Abusing public office for private enrichment

May 21, 2018 11:19 AM

There is only one Trump scandal.

The sheer volume of Trump scandals can seem difficult to keep track of.

There’s the ongoing special-counsel investigation into whether the Trump campaign aided a Russian campaign to aid Trump’s candidacy and defeat his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton; there’s the associated inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey, whom he had asked not to investigate his former national-security adviser; there are the president’s hush-money payments to women with whom he allegedly had extramarital affairs, made through his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and facilitated by corporate cash paid to influence the White House; there is his ongoing effort to interfere with the Russia inquiry and politicize federal law enforcement; there are the foreign governments that seem to be utilizing the president’s properties as vehicles for influencing administration policy; there’s the emerging evidence that Trump campaign officials sought aid not only from Russia, but from other foreign countries, which may have affected Trump’s foreign policy; there are the ongoing revelations of the president’s Cabinet officials’ misusing taxpayer funds; there is the accumulating evidence that administration decisions are made at the behest of private industry, in particular those in which Republican donors have significant interests.

The preceding wall of text may appear to some as an abridged list of the Trump administration’s scandals, but this is an illusion created by the perception that these are all separate affairs. Viewed as such, the various Trump scandals can seem multifarious and overpowering, and difficult to fathom.

There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

Hat-tip to zachlipton for the link, the tags, and the contrasting minimalist inspiration.
Let's be kind to one another, and keep signal-to-noise ratio high. In the words of Doktor Zed: Please consider MeFi chat for hot-takes and live-blogging breaking news and the MetaTalk venting thread for catharsis and sympathizing. And please bear in mind the MetaTalk on expectations about U.S. political discussion on MetaFilter.

posted by carsonb (2270 comments total)

Thanks for the new thread!

Some light reading from the Guardian: 'Jesus never charged a leper a co-pay': the rise of the religious left.
From healthcare to tax and immigration, Rev William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign are driven by faith to focus on the disadvantaged

Also (dragging this over from the previous thread):

Politico has launched the Women Rule Candidate Tracker, which will track how women’s political representation is changing — or isn’t changing — in the 2018 midterm elections. More women are running for office than ever: 600 women either ran for office this year, are currently running for office, or have said they'll run for U.S. House, Senate or Governor.

As of May 16, 80 women had advanced in primary elections, 444 women are awaiting primaries and 76 women have lost.
posted by zarq at 11:23 AM on May 21, 2018 [29 favorites]

Jesus never charged a leper a co-pay...

There wasn't a cover charge for the loaves and fishes, either.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:29 AM on May 21, 2018 [35 favorites]

Abusing public office for private enrichment

which I'm pretty damned sure has been at the heart of the Mueller investigation from the get-go
posted by philip-random at 11:30 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

Some food for thought 538 cooked up on Friday. Fair warning: it's about polls and Twitter.

Very Few Voters Actually Read Trump's Tweets: Perry Bacon Jr. & Dhrumil Mehta

A recent Gallup poll indicates only 8% of American adults admit to following 45's account, but only 4% admit to following and regularly reading the tweets.

This amounts to approximately 10 million people who consume the—holy shit, I just realized the mascot for Twitter is a bird because it regurgitates food into its babies' mouths.

Anyway, 10 million isn't a small number, but it's less than the official follower numbers being claimed. This would make sense, after discerning the demographic and robotic nature of the claimed followers.

Only about 15% of Republicans who have an account admit to following. Of course these days, this raises the question of "What is a Republican?" Despite this, Democrats apparently have more exposure to Trump's tweets than Republicans do.

538 comes to the agreeable conclusion that Twitter is ultimately just a stream-of-consciousness rather than a megaphone. And that various media outlets are doing the amplifying for him and should be more careful regarding this press coverage. On the other hand, these things are also treated variously as Schrödinger's Official Presidential Statements, ridiculous trial balloons, and extremely telegraphed decisions.

Personally, I'm curious to see information regarding the tweets we know were written by 45 versus those written by someone like Stephen Miller. I know someone was looking into a way to decipher the tweets written by different people on that same account, but I'm interested in pattern recognition for the content and topics covered as well as things like vocabulary, grammar, and syntax.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 11:41 AM on May 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

‘The Onion’ Has Finally Read Michael Cohen’s 2013 Email Regarding His Client Donald Trump And Would Like To Discuss The Matter Further At His Convenience

In 2013, we published a piece by Mr. Trump titled “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead In About 15 Or 20 Years.” Mr. Trump’s column, which was thoroughly vetted by our editors, simply endeavored to offer any of The Onion’s over 10 billion readers who had found themselves depressed about the state of the world a hopeful reminder that he would mentally and physically deteriorate and most likely die very soon.

Shortly thereafter, we apparently received an email from Mr. Cohen. Unfortunately, this email must have been improperly sorted by one of the Malaysian children who work in our mailroom, and was only discovered crumpled up under a pile of journalism awards in a remote corner of our offices last week. We read the email, and given Mr. Trump’s ascension to the presidency since its writing, we want to apologize for the delay and would be delighted to meet with Mr. Cohen in person—at the White House, perhaps?

