Friday, June 30, 2017

In the Immortal Words of James Comey

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes."


Here's exactly what the co-hosts [Jose Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski] alleged on Friday's "Morning Joe."

"We got a call that, 'Hey, the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys...' And they said, 'If you call the president up, and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story," Scarborough said.

[...]

Scarborough says he has proof of White House threats earlier this year -- he replied to Trump and said "I have texts from your top aides and phone records."

And an NBC News spokesman told CNN that Scarborough kept several executives apprised of the alleged threats "contemporaneously."

[...]

Scarborough and Brzezinski are essentially alleging a form of blackmail.

[...]

[A] White House official suggested to CNN that nothing untoward had occurred. The official told CNN that Scarborough called Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about the Enquirer story before it was published. Kushner, the official said, told Scarborough to call the president. The official denied there was ever any offer from Kushner of a quid pro quo -- in other words softer coverage in exchange for spiking the Enquirer story.

[...]

What's definitely true is this: Trump and the publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, are friends and allies.

[...]

The Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, frequently promotes the president's agenda.

[...]

And the Enquirer did publish a negative story about Scarborough and Brzezinski back in early June.

[...]

Scarborough and Brzezinski are now engaged. The negative article was about their past marriages and the beginning of their relationship.

[...]

The president himself weighed in via Twitter a few minutes later. He said he heard what Scarborough said on "Morning Joe," but claimed that it's untrue: "He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show."

Scarborough responded quickly to Trump's tweet with one of his own, writing, "Yet another lie. I have texts from your top aides and phone records. Also, those records show I haven't spoken with you in many months."

  CNN
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.


"Election Integrity Commission" Gets "Hosed"

ht Bradd Jaffy



Nice one.



Election Integrity Czarina Won't Cooperate With Himself

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will not hand over information to his own commission.

“In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available. … Every state receives the same letter but we’re not asking for it if it’s not publicly available,” Kobach told the Kansas City Star Friday. It was a change in stance from Thursday, the paper reported, when Kobach said Kansas would provide all requested information to the commission.

Kobach added Friday, hedging somewhat: “If the commission decides that they would like to receive Social Security numbers to a secure site in order to remove false positives, then we would have to double check and make sure Kansas law permits.”

  TPM
Is this the most insane administration in the history of the US? I'd be willing to bet on it.
“If Social Security number is not publicly available, and it is not publicly available in most states, then we aren’t requesting it,” he said.

“So why’d you ask for it?” Velshi interjected.

“Well, because, if it is publicly available — if the public can get it — then the commission would like it, too,” Kobach said.
Then let the Commission get it the way anybody else has to.

Also, Commission Chair Mike Pence's state of Indiana essentially told them to fuck off, too.  As did twenty+ other states.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:
Great response from Mississippi's Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman:


Hosed.



UPDATE:  I don't see any fully complying.


Scarborough-Brzezinski Blackmailer

New York Magazine reports it was Jared Kushner.  Presumably at the behest of Trump.
In mid-April, Scarborough texted with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner about the pending Enquirer story. Kushner told Scarborough that he would need to personally apologize to Trump in exchange for getting Enquirer owner David Pecker to stop the story. (A spokesperson for Kushner declined to comment). Scarborough says he refused, and the Enquirer published the story in print on June 5, headlined “Morning Joe Sleazy Cheating Scandal!”

[...]

While the Enquirer denies that Trump encouraged Pecker to investigate the MSNBC hosts, Trump himself has pushed the story publicly. Last August, he tweeted, “Some day, when things calm down, I’ll tell the real story of @JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, @morningmika. Two clowns!”

  NYMag
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Voter Suppression Moving Into High Gear

 Four things happened yesterday that pose a grave danger to voting rights.

[...]

 All four of these actions would be disturbing on their own, but taken together they represent an unprecedented attack on voting rights by the Trump administration and Republican Congress.

[...]

 1. The House Appropriations Committee voted to defund the Election Assistance Commission, the only federal agency that helps states make sure their voting machines aren’t hacked.

[...]

 2. The Department of Justice sent a letter to all 50 states informing them that “we are reviewing voter registration list maintenance procedures in each state covered by the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act]” and asking how they plan to remove voters from the rolls. While this might sound banal, it’s a clear instruction to states from the federal government to start purging the voting rolls.

[...]

 3. The White House commission on election integrity, led by vice chair Kris Kobach, also sent a letter to 50 states asking them to provide sweeping voter data including “the full first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.”

[...]

