As a Nightmare Begins, Another May Be Winding Down

The one in Texas is just beginning. They still have days to go before the end of Harvey leaves their state a hellscape. Fortunately, Robert Mueller is still on the job and end of Trump's presidency is coming. I'm optimistic anyway. Good article by Digby. There's just too much good stuff to single any out. I love this quote from Steve Schmidt:

We worked on two presidential campaigns at high levels and there weren’t any Russians around. I don’t think there were Russians around the Obama campaign or the Kerry campaign either.

This campaign had Russians all over the place!

This was a link from the Digby piece to a Politico article showing Trump continuing to work at winning friends and influencing Senators. 

President Donald Trump privately vented his frustration over Russia-related matters with at least two other Republican senators this month, according to people familiar with the conversations — in addition to the president's public admonishments of Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Jeff Flake.

And this was in today's paper. 

President Trump's campaign-season flattery of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a head scratcher at the time, makes a bit more sense after The Washington Post reported Sunday night that Trump's company was working on a deal to build a skyscraper in Moscow.

The Post's Carol D. Leonnig, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman reported that “as part of the discussions, a Russian-born real estate developer urged Trump to come to Moscow to tout the proposal and suggested that he could get President Vladimir Putin to say 'great things' about Trump, according to several people who have been briefed on his correspondence.”

Oh yes, and Trump had a lot of very nice things to say about Putin, too.

Jimmy Carter V. Lester Maddox

I shared this with my congresswoman.

I know Elise has a very low opinion of Barack Obama as president. Four on a scale of 1 to 10? Really? I can only assume she has at least an equally low opinion of Jimmy Carter. BTW, real historians, like Douglas Brinkley who wrote the article, give Obama 12th place overall among presidents. Sounds better than 4 out of 10. Read about how a courageous man faces down racism in 1971 and doesn't kowtow to bigots.

Thought I'd put it up here, too.

Of all the many slimy things Donald Trump has done, his coddling of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke ranks among the most vile and degenerate.

Gonna read it now, aren't you?

Sharing

I shared this with my congresswoman. Might as well share it with the rest of the class blog  as well.

Richard Cohen says it's too late to disavow Trump. Too bad if that's true, congresswoman. Eventually, I believe anyway, you're going to have to face up to what you supported for president. Good luck with that.

Oh wait, that was me concern trolling my rep. 

The useful idiots are falling by the wayside. First came a few corporate big shots, and then some more, and then many, many more. Princes of Wall Street, richer and more important than any chief executive, also left, and then Julius Krein, a conservative intellectual and digital pamphleteer, retracted his support of President Trump in a New York Times op-ed and inevitably was hailed as a political Rip Van Winkle who had just woken up. He and the others slept too long.

They have done their damage. Trump is in the White House, fulminating on Twitter, messing up foreign policy, mistaking critics for enemies, refusing to immediately and unequivocally condemn neo-Nazis, racists and other assorted goons — and, in general, failing to provide the nation with a scintilla of moral leadership. This will last until it can’t any longer. There is only so much chaos a nation can stand.

Yes, that's Cohen's concern trolling. 

What's a Russian Bot?

So, I've seen them mentioned lately and hadn't really got around to finding out. One of several reasons to link to this story. And may I say "link to this story" makes a great place to put the link. Oh yeah, Russian bots.

“The president doesn’t know whether it’s a Russian bot or not,” said Clint Watt, a former FBI agent and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, using the term for a fake Twitter account pretending to represent a real person and created to influence public opinion or promote a particular agenda. 

Of course the president doesn't know. Sadly, he knows even less than I do. What else is in this story? Nicole Mincey. Well, sort of, since she doesn't exist. At least not in the persona Trump knows her. 

On Saturday, President Trump tweeted his gratitude to a social-media super-fan, ­Nicole Mincey, magnifying her praise of him to his 35 million followers. 

Here’s the problem: There is no evidence the Twitter feed belongs to someone named Nicole Mincey. And the account, according to experts, bears a lot of signs of a Russia-backed disinformation campaign.

…

(H)e may have become Exhibit A of the foreign government’s influence by elevating a suspected Russia-connected ­social-media user — part a sophisticated campaign to exacerbate disputes in U.S. politics and gain the attention of the most powerful tweeter in the world.

It's gonna be a miracle if we survive the next 3 and a half years.