In the spirit of transparency, here is Mr. Cohen’s letter, printed in full:
...
We believe the removal of the piece in exchange for influence over the president’s decision-making constitutes a more than reasonable deal, and we implore Mr. Cohen to meet with us without delay. We are happy to schedule around his upcoming court appearances.

Politico discussed the email in their How Trump changed everything for The Onion
posted by zachlipton at 11:50 AM on May 21, 2018 [77 favorites]

This is a good OP. Its good to see this finally distilled down to the essence of what it is - corruption. As one of the articles mentioned, if foreign policy can be bought, not to mention trade wars diminished into disputes, then who can trust this admin? Who in this case referring to the rest of the world, and the so called allies the US media keeps referring to, without acknowledging that that they change according to their budget and the leader's whims and fancies.
posted by infini at 11:51 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Those "shaping reality" don't seem to understand the world outside of their hyper screened bubble. Reality doesn't change, nor the floods, droughts, typhoons, tsunamis, and all the signs of the end of bees and insects.
posted by infini at 11:54 AM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

That would be some quite astonishing and frankly implausible reach for Twitter, which has never had the same numbers as Facebook. Are you sure they are not just getting them second hand?
posted by Artw at 11:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

NBC White House Correspondent Geoff Bennett @GeoffRBennett: Sarah Sanders tells NBC News Pres. Trump will meet at 3pm today at the WH w/ Dep AG Rosenstein, DNI Coates, FBI Dir. Wray and Kelly to “discuss their response to congressional requests on a range of topics.”

n.b. Coates is an addition to Rosenstein and Wray that ABC's Jonathan Karl first reported were the meeting's DoJ attendees.

CNN's Laura Jarrett @LauraAJarrett: As we wait to see how this plays out, recall how it began--when DOJ first told Nunes it couldn't risk placing the specific individual in danger, it said that decision was reached after consultation with the ODNI, FBI and the White House. Only 1 of those has changed its position.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:57 AM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

This was a good read this morning - The Coup Has Already Happened
posted by msbutah at 12:03 PM on May 21, 2018 [18 favorites]

On May 14th, the New Poor People's Campaign launched a "season of organizing" -- 40 days of action -- that includes voter registration drives and a mass mobilization/recommitment in D.C. on June 23rd.

(NY Mag) Unlike the original Poor People’s Campaign headed up (in the days soon after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination) by Ralph David Abernathy, its revival a half-century later is by design not focused on Washington, D.C. As co-organizer Reverend William Barber II (already famed for the Moral Mondays movement he led in North Carolina) told the Los Angeles Times last week, a truly national movement is needed to reverse the many measures against poor people that have intensified in the last several years:

Much of what happens to hurt poor people happens in state capitols, not in the Congress. Healthcare is blocked in state capitols. Voting laws are written in state capitols. Denial of living wages happens in state capitols. Cutting money from public education happens in both federal and state, but so much of it happens at the state level.

If like me, thinking about Trump and Congress engenders more unfocused internet despair-reading than actual on-the-ground organizing energy, look up what the Poor People's Campaign is doing (in your neck of the woods and nationwide).
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:04 PM on May 21, 2018 [29 favorites]

Over the past year, my personal, mental relationship with Robert Mueller has made me understand why some people venerate saints. Not that I think he is one, but

1. seeing his picture calms me down and makes me feel that someone, somewhere, is working against evil

2. I'm hopeful that someday, somehow, he will do something that will ease my psychic burdens

I never really got why someone would, say, have a little picture of Saint Whoever in their pocket, but now it totally makes sense to me. I don't know if the Mueller investigation will really add up to much -- the part of my brain that thinks it will is the same part that thought Hilary was a lock-in -- and I'm not sure how healthy it all is, but man, it makes me feel a little better that it's going on.
posted by Rinku at 12:06 PM on May 21, 2018 [130 favorites]

but man, it makes me feel a little better that it's going on.

Yes same and it's a very interesting frequent mental derail for me to ponder the comforts of idolatry here and now in 2018.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:15 PM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

So, SCOTUS just delivered a potential death-blow today to enforcement of any workers' rights by ruling employees cannot organize as a class in a dispute with employers, and must accept individual forced arbitration.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:20 PM on May 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

New Yorker, The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration

John Feeley, the Ambassador to Panama and a former Marine helicopter pilot, is not averse to strong language, but he was nevertheless startled by his first encounter with President Donald Trump. Summoned to deliver a briefing in June, 2017, he was outside the Oval Office when he overheard Trump concluding a heated conversation, “Fuck him! Tell him to sue the government.” Feeley was escorted in, and saw that Mike Pence, John Kelly, and several other officials were in the room. As he took a seat, Trump asked, “So tell me—what do we get from Panama? What’s in it for us?” Feeley presented a litany of benefits: help with counter-narcotics work and migration control, commercial efforts linked to the Panama Canal, a close relationship with the current President, Juan Carlos Varela. When he finished, Trump chuckled and said, “Who knew?” He then turned the conversation to the Trump International Hotel and Tower, in Panama City. “How about the hotel?” he said. “We still have the tallest building on the skyline down there?”
...
“In private, he is exactly like he is on TV, except that he doesn’t curse in public,” he told me. Feeley sensed that Trump saw every unknown person as a threat, and that his first instinct was to annihilate that threat. “He’s like a velociraptor,” he said. “He has to be boss, and if you don’t show him deference he kills you.”

posted by zachlipton at 12:25 PM on May 21, 2018 [89 favorites]

Great FPP link for this incarnation of the US Politics Quarantine thread -- thanks carsonb and zachlipton.