4. The Trump administration named Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation as a member of the commission, who’s done more than anyone other than Kobach to spread the myth of voter fraud and enact suppressive policies.

[...]

Let’s be clear what’s happening: Republicans have no desire to prevent another hack from Moscow, but they are dead set on limiting voting rights at home.

  The Nation
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:





Now That They Know Who's in the White House

In a stunning move, the House Appropriations Committee today approved an amendment to the massive military spending bill offered by Rep. Barbara Lee (D – CA). The amendment, passed in a voice vote, and would repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

[...]

[The House Republican leadership is] going for a do-over on the amendment, insisting the vote was “out of order” and therefore didn’t really count.

This argument is based on the House Foreign Affairs Committee arguing that they have “sole jurisdiction” over all AUMFs, and that it was therefore impossible for the Appropriations Committee to repeal it, like the vote did.

[...]

The 2001 AUMF authorizes the president to wage war on those directly involved in 9/11, the interpretation of which at this point is that the president can declare wars pretty much at will and this amounts to Congressional authorization for all of them. This AUMF was used to justify the Afghan War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the re-invasion of Iraq after that first war ended, and the invasion of Syria both to fight against ISIS, and potentially to pick a fight with the Syrian government. It was also presented as justification for the 2016 US intervention in Libya, though ironically not the US-led regime change war in Libya, which was itself “justified” by a vaguely worded UN resolution.

  AntiWar
The fate of the provision is uncertain, and there’s more than one way that GOP leadership could strike it. Whatever happens, it represents a new frontier in Congress’ debates about presidential authority to wage war, and Minnesota members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are broadly supportive of the measure.

The language in the amendment, introduced by California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, is straightforward. It repeals the current AUMF, and the authorization would be void 240 days after the amendment is enacted into law.

[...]

There are important holdouts who could exercise their power to kill the amendment. Rep. Kay Granger, a Texas Republican, chairs the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, and she opposes it on the grounds that it would cripple U.S. efforts to combat terrorism.

The House Rules Committee could strike the amendment before the defense spending bill gets to the floor for a vote by deeming it “out of order,” if the GOP majority, which wields the rules panel’s power, decides to.

[...]

If the language does make it to the House floor, a lawmaker could file an amendment to strike Lee’s amendment, and members could vote in favor of that, or against the entire spending bill if there was enough support to maintain the current AUMF without any debate.

If the bill does pass with the AUMF language, the Senate would need to agree to it, too — another potential way it could fail, though bipartisan support exists in the upper chamber for a new AUMF. President Donald Trump could also veto the bill on those grounds, though the stakes would be high, since the amendment is attached to legislation that funds the entire U.S. military and Department of Defense.

[...]

Historically, the enthusiasm for a new AUMF or a declaration of war has been with anti-war progressives and constitutional conservatives, both wary of executive overreach. But recently, as U.S. targets have shifted to include ISIS and now the Syrian military, more voices on both sides have expressed a desire for at least a debate on a new set of parameters for U.S. military action.

[...]

Rep. Betty McCollum, who sits on this committee, said in a statement that she supported it “because it is long past time for Congress to have a debate on this critical issue. After 16 years, we owe it to the men and women serving in the military, and to all Americans, to have a full and complete discussion and a floor vote on a new authorization.”

[...]

Rep. Keith Ellison was more cynical. In a statement, he ventured that Republicans might be allowing the debate now because “they’re finally coming to terms with the fact that their president is an immature, disinterested, petulant child… even the most ideological among the GOP realize that giving a man like that the authority to make war when and where he pleases without congressional oversight is a bad idea.”

  MinnPost
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Open Tweet from Eric Holder to DOJ/FBI


I wonder why he felt the need to say that now.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is raising questions about possible conflicts of interest with acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Grassley released a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in which he raised concerns about McCabe’s independence.

[...]

Grassley noted that the Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether McCabe should have recused himself from the Hillary Clinton email probe, since McCabe’s wife got donations from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton ally, when she ran for a Virginia state Senate seat.

[...]

President Donald Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow also addressed the issue in a series of Tweets on Thursday, concluding: “The conflicts of interest are clear and the American people should not tolerate this.”

  Politico
Not clear to me what's going on here, but if Sleazy Trump's sleazy lawyer is complaining about somebody else's conflicts of interest, I'd be prone to take a very skeptical stance on the subject.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Grand Old Party of Misogynists

When President George W. Bush took office, he quickly and quietly disbanded President Bill Clinton’s Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach — and now President Donald Trump appears to be doing the same thing to President Barack Obama’s White House Council on Women and Girls.

