And so begins a regular series, "Trump Lie of the Day," understanding "lie" to be a falsehood the individual probably suspects or knows is not accurate. We begin with....
President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office
this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great
pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real
nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New
York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia.
That’s taken off.”
"The World As It Is," a memoir by longtime Obama
adviser Benjamin Rhodes, will be published next week by Random House. New York
Times reporter Peter Baker writes
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama that she
felt more obliged to run for another term because of Mr. Trump’s election to
defend the liberal international order. When they parted for the final time,
Ms. Merkel had a single tear in her eye. “She’s all alone,” Mr. Obama noted.
The good news is that Ms. Merkel, as much as anyone now the
leader of the free world, is no longer all alone. The bad news is that hernation, as well as other allies of the USA, is being targeted by President
Donald J. Trump. The Hill reports
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the U.S. would
levy steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU, Canada and Mexico — a move that puts
an end to the temporary exemptions the three trading allies received after
Trump made the initial tariffs announcement in March.
Trump is using a U.S. law called Section 232 that allows
tariffs to be imposed for national security purposes. Thursday's decision will
lead to tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
“We look forward to continued negotiations with Canada and
Mexico on one hand and with the European Commission on the other hand as there
are other issues we need to get resolved,” Ross said Thursday.
Bloomberg termed it "a move immediately condemned by
America’s closest allies," who are likely to retaliate, whether by imposing import duties upon goods from the USA or continuing to press a case at the
World Trade Organization against against US import restrictions.
The Aluminum Association, which represents most of the
aluminum producers in the United States, said on Thursday that it was
“disappointed” by the announcement. Heidi Brock, the association’s president,
said the move would do little to address the larger issue of overcapacity in
China “while potentially alienating allies and disrupting supply chains that more
than 97 percent of U.S. aluminum industry jobs rely upon."
It's little surprise it doesn't address the problem of
Chica, which has begun to pressure international airlines to identify Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and Macau as part of mainland China rather than as the independent
territories they are. In the manner of
the exquisitely sensitive Donald Trump, Beijing has warned foreign airlines to
respect “territorial integrity and sovereignty, its laws and the feelings of
the Chinese people." Instead, while
China is treated with kid gloves by the American president
The European Union and Canada have objected strongly to the
use of the national security argument, citing their close alliance and defense
agreements with the United States. On Wednesday, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s
foreign minister called the idea that metal imports from her country would
threaten American national security “frankly absurd.”
Of course it is. But the Trump Administration, committed tosaving jobs in China, is less about national security than about punishing our
allies. Trump can do it, so he'll do it.
"This is dumb," GOP senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska explains, "Europe, Canada, and Mexico are not China, and you don't treat allies the same way you treat opponents." First, however, someone has to convince the President that China is an opponent and Mexico, Canada, and the European Union are allies.
It was a disgusting, reprehensible, bigoted tweet by Roseanne Barr.
Of course, I am talking about
Sorry to have tweeted incorrect info about you!I Please forgive me! By the way, George Soros is a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth-were you aware of that? But, we all make mistakes, right Chelsea?
Lest you be appalled at such seemingly tasteless sarcasm, consider that several hours after ABC cancelled Roseanne following the star's vile remark about Valerie Jarrett, the Independent of the UK wrote "Ms Barr’s comments appeared to be a continuation of a
conspiracy theory that has circulated for years. Shortly after Ms Barr’s racist
and antisemitic tweetstorm, ABC announced it would be cancelling her sitcom,
which was one of the highest-rated new shows of the season."
Uh, no. The network made its announcement only after Roseanne Barr made the comment about President Obama's closest adviser and was a response to it. CNN has an informative rundown of the timeline pertaining to Barr's tweets, the response among her colleagues and other individuals, and of the network. The most telling, however, was from ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey: "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show."
Note thesingular "twitter statement," and give ABC credit for the honesty expressed in its specificity.Barr's remark about Jarrett was abhorrent and repugnant, as well as meeting the dictionary definition of "racism" in claiming the inherent racial inferiority of blacks. It is debatable, though, whether it was completely inconsistent with the network's values, given that ABC undoubtedly knew of Barr's history of despicable comments.
Cancellation of the program was blamed on the one tweet also by the Associated Press, which noted "ABC cancelled its reboot of 'Roseanne' on Tuesday following star Roseanne Barr's racist tweet that referred to former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and the 'Planet of the Apes.'"
The campaign against George Soros is is not technically racist, an important factor. But Soros is a much more significant individual than is Jarrett, a state of affairs not lost upon conservatives, though conveniently ignored by the media and disregarded by the American Broadcasting Company.
Interviewed by MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin Tuesday, conservative
radio talk show host and once-weekly MSNBC host Hugh Hewitt defended President
Trump's Memorial Day tweet touting his own (alleged) accomplishments.
"I think it is ordinary and routine," Hewitt contended,
"for almost everyone to tweet about Memorial Day and how he honor the
fallen, but also to tweet about other things."
Given that most Americans don't even tweet, that is
obviously a lie. Inasmuch as Presidents don't extol their own virtues on
Memorial Day, it is appallingly dishonest.
But much more dangerous is Hewitt's claim (beginning at 2:07
of the video below)
Not just this base, Ayman, I think 90% of America sighs at
the obsession of the media finding something to criticize the President about,
as opposed to, for example, finding something to compliment him about. And I
don't think this tweet makes a difference....