“As a Republican, it raises questions for some on the right who obviously have a difference of opinion on someone like Gen. McMaster, but the reality is there is a foreign power here trying to push an agenda,” said Jamie Fly, a former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) who helped create the Hamilton 68 project, which tracks the influence of Russian-backed propaganda online.

Researchers say the fake accounts sometimes disseminate content from well-known Russian-backed sources, including Sputnik and RT. The content is then picked up by U.S. conservatives. Or the fake accounts might amplify content created by far-right media outlets known for misinformation, including Gateway Pundit and Infowars.

Fly said Trump’s liberal use of Twitter has only increased the return on investment for a foreign power such as Russia seeking to sow division within the U.S. political system. Accounts can use Trump’s low bar for retweets to their advantage by creating large volumes of content in the hope that he might be drawn to some of it.

Putin hit the jackpot!

Religion is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

And here I'd thought it was patriotism.

President Trump sought comfort in the figurative embrace of his evangelical supporters Thursday as the FBI director he recently fired told Congress about their conversations. The president told a religious gathering that “we’re under siege” but will emerge “bigger and better and stronger than ever.”

Could that be any funnier? Bible dudes, he's not one of you. He's one of those false prophets Jesus talked about. 

Blind Eye to Some Terror

Philip Bump on the difference in Trump response times to various acts of terror.

Critics of the president were quick to note how long it took Trump to get around to any mention of the Portland attacks, and from his secondary Twitter account. Compared with violent incidents that were a function of Islamic terrorism, the demure @POTUS tweet was remarkably late.

And Jen Rubin, bless her heart:

Meanwhile — and it pains me to write this — our president acted like a clod, a heartless and dull-witted thug in sending out a series of tweets. He — commander in chief and leader of the Free World — first retweeted an unverified, unofficial Drudge headline about the unfolding terrorist attack. Then he aimed to bolster his Muslim travel ban (which is not supposed to be a Muslim travel ban). “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough,” he tweeted. “We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!” (Aside from the inappropriateness of President Trump’s tweet, he fails to grasp that the courts in these cases are reaffirming our rights against an overreaching, discriminatory edict.)

I have no doubt that it does cause her pain to write it. To experience her agony in full, go read the whole column.

Trump Never Got Returns Like This

Who knew a little hacking and spreading of bullshit among the websites catering to troglodytes would reap such a dividend?

Comey’s firing on Tuesday triggered a new wave of ­Russia-related turbulence.

His removal was perceived as a blow to the independence of the bureau’s ongoing investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Current and former U.S. officials said that even if that probe remains on track, Comey’s ouster serves broader Russian interests.

“They feel pretty good overall because that’s a further sign that our political system is in a real crisis,” said Eugene Rumer, a former State Department official who served as the top intelligence officer on Russia issues from 2010 to 2014. “The firing of Comey only aggravates this crisis. It’s now certain to be more protracted and more painful, and that’s okay with them.”

And leftist James Clapper:

“The Russians have to be celebrating the success of . . . what they set out do with rather minimal resource expenditure,” Clapper said. “The first objective was to sow discord and dissension, which they certainly did.”

Clapper went further in interviews on Sunday, saying that U.S. institutions are “under assault” from Trump and that Russia must see the firing of Comey as “another victory on the scoreboard for them.”

Synopsis of Trump's Incredible Week

In a plea for Rod Rosenstein to save himself, as if he hadn't abandoned all hope upon entrance to Trump's Chamber of Horrors.

●The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, hiding among the bushes on the White House north lawn and demanding that journalists turn off their camera lights before he would speak to them about the Comey affair.

●Comey learning that he had been fired when he saw it on TV on a West Coast swing; he thought it was a prank.

●The White House offering a profusion of conflicting accounts about Comey’s dismissal, culminating in Trump contradicting his own aides by saying he would have fired Comey even if Rosenstein hadn’t written that preposterous memo citing the Clinton email case.

●The White House blocking American reporters and photographers from covering Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov but admitting a photographer from the Russian state news agency Tass, which published photos of the meeting.

●The president going on Twitter to attack, again, a Democratic senator for mischaracterizing his military service years ago and to renew his long-standing feud with Rosie O’Donnell.

●The very same president registering the approval of just 36 percent of the country in a new Quinnipiac University poll. When Americans were asked to volunteer a word that comes to mind when they think of Trump, the top answer was “idiot.”

But the most surreal happening this week was none of the above. It was the Wall Street Journal’s report that Rosenstein “pressed White House counsel Don McGahn to correct what he felt was an inaccurate White House depiction of the events surrounding FBI Director James Comey’s firing.” The Journal reported that “Rosenstein left the impression that he couldn’t work in an environment where facts weren’t accurately reported.”