The council, created by Obama in 2009 to monitor the impact of policy changes and liaise with women's groups has been defunct while the Trump administration evaluates whether to keep it, according to three senior White House officials.

“We want the input of the various agencies to understand the assets they have so that we make this office additive, not redundant,” said White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

  Politico
Is that like the redundency of SNAP (food stamps) since there are churches that can take care of the poor in this country?
Initially, it seemed Trump might keep the office. Senior counselor Kellyanne Conway said in February that she expected to oversee it. In April, Hicks said that Ivanka Trump and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell were undertaking an internal review of how to handle the range of issues handled by the office — from health care to pay — and expected to be done by May, but by the third week of June, the status of the office was still in question, with one senior administration official suggesting that it hadn’t been that effective.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Plot Sickens

Trump working with the National Enquirer for hit pieces on "opponents".

Click the pic for the video.


Of course, the Trump people are denying this.  I don't doubt Joe and Mika are telling the truth, but may I ask why they didn't publicize this incident when it was happening?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:
   

Absolutely.

FURTHER UPDATE:

NY Mag says it was Jared Kushner.

FURTHER UPDATE:

Better and better.

Ana Navarro Lays It Out

Kentucky, Virginia, I'm Pleasantly Surprised

Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state, on Thursday evening said she would not comply with a data request from President Donald Trump’s “election integrity” commission, making Kentucky the third state to reject the request.

[...]

“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that ‘voter fraud’ is a widespread issue — it is not. Indeed, despite bipartisan objections and a lack of authority, the President has repeatedly spread the lie that three to five million illegal votes were cast in the last election,” Grimes said in the statement. “Kentucky will not aid a commotion that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.”

  TPM
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Thursday said he has “no intention” of cooperating with President Donald Trump’s sketchy commission to investigate alleged voter fraud.

“I have no intention of honoring this request,” McAuliffe said in a release.

  TPM
California - I'm not surprised. Kudos, though.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla [...] on Thursday refused to send any information from the state’s voter rolls to the dubious “election integrity” commission convened by the Trump administration.

  TPM
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:






Your Lyin' President: Despicable Donnie






The Trump definition of "a long time":  one day.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Excerpt from Scarborough and Brzezinski op-ed refuting Trump's Twitter claims.
Mr. Trump claims that we asked to join him at Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row. That is false. He also claimed that he refused to see us. That is laughable.

[...]

And though it is no one’s business, the president’s petulant personal attack against yet another woman’s looks compels us to report that Mika has never had a face-lift.

[...]

The president’s unhealthy obsession with our show has been in the public record for months, and we are seldom surprised by his posting nasty tweets about us. During the campaign, the Republican nominee called Mika “neurotic” and promised to attack us personally after the campaign ended. This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. We ignored their desperate pleas.

[...]

The president’s unhealthy obsession with “Morning Joe” does not serve the best interests of either his mental state or the country he runs. Despite his constant claims that he no longer watches the show, the president’s closest advisers tell us otherwise.

  WaPo
It's pretty obvious that he does.

FURTHER UPDATE:

The New York Magazine has information reportedly from "three sources familiar with the private conversations" Scarborough had with "White House Staff" on this issue. Blame it on Jared Kushner.

Not Just Crass, Petty and Viscious

He's also a buffoon.
“Today, I’m proudly announcing six brand new initiatives to propel this new era of American energy dominance,” Trump told employees at the Department of Energy on Thursday.

Among those initiatives, Trump said, is his administration’s approval of the construction of a new pipeline to the United States’ southern neighbor, “which will further boost American energy exports,” Trump said.

“And that’ll go right under the wall, right? It’s going under. Right? Have it go down a little deeper in that one section, you know, a little like this. Right under the wall,” he continued, as the audience laughed.

[...]

After Trump finished speaking, the State Department announced the approval of three presidential permits. The New Burgos Pipeline ‒ to be built by NuStar Logistics, LP ‒ will deliver up to 108,000 barrels per day of refined petroleum across the US-Mexico border. The State Department also issued new permits for the existing Dos Laredos Pipeline, which crosses the border in Texas near Laredo, and the existing Burgos Pipeline, which crosses from Texas near Peñitas.

  RT



So why's the oil going to Mexico?

Thursday, June 29, 2017

CORRECTION, RETRACTION

In my previous post I said Trump's remarks about someone in New Jersey came out in a Time interview December 12. It was printed online on December 7.

In that case, Peter Smith could, as Laura Rozen says, have gotten the line from Trump, and not the other way around.