I think you could make an argument that there really is more than one Trump scandal, but the central premise of the Grand Unified Trump Scandal Theory, that all the seemingly-disparate scandals are just manifestations of one or a few underlying scandals, is important and correct.

I'd argue that there are at least three related but somewhat independent scandals here. One is as identified by the FPP: the boundless corruption of Trump and his cronies. But there is also the incredible incompetence of Trump and his cronies, which is slightly different. Arguably, the complete inability of the Trump administration to fulfill basic requirements of the federal government, like adequately staffing the State department, is better seen through the lens of their inability to govern and their fundamental indifference towards governing, rather than personal enrichment. Not that these are entirely unrelated; the appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State probably at least partially involved a hope that a businessman in that role would make it easier for the Trump syndicate to enrich themselves through international business deals. But this is a case where their incompetence actually conflicted with their corruption, ultimately leading to Tillerson's departure.

The third semi-independent scandal here is the corruption of the GOP. If the corruption of the Trump syndicate were the only scandal, then there would be no responsibility to place on those members of the GOP who are outside Trump's orbit. But of course, the entire GOP party leadership and apparatus willingly yoked themselves to Trump, and continue to protect him and his cronies, using the levers of government that they control to obstruct justice at every turn. This is a tremendous scandal in its own right, independently of any specific corrupt act that Trump performs.

Each of these three scandals was on display well before the election. Trump's utter corruption through numerous statements and actions, of course, but perhaps the most significant moment was when he stated during the debates that he'd accept the results of the election "if I win." This was as clear a rejection of the rule of law as anyone could make. Trump's incompetence was also clear, of course, throughout the election season, as numerous policy proposals and statements about plans for his presidency revealed a complete lack of understanding of how government works in America. Numerous news reports made it clear that Trump had little to no idea of how bills become law, how the executive and legislative branches interact, etc. And the GOP's corruption was incontrovertible as soon as the party embraced Trump, as one "NeverTrump" leader after another backed down and ate his meatloaf.

Which leads to a fourth scandal, more fundamental than the others. All of these scandals were clear well before the election, and the American people still elected Trump. Yes, there was voter suppression and Kremlin psy-ops and ratfucking of various sorts, and by the popular vote the American public in fact rejected Trump, but the fact is that the only reason any of that mattered is because it was close enough. As someone said closer to the aftermath of 11/9 (I can't remember if it was someone here or linked from here), the 2016 presidential election was the easiest ethics, civics, and basic reasoning test of our lifetimes, and the American people failed it. Trump should have received only a lunatic fringe of voters. The real scandal is our racist, misogynist, nativist, know-nothing, irrational, greedy, selfish, violent, cowardly, and fame-obsessed society. Trump and his scandals are merely the apotheosis of everything that is worst in us.
posted by biogeo at 12:26 PM on May 21, 2018 [173 favorites]

seeing his picture calms me down and makes me feel that someone, somewhere, is working against evil

Just a reminder that these candles are available on Etsy for your Mueller idolatry needs.
posted by kelborel at 12:28 PM on May 21, 2018 [20 favorites]

Mod note: A few comments removed; folks, let's please try to keep the noise level down, and skip e.g. elaborate headcanon or plot outlines for imagined Trump et al episodes. There's enough weird bullshit actually happening and documented to keep these threads busy as is.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:34 PM on May 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

I am absolutely serious about getting a portrait tattoo of Mueller on my back ala roger stone's Nixon, just as soon as a trump immediate family member (including by marriage) goes to jail.

my wife isn't wild about the idea but I keep trying to focus her on the fact that by the time she has to deal with it one (or more!) of these repugnant pieces of shit will have lost their freedom.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:52 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Thorzdad: So, SCOTUS just delivered a potential death-blow today to enforcement of any workers' rights by ruling employees cannot organize as a class in a dispute with employers, and must accept individual forced arbitration.

Elaboration: Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow To Workers' Rights (NPR, May 21, 2018)

In a case involving the rights of tens of millions of private-sector employees, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote (PDF), delivered a major blow to workers, ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.

"The policy may be debatable but the law is clear: Congress has instructed that arbitration agreements like those before us must be enforced as written," Gorsuch writes. "While Congress is of course always free to amend this judgment, we see nothing suggesting it did so in the NLRA — much less that it manifested a clear intention to displace the Arbitration Act. Because we can easily read Congress's statutes to work in harmony, that is where our duty lies."

GOP's stalling Obama's Supreme Court nomination pick pays off ... for now. Congress wrote the (now dated) law, and Congress can re-write it. 2018 is looking to be a(n even more) tumultuous year.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:54 PM on May 21, 2018 [39 favorites]

This was explicit in the NPR article posted by flt:

Notably, Ginsburg's dissent is five pages longer than the majority's opinion. And Gorsuch spends time in his opinion to respond point by point to the minority's arguments.