Yes, Rosenstein values truth above all else, even justice and the American way. Better update that old resume. 

Picture 1000 Words Etc.

Thank God for the Russian media. 

The pictures from the Oval Office on Wednesday — published by a Tass photographer, as no U.S. media were present — are jolly and good-humored. President Trump, who fired his FBI director a day earlier, is grinning for the cameras and shaking hands with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. They, too, smile and laugh, relishing the many ironies of the moment.

Have a close look at those happy faces; keep the images in your head. Then turn your attention just for a moment to the story of Ildar Dadin, an unusually brave young Russian. Dadin was arrested in Moscow in 2015, one of the first to fall victim to a harsh new Russian law against dissent. His crime was to have protested peacefully and repeatedly, mostly by standing silently in the street with a sign around his neck.

Sometimes it concerns me that a real billionaire owns the Washington Post. So far, I love what he's doing with it more than what the fake one in the White House is doing with his new acquisition. 

Carter Library Busts on Trump

Is this the greatest?

Amid Trump’s struggles, even the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library felt emboldened this week. On Monday, the library posted a tweet noting the laws and executive orders President Carter had signed in his first 100 days, before ending with the most devastating statistic of all — Carter’s approval rating of 63 percent. 

Trump, the least-popular new president in modern times, has an average approval rating currently hovering in the low 40s. 

Can you say Trump malaise? Or for our Spanish friends just say Trump mal. 

Greatest Weasel Word Tweet of All Time

Congratulations Donald.

"Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall."

I don't believe you can make it much clearer than that. 

Mexican Standoff Trump-Style

I can't help but think of the Blazing Saddles scene where Sheriff Bart does the standoff with the gun pointed at his own head.

President Trump is pushing Congress toward another dramatic showdown over the Affordable Care Act, despite big outstanding obstacles to a beleaguered revision plan and a high-stakes deadline next week to keep the government running.

And if there's a government shutdown it comes on his 100th day in office. Well, can't say he didn't accomplish anything. 

“The plan gets better and better and better, and it’s gotten really good, and a lot of people are liking it a lot,” Trump said at a news conference Thursday. “We have a good chance of getting it soon. I’d like to say next week, but we will get it.”

I'm not sure this gibberish is even funny anymore especially after reading Charles Pierce today. Not that what he's saying hasn't been at least in the back of our minds. And 96% of his voters are still happy with that choice. 

The confirmation of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court — after Republican senators used a rule change to muscle the nomination through — remains Trump’s sole major accomplishment on Capitol Hill as the 100-day mark nears.

The only "accomplishment" Trump can point to was only achieved by ratfucking President Obama and Merritt Garland. Impressive! Big league!

Sally Yates For Independent Counsel

Yeah, the title says it all.

Somewhere out there is the independent counsel that we need to get to the bottom of this murk and mire. I hear Sally Yates might be looking for work.

Now More Catherine Rampell

I linked to this column in the last post, but it was already filling up the internet.

The ratings and analytics firm S&P Global has ballparked the number of people who would lose their insurance at 6 million to 10 million; others have offered figures as high as 15 million and 20 million. Meanwhile, a group of health researchers calculated that the bill would increase costs for enrollees on the individual insurance market by, on average, more than $1,500 per year when it would take effect, and by more than $2,400 per year by 2020.

Oh, and the Medicare trust fund would be exhausted by 2024, according to Brookings Institution researchers.

For those keeping score, that means fewer people would have insurance, those who get insurance on the exchanges would pay a higher price for it and Medicare's solvency would be jeopardized as a bonus.

Yes, I liked that info so much I'm putting it up twice. I was going to look up this bit of hyperbole utter bullshit today. Thanks Ms. Rampell. 

"lower costs, expand choices, increase competition and ensure health-care access for all Americans."

Why would I want to look that up? This WP editorial today brought it to mind.

No one can accuse Donald Trump of campaigning in poetry. But after just one week in the White House, the new president is bumping up against the hard reality of governing in prose.

Many of the sweeping actions President Trump vowed this week through his executive orders and proclamations are unlikely to happen, either because they are impractical, opposed by Congress and members of his Cabinet, or full of legal holes.

The reality — that yawning gap between what Trump says he will do and what he can do — underscores his chaotic start, which includes executive actions drafted by close aides rather than experts and without input from the agencies tasked with implementing those actions. 