I have to retract my conviction that Trump is "guilty as hell" of collusion with Russians to undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections. I'm not going back to my belief that he probably isn't. I'm now at "probably is." Not certainly, but probably.

Regarding Peter Smith

CORRECTION:  After more research, it appears the Time interview was December 7.

Laura Rozen replied to a Peter Smith (deceased) tweet with this:


Or, did Trump, who seems to be prone to repeating what he hears other people say that might be favorable to him, get the line from Smith? I can see that as being more evidence that Trump himself actually was in on the Flynn-Smith efforts to snare Hillary's emails.  During the debates he mentioned the possibility of "someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds" doing the hacking.  But, as far as I can determine, he hadn't said anything about someone in New Jersey until after Smith tweeted the phrase.


Trump used that line about "someone at home in New Jersey" in a Time Magazine interview on December 12.  Smith's tweet is dated December 10.  Looks like circumstantial evidence to me that Trump was following Smith's Twitter account, which seems to indicate he was well aware of who Smith was and what he was doing.

Until this very moment, I would have said Trump probably isn't guilty of being personally involved in Russian hacking of Hillary's emails.  I've changed my mind.  He's guilty as hell.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Henry Kissinger Is Still Alive

Because the Devil's spawn don't die.



Hmmm. I wonder why Kissinger is meeting Putin ahead of Trump next week?

And, by the way, during the campaign, Trump said he didn't know Putin, never met him, so this should be the first time.  Right?
In November 2013, Trump said on MSNBC that he did have "a relationship" with Putin, whom he claimed sent him "a present" when he attended the Miss Universe pageant in 2013, that he "got to know [Putin] very well" when they both appeared -- in separate segments -- on an episode of "60 Minutes" and that they had communicated "directly and indirectly."

Trump later walked back the idea of a relationship with Putin in a 2016 interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

"I have no relationship to -- with him. I have no relationship with him," said Trump, later continuing, "He said something nice about me. This has been going on. We did 60 Minutes together. By the way, not together-together, meaning he was probably shot in Moscow… and I was shot in New York."

  ABC
That same video linked above saying he never met Putin has a clip of him in 2013 saying he spoke with Putin, "Who could not have been nicer."

So which is it? He's met him and knows him well, or he's never met him, doesn't know him? I guess it depends on what day it is.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Addled



Fifty-two minutes apart.

Alzheimer's I get, but can't he see his last tweet?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deconstructing America

This month, the Trump White House nominated [John Huber] to serve as a U.S. attorney in [Utah].

But it came as something of a surprise to current and former Justice Department veterans Wednesday when Huber appeared for a news conference in Washington: not in the halls of Justice, but at the White House podium.

[...]

To some Justice Department insiders, that appearance was a problem, undermining confidence that DOJ and the FBI's law enforcement functions operate independently of the White House.Matthew Miller, the top spokesman for President Obama's first attorney general, said both location and personnel matter.

[...]

Earlier this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took his own turn at the White House podium, relieving press secretary Sean Spicer, to speak out against so-called sanctuary cities, places that limit information-sharing with federal immigration officials.

[...]

During the campaign, [Trump] called for the prosecution of his political opponent, Hillary Clinton. In the White House, he fired FBI Director James Comey and without any evidence, suggested the FBI had illegal wiretapped Trump Tower during last year's campaign.

[...]

"This is another example of the Trump administration blurring the lines between the White House and law enforcement and encroaching on the Justice Department's independence," Miller said. "U.S. attorneys shouldn't be anywhere near the White House podium in any event, and they certainly shouldn't be there weighing in on hot-button issues as part of a White House political strategy. Every time the Trump administration crosses one of these lines, they weaken the rule of law in America."

  NPR
I think that's the point.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Correcting Oft-Quoted Figure Re IC Assessment Re Russia Hacking


More than four?
While many of Mr. Trump’s allies and supporters are still reluctant to blame Russia, the American intelligence community has said that Russian interference is a fact, not an opinion.

  NYT
Are four agencies "the American intelligence community?"

This is a pretty big deal, in my estimation.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wondering Where This Will Go



Flynn Going Down - Proof of Collusion?

Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher [Peter W. Smith] mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

[...]

[Smith] implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails.

[...]

What role, if any, Mr. Flynn may have played in Mr. Smith’s project is unclear.

[...]

In [a] recruiting email seen by the Journal, Jonathan Safron, a law student Mr. Smith described as a close colleague, included links to the websites and LinkedIn profiles of people purportedly working with the Smith team. At the top of the list was the name and website of Flynn Intel.

