “uzhing” our military power to make “peesh” happen, because we “seek friendzh, not emenenies,” and this is accurate because of how Trump just bombed the shit out of Iran’s second-most powerful military official, which is just a real “peesh” move. Our point is that his face was malfunctioning last night, like it usually does. […]
There are roughly 50,000 American troops in the Middle East – with several thousand more on the way – 6,000 of whom are in Iraq. This past weekend, the Iraqi parliament voted unanimously to expel U.S. forces from Iraqi soil, a vote that came in response to the U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
[…] Iraq, our ostensible ally, has directly requested that the United States begin the planning process that would end our military presence in the country.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said in a statement Friday that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a phone call “to send a delegation to Iraq to put a mechanism [in place] for implementing the Iraqi parliament decision to safely withdraw troops from Iraq.”
This was, he said, because “Iraq is keen to keep the best relations with its neighbors and friends within the international community, and to protect foreign representations and interests and all those present on Iraqi soil.”
As we’ve discussed, the initial response from the Trump administration to the Iraqi parliament’s vote was acquiescence. Earlier this week, officials in Baghdad received a signed letter from Marine Brig. Gen. William Seely, who commands Task Force Iraq, not only declaring the U.S. intention to withdraw, but including specific and detailed information about how it would occur.
In apparent reference to the Iraqi parliament’s vote, the letter said, “We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.”
As is too often the case, the Trump administration struggled to keep its story straight about the letter, before eventually saying the whole thing was an unfortunate “mistake.”
Today, however, the administration had an entirely new message for our allies in Baghdad: We’re not leaving. The New York Times reported:
The State Department on Friday rebuffed the Iraqi government’s request to begin discussions on pulling out troops, saying that any American officials going to Baghdad during a state of heightened tensions would not discuss a “troop withdrawal,” as the Iraqi prime minister had requested. Instead, discussions would be about the “appropriate force posture in the Middle East.”
The statement from Washington was a direct rebuttal to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi of Iraq, and was certain to add to the friction between the two nations.
Well, yes, I’d say “friction” is inevitable when one country asks another to leave, and the response is, “No.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters this morning that the administration is “going to continue” its mission in Iraq, and a State Department spokesperson insisted that the United States is a “force for good” in the region.
It appears Iraq may have come to a different conclusion. It also appears the Trump administration doesn’t care.
KGsays
A new study shows that death rates [in USA] increased for middle-aged people of all racial and ethnic groups. – Lynna, OM@264
That’s really remarkable. AFAIK (disclaimer – I’m not a demographer) the only similar national death rate rises in recent decades have been due to AIDS, in parts of Africa, and the application of the “shock doctrine” following the collapse of the USSR.
KG, @272, Yes, it is remarkable. The Trump administration is still attacking health care availability in the USA, restricting access to food supplement programs, and increasing pollution in the environment. They are not done yet when ti comes to increasing death rates.
Some bits and pieces of news, as posted by Steve Benen:
Pointless cruelty: “The Texas governor said that his state will reject the resettling of new refugees, making Texas the first state to do so following a Trump administration order granting local governments the authority to do so.”
* Looks like they came up with some sanctions after all: “The Trump administration on Friday announced a new round of economic sanctions against Iran in response to the regime’s missile attacks on Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. and coalition forces.”
* Trump can’t ask Putin to stop doing this? “A Russian naval ship ‘aggressively approached’ a U.S. Navy destroyer in the North Arabian Sea on Thursday, in a dangerous near-collision, authorities said Friday.”
* In case you missed this last night: “The House adopted a war powers resolution Thursday with the aim of limiting President Donald Trump’s military actions against Iran. The adoption of the measure on a largely party-line vote of 224-194 came amid heightened tension between the two countries after the United States killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile attack against Iraqi air bases housing U.S. forces.”
* Speaking of the House doing important stuff: “The House on Friday passed legislation to broadly regulate a cancer-linked chemical over objections from the White House that Congress is sidestepping agencies. The bill, which passed 247 to 159, targets a class of chemicals abbreviated as PFAS that have been leaching into the water supply across the country, causing health problems in communities where water has been contaminated.”
* Border barriers: “The White House on Thursday celebrated a federal court ruling that will allow $3.6 billion in military construction funds to be used for the construction of the border wall. A separate court on Thursday lifted a restraining order on a private group allied with President Trump that wants to build its own barriers on private land.”
* Rep. Doug Collins (R-Colo.) this week told a national television audience that his Democratic colleagues are “in love terrorists.” This morning on Fox News, he defended his own rhetoric, but two hours later, he apologized.
Jared Kushner, equipped with an amorphous professional title and razor straight hair part, has long had a laughably large portfolio.
He has been assigned chunks of policy as massive as “Middle East peace” and “reforming the criminal justice system.”
Now, per the New York Times, he’ll have even more on his plate.
Kushner is taking over the reelection effort from the White House, organizing meetings and making decisions on staff and spending. He attended meetings with campaign officials in Mar-a-Lago, and made a rare public appearance at a December campaign press event. There, he announced that he is now a registered Republican.
This means that he’ll have less time for some of the other tasks on his to-do list:
Solving Middle East Peace
[…] “If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” Trump said at a dinner the night before his inauguration. […]
Reforming the Criminal Justice System
Kushner has actually been relatively more successful with this job than some of his others tasks. Kushner, with the unlikely help of Kim Kardashian West, shepherded through prison sentencing reform called the First Step Act. […]
Negotiating Trade with China
Kushner played a big role in ending NAFTA, and became the point person for the U.S. in trade negotiations with China. […]
Overseeing Mexico Border Wall Construction
Per the Washington Post, Kushner was chosen to oversee the construction of Trump’s border wall in November, and has since held biweekly meetings about its progress. Kushner has been pushing for progress to be expedited, in order to meet Trump’s mileage promise — 400 — by the end of 2020.
Some officials have criticized Kushner’s lack of understanding of a multi-agency project, and haste to obtain private land along the border despite the legal roadblocks.
Modernizing Government Tech
Kushner attended a summit with leaders in tech in June 2017 to make the case for consolidating and streamlining government records, some of which are stored on antiquated systems. Per TechCrunch, he did not explain specifics or security measures.
Solving the Opioid Crisis
In March 2017, Trump named Kushner as head of the “White House Office of American Innovation,” charged with tackling massive problems like the opioid epidemic and veteran care. […]
The Trump administration tried to assassinate a different top Iranian commander.
[…] Several unnamed U.S. officials told the [Washington] Post and the [Wall Street] Journal that […] Trump had reportedly authorized a drone strike on Iranian Quds Force leader Abdul Reza Shahlai in Yemen, but it failed to kill him.
“If we had killed him, we’d be bragging about it that same night,” one official told the Post.
The sources did not explain why the operation was unsuccessful.
Neither Trump nor any of his senior administration officials have publicly disclosed the second assassination effort in Iran. They have also yet to provide evidence of the “imminent” danger from Iran that they claim justified the strike on Soleimani.
Looks like a few of the people in the know on the assassination-happy trumpian plans are none too pleased, so they are leaking to the press.
From the readers comments:
So who’s playing Assassin’s Creed in Trumplandia?
————————–
Iran is going to respond to these attacks through quieter means than a bunch of missile strikes. And, the administration just put a target on every senior American official…they are now fair game for assassination since Trump ordered the military to pick off a couple upper level government officials. That’s how Iran will see it, and the world may agree…Trump brought this on himself, he’s going to reap it.
Hopefully the Iranians don’t go through with this, or do something like blow up a Trump hotel…innocents will get caught in the crossfire in this tit for tat play. But it just may happen…and, the people crowing the most about assassinating other state officials will be screaming about it happening to us, instead of noting that Trump started it when he should not have done so.
In short, the Senate rules appear to give considerable power to the Presiding Officer, including the power to issue “orders, mandates, writs, and precepts”, to “direct all the forms of proceedings while the Senate is sitting for the purpose of trying and impeachment”, and to “rule on all questions of evidence including, but not limited to, questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence”.
In every case, however, this appearance of authority is subject to the limitation that any ruling he makes can be questioned by any Senator and overturned with a simple majority vote of the Senate. This means that the Republicans have absolute power as long as McConnell can keep 51 votes together.
Bottom line (from the article):
In the end, I doubt that Democrats have much to hope for from Roberts, or that Republicans have much to fear. The smart money is that he will strive to replicate Rehnquist’s approach [in Clinton’s impeachment] of doing “nothing in particular and doing it very well.”
a_ray_in_dilbert_spacesays
Lynna@264
My own take is that humans don’t do well when you try to turn them into domesticated animals that produce a steady income stream for the real “people”–namely corporations and the asshole-jerkoffs who run them.
Healthcare is becoming more and more an exercise of “treating” rather than curing disease–more long-term income for corporations, less well being.
Our food is coming more and more from multi-nationals than from the farm down the road.
Hell, you can’t even rely on the water supply. Have to buy tap water in disposable plastic bottles.
Education, the prison system, even defense are all being privatized to ensure a steady stream of rents to corporations and the people who own them. People in America increasingly live lives of debt/illness driven despair and corporate-supplied distraction. We are no longer free-range.
With Iran’s admission that it accidentally shot down a civilian airliner the night of its retaliatory strikes against the US military bases in Iraq it is worth remembering that Russia has still not made a similar admission about the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine in 2014. The facts are not identical. In that case Russia provided Buk surface-to-air missiles to “separatists” operating in eastern Ukraine who seem to have thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian military jet.
Here we get into the inherent and intentional murkiness about which of these “separatists” aided by Russia were people who could legitimately be called “separatists” versus Russian military or Russian veterans operating with plausible deniability […] the upshot is the same: As part of an intentional policy of using vaguely deniable proxies, Russia gave highly lethal weaponry […] to people operating with little command and control or oversight. The result was unthinkable tragedy. Not only has Russia never admitted responsibility it has continued to support and propagate various conspiracy theories and “false narratives” about what happened.
[…] whatever you think of the government of Iran this is simply an unimaginably hard admission to have to make. And they cut the denials relatively quickly. This is not simply because a wrong is always hard to admit but because they were admitting to killing scores of Iranians. […]
All governments have great difficulty admitting wrongdoing, even if they are tragic errors without malign intent. It’s important to remember here that while this was a Ukrainian airliner the victims were overwhelmingly either Iranian nationals or Canadian citizens of Iranian descent. So in a communal and national sense it is mainly a self-inflicted wound. […].
Trump still plans to block witnesses that may appear in the impeachment trial.
[…] Trump signaled in an interview aired Friday that he would seek to block key witnesses from testifying in the Senate’s impeachment trial, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Trump ordered the men, and several other witnesses, not to cooperate with the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry about his pressure campaign on Ukraine to produce political dirt against Democrats.
[…] Trump implied he would seek to do the same in [the Senate] chamber.
Asked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham if he would invoke executive privilege in an attempt to prevent Bolton from testifying, Trump said “I think you have to, for the sake of the office.”
Bolton witnessed several attempts by Trump administration officials to pressure Ukraine to do the President’s political bidding.
At one point, referring to the EU ambassador and the White House chief of staff, Bolton reportedly told a deputy “I am not part of whatever drug deal [Gordon] Sondland and [Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up.” […]
Trump similarly suggested Friday he would seek to prevent potential testimony from Pompeo, Mulvaney and Perry.
“I would love everybody to testify,” he said. “I would like Mick to testify, I like Mike Pompeo to testify. I like Rick Perry to testify. I want everybody. But there are things that you can’t do from the standpoint of executive privilege.”
“You have to maintain that,” Trump continued. “So we’ll see where it all goes. But especially a national security adviser, you can’t have him explaining all of your statements about national security concerning Russia, China, North Korea, everything. You just can’t do that.” […]
Executive Privilege does not apply when crimes are being committed.
From the readers comments:
“I have to completely block the process” said the criminal president. “For the good of me”.
——————–
If not for the necessity to protect executive privilege for future presidents, Trump would let these witnesses provide testimony that would completely exonerate him. You have to admire that kind of principled selflessness. [Ha!]
———————-
The problem here, of course, is anytime a President is impeached for actions either due to malfeasance or illegality, the people best positioned to know are those serving under the President in the Executive Branch. If he’s allowed to claim this privilege, then there’s almost no point to Impeachment because it becomes practically an impossibility to discover the truth of the matter.
Finding the truth here should be the highest priority, as there’s no Privilege when crimes are involved
Evolution of a lie: from “imminent attack” to “four embassies,” with no facts in between. Trump started by saying there was an imminent attack planned against our embassy in Baghdad (though he waited seven, 7!, days to make up that bullshit), and then, as he usually does, he increased the number as he went along. Most recently, Trump pulled the number “4” out of his ass.
Now his lickspittles are scrambling to catch up. Pompeo even claimed that the purported attacks against U.S. embassies had been briefed to the Congress. Nope. That’s a blatant lie. No Congress critter, not even a Republican one, has claimed that imminent attacks against embassies were mentioned during the briefing.
Lindsey Graham, however, claims that Trump’s address to the nation about killing Soleimani will go down in history as the equivalent of Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall” speech.
Trump’s address was full of lies.
Sometimes deception generates a “tangled web,” other times just a hilarious mess. But Donald Trump’s war-triggering assassination and post-drone strike rationalizations show two things: one is how clumsily Trump shifts his lies from day to day, the other is how Mike Pompeo and Fox News hurry along in Trump’s wake, trying to paper over irrational statements with a thin veneer of claims that all fall apart on even the most cursory examination.
[…] Pompeo and others were willing to throw away any pretense of integrity to make it seem that Trump had a passing grasp on the facts. […]
1) Donald Trump was not supposed to assassinate Qassem Soleimani. Military planners presented it to Trump as the “far out” option under the silly assumption he would take a more reasoned approach.
2) What those planners weren’t considering wasn’t just Trump’s disdain for reason, but his need to make a big gesture toward Iran to secure the support of Republican senators in his upcoming impeachment trial.
3) So the mission went forward, with a pretense of “improving safety,” even though killing the Iranian general made the situation across the whole Middle East immediately, and obviously less secure.
4) After initially stating that Soleimani was calling back to Tehran for authorization on a plan that threatened hundreds of Americans, Mike Pompeo continually shifted the target and tried to confuse “imminent attack” with retribution for things that were already past.
5) When Congress finally got a chance to be briefed on the so-called intelligence behind the attack, even Republicans were shocked at the inability of the White House to produce anything to support their actions in the “worst briefing ever”.
6) Then, days after the attack and stinging from complaints by Republicans in House and Senate, Trump dropped the idea that Soleimani had been plotting “to blow up the U.S. embassy” into an interview, while providing absolutely no evidence.
7) With that new claim on the board, Pompeo hurried to not only try to support Trump’s claim by giving a long list of possible targets, including “embassies,” but flat-out lied by saying Congress had been told about the embassy threat in the briefing — which was quickly contradicted by those in attendance.
8) Trump expanded on his freshly-generated claim at his rally, telling those in attendance that “Soleimani was … looking very seriously at our embassies, and not just the embassy in Baghdad,” forcing Pompeo to ramp up his lies to match Trump’s latest claims.
[…] at every step along the line, Fox News has been not just cheering on Trump’s latest claim, but out in front, making suggestions that Trump is underplaying the real threat and that only more attacks can bring peace.
That’s not all the lies told. Trump also lied about the money paid to Iran as part of the nuclear deal, and Trump blamed Obama in totally nonsensical ways.
[…] Kim [Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea] has been launching new missiles, building more nuclear weapons, generally sending a message of big-D Doom, and calling Trump a “dotard.”
So, concerned that his friendship was in peril, Trump did what any kid in the back row of math class would do when he wants to know if that girl with the pigtails still likes him—he got a friend to carry a note. As The Hill reports, rather than risk being personally rebuffed, Trump asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in to deliver a birthday message to Kim. While President Moon reported that the message was delivered, he did not reveal the contents, or what reply, if any, Kim sent back to Trump. […]
Trump has some reason to be concerned other than just being called a foolish old man. Kim has yet to send his promised Christmas present. In mid-December, the North Korean dictator promised that Pyongyang was readying a gift for the American people. Though Trump, and this is true, speculated that it might be something like “a beautiful vase,” expectations were that Kim was signaling the launch of a new longer-range missile, a suspicion that was increased by activity at the facility North Korea uses for its nascent space program. And though the launch did not make it in time for the holidays, it still appears that North Korea is taking steps to prepare for showcasing a new weapon. […]
From Iranian foreign minister Mohamad Javad Zarif:
A sad day. Preliminary conclusions of internal investigation by Armed Forces:
Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster
Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.
From Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:
The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake.
My thoughts and prayers go to all the mourning families. I offer my sincerest condolences.
Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.
Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake.
[…] though the deception involved has been fairly widely reported in the press, it hasn’t played a leading role in describing the escalating cycle of tensions. That’s a mistake. By killing a foreign country’s key leader, the US put itself in the position of facing retaliation, as Iran did with rocket attacks on US bases in Iraq earlier this week. Those attacks, thankfully, didn’t kill any Americans. The Trump administration, thankfully, agreed not to retaliate further, for now.
[…] For an administration that wants to start a war with Iran but lacks the public backing to do so — or for a faction that wants to start a war but lacks the full support of the president — one good way to make the dream happen is to do things that provoke Iranian responses that, in turn, provoke new American responses.
A way to halt that cycle of escalation is to insist that people who want to take provocative steps give accurate information about what they are doing.
[…] There’s substantial evidence to doubt the administration’s imminent threat message.
For example, the Pentagon’s original press release about the Soleimani operation didn’t mention it, and the immediate US reaction was to order all American civilians out of Iraq for fear of retaliation […]
[Trump] said it was heading off imminent attacks even as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conceded that he couldn’t say where or when these attacks were supposed to happen. […]
Similarly, senators briefed on the intelligence simply said there was no evidence of an imminent threat. […]
EPORTER: Why are you saying that Soleimani presented an imminent threat against embassies here but not to senators during this week’s briefing?
POMPEO: We did.
REPORTER: So senators are lying?
POMPEO: I won’t talk about the details.
[…] Lying the country into war is really bad
Trump is, of course, notorious for lying about all kinds of things. And the national security sector, accustomed as it is to dealing in classified matters and state secrets, seems in some ways to be instinctively unbothered by deception. But in reality, this kind of lying is especially dangerous.
The public is highly motivated to protect American lives, as are members of Congress who are responsive to the public. They would be willing to go further in terms of killing foreigners to actually defend Americans in a specific way than they would to, say, advance Saudi Arabia’s regional ambitions with regard to Iran. […]
This dynamic is already clearly in place in the larger question of the Iran nuclear deal, the specific elements of which Trump keeps lying about. Iran’s aggressive behavior against the US is clearly linked to Trump’s decision to abrogate the deal. Trump keeps saying he did so because Iran was cheating, which, if it were true, would be a good reason to abrogate the deal. But it wasn’t true.
US-Iran relations have deteriorated to a point where Iran is refusing to abide by the limits in the agreement. If you lack the original context that the US pulled out of the deal despite Iranian compliance, Iran’s actions could be seen as justifying new anti-Iran moves from the US. […]
Good news: Trump plans to read a book about environmentalism. Bad news: the actual book.
[…] Given his long history of dismissing climate change as a “hoax,” Trump made a bit of news on Thursday when he claimed to take the issue seriously during a White House event to announce, ironically, regulatory changes that make it easier for federal agencies to approve infrastructure projects without having to consider climate implications.
Asked whether he thinks climate change “is a hoax” by a reporter, Trump replied, “No, no. Not at all.” But instead of talking about the risks of climate change, Trump mentioned a book he intends to read and proclaimed his support for clean air and water.
“Nothing’s a hoax. Nothing’s a hoax about that. It’s a very serious subject. I want clean air. I want clean water. I want the cleanest air, I want the cleanest water,” Trump said. “The environment is very important to me. Someone wrote a book that I’m an environmentalist … I’d like to get it. I have it in the other office. I’ll bring it to my next news conference perhaps.” […]
his remark about having a book in mind piqued the curiosity of New York Times climate change reporter Lisa Friedman.
Friedman followed up with the White House to find out which book the president was referring to. But if you thought Trump was planning to read something that might broaden his horizons, think again. It turns out the volume in question is literally titled Donald J. Trump: An Environmental Hero, and it was written by Ed Russo, who worked as a consultant for Trump’s business. […]
Suffice it to say that Russo isn’t exactly an unbiased source. The Amazon page notes that he “acted as an environmental consultant for Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization for fifteen years.”
Trump really should do some legitimate reading about climate change […]
When Trump has tried to talk about climate in more detail, it’s typically a mess. During a speech to a conservative youth group last month, for instance, he made a series of false and bizarre claims about wind energy, including, among others, that the manufacturing of turbines creates “fumes” that “are spewing into the air,” making it sound as though wind turbines are pushing California’s bald eagle population to the brink of extinction; and, in an especially galaxy-brained moment, riffing that “you know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe.” […]
From Wonkette: “Trump Claims Four Embassies Were Going To Bombed By Iran, Didn’t Bother To Tell Them That”
[…] his own senior intelligence officials say that this was not the case and that all they had was a few rumors of a not-yet-fully-formed plot to attack the embassy in Baghdad. This “news” also came as a surprise to lawmakers who attended a classified meeting on the Iran situation this week, including Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who told the Washington Post, “I feel like I would have remembered if they would have presented that kind of intel at the briefing.” […]
But let’s say it’s true and not just a thing Trump made up to impress Laura Ingraham. The embassy in Baghdad was not made aware of this, despite that being fairly standard protocol when a place is being threatened like that. You know, so people don’t go to work and then die! Or so they can beef up their security! Something!
So either Trump is lying or he’s not lying and just didn’t feel it was at all necessary to warn the embassy in Baghdad, or the three other potential targets… which would actually be worse. […]
[..]
Right now, Iran is a tinderbox internally. As some of you know, there are protests mostly around the anger that Iranians feel towards the gov after they admitted IRGC shot down the Ukraine Airlines aircraft
[..]
Iranians are in the street calling for prosecutions, saying Soleimani is a murderer. Telling leadership of the Iranian government to resign and saying that Trump isn’t the problem, that the Iranian government is.
To say that these protesters are brave is an understatement
Nearly 2 months ago, Iran massacred hundreds (at least) and up to 1,500 of its citizens in the streets for protesting against gas prices. People in the streets are taking an enormous risk not only by protesting but by saying what they’re saying like death to the Supreme Leader
A few days after attempting to clean up his “worst briefing” comment regarding the Trump administration’s briefing on the strike that killed top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani last week, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) seems to have added to the mess.
On Friday, […] Trump said that he was justified in authorizing the strike that killed Soleimani because he had been planning attacks on four U.S. embassies — a claim that is at odds with senior officials in his administration.
During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday morning, Lee reiterated how “we didn’t receive very much information that wasn’t already available through public media sources.”
“This is one of the things that’s very frustrating,” Lee said. “When something like this happens, when events are unfolding quickly, events that will have a profound impact on national security and military strategy, Congress does need to know about it, in part so we can evaluate the scope of our authority to act or choose not to act. We didn’t get that. And that was disappointing.”
When Tapper asked Lee whether Trump’s claim that there was a threat against four U.S. embassies was brought up during last week’s briefing, Lee said he “didn’t hear anything about that” and that “several of my colleagues have said the same.”
“So, that was news to me. It certainly wasn’t something that I recall being raised in the classified briefing,” Lee said. “Well, look, I’m not sure exactly what he’s trying to say there. I don’t recall being told, look, there were four embassies. I’m sure there was a mention of at least one embassy in that briefing, because there had been an attack on one of our embassies in the days leading up to General Soleimani’s killing.”
Lee was then quick to bring up his talking point of issuing “a statement within a few hours of the attack on General Soleimani” that “was a good development from the standpoint of the security of the American people” because Americans are “safer as a result of the fact that he’s dead.”
When pressed by Tapper about whether he believes Soleimani posed an “imminent” threat, which Trump administration officials have said regarding what prompted the strike that killed the top Iranian military official, Lee dodged the question and appeared to place more blame on the briefers.
“Look, I have not yet been able to ascertain really specific details as to the imminence of the attack. Again, we weren’t provided that the other day. We were given somewhat general statements,” Lee said. “And I believe that the briefers and the President believe that they had a basis for concluding that there was an imminent attack. I don’t doubt that. It’s just frustrating to be told that and not get the details behind it.” […]
Why do Republicans always attempt a high speed 180° turn so quickly after a brief moment in the sunlight of facts when they dare to criticize something the Trump administration has done? They run, scared, from comments they made just days before.
Here is further followup, in the form of readers comments:
Lee knows that †Я☭mp is full of shite, but refuses to say so…like everybody else with an R attached to his/her name.
What will be interesting are the future self-justifications for such behavior we see every day from the Rs. Deliberate or ignorant? Savvy or stupid? Fearful or cowardly?
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Lee went out of his way to defend Trump, while throwing Pompeo to the wolves, apparently not realizing consequences of decisions rests with the leader of the government.
Curious to me that Lee chose to do these very public interviews when he could have just stayed home.
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How soon does Mike Lee become a non-person for this, unwelcome at the White House and the object of insulting tweets?
It’s already happened to Trump superfan Matt Gaetz. He had the temerity to vote with the Democrats for Congressional approval for a war with Iran. He’s now persona non grata at the White House and Trump won’t take his calls.
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He also threw a gratuitous slam at Obama about the Benghazi briefing being the #1 worst, a must-do for anyone attempting to stay in Trump’s favor.
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Lee’s position appears to be a confused muddle. On one hand, he congratulates Trump for showing “restraint” in staying out of wars in a manner superior to any other President, but then states it was right and proper to kill Suleimani and that it made Americans safer.
If he thinks we can kill a senior government leader of a powerful Middle East nation without consequences, he’s sadly mistaken. While it probably won’t lead to a direct war, our bases, troops, infrastructure, and even ordinary citizens are now at risk.
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If Joseph Smith had become POTUS he’d be a lot like Trump – a fabulist, career liar, con man, surrounded by wives, collecting protection money (tithes) etc. [Mike Lee is a Mormon.]
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Trump flat-out lied and made up the spot assassination excuse. There was not intel to support the claims of an imminent attack on any of our embassies, let alone four of them.
More details concerning Trump and his lickspittles threatening Iraq:
The Trump administration reportedly threatened to cut off Iraq’s access to its account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York over a proposed withdrawal of American troops.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the State Department threatened to cut off Iraq’s New York Fed account in a phone call Wednesday with Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to unnamed Iraqi officials. The resulting cash shortage would hurt Iraq’s economy.
Many countries maintain accounts with the New York Fed in order to store government revenue in the form of U.S. dollars. In Iraq’s case, much of that comes from oil sales. […]
Nancy Pelosi was interviewed on a Sunday morning talk show. Here is some of the news she made:
On ABC’s “This Week,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deftly called out Donald Trump’s ceaseless projection before confirming she doesn’t regret her decision to hold on the articles of impeachment. Then, she dropped a line that is a pretty big deal. Asked about possible Russian interference in the 2020 election, Pelosi confirmed what most progressives think: Trump, in her words, is in “complete denial.” What’s new and pretty darn intriguing, though, is what she said about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his support for Trump when it comes to election security.
“Sometimes I wonder about Mitch McConnell, too,” Pelosi continued. “Why is he an accomplice to all of that?” Accomplice! Now that’s a strong word.
[…] Stephanopoulos did, indeed, ask Pelosi to respond to Trump’s tweet. “I don’t like to spend too much time on his crazy tweets because everything he says is a projection. When he calls somebody crazy, he knows that he is,” she replied. She also noted that she felt Trump was “not worth impeaching” until the Ukraine allegations came about.
That’s smooth, and the lack of reaction is probably enraging to Trump if he ever hears her say it. Of course, not everyone agrees that Trump’s tweets aren’t worthwhile; Sen. Kamala Harris, for example, has argued that Trump should be banned from Twitter. For the Democratic women of color known as the ‘Squad,’ Trump’s tweets go beyond just elementary-grade jabs of “crazy” and deep dive into xenophobia and racism. But when it comes to insults like “crazy,” Pelosi seems unconcerned.
“He has to know that every knock from him is a boost,” she added. […]
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper admitted Sunday on the CBS show “Face the Nation” that he saw no specific evidence of the “imminent” threat […] Donald Trump has used to defend an airstrike he ordered, killing Gen. Qassem Soleimani and sparking widescale fear of retaliation that might endanger U.S. troops and diplomats.
“The president didn’t cite a specific piece of evidence. What he said was he believed,” Esper said on the show. “I didn’t see one, with regard to four embassies. What I’m saying is that I shared the president’s view that probably—my expectation was they were going to go after our embassies. The embassy is the most prominent display of American presence in a country.” […]
“Probably,” and “could have been,” plus “I believe”: those are all weasel words. “I didn’t see” indicates that there was no direct evidence to be seen. No imminent threat.
Bernie Sander’s campaign is slamming Elizabeth Warren as candidate of the elite.
[…] Sanders’ campaign has begun stealthily attacking Warren as a candidate of the upper crust who could not expand the Democratic base in a general election, according to talking points his campaign is using to persuade voters obtained by POLITICO.
The script instructs Sanders volunteers to tell voters leaning toward the Massachusetts senator that the “people who support her are highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what” and that “[s]he’s bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.”
“I like Elizabeth Warren. [optional]” the script begins. “In fact, she’s my second choice. But here’s my concern about her.” It then pivots to the criticisms of Warren.
The Sanders campaign did not challenge the authenticity of the script […]
It is not clear whether the script is being used for phone calls or door knocking or both, or in which locations […]
From Wonkette: “You Can’t Even Bribe White House Press Sec. Stephanie Grisham To Do Her Job Now”
Donald Trump was impeached last month. Now, he’s trying on wars for size to save his own skin… so it’s a good time for the White House press secretary to finally meet the press after more than 300 days. Stephanie Grisham’s had this job for six months and has yet to hold a single briefing for reporters. She makes $183,000 a year to go on Fox News every once in a while and complain that people keep expecting her to do shit.
Grisham started to feel the heat this week. Anderson Cooper explored the many ways Grisham is useless during a full segment of his CNN show. Author Don Winslow offered to donate $100,000 to charity if Grisham did her job for just one hour. Stephen King matched the $100,000. It was suddenly a telethon! Their indecent proposal offended Grisham, who responded in an email to Jake Tapper.
GRISHAM: If you have $200,000 to play with, why not just help children because it’s a good thing to do? Donations to charity should never come with strings attached.
Back in 2012, Trump offered Barack Obama a $5 million donation to the charity of his choice if our last legitimate president handed over his college records and passport applications. This was a little different from Winslow and King’s offer because they aren’t racists who refuse to believe Grisham is who she says she is. They’d also actually come through with the money. […]
The brief glimpses we see of Grisham at work indicate that she sucks at whatever it is she does. She appeared on “America This Week” and commiserated with host Eric Bolling over how much the media hates Trump. Grisham believed the reporters she’s never personally met failed to praise Trump’s killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani with sufficient “rah-rah” jingoism.
GRISHAM: I do think [the media] are biased. Just in this instance, Soleimani got coverage not about all of the horrible acts he’d done, not about the people who’d been killed under his regime… People on the networks, and CNN, they were talking about how sad everybody was. It was almost as if they were mourning his death.
Grisham was asked again when she planned to do her job, and her answer was the same: The public needs to hear from the subject matter experts, not Stephanie Grisham, who lacks expertise on any number of subject matters. Bolling suggested that people are “intrigued” by Grisham, which is true in the sense that I’m “intrigued” when the pizza I ordered never shows up. I don’t find the missing pizza fascinating and mysterious like Greta Garbo. I just want the damn pizza I paid for. Grisham claimed she has three different roles at the White House and doesn’t have time to do any of them,
GRISHAM: I think people aren’t sure of me because I’m not out at the podium.
It’s not a podium, lady. […]
Friday, 13 former White House press secretaries, foreign service and military officials wrote an open letter for CNN that called for the return of regular White House briefings.
The process of preparing for regular briefings makes the government run better. The sharing of information, known as official guidance, among government officials and agencies helps ensure that an administration speaks with one voice, telling one story, however compelling it might be.
Regular briefings also force a certain discipline on government decision making. Knowing there are briefings scheduled is a powerful incentive for administration officials to complete a policy process on time. Put another way, no presidents want their briefers to say, day after day, we haven’t figured that one out yet.
In times of military conflict and international crisis, these briefings take on even more importance. Americans want to know the latest developments and seek the truth. On social media, wild rumors can fly, and our adversaries can manipulate disinformation to their advantage. This is now well documented. […]
[…] it should surprise absolutely no one that The Deplorable Choir — some ladies who sing songs about how much they love Donald Trump — have a new song out all about how excited they are for Trump to just start bombing the shit out of all who “mess” with America. […]
The Deplorable video has since been taken down. YouTube notes that is was “removed by the user.”
Sending the U.S. military to use force is among the most consequential decisions presidents can make. Matters may get out of control even with the most careful and deliberate planning. Skipping such steps shows callous disregard for American lives and interests. And there is overwhelming evidence in the past week that […] Trump instigated an escalation cycle with an American enemy without such consideration. […]
Instead of holding a tightly managed, inclusive debate in the Situation Room, Trump made one of the most dangerous choices of his presidency among a tiny group at Mar-a-Lago. Such decisive moments are usually preceded by hundreds of people spending countless hours in dingy government offices and conference rooms, building PowerPoint slides and questioning lawyers. These individuals create the parameters and permutations of what the decision-makers consider. They identify the possible options, vetting their likely operational, diplomatic, economic and other effects. That work enables the commander in chief to make wrenching decisions about his military options wisely.
At least, that is how decisions are supposed to be made, and how we helped leaders make them when we worked in government. Bad options, considered with little serious deliberation on an unnecessarily rapid timeline, should never get to the president in the first place. […]
With Soleimani’s death, we don’t know whether civilians cut out military planners or if military officials took shortcuts in the process. Regardless, whatever truncated steps led to the choice to kill him had alarming results. […]
Marc Fisher, writing for The Washington Post, took a closer look at Trump’s transactional approach to … well, everything:
[…] Trump’s obsession with the bottom line permeates his approach to governing, including his current stance toward Baghdad: We own you. You owe us. “We had Iraq,” Trump said on “Face the Nation” last year. “We spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it.” That idea has stuck with the president, and on Jan. 3, he tweeted that “the United States has paid Iraq Billions of Dollars a year, for many years. That is on top of all else we have done for them.”
Trump “boils complex issues down to things he can count,” said G. Richard Shell, a professor of business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “He asks, ‘What’s the asset here, and how can I get it?’ He perceives unequal benefits being exchanged, and he immediately escalates to the highest level of conflict he can see. And then his people signal to him, ‘No, no, no,’ and he backs off. […] On Wednesday, Trump did just that, delivering a measured address, noting that “Iran appears to be standing down” and seeking to “work together” with Tehran on “shared priorities.” […]
The decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani without any apparent plan for managing Iran’s inevitable retaliation is typical of how Trump has always operated. He takes pride in acting swiftly and decisively, in the moment. He does not want to hear about antecedents that might inform his decision-making or about how today’s decision might alter future options. […]
Research on executives who favor transactional deals over enduring business relationships finds that “you get better deals and fewer of them” with the more impulsive approach, Shell said, but “you get many more deals, and they’re much more nuanced,” if they are based on lasting relationships. […]
I don’t think governing a nation should be viewed from a “deal making” approach at all. Trump is not mentally fit for office.
Hillary Clinton: The most exonerated politician ever.
Hillary Clinton has a unique distinction: She has been exonerated twice after extensive federal investigations, the latest entirely unjustified and the result of a politicized Justice Department. […] Trump of course was NOT exonerated in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, which found 10 or so categories of conduct that but for the present policy of Justice Department guidelines would serve as the basis for obstruction-of-justice charges. If Trump is defeated in November he can still be criminally charged the moment he leaves office.
But back to Clinton. It may be hard to remember given then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s voluminous investigative report in the midst of the 2016 election, his testimony before Congress and his intrusion into the campaign 11 days before Election Day, but he found no basis she committed a crime. His subjective comments about poor judgment and negligence were entirely irrelevant (and frankly inappropriate for the FBI, which is charged with finding or not finding criminal conduct). The bottom line: Clinton committed no crimes.
[…] Based on no new evidence but rather on an undisguised personal vendetta, Trump opened up another investigation. The Post reported:
John Huber, the U.S. attorney in Utah, was tapped in November 2017 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to look into concerns raised by President Trump and his allies in Congress that the FBI had not fully pursued cases of possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and during Clinton’s time as secretary of state, when the U.S. government decided not to block the sale of a company called Uranium One.
As a part of his review, Huber examined documents and conferred with federal law enforcement officials in Little Rock who were handling a meandering probe into the Clinton Foundation, people familiar with the matter said. Current and former officials said that Huber has largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing — though the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers, these people said.
The coverage of her exoneration has been minimal. […] The legitimate media does not seem interested in asking Trump or other Republicans to acknowledge that their accusations were baseless. […]
The hordes of right-wing media pundits and columnists will not fess up for pushing a blatantly false narrative. Because they are held to such a low standard by legitimate media outlets, the voices in the right-wing echo chamber pay no price for joining in the persecution of Trump’s nemesis.
“One of the most common tools of autocrats around the world is to use law enforcement as a weapon to go after political opponents,” explains Ian Bassin, executive director of the nonpartisan organization Protect Democracy, […] “That this misguided investigation has been brought to an end is a sign the walls of our system are still holding; that it was allowed to happen at all is a sign that Trump’s constant pounding at those walls is producing cracks.” Bassin adds, “With a president who has boasted wrongly that he can do ‘whatever he wants’ with the Justice Department, we can’t afford to just hope that sanity prevails the next time — and there will be a next time.” […]
No one from the Trump administration can confirm “specific” intelligence pointing to a threat from Iran to attack four U.S. embassies, (unless you count Trump’s lies).