They're just so mean to Donald Trump. On Tuesday, The New
York Times reported
Ivanka Trump's brand continues to win foreign trademarks in
China and the Philippines, adding to questions about conflicts of interest at
the White House, The Associated Press has found.
On Sunday, China granted the first daughter's company final
approval for its 13th trademark in the last three months, trademark office
records show. Over the same period, the Chinese government has granted Ivanka
Trump's company provisional approval for another eight trademarks, which can be
finalized if no objections are raised during a three-month comment period.
Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to
market a lifetime's worth of products in China, from baby blankets to coffins,
and a host of things in between, including perfume, makeup, bowls, mirrors,
furniture, books, coffee, chocolate and honey. Ivanka Trump stepped back from
management of her brand and placed its assets in a family-run trust, but she
continues to profit from the business.
"Ivanka Trump's refusal to divest from her business is
especially troubling as the Ivanka brand continues to expand its business in
foreign countries," Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in an email Monday. "It
raises significant questions about corruption, as it invites the possibility
that she could be benefiting financially from her position and her father's
presidency or that she could be influenced in her policy work by countries'
treatment of her business."
The Associated Press suggested it was "adding to questions about conflicts of interest at the White House," a polite way of saying "shaping America's foreign policy to serve the family's business interests." Its article appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, serving the nation's fourth largest media market, on page 9 and was benignly titled "China OKs Ivanaka trademarks." Three days earlier the Associated Press had found
The Trump administration has reached a deal that will put
Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE back in business by rolling back severe
sanctions put in place last month by the Commerce Department, according to a
source familiar with the matter.
The move to settle with the Chinese company removes a major
barrier to U.S.-China trade talks as Beijing opposed a penalty that would have
shuttered the firm by prohibiting U.S. suppliers from doing business with ZTE
for seven years....
News of a deal brought quick condemnation from lawmakers on
both sides of the aisle. Many on Capitol Hill view the action as a sign of
weakness against China, especially as the administration tries to take Beijing
to task over policies it says have robbed U.S. companies of sensitive technology.
“Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal... for
#ZTE & China,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted. “#China crushes U.S.
companies with no mercy & they use these telecomm companies to spy &
steal from us. Many hoped this time would be different. Now congress will need
to act."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the deal as
reported “would be helping make China great again.“
Well, now, that is the point, isn't it?
Still, Hewitt believes (or pretends to believe) that the
media is anti-Trump. He won't acknowledge that it matters
little what individual reporters think of the President but rather how their
articles are written and the prominence given them by editors. So we have an appropriately sarcastic
Janet Johnson tweeting
I’m sure if Hillary Clinton promised to bail out a
sanctioned, spying Chinese telecom, and then Chelsea immediately got a coveted
trademark agreement from China, @nytimes would bury it on B3.
There are several possible explanations for this pro-Trump
bias in what is ironically labeled the "liberal media." One one can be found- twice- in the video here. Hewitt (beginning at 1:37) states "so I'm not going
to escalate into anti-Trump rhetoric over this, it is kind of common for
him." Matt Lewis (beginning at :51) had
remarked
it's classic Trump It's how he has behaved all of his
public life. He's always been kind of a self-promoting narcissist and this is
how he's treating Memorial Day, too. At
this point it's not as much a surprise in presidential behavior so it's hard to
get a rise out of me.
As a Trump apologist, Hewitt is happily excusing the President while Lewis is lamenting the President's boorish behavior. However, they
both are inadvertently explaining why Donald Trump gets more favorable press
than he's due or otherwise would objectively receive: he does this stuff all the time. He gets a pass because he is consistently repugnant.
It's a pattern. It's
not the product of a slip of the tongue or of a bad day but of a really bad guy. And it's how the President can sell off American foreign policy to the highest bidder with the media barely noticing.
As author of TrumpNation and Bloomberg News columnist,
Timothy O'Brien knows a lot about Donald Trump. Last Tuesday, he summarized
Donald Trump's career- discriminating against blacks in rental properties,
driving casinos into bankruptcy, laundering money, committing fraud, cavorting
with the mob. Most recently, with Representative Devin Nunes and the
cross-dressing Rudy Giuliani, he has been actively undermining faith of the
American people in the Justice Department.
But two days later, O'Brien explained that the President has not been undermining only the Justice Department:
Worth noting the obvious: President Trump is using the same tactics against law enforcement, intel agencies, civil service and the judiciary that he deploys against the media — trying to discredit all of them so institutions that question or check his power are undermined. https://t.co/m799M4PZzZ
Attacks on the Judiciary, federal law enforcement, and the
media are more obvious, in part because they are covered more fully. However,
Politico has reported
President Donald Trump on Friday issued a series of
executive orders to weaken the influence of government unions and make it
easier for agencies to fire civil servants.
The orders will standardize agency rules to make it easier
and quicker to remove poorly performing employees. They also direct federal
agencies to renegotiate their labor contracts and cap the amount of paid time
that workers can take off to conduct union-related business.
But we learn that this is not only a standard Trump attack on the middle
class because
The largest federal employee union condemned Friday’s
orders.