  WSJ
There will no doubt be a lot of denying going on in the near future.
Mr. Smith died at age 81 on May 14, which was about 10 days after the Journal interviewed him.
That's handy.
In the interview with the Journal, Mr. Smith said he and his colleagues found five groups of hackers who claimed to possess Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails, including two groups he determined were Russians.

[...]

Mr. Smith said in the interview he supported Mr. Flynn’s efforts during the presidential transition to establish relations with Russian officials.

[...]

Mr. Trump on July 27 publicly encouraged Russia to go further and find the Clinton “emails that are missing.” Asked about that on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Mr. Trump was joking.
You decide:



The operation Mr. Smith described is consistent with information that has been examined by U.S. investigators probing Russian interference in the elections.

Those investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence.

It isn’t clear who that intermediary might have been or whether Mr. Smith’s operation was the one allegedly under discussion by the Russian hackers. The reports were compiled during the same period when Mr. Smith’s group was operating, according to the officials.

Mr. Smith said he worked independently and wasn’t part of the Trump campaign.
But Flynn was.
In phone conversations, Mr. Smith told a computer expert he was in direct contact with Mr. Flynn and his son. [...] The expert said that based on his conversations with Mr. Smith, he understood the elder Mr. Flynn to be coordinating with Mr. Smith’s group in his capacity as a Trump campaign adviser.
Flynn must be hot property right now.



Kudos to Tammy Duckworth


Click the picture to hear Sen. Duckworth lay into Steven Bradbury.  Rightly.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"Publicity Without Accountability"





Shameful.

Disgusting Donnie.

Despicable Donnie.

Fake President!

And losing more Republicans the longer he's in the White House.


I think we all know the answer to that.

You know damned well he watches Morning Joe.  This is what set him off:



And he could well be one - a drunk, that is.  People do exist who hide their drinking.

At any rate, he's mean.  Drunk or not.  He's a mean, small-minded pig.  My apologies to swine everywhere.

And his daily tweets and attention hounding are good cover for the Republican agenda, because who can pay attention to anything but the nasty clown?

For instance:

President Trump’s dubious “election integrity” commission is stepping up its activity in a big way ahead of a first meeting scheduled for July: Kris Kobach (R-KS), the vice chair of the commission and architect of many laws making it more difficult to vote, sent letters Thursday to all 50 secretaries of state demanding they turn over all publicly-available data from their voter rolls.

[...]

The commission’s self-described mission focuses heavily on voter fraud, despite the fact that study after study has found that voter fraud is an extremely rare occurrence.

[...]

The information Kobach requested of secretaries of state includes:
The full first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.
  TPM
A president automatically commands airtime; this president, through his Twitter feed, automatically commands attention. But publicity without accountability is the antithesis of democracy. Reporters questioning elected officials serve in this sense as surrogates for the public.

Remember back when Trump and his campaign were busy blasting Hillary Clinton for failing to hold a news conference.

[...]

Trump gets to make his remarks, coddled by Fox News. Then White House press secretary Sean Spicer, with the cameras not rolling, gets to cite them as a shield against providing further information: “I believe that the president’s remarks on ‘Fox & Friends’ this morning reflect the president’s position.”

Is this what our democracy has been reduced to? We in the media can’t make Trump take our questions. But supinely accepting his silence threatens to normalize the distinctly abnormal.

  WaPo
No media access to the president.  No cameras in the press room.   Why?

Dangerous for democracy.




UPDATE 6/30:




Glenn is right. And he could have added, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, and 60 years ago. And WILL continue to be until the day he dies, I have no doubt.

Chaos at State

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s frustrations with the White House have been building for months. Last Friday, they exploded.

The normally laconic Texan unloaded on Johnny DeStefano, the head of the presidential personnel office, for torpedoing proposed nominees to senior State Department posts and for questioning his judgment.

[...]

It was the loudest manifestation yet of how frustrated Tillerson is in his new role. He has complained about White House attempts to push personnel on him; about the president’s tweets; and about the work conditions in a West Wing where he sometimes finds loyalty and competence hard to come by.

  Politico
It really doesn't seem like Tillerson likes his job. I wonder why not.
Tillerson also complained that the White House was leaking damaging information about him to the news media, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Above all, he made clear that he did not want DeStefano’s office to “have any role in staffing” and “expressed frustration that anybody would know better” than he about who should work in his department .

[...]