Throughout their multiple appearances on Sunday cable news shows, neither Defense Secretary Mark Esper nor National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien could confirm that President Trump had specific intelligence that top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani threatened to target four U.S. embassies.
In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that aired Friday, Trump said that he was justified in authorizing the strike that killed Soleimani because the top Iranian military official had been planning attacks on four U.S. embassies […]
During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday morning, Esper said that Trump never claimed to have “specific intelligence” that Soleimani planned to attack four U.S. embassies, but that he shared the President’s “belief” that was the case.
When Tapper asked Esper whether Trump was “embellishing” the imminence of the threats, Esper said that he didn’t believe so because “the bottom line is we had exquisite intelligence that could only be shared with the Gang of Eight.”
After Tapper said that it “doesn’t make sense” for Trump to make the threat claim publicly on Fox News while Esper can’t share what he said is “exquisite intelligence” with Congress, Esper refused to go into details of what they were briefed “partly because I wasn’t there.” […]
From former Republican, now an independent representative, Justin Amash:
He [Trump] sells troops.
“We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia—I said, listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1B in the bank.”
The US military is now a mercenary army for the country that sent the majority of hijackers to do 9/11.
Other comments posted in Justin Amash’s Twitter feed:
And sells morals. Don’t forget SA butchered a journalist, our intelligence agencies said it MBS, and trump ignored them.
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Our troops aren’t a commodity, they are people, with fams, who risk their lives to serve our country, our nat. sec. and interests.
This sickens me. It’s not who we are.
So, SA is putting $1 bill in the bank? Whose bank? Will military families see more in their pay and benefits?
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Oct 16: Pelosi questioned Trump about sending troops to Saudi: “My question to him … Why are our troops going to Saudi if you promised to bring them home?” Trump responded, the Saudis are “paying for it,” and then had a meltdown.
One has to wonder if Eric Prince (former mercenary himself, and brother of Betsy DeVos) played a part in Trump’s decision to sell troops to Saudi Arabia.
Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime, read the transcripts, “no pressure” Impeachment Hoax, rather than an outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have. I agree! […]
This phony Impeachment Hoax should not even be allowed to proceed. Did NOTHING wrong.
Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong? Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!
From readers comments on The Hill website:
This is not the way a sane man behaves, or an innocent one.
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Trump is guilty. Republicans in the Senate know he’s guilty. The shame is the cover up, not the impeachment.
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Simply love the Orange Hairball’s priorities. No impeachment! Wahhhhh, people hate me! Wahhhhhhh, did nothing wrong!!!
At the intersection of Trump’s health care lie and his ACA case:
For proponents of the Affordable Care Act, the last couple of months have been quite encouraging […] Totals from the recent open-enrollment period, for example, were solid and in line with expectations, while the latest industry data pointed to stable health care markets, Republican sabotage efforts notwithstanding.
It was against this backdrop that Utah’s Medicaid expansion program got underway on Jan. 1, while policymakers in Kansas reached a bipartisan compromise to bring Medicaid expansion to the Sunflower State. Others may soon follow: Phil Cox, a former head of the Republican Governors Association and a well-known figure in D.C. circles, was quoted saying two weeks ago, “The battle has been fought and lost on Medicaid expansion.”
There is, however, just one dark cloud hanging over the ACA’s head. A Republican lawsuit, backed by the Trump administration, is trying to destroy “Obamacare” in its entirety, and a Texas judge has already ruled in the GOP’s favor. The 5th Circuit, in a move that appeared awfully political, recently left the future of the nation’s health care system in limbo, almost certainly until after the election.
[…] The ACA’s proponents asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, and a week ago today, the justices directed the Trump administration and Republican state officials behind the lawsuit to respond. As NBC News’ Pete Williams explained, “Such a highly abbreviated timeline – the rules normally allow a month for filing a response – gives the court the option to take up the case during its current term, which would mean a ruling on a contentious issue this spring, just as the presidential campaign heats up.”
On Friday, the administration filed a brief, effectively telling the high court to cool its heels. [Delay!] The Washington Post reported:
The Trump administration and a coalition of conservative states that have been challenging the Affordable Care Act said Friday that there is no reason for the Supreme Court to rush a ruling on the issue this term. […]
[…] Trump’s solicitor general, Noel Francisco, replied that the [5th Circuit’s] decision simply preserved the status quo until a lower court looked more closely at which parts of the law should survive. It would be premature to intervene now, he said.
[…] To put it mildly, the Trump administration’s argument is a tough sell, at least as it relates to the ACA itself. On the one hand, the lawsuit argues that the law’s individual mandate, which Republicans gutted in late 2017, was so integral to the ACA that the nation’s health care system can’t function effectively without it, so “Obamacare” should cease to be. On the other hand, the Trump administration is also arguing that the mandate-less ACA is working fine right now, so there’s no reason for the justices to act with any haste.
Both points cannot be true.
[…] It’s likely that Trump and his team realize that if the Supreme Court takes up the case in the short term, there’s a very real possibility that the White House and Republicans would either (a) lose a humiliating health care case in an election year; or (b) convince five conservative justices to take health care benefits away from tens of millions of Americans in an election year.
[…] Trump is peddling truly outrageous nonsense on the issue, including a tweet this morning in which the president claimed, “I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare.” He added, “I will always protect your Pre-Existing Conditions, the Dems will not!” [Bull pucky!]
It’s as brazen a lie as Trump as ever told – and to know anything about the president is to know the competition in that category is fierce. In reality, Trump didn’t “save” protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions; he fought to take those protections away through a series of far-right repeal-and-place proposals he couldn’t get through a Congress led by his own party.
Trump, of course, is also helping champion an ongoing federal lawsuit which would – you guessed it – strip protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.
[…] Trump sent a series of cryptic messages to Iran and Democrats on Twitter Monday morning, retweeting a photoshopped image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wearing a turban and a hijab, as well as an image of a dead body to criticize Pelosi.
[…] [Trump also tweeted]: National Security Adviser suggested today that sanctions & protests have Iran “choked off”, will force them to negotiate. Actually, I couldn’t care less if they negotiate. Will be totally up to them but, no nuclear weapons and “don’t kill your protesters.”
Trump later claimed that Democrats were working to paint Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani as a “wonderful guy” and are attempting to downplay the intelligence that his administration used as rationale for the strike. The Trump administration has been arguing for weeks that an attack on Americans by Soleimani was “imminent,” but has not produced evidence for that rationale. Trump also spelled “imminent” wrong in his initial tweet, which he deleted and reposted minutes later.
[Trump tweeted]: The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was “imminent” or not, & was my team in agreement. The answer to both is a strong YES., but it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past!
[…] The Monday morning tweet-storm follows a weekend of unhinged posts by the President, in which he castigated Democratic leadership as well as former Secretary of State John Kerry, posted more tweets in Arabic and English sent directly to the people of Iran and even praised his own border wall. The online diatribe of mixed messages is notable as the President heads into a week of impending impeachment developments, including the possible launch of a trial in the Senate.
Oh, so now “it doesn’t really matter” if Soleimani’s planned attacks were imminent. That should make things easier for Trump’s lickspittles. They can stop coming up with new and contradictory explanations for the airstrike while they look like deer caught in headlights on national TV shows.
Another Democrat dropped out of the presidential race. Senator Cory Booker announced his withdrawal from the race today. He cited a lack of financial resources and the fact that he would not appear in the upcoming debate on Wednesday.
[…] In a high-energy video peppered with moments from his speeches and events, he said that he “can’t wait to get back on the campaign trail” to work for other candidates, including the eventual nominee.
Booker did not qualify for the democratic debate in Iowa on Tuesday, and was a vocal critic of the DNC’s metrics. […]
Akira MacKenziesays
@303
Trump later claimed that Democrats were working to paint Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani as a “wonderful guy” and are attempting to downplay the intelligence that his administration used as rationale for the strike.
Hey Donald, which Democrats have said that Soleimani was a “wonderful guy?” Please name names and cite your sour… You’re not listening to me, are you?
Hey news media, ask the president which Democrats have said that Soleimani was a “wonderful guy?” Please have him name names and cite his sourc… You’re too cowardly to do that, are you?
Akira @305, Trump is not the only one confused about the facts. Even the simplest facts seen to elude the entire Trump administration. This is disturbing:
A tweet from the White House heralding a snowy D.C. has people scratching their heads as the city stews in unseasonably warm, snow-free weather.
“First snow of the year!” the official account tweeted on Sunday night with a photo of snow sprinkling over the White House.
The tweet was met with a wave of confusion pointing out that it was a little over 50 degrees in the city at that time, with no snow in sight.
It wasn’t even the first time the White House had posted the photo this weekend; the Washington Post pointed out that it had posted the same photo on Facebook with an identical caption on Friday–and it hadn’t snowed in D.C. that day either.
According to the Post, the White House on Sunday tweeted, then deleted, a link to the image on Flickr explaining that the photo was taken “during a snow flurry” on Tuesday, which was shortly before Iran had fired missiles at Iraqi bases holding U.S. troops.[…]
I’ve never seen such a bunch of screwups. There’s not one I’d hire to work in a school district PR shop or write a press release for a company that makes knife sharpeners. If you’re not “detail-oriented” enough to ask yourself if it snowed today or not you’re not suited for the role.
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Also goes to show how lazy & inept everyone in this Administration is… post a picture with inappropriate/inaccurate caption, and refuse to even acknowledge it.
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If you contradict White House claims it was snowing in DC yesterday you’re a terrorist sympathizer.
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We’re simply not qualified to understand the deep workings of a very stable genius.
The Trump administration insists that it killed top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani to prevent an “imminent” attack on the U.S.–but […] Trump signed off on his assassination over six months ago.
NBC News reported on Monday morning that Trump authorized a fatal drone strike on Soleimani in June. […]
[…] Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven months ago if Iran’s increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.
The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.
That decision explains why assassinating Soleimani was on the menu of options that the military presented to Trump two weeks ago for responding to an attack by Iranian proxies in Iraq, in which a U.S. contractor was killed and four U.S. service members were wounded, the officials said.
The timing, however, could undermine the Trump administration’s stated justification for ordering the U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3. Officials have said Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, was planning imminent attacks on Americans and had to be stopped. […]
From the readers comments:
With Trump in White House, every day is an imminent threat
—————-
The ‘imminent threat’ for which Trump had been preparing for six months was the transmission of his impeachment articles to the Senate. He knew they would come – someday – so he had to plan a diversion. Once it was clear that the articles would land on McConnell’s desk within the next week or two few weeks, the threat to Trump was imminent.
Former President Obama on Monday took to Twitter to celebrate after “American Factory,” the first Netflix film produced by he and his wife, Michelle Obama, received an Oscar nomination for best documentary feature. […]
Some fun, sarcasm, and facts from Wonkette: “Dunno How To Say This, But Russia Might Be Attacking 2020 Election To Hurt Biden And Help Trump”
US officials have announced a surprise development, or at least they are leaking a surprise development to the news reporters, and it is that Russia may be meddling in the 2020 election to hurt Joe Biden and help Donald Trump. Whoa if true!
It is like Russia is on the same page with Donald Trump, who was impeached for bribing Ukraine […] to meddle in the 2020 election, to hurt Joe Biden and help Donald Trump!
It’s good when Donald Trump and the country where his true allegiance lies (“allegedly”) can work so very independently of each other (NO COLLUSION!) for the exact same goals.
The probe comes as senior U.S. officials are warning that Russia’s election interference in 2020 could be more brazen than in the 2016 presidential race or the 2018 midterm election.
Part of the inquiry is to determine whether Russia is trying to weaken Biden by promoting controversy over his past involvement in U.S. policy toward Ukraine while his son worked for an energy company there. […]
“In America, they’re using social media and many other tools to inflame social divisions, promote conspiracy theories and sow distrust in our democracy and elections,” [National Counterintelligence and Security Center director William] Evanina said in a statement. “As we look ahead to 2020, one thing I can guarantee is they’ll keep up their influence campaigns and utilize new vectors of disinformation.”
We already knew every bit of this.
The story about how Ukraine is the real collusion is Russian propaganda. The entirely made-up stories about Joe Biden and/or his son Hunter Biden doing supposedly nefarious things in Ukraine are Russian propaganda, and some of the people mama birding that shit down Rudy Giuliani’s throat on his foreign adventures are literally tied to the former KGB and the Russian mob. And for the origin of all that shit, look no further than jailbird Paul Manafort, who spent years in Ukraine working for the benefit of Vladimir Putin with some of the same exact characters pushing the Biden stories now […]
The only silver lining, we guess, is that Trump’s officials are telling us this. They’ve also told Congress this, and they told the American public this during the impeachment hearings.
[…] whatever Russia does in 2020 will probably will be worse than in 2016. […] timely reminder, their 2016 campaign worked. Their puppet is in the Oval Office […]
How bad will it be?
“It’s possible that you will see the creation of false documents,” [Justice Department national security chief John] Demers said. “They could be mixed in with real information, which would make it very difficult to discern the difference. I worry about that as the next evolution of some of their means.”
Officials also expect Russia to continue trying to hack organizations, release embarrassing information and carry out malign social media operations.
False documents. Awesome. And we don’t think they just mean the false documents Rudy Giuliani waves around on Fox News.
[…] “What isn’t Russia doing to help Trump steal another election?”
And if Joe Biden doesn’t get the nomination, you can betcha that Russia’s got plans for whomever ultimately gets it […]
2020 is going to be the worst year ever, but maybe it’ll end well, hopefully, but maybe it won’t, and that’s the extent of our power of positive thinking right now, the end.
In other news, who’s left in the White House to limit Trump when he’s ‘spun up’?
No one, really.
Here’s a description, from last night’s Washington Post report, of the way things used to work:
Kelly [General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff] regularly told military officials that he wanted to talk to Trump before they actually carried out one of his orders and sometimes told them to hold off. For example, when Trump ordered the United States to leave NATO, or U.S. troops to leave the Middle East in late 2017, senior intelligence and military officials were brought in to change his mind.
“He’d get spun up, and if you bought some time, you could get him calmed down, and then explain to him what his decision might do,” said a former senior administration official.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] I think I know where Kelly was going with this. He was describing a governing dynamic in which an amateur president would throw a tantrum, bark orders, and cause some confusion among those whose job it is to follow a president’s directives. In his capacity as White House chief of staff, Kelly – who has an incentive to make himself look as good as possible – made it sound as if he played the role of cooling saucer, letting U.S. military officials know that Trump’s orders weren’t actual orders when he’d “get spun up.”
But Kelly’s description isn’t altogether reassuring.
[…] if Kelly’s description is accurate, this isn’t how a responsible White House is supposed to function. There’s a chain of command in the United States, and when a president gives orders to military leaders, they’re not supposed to go to the chief of staff to determine whether the orders are real and legitimate, or the random piques of a president whose emotions routinely get the better of him.
[…] is there anyone left on Team Trump playing this role?
As unsettling and undemocratic as it was to think a White House team found it necessary to obstruct their unfit boss, is it worse to think the guardrails are gone and the president is surrounded by officials who fail to challenge him, even when he’s “spun up”?
White nationalists running for-profit prisons to detain immigrants? Doesn’t sound like a good idea.
U.S. Senaotors Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada are calling on the Homeland Security inspector general to open a probe into a for-profit, private prison contracted to jail immigrants in the state, following a recent report revealing that the facility employs a captain who posted at a neo-Nazi site and at one time tried to start his own chapter of a white nationalist group.
The request from the senators comes on the heels of a VICE investigation finding that Travis Frey, a captain at private prison profiteer CoreCivic’s Nevada Southern Detention Center, posted on a neo-Nazi site at least a dozen times from 2016 to 2017. Frey, who self-identified as a fascist on the now-closed site, also expressed interest in starting his own chapter of a white nationalist group that played a key part in the deadly Charlottesville rally in 2017.
Cortez Masto and Rosen write that the report detailing Frey’s radical views, coupled with further reports of other “recent concerning incidents” at the facility, merit a federal probe right away. […]
Abuses of immigrants have been rampant in facilities operated by CoreCivic, which has also been implicated in the death of at least one child. In testimony to Congress last summer, asylum-seeker Yazmin Juárez described “no effort” by staffers at CoreCivic’s Dilley, Texas, migrant jail to separate sick kids from healthy. Her 19-month-old daughter Mariee was cleared as healthy when they arrived, but then became sick. They were released only when Mariee’s condition had deteriorated, and she died in a hospital several weeks after their release. Juárez subsequently filed a $40 million claim against CoreCivic.
[…] Frey was an employee at the time he made the postings [on the Nazi site] and expressed interest in starting his own white nationalist group, raising even more concern about the safety—and very lives—of other detained immigrants under the company’s watch. “With overwhelming evidence that hate crimes are on the rise in the United States,” Cortez Masto and Rosen continue, “it is critical for our government to take concrete steps to combat them.”
Oh, FFS! There’s an “official bible” for Trump’s Space Force?
At least one organization is complaining:
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) condemned the blessing of an “official Bible” for the swearing-in of commanders of the newly created Space Force.
The group issued its statement after Washington National Cathedral held a ceremony to bless an “official” King James Bible on Sunday and tweeted that it “will be used to swear in all commanders of America’s newest military branch.”
[…] the Bible in Washington, will be used to swear in Gen. John Raymond as the first chief of space operations.
[…] the ceremony included mentions of blessing Trump, Raymond and “all the men and women of the newly created United States Space Force, wherever they may go.”
Several people as well as the MRFF denounced the designation, saying officers are not usually required to use religious texts to take an oath of office and that the move could ostracize non-Christians. The MRFF has promised to take the matter to federal court in Northern Virginia if it cannot settle it through the Defense Department’s “administrative remedies.”
“The MRFF condemns, in as full-throated a manner as is humanly possible, the shocking and repulsive display of only the most vile, exclusivist, fundamentalist Christian supremacy, dominance, triumphalism and exceptionalism which occurred at yesterday’s ‘blessing’ at the Washington National Cathedral,” a statement from the group said.
Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of MRFF, told Military.com that using the Bible goes against Air Force Instruction 1-1 that says leaders “must ensure their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed to be officially endorsing or disapproving of, or extending preferential treatment for any faith, belief, or absence of belief.” […]
Aiyiyiyi, I fear this is worse news than we might at first realize.
Allies of […] Trump are pursuing an effort to acquire right-leaning news channel One America News Network, according to people familiar with the matter, in a bid to shake up a conservative media market that has been dominated by Fox News.
The investment firm Hicks Equity Partners is looking to acquire the channel and is pitching other wealthy GOP donors to arrange a bid of roughly $250 million for the channel’s parent company, the people said. The firm is owned by the family of Thomas Hicks Jr. […]
State Department officials were “blindsided’ by Trump’s claims that Iranian threats to U.S. embassies, etc. were “imminent.”
State Department security officials were reportedly not given the heads up of the imminent threats to four US embassies, which President Trump said last week justified his authorization of the strike that killed top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani.
Two State Department officials told CNN in a Monday report that the department failed to issue warnings about specific threats to any US embassy prior to Trump’s authorization of the Soleimani strike.
Although a senior State Department official said and the department spokesperson confirmed to CNN that a global warning was sent to all US embassies before the Soleimani strike happened, the warning was not directed at specific embassies and did not signal an imminent attack.
According to CNN, one senior State Department said they were “blindsided” when the Trump administration argued that the Soleimani strike was justified due to an imminent threat to blow up US embassies.
Despite senior Trump administration officials repeatedly insisting that US embassies in the Middle East were under threat, sources told CNN that State Department officials are unclear of the specific nature of that threat and added that the department failed to provide analysis that those embassies faced an imminent threat.
Former State Department officials also told CNN that the department didn’t operate as it usually does in an “imminent threat” situation, given how it would typically issue an explicit warning to diplomats overseas, take follow-up measures to restrict their movements or actively weigh whether to evacuate staff. […]
Trump claimed that he’s gotten $1 billion in the bank from the Saudis to pay for US troops. But the Pentagon just confirmed to me the Saudis still have not paid their outstanding bill for refueling costs in the Yemen war. So let’s label Trump’s statement as highly doubtful.
The [Russian] hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States. https://t.co/23YgdTHRAn
Cory, you campaigned with joy and heart, and instead of just talking about bringing people together, you did it every day. You made our politics better just by running. Grateful to you and looking forward to your continued leadership.
From Trump:
Really Big Breaking News (Kidding): Booker, who was in zero polling territory, just dropped out of the Democrat Presidential Primary Race. Now I can rest easy tonight. I was sooo concerned that I would someday have to go head to head with him!
Quite the contrast.
KGsays
posted more tweets in Arabic and English sent directly to the people of Iran – Lynna, OM@303
Farsi, not Arabic, according to your link. Presumably someone was on hand to tell Trump the Iranians are not Arabic speakers!
lumipunasays
Imagine Trump asking an aide to translate some of his highly rambly tweets into the “Iran language”.
Then, wonder if said aide just fed the tweets into Google Translate (after first googling “what is the language of Iran”), or if they actually gave the job for some on-call government Farsi translator as “urgent”.
lumipunasays
Oh, FFS! There’s an “official bible” for Trump’s Space Force?
I guess kicking up some stupid like this is the cheapest possible way to keep Space Farce in the news, to give people an impression that it’s a real thing, something that’s actually happening – and most importantly, something that’s being unreasonably opposed by leftist haters.
Tangentially related, I’d dearly wish that any references to “official bible” in modern militaries were nickname references to some sort of soldier’s law handbook.
The UK government has formally rejected a call from Scotland’s first minister for a second independence referendum.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a referendum would “continue the political stagnation Scotland has seen for the past decade”.
And he said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had previously pledged that the 2014 referendum would be a “once in a generation” vote.
Ms Sturgeon tweeted that the Tories were attempting to “deny democracy”.
She said Mr Johnson’s formal refusal of her request for a referendum to be held later this year was “predictable but also unsustainable and self defeating”, and insisted that “Scotland will have the right to choose”.
The first minister also said the Scottish government would set out its response and “next steps” before the end of the month, and that the devolved Scottish Parliament would again be asked to “back Scotland’s right to choose our own future”.
…
Ms Sturgeon has previously warned that a “flat no” from Mr Johnson to her request would “not be the end of the matter”.
But she has made clear that she will not hold an unofficial referendum similar to the disputed one in Catalonia in 2017, arguing that it would not actually deliver independence as the result would not be recognised by the EU or wider international community.
The first minister said: “The Tories are terrified of Scotland having the right to choose our own future. They know that given the choice the overwhelming likelihood is that people will choose the positive option of independence.
“The Tories – and their allies in the leaderships of Labour and the Lib Dems – lack any positive case for the union, so all they can do is try to block democracy.
“It shows utter contempt for the votes, views and interests of the people of Scotland and it is a strategy that is doomed to failure.”
The prospect of an independence referendum on Nicola Sturgeon’s preferred timetable – the second half of 2020 – now looks very remote.
The first minister is confident that Mr Johnson’s refusal will help make the case for independence in the longer term, but for now her options are limited….
The former First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones tweeted “If Boris Johnson says that it is entirely a matter for the UK if it chooses to leave the EU then it’s entirely matter for Scotland if it chooses to leave the UK. As Brussels didn’t prevent the Brexit referendum so Westminster shouldn’t stop this one.” Sturgeon retweeted it, with “A sensible Labour voice.”
Pelosi is meeting with her caucus this morning. According to reports from the meeting, she won’t name the floor managers today, but they’re expected to both vote on the floor managers and send the articles of impeachment to the Senate tomorrow.
Victims of an Iran-downed jetliner would still be alive were it not for a recent escalation of tensions partly triggered by the US, Justin Trudeau has said.
“I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,” the Canadian prime minister said in an interview with Global television.
He added that the international community had been “very, very clear about needing to have a non-nuclear Iran”, but also in “managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions as well”.
…
Trudeau also said he would have “obviously” liked a heads-up from Washington about the drone strike on Suleimani.
Over the weekend, Trudeau demanded that Iran provide Canada with “full clarity” on the downing of the airliner.
The prime minister said he made the demand in a call with Rouhani, who admitted earlier on Saturday that the airliner was mistakenly shot down by Iranian missiles.
At a televised press conference on Saturday, Trudeau said he told Rouhani the admission was “an important step” but “many more steps must be taken”.
“A full and complete investigation must be conducted,” he said. “We need full clarity on how such a horrific tragedy could have occurred. Iran must take full responsibility.”…
Dalila Jakupovic has abandoned her #AusOpen qualifying match after suffering a coughing fit while playing in thick smoke caused by the #AustralianFires.”
Video at the link. Reading the responses, by all reasonable standards and TennisAustralia’s own guidelines, the event should have been canceled.
Georgetown history professor Adam Rothman is teaching a course on the history of slavery in North America this semester and letting people follow along on Twitter.
[The following statement was issued by a group of students at Amir Kabir (Polytechnic) University in Tehran, protesting an admission of guilt by the Iranian government for downing Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with a missile on 8 January 2020….]
#Statement by a collective of protesting students present at today’s gathering on the campus of Amir Kabir (Polytechnic) University[1] in Tehran to protest the calamitous downing of a passenger flight by a defense missile.
These days, Iran is drowning in sorrow and grief. We wash away blood with more blood, we pile suffering upon suffering, we wash the corpse of one martyr with the blood of another. It’s as if history has been compressed; one crisis follows another and threats respond to threats. We, the children of Iran, do not see ourselves as separate from the people of the country. Their pain is our pain. The grief that has settled in their hearts weighs heavily on our chests as well. The tragedy reached its peak on Wednesday morning, when only one day after the killing of tens of fellow citizens in Kerman,[2] Iran once again witnessed its children fade into the horizon. We had not yet been given an opportunity to mourn the deaths of the Aban martyrs[3] when we were given yet another reason to grieve.
Today, “evil” flanks us from every shore. While economic policies and political repression suffocate the people, the shadow of war looms over our heads. What has been lost in the current political climate, amidst ongoing threats from military powers, is the voice of the people. A people who, above all, long for freedom and equality. In Aban, they brought the sound of that voice to everyone’s attention in the best manner possible. The events of the past two months have been a clear and complete manifestation of the incompetence of the ruling order in Iran. An order whose sole response to every crisis is repression (sarkub). Today, it is incumbent upon us to target the totality of our oppression (sarkub) whether in the form of a repressive government or an imperialist power.
In recent years, the presence of the United States in the Middle East has done nothing but sow chaos and disorder. We have long understood where we stand in relation to this aggressive power. Nonetheless, we also understand that U.S. adventurism in the region cannot be an excuse to justify domestic repression. If these days “national security” is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, the time has come for us to ask what they mean by security, for which groups, classes, and social strata? We are not afraid to cry out, “The security of impoverished, excluded, and deprived Iranians has been pillaged for years!” The economic policies of the past three decades, in conjunction with the rentier class, the wealthy, and the corrupt, have created an enormous number of have-nots and outcasts. The situation is made all the worse by the fact that a corrupt and totally dependent opposition has developed outside of our borders with the aid of the media and financial support of outside powers. Yes, today we are surrounded by evil on all sides.
People of Iran:
The only way out of our current crisis is a return to popular politics.
A politics that neither clings to the coattails of (imperial) arrogance [istikbar] from fear of oppression, nor legitimizes tyranny in the name of anti-imperialism and resistance. Indeed, the only way out of our current predicament is the simultaneous rejection of both domestic despotism and imperial arrogance. We need a politics that doesn’t merely claim security, freedom, and equality for a select group or class, but that understands these rights as inalienable and for all people. Today, the urgent need for social democracy has become clear to all. In such a democracy, the government will not be inattentive to the needs of the people, but will safeguard security, freedom, and equality for all.
We, the children of Iran, extend our condolences to all of the people of our country for the death of hundreds of our fellow citizens in Kerman and in the downing of the plane, and we swear we will not allow their blood to have been spilled in vain. History will never forget the spilled blood of the innocent. History will return with force to take revenge on the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed.
[1] The Polytechnic University accepted its first class of students in 1958. It became a hotbed of student activism, across the ideological spectrum, leading up to the 1979 revolution. Abbas Abdi, Junbish Dānishjū‘ī-yi Pulītiknīk-i Tihrān (Dānishgāh-i Amīr Kabīr), 1338-1357 [The Tehran Polytechnic Student Movement (Amir Kabir University), 1960-1979] (London: Nashr-i Nay, 2013), 10-11, 22.
[2] On January 6, 2019, over fifty people were killed in a stampede that took place during the funeral procession of Suleimani. The procession was in Suleimani’s hometown of Kerman.
[3] In December 2019, there were mass uprisings in dozens of counties in Iran in response to the Islamic Republic’s decision to ration fuel and hike its price by fifty percent. The Iranian Hijri calendar begins on the first day of spring. Aban is its eighth month.
Six years ago last week, a cache of messages exchanged between several allies of then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie landed in the inboxes of reporters who had been looking into a series of strange, traffic-snarling lane closures that occurred four months earlier at the George Washington Bridge.
The documents — including the smoking gun email, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” — blew up claims the incident was anything but what it seemed: an effort to punish a mayor who refused to endorse Christie’s reelection campaign, and one the perpetrators went to extraordinary lengths to cover up.
More than half a decade later, with Christie’s career felled by the ensuing scandal and his allies still facing time in prison, the surreal, only-in-Jersey conspiracy will now be fodder for the nation’s highest court, offering a fresh test of where dirty politics ends and criminal corruption begins.
The U.S. Supreme Court, set to hear arguments in the case Tuesday morning, must mull over the validity of a core underpinning of the case: That the defendants misapplied public property and, in doing so, committed fraud.
The “Bridgegate” case gives the court an opening to further limit public corruption prosecutions. It follows the court’s 2016 ruling that vacated the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell — and helped others, like former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, do the same.
The decision in this case, expected in the spring or early summer, could leave U.S. attorneys with one fewer tool in which to target unethical public officials and may renew calls for Congress to shore up the country’s laws on political conduct.
…
That the Supreme Court would even take this case suggests some of the justices may be interested in overturning the convictions and curtailing the way in which prosecutors pressed the charges, legal experts say.
Anti-corruption watchdogs say they’re worried about the outcome.
“We all see where this is going, which is to further rein in the ability of prosecutors” to go after political misconduct, said Daniel Weiner, the deputy director of the election reform program for the Brennan Center, who believes the court is “playing with fire” when it comes such public corruption laws.
“The court has adopted increasingly and even constitutionalized this profoundly cynical view of politics,” he said, also expanding that view to include cases like Citizens United. “I think it’s fair to say has had a pretty corrosive effect on our public discourse.”
Behind closed doors, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised concerns to her caucus about the Russian hack into Burisma, and said the Gang of Eight was not briefed on it, saying she learned about it through news reports, per multiple sources.
Pelosi told her colleagues in private that Mitch McConnell is acting like a rogue Senate leader, as she’s said before. She mused that sometimes she wonders whether McConnell has Russian connections, per attendees.
Thanks, KG, for identifying the Farsi. Trump and his lickspittles proved, once again, that they are totally incompetent.
SC @322, holy crap. I didn’t realize it was that bad. “Here Are 20 Headlines Comparing Meghan Markle To Kate Middleton That May Show Why She And Prince Harry Are Cutting Off Royal Reporters.” I thought maybe Meghan Markle was overreacting, but now I see what she has been going through.
SC @323,
The former First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones tweeted “If Boris Johnson says that it is entirely a matter for the UK if it chooses to leave the EU then it’s entirely matter for Scotland if it chooses to leave the UK.”
Yes. Well said.
SC @325: I do not envy Justin Trudeau and other leaders who have to deal with “managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions as well”.
SC @328: Thank you for posting that. The entire statement is worth reading, but I was particularly struck by this part: “In recent years, the presence of the United States in the Middle East has done nothing but sow chaos and disorder. We have long understood where we stand in relation to this aggressive power. Nonetheless, we also understand that U.S. adventurism in the region cannot be an excuse to justify domestic repression.”
The more people learn about impeachment, the less people want impeachment.
I think he is projecting again. The more he learns about impeachment, the more he realizes that he is truly in deep shit.
The facts from the latest Quinnipiac poll:
A slight majority of voters, 51 – 46 percent, approve of the House of Representatives’ vote to impeach President Trump. […]
Similar to the opinion on the House vote to impeach President Trump, a majority of voters, 52 – 45 percent, say they are troubled by President Trump’s actions involving Ukraine. Two thirds, 66 percent, would like to see John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor to President Trump, testify in the Senate impeachment trial, including 39 percent of Republicans, 71 percent of independents, and 91 percent of Democrats.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] Trump hopes to intimidate members of Congress into steering clear of holding him accountable, telling them the public is on his side. The evidence suggests otherwise […]
[…] we’re dealing with a dynamic in which the president risked a war for reasons that now appear illegitimate. Pressed for an explanation, Team Trump has gone from shifting and contradictory claims about the motivation behind the airstrike to arguing that the motivation itself “doesn’t really matter.”
And while his most sycophantic followers may find that satisfactory, the rest of the political world need not accept politically motivated lies about national security so casually.
As a Washington Post report added yesterday, “The result is a credibility crisis for an administration that has long struggled to communicate factual information to the public. At a perilous moment for the nation’s security, with the United States at the brink of war with Iran, Trump is unable to rely on trustworthiness to justify his decision to take out Soleimani, both because of his lengthy record of exaggerations and lies and because of his ever-shifting rationales.”
Good: Mitch McConnell simply doesn’t have the votes to follow through on one of his dastardly plans.
This is from the New York Times:
Senate Republicans indicated on Monday that they would not seek to summarily dismiss the impeachment charges against President Trump, proceeding instead to a trial with arguments and the possibility of calling witnesses that could begin as soon as Wednesday. […]
In interviews, rank-and-file senators and party leaders made clear on Monday that even if they wanted to pursue dismissal, the votes simply were not there to succeed — at least not at the outset of the trial.
From Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri:
I don’t think there’s any interest on our side of dismissing. Certainly, there aren’t 51 votes for a motion to dismiss.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is itching to join President Donald Trump’s anti-impeachment team ahead of the Senate impeachment trial, HuffPost and CNN reported on Monday night.
An unnamed adviser told HuffPost that Giuliani has been “working Trump hard” in his efforts. Another adviser said that the lawyer has made it clear to Trump that he was “available” to serve as one of the President’s lawyers.
However, Trump’s team apparently isn’t interested.
“They said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” the second adviser said.
“The President is never going to have him in the Senate trial, starting with the problem that he’s a potential witness,” a source told CNN. […]
Update to tomh’s #64 above: “MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin appeals court puts on hold removal of up to 209,000 voters from registration rolls, handing Democrats a win.”
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration has been within its power to continue tearing additional migrant families apart at the southern border […]
The decision came after the American Civil Liberties Union returned to court last year in response to alarming findings that the administration had continued to separate as many as 1,000 families since Judge Dana Sabraw’s June 2018 court order blocking widespread separation. Some of these additional families, advocates said, had been torn apart by U.S. border officials “for the most minor crimes,” and for reasons as petty as a dirty diaper.
But The Washington Post reports that in his decision this week, “Sabraw indicated he was uncomfortable second-guessing government decisions to separate children on grounds that parents were considered unfit or dangerous, or in other limited circumstances like criminal history, communicable diseases and doubts about parentage. He found no evidence that the government was abusing its discretion.”
Advocates certainly haven’t seen it that way. “Lawyers wrote that one migrant lost his daughter because a U.S. Border Patrol agent claimed that he had failed to change the girl’s diaper,” The Post reported. In another instance, officials ignored an asylum-seeker’s plea to conduct DNA testing on him and his three-year-old daughter to prove they were related. By the time officials agreed and proved the dad right, he’d already agreed to be deported because he couldn’t stand being detained any longer. This, as advocates have long said, has been state-sanctioned kidnapping.
This decision is no doubt a setback in the fight to keep families together, and even a part of Sabraw’s ruling in favor of these families could turn into something very concerning. “In a partial victory for the ACLU, the judge said the government must settle any doubts about parentage before separating families by using DNA tests that deliver results in about 90 minutes,” The Post continued. That could no doubt prevent more cases like that of the deported asylum-seeker and his daughter, but a worry is that this administration will abuse that as well, and DNA test more people than they need to. […]
A guy named Bradley Byrne is running against Jeff Sessions in Alabama. Byrne, a Republican, is exploiting the death of his Army veteran brother, and he is featuring Ilhan Omar and other brown or black people burning in a fire in campaign advertising. Byrne is trying to win by being worse than Jeff Sessions, more racist.
This may turn out to be a significant endorsement for Elizabeth Warren:
Rep. Joaquin Castro, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, announced Tuesday he is endorsing Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Castro’s endorsement comes a couple of weeks after his twin brother, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, backed Warren upon ending his own White House campaign.
The congressman championed Warren as “the only candidate” who can unite the party and the country, “two things essential to defeating Donald Trump and restoring America’s leadership role at home and abroad,” he said in a statement.
“Today, I’m endorsing Senator Elizabeth Warren for President, because she’s going to make sure that everyone has great opportunities to achieve their dreams and get ahead,” Joaquin Castro said.
“Sen. Warren is going to fight for all of us, including for people who came from neighborhoods like mine,” the San Antonio native added. “That’s why I’m proud to be in this fight with her.” […]
More details regarding this story are finally emerging.
What Trump said:
We’re sending more [troops] to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia is paying us for it. I said, “Listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you have to pay us.” They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1 billion in the bank.
From Aaron Rupar:
[…] Though the Pentagon did announce last October that it would send troops to Saudi Arabia to defend the country against Iran, there had been no reporting about Saudi Arabia financially compensating the US.