“This is more than union busting — it’s democracy busting,”
said J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government
Employees. “This administration seems hellbent on replacing a civil service
that works for all taxpayers with a political service that serves at its whim.”
In addition to hemming in union power, the executive orders
could be abused to reduce accountability or punish whistleblowers, said Nick
Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the nonprofit Project on
Government Oversight.
“Weakening civil service protection laws would make the
government less effective and put us all at risk, “ he said. “It would impede
Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch: Congress’s
best sources of information are the employees inside agencies, and without
robust protections and due process, more sources will remain silent.”
If you go to an accommodating ice cream parlor and ask about
a certain flavor, you'll be offered a taste of it. Curious about a style
of beer at a brewpub, you may be offered a sample. In each category O'Brien cites, President
Trump is giving us a mere taste or sample of what would come after January,
2021.
In 1974, Randy Bachman wrote as a joke a song which somehow
became Bachman-Turner Overdrive's #1 hit. The message is completely
unrelated. Nonetheless, accidentally and absent our notice, its title would become
the operating principle of the 45th President of the USA.
A very famous politician in Washington, D.C. has tweeted
Today we honor the Americans who sacrificed everything to
secure the blessings of liberty. Family and friends to some, heroes to all -
who lived, fought and died for the safety and future of a great and good
nation. God bless them and grant them perpetual peace.
Unfortunately, that was not President Trump but rather Senator
John McCain, who became a hero and lived to hear Donald Trump denigrate his
sacrifice, and whose presidential ambitions were torpedoed by Hurricane Palin. Instead, for Memorial Day we hear from the 45th President
Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!
Wishing a "happy" day
may not be appropriate for an occasion in which we collectively honor
individuals who have been killed. Chris Cillizza goes deeper, explaining Trump
is the "me" President, not the "we" President, with a" tweet (which) seems reflective of a broader belief that has
animated every moment of Trump's campaign and presidency: This is about him.
Period."
But Trump's economic message may also hit a bad note because
As Americans head out for traditional Memorial Day weekend
road trips, they’ll confront gas prices of nearly $3 a gallon, the highest
since 2014 and a 25 percent spike since last year.
The increased cost of fuel is already wiping out a big chunk
of the benefit Americans received from the GOP tax cuts. And things could get
worse as summer approaches following the administration’s standoff with Iran
and a move by oil-producing nations to tighten supplies.
The result: The economic and political benefits Trump and
the GOP hoped to reap from cutting tax rates could be swamped by higher pump
prices that Americans face every time they hit the road.
Oil prices and rise and fall, though the recent increase can be attributed to the President because of his decision to end the nuclear deal with Iran. However, there are long-term
fundamentals which spell trouble for the middle- and working classes
instrumental in Trump's election victory. Axios reports that at a recent conference at the
Dallas Fed
Troy Taylor, CEO of the Coke franchise for
Florida, said he is currently adding employees with the idea of later
reducing the staff over time "as we invest in automation." Those
being hired: technically-skilled people. "It's highly technical just being
a driver," he said.
The moderator asked the panel whether
there would be broad-based wage gains again. "It's just not going to
happen," Taylor said. The gains would go mostly to technically-skilled
employees, he said. As for a general raise? "Absolutely not in my
business," he said.
John Stephens, chief financial
officer at AT&T, said 20% of the company's employees are call-center
workers. He said he doesn't need that many. In addition, he added, "I
don't need that many guys to install coaxial cables.
In the past year, the response of many Republicans,
asked about Trump's boorish and dangerous statements and actions, has been
"but the economy..."
In the past year, the response of many Republicans, asked about Trump's repulsive and dangerous statements and actions, has been "but the economy..."
Democrats running for office need an answer to that, an
answer that goes beyond collusion, cronyism, and corruption. If Democrats
look carefully, it should become clear that Donald Trump's Memorial Day message
may turn out to be more than narcissistic and unpatriotic.
If you read The New York Times or watch CNN, you know Maggie
Haberman, about whom Rachael Combe of Elle Magazine once wrote
Many of the juiciest Trump pieces have been broken by
her: That story about him spending his evenings alone in a bathrobe, watching
cable news? Haberman reported and wrote it with her frequent collaborator,
Glenn Thrush. The time Trump called the Times to blame the
collapse of the Obamacare repeal on the Democrats? It was Haberman he dialed.
When he accused former national security adviser Susan Rice of committing
crimes, and defended Fox News' Bill O'Reilly against the sexual harassment
claims that would soon end his career at the network? Haberman and Thrush
again, with their colleague Matthew Rosenberg. And since President Trump fired
FBI director James Comey, Haberman has been on the frontlines of the nonstop
news bombshells that have been lobbed, bylining or credited with a reporting
assist on around two dozen stories in two weeks. They range from an
extraordinarily intimate account of a "sour and dark" Trump berating
his staff as "incompetent" to the revelation that Trump called Comey "a nutjob" in an Oval
Office meeting with the Russians the day after his dismissal, telling them that
Comey's ouster had relieved the pressure of the investigation into possible
collusion between Russia and his campaign.
And that was written a full twelve months ago, after which
time Haberman's visibility has only grown. Her reputation could not
possibly improve because she was described by Combe as a great mom, by
colleague Glenn Thrush as one of the greatest people to ever do this job,
giving a maximum effort," and by another individual as God-like:
"It's like she's in the building, but she's not even in the city. You don't
even know where she is—she could be anywhere. Like, floating in the sky."