Just a bit of pointed snark.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:57 PM on May 21, 2018 [22 favorites]

Bernie Sanders to Seek Reelection to U.S. Senate

According to campaign spokesperson Arianna Jones, Sanders plans to seek the Democratic nomination in Vermont’s August primary. If he wins, she said, he would “respectfully” decline the nomination and run as an independent in the general election. Sanders would, however, accept the endorsement of the Vermont Democratic Party.

“That is what he has done in the past, and that is what he looks forward to happening in 2018,” Jones said, referring to Sanders’ 2006 and 2012 Senate runs.

Man...this guy.
posted by zachlipton at 1:05 PM on May 21, 2018 [43 favorites]

Bernie...time to sit down and let somebody else be the firebrand progressive. You're squandering your goodwill, buddy. We need to all hang together or we will hang separately, etc.

GOP's stalling Obama's Supreme Court nomination pick pays off ... for now. Congress wrote the (now dated) law, and Congress can re-write it. 2018 is looking to be a(n even more) tumultuous year.

All the more reason to have a Blue Wave. As was pointed out in the previous thread, many Democrats have not necessarily been that great on labor (I would add from the 90's on when the Third Way held sway). We need More and Better Democrats (tm) or at least Democrats who are willing to have their colleagues' backs if we're talking red-state Dems. The good news is that it's a law, and laws can be re-written; it's not like it's enshrined in the Constitution and will need an amendment.

P.S.: thank you for the new thread!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [20 favorites]

If he wins, she said, he would “respectfully” decline the nomination and run as an independent in the general election.


Which — props to Bernie for his politics which I really, really like — but this just seems rather dickish.

Basically, it allows him to reap the benefits of the Dem primary cycle to hone his brand, crowd out any Dem competition from getting the nom, and then turn around immediately after he’s cleared the field and stick his thumb in the Dem party’s eye.

I know he has his issues with the official Dem party, but it seems that integrity would lead one to not seek their nomination if you already know you wouldn’t accept it.

As long as he caucuses with the Dems once elected, I guess it’s a wash and the party is otherwise happy to let it happen. Glad to have him in the Senate, in any event.
posted by darkstar at 1:20 PM on May 21, 2018 [26 favorites]

Mod note: I would be delighted if y'all could contain (a) the speculative what-ifing about Bernie Sanders re: future actions to a minimum and (b) the speculative what-ifing about the 2016 primaries and alternate universe electoral outcomes to literally zero. We do not need another rehash.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:28 PM on May 21, 2018 [30 favorites]

NBC's Meet the Press FIRST READ: Don’t Get Distracted. The Biggest Weekend Story Was the Other 2016 Trump Tower Meeting

On Sunday, President Trump asked the Justice Department to investigate whether anyone infiltrated or surveilled his campaign — reacting to the reporting that an informant talked to two Trump officials (George Papadopoulos and Carter Page) after the FBI received evidence that the two men had suspicious links with Russia.[...]

But ask yourself the question: What will this past weekend be known for — Trump’s saber-rattling, or the reporting that the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign is MUCH MORE COMPLEX than we originally knew and that those 2016 contacts could have formed the administration’s foreign policy?

We’re putting our money on the latter development.

Here was The New York Times from this weekend [Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election]

“Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes [of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates]. The third was a Republican donor [Erik Prince] with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor. The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months — past the election and well into President Trump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters.”

Don’t get distracted — that reporting of a second Trump Tower meeting in 2016 was the biggest news from the weekend.

The very first thing Sunday morning, Trump tweeted, "Things are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World!" (The article's co-writer Ronen Bergman @ronenbergman tweeted, "I wish we could have made it even longer. So many interesting details had to be left out.")

See also: Washington Post: There Was A Second Trump Tower Meeting, And Yet Again It Contradicts The Trump Team’s Past Collusion Denials
NY Magazine: Why the New Times Report on the Gulf Meeting Is Freaking Trump Out

Comic Relief: Tina Fey as Natalia Veselnitskaya explaining the original Trump Tower meeting on last weekend's SNL.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:29 PM on May 21, 2018 [45 favorites]

Hmmmm: Mick Mulvaney: Make House Democrats 'Put Up or Shut Up' About Pelosi

The backstory here isn't entirely about forcing a vote on Pelosi so they can cut yet more attack ads about how terrible she is. It's about this weekend's story about trying to shove Paul Ryan out the door before the midterms.

"Hey we should have a stunt vote for speaker to attack Pelosi" is an unubstle excuse for "Kevin McCarthy is plotting a coup."
posted by zachlipton at 1:36 PM on May 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

Basically, it allows him to reap the benefits of the Dem primary cycle to hone his brand, crowd out any Dem competition from getting the nom, and then turn around immediately after he’s cleared the field and stick his thumb in the Dem party’s eye.

It looks to me more like a kind of fusion voting in which Democrats in the district can vote to have the party endorse Sanders whether or not he runs as a Democrat. It's not the only system you could have for primaries and it has advantages and disadvantages, but it's not unique to Sanders or obviously unfair.
posted by This time is different. at 1:36 PM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

At a conference in Colorado sponsored by THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Fox News host Bret Baier asked Mulvaney what he thought of the idea that Ryan should step down and allow his likely successor, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, to become speaker this year.