Sad.

Feeling Safer Already

Pretty sure that Great Wall of Trump isn't going to protect us from everything the Coast Guard, TSA and FEMA were going to.

Overall, the Department of Homeland Security would get a 6 percent boost to its budget, to $43.8 billion, according to documents obtained by reporters. But the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is reportedly seeking significant cuts to the budgets of the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees the national response to disasters. 

Here's someone not feeling safer.

"It is ignorant of what constitutes national security," said retired Adm. James Loy, a former Coast Guard commandant who served as deputy Homeland Security secretary and TSA administrator under former-President George W. Bush, to Politico. "They simply don’t understand the equation."

And someone who backed an idiot for president who doesn't like it either.

"[A]s preparations are made for a wall on the Southwest border, migrants, smugglers and potential terrorists will look to America’s shores and waterways for entry," writes Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) of California, one of Trump's earliest backers, in an opinion piece for Fox News. "Absent a strong Coast Guard, America will be less safe and President Trump’s ambition to fully reconstitute the military and enhance security will go unmet."

Have we all forgotten that Mexico is going to pay for it?

It's Just Another Manic Monday

Here's an article that nicely explains how hard it is to get a wiretap. How hard is it? Pretty fuckin' hard!

"Both criminal and foreign intelligence wiretaps have onerous and strict processes of approval that require not only multiple levels of internal Justice Department review, but also require court review and approval," said Matthew Waxman, an expert on national security law at Columbia University.

And a nice column by E.J. Dionne. 

This saga also reminds us that a crowd claiming to place "America First" does not really believe its own slogan. They place only about half of America first, the part that opposed Obama and supported Trump. When it comes to the other half, they feel only contempt.

This is why Russian interference in our democracy appears to matter far less to Trump than saving his own skin. It's also why he could compare Obama unfavorably to a foreign autocrat during the 2016 campaign.

And Margaret Sullivan pointing out that it has gone from first we kill all the lawyers to first we kill all the journalists. Here she is on Trump and his idol Vlad. 

Trump’s admiration for Putin becomes even more troubling when paired with his own moves to stamp out independent journalism through disparagement, denial of access, favoritism and blacklisting.

“For Putin, there has been no greater obsession in controlling the culture than in controlling the media,” Simon said.

For America under Trump, that’s a cautionary tale.

Josh Marshall provides a laugh from Kellyanne:

Conway was asked during an appearance on "Fox and Friends" how Trump knew that his phones had been tapped by President Barack Obama. Trump made the explosive, unsubstantiated claim in a series of tweets Saturday.

"Let me answer that globally," she said. "He is the President of the United States. He has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not. And that's the way it should be for Presidents."

I'm proud to announce that the blog has received our certification as a member of the Deep State. The privilege is the honor. 

Rough Draft Letter

     I’d like to respond to Rep. Stefanik’s assessment of the president’s address to Congress as unifying and optimistic. I realize she belongs to his party and has to say nice things, besides, she doesn’t want to be a Twitter target. I’ll agree it was more upbeat than the carnage speech at the inauguration.

     I’d be interested to know what she found unifying, though. At the beginning, he devoted 51 words to the threats to JCC’s, vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and the murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Kansas. The president did not mention his name. I’m sure it’s difficult to pronounce. Being president of everyone in this country obliges him to make the effort.

     At his recent press conference he was asked about recent anti-Semitism. He was dismissive of the Jewish reporter and ordered him to sit down. Later he suggested the acts were done by his political opponents. The afternoon of  the address he suggested to Pennsylvania’s AG that the attacks may be perpetuated by Jewish people to make “others look bad.”

     Numerous studies show immigrants, legal or illegal, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. Despite that, Trump is calling for a new agency at DHS to collect data on crimes by undocumented immigrants. Immigrants are more apt to be victims. Address problems that actually exist and the money to the CDC to study gun deaths.
Final Draft

     I'd like to respond to Rep. Stefanik's assessment of the president's address to Congress as unifying and optimistic. I realize he's the leader of her party and she has to say nice things. That, and she doesn't want to become a Twitter target. I will agree it was more upbeat than the carnage speech at the inauguration.

     I'd be interested to know what she found unifying. At the beginning, he devoted all of 51 words to the threats to Jewish community centers, desecration of Jewish cemeteries and the murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Kansas. The president did not mention his name. I realize it's difficult to pronounce. Being president of everyone in this country obliges him to make the effort. At his recent press conference he was asked about the rise in anti-Semitism. He was dismissive of the Jewish reporter who inquired and ordered him to sit down. To another questioner, he suggested the acts were carried out by his political opponents. The afternoon of his address, speaking to the Pennsylvania attorney general, he put forth the notion the attacks might be the actions of Jewish people in a "false flag" operation.