Inarguably extremely hard-working and well-connected, Maggie
Haberman also is a sucker. On Sunday morning Haberman reached into the bag of
pop psychology explanations and came up with
I have written stories about his lies, falsehoods, whoppers, half-truths, salesman-like stretches. The reality is that what he does can be hard to label because, as anyone who has worked for him will tell you in candor, he often thinks whatever he says is what’s real. https://t.co/0gJbgzgbjK
The reporter is not absolved of naivete by the naivete of
her sources, in this case "anyone who has worked for him." Those
unnamed sources may be telling the truth as they see it- but most likely they also are being manipulated.
This statement terrifies me. So if Trump really “believes” that we are under imminent attack without any proof/warnings but the liar in his head say it’s “real” then you think it’s FINE if his version of “reality” controls nuclear weapons!?? #WeAreInDanger#CallitOuthttps://t.co/z4Auk0OC93
Nance recognizes that Haberman is trying to have it both ways. She won't concede that he regularly, strategically, lies- knowingly and deliberately uttering falsehoods.
There are only three possibilities. Trump may be neurologically impaired, as some people have suggested, but which
hasn't been investigated, thus yielding little evidence.
He may be lying, or he may be extraordinarily ignorant, to a
degree unprecedented in any President or to anyone most of us know.
Haberman is not accusing Donald Trump of knowing less than a
fifth grader or of having dementia. If she- or others- were, they would have to
acknowledge that he is not fit to be President of the United States of America.
Instead, we're to believe that Trump is no less benign than a salesman doing
his job, convincing himself that his product is superior to the one offered by
his competitors. It's no accident that Haberman has gotten the best access to President Trump.
In 1990, Vanity Fair's Marie Brenner revealed that one of Trump's lawyers had told her "Donald is a believer in the big-lie theory. If you say something again and again, people will believe you." It appears that Haberman believes Trump often is not lying precisely because he so often asserts things that are demonstrably untrue.
Donald Trump's presidency, like his campaign, is one big con. If Ms. Haberman wishes to deny that, she must acknowledge (as Nance argues) that the President represents an imminent danger to the survival of the American republic and to the entire world.
On Memorial Day, we remember those who gave their lives not for flag and anthem, but for the country and its values.
That was Donald Trump's message to NFL players on September
22, 2017 when he responded to prayers who knelt while the national anthem was
played (while concessions continued patriotically to sell food and beer). He
declared "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners,
when somebody disrespects our flag, you'd say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the
field right now. Out! He's fired." He also predicted "for a week, (that owner would) be the most popular person in
this country."
Alas- this being Donald Trump's first term- he cannot fire
players. But he can get owners to follow his advice, or at least his cue, as
they did when
On Wednesday, NFL owners made it clear they’d taken enough
heat. The league voted in a new anthem policy, which requires players and
league personnel on the sidelines to stand. Anyone who doesn’t wish to stand
has the option of remaining in the locker room during the anthem, but if
someone takes the field and protests, the league will fine that player’s team
an undisclosed amount. Teams also have been given the option of enacting their
own additional anthem policies, and can issue fines to players.
Recognizing the owners and the commissioner were following
his lead, the President on Thursday morning told his besties on "Fox and
Friends"
"Well, I think that's good, I don't think people should
be staying in locker rooms, but still I think it's good. You have to stand
proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing, you shouldn't be
there. Maybe you shouldn't be in the country. You have to stand proudly for the
national anthem, and the NFL owners did the right thing if that's what they've
done.
Vice President Pence also realized what was at stake when he
tweeted one word: "winning."
A New York civil rights activist tweeted "Telling black
NFL players to leave the country. Calling undocumented immigrants 'animals.'
Banning Muslims from the US. Attacking Chicago for gun violence. He knows that
fear and division feeds his base of white voters."
"Perception is reality," some say. Perception is
not reality- but in some cases, is almost as important. There never has been a black NFL owner, though one is Pakistani-American and one co-owner is Korean-American,
which is to say: none is black. Meanwhile, most NFL players are black,
most protesting NFL players are black, and they and supportive white players
are trying to draw attention to injustice- especially racial disparity- in law
enforcement and criminal justice.
Those facts escape no one's attention.It turns out that Donald Trump's "no
need to apply" applies not only to immigrants from Mexico and refugees
from Guatemala, but also to strong black men performing for our entertainment.
Yet, this is part of a culture war that goes beyond
race. If you don't "stand proudly for the national anthem"
then "maybe you shouldn't be in the country," Trump proposes. It is a
nod toward the Vietnam War-era slogan of "love it or leave it" (The first song below is from 1965; the second, and much better, is from 1970, before the artist underwent an epiphany.)
That was back when black people worked exclusively for white
people and expected to shut up, sit down and never, ever complain. Trump knows
it. Pence knows it. The NFL knows it. They've challenged the players, who are
the best in the world at what they do,and are not replaceable, lest league
revenues collapse as fans (even conservative ones) ignore a third-rate product.
The white men in charge have thrown down the gauntlet upon
the players and the NFL Players Association. The employees and the union are
expected to buckle to President Trump as the league has. The challenge to the
players is clear and they hold the cards. It's time for them to put up or shut
up.