"I've talked with Kevin about this privately but not as much publicly,” Mulvaney replied. “Wouldn't it be great to force a Democrat running in a tight race to have to put up or shut up about voting for Nancy Pelosi eight weeks before an election? That's a really, really good vote for us to force if we can figure out how to do it."

The Republicans are going to pick the House Speaker regardless of what the Democrats do. Why would the Democrats have to vote for Pelosi, or for anybody at all? A natural reaction to such a foolhardy stunt would be to abstain, and let whatever crackpot the Republicans pick drag down their popularity some more.

It says much, though, about Republican unpopularity in that they're trying their usual tactic of pointing and shrieking and demonizing someone (and a woman, of course). Nice of you to admit Republicans have stitch-all to run on after a year and a half on your watch, Mulvaney.
posted by Gelatin at 1:36 PM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

Mick Mulvaney is the White House Budget Director. So of course he’s engaging in explicit, hyperpartisan electioneering, because having members of the President’s budget staff doing that is a thing now.
posted by darkstar at 1:37 PM on May 21, 2018 [33 favorites]

...ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws.

I eagerly await (not) the inevitable move to ask a court to invalidate unions based on this ruling. This could easily be another Citizens United in its disasterous (for the non-wealthy) follow-on effects.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:39 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's not the only system you could have for primaries and it has advantages and disadvantages, but it's not unique to Sanders or obviously unfair.


Ah — that makes sense...thanks for the clarification!
posted by darkstar at 1:40 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Axios, Peter Navarro pushed Stefan Halper for Trump job

Halper reportedly was interested in an ambassadorship in Asia sometime after he finished up meeting with Page, Papadopoulos, and Clovis for the FBI's investigation during the campaign. I don't even...what?
posted by zachlipton at 1:44 PM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'll have to read that SCOTUS decision and dissent later because whether I agree or not they'll probably have more information than my 5 minutes of googling. It just seems like the newer law should have priority over the older law and the newer law makes it sound like arbitration agreements that prevent employees from engaging "in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection" would be illegal to me and making a class action lawsuit sure sounds like concerted activity for the purpose of mutual aid or protection to me. But I'm not a lawyer so...
posted by Green With You at 1:47 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Shiva Ayyadurai, the Man who Invented Email (tm), who is now running as an independent against Elizabeth Warren, dropped his First Amendment lawsuit against Cambridge, MA after the city dropped its demand he stop parking his campaign bus, emblazoned with a tasteful "Vote for the Real Indian" banner, outside his campaign HQ (after the city learned it was not parked there permanently). Of course, he couldn't leave well enough alone - he also filed a demand the city acknowledge "terms of surrender" that, among other things, it knew he would expose Warren's role in the city building commissioner issuing the equivalent of a stop-order against the bus. The city basically responded, "Nuts" only in a few more words. The judge ignored his demand and simply dismissed the case.
posted by adamg at 1:49 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

WH statement following Trump's meeting with DOJ officials:

“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.”

posted by zachlipton at 1:49 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Axios: Exclusive: Peter Navarro pushed Stefan Halper for Trump job

President Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, recommended appointing Stefan Halper, an academic and suspected FBI informant on the Trump campaign, to a senior role in the Trump administration, Axios has learned.

During the presidential transition Navarro recommended Halper, among other people, for ambassador roles in Asia. A White House official said Halper visited the Eisenhower Executive Office Building last August for a meeting about China.

[...] Halper, who already knew Navarro in the context of being a China scholar and interviewing for his anti-China book and film, pitched himself for an ambassadorship in Asia, according to a source briefed on their interactions. Navarro says he submitted Halper’s name for the Asian ambassadorship — we have not been able to confirm the country — along with around a dozen other people for roles in the region. [...]

This is personal for President Trump, who yesterday demanded a Justice Department probe into the FBI. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then authorized an Inspector General probe into the FBI's use of FISA for counterintelligence operations.

Add this to Navarro's clashes within the Trump White House over China trade policy and "unprofessional behavior", and his odds of being the next departure from the administration have shot up.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:59 PM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

Meanwhile in further "dehumanization of latinx immigrants" news we have this official white house statement: What You Need To Know About The Violent Animals Of MS-13
posted by poffin boffin at 2:00 PM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

There's a jaw-dropping five alarm scandal involving the middle east here. AP, The princes, the president and the fortune seekers. It's long, read it all.

After a year spent carefully cultivating two princes from the Arabian Peninsula, Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for President Donald Trump, thought he was finally close to nailing more than $1 billion in business.

He had ingratiated himself with crown princes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who were seeking to alter U.S. foreign policy and punish Qatar, an archrival in the Gulf that he dubbed “the snake.”

To do that, the California businessman had helped spearhead a secret campaign to influence the White House and Congress, flooding Washington with political donations.

Broidy and his business partner, Lebanese-American George Nader, pitched themselves to the crown princes as a backchannel to the White House, passing the princes’ praise — and messaging — straight to the president’s ears.

Now, in December 2017, Broidy was ready to be rewarded for all his hard work.