Trump’s comments immediately raised questions: Into which bank account did Saudi Arabia deposit the $1 billion? What exactly are US troops doing over there? And did this transaction even happen, or was the president just making stuff up?
[…] it seems that the president, as he often does, was exaggerating.
Exaggerating? That’s putting it mildly.
[…] Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich said, “The Department of Defense has engaged Saudi Arabia on contributing to US activities that support regional security and dissuade hostility and aggression.”
But the statement did not specify whether any sort of financial transaction took place — on the contrary, it said that “discussions are ongoing to formalize these contributions.”
Here’s Rebarich’s statement in full:
Consistent with the president’s guidance to increase partner burden-sharing, the Department of Defense has engaged Saudi Arabia on contributing to US activities that support regional security and dissuade hostility and aggression. The Saudi government has agreed to contribute to the costs of these activities, and discussions are ongoing to formalize these contributions. Contributions of this nature do not lead to the deployment of additional US forces, and they do not drive DoD to take on new missions or responsibilities.
“Discussions are ongoing” is quite different than Trump’s unequivocal claim that Saudi Arabia had “already deposited $1 billion in the bank.”
Trump’s comments came during an interview in which he bragged about war crimes, told blatant lies about the FBI, and said he feels no obligation to publicly detail the intelligence underpinning his decision to approve a military strike against an Iranian official that brought the country to the brink of war. […]
The funds transfer would bring the total amount devoted to border wall construction under Trump to $18.4 billion.
The Pentagon — not Mexico — will again be paying for the construction of […] Trump’s wall on the US’s southern border, to the tune of $7.2 billion in 2020.
[…] the White House will use last year’s national emergency declaration to pull $3.5 billion from military counter-drug enforcement, up significantly from the $2.5 billion taken from the same program in 2019. An additional $3.2 billion will be taken from Department of Defense construction projects for additional fencing projects. The number is more than five times the amount allocated to barrier construction by Congress for 2020.
[…] administration officials have recently begun counting miles of fencing under construction — rather than completed — as their goal metric, moving the goalposts on Trump’s promise. […]
Tragic. “He begged President Trump to help him, noting they were fellow New Yorkers. ‘I am putting my life in your hands,’ wrote the father of two small children.”
2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is calling on financial regulatory agencies to investigate whether President Donald Trump broke the law when he told associates and attendees of his Mar-a-Lago club to expect something “big” in response to Iran’s killing of an American contractor in Iraq.
The Daily Beast previously reported that Trump told allies at his Palm Beach club, that he had something “big” in the works to address Iran’s aggressive behavior in the region and that they would read about it “soon.” The president specifically mentioned to some of his associates at Mar-a-Lago that he’d been in contact with his senior national security and military advisors on possible plans to hit back, two sources told The Daily Beast.
…
Just days later the U.S. launched a mission to assassinate Iran’s top military leader General Qassem Soleimani while driving near the Baghdad airport. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration decided to decision to strike the Iranian general because he was planning “imminent” attacks against American interests. Those claims have since fallen apart, with the president himself tweeting that it “doesn’t really matter” whether the threat was imminent or not.
Now, Senator Warren is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to determine “whether there may have been any illegal trading in defense company stocks or commodities related to individuals’ advance knowledge,” according to the letter Warren sent to the agencies, which cites The Daily Beast’s reporting. Warren also asks the agencies for a briefing on the matter no later than Feb. 13.
“Individuals who were guests at President Trump’s resort may have obtained confidential market-moving information,” the letter says. “These private individuals … would have had the opportunity to obtain significant profits simply by being guests or members at President Trump’s private resort.”
Warren’s letter notes that several contractor’s stock prices jumped following the assasination of Soleimani. Northrop Grumman stock prices increased by over 5 percent and Lockheed Martin’s stock prices increased by 3.6 percent, according to the letter.
…
And while Warren said her team has no way of knowing which individuals received information from President Trump in advance of the attack, if individuals had made securities or commodities trades based on that information, they could have violated the Insider Trading Sanctions Act of 1984….
[…] Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain took over his company’s Twitter account on Sunday evening to voice some of the anger and pain he felt over the “collateral damage” Trump and his chicken hawk allies have unleashed in their efforts to wag the dog by destabilizing the region. McCain wrote that a colleague of his lost his wife and 11-year-old son in the crash. McCain went on to explain that this event was the result of an “ill-conceived plan to divert focus from political woes.”
And if it is unclear which leaders he is talking about, McCain goes on to explain that “A narcissist in Washington tears world accomplishments apart; destabilizes region. US now unwelcomed everywhere in the area including Iraq; tensions escalated to feverish pitch.” And to answer the very cynical conservative talking point about how bad a guy Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was, McCain pointed out that Soleimani wan’t unique on the world stage, “There are a hundred like him, standing next in line.”
McCain finished by signing his name to his final Tweet, saying that “We are mourning and I am livid.”
Mitch McConnell announced that the impeachment trial will begin next Tuesday.
Meanwhile some of Trump’s lickspittles are making a great effort to put out the word that Trump is not afraid. So, you can be sure that Trump is afraid.
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is “not afraid of a fight” in his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate and is, in fact, eager for witnesses to testify that “this man did nothing wrong.”
The president could get his wish as soon as this week, with the House set to vote on Wednesday to send its articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate. […]
“I hate to talk about hypotheticals, but let’s be clear: The president is not afraid of a fight,” Gidley said in an interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “And if you or anyone within the sound of our voices have been falsely accused of a crime, with no proof, and no evidence, for more than three years, you’d want every witness to come forward too, and say this man did nothing wrong.”
He continued: “We are not afraid of a fight. We are prepared and whether this thing goes to a full trial, whether it’s modified or whether it’s just dismissed out of hand for the sham illegitimate scam it has become, we will be ready.”
[…] Trump intends to reprogram $7.2 billion in military construction and defense funds toward building his border wall.
“To say this is unacceptable and infuriating would be an understatement,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“Once again the President continues to abuse the separation of powers in our Constitution,” he added.
[…] Democrats refused to back fill the funding for military construction projects that Trump emptied for the wall, but were unable to convince Republicans to block Trump’s authority to reprogram the funds in a package of spending bills for 2020 that passed with broad bipartisan support in December.
Republican appropriators, more subdued than their Democratic counterparts on the issue Tuesday, said they had been caught unawares by the report and that they were seeking specifics from the White House.
“We have to weigh what this does to the military, and what it affects and where and how,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, as well as the subcommittee on defense. […]
Democrats were outraged at the report, pointing to military infrastructure projects that Trump defunded last year, such as repairing a Kentucky school and building a medical center in North Carolina.
“Having failed to get his way in Congress, it appears President Trump is now once again forcing service members and their families to pay for his wall by cancelling even more vital military construction projects,” Democratic appropriators including House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Visclosky (D-Ind), and Military Construction-VA Subcommittee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) wrote in a joint statement
“Moreover, at a time when the opioid epidemic continues to rage across the country, President Trump is stealing funding that was intended for meaningful counterdrug priorities to pay for his wall,” they added.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the top Democrat on the Senate’s Military Construction subcommittee, called the move “illegal,” but said he wasn’t sure the administration would follow through given that they had yet to spend reprogrammed funds from previous years.
“They haven’t spent the money they already stole,” he said.
Other times when the Pentagon (Defense Department) has contradicted Trump:
[…] Last week, for example, after the American president talked about committing war crimes by targeting Iranian cultural sites, Defense Secretary Mark Esper explained on the record that the U.S. military would not be doing that.
As we discussed at the time, it was not an isolated contradiction. Indeed, it was just a couple of months ago when Trump boasted that the United States has “taken” Syrian oil, and he intends to partner with the private sector to extract even more. Soon after, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson insisted that we would absolutely not be taking any Syrian oil.
A few months earlier, the president tried to defend his ban on allowing transgender Americans to serve in the military, arguing that in the military, servicemembers are “not allowed to take any drugs,” which in his mind, necessarily means there could be no transgender troops.
This was wrong for all kinds of reasons, including the fact that Trump was misstating DOD policy on medications. A Pentagon spokesperson explained, “The Military Health System covers all approved medically necessary treatments and prescription medications. If a service member has a hormone deficiency for any reason (such as hypogonadism, hypothyroidism, menopause, etc.), he or she would be prescribed hormones.”
Has any government agency been more willing to publicly contradict Trump than the Department of Defense?
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on Tuesday said he has majority support for his resolution aimed at reining in President Trump’s war powers against Iran […]
“I’ve got 51 declared votes on version two,” Kaine told reporters, adding there are “more considering getting on board.”
Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Mike Lee (Utah) previously announced support for Kaine’s resolution. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) also said Tuesday he supported the amended version of Kaine’s measure.
Kaine said the fourth Republican vote would come from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). With every Democrat expected to support the measure, four Republican votes give it the simple majority needed to pass.
In a procedural hurdle, though, Young said he wouldn’t vote for a motion to proceed on Kaine’s original resolution — which Kaine can force a vote this week and then could have amended on the floor to the second version.
But Kaine said he is not likely to force on the original resolution.
“I’m not likely to force a vote on Kaine one because I’ve got the votes on Kaine two and not on Kaine one,” he said. “And I do think there’s something virtuous about bringing up the bipartisan version.”
That means Kaine will have to wait to force the vote until the second version ripens, which is 10 days after he introduced it last Thursday. That means Jan. 21 is the earliest Democrats can force a vote on the measure.
That’s the same day the Senate is expected to begin its impeachment trial of Trump. Kaine said it was possible there will be an agreement to consider the resolution before then, but also said he expects to be able to conduct the trial and consider the war powers resolution simultaneously.
“It’s widely understood that we will be doing other stuff during impeachment,” Kaine said. “The nice thing is [Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell (R-Ky.) and [Sen. John] Cornyn (R-Texas) and [Senate Minority Leader Charles] Schumer (D-N.Y.) have also said we’re going to be taking up the Kaine war powers resolution soon.” […]
I’m loathe to insert myself in the news, but as the Chair of the Standing Committee of Correspondents I am compelled to weigh in on the restrictions to press access during the Senate impeachment trial that are being proposed. Bear with me.
The Standing Committee of Correspondents vigorously objects to restrictions being considered on press access during the upcoming Senate trial of President Trump.
The Standing Committee sought to address our concerns with the Sergeant at Arms and with Rules Committee before final decisions were made, but decisions are being made quickly as plans for the trial are completed and we are hearing that nearly every suggestion has been rejected.
Our suggestions were rejected without an explanation of how the restrictions contribute to safety rather than simply limit coverage of the trial.
The restrictions that are being considered exceed what occurred during the Clinton trial 20 years ago, with fewer ways for press to speak to senators and even a magnetometer being installed within the Senate Press Gallery to ensure electronics are not brought into the chamber.
The no electronics in the chamber rule has existed for many years, reporters don’t violate it, and we’ve never needed an extra layer of screening to ensure it is followed.
Installing a magnetometer means the Senate trial will have a soundtrack of “beep, beep, beep” as 90+ reporters walk in and out all day. There is no additional safety or security brought by bringing such a device into reporter work space
It also gives the impression that it is being done mostly to protect Senators from the bright light of the public knowing what they are doing in one of the country’s most important moments.
The Standing Committee requested an exemption to the no technology in the chamber rule so that we can provide the public with up to the moment information without having to walk out of the chamber, but we’re hearing that request has been denied.
I grasp that there is precedent, but few things in Washington are more momentous than an impeachment trial and the American public deserves to have eyes in the room.
Reporters will be kept in pens, meaning only senators seeking out press coverage will get covered.
Currently we can walk with Senators as they enter the chamber, wait for them outside of meetings or lunches. It leads to a diversity of voices. Penning us means people across the country might not hear from their senator.
These potential restrictions fail to acknowledge what currently works on Capitol Hill, or the way the American public expects to be able to follow a vital news event about their government in the digital age.
Here is the statement that the Standing Committee sent to Senate leadership…
#355 are some samples from the Parnas materials that the House Intel Committee is transmitting to the House Judiciary Committee. Holy forking shirt. Links to the committee’s letter and the documents here.
From the letter:
“In March 2019, Mr. Parnas communicated by text message with Robert F. Hyde about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In response to some articles, tweets, and videos accusing the Ambassador of being disloyal to President Trump, Mr. Hyde wrote ‘Wow. Can’t believe Trumo [sic] hasn’t fired this [b****]. I’ll get right in that’. Mr. Hyde then sent a series of text messages suggesting that he had Ambassador Yovanovitch under physical surveillance in Kyiv and that ‘They are willing to help if we/you would like a price’.”
Assuming, as several people have suggested, that Robert F. Hyde is the racist Trumper (but I repeat myself) congressional candidate from CT, what’s he doing in the midst of these crimes in Ukraine?
“Reminder that Yovanovitch testified that UKRAINIAN officials warned her that Guiliani and other associates ‘had plans, and that they were going to, you know, do things, including to me’.”
(Sorry – #359 should have read “anti-corruption activist.”)
@ SC #365
All these things coming out are, IMO, exactly why the Articles shouldn’t be sent to the Senate so soon. This evidence, and more, should be investigated, subpoenas should be enforced, and testimony given, and more charges should be added to the Articles. I think Pelosi buckled under the pressure of queasy Democrats worried about their reelection chances.
“Statement from Yovanovitch’s lawyer just read on @MSNBC: ‘Needless to say, the notion that American citizens and others were monitoring Amb. Yovanovitch’s movements for unknown purposes is disturbing. We trust that the appropriate authorities will conduct an investigation’.”
Four Republican senators met with McConnell Tuesday to discuss a proposal for “witness reciprocity” during the impeachment trial, a Senate GOP aide and another official familiar with the meeting said.
Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), John Cornyn (Tex.) and Mike Lee (Utah) pitched McConnell on the plan ahead of Tuesday’s Senate GOP luncheon, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.
Cruz told McConnell during the 30-minute meeting that if Democrats get a certain witness during the trial, such as former national security adviser John Bolton, then Republicans should get a witness of their own, such as Hunter Biden, one of the officials said.
[…]
The president’s son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted approvingly of Cruz’s idea Tuesday night.
“I love @tedcruz’s plan of witness reciprocity,” he said. “The American people want to hear from #wheresHunter Biden, #sleepyJoe Biden, #fullofschiff, the phony ‘whistleblower’ etc. much more than they do anyone on our side especially since the house had free reign of witnesses for months.”
By Seung Min Kim and Robert Costa
“Free reign of witnesses,” that’s pretty funny, with all the ones they blocked from testifying.
redwoodsays
@370 For someone hoping to be part of a monarchy, free “reign” is the right spelling, I guess.
johnson catmansays
The term “witness reciprocity” is just a euphemism for “obfuscation”. Any competent judge in a criminal trial would throw out an attempt to bring such bullshit into the trial because it has nothing to do with the case at hand.
johnson catman @372, true. I am thinking, though, that if they do bring Hunter Biden in as a witness, it may backfire on them. That move would certainly make the Republicans look bad.
tomh @366, Adam Schiff said that the House Intelligence Committee would continue to investigate. They will investigate even as the impeachment trial proceeds.
SC @363, Robert Hyde strikes me as a narcissistic blowhard who is also a bully. In other words, much like Trump … except perhaps worse, since Hyde was stupid enough to post a vulgar comment about Kamala Harris that included a reference to oral sex. Hyde is, no doubt, a liar. We definitely need further investigation to figure out what parts of Hyde’s messages are based in fact. At this point, I don’t trust anything he posts, and that includes messages to Lev Parnas.
Here are the “managers” that Nancy Pelosi chose to try the Trump impeachment case:
Adam Schiff of California, lead manager; Jerry Nadler of New York; Hakeem Jeffries of New York; Jason Crow of Colorado; Zoe Lofgren of California; Val Demings of Florida; and Sylvia Garcia of Texas.
Here is Steve Benen’s summary of their qualifications:
[…]* Crow is an Armed Services Committee member, an experienced lawyer, and a decorated Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. (He’s one of two freshmen on the seven-member team, having only been in Congress for 12 months.)
* Demings serves on both the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, and is a former chief of police in Orlando.
* Garcia is a House Judiciary Committee member and a former judge in Houston. (Like Crow, Garcia has only been in Congress for one year.)
* Jeffries is a Judiciary Committee member, an experienced lawyer, and a former clerk for a judge.
* Lofgren has the unique experience of having been a Judiciary Committee staffer when the panel was preparing to impeach Richard Nixon, a Judiciary Committee member during Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and will serve as an impeachment manager against Trump.
* Nadler is a lawyer and a longtime member of the House Judiciary Committee, which he currently chairs.
* Schiff is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, but he’s also a former federal prosecutor. Just as notable, he’s served as a Senate impeachment manager before – along with Lofgren – in the 2010 case against Judge Thomas Porteous.
Incidentally, before today, every presidential impeachment manager in American history was a white man. Of the seven members of the current team, most are not white men. […]
Lots of familiarity with courtroom procedures, and with law enforcement.
Commentary on Trump’s impotent flailing around as he tries to criticize the House of Congress:
[Trump] isn’t yet done complaining about the process that brought us to this point.
Here, for example, was a tweet from […] Monday:
“‘We demand fairness’ shouts Pelosi and the Do Nothing Democrats, yet the Dems in the House wouldn’t let us have 1 witness, no lawyers or even ask questions. It was the most unfair witch-hunt in the history of Congress!”
[…] the House Democratic majority invited the White House counsel’s office to participate in the impeachment proceedings. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) explained that his panel explicitly gave the president “a fair opportunity to question witnesses and present his own to address the overwhelming evidence before us.”
So when the president says House Dems “would let” Team Trump participate, the opposite is true. And yet, that didn’t stop him from giving it another try last night:
“Cryin’ Chuck Schumer just said, ‘The American people want a fair trial in the Senate.’ True, but why didn’t Nervous Nancy and Corrupt politician Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff give us a fair trial in the House. It was the most lopsided & unfair basement hearing in the history of Congress!”
It’s tweets like these that suggest Trump is struggling to keep up with the basic details of current events surrounding his own presidency.
For one thing, the House doesn’t hold impeachment trials, the Senate does. For another, there were closed-door hearings, for a variety of legitimate reasons, which ultimately gave way to public hearings and the disclosure of transcripts from the private depositions.
Trump’s “basement” talking point is months out of date.
All of which leaves us with a familiar question for which there is no good answer: why, exactly, are we supposed to think the House impeachment process was “unfair”?
As we discussed several weeks ago, Republicans originally argued that the House impeachment process was unfair because there’d been no formal vote on the House floor to authorize the inquiry. After the House did, in fact, hold such a vote, Republicans shifted their focus, complaining that the process is unfair because there were no public impeachment committee hearings.
After the House did, in fact, hold extensive public impeachment committee hearings, Republicans shifted again, insisting that the process is unfair because Donald Trump and his team were not given an opportunity to present a defense. The president and his White House attorneys were, in fact, invited to participate in the impeachment inquiry, and Team Trump refused to accept the offer.
This has apparently led Trump to believe it’s time to circle back to discredited arguments that have already been addressed – apparently because he can’t think of anything else.
State and local officials cannot block refugee admissions in their jurisdictions, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, finding the Trump administration’s new refugee policy is likely “unlawful.”
U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte of Maryland temporarily halted President Trump’s executive order requiring governors and local officials nationwide to agree in writing to welcome refugees.
“Giving states and local governments the power to consent to the resettlement of refugees — which is to say veto power to determine whether refugees will be received in their midst — flies in the face of clear Congressional intent,” Messitte wrote in a 31-page decision.
The judge said the administration’s order and “grant of veto power is arbitrary and capricious as well as inherently susceptible to hidden bias.”
[…]
Texas became the first state last week to publicly refuse to resettle new refugees, with Gov. Greg Abbott (R) saying the state has “carried more than its share.”
[…]
Attorneys said the president’s executive order is at odds with federal law and faulted the administration for failing to provide sufficient justification or opportunity for comment before imposing a new requirement on the refugee agencies, which apply annually for federal money.
The Justice Department lawyer said there is no notice requirement for such changes, and that the lawsuit is premature because no decisions about funding for the refugee organizations have been made.
“Is there any limit to what you can do in an executive order?” Messitte asked during the court hearing. “You’re sort of making it up as you go along?”
AP Europe: “Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev submitted his resignation to President Vladimir Putin, hours after the leader’s state of the nation address on the need for reforms to the Cabinet and constitution.”
Bill Browder: “Putin is extremely risk averse and almost never fires anyone. For him to sack the PM and change the constitution four years before his term is up suggests he’s deeply afraid of something. What that is, we have still to find out.”
An update on the deficit, from the New York Times:
The federal budget deficit surpassed $1 trillion in 2019, the Treasury Department reported on Monday, as tax cuts and spending increases continued to force heavy government borrowing amid a record-long economic expansion. […]
The deficit has grown nearly four times as fast, on average, under Mr. Trump than it did under Mr. Obama. Mr. Trump has already added more to the national debt than Mr. Obama did in his entire second term — $2.6 trillion, compared with Mr. Obama’s $2.1 trillion.
Some background information that covers Trump’s past promises, plus some analysis:
[…] in February 2016, [Trump] appeared on Fox News and assured viewers that, if he were president, he could start paying off the national debt “so easily.” [He said] it would simply be a matter of looking at the country as “a profit-making corporation” instead of “a losing corporation.”
[…] in March 2016, Trump declared at a debate that he could cut trillions of dollars in spending by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Asked for a specific example, he said, “We’re cutting Common Core.” (Common Core is an education curriculum. It costs the federal government almost nothing.)
A month after that, in April 2016, Trump declared that he was confident that he could “get rid of” the entire multi-trillion-dollar debt “fairly quickly.” Pressed to be more specific, the future president replied, “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”
By July 2016, he boasted that once his economic agenda was in place, “we’ll start paying off that debt like water.”
As Catherine Rampell explained a while back, “Federal deficits have widened immensely under Trump’s leadership. This is striking not only because he promised fiscal responsibility – at one time even pledging to eliminate the national debt within eight years – but also because it’s a historical anomaly…. Trump’s own policies are to blame for this aberration.” […]
As Paul Krugman added, “[T]he Trump tax cut caused a huge rise in the budget deficit…. This tidal wave of red ink is even more extraordinary than it looks, because it has taken place despite falling unemployment, which usually leads to a falling deficit.”
[…] Every time we discuss the deficit, I feel compelled to point out again that I’m not a deficit hawk, and I firmly believe that larger deficits, under some circumstances, are absolutely worthwhile – and at times, necessary.
These are not, however, those circumstances. When the economy is in trouble, it makes sense for the United States to borrow more, invest more, cushion the blow, and help strengthen the economy.
The Trump White House and the Republican-led Congress, however, decided to approve massive tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations when the economy was already healthy – not because they were addressing a policy need, but because they were fulfilling an ideological goal.
HUD will finally release $8 billion of the $18 billion illegally withheld Puerto Rico relief funds.
The Department of Housing (HUD) is going to release more than $8 billion in emergency disaster aid funding to Puerto Rico, sources tell Politico. There’s nearly $18 billion that Congress has authorized since 2017’s Hurricanes Maria and Irma that still has not been released.
HUD was legally obligated to release the funds in September, but Ben Carson’s agency has been holding them on the premise that there weren’t sufficient protections in Puerto Rico to prevent their misuse. Keeping up that fiction a HUD official told Politico that “a full financial monitoring team is assembled and active” now, so “we can move forward with confidence that these disaster recovery funds will reach those who need them the most.”
Yet another example of the Trump administration illegally withholding funds appropriated by Congress. I doubt that the “full financial monitoring team” exists.
The recent earthquake in Puerto Rico intensified the need for these funds, which were intended to address the aftermath of 2017’s hurricanes. There has been intensified pressure from Democratic leadership—and intensified media attention—since the earthquake on HUD to release this money. […]
“One more! Ramzan Kadyrov has temporarily left office due to what he called his ‘temporary incapacitation’. ‘I entrust the chairman of the government of the Chechen Republic, Muslim Magomedovich Khuchiyev with carrying out the duties of the head of the Chechen Republic’.”
Laura Clawson provides some details and commentary regarding those new documents:
No wonder Donald Trump wants the Senate to quickly short-circuit his impeachment trial: New evidence is constantly coming out about his campaign to extort Ukraine into helping him in the 2020 election.
[…] the House Intelligence Committee released documents from Lev Parnas, the Rudy Giuliani associate who’s already been indicted for funneling foreign money to political campaigns, and they contain bombshell after bombshell. […]
The newly released documents include a letter from Giuliani to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky making it very clear that he’s working for Donald Trump, not the United States government—literally “I am private counsel to President Donald J. Trump. Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as President of the United States”—before asking for a meeting with Zelensky in very interesting language. “I have a more specific request. In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you.” With Trump’s knowledge and consent.
[…] Parnas also took handwritten notes saying “Get Zalensky to Annouce that the Biden case will be Investigated,” of which former top government lawyers Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer write that it shows that “the real goal here” was “not to prompt an investigation of Hunter Biden, but to score an announcement of a Biden investigation. […] Actual investigations, they point out, happen in secret.
All of these documents are bombshells because they confirm things we already knew, things that are implicit in the White House summary of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky but that Republicans have claimed were innocent or somehow unproven.
[…] Parnas also turned over documents that reveal something new: As Parnas was in contact with Giuliani and working to get Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch removed from her post in Ukraine, another of his associates apparently had her under surveillance. Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut, told Parnas he was in touch with a “private security team” and that, at one point, “She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off.” At another point, “They will let me know when she’s on the move.”
”They are willing to help if we/you would like a price,” Hyde even wrote. “Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money . . . what I was told.” In other words, you don’t have to get very many steps removed from Trump himself before people involved in the campaign to pressure Ukraine into trashing Trump’s political opponents were actually suggesting violence against a United States government official.
And if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had his way, the Senate would already have acquitted Trump in a speedy trial with no witnesses. […] It’s not just Donald Trump. The Republican Party is a corrupt enterprise throughout its leadership.
The State Department abruptly canceled a classified congressional briefing Wednesday that was supposed to focus on embassy security, a House aide said, infuriating Capitol Hill staffers seeking answers on alleged Iranian threats to U.S. missions overseas.
The cancellation also coincides with documents suggesting that associates of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani put the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under surveillance.
“Staff are furious,” the House aide said. “This briefing is required by law every month, and today’s was the most important we’ve had scheduled in a long time. The State Department has given us no explanation whatsoever.”
The canceled briefing on embassy security was originally going to focus on the situation in the African country of Burundi. But at congressional staff’s request, the topic was broadened to cover embassy security in the wake of the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani earlier this month.
…
Congressional staffers had planned to ask questions about the shifting explanations and wanted to receive a global threat assessment for U.S. personnel. The State Department agreed to provide the briefing, then said Tuesday that it would not do so, the House aide said.
Press aides to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Pompeo has already been the target of ire from House Democrats who asked him to appear for a public hearing earlier this week. He did not appear, instead traveling to California to deliver speeches, including an address about the U.S. relationship with Iran at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute.
On Tuesday, House Democrats released additional information they’d recently obtained from Lev Parnas, who worked closely with Giuliani on his efforts to dig up damaging information on former vice president Joe Biden in Ukraine.
Some of the material, including text messages, indicated that Republican congressional candidate Robert Hyde was working with Parnas to surveil Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time. It’s not clear whether Giuliani was aware of Hyde’s activities, and Hyde told reporters yesterday that he was just making idle talk.
…
Yovanovitch’s lawyer, Lawrence Robbins, says investigators should look into exactly what happened in terms of the surveillance.
…
The revelations has also troubled serving and former U.S. diplomats, some of whom were demanding to know what the State Department’s diplomatic security division did to protect Yovanovitch, and what, if anything, Pompeo knew about it.
Trump and Boris Johnson proposed something, Rouhani said “NO.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected a “Trump deal” to replace the Iranian nuclear pact […]
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday again floated the idea of replacing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program, with a new agreement brokered by […] Trump “is a great dealmaker, by his own account and many others,” Johnson told the BBC. “Let’s work together to replace the JCPOA and get the Trump deal instead.”
The American president gave the idea his seal of approval, tweeting: “Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, @BorisJohnson, stated, We should replace the Iran deal with the Trump deal. I agree.”
But Rouhani poured cold water over what he called Johnson’s “strange” idea.
“This Mr. Prime Minister in London, I don’t know how he thinks,” Rouhani said in a televised speech, according to Reuters. “He says let’s put aside the nuclear deal and put the Trump plan in action … The right path is to return to the nuclear deal.”
Rouhani’s comments came after Britain, France and Germany triggered a mediation process on Tuesday aimed at forcing Tehran to return to compliance with limits placed on its nuclear program, or potentially face the reimposition of international sanctions. […]
I don’t know how any member of this body could pick up the newspaper this morning, read this new revelation [newly released evidence from Lev Parnas] and not conclude that the Senate needs access to relevant documents like these in the trial.
Each day that goes by, the case for witnesses and documents gains force and gains momentum. Last night, a new cache of documents, including dozens of pages and notes, text messages and other records shed light on the activities of the president’s associates in Ukraine. […]
Just when you think that President Trump and his network couldn’t get possibly any more into the muck, reports suggest they are even dirtier than you would have imagined.
To allegedly have some cut-rate political operative stalk an American ambassador at the direction of the president’s lawyer, potentially with the president’s ‘knowledge and consent’ … I mean, how much more can America take in the decline of our morals, our values, our standing in the world?
In trying to be above taking sides, the mainstream media does Trump a favor by making order out of his chaos.
By almost any standard, […] Trump’s rally on Tuesday evening in Milwaukee was a bizarre affair. The president went on a lengthy tirade about lightbulbs, toilets, and showers; touted war crimes; joked about a former president being in hell; and said he’d like to see one of his domestic political foes locked up.
I tried to capture some of the speech’s disconcerting oddness in my write-up of the event. In many ways, the remarks the president made were typical of him. And that provides the media with a challenge: Describing Trump as he really is can make it seem as if a report is “anti-Trump” and that the reporter is trying to make the president look foolish.
But for media outlets that view themselves as above taking sides, attempts to provide a sober, “balanced” look at presidential speeches often end up normalizing things that are decidedly not normal.
A brief report about Trump’s Milwaukee speech that aired Wednesday morning on NPR illustrates this phenomenon. The report, which originated from NPR member station WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio, described Trump’s at times disjointed ramblings as a normal political speech that “ranged widely,” and characterized it as one in which he “snapped back at Democrats for bringing impeachment proceedings.”
“Trump was taking on Democrats on their own territory,” the reporter said, when in reality Trump heaped abuse on them, for instance, suggesting former Vice President Joe Biden is experiencing memory loss. […]
On Twitter, Georgetown University public affairs professor Don Moynihan noted that NPR’s report about the rally “mentioned specific topics like Iran and impeachment but carefully omit the insane stuff. This is one way the media strives to present Trump as a normal president.” […]
Vladimir Putin has embarked on a sweeping reshuffle of Russia’s leadership, accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and proposing constitutional amendments that would limit the power of a potential successor as president if he steps down in 2024.
In a surprise move, Russia’s government said it would resign in full just hours after Putin announced plans for a national referendum that would shift power away from the presidency.
Putin’s shakeup sent shock waves through Russia’s political elites, who were left pondering what his intentions were and speculating about future cabinet appointments.
The president is laying the groundwork as he prepares for a transition in 2024 that analysts say will likely see him abandon the presidency but retain power through a beefed-up role as Russia’s prime minister or in the government’s State Council instead.
The 67-year-old has in effect ruled Russia since 2000, making him the longest-serving leader since Stalin, and what he plans to do in 2024 remains the most important political question in the country.
In a televised speech before senior officials, Putin suggested amending Russia’s constitution to limit a future president to two terms in office – he has served four – tightening residency requirements for presidential candidates, and letting parliament choose candidates for prime minister and the cabinet, in effect weakening the presidency.
Shortly after the speech, Medvedev said that Russia’s government would resign in full, allowing Putin to appoint new ministers. Medvedev, who also announced his intention to step down, was appointed to a new position as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, which is headed by Putin.
Russia’s tax service chief Mikhail Mishustin has been chosen by Putin as Medvedev’s replacement, the Kremlin said later on Wednesday. The 53-year-old has worked in the government since 1998 and kept a low profile while serving as the head of the Federal Tax Service since 2010.
Putin presented his amendments to the constitution as a significant change to Russia’s governing document, and called for the first nationwide referendum since 1993 to confirm them. An elections official said within an hour of Putin’s speech that a referendum could be prepared as soon as the proposals to amend the constitution were formalised.
Margarita Simonyan, the head of the RT television station, wrote that “effectively, power in Russia is moving to the legislative branch”. Less credulous observers saw an attempt by Putin to lay the groundwork for a transition of power in 2024, when he should, under the constitution, step down from the presidency after serving two terms back-to-back as Russia’s head of state.
“The main result of Putin’s speech: what idiots (and/or crooks) are all those who said that Putin would leave in 2024,” wrote Alexei Navalny, a vocal leader of Russia’s opposition.
The question of whom Putin will name as his successor has been guessed at widely.
…
…In the speech, he also said future presidential candidates should not hold foreign citizenship or residency permits. Judges and federal agency heads should also not hold foreign citizenship or residency permits, he said.
The bit about foreign citizenship or residency permits seems like an attempt to keep anyone he manages to force into exile from returning to leadership positions.
As Browder says in the quote @ #377 above, the beginning of 2020 is very early for these moves – there’s something going on.
Bernie: I never said it. [WARREN MAKES EYES. They are o.O eyes.] It’s “incomprehensible” that anyone would think I would say that. I deferred to Senator Warren in 2016, but she didn’t run. So I did. Hillary Clinton won! Everyone knows that! [Some of his supporters, possibly, do not know that.]
Warren: He said it, I disagreed, we’re friends and I am not trying to fight him. But if I did, Dave Weigel would agree that I am done.
Bernie: Nobody in the WORLD thinks a woman can’t win for president. IN THE WORLD!
[A small interlude in which Bernie points out that he beat an incumbent Republican for Congress 30 years ago, and Warren had said the only people on the stage who had beat a Republican incumbent “in the last 30 years” were the women, and she’s like “yes, 30 years ago” and he’s like “yes” and she’s like “I said in the last 30 years” Oh well.] […]
What Elizabeth Warren actually said:
Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy [Klobuchar] and me. The only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me.
Lynna @ #383, the whole idea is absurd. No one in their right mind would sign any agreement with Trump. He has no honor, is blatantly deceitful, openly brags of trying to take advantage of others, doesn’t stand by his word, and will betray anyone at any time. He has a growing string of fraud claims and settlements. He and his sycophants are constantly lying to the US public, the congress, and the courts. The idea that a government could engage in good-faith diplomacy with him or his representatives at this point is fanciful.
Yes. A good summary of one of the main takeaways from the release of the new documents.
[…] In the letter, Giuliani explicitly states that he was representing Trump “as a private citizen, not as the president of the United States,” and also that Giuliani was carrying out this mission with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”
That confirms in Giuliani’s own words that his scheme was geared toward satisfying Trump’s personal interests, even as Giuliani was in effect carrying out U.S. foreign relations with an ally. Our national interests were subverted to Trump’s own, at Trump’s explicit direction. […]
And another telling detail:
[…] One of Trump’s main defenses is that, in pressing Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden — and another that would absolve Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage — he was merely acting as a responsible leader. Yes, Trump froze hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid while demanding these investigations, but only because he reasonably wanted Ukraine to clean up “corruption”!
That has always been obvious nonsense, but the letter forcefully underscores the point: Trump’s defenders cannot explain why, if he was merely acting in the national interest throughout, he needed his private attorney to orchestrate the whole scheme, all to his private benefit.
From Representative Eliot Engel, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee:
The Foreign Affairs Committee will now seek to learn what, if anything, the State Department knew about this situation at the time these messages were sent. Today, I will convey a formal request for documents, information, and a briefing from senior officials related to this matter. This unprecedented threat to our diplomats must be thoroughly investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
SC @386, thanks for posting news about the monumental shakeup in Russian leadership/government. Something really big is going on, and we don’t yet know the full extent of it.
On Fox News this morning there was not one mention of Lev Parnas, nor of the newly released documents that further damn Trump when it comes to the Ukraine extortion plot.
What was on Fox News was a false claim that Democrats lowered flags to half mast in honor of Soleimani’s death.
Millions of Americans of voting age get all their news from Fox.
[…] It’s a little tough to summarize all of the revelations, but by any fair measure, they paint an extraordinary picture, with details that we not only didn’t know, but also might have found difficult to even imagine. Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, for example, was apparently under some kind of surveillance, and might have even faced unspecified harm.
There’s also a document in which Giuliani assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the Republican lawyer was operating in Kyiv with the “knowledge and consent” of Donald Trump, reinforcing suspicions about the American president’s role in the Ukrainian scheme, and doing fresh harm to White House talking points.
There’s plenty more. The latest evidence also suggests, for example, that Ukraine’s top prosecutor was prepared to offer Giuliani anti-Biden dirt if Giuliani’s White House friends recalled Yovanovitch, an ambassador who fiercely fought against corruption.
In theory, all of this evidence would be welcomed by senators who are eager to come to terms with the facts, get the whole story, and understand the degree to which the sitting American president may be corrupt and/or guilty. In practice, it’s not quite working out that way. Consider Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) arguments on the Senate floor yesterday:
“We’ve arrived at a simple contradiction. Two things cannot be both true: House Democrats’ case cannot simultaneously be so robust that it was enough to impeach in the first place, but also so weak that the Senate needs to go fishing.
“If the existing case is strong, there’s no need for the judge and the jury to re-open the investigation. if the existing case is weak, House Democrats should not have impeached in the first place.”