Early on Tuesday the Boston Globe's Annie Linskey revealed that the
President's
staff has become so adept at replicating Trump’s tone that
people who follow his feed closely say it is getting harder to discern which
tweets were actually crafted by Trump sitting in his bathrobe and watching “Fox
& Friends” and which were concocted by his communications team.
Those familiar with the process wouldn’t fess up to which
tweets were staff-written. But an algorithm crafted by a writer at The Atlantic
to determine real versus staff-written tweets suggested several were not
written by the president, despite the unusual use of the language....
While staff members do consciously use poor grammar, they do
not intentionally misspell words or names, one person familiar with the process
explained.
“Tweets that are proposed are in his voice,” said one of the
people. “You want to do it in a way that fits his style.”
In response, Charlie Pierce on Tuesday afternoon wrote
Here’s the thing, Embattled White Working Class Voters. By
and large, the people you’re taught to hate have your interests somewhat at
heart when they get into government. Forget what kind of coffee they drink,
movies they watch, or leafy greens they gobble down with their tofuburgers.
Forget all you’ve been told about coastal elites and their condescension. Stop
falling for this hooey.
The president* and the people around him think you’re all
sub-literate morons to whom broken gorilla English will appeal. They think you
love him for his misplaced commas, dangling modifiers, and weird CapiTalization
FeTish. They think you will identify with a high-end Manhattan con-man because
he talks like you do, and they think you talk like you took an ESL class on
Neptune. They think your very real economic anxiety is best expressed in
language one small step above grunts, groans, and banging on rocks with heavy sticks.
Was Pierce prescient? Psychic? Or was he simply eloquently
observing the obvious? It must have been one, because later that afternoon we
learned (at 21:09 of video below)
CBS News’ Lesley Stahl shared a revealing conversation she
had with Trump shortly before his first
post-election interview on “60 Minutes” back in November 2016.
Stahl, who was speaking at the Deadline Club Awards in
Manhattan, told the audience that she and a colleague had met with
the then-President-elect at Trump Tower in order to prepare for the
interview. At one point Trump started ranting against the press, and
Stahl said she took the opportunity to ask him what the point of his
attacks were.
“Why do you keep hammering at this?” she recounted to PBS’
Judy Woodruff.
According to Stahl, who was paraphrasing, Trump replied,
“You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when
you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
According to Stahl, who was paraphrasing, Trump replied,
“You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when
you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
Suckers. That's what Pierce calls the President's followers, who fall
for his every utterance, oblivious to the reality that Trump's every grunt and
groan derives from faith- the faith that his supporters are easy marks.
Arizona senator Jeff Flake gave the commencement address Wednesday to Harvard Law School graduates. It was nearly as good as it
could have been from a Republican. It also was grotesquely inadequate, like
giving 25 cents to a homeless woman who needs $3.25 for the bus. Flake
explained
How did we arrive at a moment of such peril, wherein a
president of the United States publicly threatens— on Fox & Friends,
historians will note — to interfere in the administration of justice, and seems
to think that the office confers on him the ability to decide who and what gets
investigated, and who and what does not? And just this week, the President —
offering an outlandish rationale, ordered an investigation into the
investigation of the Russian attack on our electoral process — not to defend
the country against further attacks, mind you, but to defend himself.
Obviously, ordering investigations is not a legitimate use of presidential
power.
That was arguably the best. He
said also "I am not so sure that there is much distilled wisdom to be
imparted from Washington these days, given what has lately become the
tawdriness of my profession." Similarly, "Article I branch
of government, the Congress (that’s me), is utterly supine in the face of the
moral vandalism that flows from the White House daily."
The problem is not Congress or Washington. It is the
Republicans in Washington, worshiping Reagan, Trump, and the Holy.... really,
only Reagan and Trump, god-like figures never to be questioned. Flake did acknowledge
"Republican" once, as in "I am a conservative Republican, a
throwback from the days when those words actually meant something, before the
collapse of our politics into the rank tribalism we currently endure.That
was an important concession, then ruined by
My sounding this alarm against a government that was elected
under the Republican banner and that calls itself conservative makes me no less
Republican or conservative. And opposing this president and much of what he
stands for is not an act of apostasy — it is, rather, an act of fidelity.
Flake has demonstrated his fidelity to the Republican banner
and conservatism. However, he has not done so by "sounding this
alarm" but by failing to question the legislative initiatives or
priorities of the GOP president, hence enabling the latter's authoritarian
tendencies, expressed in temperament, statements, and policies. A solid vote
for Republican extremism, the Arizona senator nonetheless declares
But I have long believed that the only lasting solutions
to the problems before us must involve both sides. Lawmaking should never be an
exercise in revenge, because vengeful people are myopic, self-interested, and
not fit to lead....
The greatness of our system is that it is designed to be
difficult, in order to force compromise.
As supporters of President Trump, the Republican Party has
come down with a severe case of pneumonia. But it was on the verge of
pneumonia, with a very bad case of bronchitis, before Donald Trump was elected.
It was already contagious but got worse when a Supreme Court seat
was stolen from Barack Obama, a twice-elected president who
fulfilled his constitutional duty more than nine months ago by nominating Merrick Garland, a highly qualified and widely
respected federal appellate judge.