     Numerous studies show immigrants, legal or illegal, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. Despite that, Mr. Trump is calling for a new agency, VOICE, at DHS to collect data on crimes by undocumented immigrants when they are actually more apt to be victims. They don't need scapegoating from the president.

     Looking at where things stand on ACA and tax reform, I wouldn't say Mr. Trump is even unifying Republicans. Outside of them, I believe many are coalescing around the idea that four years of this presidency is not a viable proposition.

All of Moscow's Men

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

Two days after the presidential election, a Russian official speaking to a reporter in Moscow offered a surprising acknowledgment: The Kremlin had been in contact with Donald Trump’s campaign.

The claim, coming amid allegations that Russia had interfered with the election, was met with an immediate no-wiggle-room, blanket denial from Trump’s spokeswoman. “It never happened,” Hope Hicks told the Associated Press at the time. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”

In fact, it is now clear it did happen.

Never say never. I mean unless it never happened. And is this guy visiting Russia on a tour with Moscow Jill. 

In early June, a little-known adviser to Donald Trump stunned a gathering of high-powered Washington foreign policy experts meeting with the visiting prime minister of India, going off topic with effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.

The adviser, Carter Page, hailed Putin as stronger and more reliable than President Obama, according to three people who were present at the closed-door meeting at Blair House — and then touted the positive effect a Trump presidency would have on U.S.-Russia relations.

A month later, Page dumbfounded foreign policy experts again by giving another speech harshly critical of U.S. policy — this time in Moscow.

Jesus, I can see why Obama was tapping his phones. 

And Elise Swoons

I am so glad that my congresswoman is going to continue to cling tightly to the Trump coattails. That should make it so much easier to kick her out of office in 2018. She prefers to spend her time in Washington anyway.

Stefanik, R-Willsboro, said she felt the president’s speech overall was excellent, and was directed not just to Congress, but to all Americans.

“It was very unifying and optimistic and stressed the importance of bipartisanship,” she said.

What'd I Say (TM Repsac):

There's so much that could be said, but I don't want to sit here all through the weekend. Some say Carryn Owens was being honored. I say she was being used by the WH. We'll have to disagree on that. I do want to point out though that any ovation for her and Ryan Owens were not for the benefit of Mr. Trump. And kudos to Bill Owens for pointing out that the WH is using his son as a shield to deflect criticism. 

“It was very unifying and optimistic and stressed the importance of bipartisanship,” she said. 

Optimistic? Next to the "carnage" I guess it was. Unifying? Let's see, he talked about "recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries" a few hours after "Mr Trump broke his silence to repeat an neo-Nazi conspiracy theory that has claimed that the attacks are 'false flags'. " And he finally mentioned the shooting victim in Kansas though not by name. Then there was the unification that VOICE will bring to the nation. 

That follows his recent directive that Homeland Security collect and publish weekly data detailing crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. 

That isn’t data collection, that’s propaganda, and a shameless effort to stoke fear and suspicion of our immigrant neighbors and co-workers. 

Study after study has found that immigrants, with or without legal status, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. But Trump and his handlers have drawn an alternative conclusion, and now they want to shamelessly gin up the evidence. 

I feel the nation coming together already.

And that why I bookmark stuff here. It's so much easier to retrieve it for the PS comments section. 

The Shine is Off the Best Speech Ever

That didn't take long. I can see why the White House wants to crack down on leaks. Some folks are putting a hurt on the Tin God.

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

My, what a tangled web we weave...

The Washington Post contacted all 26 members of the 2016 Senate Armed Services Committee to see whether any lawmakers besides Sessions met with Kislyak in 2016. Of the 20 lawmakers who responded, every senator, including Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), said they did not meet with the Russian ambassador last year. The other lawmakers on the panel did not respond as of Wednesday evening.

“Members of the committee have not been beating a path to Kislyak’s door,” a senior Senate Armed Services Committee staffer said, citing tensions in relations with Moscow. Besides Sessions, the staffer added, “There haven’t been a ton of members who are looking to meet with Kislyak for their committee duties.”

That's probably because they weren't part of the Trump campaign coordinating hacking with the Russians. Oh wait, that hasn't come out yet.