I’m not sure which is worse: the idea that McConnell was sincere in presenting this argument or the idea that he knew his pitch was absurd, and he presented it anyway.
There is no contradiction. House Democrats compiled a case and collected materials, despite unyielding White House stonewalling. The result was a bulletproof argument, bolstered by extensive documentary evidence, pointing to Trump’s guilt.
But just as criminal investigations continue even after a grand jury approves indictments, the evidence against the Republican president continued to mount, even after the articles of impeachment passed. Both things can be true: the case was strong enough to impeach, and the case can grow stronger still after articles were approved.
McConnell, hardly a fool, must know this. His annoyance seems to be rooted in the fact that Democrats are asking him and his GOP colleagues to consider the totality of the case against Trump – including newly released materials and hearing from witnesses whom the House were not allowed to speak to – which is the one thing Senate Republicans cannot do if they’re determined to keep the president in office.
The White House signaled Wednesday that it doesn’t expect the Senate impeachment trial to last longer than two weeks, casting acquital as a foregone conclusion and arguing that Trump’s team will present “a very strong case for the president.”
Asked whether Trump would go ahead with plans to deliver his State of the Union address Feb. 4 even if the impeachment trial hasn’t concluded by then, a senior administration official told reporters, “I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that we’d be going beyond two weeks.”
“We think that this case is overwhelming for the president, and the Senate’s not going to be having any need to be taking that amount of time on this,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about internal White House deliberations. The official added that House Democrats “don’t have any credible evidence to show any wrongdoing.”
The official declined to say whether Trump would proceed with plans to attend the World Economic Forum, referring questions to the White House press office. Trump is expected to attend the annual event in Davos, Switzerland, early next week.
Democrats have been pressing former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, and Bolton has said he would be open to doing so. But the White House suggested Wednesday that such a scenario would be unlikely, with the senior administration official saying it would be “extraordinary” for Bolton to testify about his communications with the president on national security issues.
This blueprint with McConnell is already in place, and indeed, it is a foregone conclusion. More investigations in the House now will amount to ‘too little, too late’.
The controversial talking points attacking Elizabeth Warren that Bernie Sanders’ campaign deployed were given to teams in at least two early voting states on Friday, three Sanders campaign officials confirmed.
Volunteers and staffers used the script on Saturday while canvassing for votes, meaning the talking points were more official than what Sanders previously suggested after POLITICO reported on the language.
Thee campaign pulled back the script — which described Warren’s appeal as limited to the highly educated and financially well off — later on Saturday after the story published. Sanders initially appeared to blame the controversy on rogue employees.
“We have hundreds of employees. Elizabeth Warren has hundreds of employees. And people sometimes say things that they shouldn’t,” Sanders said Sunday in Iowa. His press aides never denied the veracity of the document.
…
Some Sanders’ supporters claimed over the weekend that the campaign script wasn’t genuine and that the story was false. Sanders campaign photographer Bryan Lawrence also tweeted that the talking points were “unapproved.”
On Sunday, the Sanders campaign provided a new script and instructed officials in early states to stop giving volunteers the old one, according to two Sanders officials. A Warren aide told POLITICO that her campaign appreciated Sanders pulling the talking points and that they hoped to move on….
Everyone told themselves the attacks in the last primary on Hillary had really nothing to do with being a woman, it was that she was the “establishment.” But now we see the same kind of attacks on this hell site on another woman competitor.Keep telling yourself it’s not gendered
Snake emojis are just the 2020 version of 2016’s Bern the Witch.
I wasn’t going to wade into this, but the Sanders supporters on Twitter are too much, and it’s giving me 2016 flashbacks. They’ve gotten “WarrenIsaSnake,” “RefundWarren,” and “NeverWarren” hashtags trending on Twitter, and are responding to tweets with batches of snake emojis. It’s stupid, wrong, and politically disastrous, and Sanders needs to speak out against it and put a stop to it. Enough.
The man who relayed information about Marie Yovanovitch’s location to Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian associates was a known stalker with mental health issues.
…
The Intercept obtained police records showing that Hyde violated a restraining order issued by a Washington, DC superior court judge at the request of a Republican consultant who says that Hyde stalked her and intimidated her family over the last year. In one of the reports, an officer disclosed that Connecticut police confiscated Hyde’s firearms in connection to his violation of the restraining order. Hyde was reported to authorities for “unsettling behavior” and trespassing at a church in Connecticut, according to a separate police report last summer.
Asked for comment, Hyde texted The Intercept, “Bull Schiff is still crying?! Lol. Tell him to go whistleblow himself.” He did not respond to other allegations against him.
Hyde’s other acquaintances noted that he has a history of erratic behavior….
Hyde publicized that he was placed in a psychiatric facility in Florida last May, following an incident at the Trump National Doral Miami resort. A report written by the Doral Police Department at the time notes that Hyde expressed fear for his life and told officers that he “was scared due to several painting workers and landscape working trying to do harm to him because they weren’t working.”…
He’s also, as Lynna notes above, a big liar. (The stalking episode would seem possibly to cut both ways: on the one hand, he’s unstable; on the other, stalking women is a thing he does.)
Pelosi is speaking before she signs the articles of impeachment, flanked by the House committee chairs and impeachment managers. Then they’ll walk the articles over to the Senate.
tomhsays
And McConnell won’t accept the Articles until tomorrow because…well, it shows who the boss is.
McConnell’s spokesman, David Popp, said they won’t be accepted until the Senate has sent the House managers a formal invitation to bring them over.
Apparent discussion of attempt to fire Yovanovitch:
2/10/19: Toensing: “Is there absolute commitment for HER to be gone this week?”
Rudy: “Yes not sure how absolute Will get a reading in morning and call you. Pompeii [Pompeo] is now aware of it. Talked on him on Friday.”
Republicans took issue with Pelosi’s using a pile of pens to sign the articles that could then be handed out to members of Congress as mementos.
“Nancy Pelosi’s souvenir pens served up on silver platters to sign the sham articles of impeachment… She was so somber as she gave them away to people like prizes,” tweeted White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
[…]
There is nothing these hypocrites won’t take (faux) offense at.
The Trump administration is moving to strengthen protections for students who want to pray or worship in public schools and proposing changes that would make it easier for religious groups that provide social services to access federal funds.
Nine federal agencies, including the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department, are proposing rules that would reduce requirements for those religious organizations. The rules would lift an Obama-era executive order that compelled religious organizations to tell the people they serve that they can receive the same service from a secular provider.
[…]
“Our actions today will protect the constitutional rights of students, teachers and faith-based institutions,”[Education Secretary Betsy] DeVos said. “The department’s efforts will level the playing field between religious and nonreligious organizations competing for federal grants, as well as protect First Amendment freedoms on campus and the religious liberty of faith-based institutions. I proudly share President Trump’s commitment to religious freedom and the First Amendment.”
[…]
The move comes as Trump seeks to shore up support among conservative evangelical Christians in the lead-up to his reelection bid. Two weeks ago, he held an event at El Rey Jesús church in Miami to announce the formation of a coalition, Evangelicals for Trump. There, he also announced his administration’s intent to “safeguard students’ and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools.”
[…]
More at the link, including a scary photo of Trump praying with the Bible thumpers.
I think I remember some scenes from her losing campaign against Sinema that convinced me she wasn’t just a political asshole but an asshole in general.
Parnas also firmly implicated Nunes, who went on Fox last night to lie unconvincingly to try to downplay his contacts with Parnas, and also Nunes’ staffer Derek Harvey.
Manu Raju: “Sen. Martha McSally, a Republican facing a difficult election race, lashed out when I asked if she would consider new evidence as part of the Senate trial. ‘You’re a liberal hack – I’m not talking to you. You’re a liberal hack’. She then walked into a hearing room.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on Thursday that Kiev was launching an investigation into the alleged surveillance of former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
The ministry asserted that while Ukraine’s position is to “not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States,” the documents Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas provided to the House Intelligence Committee “contain a possible violation of the law of Ukraine and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects the rights of a diplomat on the territory of the foreign country.”
“Ukraine cannot ignore such illegal activities on the territory of its own state,” the ministry said of the documents, which revealed that an American landscaping contractor named Robert Hyde had repeatedly sent Parnas texts informing him of Yovanovitch’s movements last year.
As such, the National Police of Ukraine has opened a criminal probe into the matter, according to the ministry.
“Our goal is to investigate whether there actually was a violation of Ukrainian and International law, which could be the subject for proper reaction,” it said, saying that Ukraine expects the U.S. to “respond promptly.”…
FWIW, Parnas told Maddow that he’s never seen Hyde not drunk, and didn’t believe he was really surveilling Yovanovitch.
As far as I know, the State Department still hasn’t said a peep about it.
The U.S. intelligence community is trying to persuade House and Senate lawmakers to drop the public portion of an annual briefing on the globe’s greatest security threats — a move compelled by last year’s session that provoked an angry outburst from President Donald Trump, multiple sources told POLITICO.
Officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the larger clandestine community, don’t want agency chiefs to be seen on-camera as disagreeing with the president on big issues such as Iran, Russia or North Korea, according to three people familiar with preliminary negotiations over what’s known as the Worldwide Threats hearing.
The request, which is unlikely to be approved, has been made through initial, informal conversations at the staff level between Capitol Hill and the clandestine community, the people said.
At the last such threats briefing a year ago, the chiefs presented findings that diverged from the president’s statements on the longevity of Islamic State terror group, as well as Iran and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. He blistered them on Twitter the following day, labeling them “passive” and “naive” while writing that “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Trump later claimed his top intelligence chiefs, including then-DNI Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel, told him that they had been misquoted in the press — even though their remarks had been broadcast and the video footage was publicly available.
The annual assessment from the intelligence community — which can take place anytime between February and May — traditionally features testimony from the DNI, as well as the heads of the NSA, CIA, FBI and others and includes both a public and closed-door segment. The officials offer their analysis on the latest threats and discuss, to the extent they can, what the U.S is doing to counter them, before moving to a classified setting.
This year’s briefing could prove even more hazardous than last year’s for the intelligence community, which the president has alternately praised and denounced.
Several issues, like Pyongyang’s belligerence, have carried over into the new year. Lawmakers could also seek more details about developments such as Trump’s decision to kill a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, and efforts to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.
In addition, the 17-agency intelligence apparatus remains without Senate-confirmed leadership.
…
Things are growing more heated in the Democratically controlled House, where the Intelligence Committee has not held a public Worldwide Threats hearing since 2016.
The last time the panel convened an open hearing with senior intelligence leaders was in early 2017, with then-FBI Director James Comey and now retired U.S. Cyber Command and NSA chief Navy Adm. Mike Rogers.
The gathering marked the first public hearing in the House Intelligence Committee’s ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged interference during the 2016 presidential race, which included the question of whether the Trump campaign had any ties to Moscow during that time.
…
The intelligence community has refused invitations to attend a public Worldwide Threats hearing in the House the last two years. A third refusal could cause tensions between the two sides to boil over.
“We have requested, and made clear, that the committee expects a public Worldwide Threats hearing this year — this is the one public form of oversight that the Intelligence Community is responsible to do each year, and avoiding angering the man in the Oval Office is not a good enough reason to refuse to come,” one senior Democratic committee official said….
Neal Katyal: “Want to highlight something @kateashaw1 noticed in GAO opinion. It doesn’t just conclude White House broke law w Ukraine aid (mirroring Article 1). Also says was obstruction of the investigation (Article 2)&raises profound constitutional worries. That obstruction still continuing.”
Officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the larger clandestine community, don’t want agency chiefs to be seen on-camera as disagreeing with the president on big issues such as Iran, Russia or North Korea, according to three people familiar with preliminary negotiations over what’s known as the Worldwide Threats hearing.
WHY NOT?! The Orange Toddler-Tyrant is irrefutably wrong and should be called out for it. Fear of calling Dear Leader wrong is what allowed Hitler to bring the world to the brink of destruction.
Sen. Van Hollen: “When I met with President Sisi last summer, I asked him to release Mustafa Kassem. When he refused, I worked with @SenatorLeahy to hold the regime accountable for unlawfully detaining and torturing Americans. Trump needs to implement our sanctions and stop embracing dictators.”
Letter to Trump atl. He won’t, because he’s a weakling.
SC @397, I too am disgusted by that Bernie Bro behavior. Also, I wonder how much of it is coming directly from Bernie’s supporters, and how much of it is amplification by Russian bots and trolls.
I am disturbed in general by any kind of cult-like behavior attached to any political candidate. It’s a bad sign. It should be stopped, disavowed. Whatever it takes. This is not right.
Oh, Susan Collins, please stop being a doofus. Please stop being an obvious dunderhead.
[…] Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a potential swing vote in the Senate impeachment trial, on Wednesday questioned why House Democrats have waited until now to release documents from a key witness [Parnas] claiming that President Trump had “knowledge and consent” of efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. […]
Collins on Wednesday did not appear moved by a note on Ritz-Carlton stationery stating Parnas’s chief objective was to ensure “the Biden case will be investigated.”
“I wonder why the House did not put that into the record and it’s only now being revealed,” Collins told reporters when asked if the evidence changes her view on the need to hear from additional witnesses in the forthcoming trial.
The problem with this response, as the senator probably ought to know, is that the House “only now” produced this evidence because the House only recently received it: after Parnas was criminally charged in a campaign-finance case, the Justice Department seized his electronic devices.
WTF? Why didn’t Collins know this? And, after she was informed, why did she revert to a stupid Republican talking point? Collins is looking for, desperately seeking, an excuse to stick with Mitch McConnell … and with Trump. She seems to have no ethical core at all.
More from Steve Benen:
When Parnas got his phone back, he received a court’s permission to share the information with congressional investigators, which he did. Then, the House shared that same information with the public.
Collins “wonders why” these details are “only now being revealed,” but there’s no reason to wonder.
Reminded of the relevant details she apparently didn’t know, the GOP senator went on to tell reporters, “Doesn’t that suggest that the House did an incomplete job, then?”
Soon after, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) appeared on CNN, and said, in response to the senator’s question, “If Senator Collins or other senators are interested in the documents or why they haven’t been available yet, they should turn those questions to the White House and say, ‘Why are you hiding this? Why are you holding this back? Why aren’t you releasing this information?’”
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin added that Collins’ response to the Parnas revelations “should deeply concern the voters of Maine and anyone who wants a full and fair impeachment trial.”
Matt Lee, AP: “It is without precedent (in my 20 years of doing this) and profoundly disappointing and disturbing that the @StateDept has been unable to come up with any kind of public response to alleged threats against a #US ambassador.”
From another angle on the Maddow interview of Lev Parnas: “Parnas Alleges White House Deal To Free Ukrainian Mobster In Exchange For Trump Legal Help.”
Former Rudy Giuliani amigo Lev Parnas may have revealed a staggering scandal on Wednesday, with Ukrainian gas billionaire Dmytro Firtash at the center.
The allegation is this: Trump and his legal team offered to have federal foreign bribery charges against Firtash dropped if the oligarch, described by federal prosecutors as an “upper-echelon” associate of the Russian mafia, helped Trump discredit the Mueller investigation and Joe Biden.
If corroborated, Parnas’ allegations would implicate Attorney General Bill Barr in the scandal in a deeper way than previously known, and would suggest that federal indictments are up for grabs as a bargaining chip for Trump’s political fortunes.
Chicago federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Firtash in March 2014, trapping him in Vienna, where he’s fighting an extradition warrant.
Since then, Firtash has waged an elaborate campaign to fight the charges and extradition, hiring a former Austrian minister of justice to represent him in court and, according to Parnas, striking a deal to feed politically useful information to Trump in exchange for having charges against him dropped.
[…] After an introduction via Parnas, Firtash hired Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, two pro-Trump TV lawyers.
That agreement came at the price of $100,000 per month, on top of $1 million to finance the group’s activities. Parnas had a cut of $200,000 worked in for himself as an “interpreter.”
[…] Parnas added new detail, alleging that Giuliani was present throughout and that Barr was on the phone with Firtash’s legal team and planned with them.
Asked about Barr, Parnas told Maddow he “was involved in lots of conversations that Joe DiGenova had with him in front of me, Rudy had with him in front of me, setting up meetings with Dimitry Firtash’s team. I was involved in that.”
Parnas said that the relationship appeared to have begun via The Hill columnist John Solomon, who told Giuliani, Toensing, and DiGenova that he “had some incredible information from the Firtash camp.” […]
[…] Parnas appears to have been referring to an allegation, peddled by Solomon in July, that Weismann offered exactly the same arrangement in which Parnas claims to have been involved: “Give us some dirt on Donald Trump in the Russia case, and Team Mueller might make his 2014 U.S. criminal charges go away.”
[…]in order for Parnas and his cohort to hold up their end of the bargain with Firtash, they would need cooperation from the Justice Department and Attorney General Barr.
Parnas claimed that while he “personally did not speak to him,” he overheard “lots of conversations” between Barr and DiGenova and Giuliani. Those, Parnas said, had to do with “setting up meetings” with Firtash’s team.
Those claims have not been corroborated. The Justice Department issued a statement calling Parnas’s allegations that Barr was involved in the scheme “100% false.”
But DiGenova and Toensing did meet with Barr, according to a Washington Post report from October 2019, and asked him to drop the charges.
Barr reportedly “declined to intercede.”
The Justice Department has not denied that aspect of Barr’s involvement.
Firtash remains under the same indictment that was first issued under seal in 2013.
But sound of the moment was caught by CNN’s microphones and found Wednesday.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren can be heard saying.
“What?” Sanders responded.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” she repeated.
“You know, let’s not do it right now. If you want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion,” Sanders said, to which Warren replied, “Anytime.”
“You called me a liar,” Sanders continued. “You told me — all right, let’s not do it now.”
To be honest, it’s a bullshit “controversy” which makes me feel disappointed by many people involved. There are Sanders supporters who are resorting to sexist attacks (‘snake’ emojis), I’m angry at CNN and all the fucking moderators for creating these types of irrelevant and bullshit fights between Warren and Sanders but I’m also disappointed at Warren and Warren camp for shifting the narrative to stuff like this and allowing Biden to get away with the nomination.
Today: Paulo Guedes, the Minister of Economy under Bolsonaro, will be introduced by Niall Ferguson at a special Mont [Pelerin] Society meeting. Peter Thiel gives closing remarks Friday.”
Drunken blowhard Robert Hyde is in some deep shit:
FBI investigators went to the home and the business of Robert Hyde on Thursday. The agents were seen by CNN and confirmed by a law enforcement official. They were at the home early Thursday morning in Weatogue, CT before going to Hyde’s business in Avon, CT.
Yes. Sue the Trump administration until they turn to dust. “Fathers torn from children for months sue Trump admin over family separation policy.”
Two fathers who were forcibly separated from their children under the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy have sued the Trump administration, saying that both children suffered abuse following the state-sanctioned kidnapping. “Plaintiffs suffered, and continue to suffer, physical, mental, and emotional harm because of the intentional, reckless, and negligent acts of U.S. government policy makers at the highest levels, whose goal was to inflict harm and instill terror,” the suit states.
The two fathers, identified in the filing as J.V.S. and A.P.F., were both separated from their kids for more than two months after arriving to the U.S. border in May 2018. “For weeks, the fathers, despite desperate pleas for information, were told nothing about the safety or location of their children—and had no way to communicate with their children,” the suit continues. Officials finally allowed them to speak to their kids, but in severely limited amounts: A.P.F. was only allowed to speak to his son, Obet, just once over the 71 days they were separated.
A.P.F.’s relatives were also able to speak to the seven-year-old boy, which is how he “learned something that broke him all over again: after Obet had been taken away from [A.P.F.], Obet had been sexually abused in a foster home in New York,” the suit said. “After learning about his son’s sexual abuse, Abel increased his efforts to ask ICE for information about his son. Still, no officers paid attention to Abel’s requests.” […]
J.V.S.’ five-year-old daughter, Herlinda, was also abused while in foster care, when another boy in the household touched her chest inappropriately, the lawsuit states. Herlinda was then moved to a second foster home after “Child Protective Services was informed and law enforcement officers came to the home to investigate the incident,” but the boy remained in the same “class” as her. […]
A former Vermont governor weighs in the argument between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders:
A former Vermont governor and ex-chair of the Democratic Governors Association is taking aim at Bernie Sanders and his campaign, accusing the senator of trying to “Hillarize” Elizabeth Warren. […]
“What I’ve seen in Bernie’s politics is he and his team feel they’re holier than the rest. In the end, they will play dirty because they think that they pass a purity test that Republicans and most Democrats don’t pass,” said Shumlin. “What you’re seeing now is, in the end, even if he considers you a friend, like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie will come first. That’s the pattern we’ve seen over the years in Vermont, and that’s what we are seeing now nationally.” […]
Trump is still claiming that he doesn’t know Parnas. We’ve seen this behavior from Trump before. I definitely don’t believe Trump is telling the truth here.
I don’t even know who this man is, other than I guess he attended fundraisers so I take a picture with him. I take thousands and thousand of pictures with people all the time. Thousands during the course of a year.
I don’t know him at all. Don’t know what he’s about. Don’t know where he comes from. Know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax.
I don’t know him. Perhaps he’s a fine man, perhaps he’s not.
Note the significant amount of repetition in Trump’s disavowal of Parnas. That repetition is a Trump tell. He thinks that if he repeats a lie enough times, it will become true … or that his cult followers will think it is true.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani just said his country is now enriching uranium at a higher level than before the nuclear deal restricted that activity […]
Trump has said repeatedly that he will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapon on his watch, so the White House is likely to see Rouhani’s statement as a clear provocation.
But Trump also pulled the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal, which many experts believe was the most effective way to prevent Iran from achieving a bomb. […] Rouhani’s statement is certainly provocative. But it’s also a direct consequence of the US pulling out of the nuclear agreement — as Rouhani himself made clear.
“In response to the US’ withdrawal from its obligations, we decided to reduce our commitments step by step,” Rouhani said in his address at a meeting with the Islamic Republic’s Central Bank on Thursday.
It’s important to note that Rouhani’s statement doesn’t mean Iran is moving to build a nuclear weapon. It’s still roughly a year away from obtaining a bomb if it decided to start building one, and its enrichment thresholds are still far below what is required to make a successful device. What’s more, the Iranian regime has never actually come out and said it wants to build a nuclear weapon. […]
From Wonkette: “Trump Finally Gets Ukraine To Announce Criminal Investigation, LOL”
Wompity womp womp womp. Womp.
Well boy howdy, that Lev Parnas interview and alllllll those Lev Parnas texts sure are making some waves, all the way over to the nation of Ukraine! And wouldn’t you know it, but Ukraine has announced a criminal investigation, just like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani have been begging them to do for over a year now.
‘Cept it is not an investigation into Joe Biden or Hunter Biden or how Hillary Clinton and Ukraine conspired to steal the election from herself and give it to Donald Trump so Nancy Pelosi could impeach him right in the balls, SAD TROMBONE.
It is instead a criminal investigation into whether former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was actually under surveillance, as batshit nutfart landscaper congressional candidate Robert F. Hyde seemed to suggest in his WhatsApps with Lev.
And they [Ukrainians] want the FBI to help.
BuzzFeed reports:
Officials from Ukraine’s interior ministry announced the investigation in a televised briefing, citing a trove of documents released by House Democrats on Tuesday that included several cryptic WhatsApp messages between Lev Parnas and Robert Hyde that discussed monitoring Yovanovitch’s physical movements and electronic devices.
[…] either Robert F. Hyde really is bugfuck and was hallucinating all of this […] or maybe he was just making it up because he wanted to look like one of the cool kids (can you imagine being so low on the totem pole of human life that being socially accepted by Rudy Giuliani and his friends would be on your vision board?), OR MAYBE all of the aforementioned could be true and also he was actually trying to make something happen to the American ambassador to Ukraine.
We need to know what really happened.
But for now, we’ll just congratulate Trump and Giuliani for finally getting Ukraine to announce a criminal investigation. […]
Re the pro-Sanders Twitter mobs: I was planning to ignore this whole episode, but they pushed me to say something. What I’m seeing is looking increasingly like what things looked like in 2016, and there’s no way I’m not going to stay quiet about it for the next 10 months. I saw women relentlessly harassed by these swarms in 2016, with many driven off Twitter. A number of people pointed out at the time that there was something going on, and were ignored or mocked. I didn’t study it scientifically, but when I read through the tweets at the anti-Warren hashtags, I saw a lot of tweets from what looked like established accounts with thousands of followers. There seems to be an increasing number of trollbots (foreign or domestic) in the mix, but the core looked genuine. I think it might be a phenomenon of some very online Sanders supporters being backed and encouraged by pro-Trump forces to ever more extreme positions. But there also could be something about the subculture – a tilt toward a personality cult or an enjoyment of mobbing – that makes it vulnerable to manipulation.
A large number of Sanders supporters have never accepted the existence or potential effect of the 2016 Russian interference campaign, despite the overwhelming evidence, or taken it into account in their tweeting now. It’s extremely irresponsible. I also remember that when the evidence of the Russian sabotage was first coming to light, and women suggested that this could have accounted for much of the harassment (especially since thousands of accounts they’d blocked were later removed), some Sanders supporters responded with outrage – “How dare you suggest we aren’t real people?!” I was like, “People are giving you the benefit of the doubt!”
As Neera Tanden pointed out, they suggested over and over that the attacks on Clinton and her supporters were specific to her and her political positions and history (not that that was acceptable, either!), but Warren is close to Sanders politically and longtime friends with him and it hasn’t stopped the same pattern of misogynistic attacks. Sanders and his campaign have had plenty of time to come to terms with this and try to change it, and I haven’t seen any real attempt to do so. I’m super concerned that it’s starting all over again, and aside from anything else I think Sanders is responsible for acknowledging the problem with his online supporters and nipping it in the bud.
The Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on Wednesday on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island’s electrical grid and suspending its $15-an-hour minimum wage for federally funded relief work. […]
Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York and the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the House, called the move disdainful and contemptuous.
“Why is Puerto Rico always subjected to different standards when it comes to this administration?” she demanded. […]
To gain access to $8.2 billion in recovery money and $8.3 billion in disaster prevention funds, Puerto Rico will have to submit budget plans to its federally mandated fiscal control board, which will track where the money goes. It will also have to bolster its property registration database.
Puerto Rico will be barred from paying its $15-an-hour minimum wage to workers on federally funded projects. And none of the funds can be used on the electrical grid, although the Department of Housing and Urban Development has yet to release nearly $2 billion that was allocated for Puerto Rico’s electrical system. […]
A congressional aide involved in the issue said the White House and its budget office appeared to have chosen restrictions that would be politically difficult for Puerto Rican officials to carry out. That way, the aide suggested, the federal government would not appear responsible for withholding the aid. […]
SC @437, “What I’m seeing is looking increasingly like what things looked like in 2016 …”
Exactly. I meant to make that point too. In 2016, I saw that odd behavior, and I saw it increasing. It didn’t seem to make any sense. There were no end of WTF!? moments. No, we should not let it go this time. We should not ignore it.
Ari Melber just started on MSNBC. Josh Marshall will be on. (Josh Kovensky from TPM was on with Chris Hayes last night – I remain incredibly impressed by what a great mentor and champion Marshall seems to be for the journalists who work there.)
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @433:
I don’t even know who this man is, other than I guess he attended fundraisers so I take a picture with him.
“Maybe he got covfeve for me once or something” The Orange Toddler-Tyrant was heard saying (maybe).
Re the Sanders-Warren “feud”: I think we all need to come to some sort of basic agreement on the timeline. By which I mean that the Sanders campaign, you know, started it. A non-aggression pact means not only that the candidates won’t attack one another but that their campaigns won’t. (And I’ll point out that Warren’s campaign to the best of my knowledge didn’t go after Sanders when he at 78 had a heart attack on the campaign trail and his campaign was less than forthcoming about it.) I don’t think anyone feared that Sanders himself would openly attack Warren, but that someone less scrupulous like Sirota covertly would. And his campaign was caught (see #s 293 and 396 above) doing just that. Which Sanders could have acknowledged and dealt with, but he instead misled about and brushed aside.
Again, I see this in the context of what happened in 2016 and it’s concerning. Sanders can’t claim to be above personal attacks or aggression while denying, remaining silent about, or tacitly condoning the official actions of his campaign or the large-scale collective behavior of his supporters. So that was the start.
Regarding the disagreement about the alleged comment in the earlier private meeting, I’m pretty meh. I’m also pretty meh on if Warren released it. I think he likely suggested something of the sort, but that’s not that big of a deal. (I go out with my friends who work in business and when they’re pessimistic about women’s prospects I don’t think it’s because of their attitudes towards women. Warren’s characterization of it as concerning their punditry takes struck me as correct.) I also think that when trying to understand whether a comment is prejudiced or not, it’s best to begin by deferring to the people who are the victims of that particular prejudice. This would come into play if they had a complex conversation about the issue and left with different impressions. In any case, rather than defusing the situation by saying that he must have been pointing to Trump’s exploitation of sexism or whatever and there was a misunderstanding, Sanders called the very idea “ludicrous.” I don’t think either of them is lying, but this did imply that Warren, in describing her recollection, was lying. I have zero problem with her calling him out for that, either.
So in my view this is a very minor disagreement between friends and comrades. I don’t see that it has to divide progressives in any major way, whatever the media might be pushing for. But I’m almost glad it’s coming up now (I’m a silver-lining person) because I think it’s bringing some important problems to the surface, and we should air them now. The first one I discussed above. The second has to do with the way many people approach these disputes. I spent weeks if not months several years ago arguing about the Rebecca Watson/Richard Dawkins dispute. So many people were demanding to know why Watson didn’t contact people privately even when they’d criticized her publicly, etc. It finally occurred to me that there’s an expectation that women/feminists are held responsible for privatizing/defusing/de-escalating conflicts. Just in general. It’s not equal, at all. I’m seeing this in especially Ryan Grim’s tweets. Not acceptable.
Eighteen progressive organizations including major supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are launching a unity pledge in the middle of the most contentious week of the primary between the two progressive candidates.
The effort, dubbed “Progressives Unite 2020,” is centered on a three-part pledge that includes focusing “our fight for the nomination against candidates supported by the corporate wing instead of fighting each other.”
The campaign is made up of some of the most dominant organizes on the political left. The groups involved include Our Revolution, which is closely tied to Sanders, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is closely tied to Warren. The Working Families Party, which has endorsed Warren, is also involved, as is the Sunrise Movement, which recently endorsed Sanders. Democracy for America, which is unaligned, helped organize the campaign.
The groups are also asking members to vote strategically for the two candidates in early voting states like Iowa. The campaign asks voters in Iowa to move to one of the two top progressive candidates if their preferred candidate doesn’t reach 15% viability threshold on caucus night….
I mean, obviously. This is great news and I fully endorse it. However, I don’t think the two issues I raised above should be swept under the carpet. There shouldn’t be a papered-over unity but an honest and accountable unity that’s ready to challenge the Right.
Now in my hundredth year, I cannot remain silent. I entered the United States in January 1921 as a poor immigrant boy, and I have felt obliged to repay the United States for the opportunities given to me.
I was an American combat soldier in World War II, and was proud to serve my country as the chief prosecutor in a war crimes trial at Nuremberg against Nazi leaders who murdered millions of innocent men, women and children.
The administration recently announced that, on orders of the president, the United States had “taken out” (which really means “murdered”) an important military leader of a country with which we were not at war. As a Harvard Law School graduate who has written extensively on the subject, I view such immoral action as a clear violation of national and international law.
The public is entitled to know the truth. The United Nations Charter, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are all being bypassed. In this cyberspace world, young people everywhere are in mortal danger unless we change the hearts and minds of those who seem to prefer war to law.
Benjamin B. Ferencz
Delray Beach, Fla.
tomhsays
Paul Waldman of the WP (who I’m not always in step with) has a rather insightful column on Parnas/Trump.
As Lev Parnas, the most colorful Trump scandal character since Michael Cohen, makes the media rounds, it’s hard to know how much credence to give what he says.
[…]
But it’s the White House’s reaction to Parnas’s new loquaciousness that is both fascinating and disturbing, in a way that highlights how the Trump era is affecting us all.
“The president has said he did not know him,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, which is true in that he did say that.
[…]
Grisham added that there’s no need to believe what Parnas has to say, because “this is a man who’s under indictment and who’s actually out on bail.”
That’s also true. But that’s like a mob boss saying, “How can you trust all these guys who have turned state’s evidence against me? They’re a bunch of gangsters!”
And it has become so familiar that we expect it: Whenever one of Trump’s goons gets arrested, Trump says he barely knows the guy. And if that person should start to talk about Trump, then it’s obvious the person is a liar.
Like Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer. “Michael Cohen is lying and he’s trying to get a reduced sentence for things that have nothing to do with me,” Trump said when Cohen began to reveal how Trump did business.
How about Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who is now in federal prison? “I didn’t know Manafort well. He wasn’t with the campaign very long,” Trump said.
How about U.S Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, with whom Trump had regular phone conversations about the effort to strong-arm Ukraine? “I have not spoken to him much, this is not a man I know well,” Trump said.
[…]
Parnas seems to know everyone around Trump. Here’s a pic of Lev with Vice President Pence and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Here’s a pic of Lev with Kellyanne Conway. Here’s a pic of Lev with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Here’s a pic of Lev with Donald Trump Jr.
And if you want one of Lev with President Trump, there are too many to choose from (among other things, Parnas and Fruman met with Trump at the White House).
[Links to the pictures at the link]
Yet I can pretty much promise you that a week from now, Parnas will fade from our attention. Whenever you find yourself saying about the day’s news, “If this were any other president it would be a gigantic scandal in and of itself,” you probably then remember that you said the same thing the day before and the day before that. And that’s exactly what’s so demoralizing, so spiritually enervating, about this whole era.
[…]
The raging river of Trump’s lies is so broad and deep and swift that any one lie simply shoots past us, glimpsed for a moment and then forgotten. Trump’s corruption is so profound and relentless that any single corrupt act seems almost inconsequential, worth no more than a day or two of indignation. Trump has surrounded himself with so many criminals and grifters and goons; what’s one more?
So if I reminded you that, say, Trump was actively pursuing a deal potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build a Trump Tower in Russia while running for president and lying about it to the public, you’d probably say, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” Each one of these hundreds of stories coasts past us, our ability to muster the appropriate urgency getting a little weaker every time.
The result is that because Trump’s corruption and dishonesty are so encompassing, he obtains a kind of immunity to any new scandal. “Didn’t we know that already?” we wind up asking ourselves, looking for an excuse not to get our dander up for the thousandth time.
The answer is yes, we knew already. We knew that he’s a con man and a liar and a tax cheat and a bigot. We knew that he abused women and that he’d abuse his office. We knew it all.
But that doesn’t mean we should stop being angry, no matter how hard it can be to stay that way for four years. If we do, then he has truly won.
Pat Cipollone
Jay Sekulow
Ken Starr
Robert Ray
Alan Dershowitz
johnson catmansays
re SC @448: I literally laughed out loud when reading that list. But then I remembered that the jury fix is in and The Orange Toddler-Tyrant doesn’t really need a competent defense team.
“Just one of those days when news of the president calling generals ‘losers’ and his DOJ launching a seemingly retaliatory investigation of a political opponent will be lost in the shuffle of the president’s impeachment trial for other offenses.”
“I’m also told former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi will be presenting on the Senate floor as part of POTUS’ defense team along with longtime counsel Jane Raskin per person familiar.”
At this point I’m outraged at the American public’s lack of action over the blatant corruption of the GOP. We can’t wait until November and let Trump and the right further damage our civilization, nor can we trust a gerrymandered and minority-vote-suppressed election to remove these scum from office. If we really gave a damn about progress and freedom, we should be marching upon Washington D.C. and not leave until the entire city is burned to the ground and every Republican’s severed head is stuck on a pike!
An analysis of Trump’s trade deals, and of Trump’s tendency to boost trivial gains or adjustments to the hyperbolic heights of wins.
[…] Trump and his team tried to negotiate a sweeping new trade agreement [with China], failed spectacularly, and settled on a modest “phase one” deal. Formalizing the agreement this week, [Trump] declared, “It really just doesn’t get any bigger than this.”
That wasn’t even close to being true. The new deal is vague, incomplete, and according to a variety of experts, “underwhelming.” Politico quoted Trump confidants who “privately admit” the president is “hyping” a deal that doesn’t do much.
He’ll soon do the same thing with NAFTA 2.0, a.k.a. the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell drove the point home nicely:
Trade was supposed to be President Trump’s signature issue. He was going to get us the best, biggest, America-First-iest trade deals ever.
We’re now two years into his multifront trade wars. They’ve fractured our international alliances, imposed tens of billions of dollars of new taxes on Americans, resulted in two expensive agricultural bailouts, multiplied farmer bankruptcies and landed the manufacturing sector in a recession.
Today, we’re left to ask: Is that all there is?
She concluded that the best one can say about Trump’s allegedly “historic” deals is that they won’t make his unnecessary trade wars worse, which isn’t exactly the basis for an impressive boast.
Heather Hurlburt recently added that Trump’s trade breakthroughs are ultimately “a triumph of the trivial.” […]
Trump, who’s never demonstrated any meaningful familiarity with the substance of trade policy, is principally focused on saying, “Look, I’m doing some stuff!”
He’s also desperate to distract attention from the impeachment crisis that’s rocked his presidency. Trump told reporters yesterday, “This is a hoax. It’s a sham. I did the biggest deal ever done in the history of our country yesterday in terms of trade – and probably other things too, if you think about it: the deal with China. And that was the second story to a total hoax.”