It was stolen by top Senate Republicans, who broke with
longstanding tradition and refused to consider any nominee Mr. Obama might send
them, because they wanted to preserve the court’s conservative majority. The
main perpetrators of the theft were Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and
Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But virtually all
Republican senators were accomplices; only two supported holding hearings.
Jeff Flake's response to this was to keep his mouth shut
about Merrick Garland, then vote to confirm Neal Gorsuch.
Senator Flake's response to an aspiring autocrat has been to
vote with him, thereby reinforcing the egomaniac's sense of superiority and
dominance. It is also to give a speech including some 166 sentences without
even once mentioning the word Trump.
Avoiding assessment of blame, Flake assured the
graduates"Our leadership is not good, but it probably can’t
get much worse." He knows better. It can, and
it will.
Thirteen months ago, Business Insider's Josh Barro criticized liberals for
defending former President Obama's decision to accept a $400,000 speaking fee
from investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. Evidently, it was even worse, given
that we soon afterward learned that the 44th President had already been paid $800,000 for having delivered speeches to two other Wall Street firms.
Still, Barack Obama is no longer in public office and since
Hillary Clinton, running for a third Obama term, was defeated in a stunning
upset, Democratic losses in backlash to his presidency are diminishing.
Consequently, as Barro noted
The concern is not that Obama receiving such a fee will
influence Obama's future policy decisions about Wall Street (he won't make any)
but that if he goes around collecting such fees, he will make voters more wary
of the intentions of future center-left politicians who run in his mold, as
happened with Blair. Bernie Sanders' strong appeal in the 2016 primaries, which
wasn't limited to far-left voters, shows that many voters are concerned about
such matters.
Evidently not enough voters, or at least not enough
voters for Democratic members of Congress to stand firm against Wall Street
donors. Barro's employer reported Tuesday
The House finalized on Tuesday the largest package of Wall
Street banking reforms since the financial crisis, rolling back regulations on
financial firms, from community banks to credit-reporting agencies.
The legislation — most commonly referred to as the Crapo bill
after its author, the Senate banking committee chair Mike Crapo — is the result
of more than a year of negotiations among House Republicans, Senate
Republicans, and a group of Senate Democrats that support the measure.
The bill passed by a vote of 258 to 159 and will head to
President Donald Trump's desk for his signature. He is expected to sign the
legislation.
Of course, the bill will be signed by The Great Populist as he
continues to kick to the curb his working-class supporters- even if they're not
black or Hispanic- in favor of corporate America. Charlie Pierce notes the
measure is one
which very likely will neither grow the economy nor protect consumers,
but which will offer most of America’s biggest financial institutions relief
from the regulations put in place so that those institutions would have a
harder time lighting the world on fire next time. This comes at a time when the
banking industry is so terribly burdened by regulations that it’s making record profits—and that is
small banks as well as the large ones.
These included the two female Senators from New Hampshire,
Shaheen and Hassan. Three other Democratic women, Heitkamp of North Dakota,
McCaskill of Missouri, and Stabenow of Michigan, voted aye. They are up for
re-election in states won by Trump, as are Indiana's Donnelly, West
Virginia's Manchin, Florida's Nelson, and Montana's Tester, all men who
voted in favor of the measure.
Three Democrats facing re-election, Casey of Pennsylvania,
Brown of Ohio, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, voted against the bill.
Seven to three. Of ten Democrats in Trump states trying to win re-election to the Senate thisfall, seven voted in favor of loosening regulations on Wall Street, helping to
(as Pierce puts it) "free up the Masters of the Universe to do some
more damage, for which we once again will have the choice of bailing them out
or buying cornflakes with beads and trinkets."
Josh Barro may have been right when he maintained in April 2016
that voters are "concerned about such matters" as the intentions of
center-left politicians who "run in the mold" of Barack ObamaHowever,
there clearly also are Democratic members of Congress in competitive
states (Florida, Michigan) and Republican states (North Dakota, Missouri,
Indiana, West Virginia, Montana) who believe otherwise. And of course, Republicans voted nearly in lockstep, with only one (Rep. Jones of North Carolina) voting against this thing.
Or maybe they're simply selling out for donations from Wall
Street. In either case, it's telling, as it is that five female Democratic
senators voted to please the financial services community. It's fewer than the
number of Democratic women- twelve- who voted nay, but it does suggest that
even with the growing number of women who will enter Congress next year, utopia
is not upon us.
Bill Maher's Politically
Incorrect was cancelled by ABC in 2001 because its host was, well, politically
incorrect, recognizing that the 9/11/01 hijackers were surely not cowardly when
they carried out their evil deed which they knew would result in their death.
There is nothing more certain
about Maher- other than he won't next week declare his faith in the Trinity-
than that he will be politically incorrect.
And he was last Friday when he
began his "new rules" comments with "of all the fairy tales
we've told ourselves here in America, the one we most need to get rid of is
that no one is above the law." "When you don't have to follow the
orders of law enforcement- as Trump clearly doesn't- you are above the
law," Maher noted.
President Trump believes he is
above the law because he believes the President is the law. Maher understands
"if your obedience to the law is strictly voluntary or you are compelled
by shame, of which he has none, you are above the law." If a particular
President can choose to be above the law, the Presidency is above the law.