It was time to cash in.

In return for pushing anti-Qatar policies at the highest levels of America’s government, Broidy and Nader expected huge consulting contracts from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to an Associated Press investigation based on interviews with more than two dozen people and hundreds of pages of leaked emails between the two men. The emails reviewed by the AP included work summaries and contracting documents and proposals.

AP dumped a pile of relevant documents. You can scroll down to "Nader passages messages from the UAE for Broidy to deliver to the President" and "the Oval Office meeting."

Included is a summary by Broidy of his meeting at the White House. For example:

I highlighted that Qatar has strengthened its rela tionsh ip with Iran and continues to dest abilize Libya and Syria.Jared offered no immediate comment but asked what the administration should do about the dispute with Qatar and its neighbors. I told him we should do nothing and allow the disagreement to run its course. We cannot accept their role as sponsors of terror.

Finally, I told Jared that I hoped the administrat ion w ould examine this closely and not allow this unacceptable behavior to continue. I asked Jared if he knew that Qatar was paying Cory Lewandowski $500,000 per month to represent their efforts. Jared was shocked and repeated it back to me. Jared offered no further comments to my remarks.

Broidy goes on to describe how he pitched a meeting between Trump and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and bashed Qatar to Trump. The taking points communicated in Broidy's meeting with Trump all nicely match up with exactly the messages Nader sent Broidy from the UAE government.
posted by zachlipton at 2:02 PM on May 21, 2018 [71 favorites]

Experts: Door could be open for Blankenship to pursue independent Senate run
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:11 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

> It was time to cash in.

Perfectly aligned with the thread title, and the motto/epitaph for the Trump administration.

> I asked Jared if he knew that Qatar was paying Cory Lewandowski $500,000 per month to represent their efforts.

$500,000 per month. This is fine.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:13 PM on May 21, 2018 [39 favorites]

From zarq's Politico link in the last thread: Bernie’s army in disarray about the Our Revolution article. Here are two quotes that really sum up the problems (or, the amazing bullshit) of the politics of purity.

'Our Revolution leaders said that what they’re building goes much deeper than winning elections. The focus, said Larry Cohen, the group’s volunteer chairman, “is not that scoreboard. The focus is: Can we grow in actually measurable ways in this movement?”'

and

'As for Our Revolution’s record in elections, Weaver said, “They’re trying to focus on getting the right shade of blue — they’re not always focused on the transactional approach of ‘electability.’”'

WTF?! An embarrassing waste of time and energy. And I'm worried that the scorched earth tactic the article describes about their endorsement of Stacey Abrams (who I support) will hurt her campaign in the general.
posted by feste at 2:14 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

There's now a White House Military Office coin for the upcoming Trump Kim Jong Un summit. The North Korean dictator is referred to as "Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un."

Commemorative coins for some, regime change for others! (Maduro, Iran...)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:16 PM on May 21, 2018 [20 favorites]

poffin boffin: Meanwhile in further "dehumanization of latinx immigrants" news we have this official white house statement: What You Need To Know About The Violent Animals Of MS-13

I want to make a kids book about real animals that are dangerous to people, like the koala ("These are koalas. Although they appear cuddly, they have sharp teeth and claws that they will use to defend themselves") and compare them people who have been falsely accused of being associated with MS-13 ("this is a teenager who was imprisoned for 7 months for flashing a gang sign, and was accused of being in MS-13 because of that. Gang signs aren't violent, and he is a person, and thus not a "violent animal," unlike a threatened koala.")

You know, for the kids this administration and all the xenophobic hate-mongers who fan the flames of fear to bolster their own political careers and normalize the abnormal behavior of Donald Trump.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:28 PM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

The Hill: DOJ, Trump reach deal on expanded Russia review

So much for Rosenstein blockading this meddling.
posted by cudzoo at 2:40 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Worthy of its own FPP (along with the guardian and other PPC links) is this : THE SOULS OF POOR FOLK, an audit of America 50years after the first Poor Peple’s Campaign, grim but essential reading from the IPS
posted by The Whelk at 2:43 PM on May 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

It appears that the UAE/Saudi princes don't think to highly of Jared Kushner (From the AP's Broidy-Nader article, linked above by zachlipton):

Broidy met Trump once again on Dec. 2. He reported back to Nader that he’d told Trump the crown princes were “most favorably impressed by his leadership.” He offered the crown princes’ help in the Middle East peace plan being developed by Jared Kushner. He did not tell Trump that his partner had complete contempt for the plan — and for the president’s son-in-law.

“You have to hear in private my Brother what Principals think of ‘Clown prince’s’ efforts and his plan!” Nader wrote. “Nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn’t for who he is married to.”

Is Nader the first to adopt "Clown Prince"? Has a nice ring to it.
posted by pjenks at 2:48 PM on May 21, 2018 [33 favorites]

Let me see if I've got this straight. The story we've been told is that Elliott Broidy supposedly hired Michael Cohen to negotiate a $1.6 million payout for his affair, funneling money through Essential Consultants and pulling the same shenanigans Trump used for the Stormy Daniels deal. This was leaked publicly, almost preemptively, and Broidy stepped down as the RNC's deputy finance chair.