None of this made factual sense – the Ukraine scandal is very real; he didn’t come close to negotiating “the biggest deal ever done in the history of our country”; etc. – but his whining reinforced the fact that he’s desperate to put his supposed victories in the foreground.
The trouble is, for those who take the substance seriously, the one thing Trump’s trade deals have in common is that they’re simply not the sweeping breakthroughs he wants and needs them to be.
Several U.S. service members were treated for concussions after Iran launched ballistic missiles earlier this month in Iraq in retaliation for the U.S. killing of a top Iranian commander, the Pentagon said Thursday. […]
In the days after the attack, 11 service members have been transported to two hospitals, in Germany and Kuwait, for follow-up screening, [Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement].
Why did Trump make a big, repetitive, deal out of saying that “no Americans were harmed?”
Trump repeatedly berated U.S. military leaders while throwing a massive fit during a Pentagon meeting in 2017, according to “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America,” a book penned by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
An excerpt from the book describes how Trump’s meeting with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. and flag officials on July 20, 2017 (arranged by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn) went completely off the rails.
The temper tantrum began when Trump started complaining about the “loser war” in Afghanistan and demanded to know “where is the fucking oil” that he felt the U.S. deserved for its military presence in the Persian Gulf.
“You’re all losers,” he told them. “You don’t know how to win anymore.” […]
“You’re a bunch of dopes and babies,” he shouted.
Everyone in the room was shocked.
“How does the commander in chief say that?” one participant thought, according to the Post. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”
Trump’s attack was apparently Tillerson’s breaking point.
“No, that’s just wrong,” he said to Trump. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”
The secretary of state asserted that those who join the military “don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune.”
“That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die,” he said. “They do it to protect our freedom.”
In a private conversation with Cohn and Mattis right after the meeting, Tillerson let loose and made the infamous comment about Trump that would get leaked to the press a few months later.
“He’s a fucking moron,” the secretary of state said.
Lev Parnas says he felt he was asked to sacrifice himself for Trump after he was indicted: “I think they tried to keep me quiet.”
[…] Lev Parnas charged on Thursday night that his now-former lawyers, who are close to President Donald Trump, tried to get him to throw himself under the bus to protect the President.
Parnas told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow that he fired John Dowd, who previously served as Trump’s lawyer, and Kevin Downing, Paul Manafort’s ex-lawyer, after they visited him in jail and “started talking to me like a drill sergeant and giving me orders” instead of trying to help him with his criminal indictment for campaign finance violations.
“Were they telling you to sacrifice yourself in order to protect the President?” asked Maddow.
“That’s what I felt,” he said.
The MSNBC host followed up with: “Is the implication of this story of the lawyers that you feel that people loyal to the President and close to the President were trying to influence your defense and your case in a way that was against your interests but in the President’s interests?”
“Absolutely,” Parnas responded. “I think they tried to keep me quiet.” […]
Lynna @ #457, Sen. Leahy was just on MSNBC and said he’s talked in the past with several people who were there and the report in the book is accurate. He said the people in the room were “astonished.”
Parnas says a lot of things. Some things might be lies or bullshit. Somethings may be the truth. I neither believe nor disbelieve him. I accept what he says provisionally. Where there are documents to back him up, we are on firmer footing.
In a normal world, the DoJ would be investigating all of this rigorously, but they either ignore evidence against Trump or stage lackluster investigations and throw up their hands and say “What can we do; who can say?
The quintessential devil here is Barr. And if Parnas has done nothing else, he has caused a bit more light to shine upon our corrupt AG.
——————-
This makes perfect sense. How else would Parnas wind up with “A”-Team lawyers like Dowd […]? Of course they were put in place to protect Trump, and not to represent Parnas effectively.
The thing that’s clear to me after last night’s interview is that my former over/under of eight for the number of lawyers to be disbarred as a result of their connections to Trump is way too low. We’ve already had two (Cohen and Manafort), and there will be plenty more to follow.
And it’s now difficult to view using Jay Sekulow as counsel in the impeachment trial as a good idea. Probably won’t stop them, since they generally lack top-tier legal talent, but it’s likely to produce results they don’t want.
A federal judge in Washington has announced he would delay ruling on the Trump administration’s request to toss out a lawsuit that would force the government to turn over the president’s tax returns.
According to a newly released court transcript, House Democrats objected, saying the judge’s hesitation makes it more likely Trump will be able to run out the clock and dodge a congressional subpoena for the records until well after the November election.
In a terse order Tuesday following a telephone conference with the parties in the case, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden said he would not rule in the matter until an appeals court decides whether to uphold another judge’s order that former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with a House subpoena to testify in Congress’s impeachment probe.
[…]
However, attorneys for the House — in the call that was closed to the public and announced on five-minutes’ notice — strongly objected because the subpoena will expire when this term of Congress expires at the end of this year. They said the delay thwarts the House’s ability to ensure White House compliance with urgent legislative oversight, including whether Trump took inappropriate advantage of tax laws to engage in decades-long tax avoidance schemes.
[…]
McFadden, who was confirmed in 2017 after serving as a Trump Justice Department appointee, disagreed.
[…]
The Justice Department has argued that the courts must stay out of a fight between the two political and elected branches, an argument the administration invoked after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused to comply with the subpoena for Trump’s business and tax records.
Brazil’s culture secretary, Roberto Alvim has been fired after he appeared to paraphrase the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in an online video to promote a national arts prize.
“Brazilian art in the next decade will be heroic and national,” said Alvim, to the music from Wagner’s Lohengrin, said to be Hitler’s favourite opera, with a portrait of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, and a Brazilian flag in the background.
“It will be endowed with a great capacity for emotional involvement and will be equally imperative, since it is deeply linked to the urgent aspirations of our people, or else it will be nothing,” he continued.
The words are strikingly similar to those Hitler’s minister reportedly said to a group of theatre managers and directors in 1933: “German art in the next decade will be heroic, steely but romantic, factual without sentimentality; it will be nationalistic with a great depth of feeling; it will be binding and it will unite, or it will cease to exist.”
On Facebook, Alvim merely classed the phrase as a “rhetorical coincidence”.
Since taking office last year, Bolsonaro has been repeatedly criticized by opponents for pushing a conservative Christian cultural agenda while cutting funding to arts and cinema projects.
Bolsonaro’s culture war allies have lashed out at what they call “cultural Marxism” and condemned everything from climate change to feminism.
The latest effort, launched in the video by culture secretary Alvim, comes in the form of a $20m reais ($4.8m) prize fund for theatre, opera, art and music exhibitions, with conservative and religious themes prioritized.
“Virtues of faith, loyalty, self-sacrifice and the fight against evil will be raised to the sacred territory of works of art,” said Alvim.
…
On Friday afternoon, Bolsonaro tweeted that Alvim had been dismissed. “An unfortunate statement, though apologetic, made it untenable for him to stay on,” he said.
The night the video was recorded, Bolsonaro had said of Alvim: “Now we have a real secretary of culture.”…
Alan Dershowitz is “spectacularly dishonest,” so I guess he belongs on Trump’s legal team.
Sure, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says that Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget broke the law by withholding aid from Ukraine, but forget about all that, because Fox News has exonerated Trump. [nice bit of sarcasm there]
Trump tweeted a spectacularly dishonest claim made by Alan Dershowitz on Fox News’ Sean Hannnity show on Thursday night, that “The GOA (sic) got it exactly backwards. Here’s what they said. The law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities to those Congress has enacted into law. It’s exactly the opposite. The Constitution does not allow Congress to substitute its own priorities for the foreign policies of the President.” While Dershowitz had an impressive career as a criminal lawyer and legal academic, an expert in administrative law he is not—while the professionals at the GAO, though not infallible, are absolutely experts in the law they assess.
Dershowitz joined a series of other Republicans straining to argue that the GAO report is not as damning as it in fact is. Sen. Rand Paul, too, went with the “they misunderstand the law” angle, and it’s still wrong to a ridiculous “up is down” extent.
But Trump jumped so hard on the fake exoneration Dershowitz offered because it’s the best thing he’s got going. And for Dershowitz it appears to have been the final, successful audition to join Trump’s impeachment defense team, to which he’s been added along with Ken Starr and Robert Ray, and which will continue to be headed by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.
There will be no chimes at midnight. Anglican vicars have declined the suggestions of Brexiters that they should ring the bells of their churches to hail the beginning of the “golden age” that, as Boris Johnson has assured us, will be inaugurated by Brexit on 31 January. And Big Ben will not bong. The silence that Westminster’s great clock tower has maintained since its clapper was removed while restoration works are in progress will not be broken. Johnson claimed that he was “working up a plan so people can bung a bob for a Big Ben bong”. The plan turned out to be like all his other Brexit plans, which is to say nonexistent. So at this moment of destiny the prime minister will surely adapt John Donne. Ask not for whom the bell doesn’t toll. It doesn’t toll for thee.
…
But the underlying point of the campaign seems to lie not so much in the expectation that the chimes will actually sound to herald the new dawn of British greatness as in the hope that they will not. This will prove again that the elites will stop at nothing to stifle the joy of the risen people of England. (The joy of the people of Scotland being unconfined by virtue of being almost entirely absent.)
Why, even in their moment of triumph, do the Brexiters need this self-pitying narrative? It is another episode in the blame game that has been implicit from the start of the Brexit saga. Brexit is inherently anticlimactic. This is not just because the botched process of negotiating withdrawal has turned the gush of liberation into a dribble, with Independence Days (29 March; 31 October) coming and going like a millenarian preacher’s predictions for the end of the world. It is not just because the special memorial 50p coins had to be melted down. It is because the act of liberation itself is fundamentally spurious.
Revolutions unleash euphoria because they create tangible images of change and inaugurate, at least in the fevered minds of their supporters, a new epoch. Brexit can’t do either of these things. The problem with a revolt against imaginary oppression is that you end up with imaginary freedom. How do you actually show that the yoke of Brussels has been lifted? You can’t bring prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps back into the shops, or release stout British fishermen from the humiliation of having to wear hair nets at work on the high seas, or unban donkey rides on beaches, or right any of the other great wrongs that fuelled anti-EU sentiment – because all of it was make-believe.
And so is the golden age to come. Almost no one actually believes in the dawning of the post-Brexit Age of Aquarius. The real public mood in this month of liberation was revealed in a survey commissioned by the Conservative thinktank Bright Blue at the beginning of January: “The UK public is fairly pessimistic about the next five years. A majority of the UK public expects levels of undesirable trends – poverty (72%), crime (71%), inequality (71%) and national debt (72%) – to increase or stay the same.”
Thus the great moment of departure on 31 January will be like the last lines in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, in which Vladimir asks: “Well, shall we go?” and Estragon answers: “Yes, let’s go.” The stage direction is: “They do not move.” Nothing will really move. The entry into a period of transition of unknown duration and the beginning of trade talks likely to be marked by tedium, indecision and a slow climbdown from grandiose promises really doesn’t ring any bells.
All but the most swivel-eyed of the Brexiters know this. Johnson himself has executed a (highly effective) pivot, turning Brexit from a fabulous moment of liberation to a duty that must be “done”, a trial to be endured, a bad period to be put behind us. The logic of his election slogan is that 31 January will mark not a beginning but an end – an end to the torment that has been endured since the referendum of June 2016.
…
But this downbeat narrative cannot fuel spontaneous overflows of popular emotion. The divisions and anxieties created by Brexit will not end on 31 January, but even if they did, it would be a peculiar mode of national rejoicing: a prime minister celebrating the fact that the pain he is primarily responsible for inflicting is going away. However, as we have seen time and again in this saga, it must be somebody else’s fault that things have come to this strange pass. It cannot be that the anticlimax was always going to be part of the story. It must be that all the inherent problems are merely the result of a failure of will.
Brexit is a matter of faith – when the miracles don’t happen, it is because there are too many of what Johnson calls “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters”. It is not enough that the people who are delighted to be leaving the EU express their happiness at a great victory over their enemies. Since the story is now about “coming together”, the doubters must play their part in a ritual of forced cheeriness. If they do not, it is their fault that the party is not quite so swell as it was meant to be. The bells won’t ring, not because the bell tower is broken, but because the doomsters don’t believe in the message of the unheard bongs.
This is how Mitch McConnell’s campaign to approve all of those Trump-appointed judges is working out: “Trump judge lashes out at a transgender litigant in a surprisingly cruel opinion.”
[…] The main thing at stake in Varner is whether three judges will treat a woman with courtesy or with needless cruelty.
Two of them chose the latter option.
The case involves Kathrine Nicole Jett, a trans woman who is incarcerated in a federal prison. (Jett does not appear to use the name “Varner,” but for the sake of clarity, this piece will refer to her case as United States v. Varner because that is the only name the courts have assigned to it.) Jett made a couple of requests from the federal judiciary relating to her transition from male to female. She asked that her name be changed on certain court documents from “Norman Keith Varner” to “Kathrine Nicole Jett,” and that judges hearing her case refer to her as a woman and use feminine pronouns.
The name change request was denied on procedural grounds […] But the question of how individual judges should refer to a transgender person does not appear to be answered by any law. […]
Unfortunately for Jett, she drew a panel of judges dominated by two unusually conservative Republicans. The author of the Court’s opinion in Varner, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, spent part of his career as general counsel to a leading Christian right law firm and litigated multiple cases seeking to restrict LGBTQ rights.
Among several other cases, Duncan defended the state of Alabama’s failed attempt to strip a lesbian mother of parental rights over her adopted child. He filed a brief arguing against marriage equality in the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) case. And he represented a school district seeking to bar a trans student from using the bathroom that aligns with his gender identity.
Duncan’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was widely opposed by civil rights groups, who noted that anti-LGBTQ litigation made up a significant amount of Duncan’s law practice.
[…] The thrust of Duncan’s opinion is that even though he could use female pronouns and refer to Jett as a woman as a matter of courtesy, no one can make him. So he won’t. […]
while Duncan’s opinion on this issue has little legal significance, it sends a pretty clear message about whether transgender litigants can get a fair hearing in the Fifth Circuit. Few lawyers have done as much anti-LGBTQ legal work as Kyle Duncan. […]
If the court’s judges are so contemptuous of trans people that they will take swipes at them when the stakes deal only with an individual, imagine what they will do when fundamental questions about the rights of transgender Americans come before their court. […]
The real public mood in this month of liberation was revealed in a survey commissioned by the Conservative thinktank Bright Blue at the beginning of January: “The UK public is fairly pessimistic about the next five years. A majority of the UK public expects levels of undesirable trends – poverty (72%), crime (71%), inequality (71%) and national debt (72%) – to increase or stay the same.”
“Hyde, in a hard-to-follow video message, says he was ‘in Ecuador cimbing volcanoes’ while texting with Parnas and mentions a garbled name he says was providing him info about Yovanovitch’s supposed whereabouts.
He says he now believes this person was a Democratic plant.”
Video atl. Anthony DaClaoohy/Hallihouie? Works for government departments…? Hyde looks and seems drunk here. The FBI reportedly visited his home and business yesterday, so I imagine they’ll learn with whom he was speaking about Yovanovitch. He could always give the House access to his phone records if he wants Schiff to have them.
From Wonkette: “Neo-Nazis Arrested Ahead Of Gun Rally Thought They Were Gonna Start A Race War.”
Governor Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency in Richmond, Virginia, ahead of a gun rally taking place there on Monday. Police are gearing up and weapons have been temporarily banned from the state Capitol.
It’s not just any gun rally. […] It’s a gun rally that will be attended by a bunch of right-wing militias and white supremacists — and in light of everything that’s been going on for the last few years, the city is bracing for a potential armed conflict.
If anyone ever wanted an advertisement for restrictions on gun purchases, I’m going to say that a cavalcade of neo-Nazis screaming about a “race war” at the state Capitol of Virginia is a good one.
Just yesterday morning, three members of the white supremacist paramilitary group The Base were arrested by the FBI, which had reason to believe that they had been planning to show up to the rally with weapons and commit an act of violence. One of the men arrested, Patrik J. Mathews, 27 — an explosives expert and former Canadian army reservist — is in the United States illegally. He was charged with possession of a firearm while being in the country illegally.
Brian M. Lemley Jr., 33, and William G. Bilbrough IV, 19, were also arrested and charged with harboring someone who had entered the country illegally, conspiracy, and transporting a firearm and ammunition with the intent of committing a felony.
[…] They were not the only ones arrested yesterday, either. Three more white supremacists were arrested for their plans to murder a couple associated with antifa movements.
In the weeks running up to the rally, white supremacist extremists shared memes and exchanged messages online, detailing their desires to commit violent acts in hopes of starting a race war.
[…] Many of the comments are racist, anti-Semitic and unprintable. “Y’all need to go full white ethnostate and really set the pace for 2020,” […]
Anyone who is hankering for a “race war” is not only evil, but extraordinarily pathetic and delusional. A lot of people in America are racist, I will give them that. But willing to actually go to war over it? […]
This is not to say these people are not dangerous. They are absolutely dangerous and should be taken very seriously. The fact that law enforcement did not take them seriously for a very long time is part of why we are in this current situation.
It’s unlikely that the only six people planning violent acts at this event were arrested by the FBI. There may be others. Hopefully, the things Northam and others have done to prevent something like that happening will be effective, because boy are these people not well.
Latest gaslighting from Cabinet Office. New FOI response re Russia report. “The information you requested is not held by the Cabinet Office” Huh? And, here it comes again, The Untestable Phrase: “There is no evidence of SUCCESSFUL interference in UK democratic processes”
[…] The first night, Maddow said what came across in her discussions with him [Parnas] is that he feels that by spilling his guts about what he knows, he is rendered safer than if he were a man who could, we dunno, fall out of a window like a common Russian journalist (either they are particularly bad at knowing which one is “window” and which one is “door” or Vladimir Putin is a murderer), taking his secrets with him.
And yes, it sounds like he is scared of that. We want to emphasize at the outset, though, that we actually don’t know Lev Parnas’s true motivations in what he’s sharing right now. […]
But Parnas said last night that what he fears more than these “criminals” is […] BILL FUCKING BARR.
[…] That’s right, the low-rent el cheapo Big Lots clearance rack regional theater understudy version of Roy Cohn that Trump hired to be his attorney general. Indeed, Parnas said he fears Barr more than any of these other “criminals,” one of whom, we imagine, is the Russian-mob-tied Ukrainian criminal Dmitry Firtash, for whom the law firm of Hairball and Hairball hired Parnas to be “translator.” From what Parnas says, and Wonkette figured out ages ago, the hairballs also hired Parnas to negotiate the quid pro quo where they’d save Firtash from indictment and extradition to the United States in exchange for Firtash giving them sweet fake Biden dirt and leaning on the Ukrainian government to announce a Biden investigation.
Parnas says “people are scared” now that Barr is attorney general. He noted that Trump wasn’t all that powerful to start out with, but now that he has Barr, Trump has more power. Lev Parnas is not wrong.
Now, you might think, “Well, Lev Parnas is indicted by the SDNY. We think he might have a reason to fear the attorney general!” But we think he’s saying it’s more than that. He’s talking about what happens when you run afoul of the Circle of Trump, which he describes as less like organized crime, and more of a “cult.” […]
According to Parnas, Barr was a full player in the Trump/Giuliani Ukraine crime cult. And what happens when you run afoul of the cult? […]
So what we hear Lev Parnas saying is that he feels safer telling all his secrets as insurance against whatever Bill Barr might try to do to him, and he fears that more than he fears the Russian fucking mob. […]
[…] Was Jay Sekulow aware of Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine crime spree? “Oh, absolutely,” according to Parnas, who added that Sekulow “didn’t agree with what Rudy was doing,” but he knew. You know, in real time, as the crime was being committed, just like John Bolton knew about it. Parnas said yesterday that Bolton should really testify in the impeachment trial.
Sekulow is set to act as Trump’s lead counsel in the impeachment trial, […] Perhaps Jay Sekulow should sit down in the witness chair, next to John Bolton, since it sounds like he’s a witness.
[…] Sounds like Rick Perry, who announced he was noping out of his job as Energy secretary about five seconds after this Trump scandal blew out into the open, should ALSO probably sit his dancing ass down in the witness chair! […]
From Wonkette: “FBI Takes On Public Enemy Number One: James Comey”
Bill Barr’s weaponization of the Justice Department is a wonderment to behold. […] he’s found the resources to investigate a three-year-old leak allegation against former FBI Director James Comey based on a bunch of bullshit Trump tweets. […]
the feds are in hot pursuit of the source for a pair of articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post back in the spring of 2017. Because that’s a priority for the US Attorney’s Office in DC right now! And they have all their little fingers and toes crossed that the culprit is a 6’7″ former federal employee who features widely in the Commander in Tweet’s morning dispatches from the White House crapper.
The articles described a highly classified Russian “document” obtained by Dutch intelligence hackers. It purported to discuss a 2016 email between then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Leonard Benardo, an employee of the Open Society Foundations founded by philanthropist George Soros, just casually shooting the breeze about a deal with Loretta Lynch to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for her buttery emails. And if that sounds like bullshit, it’s because it very clearly was, as the FBI concluded at the time. Wasserman Schultz and Benardo have never met, there was no deal, no one ever found evidence of an email, and the “discussion” between Russian officials was probably a hoax planted for the Dutch to find.
[…] going back three years and finding the “leaker” when Congress had been briefed on the document and multiple reporters at the two major papers of record had the story is nigh impossible. But US Attorney for DC Jessie Liu is giving it the old Trump U try!
In fact, Ms. Liu has been tryin’ it a lot lately. There’s the attempt to charge Andrew McCabe for lying to the FBI which the grand jury pretty clearly thought was baloney and failed to issue an indictment on. There’s the two-and-a-half week trial of Obama’s onetime White House Counsel Greg Craig, which the jury spent five hours on before acquitting on all charges. And now she wants to try again — because New York prosecutors already tried to get him on his memos — to pin a leak of highly classified material on James Comey […]
And right on cue, Ms. Liu’s loyalty is being rewarded. After launching the latest investigation of the president’s enemies, Liu was nominated to be Treasury’s deputy secretary for terrorism and financial crimes. Just like it says in the Bible, the wages of sin is promotion. Or something like that.
The whole week. They spent the whole week talking about bongs on Big Ben. The sheer scale of the lunacy is difficult to fully comprehend. What you are seeing, more or less in real time, is a nation turn into the clown car model of itself. We’re living in the Scary Movie franchise version of Britain, a cheap, lowest-common-denominator satire of the country we used to know.
For a week’s news cycle, the country’s print, broadcast and online media debated the issue of whether Big Ben, which is being refurbished, should bong to ring in the moment Britain leaves the EU, despite a price tag of £500,000. To even engage in it is to make a mockery of your own intellect. It’s like a cerebral hostage situation. The more you read about it, the more brain cells will die. But there is something to be gained from peering into the debate. You get a useful glimpse of how Brexit will be debated over 2020.
Over the course of the year, Britain will negotiate the most important trade deal in its history. It is one which will define the status of this country for years to come. It will affect every part of the economy – from services, to manufacturing, to the basic internal functioning of the UK single market.
During that time the government will try to make sure that we barely mention it. Boris Johnson wants to pretend that he has got Brexit done. It’s over. Finished. This is all some tedious irrelevant tinkering you don’t need to worry about. It must not, under any circumstances, be seen for what it really is: the system reboot of a country’s trading arrangements.
So instead we will be presented with this, a culture war mockery of the technical reality taking place underneath it. It’s like someone dressing up Bertrand Russell as a pantomime horse.
The bongs are not just nonsense. They are nonsense as a depository for political thought which might otherwise go in dangerous directions – namely, scrutinising the government.
It also revealed how the prime minister intends to communicate with the public through this period. He will do so according to a time-honoured and highly successful method: he will lie.
“We’re working up a plan so that people can bung a bob for a Big Ben bong,” he said on Tuesday. “We’re looking at whether the public can fund it.”
The whole thing then fell apart very quickly, with fundraising efforts thwarted by the confirmation from parliamentary authorities that they couldn’t accept public money in this way. And then suddenly the ‘bung a bob’ campaign changed.
“This is a matter for the House, they have indicated they will not accept the money were the public to fund raise for this,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said. “The PM is focused on the government’s plans to mark 31 January.”
It was extraordinary. The fundraising effort was the government’s plans. The prime minister had literally just announced it himself 48 hours earlier. Now it was someone else’s plan on the basis of its failure, or simply because he had decided against it.
On even the most trivial of issues, Johnson’s words simply mean nothing. One moment he is asking for money, the next it has nothing to do with him. Reality flickers and changes within the blink of an eye. He might as well go full Soviet and edit himself out of the video where he’d made the original comments.
As the talks go on, this will be the approach – transforming fiendish economic trade-offs into culture war and relentless lying. Politically, it may well be successful. But in terms of the actual project, none of it will work. The talks, on the basis of Britain’s existing approach, which shows almost no realism at all, look set to be a disaster. And who will then be blamed? Well, who else? Remainers.
“Remainer stitch up over Big Ben bongs,” the Express screamed yesterday. A “Remainer plot” in parliament was responsible for the collapse of the plans, it breathlessly reported.
Project that out and you get a decent impression of how Brexiters will handle the next year of failure. Nothing will ever be their fault, even when they have complete control over the process and how it is handled. Everything is the fault of those with no political power at all….
As Chief Justice John Roberts was being sworn in to oversee that affair [the impeachment trial], Trump was a few miles away, surrounded by a group of students and teachers who were there to praise him for waging war on secularism in schools. In front of him on the Resolute desk was a map that appeared to divide the country into a red/blue map based on the 2016 election results.
Trump, however, did nothing with the map. It just sat there in front of him, unmentioned, for the entire half-hour event.
[…] It’s worth emphasizing a few relevant details. First, the map had nothing to do with the subject at hand, and it was not referenced at any point during the Oval Office event, at least not during the portions seen by the public.
Second, the map is wrong: it purports to show county-by-county results, but it shows a variety of counties that Hillary Clinton won in red. It doesn’t even get the popular vote right: the map says the Democrat won by 1.1 million votes, when the actual margin was 2.8 million.
Third, even if it reflected county-by-county results accurately, it would still be misleading, because it would suggest land masses matter more than actual American voters. Many of those counties have a lot of square miles and very few people, which necessarily creates a distorted image.
But even if we put all of that aside, the question that’s harder to answer is why in the world the map was there in the first place.
It’s possible, if not likely, that Trump was trying to make some kind of convoluted point about his impeachment, as if the map was some kind of validating totem that leaves him immune to accountability for abuses and alleged crimes.[…]
But it’s also possible that the map and its ubiquity is an extension of the same insecurities that plagued Trump in early 2017. Maybe he wants to be popular and respected, and the map serves as a substitute for actual support.
[…] Bondi, for example, was caught up in an unfortunate ethics mess after she derailed a Trump University probe after receiving financial support from the future president. Dershowitz, a recent staple of Fox News broadcasts and Trump tweets, was tarnished by his legal work on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Ken Starr has been dogged by a number of controversies, including his cringe-worthy efforts during the Clinton impeachment saga, and more recently, a 2016 scandal at Baylor University during his tenure as the school’s president.
But let’s not brush too quickly past the lawyer who confirmed the latest additions.
Jay Sekulow, previously known for heading a far-right legal group created by radical televangelist Pat Robertson, has received unflattering scrutiny for his role in a highly dubious fundraising scheme that benefited several members of his immediate family.
More to the point, however, Rachel this week interviewed Lev Parnas, a Rudy Giuliani associate integrally involved with Trump’s Ukraine scheme, and in a segment that aired last night, Parnas spoke about the “several conversations” he had with Sekulow while developments were unfolding in Ukraine.
Parnas added that Giuliani had told him that Sekulow “was aware of everything,” though he disapproved of the scheme. When Rachel asked if Sekulow was part of the effort to get Ukraine to announce Biden-related investigations, Parnas replied, “Oh, absolutely.”
Giuliani’s former associate, in the same interview, said Sekulow was also involved in advising Parnas not to cooperate with the investigation into the Ukraine scheme. Parnas also turned over to Congress a letter from Sekulow in which he said he received permission from Donald Trump to allow Parnas to be represented by John Dowd, who served on the president’s legal defense team.
All of which is to say, picking the most controversial member of Donald Trump’s expanding legal defense team is surprisingly difficult.
[…] Apparently even Pompeo felt a little shamed by the fact that Ukraine had shown more concern for his own employee than he has during this entire harrowing ordeal. As CNN notes, “after more than 48 hours of silence,” Pompeo now says the State Department will finally launch its own inquiry.
“I suspect that much of what’s been reported will ultimately prove wrong, but our obligation, my obligation as secretary of state, is to make sure that we evaluate, investigate. Any time there is someone who posits that there may have been a risk to one of our officers, we’ll obviously do that,” Pompeo said. […]
McConnell is preparing several options for shielding the Senate’s impeachment-of-Trump trial from public view.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is taking extraordinary steps to keep what’s sure to be a sticky impeachment trial […] out of the public eye.
He’s already roped off certain areas to pen up reporters so they can’t wander the halls and ask the very questions GOP senators are loath to answer.
Journalists will also pass through a newly added metal detector before taking their media seats in the chamber in case they try to “bug the chamber with surveillance equipment,” reports the Washington Post. […]
Naturally, no digital devices such as cell phones or computers or cameras will be allowed in the Senate chamber to record the historical spectacle in real-time. That’s standard practice in both the upper and lower chambers, but the House suspended the rule during the impeachment proceedings so journalists could better capture the moment.
But McConnell and his caucus could also simply kill the only camera allowed in the chamber during some of the most important parts of the trial. As the New York Times writes, “Lawmakers could pull the C-Span plug and go into closed session at critical moments of debate over the conduct of the trial and the fate of the president.” […]
Republicans have every incentive to use the mechanism to limit public view of a trial that could easily become a stain on the GOP caucus […]
[…] The formal version is that Vladimir Putin, who has been in power in Russia for more than twenty years, started the new year (the Russian holiday break has just ended) by proposing constitutional reforms that would weaken the Presidency and strengthen the parliament, the governors of the eighty-five constituent members of the Russian Federation, and local governments. Putin, whose current Presidential term lasts until 2024, declared that political power should be distributed more evenly among branches and levels of government. Three hours later, the entire Russian cabinet, headed by Dmitry Medvedev, who has been by Putin’s side since time immemorial and even kept his Presidential chair warm while Putin stepped away from 2008 to 2012, tendered its resignation. Putin immediately proposed the candidacy of a new premier—to be confirmed by parliament—and also formed a large and authoritative working group to begin drafting his proposed amendments to the Constitution, which Russians will be asked to approve in a referendum.
In other words, formally, it almost looked like Putin was proposing to democratize Russia. This contrasts sharply with the history of his rule, which has seen the dismantling of the Russian electoral system, the subjugation of the media, and the arrests of an ever-growing number of people for political reasons. In fact, the sheen of democratization disappeared as Putin continued to describe his proposed reforms. He effectively announced that Russia would no longer even pretend to abide by international law or to carry out the decisions of international courts. Supreme judicial power, he proposed, would now be granted to the Russian Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court […], but with a caveat: the President would be able to fire judges. […] what we are witnessing is in fact an effort by Putin to further consolidate his power, perhaps by laying the groundwork for moving to a different job […]government ministers told reporters that the mass resignation was a surprise to them, but Putin had clearly been expecting it: he had a new premier lined up and ready to go.
There is a problem with both readings of events. Surely, what Putin is proposing is not democratization. […] Even saying that Putin is consolidating power or laying the legal groundwork for his post-Presidential future is misleading: Putin wields such power over all aspects of Russian government that consolidation is hardly possible; Russian courts take dictation from the President and bend the law any way he wants—plus, the parliament is always ready to rubber-stamp any law into existence at a moment’s notice—so, at this point, laying the legal groundwork for anything would be superfluous.
The problem with using terms like “coup” or “consolidation of power” or “legal” is the underlying assumption that some core of accountable, distributed, or meaningfully legal government exists in Russia. It does not. The system Vladimir Putin has built in two decades—more than two-thirds of the time that has passed since the Soviet Union ceased to exist—is a mafia state, ruled by one man who apportions money and power to a few others in his clan. […]
What Putin seems to be doing now is preëmpting the possibility of a challenge. He is starting early, four years before the end of his term. And he seems to be creating several avenues for staying in power. […]
Putin’s address on Wednesday included an indecipherable passage:
I know that people are discussing the constitutional provision under which one person cannot hold the post of the President of the Russian Federation for more than two successive terms. I do not regard this as a matter of principle, but I nevertheless support and share this view.
Bizarrely, the Kremlin’s official translation of the speech omitted the words “more than,” changing the meaning of the passage entirely—if the passage can indeed be said to have meaning. What view does Putin share? The view that one person should not hold the office for more than two consecutive terms? Or the view that this provision should be revisited? […] This message is meant to be mixed.
The recipients of this message are the seventy-five members of the working group charged with drafting amendments to the constitution. Some of them are legislators, jurists, and government officials. The rest are prominent members of the public […] These people have two characteristics in common: they are beloved and respected by many people, and their work depends on government funding and Putin’s good will.
In Soviet political culture, it fell to these kinds of people to praise the all-powerful leader and beg him to live and rule for eternity. This is probably the task they are expected to perform again: theirs should be the voices raised in favor of lifting term limits, or making Putin President for life.[…]
Trickier than Trump, more subtle than Trump, and willing to start the game four years in advance.
Pompeo, quoted in Lynna’s #477 above: “I suspect that much of what’s been reported will ultimately prove wrong,…”
I’m very annoyed that the media is largely going along with this distortion. What’s “being reported” are the WhatsApp messages from Hyde to Parnas and what’s been learned about Hyde. It’s being investigated. If it turns out Yovanovitch wasn’t really being surveilled, that wouldn’t make the reports wrong.
In these messages with Parnas, Nunes staffer and former NSC staffer Derek Harvey can’t independently come up with a reason US foreign aid to Ukraine increased dramatically after 2015.
Documents released by House Democrats Friday evening show text exchanges between Parnas, an associate of Giuliani, and Robert Hyde, a Connecticut Republican who is running for Congress, that indicate a third, unidentified individual was tracking the movements and activities of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
One of the texts refers to “a person inside” the U.S. Embassy able to track and report on Yovanovitch’s whereabouts. “Nothing has changed she is still not moving they check again today,” the message says. It’s not clear when the messages were sent, but they include a screenshot of a mention of a March 22 posting about Yovanovitch on Twitter.
The references to Yovanovitch are contained in screenshots of text exchanges between Hyde and an individual who is unnamed and whose phone number is partially redacted. The prefix for the number appear to correspond to the country dialing code for Belgium.
Another message indicates that Yovanovitch “had visitors,” and asks whether those involved in the monitoring efforts are to “stand down???” Another message suggests Yovanovitch was under watch for several days, saying, she’s “been there since Thursday never left the embassy.”
Ukraine authorities announced this week the opening of an investigation into the possibility that the U.S. ambassador was under surveillance or being stalked by associates of Parnas and Giuliani.
NEWS: I just received a shocking declassified FBI memo confirming that the Saudi government has been helping fugitives flee the U.S. justice system after being accused or convicted of violent crimes.
I have been calling for the declassification of this information for months. This memo comes after my bill to require the release of this information became law in December.
I am shocked and appalled at what this memo describes. The Trump administration is out of excuses for sitting on its hands while the Saudi government helps these fugitives evade justice. It’s time for Donald Trump to hold the Saudi government accountable.
(I remember reading – I think it was in Jon Krakauer’s Missoula, but I’m not sure – about a guy who was a rapist college student and I believe he was Saudi, and it said something like “And then he returned to Saudi Arabia and so couldn’t be prosecuted,” and I was so struck by it. I’ll have to check; might not be remembering it accurately.)
“!!! Despite a court order, the Justice Department is holding back Special Counsel Mueller memos regarding the interviews conducted with the President’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
CNN and Buzzfeed won access to thousands of pages of Mueller’s witness memos.”
A man has been found guilty of aggravated assault against the Guardian columnist Owen Jones because of hostility to his leftwing political views and homophobia, following a two-day trial at Snaresbrook crown court.
Anne Studd QC, the presiding judge, concluded at the end of the hearing that Jones was the victim of a “wholly unprovoked assault” outside a central London pub last August because of “his LGBT and his leftwing beliefs”.
The defendant, James Healy, 40, had “far-right” views, Studd added, as evidenced by a collection of memorabilia found at his Portsmouth home, including items with logos or mottos from far right group Combat 18, white supremacist groups and hooligan groups associated with Chelsea football club.
Healy had already pleaded guilty to assaulting Jones last August outside the Lexington pub in King’s Cross, north London, at about 2am. But he was on trial to determine whether his actions were motivated by homophobia and hostility to Jones’s leftwing views.
The judge said that she rejected the defendant’s account of events in the early hours of 17 August in which he claimed he had “got the hump” because Jones had bumped into him and spilled some of his drink at around 1.30am. Studying CCTV from the pub she said Healy had not appeared to remonstrate with Jones at the time.
The judge accepted Jones’s account of events, which was that when he was in the pub, he was greeted by either Healy or individuals next to him, and so he was able to identify Healy as the man who went on to attack him half an hour later. “I am satisfied this was a targeted attack on Mr Jones because of who he is and his beliefs,” the judge concluded.
…
According to a witness statement from Jones, read out in court, the journalist had a conversation along the lines of: “‘Are you Owen Jones? We are big fans for your work, keep it up,’” which the writer said was typical of many interactions he had had when going out. Jones believed Healy and others used that encounter to identify him.
A few minutes later, as Jones and a group of friends were leaving the pub, he told the court he was attacked from behind. “I was saying goodbye to a friend, then I was on the floor, unaware of what was happening, completely disorientated. I hurt my head and I think there was a period of 10 seconds where I don’t really remember what happened.”