And once someone is above the
law, this is not the "nation of laws" the USA has promoted itself as
but a nation of men (and women). We got an indication of that as on Sunday we learned
I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
White House press secretary Sarah
Sanders issued a statement indicating that while Trump may not have gone as far
as he could have – agreeing to fold his demand into an existing probe –
Rosenstein and the others had acceded at least in part to Trump's order,
something some critics were calling inappropriate interference.
"Based on the meeting with
the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to
expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the
Trump Campaign. It was also agreed that White House Chief of Staff Kelly will
immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with
Congressional Leaders to review highly classified and other information they
have requested," Sanders said in the statement.
Maher believes President Trump
will refuse the interview with Special Counsel Meller, who will obtain a
subpoena, to which Trump will reply "go fish." (Even HBO has its
language standards.) Then even if the Supreme Court tells him to honor the
subpoena, Trump will still refuse while attacking the Court "just like he
did the FBI and the Justice Department. The Supreme Court will be the new 'deep
state' enemy and their rulings will be 'fake news.'" Trump will
refuse to leave the Oval Office and there will be no way to drag him out.
Given at least that a subpoena
actually would be for an appearance before a grand jury, this analysis is slightly simplistic and similar to the CliffsNotes version of how the investigation might proceed.
However, it is more than conjecture when a president adheres to no principle other
than that the Venn diagram of the national interest and his family's financial
interest are identical.
Bill Maher's forecast is less than
convincing, but far more than plausible. It signifies, therefore, that in this
nation which pundits, politicians, and lawyers of all strips proudly proclaim
"a nation of laws," the most powerful individual is not subject to
the same law as are its 300 million-plus residents.
Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer ZTE violated USA sanctions against Iran and North Korea and is suspected of enabling its phones to help Beijing spy on Americans. Consequently, Director of National Security Dan Coats recommended Americans refrain from using the phones and on May 2 the Pentagon, according to Vox, announced "it will ban the sale of ZTE and Huawei phones from military bases because it regards the products as insecure due to the companies’ relationship to the Chinese government."
The Commerce Department announced sanctions. However, when ZTE announced it would shut down its entire smartphone business, President Trump asserted that he was concerned about the loss of Chinese jobs and had ordered the Commerce Department to help ZTE "to get back into business, fast."
That same week "a state-owned Chinese business came through with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, some of which will go to facilitate the construction of Trump-branded properties in Indonesia." So on Wednesday, former ethics chief Walter Shaub, who knows a not-coincidence when he sees one, asked what appeared to be a good question:
Donald Trump abruptly made a bizarre reversal of policy after China committed a half billion dollars to a project that will benefit him personally, and Raj Shah told reporters it’s a private business matter that the White House won’t discuss. How is this not the top news story?
It's an even better question now that on Sunday, Treasury Department secretary Steve Mnuchin stated that
the Trump administration will hold off from imposing tariffs on China as leaders from both nations try to hammer out agreements on trade. The administration had earlier threatened $50 billion to $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods as a way to deter the theft of U.S. intellectual property and forced transfers of technology.
Since last spring, Chinese authorities in the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang have ensnared tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslim Chinese — and even foreign citizens — in mass internment camps. This detention campaign has swept across Xinjiang, a territory half the area of India, leading to what a U.S. commission on China last month said is "the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today".... The detention program is a hallmark of China's emboldened state security apparatus under the deeply nationalistic, hard-line rule of President Xi Jinping. It is partly rooted in the ancient Chinese belief in transformation through education — taken once before to terrifying extremes during the mass thought reform campaigns of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader sometimes channeled by Xi.
A few months later, President Trump would recognize Xi's successful power grab and declare "he's now president for life. President for life. And he's great."
Gone, though, are the days when presidential candidate Donald J. Trump would charge China with "ripping us off, folks" and being involved in a "rape of (our) country." Additionally, it was "caught cheating in the Olympics. That's the Chinese M.O. - Lie, Cheat & Steal in all international dealings."
We are to believe that understanding of China is no longer operative. But Donald J.Trump, the expert in rape and cheating, is still here. And it's not too late (without tongue in cheek) to ask him: "are cheating and rape bad things- or good things?"
This is journalism. CNN's Eric Levenson, Paul P. Murphy and Gianluca Mezzofiore report
The man who berated employees and customers for speaking Spanish in a New York City cafe has a history of aggressively confronting strangers on their identity. Aaron Schlossberg, an attorney in New York, was identified as the man in a Fresh Kitchen in Manhattan who angrily told employees and customers to speak English because "This is America!" "If they have the balls to come here and live off my money, I pay for their welfare," he says, incorrectly asserting that undocumented immigrants are eligible for federal public benefits. "I pay for their ability to be here. The least they can do ... is speak English."
They referred to Schlossberg's history of aggressively confronting strangers on their identity" and afterward provided context to the charge. The following, however, is- as the British call it- "rubbish" as Sarah K. Burris of Raw Story writes
The New York attorney who has become known as “Racist lawyer bro” has now been kicked out of his law office by his landlord the New York Daily News reported Thursday. Earlier in the day, he had simply been prevented from entering. Aaron Schlossberg went on a racist rant in a coffee shop against Latino employees speaking Spanish to other Spanish-speaking customers. The incident was filmed on cell phone cameras as the man threatened to call ICE on the workers, assuming they were undocumented. Since the video has gone viral, Schlossberg has been mocked and stalked by reporters. Protests took place outside of his office with tacos and a mariachi band. Reporters have been waiting with cameras. Not a welcoming crowd to others sharing the building of Schlossberg’s law office. “We have terminated his services agreement with us,” said Hayim Grant, the president of Corporate Suites. He also said that he was “completely shocked” by the clip of Schlossberg’s racist rant. Schlossberg wasn't concerned that the individuals were undocumented. He ignorantly assumed they were illegal immigrants. She may consider them "undocumented"- surely she does- but to him they are "illegal."