The episode stunned other White House officials gathered in chief of staff Reince Priebus’ office, leaving them silent as Tillerson raised his voice. In the room with Tillerson and DeStefano were Priebus, top Trump aide Jared Kushner and Margaret Peterlin, the secretary of state’s chief of staff.

[...]

The encounter, described by four people familiar with what happened, was so explosive that Kushner approached Peterlin afterward and told her that Tillerson’s outburst was completely unprofessional.

[...]

“He went into this with a very negative attitude towards the White House,” said a former senior State Department official familiar with his thinking, who recounted that during the transition, Tillerson opposed a candidate proposed by Trump’s team simply on the grounds that Trump’s team was proposing him.

[...]

Many of his proposed nominees have been rejected by DeStefano’s Office of Presidential Personnel either because they are Democrats or because they are Republicans who were critical of Trump during the campaign. Though Brian Hook, the State Department’s director of policy planning, told associates several weeks ago that the department had several people in the pipeline, few have been announced since, and the White House continues to resist Tillerson’s choices.

[...]

Tillerson has also drawn criticism for isolating himself — with the help of Peterlin, his chief of staff — in his office on the State Department’s seventh floor and for excluding many career diplomats from the policymaking process. That has frustrated the White House because even the president’s senior aides have had difficulty reaching him at times.

[...]

Asked about how to lead a large organization during a time of crisis, he told students at his alma mater, the University of Texas, early last year: “You do have to communicate in times like this and you have to be visible.”
He did say "you", not "I".

I wonder if Rex will serve the entire four years.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Speaking of Suing

President Donald Trump’s outside legal team is acknowledging that it pressed pause on stated plans to file a complaint against former FBI director James Comey for allegedly sharing the content of “privileged conversations” with the press.

“The filings will go forward at the appropriate time in the future,” a person with knowledge of the legal team’s plans told TPM on Wednesday.

  TPM
Sure they will. Sure they will.
This month, Trump’s outside legal team has expanded to include Jay Sekulow, an attorney who made his name fighting for conservative Christian causes; John Dowd, a former prosecutor well-known in Washington, D.C. legal circles; and Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the group who has represented big names like former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove.

[...]

The day after Comey’s testimony, Trump’s team publicized plans to file a complaint with the Justice Department about his actions. Legal observers said it was unlikely that Comey sharing unclassified information with the media as a private citizen qualified as leaking.

[...]

As TPM previously reported, [Trump's] outside lawyers kicked the bucket for almost two weeks after initially announcing that they intended to lodge a complaint against Comey, until conceding Wednesday that it actually would not be filed any time in the near future.
Squawking about suing, however, gets press and casts doubt on the veracity of the person they're squawking about suing.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

House Intel Committee: Get Me Roger Stone

Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone is set to appear July 24 before the House Intelligence Committee, which is examining contacts between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign, according to Stone’s attorney.

The hearing will be closed.

[...]

In an email, Stone told POLITICO he wanted to testify specifically to counter Podesta.

“With John Podesta appearing before the committee I do feel it is essential that I have the opportunity to rebut his serial lies,” Stone said in an email. “I may not be able to sue a member of Congress but I sure as hell can sue the f--- out of Podesta. The claim that I had knowledge of the hacking of his email by WikiLeaks in advance is a demonstrable lie.”

  Politico
Those Trump folks are always eager to sue somebody.
Stone, a Republican operative and one of the youngest members of Richard Nixon’s infamous 1972 reelection campaign, [...] talked in March about being in touch with “Guccifer 2.0” — the hacker persona that U.S. intelligence officials say is a Russian front for channeling stolen documents but who Stone insists is not a Moscow asset — and boasted during the campaign about his contact with WikiLeaks.

Stone predicted last summer on Twitter that there would be an October surprise that would disrupt Clinton’s campaign, and he even suggested Podesta would face scandal shortly before the Democrat’s emails started surfacing on WikiLeaks.
Which doesn't mean he knew about the hacking in advance. It just means he's super psychic.

Leaky, Leaky

"Fake News" CNN soldiers on.
As President Donald Trump lashes out at former President Barack Obama for failing to take a harder line against Russia for election meddling, Trump's own advisers are struggling to convince him that Russia still poses a threat, according to multiple senior administration officials.

  CNN
He keeps harping on what Obama didn't do, but Trump hasn't done anything else. Apparently he's going with, 'It was a one time shot. I was elected. They won't do it any more.' Which makes him look guilty of collusion whether he is or not.
Obama retaliated against Russia's interference in the election in January with a package of sanctions that included ejecting 35 Russian diplomats from the US, closing two Russian compounds and sanctioning two Russian intelligence services. While the Trump administration has upheld those measures, it has not taken additional steps.