Additional CCTV footage taken shortly after 2am showed Healy leaving shortly after Jones, and running after him just has he was leaving the vicinity, attacking him from behind and appearing to knock him to the ground before a general skirmish ensued.
Studd said that Healy made no attempt to speak to Jones and engaged in a “brutal assault that was clearly targeted”….
New text messages released by House Democrats on Friday indicate Robert Hyde, the Republican congressional candidate who told Lev Parnas he had a U.S. ambassador under surveillance, was passing along to Parnas information he’d received from another Trump supporter who claimed knowledge of the ambassador’s whereabouts.
Hyde identified the man in texts to NBC News and on Twitter as Anthony de Caluwe and said he’d merely copied and pasted the information to Parnas from messages he’d received from de Caluwe.
Reached by email, de Caluwe told NBC News that Hyde’s statements were “incorrect.” He confirmed that Hyde had indeed asked him for information about Marie Yovanovitch’s whereabouts but he had declined to help Hyde.
“He asked me if I would know where she is, because she has information to help President Trump to provide evidence on the investigation on some persons Stateside,” De Caluwe wrote to NBC News. “I informed him it’s against the law.”
But newly released text messages by House Democrats tell a different story….
…
After the House released the texts late Friday, de Caluwe did not respond to follow-up inquiries from NBC News asking to explain the discrepancies. Karyn Turk, a pro-Trump YouTube personality and friend of de Caluwe’s, said she was now representing de Caluwe in his interactions with the media but would not have further comment until she speaks to him on Saturday.
Turk told NBC News late Friday that de Caluwe is Belgian and travels there often.
…
Asked how he’d met de Caluwe, Hyde told NBC News by text: “He came to me once at Trump Hotel DC and think I met him the first time at a fundraiser at Mar a Lago or the Breakers.”
De Caluwe said he’d first met Hyde at a VIP rally for Trump in Tampa, Florida, and again later at the Trump hotel in Washington. He said “people told me to stay away from Hyde.”
He said he had “never been to Ukraine” and had no connection to the country. Asked why Hyde would think he’d have information on Yovanovitch’s whereabouts, de Caluwe replied, “I have no information on anyone, sorry.”…
House Democrats released new documents Friday evening showing extensive contact between an associate of President Trump’s personal attorney and an aide to the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee regarding the effort to obtain material from Ukrainian prosecutors that would be damaging to former vice president Joe Biden.
The text messages between Lev Parnas, who functioned as Rudolph W. Giuliani’s emissary to Ukrainian officials, and Derek Harvey, an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, indicate Nunes’s office was aware of the operation at the heart of impeachment proceedings against the president — and sought to use the information Parnas was gathering.
The newly released texts show that Parnas was working last spring to set up calls for Harvey with the Ukrainian prosecutors who were feeding Giuliani information about Biden.
“Also do you want to interview the general prosecutor who got [ditched] by Biden ? Also the anti corruption prosecutor ? Let me know,” Parnas wrote on April 19.
“Does tomorrow work?” Harvey responded.
The messages also show that Harvey met with Parnas and Giuliani at the Trump hotel in Washington.
Harvey and a spokesman for Nunes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The text messages corroborate Parnas’s previous claims that he arranged conversations with the Ukrainian prosecutors for the Nunes aide. And they deepen questions about how much Nunes knew about the pressure campaign — even as he served as one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders during the House impeachment hearings.
“I was in shock when I was watching the hearings and when I saw Devin Nunes sitting up there,” Parnas told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow this week. “I texted my attorney. I said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ ”
‘He knows who I am’: Lev Parnas says Devin Nunes was ‘involved in getting all this stuff on Biden’
Records that the House Democrats released in December first showed calls between Parnas and Nunes. At the time, Nunes said he couldn’t remember speaking with Parnas.
On Thursday, Nunes told Fox News that he had reviewed his records, which refreshed his memory of having one conversation.
“I checked it with my records and it was very clear — I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things, and I said, ‘great,’ you know, ‘talk to my staff,’ and boom, boom, boom. That’s just normal operating procedure,” Nunes said.
However, the documents released Friday show extensive interactions between Parnas and Nunes’s aide beginning in early 2019.
In March, Parnas sent Harvey a link to a story by conservative columnist John Solomon suggesting the Ukrainians sought to help Hillary Clinton win in 2016.
“Any documents for us or are you going to keep working through Solomon?” the Nunes aide texted back a few days later.
Parnas responded that he was out of the country but would meet with Harvey upon his return.
In April, Harvey sent Parnas contact information for the congressman, the messages show. And Harvey set up several in-person meetings, including with key individuals around Giuliani who were most involved in the Biden effort.
“We are at trump with Rudy and John Solomon and joe in private room,” Parnas wrote the Nunes aide on May 7, apparently inviting him to the Trump International Hotel to meet with Giuliani, as well as Solomon and Joe DiGenova, a lawyer working with Giuliani.
“Can you come now,” Parnas continued.
“Yes,” Harvey responded.
The texts also indicate that Parnas passed a copy of one of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s résumés in English to Harvey. Parnas also seemed to have sent him a copy of the Ukrainian passport of the tycoon who owns the gas company that placed Biden’s son Hunter on its board. How the copy of the passport was obtained, and what Harvey was planning to do with it, if anything, is unclear.
Parnas, who is facing federal campaign charges and has recently broken with Giuliani and turned against the president, told MSNBC this week that Nunes and Harvey “were involved in getting all this stuff on Biden.”
“Derek Harvey had several interviews, Skype interviews I set up, with different prosecutors like [Nazar] Kholodnytsky, which is the anti-corruption prosecutor of Ukraine [and] Konstantyn Kulyk, one of the major guys that’s had this whole Biden stuff,” Parnas said.
Parnas suggested to MSNBC he was told to communicate with Harvey instead of Nunes directly because “Devin Nunes had an ethics, something to do with an ethics committee, and he couldn’t be in a spotlight.”
The materials released Friday also include screenshots that Robert F. Hyde, a former Marine and candidate for Congress in Connecticut, sent to Parnas discussing surveillance of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
The screenshots appear to show Hyde having a text message exchange with an unknown person with a Belgian mobile number regarding Yovanovitch’s movements in Ukraine, as he updates Parnas about the situation. Whether the person with the Belgian number was actually monitoring Yovanovitch is unclear.
Hyde, in an interview Wednesday with Eric Bolling on the Sinclair Broadcasting show “America This Week,” denied ordering private surveillance on Yovanovitch and said his messages were sent to Parnas in jest and were selectively released.
“It was just colorful. We were playing. I thought we were playing,” Hyde said, adding it was “unfortunate the left had to get their panties in a bunch.”
Asked if he had “eyes on” Yovanovitch, Hyde said: “Are you kidding me?”
Parnas said on MSNBC he didn’t believe Hyde was actually carrying out surveillance on Yovanovitch.
“I don’t believe it’s true,” Parnas said. “I think he was either drunk or he was trying to make himself bigger than he was, so I didn’t take it seriously.”
The new materials also offered further indication of how Giuliani sent messages to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky through Parnas. In one message released late Friday, Giuliani appears to ask Parnas to tell Zelensky through the Ukrainian prosecutor general that he needs to break with a Ukrainian oligarch who is associated with him and take more of the tycoon’s assets for the state.
“Show him my tweets and tell him to tell President-elect to stop acting like a boy and become a man and take control,” Giuliani told Parnas. “Arrest this bum and take more of his money back.”
Parnas responded with three thumbs-up emoticons.
Ukrainian authorities announced this week the opening of an investigation into the possibility that the U.S. ambassador was under surveillance or being stalked by associates of Parnas and Giuliani. Yovanovitch was removed from her post last spring after Giuliani urged Trump to fire her and helped fuel a public pressure campaign against her in conservative media outlets.
According to text messages the House Democrats released, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko had demanded her ouster in exchange for helping with the Biden effort.
rorschachsays
Can’t wait for Dersh and Ken Starr to defend Trump in his impeachment trial, clearly irony is dead.
This Hyde fellow was once certified, maybe he should still be, but he certainly isn’t credible. Nunes has been caught in so many lies noone can keep count. Giuliani I suspect has some degree of cognitive decline going on, and isn’t quite there all the time anymore. The only two guys actually destroying American democracy on purpose and clear-eyed, are Barr and McConnell. Toss in Pompeo the evangelical dominionist for good measure.
Next on CNN, Chris Cuomo talking to both sides, who will have the better arguments?
The new materials also offered further indication of how Giuliani sent messages to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky through Parnas. In one message released late Friday, Giuliani appears to ask Parnas to tell Zelensky through the Ukrainian prosecutor general that he needs to break with a Ukrainian oligarch who is associated with him and take more of the tycoon’s assets for the state.
“Show him my tweets and tell him to tell President-elect to stop acting like a boy and become a man and take control,” Giuliani told Parnas. “Arrest this bum and take more of his money back.”
Once in a while something powerfully reminds me of how horrifying this all is. It’s a nightmare. How could we ever make amends to the people of Ukraine?
President Trump recounted minute-by-minute details of the US strike that killed Iran’s top military commander during remarks to high-dollar Republican donors at his South Florida estate, according to audio obtained by CNN.
Trump, speaking at a GOP fundraising dinner Friday evening, offered new details about the strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, which exacerbated tensions in the region and led to an ongoing dispute with Congress over his constitutional ability to wage war.
In his speech — held inside the gilded ballroom on his Mar-a-Lago property — he claimed that Soleimani was “saying bad things about our country” before the strike, which led to his decision to authorize his killing.
“How much of this shit do we have to listen to?” Trump asked. “How much are we going to listen to?”
Trump did not describe an “imminent threat” that led to his decision to kill Soleimani, the justification used by administration officials in the aftermath of the attack.
Instead, he described Soleimani as a “noted terrorist” who “was down on our list” and “was supposed to be in his country” before traveling to other nations in the region.
Trump described in detail watching remotely as Soleimani arrived at Baghdad International Airport, where he was met by Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of Kata’ib Hezbollah.
Trump claimed erroneously that Soleimani was meeting “the head of Hezbollah” (the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group is separate from group led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis).
And he claimed the strike he authorized took out “two for the price of one.”
…
Trump acknowledged the outcome Friday, saying the strike “shook up the world.”
“He was supposed to be invincible,” Trump said of Soleimani.
In his remarks, Trump also repeated claims that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died “screaming” following a US raid on his compound.
“He was screaming, going crazy,” Trump said. Other US officials have declined to provide further details of al-Baghdadi’s final minutes.
And Trump joked the Belgian Malinois dog that assisted in the Baghdadi raid “got more credit than I did” for the killing.
“After [Hyde’s] story started to fall apart (see NBC story) he informed reporters that he would now be represented to the press by Karyn Turk, a pro-Trump online personality and associate of Roger Stone. She was just sentenced to prison for stealing her mom’s social security checks.”
Re #497: Trump would absolutely like to violently attack his domestic critics, opponents, and liabilities in this way. He would have them poisoned or vaporized by a drone or incite some deranged followers to shoot them, and Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt would wrote a piece about how it was so Trump to avoid confrontation like that.
Thanks, PZ, for giving this thread new life … again.
Now he’s worried!?
It still baffles that a whole 40% still supports this Korrupt and Kallous Klown.
*me
Here’s a link back to older comments in the previous chapter of this thread.
Comment 163. Scroll down from that comment to read additional posts.
Excerpt from comment 163: “The Internet’s Most Repulsive Men Are Throwing A ‘Make Women Great Again’ Convention And Oh My God It’s So SAD”
Much more at the link.
You have to wonder at the 4% who want impeachment but not removal…
Five people were stabbed in a rabbi’s home on Hanukkah. The NY Governor called the attack an act of “domestic terrorism.” That’s not the only attack on Jewish people and/or establishments run by Jewish people (a kosher market, for example) in the New York and New Jersey area.
Link
Two people are dead and others are injured after an attack at a church in Texas.
Link
A new government study shows how Trump’s tariffs have backfired
Trump promised to revive manufacturing with tariffs. A Federal Reserve study finds he did the opposite.
Trump will be impeached and Yang will win 2020 election. Yang is an Asian supremacist who will use Superior Asian intelligence to defeat the shotgun wielding redneck.
Warren is a compromising shill and Bernie will soon be dead. Wake up and jump in with the Yang gang. $1000/month. Get that bag.
“Casually Homicidal Republicans Share Violent Fantasies Of Killing Us All If Trump Loses In 2020,” an article by Robyn Pennacchia, writing for Wonkette:
Link
More at the link.
The only “positive” thing I can think to say about Trump is that he’s consistently awful. In 2016, his playboy lifestyle, business showmanship, and attention seeking all pointed to him being an obnoxious, lying, realty-show-style president, who loves to be surrounded by adoring yes-men. His presidency predictably unfolded, with him appointing a long list of lobbyist stooges to his administration and him firing anyone who displayed a modicum of experience or sense of duty. His failure was guaranteed from the beginning.
From comment 10: “Yang is an Asian supremacist who will use Superior Asian intelligence to defeat the shotgun wielding redneck.”
Now that is some very strange use of capitalization, of the English language, and of overly broad (and possibly racist) memes. Are you a Russian bot? Just a troll? What are you actually trying to say?
What is going on here? The United States military struck five facilities in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon claims that the facilities belonged to a militia backed by Iran.
Washington Post link
This action comes right on the heels of China, Russia and Iran announcing joint military exercises in the region. China, Russia and Iran hold joint naval drills in Gulf of Oman
CNN link
More at the link.
@Lynna 13
No I do not speak in meme. And it’s very clear what I was trying to say in my original comment. It is the flag waving redneck( and we all know which flag) who is responsible for getting Trump elected. Yang will defeat Trump in case Trump does not get impeached. I feel Warren is a WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING and will say whatever she thinks will get her elected.
And before you call me racist again, maybe reflect on your own self. I am a broke man and I learned the meaning of systemic racism when my best friend’s dad shoved wine corks into his nostrils and began to rhythmically beat a couch cushion in the style of African drum music. I’ve forgotten more about racism than you will ever know. Yang gang 2020.
Trump is playing the victim…again.
Link
More at the link.
In response to comment 15:
You wrote, “Superior Asian intelligence to defeat the shotgun wielding redneck.” Both “superior Asian intelligence” and “shotgun wielding redneck” are overly-broad categorizations that have been used as online memes to create divisiveness.
I will also point out that in comment 10 your immediate antecedent for “shotgun wielding redneck” was “Trump.” (Not his followers, but Trump himself.) Trump may appeal to rednecks, but he is not a redneck. He also does not, as far as I know, own a shotgun, nor does he wield one.
Not all of Trump’s followers are shotgun wielding rednecks.
Thank you for the clarification in comment 15.
I did not call you a racist.
Please be more careful in how you word your comments.
If you think Elizabeth Warren is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” please present the facts you have to back up that claim.
yangbrother: racist remarks will get you banned. Stop now.
well there is one thing that can said for sure whether trump gets removed in the Senate trial or not or or be re-elected or not he will eventually have to leave dead, he is old after all,or alive.
Other investigations will continue and the possibility of major legal action will persist. The Trump organization has all the markings of a criminal organization whose main business is money laundering and fraud.
In the long run he is screwed the question really is will the regressive policies that have so much favor from those who espouse conservatism will persist in influence or fade into history like the other failed ideas have.
uncle frogy
@nomdeplume
I have long been against removing Trump from office because I thought Trump would be more likely to be voted out in 2020.
@ #10
“Trump will be impeached and Yang will win 2020 election.”
Trump has already been impeached, and Yang has to win the nomination before he can win the election. The chances of that are somewhere between slim and none.
There is no link from the previous thread to this one.
@#19. unclefrogy
Trump will never go to prison or even pay fines, even presuming that he does not die in office (he is showing signs of Alzheimers, and both his parents died of complications of that). Obama demonstrated that when a Republican President commits horrible crimes, it is the job of the next Democrat to give them a de facto pardon by refusing to investigate or prosecute. Heck, even doubling down and extending those crimes is something the party will aggressively ignore.
Of course, Trump’s crimes are both of the legal variety — which the DNC is happy to go along with — and against Good Taste, and it seems very much like the DNC and most Democratic loyalists are tremendously offended by offenses against Good Taste. Bush got a million people killed and wasted trillions of dollars by telling lies, but he doesn’t rate a prosecution. Trump has — so far — not equalled that, but he makes the average Democratic partisan much, much angrier than Bush ever did. So maybe Trump may take a fall after all. Assuming, of course, that Joe Biden’s self-proclaimed love for Republicans doesn’t distract him so much that he ends up giving Trump and Mitch McConnell a kiss on the lips instead.
ORigel@20–
Don’t forget that Republicans are doing their damndest to stack the 2020 election. It is quite possible that Trump could win even if he loses even more of the popular vote than he did in 2016.
For instance, a federal judge has just approved the purging of 120,000 voters in Georgia for not having voted for 7 years saying, and I cannot emphasise this enough, that denying people the right to vote, doing as little as possible to inform them, and not allowing same-day registration has not been proved to violate their constitutional rights. This in a state that has already purged 1.4 million voter registrations over the last 6 years. A state with 9.7 million people so presumably about 6-7 million eligible voters.
@24 vicar
not all of his troubles are federal and i would add not all of them are exclusively U.S. either.
I think the new York state attorney his investigating serious crimes
His big problem really relates to his “success”. to be a crook like him and be involved with corruption and all it is good to be able to evade scrutiny but he has succeeded in becoming one of the most watched individual in the whole world . He has shown no signs of being able to moderate his behavior quite the contrary. He is following the teachings of his mentor who we must remember got disbarred following his own advice.
We can only hope that he will take some other worthy gents with him when the shit finally hits the f’n fan
uncle frogy
“Trump Systematically Eliminating Science-Based Policy” https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/
Meh. Your Merican vandals are amateurs. Just wait until Boris Johnson really gets started.
Disappointed in teh poll. “Impeached, then drawn and quartered” is not among the choices.
Yeah, $1000/month paid for with a regressive VAT and lowered for those who receive supplementary benefits. That’s really helpful to those who’d need it most. (/sarcasm)
Here’s what I think is the best case scenario:
Pelosi is not convinced that the senate will provide a valid, impartial trial. Seeing that they intend to circle wagons around Donny rather than hold a real trial, she never sends the articles of impeachment to the senate. Consequently Donny T never gets acquitted and spends the next 11 months becoming ever more deranged and dysfunctional with frustration.
In Nov. 2020 he gets voted out and the maga-hats, finally seeing what a loser he really is, crawl back into their own assholes and die..
This is my fantasy anyway.
re Lynna @8:
I know it is Texas, but it seems like there were a lot of guns at that church.
chigau @22, thanks for flagging that. I think PZ can fix that. In the meantime, you can use the link in comment 5 to travel back to the previous chapter of this thread.
16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg is so much smarter than Trump. Trump attacked on her Twitter earlier, but she took it in stride. In subsequent interviews she has demonstrated a practical approach when it comes to Trump: don’t waste your time.
Link
Trump and Putin are still best buddies who talk on the phone all the time:
Link
@#25, unclefrogy
Trump has been dodging state-level criminal trials most of his adult life. (In large part, it must be admitted, because he seems to mostly operate in states where the criminal justice system can be bought as long as you’re rich enough.) And Bush can’t travel outside the US reliably, either. That hasn’t exactly made his life post-presidency miserable.
Heck, there’s even a chance that the DNC will actively sabotage the 2020 candidate to keep Trump in office, so maybe they won’t even have to have a de facto pardon.
Fox & Friends Know Who Real Victims Of Hannukah Attacks Are, SURPRISE It Is Christians
@ #34
“there’s even a chance that the DNC will actively sabotage the 2020 candidate to keep Trump in office”
And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.
Excerpts from an essay by former FBI director, and former deputy attorney general, James Comey:
Washington Post link
From Greg Sargent, writing for the Washington Post:
Link
@#36, tomh:
Did you not notice the way that Blairite Labour — the equivalent of our “New Democrats”/DLC/Clintonite Democrats — deliberately undermined Corbyn for months leading up to the latest election in the UK? Did you ignore the way that Biden was saying in 2018, long after Trump had been screwing everything up, that if he is elected “nothing significant will change”?
In the last election we had a lot of people saying “listen when Trump tells you who he is”. Well, here are the DNC Democrats telling you outright that they are traitors who think Trump is better than any shift to the left.
(And, incidentally, this is nothing new: centrism as a political ideology goes back a long way — there were German centrists between the world wars, for example. Centrists don’t want a balance of power, they want to preserve existing power structures. Always. As such, they are inherently conservative and will always side with the right against the left, no matter how monstrous the right may be. The German ones sided with Hitler — it’s time to wake up and admit that the people who have been running the Democratic Party for decades, now, would rather side with Trump than permit even the weak-tea reforms Sanders proposes.)
Trump’s farm bailout was a failure in some ways. For some, the bailouts meant surprising profits, but for others, the bailouts offered little help. That was especially true for the neediest people in the farm belt. As is usual with Trump policies, the neediest people got the least help.
Yes, lots of the money went to the top 10 percent of land owners who run farming operations.
Washington Post link
More charts, maps and information are available at the link.
An update on Fox News:
Link
Know thy shameless enemies.
NYT:
The Latest on the 2020 Money Race
By Shane Goldmacher
Dec. 30, 2019 Updated 1:52 p.m. ET
The next debate for Democratic presidential candidates is scheduled for January 14. Trump is planning to do counter programming by holding a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the same night.
Five candidates have qualified for the Jan. 14 debate in Des Moines so far:
Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Amy Klobuchar
Pete Buttigieg
There has been a sharp rise in anti Jewish feeling over here in good old GB ,mainly graffiti daubed on Jewish property .
In the latest attack there has been 911 spray pained on a synagogue ,some dimwits think the Jews were behind the attacks on 11/09/2001 .
Anyone got any ideas what to say to people who voted tory ,apart from telling them they are stupid gits ?
CNN: Joe Biden says he would consider a Republican as his running mate
<
blockquote>Joe Biden told voters in New Hampshire on Monday that he would consider choosing a Republican as a running mate, but added, “I can’t think of one right now.”
Biden discussed the possibility after a woman told the former vice president that if he is the nominee, he will “have to pull out all the stops.”
“Our 21-year-old son said the other night, ‘I wonder if Joe Biden would consider choosing a Republican as a running mate,” the woman added.
“The answer is I would, but I can’t think of one now,” Biden replied. “Let me explain that. You know there’s some really decent Republicans that are out there still, but here’s the problem right now … they’ve got to step up.”
Over the past few months, Biden has offered several clues about who he might consider as his vice presidential pick if he earns the Democratic nomination. He previously said he would prefer to pick someone “of color and/or a different gender” as his potential running mate. Biden has also acknowledged he’d think about adding Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to his possible ticket.
“Whoever I would pick for vice president, and there’s a lot of qualified women, there’s a lot of qualified African-Americans. There really truly are. There’s a plethora of really qualified people. Whomever I would pick were I fortunate enough to be your nominee, I’d pick somebody who was simpatico with me, who knew what I, what my priorities were and knew what I wanted to,” Biden said in Exeter on Monday. “We could disagree on tactic, but strategically we’d have to be in the exact same page.”
No modern presidential campaign has featured a bipartisan ticket. The late Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, considered former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent, as a possible running mate, before settling on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick.
IS BIDEN TRYING TO LOSE?!?!?!?
From Susan B. Glasser, writing for The New Yorker: “Our year of Trumpschmerz”
Link
Talking Points Memo handed out their “Golden Duke” awards.
Link
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to Ukraine—but we don’t know why he’s really going.
Link
It’d be a bit different with Thunberg, since Trump has picked her up as an enemy, but it’s clear that Trump cannot be persuaded on climate policy – not even by the kind of wealthy white men he sort-of respects. At least, not as long as he’s generally surrounded by anti-environmentalist lobbyists who keep turning his head.
I mentioned previously how Finnish president Sauli Niinistö has been seeking opportunities to persuade Trump on the climate issue. In an October interview, just after the latest White House visit, he claimed there’s been “visible progress” on that front. When I saw that claim in a newspaper, I took a pause and simply said “bullshit” to myself. At best, Trump made some conman show of taking his guest seriously.
Mind you, this would’ve been credible if I only knew of Trump what Finnish mainstream media writes. They treat him with silk gloves compared to US leftist journalists. Niinistö himself has been very diplomatic with both Trump and Putin, but I don’t think he’s naive. More likely he’s trying to take credit for trying something that’s patently impossible.
@45
I wish he was. Sadly, this is more likely to get him posted by the DNC as the “best candidate”, since they literally can’t seem to freaking comprehend what “liberal” actually means – seeming to think that it means, “Slightly less noxious conservative.”
Rudy Giuliani’s associate and co-conspirator in the Ukraine crime spree, Lev Parnas, asked a federal judge for permission to share data extracted from his iPhone and documents seized from his home with congressional impeachment investigators.
TPM link
We should keep an eye on this. I’m sure Democrats in Congress would be pleased to have more documentation for articles of impeachment against Trump.
Parnas recently fired one of his lawyers. He ran out of funds to pay the lawyer. Lev might be getting desperate.
We should also watch to see how Attorney General William Barr (Trunk’s lickspittle in the Department of Justice) works to make this threat go away.
Another court ruling heightens the potential for more Ukraine bombshells to drop:
Link
Nancy Pelosi was right to delay the transfer of articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate. Now there is more time for information that damns Trump and his lickspittles to emerge.
Bolton was probably just looking for an excuse to say that he was forced to testify. Now he has that excuse.
Followup to comment 14.
The U.S. embassy in Baghdad was besieged by hundreds of protesters following airstrikes that Trump ordered against targets in Iraq and Syria.
Link
The government in Iraq is weak. It does not really have the capability to protect the U.S. embassy.
Lyanna @ 52
Not that I wish ill upon the staff at the Baghdad embassy, but after years of listening to RWNJs shriek and gibber about BENGAZI!!!, having something to throw back at them would be soooooo delicious.
Trump is responsible for weakening Ukraine. No matter how much Republicans insist that Trump’s actions, (and his inaction) did not harm Ukraine, real damage has been done.
Link
True. But then, Corbyn had been deliberately undermining Corbyn for several years before that.
Update on the fires in Australia:
Link
Some videos, and a fire map, are available at the link.
New Hampshire has been spared one indignity: Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, announced that he will not run for Senate next year.
Yeah, yeah. Bullshit. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, would have won.
Link
Followup to comments 14, 52 and 53.
The U.S. is sending more troops to Iraq.
Link
Stacey Abrams’s Org Loses One ‘Fair Fight’ Against Voter Purge
Wonkette link
OK, I’m finally going to speculate about what Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson will do now he has won the UK general election, as I said I would on the previous thread. I should note that I’ve been wrong about the course of action he will choose more than once in the past few months. But one general principle can be stated with great confidence: Johnson will do whatever he thinks is in the best interests of Johnson – among abundant evidence for this, we have the considered opinion of right-wing journalist and writer Max Hastings, Johnson’s one-time boss, that he is unable to care about anyone other than himself, and does not distinguish truth from lies in either his public or private life.
Johnson has little in the way of ideology, beyond casual racist, misogynist and classist prejudices, and of course has access to many sources of information others do not. However, a few actions already taken (and others not taken) give an idea what his approach is likely to be over the next year or so.
1) On Brexit, he has altered the motion he was attempting to push through before the election by
a) removing protection for workers (the motion would previously have carried over EU protections into UK law),
b) reducing Parliament’s role in negotiations for a post-Brexit relationship with the EU, and
c) adding a clause ruling out any extension to the transitional period, due to end at the end of 2020.
The altered motion has been approved in principle by the Commons. The changes made confirm that he intends to go ahead with an ultra-hard Brexit, possibly making no deal at all on the post-Brexit relationship. This could be a feint to keep the ERG headbangers in line, but I don’t believe so – switching to a softer Brexit would be a bigger political risk than sticking with those who put him into the premiership.
2) He has dropped a previously announced internal party inquiry into Islamophobia. Clearly, he has no intention of challenging a pjeudice he shares with the majority of the party membership. British Muslims (and anyone who “could conceivably be Muslim” – in the words of Sam Harris) have far more reason for concern than British Jews would have had if Corbyn had been elected.
3) He has gone ahead with a planned increase to the minimum wage. This indicates that at least initially, he intends to go ahead with the abandonment of the rhetoric of “austerity”, and make gestures toward those on lower incomes, and toward protecting public services such as the NHS. However, he has not significantly changed the balance of his cabinet, which remains dominated by the hard “libertarian” right; so we can expect these gestures to be abandoned as soon as there is significant economic trouble, or as soon as he feels he can do so without political damage.
4) The Queen’s speech was heavy on “security” and “tough on crime” themes. We can expect increases in the prison population, and new “anti-terrorist” legislation that can and will be used in practice to harrass Muslim, limit the right to demonstrate, and step up surveillance, particularly online.
5) He will try to keep his distance from Trump in the run-up to the US presidential election. If Trump is re-elected, however, Johnson will cosy up to him.
More later, particularly on Scotland and Ireland.
From Greg Sargent, writing for the Washington Post:
And it is disinformation warfare backed by Russia.
An item I should have included at #60. Johnson intends to go ahead with introducing a requirement for photo ID in order to vote. As in the USA, this is a transparent attempt to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote. As in the USA, there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in the UK. We can certainly expect more of the same (e.g., i wolud expect it to be made harder to register if you move frequently), and to prevent students being able to register both at their parental home and their university residence. We can expect Trumplike efforts to pack the judiciary, and remove checks on the power of the executive. On the judiciary, there were rumours he would move to allow political appointment of judges as in the USA, but more likely, he will pack the Judicial Appointments Commission. Moves to limit judicial review of legislation are expected.
WaPo:
The GOP is campaigning against voting — and it’s winning in some states
By Editorial Board
Dec. 30, 2019
@#49, Kagehi
As for the last 3 decades, you can either assume that the DNC is filled with people so incredibly stupid that for our own protection we should be demanding they step down, or that they know perfectly well what they are doing and are betraying us because — rhetoric aside — they love right-wing policy and would be Republicans if it wasn’t such a sweet deal to be hobbling any resistance to right-wing policy by suborning the other major party. Either way, we need to be rid of these people and fast.
Every major betrayal of the centrists now in charge of the party — the embrace of Reagan’s union-killing NAFTA, “the end of welfare as we know it” (what could be better than destroying the social safety net at the same time that you encourage good jobs to move out of the country with NAFTA?), the repeal of Glass-Steagall under the guidance of Libertarian Alan Greenspan (which led directly to the 2008 meltdown), the embrace of GWB’s Iraq invasion, the mass embrace of the creation and subsequent expansion of ICE, the PATRIOT Act (which was based on an omnibus anti-terrorism bill authored and defeated in the 1990s by Joe Biden) — has been accompanied by non-centrists telling us, up front, that these were bad ideas which would lead to disaster. In most cases, the opposition was even able to correctly identify in advance what the disaster would be and how it would manifest.
In short: objecting to centrists is not a “purity test”, as their defenders would have it, it’s an “intelligence test”. Anybody dumb enough to champion the policies which centrists have continuously gone for — and will presumably continue to go for — is somebody who should not under any circumstances be permitted to manage a Denny’s, let alone run the country. Whether the idiots who voted for the invasion of Iraq were “pure” is irrelevant; what’s important is that they were incredibly stupid, to the point of being dangerous. This applies to Joe Biden just as it did to Hillary Clinton. In order to deal with the problems we’re facing, we need leadership which has not already demonstrated overwhelmingly that it is dumb as a box of rocks — and the centrists don’t qualify. They haven’t qualified for decades. It’s time to dump them, completely and mercilessly, and look for somebody who isn’t an abject fool.
KG @62, sometimes it amazes me how similar the rightwing playbooks are. If they keep running the same plays will more people catch on and then resist?
tomh @63, thanks for posting that. Excellent writing. Excellent logic.
Announcing: The 2019 Golden Duke Winners!
This is a funny, cogent, presentation of nominees and winners who left “impressive stains on modern American politics.” The article is difficult to excerpt, so I suggest just reading it at the link.
@64 Beginning to think we need a whole new freaking party to get anything done. Personally I would start with these principles:
Personal liberty is key, so long as that liberty does not infringe on someone else’s.
Opinion isn’t relevant, only facts, and this applies to whether or not someone is actually “infringing” on someone else’s liberties from #1. Merely believing there is a problem, or that you have a some sort of solution, is not sufficient to deny someone rights, choices, or impose laws on someone.
Some trade offs may be necessary, but they should be based on the least harm, not the perceived “threat” from the powerful, if you don’t force everyone to abide by their rules. Doing so is what gives them that power, it is not something they simply “have”.
Organizations, in general, are not “people”.
The rules of any such organization should apply only to the organization, and those currently within its wall.
Such rules cannot, without infringing on personal liberties, be made to apply outside such organizations, to other people.
As much as it pains me to say, “some” organization may be allowed to have its “members” agree to have their behaviors defined by those rules, on their own choice, outside of the walls of such an organization, but this should not apply to places of business – what you do when not working “for” a company is not their business.
In the case of actual businesses, history shows that they lack the ability to self regulate, without infringing on the rights and well being of either their employees or the general public. As such, regulation must exist to curtail their excesses and protect the life and liberty of the public. As such, the government cannot govern unless it can specify what companies can, or can’t, do, with regard to such issues requiring regulation.
I would also add, as contentious as it might be: 9. A government cannot govern so long as the money flowing into its hands comes from special interests, whose goal is to coach the government into service of organizations, including corporations, nor can it function on mere scraps from the table, offered up from those who can least afford to have those scraps taken from their own mouths.
and 10. No agency can function, or regulate itself, or the things for which is was created to govern, while starving of resources and staff. Thus a priority must be to making sure that “existing” systems are repaired and function, over the invention of entirely new ones, which are invented to attempt to badly address the results of those existing agencies/programs being intentionally starved to death.
I am sure there are others, and more “lawyerly” ways of scrambling the above ideas into something appropriately confusing, vague, and “politically speechified”, but I would say that, just from a basic stand point of what the Rethuglicans are not doing at all, and the DNC is ignoring, while just throwing a new study, or some new this, or that, at problems, and allowing everything to keep decaying in the process, it is a minimum.
And, honestly, the first bit, where you need to freaking know what the F you are talking about first would solve a lot of damn problems. Because, even the, supposedly, super liberal, pro-women, Kamala Harris fell for a half dozen bullshit, and since debunk, bits of nonsense, when voting “in favor” of some bills, and ended up “hurting” women instead, because she thought it would somehow help end “trafficking”. And, if you side, even by accident, with the bigots and women haters, and so called “moralists”, because you “feel” you are right, then you are not an ally to the people you think you are saving. You have to do what is right, and what actually works, not what, “feels like it might be right”. And, our side, far, far, too often, falls prey to this irrational sort of “solution”, out of a desire to solve things, just as much as the right does (and often for the same BS).
Progress isn’t progress, to be frank, if you wear a blindfold, while sailing, and fail to notice, as a result, that the current is dragging you backwards, despite how loud your engines are running. A representative that intends to make things better needs to be capable, and willing to question “if” they are being told the truth, even if what they are being told matches their own inclinations. Doing otherwise is what makes the GOP so f-ed up in the first place – the abject refusal to admit, accept, or even consider, anything that contradicts what they want to be true.
Kagehi @68, I agree with this: “Organizations, in general, are not “people.” That’s a good, foundational principle.
Not precisely political, but: according to NASA’s world fire map, pretty much all of the belt of green south of the Sahara is burning right now. As in “with more density than the coasts of Australia are burning”.
Lynna, OM@65,
In this case, I think the British Tories are directly copying Republican tactics. Both parties are facing similar problems, in that demographics can be expected to make it increasingly hard for them to retain power by democratic means. As I noted on the previous thread, an absolute majority of those under 35 who voted, voted Labour (unfortunately, not enough of them voted at all); the Tory “victory” – which, as I also noted, depended on our undemocratic electoral system – also depended largely on those over 55.
CNN:
Buttigieg announces $24.7 million fundraising haul in fourth quarter
By Fredreka Schouten
Wed January 1, 2020
Anyone who tells you you have a choice in insurance is lying to you.
Link
Spanish-language journalist who was detained by ICE for 15 months wins settlements:
Link
Trump is issuing and threats … and nonsense:
Link
Wonkette’s 2019 Legislative Shitheel Is Moscow Mitch, Who Else Would It Be?
Links embedded in the Wonkette article back up the February to September list of egregious acts, (or failures to act), above.
Supporters of an Iranian-backed militia ended their siege of thr U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Washington Post link
Still a volatile situation.
The 2010s were a lost decade for climate. We can’t afford a repeat, scientists warn.
See comment 70 also, for additional information about fires.
Washington Post link
Excerpts from an article by Sheelah Kolhatkar, writing for The New Yorker:
Link
Much more at the link.
CNBC:
Bernie Sanders raised more than $34.5 million in blowout fourth quarter, campaign says
Jan 2, 2020
Explosive New Emails Add To Pile Of Evidence That Trump Personally Ordered Ukraine Aid Freeze
Followup to comment 81.
From the readers comments:
Followup to comments 81 and 82.
From Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-sky-is-the-limit
Update on efforts to end rights to abortion:
Link
Lipinski should be booted from office. His opponent in Illinois is Marie Newman.
It’s a new year, and Trump is still lying.
Link
Trump lying about Mar-a-Lago, in Mar-a-Lago:
Link
https://twitter.com/StevenBeschloss/status/1210041505894649857
Video at the link.
Make It Your New Year’s Resolution Not to Share Misinformation
Oh, no. Turkey is planning to send troops to Libya?