But that's not the primary problem. In the space of four paragraphs there are three references to "racist." In the following, and last, three paragraphs there is one refernce to "racist."
Raw Story, with an unapologetically leftist slant, does not pretend to be The New York Times, CNN, or even the Fresno Bee. Expressing an opinion- or as in this case, assuming- that the rant in question is "racist" is therefore legitimate.
But her opinion is wrong. Hispanic- or the similar, but different, Latino- is not a race.
This is not a technicality nor even a argument in favor of the contemporary (and somewhat accurate) perspective that race is not a valid construct. It is merely that Hispanics/Latinos are not all of the same color. Raul A. Reyes in the Huffington Post explains
The U.S. Census Bureau defines Hispanic/Latino as referring to “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.” They key words here are regardless of race. In fact, Hispanics can be white, black, Asian, or multiracial. That’s because the term “Hispanic,” like “Latino,” refers to an ethnicity, not a race. And a majority of Hispanics actually self-identify as white. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 53 percent of Hispanics chose “white “ as their race, while 36 percent chose “some other race.”
Journalists, bloggers, New York City lawyers, anyone with an opinion owe something to the truth. Those CNN journalists, who point out that illegal immigrants are ineligible for most federal public benefits, understand that. Beyond even the hate and bigotry, Aaron Scholossberg does not (or pretends not to). We shouldn't follow his example.
Neal Katyal is a registered Democrat who was co-counsel to Al Gore in Bush v. Gore and Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States under President Barack Obama. However, he evidently actively and enthusiastically supported the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court without indicating that he had active cases pending before the Court.
He has an impressive resume, however, and while serving in the Clinton-era Justice Department in 1999 was the lead author of the rules governing the Special Counsel. Therefore, his opinion is worth considering in light of the claim on Wednesday's "Fox and Friends" by Rudy Giuliani that the latter had spoken to Robert Mueller and
I asked him specifically if they realized or acknowledged they didn’t have the power to indict bother under the justice department memo which gives them their power in essence, confines their power, and under the constitution. And he said we’ll – he wouldn’t answer. And one of his assistants said they acknowledged they had to be bound by justice department policies. And then the next day or the day after they clarified it for Jay Sekulow who was with me at the meeting that they didn’t have the power to indict and that what they’d eventually do is write a memorandum and give it to the deputy attorney general, [Rod] Rosenstein.
On Thursday evening, Katyal told host Ari Melber of MSNBC's "The Beat"
.... a lot of these scholarships and opinions or waiting to say a sitting President can`t be indicted were before the Paula Jones case. And the Supreme Court in Paula Jones case and vowing (ph) Bill Clinton said, you know, the American principle is no one is above the law. And you know, that was a civil case. And what goes for a civil case, II suspect there will be a pretty good argument, goes even stronger for a criminal case. That a President shouldn`t be able to commit crimes and act with impunity. And there`s a second real problem here. Becausse the whole idea behind, you can`t indict a sitting President, a large part of it comes from the fact that indictments are distracting to the President who is very busy. And you got to carry out their official duties. You know, courts operate in the real world. And you know, they know for example, that Donald Trump has golfed 53 days out of his 482 days in office, which more than one in ten days. So it`s a little hard to make the kind of distraction arguments that are at the core of Presidents can`t be indicted opinions when you`re talking about this President.
While that makes sense to a layperson, Katyal's remarks on The Beat (video below) on February 20 went more directly to the substance of the law.
Melber noted the opinion issued on October 16, 2000 by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would be unconstitutional." Nonetheless, Katyal stated "the regulations also say that the Special Counsel can seek a departure from the established DOJ policies with the permission of the Acting Attorney General."
Presumably, then, if Mueller wants to pursue an indictment, he can do so with approval of the individual in the Justice Department in charge of the probe. That currently is Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, although only because Attorney General Sessions has recused himself from the case. It is conceivable that Sessions would "unrecuse" (apologies to English teachers everywhere) himself or that Trump would fire him, in which case he'd probably be replaced by someone who would do the President's bidding.
Additionally, the modern corollary to Mr. Dooley's "the Supreme Court follows the election returns" (bad prediction here) might be "in partisan matters especially, the Supreme Court rules according to political party" and the current Court, on which there are five Republicans, might be tempted to rule in favor of Team Russia. Many TV lawyers and journalists, superficially considering only the 2001 opinion, have assumed that a sitting President cannot be indicted.
Yet, most evidence suggests that there is no constitutional barrier to indicting a sitting President. The dirty little secret is that an indictment always can be obtained, even of a ham sandwich, in this case with the approval of Mueller's superior. And now that Katyal has weighed in, we know the individual who might know the rules better than anyone believes that an Indictment can be legally, constitutionally obtained and should withstand judicial scrutiny.