[...]

The Senate passed a bill to slap Russia with new sanctions for its election interference and the legislation has moved to the House, which would also need to pass it before it goes to Trump's desk. But congressional sources said the Trump administration is hoping to water down the sanctions package.

[...]

[White House press secretary Sean] Spicer noted that Trump has upheld the sanctions the Obama administration put in place against Russia, signed a cybersecurity executive order to consolidate responsibility for protecting the government from hackers and created an election commission.
Much harder than Obama.
In a recent closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers expressed frustration to lawmakers about his inability to convince the President to accept US intelligence that Russia meddled in the election, according to a congressional source familiar with the meeting.

[...]

One intelligence official said the intelligence community continues to brief Trump on Russia's meddling in the election as new information comes to light. The source said the President appears no less engaged on issues surrounding Russian election meddling than on any other matters covered in the presidential daily brief.
Are they not putting his name in enough places?
But the official acknowledged that Trump has vented his frustration with officials outside of the briefings about the amount of attention paid to the investigation into Russian election interference.
His may not be the most transparent administration, but he's surely the most transparent president we've ever had.
The President doesn't differentiate between investigations into Russian election meddling and investigations into potential collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia, according to sources that have spoken to Trump about the issues.
He can't separate them. Any Russia-related investigation is apt to uncover his money laundering and racketeering.
"The United States continues to combat on a regular basis malicious cyber activity, and will continue to do so without bragging to the media or defending itself against unfair media criticism," [White House press secretary Sean] Spicer said in a statement.
I hope Spicer gets to stay on. It's nice to have a comedian in that position for a change.
Former US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, testifying in front of the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday, faulted Obama for failing to take action against Russia more quickly when he was president. But he unleashed his fury at Trump for doing so little to curtail Russian aggression.

[...]

" It's his duty to investigate and defend our country against a cyber offensive because Russia is our most dangerous adversary in the world today," said Burns, a career foreign service officer who has served under presidents of both parties. "And if he continues to refuse to act it's a dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country."
He's covered. Republicans control Congress.
Trump takes questions about Russia personally, sources said, because he sees them as an effort to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.
That's one reason.
"He can't admit anything that may taint his election. He is more hung up on how it affected the election outcome than what Russia did."
That and his continued harping on Hillary Clinton long after he won the election reveal an insecure little man who doesn't truly believe he won the election on his own merits.
Another source close to the President says Trump sees everything regarding Russia as being "organized as a challenge to him."
The only thing we have to understand about Trump is he's a narcissist. Everything is either about him or trivial to the point that there's no need for him to consider it.
In Trump's mind "he had nothing to do with Russia," one source said. "He knows in his own mind there is not one single iota of anything that could implicate him."
It's beyond obvious that's not true. He's afraid of what will be unearthed.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, says he is working with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, on legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to explore what happened in 2016 on the cyber front.

Graham tells CNN their idea is to create a commission made up of all experts -- no politicians.
Inadvertently admitting politicians are not experts.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said earlier this month that he would keep in place a decision to designate election systems as "critical infrastructure."

The designation means that the federal government will put more resources toward protecting election systems and voting machines. They'll get the same treatment as other "critical infrastructure" that is paramount to national security, like dams and the power grid.
I wouldn't be comforted by that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

So Crazy, It Just Might Work



It rings up 450,000 views on YouTube, and you end up on MSNBC twice in a week. Whoopi Goldberg gives you a shout-out on The View. Your phone starts ringing off the hook and the 2018 midterm congressional elections begin right there on your doorstep. Your mustache, and the Twitter handle it spawned—@ironstache—are both judged to be cool by the mysterious unwritten standards of the Intertoobz. Suddenly, the country knows you're an Army veteran who served in Central America during the Reagan years, and that you've already beaten testicular cancer. That's how it works these days if you're Randy Bryce and people say that you're "blowing up" a year and a half before anyone votes for anybody.

[...]

Truth be told, despite its spectacularly fast start, it's a long haul up a dirt road for Bryce's campaign. First of all, a sitting Speaker has lost for re-election only three times in the country's history, most recently in 1994, when Democratic Speaker Tom Foley lost to Republican George Nethercutt. (The other two, Galusha Grow and William Pennington, got beat during the turmoil immediately preceding the Civil War.) Second, Bryce is facing a three-way primary and one of the other candidates, David Yankovich, moved from Ohio to Kenosha specifically to run against Ryan.