Link
Expect the price you pay for prescription drugs to increase:
Link
Trump is messing around in AT&T’s business as a way of criticizing, and he hopes, damaging CNN:
Link
Trump spent his holidays retweeting QAnon and Pizzagate accounts.
The president is normalizing conspiracy theories that portray his political opponents as satanist pedophiles.
Yes, Trump is retweeting disinformation from sketchy bots. Yes, Trump is retweeting stuff he has dredged up from the sludge on the internet.
Followup to comments 81, 82 and 83.
From Wonkette:
Classy as always, Elijah Cummings left a gift for poor kids in his will.
Link
“Bill Barr Thinks America Is Going to Hell.”
NY Times link
And he’s on a mission to use the “authority” of the executive branch to stop it.
Using a U.S. military airstrike, Trump approved the killing of Iran’s Quds force at the Baghdad airport.
Link
Most experts are saying that Iran will engage in reprisals around the world. There will be repercussions. Soleimani was an official leader in Iran.
U.S. officials have confirmed the strike.
From the Washington Post: “Pentagon launched airstrike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, Defense Sec. Mark Esper says.”
Link
From Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-very-grave-situation
This may well get lost in the shuffle because of the whole attempt to start a war with Iran (you think maybe Trump would stop if somebody pointed out that he’s doing what John McCain always thought was a good idea?):
A bunch of documents related to the Carter administration letting the Shah of Iran into the US have been unsealed. Not only do they show that a lot of evil people were conspiring to do it basically as a middle finger to the left — the usual suspects, like Henry Kissinger — but also: Carter, contrary to the “nice guy” image he has cultivated, had been urging the Shah to brutally put down the uprising against him with force all along.
WaPo:
Ben Carson’s HUD will propose new rule, further weakening enforcement of fair housing laws
By Tracy Jan
Jan. 3, 2020
Trump briefed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and lickspittle Lindsey Graham ahead of the U.S. airstrike that killed Qassim Suleimani, but Trump did not brief Democrats.
Talking Points Memo link
From Nancy Pelosi:
From Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (a known liar, like Trump):
From Joe Biden:
From Elizabeth Warren:
From Bernie Sanders:
Another Republican Congress critter, Phil Roe of Tennessess, has decided to retire. That brings the total number of Republican lawmakers giving up their seats before the 2020 election to 26. That’s three times the number of Democratic lawmakers retiring.
Trump predicted in 2011 that Obama would attack Iran in order to get reelected: “That’s the only way he can get elected. Isn’t it pathetic.”
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1213117311223238657
Video available at the link.
From the reader’s comments: “Trump makes much more sense when you realize his accusations are really confessions.”
From Mark Sumner:
Link
An new report indicates that Donald Trump’s loans from Deutsche Bank were backed by Russia.
Link
War Hawks on Fox News are celebrating:
Oh, FFS. Ari Fleischer is delusional.
Lynna @ 106
As I stated elsewhere, I had a taste of local Right Wing talk radio this morning and the hosts were practically climaxing over the airstrikes and the prospect of a new war with Iran.
Since Trump’s election, my RWNJ father has often (and loudly) claimed “Trump could cure cancer and the libs still want to impeach him!” Well, if he did something impeachable, FUCK YES!!! Why would curing cancer absolve you from crimes you’ve committed? Aren’t you the asshole who tried to raise me under absolutist Catholic moral dogma, Dad?
About 3,500 additional U.S. troops are now headed to the Mideast as Iran threatens retaliation. As expected. Sigh.
Washington Post link
So far, no one, not one person in the Trump administration, has offered proof that Soleimani was planning new attacks, or that those attacks were “imminent” as Pompeo claimed. To be legal, such a assassination would have to be justified by proof of the imminent danger. There’s no proof. I think Trump and his lackeys are lying … or that they are, at best, exaggerating.
Soleimani has been a threat for decades. Why now? The timing is suspect.
No love from Russia:
Washington Post link
One of Rudy Giuliani’s best buddies when it comes to committing crimes in Ukraine, (or encouraging others to commit crimes in Ukraine), is Lev Parnas. Ever since he was arrested, Parnas has been cooperating with law enforcement, and he has been trying to give his iPhone and a lot of documents to the House Intelligence Committee. Now a federal judge has ordered that, yes, Parnas can give his intel to the House.
Link
This is a good summary statement:
Link
“We tell everyone be patient to see the dead bodies of Americans all over the Middle East,” says the new commander of the Iranian Quds Force Ismail Qaani.
More legal opinions:
Link
So, Trump has spoken. To my ear, this sounds like the usual trumpian gaslighting:
From Matt Yglesias:
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/3/21048079/trump-pompeo-iran-lies
More at the link.
Remember Paul Manafort, currently in prison, previously Trump’s campaign manager? His name comes up again in today’s news. He is newly relevant thanks to the release of 356 pages of FBI interview notes from the Mueller investigation. As it turns out, and as has long been suspected, Manafort was deeply involved in the very beginnings of Trump’s pressure/bribery/extortion campaign against Ukraine.
Link
Mitch McConnell has been insulting Nancy Pelosi. Ditto for Trump. Today, Pelosi issued a statement:
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/1320
Followup to comment 115.
From Wonkette:
Wonkette’s Doctor Zoom discussed Elizabeth Warren’s plan to help people with disabilities.
United Methodist Church Divorces Itself Over Same-Sex Marriage
Link
The biggest reason the Evangelicals still support Trump.
Scotusblog:
Federal government’s brief in abortion case supports Louisiana’s position, raises possibility of overruling Whole Woman’s Health
Amy Howe
Fri, January 3rd
Details at the link.
re tomh @ # 119 — The Supreme Court’s decision in June Medical v. Gee is expected before the Court’s term ends in late June 2020.
Not that I want to encourage anything so drastic as actual optimism, but the GOP 5 @ SCOTUS may save the world if they over-reach and provoke a strong pro-choice backlash persisting through November (but only if we still have elections then).
A deliberate snub in response to Johnson sniggering about Trump at the NATO meeting, or does Johnson just not enter Trump’s mind?:
The Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, known as a Brexit hardliner, has urged de-escalation on both sides. But if Trump gets into a war with Iran, he and Johnson will face a crisis far beyond their experience, and in my view, their competence. Along with “Geting Brexit done”.
A deliberate snub in response to Johnson sniggering about Trump at the NATO meeting, or does Johnson just not enter Trump’s mind?:
The UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, known as a Brexit hardliner, has urged de-escalation on both sides. But if Trump gets into a war with Iran, he and Johnson will face a crisis far beyond their experience, and in my view, their competence. Along with “Geting Brexit done”.
Thin-skinned and ultra narcissistic Trump ordered airstrikes in part because he was disappointed with media coverage of the fact that he halted an airstrike against Iran last year.
And there you have it. Trump is so weak that he is deathly afraid of he will “look weak.” And, so, the U.S. goes to war to salve Trump’s ego.
Trump also wanted an opportunity to make Obama look bad, (or so he thought in his twisted, barely functional mind), by comparison.
Link
Pompeo is complaining that the U.S.’s European allies have not backed up Trump’s latest stupid move in the Middle East:
link
Commentary from Kerry Eleveld:
Link
A Democratic Senator Has Introduced a Resolution to Prevent War with Iran
It raises the question of whether Congress will intervene if military tensions escalate.
https://twitter.com/timkaine/status/1213184490085863430
Another consequence of Trump’s ill-considered actions:
https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-suspends-iraq-training-mission/
Remember what Ari Fleischer said: “I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani.” [delusional asshat]
Fact:
Link
Oh, FFS!
The New York Times’ first opinion editorial about war with Iran is by a guy who said there were no downsides to invading Iraq.
Link
OMFG! Really? Vice President Mike Pence falsely linked Soleimani to 9/11 in an attempt to justify the Trump-approved assassination.
Link
Cross-posted from We’ve already lost the war.
Extraordinarily, Johnson has remained silent and on holiday following the assassination of Soleimani. Almost before he’s got his feet under the table, he’s faced with a crisis right outside his experience, and I’d say, his competence. Various Tory ministers have been urging restraint on both sides, but the events reveal starkly how little the UK and Johnson count for in Washington.
Trump has Tweeted a threat to commit a war crime against Iran.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Tim@130,
Well, it’s just about the only type of crime he hasn’t tried yet, so I suppose it’s natural for him to want to branch out. I suspect he’ll be a natural at war crimes, too.
It won’t be treated like a war crime if he does it.
Americans, don’t export any more freedom to Middle east! You’re gonna face a domestic shortage.
Yes, Trump is publicly tweeting about committing war crimes.
Link
Some media outlets are using headlines that say “52 sites,” and not “cultural sites.” This is unfortunate. We have to stress that Trump is talking about targeting cultural sites, as well as other targets in Iran. Also, Trump’s language that uses phrases like “hit them hard and fast” is an escalation.
The Trump tweet in question:
Predictable result of Trump throwing another tantrum:
Ill just not that Putin wants US troops out of Iraq.
From the readers comments (link to article is in comment 137):
From Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-information-emerges
How it went down:
Link
Donald Trump Threatened Iran With War Crimes. Mike Pompeo Doesn’t See a Problem With That.
“We will be bold in protecting American interests. […].”
Link
From Wonkette:
Link
Best thread on the razor thin “evidence” Trump had for killing Suleimani:
https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1213423250300166144
More at the link.
Another predictable result of Trump’s latest temper tantrum: “Iran announces it is suspending all commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal.”
Washington Post link
Cyber attacks from Iran are a real threat.
WIRED link
[head/desk] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to blame Barack Obama for Trump’s escalation of war with Iran.
Link
From the readers comments:
Authoritarianism, and the rise of a dictator, just took another step in Venezuela.
Washington Post link
And, of course, the criminals are taking over as if they were legitimate politicians:
Thousands take to New York streets in solidarity after anti-Semitic attacks
Trump is still blustering and posturing on Twitter:
@#122, KG:
Things beyond Johnson and Raab’s competence? Now there’s a hole with no bottom.
Given that Trump is well-known for holding grudges, I think that the chances of the UK getting a “special deal” with the US — which Johnson has always claimed would happen — came to a definite end when Johnson mocked Trump at NATO.
@#124, Lynna, OM:
This is nothing new — look how long the Vietnam war went on because both major parties feared that admitting defeat would have made us “look weak”. Or how we’ve persistently built up our useless and dangerous nuclear arsenal because dismantling even a portion of it would make us “look weak”. Or how Democrats have voted for all those military budget increases and wars because voting against them would “let the Republicans say we’re weak” (as though that stopped the Republicans!). If anything, this is another piece of continuity with pre-Trump policy.
@#130, Lynna OM:
I didn’t know Joe Biden was writing for the NY Times. Oh, wait, that’s right, after thirteen years he finally admitted that invading Iraq was a bad idea, and now he’s bashing Trump with it.
@#134, a_ray_in_dilbert_space:
Trump has already committed war crimes, repeatedly. (Just for a start, the treaties we signed at the end of World War II make it a war crime to shelter a war criminal, and Trump didn’t hand over anybody from the Bush or Obama administrations for war crimes trials. But he’s also done a bunch of the usual more active stuff since then.) If the US cared about war crimes, Trump would have been gone pretty quickly… but then, if we cared about war crimes, there hasn’t been a president in my lifetime who wouldn’t have been on trial at the very least, and probably locked away where the dogs don’t bite.
Well, this is just getting worse and worse:
“Disproportionate”! Sheesh.
And no, I don’t think Trump just announcing this part of his shitstorm on Twitter is “legal notice.”
Lynna @ # 152: …I don’t think Trump just announcing this part of his shitstorm on Twitter is “legal notice.”.
Consider it a revival of the Nixon Doctrine: if the president does it, it’s legal.
The Iraqi PM has said that Soleimani was invited to Iraq specifically at the request of Trump, to mediate a deal with the Saudis and reduce tensions. (Mentioned briefly in this NPR report, and some more details in this Twitter thread.) (Sorry, just using links which I found conveniently elsewhere; Google can probably pop up more if you’re interested.)
Sorry for the repetition upthread – #122 and #123 didn’t appear to post when I submitted them. UK Foreign Secretary Raab has now been slapped down for daring to deviate from a straight pro-US line on the assassination.
9:00 a.m.
Bolton ‘prepared to testify’ in Senate if subpoenaed…
Apparently, a Senate subpoena is more powerful than a House subpoena.
9:40 a.m.
Bolton’s lawyer declines to say whether Bolton would testify before House
Followup to comment 125.
Commentary on just why it is that our European allies are not cheering Trump’s undiplomatic moves in Iraq, and in reference to Iran:
Link
Julian Castro endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren for president this morning. Castro ended his own campaign last week.
Just to round up and summarize the effects of Trump’s ill-considered mission to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani:
Shiite politicians in Iraq passed a resolution urging the Prime Minister to rescind Iraq’s invitation to U.S. forces. (Kick U.S forces out of Iraq, in other words.)
Iran announced that it was ending its commitment to limit enrichment of uranium … no more nuclear deal. (Our European allies had been trying to hold that agreement together in spite of Trump having walked away from it earlier.)
The American-led coalition to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria has halted that fight in order to prepare instead for retaliation that is expected to come from Iran.
American citizens have been evacuated from Iraq.
Iranian citizens, who had previously been demonstrating in favor of greater democracy and/or freedom in their country, are now solidly in support of Iranian leaders and government officials. Trump’s actions united them.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are seriously worried. Saudi diplomats are in Washington D.C. now, trying to tamp things down, trying to prevent war.
Putin received a bounty of presents: a further weakened U.S./Europe alliance; more pressure to remove U.S. troops from the Middle East, which makes more room for Russian influence; more divisive attitudes within the U.S. population; and a strengthening of goodwill between Russia and Iran.
More proof that Trump is a dolt.
Trump’s reputation with our European allies sunk even lower.
More American troops deployed to the Middle East.
Details are forthcoming, but Reuters is reporting that U.S.-led coalition tells Iraqi military it will withdraw from Iraq out of respect for the nation’s sovereignty.
From Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/whats-up-with-bolton
I think Bolton is teeing up sales orders for his upcoming book. I also think Bolton feels relatively secure in the idea that there won’t be 4 Republican senators who break ranks from Mitch McConnell and vote to have witnesses testify in Trump’s impeachment trial.
Followup to comment 161.
From Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:
From Adam Schiff:
Schumer’s full statement:
From the readers comments:
Link
Oh, FFS.
Donald Trump Junior posed with an assault rifle that referenced the Crusades, and that also featured the Hillary Clinton “lock her up!” image on the ammunition clip.
A disturbing photo is available at this TPM link, and on Junior’s Twitter feed, to which I will not link.
Yep. More white supremacist paraphernalia in Junior’s hands.
WaPo:
John Bolton says he would testify to the Senate. So why not the House?
By Aaron Blake
Jan. 6, 2020
So, subpoena him already. What are they waiting for?
Followup to comment 163.
Linka,/a>
From Kara Voght:
Link
An update on Trump’s mistreatment of immigrants who are seeking asylum:
Link
followup to tomh’s comment 164.
Washington Post link
In Virginia we may be seeing a preview of what will happen if Republicans lose a lot of political races in 2020.
Washington Post link
Followup to Akira’s comment 160.
Well, that is one serious fuckup.
Link
Followup to comments 160 and 170.
Link
From Senator Mitt Romney:
Supreme Court news related to Obamacare:
NBC News link
re Lynna @163:
I think that DJTjr should relocate to the front lines in Afganistan and prove his mettle with his assault rifle.
How wacky are Republicans? This much.
Axios:
2024 lookahead poll: GOP voters eye Trump dynasty
Which, if any, of the following Republicans would you consider voting for in the 2024 general presidential election?
Junior got 29%, second to Pence, and Ivanka polled at 16%, just behind Nikki Haley.
That’s not an assault rifle. To him its just a masturbatory aid.
Imagine how different the world could be if genetics had gifted these last few generations of Trump men with decent sized penises. Or at least half a well-developed brain, even if they had to share the one.
I would be chortling with glee and popping champagne at the self-destruction of the Republican party, if only they weren’t dragging the whole damn country down with them.
At least they’re not even considering Eric.
Sneering about the supposed small penises of unpleasant men (and of course we don’t have any actual information about those of the Trump men) is just another aspect of the toxic masculinity these men embody.
Elizabeth Warren unveiled a plan to overhaul existing bankruptcy laws. It is worth noting that Joe Biden helped write a flawed bankruptcy law in 2005.
CNBC link
More details at the link.
Republicans never disappoint.
CNN:
GOP congressman shares fake image of Obama with Iranian president
Nothing in the original post indicated it was fake. The image dates back to at least 2015 when Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) used it in a television ad that aired in Wisconsin
Chris Hayes presented an excellent summary of Trump’s position on war crimes, a position that is an “absolute moral abomination.”
Link to the segment
The video is only 3:55 minutes long, but still manages to be thorough.
See also:
https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1213979712776744961
Followup to comment 181.
See also:
https://twitter.com/ColinKahl/status/1213607662396542977
Oh, FFS. Now Trump is trying to bully Iraq as well.
Washington Post link
Commentary from Steve Benen:
What Marco Rubio said in reference to a subpoena of former White House national security adviser John Bolton, and to Bolton’s proposed testimony before the Senate:
No, no, no Marco. That’s all wrong. And it doesn’t make sense. Steve Benen explains:
Link
Well, Mike Pompeo tried to blame Barack Obama for Trump’s airstrike that killed Soleimani, so why shouldn’t some other dunderheaded Republican blame House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (a Democrat)?
That’s exactly what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did.
Cough. Bullshit!
TPM link
From the readers comments:
@ 180
Yeah, but you didn’t say it was, cupcake.
Perhaps not, but you sure did imply it.
Lynna @ 181
I think Shakespeare put it best in Henry V (Act IV, Scene 1):
Then again, Trump is not the literary, much less the literate, sort.
Re: #180
Gosar has a history of fakery. He was a birther, of course, but more recently, in November he boosted the theory that the whistleblower was George Soros’s son. About the same time he posted an acrostic to his account that spelled out the phrase “Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
And in a 2017 interview with HBO, he spread the conspiracy theory that a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which left one person dead, was actually planned by a supporter of former President Barack Obama, and another debunked conspiracy that liberal financier George Soros sold out his fellow Jews to the Nazis during the Holocaust.
It doesn’t sit well with his family. All six of his siblings appeared in campaign ads for his opponent in the last election. Thanksgiving dinners must be fun.
But Republicans. He won with almost 70% of the vote.
tomh @ 188
Like most RWNJs, Gosar has Soros on the brain.
Akira @187, I like the “prating coxcomb” description for Trump. That made me laugh. When I was growing up, my mother would say, “If your classmates jump off a cliff, does that mean you should jump?”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo justified the U.S. airstrike on Qassim Soleimani by claiming there was intelligence showing an “imminent attack.” Pompeo can’t back that claim up. Here’s what happens when he is asked:
OMFG. That doesn’t make sense, and it does not even imply “imminent,” let alone fit even a broadened definition of “imminent.”
Commentary:
Link
No Take-Backs! Iraq Still Expects US Withdrawal Mistakenly Promised In DOD Letter
From the readers comments:
From Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif:
The completely non-transparent Trump administration is outed one again by media postings from other countries:
Link
Dinesh D’Souza Branches Out, Gets Iran History Wrong Too
Wonkette link
Many of the same myopic people are lining up to propagandize for war with Iran, the same people who supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Ben Mathis-Lilley takes a trip down memory lane:
Link
Lynna @ 196
Knowing D’Souza I wonder which he hates more: Socialism or former colonial puppets getting uppity and telling Westerners to go fuck off.
The American political system, where any billionaire can run for president.
Axios:
Bloomberg, Trump each secure $10 million Super Bowl ad slots
In the news (both from The Guardian:
Iran threatens to hit US bases with medium- and long-range missiles
Iran launches missiles on US airbase in Iraq – live updates
Followup to John in comment 199.
Yes, Iran did fire ballistic missiles at a military base in Iraq, a base that includes both Iraqi and American forces. Iran state TV, and the official Twitter account of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have claimed responsibility for the missiles fired at American forces.
Rockets hit Iraq base housing US troops; Iran claims responsibility
Iran said earlier that they would respond to Soleimani’s killing by directly attacking a U.S. military target, and they said they would not hide the source of the attack.
There is no way that Trump can be trusted to NOT escalate further.
https://twitter.com/juliamacfarlane/status/1214691368787988482
This is all Trump’s fault. He is responsible for this mess.
Live updates: Iran launches missile attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq, according to Iranian state media.
Washington Post link
Pentagon now says that “more than a dozen ballistic missiles” were fired from Iran toward joint Iraqi/U.S. military bases in Iraq. Two military bases were struck.
JFC.
SC @205, JFC! indeed. That’s all we need. A blustering, stupid speech from Trump will pour gasoline on what is, so far, a smallish fire.
We are in the escalation spiral.
Commentators on Chris Hayes’ “All In” show made the point that, prior to all this mess, the Trump administration had also destroyed most our official and our back channels with Iranian leaders. So, now we have no way to communicate. (Unless you count threats issued via Twitter.)
We are in a limited hot war with Iran. Trump is not the man who can get us out of this. Trump is not the man who will slow down or limit the damage.
It is looking more and more likely that Lebanon (using Iranian proxy forces) will attack Israel after Trump inevitably strikes back (again) at Iran.
From Nancy Pelosi:
From Ilan Goldenberg:
Good to note: Iran actually attacked Iraqi bases. Yes, American troops are housed there, but this could be spun by a wiser Trump (who does not exist) as an attack on Iraq, not on America proper.
We can only hope.
Are we expecting that the same Trump who threatened to strike cultural sites in Iran will get off the escalation spiral and calm things down? Also, Pompeo is NOT a voice of reason that can help here.
Republicans in the Senate need to speak out loudly and clearly against escalation. [bitter laughter]
From Elizabeth Warren:
Shimon Prokupecz:
SC @208, I hope so. Looks like someone, or a consortium of people, talked Hair Furor out of making a speech tonight.
SC @211, I wish that before they all left, they could have put Temper Tantrum Toddler Trump to bed for the night, without his phone.
Lynna @ #213, Ojalá.
Apropos of nothing, The Panama Deception, 1992 Oscar documentary winner.
“The Washington Post published a gigantic investigation about how the last two decades of war were based on total lies like six whole weeks ago.”
Two+ decades.
“WATCH: @chrislhayes ends @allinwithchris with this message:
‘A war with Iran is madness, and it is strategically and morally a disaster in the making. And don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise’.”
Republicans will eat it up.
Politico:
Trump unfurls a new attack for 2020: Dems as Iran sympathizers
We’re attacking Iran for Iraqis invading our embassy. Iraqis who wanted help because they don’t want us there. We’re an occupying force. We’re villians.
I can get less polite. It’s worth it on facebook.
No American or Iraqi casualties officially reported as of yet (unless you’re watching Iranian state TV). Seeing much speculation that there was forewarning and some careful targeting designed to minimize the chances of actually killing anyone and further escalating the situation. This pot just might not boil over, if Trump is smart enough to turn the dial the right way. Then again, he’s got Pompeo and Graham whispering in his ears. Anyway, he’s supposed to make a statement sometime this morning. As soon as Fox and Friends is over, I’m guessing.
176 dead after plane en route to Kyiv crashes after takeoff in Tehran:
This was yesterday, hours before the missiles, but kind of got lost once the fireworks started.
“The worst national security team that I’ve ever seen.”
Link
An update on Trump’s ridiculous “all is well” tweet, and on messaging coming out of Iran:
Link
Predictable, typical. Mitch McConnell said:
McConnell is not the only Republican using Trump’s self-made conflict with Iran to pretend that the impeachment trial is not important, or not a priority, or that it should be stopped. That’s not logical, to my mind. Trump’s disastrous actions against Iran have, so far, fallen short of all-out war thanks to the fact that Iranian leaders are more reasonable than he is. We have more reason to impeach Trump than ever.
Background:
Link
From the readers comments:
Trump has started his speech. He is huffing, puffing and sniffing more than usual.
Update on Puerto Rico:
Link
From Wonkette: “Liveblogging Trump Taking Responsibility For Latest F*ckup Hahahahahahaha Just Kidding”
Yep. Trump went on an on about that money. He claimed that Iran used the money Obama gave them to buy the missiles they shot at the Iraqi base last night. He also claimed that the money was like a gift from Obama that allowed Iran to support more terrorists.
Link
More on Trump’s address to the nation:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-iran-missile-strike-address
Iranian leaders are saying just this morning that the missile strike last night was “just a slap in the face,” and that more retaliatory actions are to come.
Ha! This is funny. Trump is bluffing:
Facts:
Just to note, Rudy Giuliani wants Trump to force regime change in Iran:
Rudy said that at the U.N. back in September 2019.
More from Rudy, posted on January 8, 2020:
re Lynna @230:
I say we should give Rudy a ticket to the front lines and some body armor and let him do his best to stand up to them. My bet is that he would be cowering in fear behind the biggest pile of sand he could find.
Some bits and pieces of political news, from Steve Benen:
Link
johnson catman @231, Good idea.
While Trump gave his speech this morning, he had Vice President Pence plus an array of Pentagon brass stand behind him. Rudy, pretend warrior, was not there.
More details:
Link
Trump also berated Iran for not “saying thank you to the United States.” Sheesh.
Susan Rice called Trump’s references to Obama “despicable lies.”
Trump may have spilled top secret details: ” Trump talked about how “big, powerful, lethal and fast” American missiles are, and indicated that there was a new generation of hypersonic missiles on the way—which is genuine news, and amounts to the unveiling of a top-secret weapons system.”
Update on the rightwing response:
Link
re Lynna @234: Chickenhawks all of them. Give them some body armor and send them with Rudy. They don’t give a rat’s ass if US soldiers get killed as long as they personally don’t get so much as a hangnail.
The Only Winner of the U.S.-Iran Showdown Is Russia
A crisis tailor-made for Vladimir Putin.
Link
More Republicans behaving badly.
Religion Clause:
State Senator’s Threats Were Not Religious Speech
January 08, 2020
More at The Oregonian.
More comments on some of the stranger parts of Trump’s speech that was delivered this morning:
Link
https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1214955938119127040
58 times. He sniffed 58 times during his address. Here are all of them.
From Joby Warrick, writing for The Washington Post: “How a ‘quantum change’ in missiles has made Iran a far more dangerous foe.”
Washington Post link
What other damning information is about to be revealed? I wonder why Trump tying to delay all of those revelations until after election. Hmmm.
Mike Lee is a Republican senator from Utah. This is what he had to say after the Trump administration briefing on the assassination of a top Iranian commander:
More details:
I wish I could read that general’s mind… I can’t tell if he’s just trying to figure out Trump’s hair or terrified of what he’s hearing. Or maybe he’s trying to figure out what he’s hearing and terrified of Trump’s hair.
Republicans: If we can’t have an all-out war, let’s just coninue to destroy the environment.
NYT:
Trump Moves to Exempt Big Projects From Environmental Review
By Lisa Friedman
Jan. 9, 2020
The driving force behind this giveaway? Interior secretary, David Bernhardt, former oil and gas lobbyist.
Ragutis @243, I interpreted the General’s thought as, “Oh, fuck.” Repeated over and over again. When I was watching the entire speech, I noticed the General’s eyes slide to one side and widen when Trump claimed that money Obama gave Tehran paid for those missiles. He knows that’s a lie.
The General may think in time-honored military terms, “SNAFU!” Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
Members of the Trump administration presented a closed-door, classified briefing to Congress yesterday. Congress critters at that briefing have clearances that allow them to hear classified information. And yet, Robot Lickspittle Vice President Mike Pence made a ridiculously claim:
The Gang of Eight can hear even more sensitive information, but the Trump administration didn’t tell them either.
One can only conclude that Pence’s “most compelling” intelligence does not exist.
Some commentary from Steve Benen:
Russia, if you’re listening, Facebook announced this morning that is doubling down on its current advertising policies, which allow candidates to lie to the public.
Politico link
Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders continues her unbroken streak of making ill-informed comments that stroke Trump’s ego:
Those powers, Sarah, are already in Congress’ hands because that’s what the Article 1 Section of the U.S. Constitution says. To the legislative branch of Congress is given the power “to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water” [and to] “raise and support armies,” “provide and maintain a navy,” and “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.”
Go away, Sarah.
From USA Today:
Trump’s newly announced Iranian sanctions may not exist.
Yeah, I thought he was lying when he said that. Then, soon after, when reporters questioned him about the sanctions, Trump said, “You’ll see.” That’s one of Trump’s “I’m lying” tells.
More details:
Followup to tomh’s comment 244.
More about Trump’s presser on environmental policies:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-weird-press-conference
US Officials Believe Iran Shot Down Ukrainian Plane Outside Tehran
There’s also some talk that a Russian-made missile shot down the plane. Iran does buy military equipment from Russia.
From the readers comments:
Collusion!
To collude with Trump regarding how to get him absolved of all his wrong doing.
Link
The fact that he’s trying to play it as a mistake makes me wonder. If it wasn’t him, then why would he play down the responsibility? That’s hardly his style.
Also, “It was flying in — not in our system, it has nothing to do with us.”
It sounded guilty when I read it and it sounded guilty when I went and saw the video. “Not in our system.” Why is he denying something that wasn’t asked?
Perhaps the correct interpretation is that this was a screw-up. Some local commander got antsy and blew up a civilian plane. Oops. Now what?
LykeX @254, people in Iran are pushing the theory that the CIA shot the plane down. Doesn’t make sense, but that’s what they are saying.
Also, the plane was not flying in, it was taking off. The “pretty rough neighborhood” comment makes no sense. Sounds like Trump trying to muddy the waters.
It’s also possible that Putin has been in touch with Trump, and has pushed Trump in the direction of, “It was a mistake.” With Trump, you never know.
Also, Trump may really want this to have been a mistake so that he is not pushed to retaliate, not pushed to escalate the war. I really think Trump wants two contradictory things: he wants to appear tough, as if he is not letting Iran get away with anything; and at the same time he is deathly afraid of starting a full-blown, Middle-East-encompassing war.
From Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:
Trump is still trying to create a show trial that deflects attention away from his obvious crimes:
About John Bolton testifying, Trump said:
Funny.
https://twitter.com/CoryBooker/status/1215341126695247873
A 15 second video of Warren dancing, while she is on stage with Julian Castro is available at the link.
From Wonkette:
Video available at the link.
From Wonkette: “Kansas Expanding Medicaid. Yes, That Kansas!”
War powers vote: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that the House would send a clear statement to President Donald Trump on Thursday saying that he should not take any further military action against Iran without getting approval from Congress.”
Oh, FFS. The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for the state Republican Party to exclude Trump’s primary rivals from the GOP ballot in March. Minnesota will join Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina in limiting Republican primary voters to a single candidate.
StarTribune link
From the Wall Street Journal:
Well, that makes more sense tan the other, shifting, and sometimes contradictory explanations offered by Trump and his lickspittles.
Trump took credit for lower cancer rates:
The trend has nothing to do with Trump. This is from USA Today:
Link
That article also points out that Trump’s proposed budgets would have cut billions of dollars from National Institute of Health funding, cuts that would, in turn, have negatively affected the National Cancer Institute.
From Joe Biden:
The life expectancy of Americans has declined during Trump’s administration. Maybe he can take credit for that.
It’s Not Just Poor White People Driving a Decline in Life Expectancy, from The New York Times.
A new study shows that death rates increased for middle-aged people of all racial and ethnic groups.
E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit will go forward.
From The New York Times:
Weak!
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Link
Followup to comment 263.
Pompeo Waffles On ‘Imminent’ Iran Threat: We Don’t Know ‘Precisely’ Where Or When
Dubious DOJ ‘Review’ Of Clinton That Trump Pushed Ends With A Whimper
So … don’t lock her up?
More background details:
Yep. The Mercers paid for that dirt in much the same way that Rudy Giuliani and Trump tried to orchestrate payment for dirt on Joe Biden. Except that the Mercers used their own money, and Trump was trying to use taxpayer funds allocated by Congress. Heaven forbid that he should use his own money to finance his crime spree. And Giuliani was, at least in part, paid by Russian/Ukranian oligarchs.
Pelosi seems to be almost ready to send articles of impeachment to the Senate.
Link
Oh, thank goodness.
Marianne Williamson has dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
From Wonkette:
From Ashley Parker:
More from Wonkette:
Link
Video available at the link. More details available at the link.
Say what now? Can the U.S. “decline” or refuse?
Iraq calls on US to make withdrawal plans, Trump admin declines
That’s really remarkable. AFAIK (disclaimer – I’m not a demographer) the only similar national death rate rises in recent decades have been due to AIDS, in parts of Africa, and the application of the “shock doctrine” following the collapse of the USSR.
KG, @272, Yes, it is remarkable. The Trump administration is still attacking health care availability in the USA, restricting access to food supplement programs, and increasing pollution in the environment. They are not done yet when ti comes to increasing death rates.
Some bits and pieces of news, as posted by Steve Benen:
Oh, FFS.
Link
The Trump administration tried to assassinate a different top Iranian commander.
Link
Looks like a few of the people in the know on the assassination-happy trumpian plans are none too pleased, so they are leaking to the press.
From the readers comments:
For anyone interested in the role of the Chief Justice in the upcoming impeachment proceedings, Scotusblog has a detailed analysis.
In short, the Senate rules appear to give considerable power to the Presiding Officer, including the power to issue “orders, mandates, writs, and precepts”, to “direct all the forms of proceedings while the Senate is sitting for the purpose of trying and impeachment”, and to “rule on all questions of evidence including, but not limited to, questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence”.
In every case, however, this appearance of authority is subject to the limitation that any ruling he makes can be questioned by any Senator and overturned with a simple majority vote of the Senate. This means that the Republicans have absolute power as long as McConnell can keep 51 votes together.
Bottom line (from the article):
Lynna@264
My own take is that humans don’t do well when you try to turn them into domesticated animals that produce a steady income stream for the real “people”–namely corporations and the asshole-jerkoffs who run them.
Healthcare is becoming more and more an exercise of “treating” rather than curing disease–more long-term income for corporations, less well being.
Our food is coming more and more from multi-nationals than from the farm down the road.
Hell, you can’t even rely on the water supply. Have to buy tap water in disposable plastic bottles.
Education, the prison system, even defense are all being privatized to ensure a steady stream of rents to corporations and the people who own them. People in America increasingly live lives of debt/illness driven despair and corporate-supplied distraction. We are no longer free-range.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/shock-and-awe-2
From Josh Marshall:
Trump still plans to block witnesses that may appear in the impeachment trial.
Link
Executive Privilege does not apply when crimes are being committed.
From the readers comments:
Evolution of a lie: from “imminent attack” to “four embassies,” with no facts in between. Trump started by saying there was an imminent attack planned against our embassy in Baghdad (though he waited seven, 7!, days to make up that bullshit), and then, as he usually does, he increased the number as he went along. Most recently, Trump pulled the number “4” out of his ass.
Now his lickspittles are scrambling to catch up. Pompeo even claimed that the purported attacks against U.S. embassies had been briefed to the Congress. Nope. That’s a blatant lie. No Congress critter, not even a Republican one, has claimed that imminent attacks against embassies were mentioned during the briefing.
Lindsey Graham, however, claims that Trump’s address to the nation about killing Soleimani will go down in history as the equivalent of Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall” speech.
Trump’s address was full of lies.
Link
That’s not all the lies told. Trump also lied about the money paid to Iran as part of the nuclear deal, and Trump blamed Obama in totally nonsensical ways.
Oh, FFS.
Link
From Iranian foreign minister Mohamad Javad Zarif:
From Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:
The administration’s deceptions about the Soleimani strike are a big deal
Trump’s climate change reading material is beyond parody
Good news: Trump plans to read a book about environmentalism. Bad news: the actual book.
From Wonkette: “Trump Claims Four Embassies Were Going To Bombed By Iran, Didn’t Bother To Tell Them That”
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1216252081029271557
Followup to comment 386.
Link
Video available at the link.
Why do Republicans always attempt a high speed 180° turn so quickly after a brief moment in the sunlight of facts when they dare to criticize something the Trump administration has done? They run, scared, from comments they made just days before.
Comment 288 was a followup to comment 286.
Here is further followup, in the form of readers comments:
More details concerning Trump and his lickspittles threatening Iraq:
Link
Nancy Pelosi was interviewed on a Sunday morning talk show. Here is some of the news she made:
Link
“I didn’t see”: Esper admits he saw no direct evidence of Iranian threat to U.S. embassies
“Probably,” and “could have been,” plus “I believe”: those are all weasel words. “I didn’t see” indicates that there was no direct evidence to be seen. No imminent threat.
Oh, FFS. Really, Bernie?
Bernie Sander’s campaign is slamming Elizabeth Warren as candidate of the elite.
Link
From Wonkette: “You Can’t Even Bribe White House Press Sec. Stephanie Grisham To Do Her Job Now”
Link
The Deplorable video has since been taken down. YouTube notes that is was “removed by the user.”
Good.
Why did the Pentagon ever give Trump the option of killing Soleimani?
Washington Post link
Marc Fisher, writing for The Washington Post, took a closer look at Trump’s transactional approach to … well, everything:
I don’t think governing a nation should be viewed from a “deal making” approach at all. Trump is not mentally fit for office.
Much more at the link.
Hillary Clinton: The most exonerated politician ever.
Washington Post link
No one from the Trump administration can confirm “specific” intelligence pointing to a threat from Iran to attack four U.S. embassies, (unless you count Trump’s lies).
Link
More at the link.
From former Republican, now an independent representative, Justin Amash:
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1216054398138376192
From Brian Tyler Cohen:
Other comments posted in Justin Amash’s Twitter feed:
One has to wonder if Eric Prince (former mercenary himself, and brother of Betsy DeVos) played a part in Trump’s decision to sell troops to Saudi Arabia.