Following the election, both Cohen and Broidy went into business, separately, in which they'd take large sums of money from people who wanted stuff from Trump. Broidy's effort, after teaming up with Nader, makes Cohen's look like peanuts; the AP says up to $600M over five years was involved (assuming the AP's documents are really genuine, and how we've come to see them has got to be an even more interesting story, because this is pretty clearly email hacking (by Qatar?) to throw people under the bus big time).

Per Avenatti's leaked SARs, Cohen/Broidy payments continued as late as March 2018.

So what's the chance the two stories are really unrelated? Both these guys are pulling the same scam, money is going back and forth. I don't think it's really outlandish to think there's a connection here. And Broidy was an RNC officer while he was doing all this.

Please also enjoy the bit where Nader calls Jared the "Clown prince" and says his mid-east clients mock his peace plans: "nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn’t for who he is married to."
posted by zachlipton at 2:49 PM on May 21, 2018 [44 favorites]

cudzoo: So much for Rosenstein blockading this meddling.

The details are still pretty vague:

President Trump and the Department of Justice on Monday reached an agreement to allow the inspector general to investigate conservative claims of FBI wrongdoing in the Russia probe, diffusing at least for now a burgeoning crisis between Trump and senior law enforcement officials.

"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," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

The Justice Department had already made the referral to Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Sunday, in an apparent effort to ratchet down tensions.

But the White House also announced that chief of staff John Kelly will "immediately set up a meeting" with Trump allies on Capitol Hill to "review" the classified materials that had sparked the standoff. It is unclear whether Trump ordered the Justice Department to turn over the documents.

(The Hill via MSN.com, because I can't access The Hill at the moment)

I appreciate that this was spun (here, at least) as a "conservative claim" of FBI wrongdoing, then as a "burgeoning crisis between Trump and senior law enforcement officials."
posted by filthy light thief at 2:52 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Maybe Broidy took the public blame for the 1.6 mil playmate affair as the cost of doing business
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:54 PM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

Fun fact: Even criminals are actual human beings. They might not be nice people, but they are people.
posted by Daily Alice at 2:55 PM on May 21, 2018 [19 favorites]

Is Nader the first to adopt "Clown Prince"? Has a nice ring to it.

First definite (non-OCR error) example in Google Books is for a poem mocking Crown Prince Wilhelm's military failures in World War I.
posted by The Tensor at 3:09 PM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

Adam Schiff @RepAdamSchiff sees through Trump's demands: "Giuliani removes all doubt – the White House effort to force DOJ to give investigatory materials to Congress is really about the defense team getting their hands on them. If the President is charged with a crime, he has a right to see the evidence. Not before."

If this DoJ deal means that they have to share information with Devin Nunes—whom Trump called "a very courageous man" at the Gina Haspel's CIA swearing-in ceremony today—that means the Trump White House gets to see it.

Politico: DOJ, Trump Strike Murky Deal in FBI Informant Spat

The breadth of the agreement was not immediately clear. The Justice Department had previously indicated that sharing details about its informant could risk lives and endanger national security. It's also unclear who will be permitted to view the documents. The Justice Department typically shares its most sensitive information with the so-called "Gang of Eight" — the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, as well as the Republican and Democratic leaders of each chamber's Intelligence Committee.[...]

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the documents requested by Trump will "indicate what the informant found." He also said the memos "should be made available to us on a confidential basis," he added. "We should be at least allowed to read them so we know this exculpatory evidence is being preserved.” It's unclear if there were any arrangements made for the White House to view the documents.

Trump’s lawyers also want to interview the FBI officials who made the decision to connect the informant with the campaign.

“It’s the FBI who has the onus for having invaded the campaign,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani predicted the Justice Department would place redactions on some parts of the material.

“But as long as they turn over the vast majority of it it gives you a real sense” of what the FBI was doing. “The question is what are the justifications for it? Did the justifications continue? Did they pick up anything valuable? That’s the most important thing to do. We think they didn’t.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the Trumpists there are pressing their advantage—Grassley Seeks DOJ Documents on Official’s Contacts With Dossier Author, Politico reports. "In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Iowa Republican requested emails, phone logs, handwritten notes and text messages regarding former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr’s communications with Christopher Steele, who wrote the dossier. The report was commissioned by Fusion GPS, where Ohr’s wife worked."
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:16 PM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws.

Don’t worry, the pickets outside your homes are /individual/ pickets.

Which is to say, there is a solution to this ruling, and its name is Direct Action. I don’t know how the “traditional” unions will be handling this, but unless they’re planning to call out the national guard to deal with wildcat strikes (which tbh is always possible in this reality) I don’t see how they plan to stop the workers from organizing.
posted by corb at 3:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [24 favorites]

More hints at what's coming in the DOJ IG report, about which we're going to have a lot of competing leaks now that the draft is completed and interested parties are looking at it. AP, Watchdog report to fault FBI for Clinton probe delay

An upcoming report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog is expected to criticize senior FBI leaders for not moving quickly enough to review a trove of Hillary Clinton emails discovered late in the 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the findings.