[...]

And last, of course, is the fact that Paul Ryan is the coddled child of America's plutocrats and will likely have so much money to spend on his re-election that god will ask him to float a loan.

  Charles P Pierce
We just saw an election where that didn't help.

Good luck, Randy Bryce.

Obamacare Premiums Might Skyrocket!

Charles Gaba—an essential follow for information on all the nooks and crannies of the ACA and the current debate (@charles_gaba)—laid out in detail another cheap trick that the administration is trying to pull. Insurance carriers, explains Gaba, already have been warning that premiums might go up by double-digits next year.  [...]  However, as Gaba also notes, this is due to a couple of factors: First, the administration, through Secretary of HHS Tom (The Wolf of Wall Street) Price, has threatened to not enforce the individual mandate; and second, they have threatened to withhold the ACA's Cost-Saving Reduction Subsidies to the carriers. Gaba then takes us to the very last page of Mitch McConnell's current dead fish, where we learn that, if the dead fish passes, the CSR reimbursements would be reinstated for two years, before disappearing entirely after that.

The cynicism on display here is breathtaking. Republican sabotage makes the premiums go up. Then the Republicans put together a bill that partially repairs the sabotage for long enough that they can boast—during the 2018 midterms, let's say—that they brought down premiums. Then, of course, after the dust clears after the election, the patchwork repairs disappear and everybody gets screwed so that billionaires get their tax cut, which was the whole point of this exercise in the first place. And if, for some reason, the dead fish doesn't pass, they continue to decline to enforce the individual mandate, and they continue to stiff the carriers on the CSR payments. Premiums go up, and the 2018 campaign becomes a referendum on the cost of Democratic obstruction. I have no faith in the ability of the elite political press to see through this obvious charade.

  Charles P Pierce
Time for single payer.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Time for Single Payer

The message needs to be clear and simple.
[W]hy is health care such an “unbelievable complex subject”? If the rest of the industrialized countries can guarantee health care to all their citizens, why can’t the United States?

[...]

[A]ccording to a February 2016 poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “nearly two thirds (64%) of Americans say they have a positive reaction to the term ‘Medicare-for-all,’ and most (57%) say the same about ‘guaranteed universal health coverage.’ Fewer have a positive reaction to ‘single payer health insurance system’ (44%) or ‘socialized medicine’ (38%).”

The words don’t work and, as a result, ignorance abounds.

“About half (53%) of Democrats say they have a very positive reaction to ‘Medicare-for-all’ compared with 21 percent who say the same for ‘single payer health insurance system,’” according to the Kaiser poll. But to be clear: “Medicare-for-all” and “single payer” refer to… the same exact thing.

[...]

Remember the anti-Obamacare town halls in the summer of 2009, where attendees carried placards that read “Keep government out of my Medicare”? An August 2009 poll found that 39% of Americans said they wanted government to “stay out of Medicare” — which is, of course, impossible.

[...]

In San Francisco, a single payer system called “Healthy San Francisco” was launched a decade ago and has had very high approval ratings. How about Sanders, Warren et al push for a federal version called “Healthy America”?

[...]

[The] UK’s National Health Service, the NHS, [...] is more popular with the British public than both the Royal Family and the armed forces. [...]  Not only because “international comparisons show that the NHS outperforms other countries, including the U.S., in terms of quality of care, efficiency, access and equity,” to quote health economist Andrew Street. It has always been clear what the NHS is and what it stands for. There is no need for “individual mandates”; no concept of “pre-existing conditions.” The NHS was founded, the legendary Labour health secretary and proud socialist Aneurin Bevan explained in 1948, on three core principles: that it “meet the needs of everyone,” that it “be free at the point of delivery,” and that it be based on “need, not ability to pay.”

UK governments of both right and left have signed up to these core principles. Almost 70 years after Bevan’s launch of the health service, it was Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron who, referring to the “magic” of the NHS, said: “You don’t have to produce your wallet or your credit card, you get great treatment because it’s a birthright of being British that we have a National Health Service that is free at the point of use and available to all who need it.”

Can you imagine a leading Republican describing free health care as a “birthright” for Americans?

  The Intercept
I cannot.  I cannot imagine a leading Democrat doing it either.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

tRump Goes to France


Can they keep him in the Bastille?

In an iron mask?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Participial Phrase Placement Is Important (Updated)





If we didn't know him as well as we do, this could be confusing:


The Post not paying taxes is fake news? Or the Post itself is fake news?

UPDATE:

That tweet was fake news.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.