Oh, FFS.
From Trump:
From readers comments on The Hill website:
At the intersection of Trump’s health care lie and his ACA case:
Link
Trump Sends Cryptic Messages To Iran In Unhinged Early Morning Tweet Screed
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-iran-tweets-unhinged
Wow. This is even more unhinged than usual:
Oh, so now “it doesn’t really matter” if Soleimani’s planned attacks were imminent. That should make things easier for Trump’s lickspittles. They can stop coming up with new and contradictory explanations for the airstrike while they look like deer caught in headlights on national TV shows.
Another Democrat dropped out of the presidential race. Senator Cory Booker announced his withdrawal from the race today. He cited a lack of financial resources and the fact that he would not appear in the upcoming debate on Wednesday.
@303
Hey Donald, which Democrats have said that Soleimani was a “wonderful guy?” Please name names and cite your sour… You’re not listening to me, are you?
Hey news media, ask the president which Democrats have said that Soleimani was a “wonderful guy?” Please have him name names and cite his sourc… You’re too cowardly to do that, are you?
WTF!?
Akira @305, Trump is not the only one confused about the facts. Even the simplest facts seen to elude the entire Trump administration. This is disturbing:
Link
From the readers comments:
About that “imminent” attack … not so much.
TPM Link
NBC News link
From the readers comments:
I’m sure this will make Trump’s day:
The Hill link
Some fun, sarcasm, and facts from Wonkette: “Dunno How To Say This, But Russia Might Be Attacking 2020 Election To Hurt Biden And Help Trump”
Link
@ 308
I’m sure he’ll demand an Oscar nomination for his cameo in Home Alone II.
Akira @310, Ha!
In other news, who’s left in the White House to limit Trump when he’s ‘spun up’?
No one, really.
Here’s a description, from last night’s Washington Post report, of the way things used to work:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
White nationalists running for-profit prisons to detain immigrants? Doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Link
Oh, FFS! There’s an “official bible” for Trump’s Space Force?
At least one organization is complaining:
The Hill link
Twitter link
Photo available at both links.
Aiyiyiyi, I fear this is worse news than we might at first realize.
Wall Street Journal link
State Department officials were “blindsided’ by Trump’s claims that Iranian threats to U.S. embassies, etc. were “imminent.”
TPM link
From Glenn Kessler:
From Southpaw:
Followup to comment 304.
From Joe Biden:
From Trump:
Quite the contrast.
Farsi, not Arabic, according to your link. Presumably someone was on hand to tell Trump the Iranians are not Arabic speakers!
Imagine Trump asking an aide to translate some of his highly rambly tweets into the “Iran language”.
Then, wonder if said aide just fed the tweets into Google Translate (after first googling “what is the language of Iran”), or if they actually gave the job for some on-call government Farsi translator as “urgent”.
I guess kicking up some stupid like this is the cheapest possible way to keep Space Farce in the news, to give people an impression that it’s a real thing, something that’s actually happening – and most importantly, something that’s being unreasonably opposed by leftist haters.
Tangentially related, I’d dearly wish that any references to “official bible” in modern militaries were nickname references to some sort of soldier’s law handbook.
BuzzFeed: “Here Are 20 Headlines Comparing Meghan Markle To Kate Middleton That May Show Why She And Prince Harry Are Cutting Off Royal Reporters.”
Really sick. The British press is institutionally sick.
BBC – “Scottish independence: Johnson rejects Sturgeon’s indyref2 demand”:
The former First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones tweeted “If Boris Johnson says that it is entirely a matter for the UK if it chooses to leave the EU then it’s entirely matter for Scotland if it chooses to leave the UK. As Brussels didn’t prevent the Brexit referendum so Westminster shouldn’t stop this one.” Sturgeon retweeted it, with “A sensible Labour voice.”
Pelosi is meeting with her caucus this morning. According to reports from the meeting, she won’t name the floor managers today, but they’re expected to both vote on the floor managers and send the articles of impeachment to the Senate tomorrow.
Guardian – “Justin Trudeau: US escalation partly to blame for Iran plane deaths”:
Thank you to whoever it was at C-SPAN’s Book TV who had the brilliant idea to re-air Stephen Kinzer’s 2003 talk about his All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror in recent days.
“Awful scenes in Melbourne.
Dalila Jakupovic has abandoned her #AusOpen qualifying match after suffering a coughing fit while playing in thick smoke caused by the #AustralianFires.”
Video at the link. Reading the responses, by all reasonable standards and TennisAustralia’s own guidelines, the event should have been canceled.
Georgetown history professor Adam Rothman is teaching a course on the history of slavery in North America this semester and letting people follow along on Twitter.
“Statement by University Students in Tehran Protesting Downing of Flight 752” (link at the link):
Politico – “Corruption case law in jeopardy as Supreme Court hears ‘Bridgegate'”:
More atl.
Manu Raju:
Thanks, KG, for identifying the Farsi. Trump and his lickspittles proved, once again, that they are totally incompetent.
SC @322, holy crap. I didn’t realize it was that bad. “Here Are 20 Headlines Comparing Meghan Markle To Kate Middleton That May Show Why She And Prince Harry Are Cutting Off Royal Reporters.” I thought maybe Meghan Markle was overreacting, but now I see what she has been going through.
SC @323,
Yes. Well said.
SC @325: I do not envy Justin Trudeau and other leaders who have to deal with “managing the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions as well”.
SC @328: Thank you for posting that. The entire statement is worth reading, but I was particularly struck by this part: “In recent years, the presence of the United States in the Middle East has done nothing but sow chaos and disorder. We have long understood where we stand in relation to this aggressive power. Nonetheless, we also understand that U.S. adventurism in the region cannot be an excuse to justify domestic repression.”
What Trump said:
I think he is projecting again. The more he learns about impeachment, the more he realizes that he is truly in deep shit.
The facts from the latest Quinnipiac poll:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
A sort of update and summary from Steve Benen:
Link
See comment 303 for the “it doesn’t really matter” statement from Trump.
Good: Mitch McConnell simply doesn’t have the votes to follow through on one of his dastardly plans.
This is from the New York Times:
From Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri:
Ah, poor Rudy. He has been rejected.
TPM link
Uh, yeah. “He’s a potential witness,” does rule him ineligible for Trump’s anti-impeachment legal team. Rudy doesn’t seem to realize that.
And yet it is totally okay for the head juror (Moscow Mitch) to consult with the defendant about how the impeachment trial should be run.
“After six years of protesting his innocence from an Egyptian jail, and despite lobbying from top American officials, American citizen Moustafa Kassem died on Monday following a hunger strike.”
Trump’s favorite dictator.
Update to tomh’s #64 above: “MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin appeals court puts on hold removal of up to 209,000 voters from registration rolls, handing Democrats a win.”
Also handing democrats a win.
These are videos Lev Parnas’ lawyer is tweeting today. (Watch with the sound on.)
SC @339, Lev Parnas’ lawyer has a sense of humor.
johnson catman @336, yeah Moscow Mitch’s collusion with the Trump team is evil.
In other news, a reminder that tonight is debate night for Democratic presidential contenders. Six campaigners have qualified.
More bad news for migrant families:
Link
A guy named Bradley Byrne is running against Jeff Sessions in Alabama. Byrne, a Republican, is exploiting the death of his Army veteran brother, and he is featuring Ilhan Omar and other brown or black people burning in a fire in campaign advertising. Byrne is trying to win by being worse than Jeff Sessions, more racist.
https://twitter.com/SanaSaeed/status/1216456087605514240
You can view the 30-second ad at the link.
From the readers comments:
Making America blatantly racist again.
This may turn out to be a significant endorsement for Elizabeth Warren:
Link
SC @ #338
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that. Let’s hope the Wisconsin Supreme Court agrees.
Followup to comment 316.
More details regarding this story are finally emerging.
What Trump said:
From Aaron Rupar:
Exaggerating? That’s putting it mildly.
Link
Trump is diverting another $7.2 billion in military funds to build his border wall
The funds transfer would bring the total amount devoted to border wall construction under Trump to $18.4 billion.
More re #337:
Daily Beast – “Warren Calls for SEC Probe Into Whether Trump Tipped Off Mar-a-Lago Pals to Soleimani Attack”:
Letter atl. It’s also from Sen. Van Hollen.
A Canadian takes Trump to task:
Link
Mitch McConnell announced that the impeachment trial will begin next Tuesday.
Meanwhile some of Trump’s lickspittles are making a great effort to put out the word that Trump is not afraid. So, you can be sure that Trump is afraid.
Link
Followup to comment 346.
Link
Followup to comment 345.
Other times when the Pentagon (Defense Department) has contradicted Trump:
Link
Update on the War Powers Act:
Link
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Sarah D. Wire:
OMG.
#355 are some samples from the Parnas materials that the House Intel Committee is transmitting to the House Judiciary Committee. Holy forking shirt. Links to the committee’s letter and the documents here.
From the letter:
“In March 2019, Mr. Parnas communicated by text message with Robert F. Hyde about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In response to some articles, tweets, and videos accusing the Ambassador of being disloyal to President Trump, Mr. Hyde wrote ‘Wow. Can’t believe Trumo [sic] hasn’t fired this [b****]. I’ll get right in that’. Mr. Hyde then sent a series of text messages suggesting that he had Ambassador Yovanovitch under physical surveillance in Kyiv and that ‘They are willing to help if we/you would like a price’.”
THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW.
Assuming, as several people have suggested, that Robert F. Hyde is the racist Trumper (but I repeat myself) congressional candidate from CT, what’s he doing in the midst of these crimes in Ukraine?
She was also pulled out of a ceremony honoring a murdered Ukrainian human rights activist to receive the message.
“The bulk of the trial will be televised, but there will also be periods of ‘no cameras, no C-Span, no coverage’, Blunt tells reporters.”
The fuck?
Oh, OK. Deliberations.
“Reminder that Yovanovitch testified that UKRAINIAN officials warned her that Guiliani and other associates ‘had plans, and that they were going to, you know, do things, including to me’.”
(Sorry – #359 should have read “anti-corruption activist.”)
“New: Reached for comment on his texts about Amb. Yovanovitch’s location, Robert Hyde texted: ‘Bull Schiff is a giant b*tch’.”
“Yovanovitch” now trending on Twitter.
Tweet o’ the day.
@ SC #365
All these things coming out are, IMO, exactly why the Articles shouldn’t be sent to the Senate so soon. This evidence, and more, should be investigated, subpoenas should be enforced, and testimony given, and more charges should be added to the Articles. I think Pelosi buckled under the pressure of queasy Democrats worried about their reelection chances.
Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea.
“Statement from Yovanovitch’s lawyer just read on @MSNBC: ‘Needless to say, the notion that American citizens and others were monitoring Amb. Yovanovitch’s movements for unknown purposes is disturbing. We trust that the appropriate authorities will conduct an investigation’.”
Aaron Rupar from Trump’s WI rally tonight:
WaPo:
Republican senators pitch McConnell on witness reciprocity, officials say
By Seung Min Kim and Robert Costa
“Free reign of witnesses,” that’s pretty funny, with all the ones they blocked from testifying.
@370 For someone hoping to be part of a monarchy, free “reign” is the right spelling, I guess.
The term “witness reciprocity” is just a euphemism for “obfuscation”. Any competent judge in a criminal trial would throw out an attempt to bring such bullshit into the trial because it has nothing to do with the case at hand.
johnson catman @372, true. I am thinking, though, that if they do bring Hunter Biden in as a witness, it may backfire on them. That move would certainly make the Republicans look bad.
tomh @366, Adam Schiff said that the House Intelligence Committee would continue to investigate. They will investigate even as the impeachment trial proceeds.
SC @363, Robert Hyde strikes me as a narcissistic blowhard who is also a bully. In other words, much like Trump … except perhaps worse, since Hyde was stupid enough to post a vulgar comment about Kamala Harris that included a reference to oral sex. Hyde is, no doubt, a liar. We definitely need further investigation to figure out what parts of Hyde’s messages are based in fact. At this point, I don’t trust anything he posts, and that includes messages to Lev Parnas.
Here are the “managers” that Nancy Pelosi chose to try the Trump impeachment case:
Adam Schiff of California, lead manager; Jerry Nadler of New York; Hakeem Jeffries of New York; Jason Crow of Colorado; Zoe Lofgren of California; Val Demings of Florida; and Sylvia Garcia of Texas.
Here is Steve Benen’s summary of their qualifications:
Lots of familiarity with courtroom procedures, and with law enforcement.
Commentary on Trump’s impotent flailing around as he tries to criticize the House of Congress:
Link
WaPo:
Federal judge temporarily halts Trump administration policy allowing local governments to block refugees
By Ann E. Marimow and Maria Sacchetti
January 15
AP Europe: “Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev submitted his resignation to President Vladimir Putin, hours after the leader’s state of the nation address on the need for reforms to the Cabinet and constitution.”
Bill Browder: “Putin is extremely risk averse and almost never fires anyone. For him to sack the PM and change the constitution four years before his term is up suggests he’s deeply afraid of something. What that is, we have still to find out.”
(Browder also links to a Navalny video about Medvedev, which might have been the first of his corruption reports I watched.)
An update on the deficit, from the New York Times:
Some background information that covers Trump’s past promises, plus some analysis:
Link
HUD will finally release $8 billion of the $18 billion illegally withheld Puerto Rico relief funds.
Yet another example of the Trump administration illegally withholding funds appropriated by Congress. I doubt that the “full financial monitoring team” exists.
Link
“One more! Ramzan Kadyrov has temporarily left office due to what he called his ‘temporary incapacitation’. ‘I entrust the chairman of the government of the Chechen Republic, Muslim Magomedovich Khuchiyev with carrying out the duties of the head of the Chechen Republic’.”
Followup to SC’s comments 356 through 359.
Laura Clawson provides some details and commentary regarding those new documents:
Link
Politico – “State Department abruptly cancels briefing on embassy security”:
Trump and Boris Johnson proposed something, Rouhani said “NO.”
Link
From Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:
NPR’s sanitizing of Trump’s Milwaukee rally shows how he’s broken the media.
In trying to be above taking sides, the mainstream media does Trump a favor by making order out of his chaos.
Much more at the link.
Guardian – “Russian PM and government quit as Putin proposes constitutional changes”:
The bit about foreign citizenship or residency permits seems like an attempt to keep anyone he manages to force into exile from returning to leadership positions.
As Browder says in the quote @ #377 above, the beginning of 2020 is very early for these moves – there’s something going on.
Debate coverage from Wonkette:
What Elizabeth Warren actually said:
Lynna @ #383, the whole idea is absurd. No one in their right mind would sign any agreement with Trump. He has no honor, is blatantly deceitful, openly brags of trying to take advantage of others, doesn’t stand by his word, and will betray anyone at any time. He has a growing string of fraud claims and settlements. He and his sycophants are constantly lying to the US public, the congress, and the courts. The idea that a government could engage in good-faith diplomacy with him or his representatives at this point is fanciful.
Followup to comment 381.
Yes. A good summary of one of the main takeaways from the release of the new documents.
And another telling detail:
Washington Post link
From Representative Eliot Engel, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee:
SC @388, yes. I am in total agreement.
SC @386, thanks for posting news about the monumental shakeup in Russian leadership/government. Something really big is going on, and we don’t yet know the full extent of it.
On Fox News this morning there was not one mention of Lev Parnas, nor of the newly released documents that further damn Trump when it comes to the Ukraine extortion plot.
What was on Fox News was a false claim that Democrats lowered flags to half mast in honor of Soleimani’s death.
Millions of Americans of voting age get all their news from Fox.
From Steve Benen:
Link
According to the people on MSNBC, Parnas and his lawyer will be interviewed on Maddow tonight.
WaPo:
White House says it doesn’t expect impeachment trial to last longer than two weeks
By Toluse Olorunnipa and Felicia Sonmez
This blueprint with McConnell is already in place, and indeed, it is a foregone conclusion. More investigations in the House now will amount to ‘too little, too late’.
For the record – Politico last night – “Sanders camp admits anti-Warren script was deployed in multiple early states”:
“John Legend decided to endorse Elizabeth Warren and cited Bernie Bros as an issue, yet said he would happily vote for him if he was the nominee.
Bernie Bros proceed to troll him and demonstrate how they are an issue.
You can’t make this up.”
Here are Legend’s tweets.
Also, Neera Tanden:
I wasn’t going to wade into this, but the Sanders supporters on Twitter are too much, and it’s giving me 2016 flashbacks. They’ve gotten “WarrenIsaSnake,” “RefundWarren,” and “NeverWarren” hashtags trending on Twitter, and are responding to tweets with batches of snake emojis. It’s stupid, wrong, and politically disastrous, and Sanders needs to speak out against it and put a stop to it. Enough.
Intercept – “Trump Supporter Who Discussed Surveillance of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch Has History of Stalking, Mental Health Issues”:
He’s also, as Lynna notes above, a big liar. (The stalking episode would seem possibly to cut both ways: on the one hand, he’s unstable; on the other, stalking women is a thing he does.)
LOL, this is amazing. I had no idea.
Pelosi is speaking before she signs the articles of impeachment, flanked by the House committee chairs and impeachment managers. Then they’ll walk the articles over to the Senate.
And McConnell won’t accept the Articles until tomorrow because…well, it shows who the boss is.
McConnell’s spokesman, David Popp, said they won’t be accepted until the Senate has sent the House managers a formal invitation to bring them over.
That’ll show them.
Tweet o’ the day.
Peolsi should just refuse to submit the articles to the Senate at this time.
More sets of Parnas documents now available.
From there:
WaPo:
Trump allies decry Pelosi’s handing out pens used to sign articles
There is nothing these hypocrites won’t take (faux) offense at.
TPM has a bit more about the new Parnas documents: “House Dems Release New Tranche Of Evidence From Giuliani Pal Lev Parnas.”
Several haven’t yet been translated, but I think Josh Kovensky at TPM is a Russian speaker.
Adam Schiff is reading the articles of impeachment in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the General Accounting Office has found that withholding the congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine violated the law.
WaPo:
Trump administration moves to protect prayer in public schools and federal funds for religious organizations
By Moriah Balingit
Jan. 16, 2020
More at the link, including a scary photo of Trump praying with the Bible thumpers.
SC @404, Pompeo is so screwed.
“Video of Martha McSally’s exchange with @mkraju when asked about considering new evidence in the Senate impeachment trial.”
Video clip atl. What the hell?
I think I remember some scenes from her losing campaign against Sinema that convinced me she wasn’t just a political asshole but an asshole in general.
Chief Justice Roberts was just sworn in to preside over the impeachment trial. The Senators are being sworn in now.
Lynna @ #409, you are so right.
Here are a few YT clips from Maddow’s interview with Parnas last night:
“Lev Parnas: ‘President Trump Knew Exactly What Was Going On’.”
“Lev Parnas: ‘Attorney General Barr Was Basically On The Team’.”
“Lev Parnas: Pence Tasked With Getting Ukraine To Announce Joe Biden Probe.”
Parnas also firmly implicated Nunes, who went on Fox last night to lie unconvincingly to try to downplay his contacts with Parnas, and also Nunes’ staffer Derek Harvey.
Believe it or not, she has more tonight.
Almost no Senators are left-handed. I missed the ones who went at the beginning, but the only ones I saw were Paul, Smith, and Young.
The Senate is now adjourned until Tuesday (Monday is the Martin Luther King holiday). The trial will begin that afternoon.
Manu Raju: “Sen. Martha McSally, a Republican facing a difficult election race, lashed out when I asked if she would consider new evidence as part of the Senate trial. ‘You’re a liberal hack – I’m not talking to you. You’re a liberal hack’. She then walked into a hearing room.”
Video @ #410. (She then proceeded to double down like the asshole she is.)
TPM – “Ukraine Announces Criminal Investigation Into Surveillance Of Marie Yovanovitch”:
FWIW, Parnas told Maddow that he’s never seen Hyde not drunk, and didn’t believe he was really surveilling Yovanovitch.
As far as I know, the State Department still hasn’t said a peep about it.
Politico – “Intel agencies push to close threats hearing after Trump outburst”:
Neal Katyal: “Want to highlight something @kateashaw1 noticed in GAO opinion. It doesn’t just conclude White House broke law w Ukraine aid (mirroring Article 1). Also says was obstruction of the investigation (Article 2)&raises profound constitutional worries. That obstruction still continuing.”
Highlighted portion atl.
Update to #417: “Amid growing doubts about public intelligence hearing next month, @RepAdamSchiff sends letter inviting the @ODNIgov and other intel chiefs to testify.”
WHY NOT?! The Orange Toddler-Tyrant is irrefutably wrong and should be called out for it. Fear of calling Dear Leader wrong is what allowed Hitler to bring the world to the brink of destruction.
Sen. Van Hollen: “When I met with President Sisi last summer, I asked him to release Mustafa Kassem. When he refused, I worked with @SenatorLeahy to hold the regime accountable for unlawfully detaining and torturing Americans. Trump needs to implement our sanctions and stop embracing dictators.”
Letter to Trump atl. He won’t, because he’s a weakling.
Tweet o’ the day.
SC @397, I too am disgusted by that Bernie Bro behavior. Also, I wonder how much of it is coming directly from Bernie’s supporters, and how much of it is amplification by Russian bots and trolls.
I am disturbed in general by any kind of cult-like behavior attached to any political candidate. It’s a bad sign. It should be stopped, disavowed. Whatever it takes. This is not right.
LOL.
Oh, Susan Collins, please stop being a doofus. Please stop being an obvious dunderhead.
WTF? Why didn’t Collins know this? And, after she was informed, why did she revert to a stupid Republican talking point? Collins is looking for, desperately seeking, an excuse to stick with Mitch McConnell … and with Trump. She seems to have no ethical core at all.
More from Steve Benen:
Link
Matt Lee, AP: “It is without precedent (in my 20 years of doing this) and profoundly disappointing and disturbing that the @StateDept has been unable to come up with any kind of public response to alleged threats against a #US ambassador.”
From another angle on the Maddow interview of Lev Parnas: “Parnas Alleges White House Deal To Free Ukrainian Mobster In Exchange For Trump Legal Help.”
Link
CNN claims they have picked up the conversation during the ‘not-handshake’ between Warren and Sanders.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/15/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-debate-audio/index.html
To be honest, it’s a bullshit “controversy” which makes me feel disappointed by many people involved. There are Sanders supporters who are resorting to sexist attacks (‘snake’ emojis), I’m angry at CNN and all the fucking moderators for creating these types of irrelevant and bullshit fights between Warren and Sanders but I’m also disappointed at Warren and Warren camp for shifting the narrative to stuff like this and allowing Biden to get away with the nomination.
“You: neoliberalism doesn’t exist, you dolt
Today: Paulo Guedes, the Minister of Economy under Bolsonaro, will be introduced by Niall Ferguson at a special Mont [Pelerin] Society meeting. Peter Thiel gives closing remarks Friday.”
Drunken blowhard Robert Hyde is in some deep shit:
https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/1217847786944782337
Yes. Sue the Trump administration until they turn to dust. “Fathers torn from children for months sue Trump admin over family separation policy.”
Link
A former Vermont governor weighs in the argument between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders:
Link
“Purity.” Use of that word is troubling. If true, it points towards more cult-like behavior among some Sanders’ supporters.
Trump is still claiming that he doesn’t know Parnas. We’ve seen this behavior from Trump before. I definitely don’t believe Trump is telling the truth here.
Link
Note the significant amount of repetition in Trump’s disavowal of Parnas. That repetition is a Trump tell. He thinks that if he repeats a lie enough times, it will become true … or that his cult followers will think it is true.
Iran says it’s now enriching uranium at levels higher than before nuclear deal
From Wonkette: “Trump Finally Gets Ukraine To Announce Criminal Investigation, LOL”
More repetition from Trump today. Right after all the Senators were sworn in, Trump tweeted:
Orange Toddler Dude, you are delusional.
Lynna @ #423 and lotharloo @ #428,
Mini-rant warning:
Re the pro-Sanders Twitter mobs: I was planning to ignore this whole episode, but they pushed me to say something. What I’m seeing is looking increasingly like what things looked like in 2016, and there’s no way I’m not going to stay quiet about it for the next 10 months. I saw women relentlessly harassed by these swarms in 2016, with many driven off Twitter. A number of people pointed out at the time that there was something going on, and were ignored or mocked. I didn’t study it scientifically, but when I read through the tweets at the anti-Warren hashtags, I saw a lot of tweets from what looked like established accounts with thousands of followers. There seems to be an increasing number of trollbots (foreign or domestic) in the mix, but the core looked genuine. I think it might be a phenomenon of some very online Sanders supporters being backed and encouraged by pro-Trump forces to ever more extreme positions. But there also could be something about the subculture – a tilt toward a personality cult or an enjoyment of mobbing – that makes it vulnerable to manipulation.
A large number of Sanders supporters have never accepted the existence or potential effect of the 2016 Russian interference campaign, despite the overwhelming evidence, or taken it into account in their tweeting now. It’s extremely irresponsible. I also remember that when the evidence of the Russian sabotage was first coming to light, and women suggested that this could have accounted for much of the harassment (especially since thousands of accounts they’d blocked were later removed), some Sanders supporters responded with outrage – “How dare you suggest we aren’t real people?!” I was like, “People are giving you the benefit of the doubt!”
As Neera Tanden pointed out, they suggested over and over that the attacks on Clinton and her supporters were specific to her and her political positions and history (not that that was acceptable, either!), but Warren is close to Sanders politically and longtime friends with him and it hasn’t stopped the same pattern of misogynistic attacks. Sanders and his campaign have had plenty of time to come to terms with this and try to change it, and I haven’t seen any real attempt to do so. I’m super concerned that it’s starting all over again, and aside from anything else I think Sanders is responsible for acknowledging the problem with his online supporters and nipping it in the bud.
More to follow…
Followup to comment 379.
Oh, FFS.
NY times link
SC @437, “What I’m seeing is looking increasingly like what things looked like in 2016 …”
Exactly. I meant to make that point too. In 2016, I saw that odd behavior, and I saw it increasing. It didn’t seem to make any sense. There were no end of WTF!? moments. No, we should not let it go this time. We should not ignore it.
Ari Melber just started on MSNBC. Josh Marshall will be on. (Josh Kovensky from TPM was on with Chris Hayes last night – I remain incredibly impressed by what a great mentor and champion Marshall seems to be for the journalists who work there.)
re Lynna @433:
“Maybe he got covfeve for me once or something” The Orange Toddler-Tyrant was heard saying (maybe).
Mini-rant, continued:
Re the Sanders-Warren “feud”: I think we all need to come to some sort of basic agreement on the timeline. By which I mean that the Sanders campaign, you know, started it. A non-aggression pact means not only that the candidates won’t attack one another but that their campaigns won’t. (And I’ll point out that Warren’s campaign to the best of my knowledge didn’t go after Sanders when he at 78 had a heart attack on the campaign trail and his campaign was less than forthcoming about it.) I don’t think anyone feared that Sanders himself would openly attack Warren, but that someone less scrupulous like Sirota covertly would. And his campaign was caught (see #s 293 and 396 above) doing just that. Which Sanders could have acknowledged and dealt with, but he instead misled about and brushed aside.
Again, I see this in the context of what happened in 2016 and it’s concerning. Sanders can’t claim to be above personal attacks or aggression while denying, remaining silent about, or tacitly condoning the official actions of his campaign or the large-scale collective behavior of his supporters. So that was the start.
Regarding the disagreement about the alleged comment in the earlier private meeting, I’m pretty meh. I’m also pretty meh on if Warren released it. I think he likely suggested something of the sort, but that’s not that big of a deal. (I go out with my friends who work in business and when they’re pessimistic about women’s prospects I don’t think it’s because of their attitudes towards women. Warren’s characterization of it as concerning their punditry takes struck me as correct.) I also think that when trying to understand whether a comment is prejudiced or not, it’s best to begin by deferring to the people who are the victims of that particular prejudice. This would come into play if they had a complex conversation about the issue and left with different impressions. In any case, rather than defusing the situation by saying that he must have been pointing to Trump’s exploitation of sexism or whatever and there was a misunderstanding, Sanders called the very idea “ludicrous.” I don’t think either of them is lying, but this did imply that Warren, in describing her recollection, was lying. I have zero problem with her calling him out for that, either.
So in my view this is a very minor disagreement between friends and comrades. I don’t see that it has to divide progressives in any major way, whatever the media might be pushing for. But I’m almost glad it’s coming up now (I’m a silver-lining person) because I think it’s bringing some important problems to the surface, and we should air them now. The first one I discussed above. The second has to do with the way many people approach these disputes. I spent weeks if not months several years ago arguing about the Rebecca Watson/Richard Dawkins dispute. So many people were demanding to know why Watson didn’t contact people privately even when they’d criticized her publicly, etc. It finally occurred to me that there’s an expectation that women/feminists are held responsible for privatizing/defusing/de-escalating conflicts. Just in general. It’s not equal, at all. I’m seeing this in especially Ryan Grim’s tweets. Not acceptable.
More to follow…
Mini-rant, last part:
BuzzFeed – “Progressive Groups Are Uniting To Call For A Truce Between Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, And Their Allies”:
I mean, obviously. This is great news and I fully endorse it. However, I don’t think the two issues I raised above should be swept under the carpet. There shouldn’t be a papered-over unity but an honest and accountable unity that’s ready to challenge the Right.
“MSNBC says last night’s episode of @maddow, which featured an interview with Lev Parnas, brought in 4.5 million total viewers, the show’s highest-rated episode ever.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
NYT – “The ‘Immoral’ Killing of the Iranian General”:
Paul Waldman of the WP (who I’m not always in step with) has a rather insightful column on Parnas/Trump.
Trump has drained away our ability to hold him accountable
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
Jan. 16, 2020
Trump’s impeachment team now includes:
Pat Cipollone
Jay Sekulow
Ken Starr
Robert Ray
Alan Dershowitz
re SC @448: I literally laughed out loud when reading that list. But then I remembered that the jury fix is in and The Orange Toddler-Tyrant doesn’t really need a competent defense team.
“Just one of those days when news of the president calling generals ‘losers’ and his DOJ launching a seemingly retaliatory investigation of a political opponent will be lost in the shuffle of the president’s impeachment trial for other offenses.”
“I’m also told former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi will be presenting on the Senate floor as part of POTUS’ defense team along with longtime counsel Jane Raskin per person familiar.”
Here’s an example of what Lynna @ #439 and I are referring to.
Tweet o’ the day.
Re 449
OK, cathartic political vent time:
At this point I’m outraged at the American public’s lack of action over the blatant corruption of the GOP. We can’t wait until November and let Trump and the right further damage our civilization, nor can we trust a gerrymandered and minority-vote-suppressed election to remove these scum from office. If we really gave a damn about progress and freedom, we should be marching upon Washington D.C. and not leave until the entire city is burned to the ground and every Republican’s severed head is stuck on a pike!
OK, I got that out of my system. Carry on.
An analysis of Trump’s trade deals, and of Trump’s tendency to boost trivial gains or adjustments to the hyperbolic heights of wins.
Link
From an NBC News report:
Why did Trump make a big, repetitive, deal out of saying that “no Americans were harmed?”
Trump Screamed At Pentagon Leaders And Told Them They Were ‘Dopes’ And ‘Babies’
TPM link
Lev Parnas says he felt he was asked to sacrifice himself for Trump after he was indicted: “I think they tried to keep me quiet.”
Link
Lynna @ #457, Sen. Leahy was just on MSNBC and said he’s talked in the past with several people who were there and the report in the book is accurate. He said the people in the room were “astonished.”
Followup to comment 458.
From the readers comments:
WaPo:
U.S. judge’s delay may help Trump dodge subpoena for his federal tax returns, House Democrats say
By Spencer S. Hsu
Jan. 17, 2020
Guardian – “Brazil culture secretary fired after paraphrasing Nazi Goebbels”:
Alan Dershowitz is “spectacularly dishonest,” so I guess he belongs on Trump’s legal team.
Link
Fintan O’Toole in the Guardian – “Nul points for Britain in the EU revision bong contest”:
This is how Mitch McConnell’s campaign to approve all of those Trump-appointed judges is working out: “Trump judge lashes out at a transgender litigant in a surprisingly cruel opinion.”
Link
More at the link.
From text quoted by SC in comment 464:
Yep.
“Hyde, in a hard-to-follow video message, says he was ‘in Ecuador cimbing volcanoes’ while texting with Parnas and mentions a garbled name he says was providing him info about Yovanovitch’s supposed whereabouts.
He says he now believes this person was a Democratic plant.”
Video atl. Anthony DaClaoohy/Hallihouie? Works for government departments…? Hyde looks and seems drunk here. The FBI reportedly visited his home and business yesterday, so I imagine they’ll learn with whom he was speaking about Yovanovitch. He could always give the House access to his phone records if he wants Schiff to have them.
Wow. Biden.
David Corn at MoJo re Hyde: “A New Figure in the Ukraine Scandal Worked for a Mysterious Chinese Trump Donor.”
From Wonkette: “Neo-Nazis Arrested Ahead Of Gun Rally Thought They Were Gonna Start A Race War.”
Link
Carole Cadwalladr:
Response atl.
From Wonkette:
Link
More at the link.
From Wonkette: “FBI Takes On Public Enemy Number One: James Comey”
Link
More re #464 – Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk – “Week in Review: The madness over Big Ben’s bongs is a symbol of the horror to come”:
Trump and his misleading maps:
Trump’s prayer event began with an inaccurate 2016 election map and ended with a rage-tweet
Commentary:
Link
More details concerning Trump’s legal team:
Link
Pompeo may still be capable of shame:
Link
McConnell is preparing several options for shielding the Senate’s impeachment-of-Trump trial from public view.
Link
Followup to comments 377 and 386.
From Masha Gessen, writing for The New Yorker:
Trickier than Trump, more subtle than Trump, and willing to start the game four years in advance.
Pompeo, quoted in Lynna’s #477 above: “I suspect that much of what’s been reported will ultimately prove wrong,…”
I’m very annoyed that the media is largely going along with this distortion. What’s “being reported” are the WhatsApp messages from Hyde to Parnas and what’s been learned about Hyde. It’s being investigated. If it turns out Yovanovitch wasn’t really being surveilled, that wouldn’t make the reports wrong.
“Devin Nunes threatens to sue Ted Lieu. Ted Lieu responds and closes with:
‘…or you can take your letter and shove it’.
Ted Lieu is a national treasure.”
Final sentences of the letter:
“I welcome any lawsuit from your client and look forward to taking discovery of Congressman Nunes. Or, you can take your letter and shove it.”
New Parnas messages released by the House.
In these messages with Parnas, Nunes staffer and former NSC staffer Derek Harvey can’t independently come up with a reason US foreign aid to Ukraine increased dramatically after 2015.
“‘Abuse of power, even if proved, is not an impeachable offense’ -Alan Dershowitz” on Ari Melber today. Video atl. The whole interview was rage-inducing.
WaPo:
New documents indicate unidentified individual was tracking Yovanovitch
By Greg Miller
Sen. Wyden:
(I remember reading – I think it was in Jon Krakauer’s Missoula, but I’m not sure – about a guy who was a rapist college student and I believe he was Saudi, and it said something like “And then he returned to Saudi Arabia and so couldn’t be prosecuted,” and I was so struck by it. I’ll have to check; might not be remembering it accurately.)
Update to #467: Anthony de Caluwe!
De Caluwe is the unidentified individual from tomh’s #485.
“I expect this in China or Russia — but at the National Archives in DC? Presenters of an exhibit altered photos of Women’s March to blur signs critical of Trump.”
WaPo link atl.
“!!! Despite a court order, the Justice Department is holding back Special Counsel Mueller memos regarding the interviews conducted with the President’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
CNN and Buzzfeed won access to thousands of pages of Mueller’s witness memos.”
Update – Guardian – “Man found guilty of aggravated assault against Owen Jones”:
NBC – “Texts suggest Robert Hyde passed along details about Yovanovitch movements”:
LOL.
WaPo:
Nunes aide communicated with Parnas about Ukraine campaign, messages show
By Paul Sonne, Rosalind S. Helderman and Greg Miller
Jan. 17, 2020
Can’t wait for Dersh and Ken Starr to defend Trump in his impeachment trial, clearly irony is dead.
This Hyde fellow was once certified, maybe he should still be, but he certainly isn’t credible. Nunes has been caught in so many lies noone can keep count. Giuliani I suspect has some degree of cognitive decline going on, and isn’t quite there all the time anymore. The only two guys actually destroying American democracy on purpose and clear-eyed, are Barr and McConnell. Toss in Pompeo the evangelical dominionist for good measure.
Next on CNN, Chris Cuomo talking to both sides, who will have the better arguments?
Quoted in tomh’s #494:
Once in a while something powerfully reminds me of how horrifying this all is. It’s a nightmare. How could we ever make amends to the people of Ukraine?
CNN – “Trump recounts minute-by-minute details of Soleimani strike to donors at Mar-a-Lago”:
“After [Hyde’s] story started to fall apart (see NBC story) he informed reporters that he would now be represented to the press by Karyn Turk, a pro-Trump online personality and associate of Roger Stone. She was just sentenced to prison for stealing her mom’s social security checks.”
Re #497: Trump would absolutely like to violently attack his domestic critics, opponents, and liabilities in this way. He would have them poisoned or vaporized by a drone or incite some deranged followers to shoot them, and Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt would wrote a piece about how it was so Trump to avoid confrontation like that.
“Victoria Toensing called the very hackish Ambassador to Germany, Rick Grenell, and asked him to give her the heads up if Firtash was going to be extradited from [checks map, 20th Century European history book] Austria.”