The FBI’s timing has been a sore point for Clinton supporters, who say then-director James Comey’s announcement of the new review less than two weeks before the Nov. 8, 2016, election contributed to her loss. The agency’s findings affirming its decision not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton were disclosed two days before the vote — too late, her supporters say, to undo the damage.

Some FBI officials knew in September 2016 of the emails on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop but the bureau did not obtain a warrant to review them until the following month. Clinton allies say the candidate’s name could have been cleared much faster if the FBI acted on the emails as soon as they knew of their existence.

An inspector general report examining a broad range of FBI actions during the Clinton email investigation will criticize officials, including Comey, for not moving fast enough to examine the email trove and for a weekslong delay in getting a warrant, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

So when Comey did his whole nationwide media tour to discuss how he had two options, disclose or stay silent, he was apparently missing the third option, which was to manage his department in such a way this didn't happen in the first place.
posted by zachlipton at 3:21 PM on May 21, 2018 [53 favorites]

WSJ, Michael Cohen Helped Trump Donor Seek Investment From Qatar Fund

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer helped a major donor to Mr. Trump’s inauguration pitch a nuclear-power investment to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund at a meeting in April, according to people familiar with the matter.

The donor, Franklin L. Haney, is seeking to complete a pair of unfinished nuclear reactors in Alabama known as the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant. His company is lobbying the Trump administration for an extension of tax credits, federal disclosures show.

Mr. Haney, 77, recently hired Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, as a consultant, one of the people familiar with the matter said. It isn't clear how much Mr. Haney paid Mr. Cohen. On April 5, Messrs. Cohen and Haney met with the vice chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani, to seek an investment in the plant, the people familiar with the matter said.

posted by zachlipton at 3:40 PM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

Dam Friedman, Mother Jones: "Michael Cohen Met With Qatari Official and Nuclear Plant Owner Last Month"

At a meeting in Miami on April 5, Franklin Haney, the owner of an inoperative nuclear power plant in Hollywood, Alabama, sought a major investment for his facility, according to two sources familiar with the gathering. His target, the sources say, was Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, Qatar’s minister of economy and commerce and deputy chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority, the $300 billion sovereign wealth fund of the natural gas-rich Persian Gulf state. Also at the meeting, according to the sources, was Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer. (Several days later, Cohen’s office and home would be raided by federal agents.) Now, as the Trump scandal expands to include Cohen’s business deals and possible interactions between Trump associates and officials of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, any relationship between Cohen and Qatar would likely be of interest to federal investigators.

posted by OnceUponATime at 3:46 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Interesting to see Qatar pop back up in the news again after last summer's diplomatic crisis that 45 had some bizarre (or par for the course, I guess) tweets about.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 3:48 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Some reactions to the Gorsuch Court from:

Matt Stoller: It was Obama DOJ #resistance hero @neal_katyal who both endorsed Gorsuch and argued the case that just gutted labor law. #Resist

Brian Highsmith: I know this is an uncomfortable conversation, but progressives must understand+confront role that Big Law—including heroes who’ve done great work serving in Dem admins—has played in undermining legal rights of vulnerable workers and consumers, esp through attack on class actions

Zach Carter: 1. It is remarkable how much right-wing economics work isn't really about markets at all, just straight up power 2. This isn't about efficiency or distribution or productivity. It's about how prohibitions against outright theft are enforced. 3. There isn't really a serious neoliberal / libertarian argument in *favor* of violating contracts and stealing wages -- it undermines the whole theory, in fact 4. But there will be a whole libertarian barrage behind the freedom to agree to forced arbitration and contract away your right to hear a case in court 5. Which just shows that when push comes to shove, libertaria is more interested in rule by employer than rule of law. It likes private courts more than real courts. 6. There's a bunch of stuff you can't contract away because it's foundational law stuff. Imagine an employer asking workers to sign a contract forfeiting their right to own a firearm as a condition of employment. 7. But hey, your right to be heard in a court of law? Exactly the sort of thing a private center of power should be able to wrest away from you.

Marshall Steinbaum: Mandatory arbitration & class action waivers in employment (or any) contract aren't just exploitative to the parties to those "contracts;" they're also against policy. Our antitrust laws, among others, rely on private actions to **enforce the law**. /1 Right-wing judges don't think that those laws should exist, but instead of overturning them by legislation they whittle away their enforcement mechanisms by over-reading the Federal Arbitration Act as a blanket application of the Coase Theorem. /2 All of this is motivated by the deep-seated libertarian hatred for democracy. To them, it's fine as long as it protects property and expansive rights for property owners. But the moment it acts to limit those rights, undemocratic application of state power is justified.

Also Steinbaum: The New Deal settlement took direct action & radical unionism off the table in exchange for a seat at the table. That settlement is long gone; it's time for working people to act accordingly.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:55 PM on May 21, 2018 [78 favorites]

The Qatar/UAE/Saudi situation is in the news because those countries are putting it there. This isn't an accident; it's been carefully orchestrated. BuzzFeed has an interesting story on this a little while back: How Two Persian Gulf Nations Turned The US Media Into Their Battleground, "For the last year, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been leaking emails to journalists." The story goes into some detail on Broidy's emails, "which hackers apparently accessed after tricking his wife into providing credentials to access Broidy’s email accounts and the email server of one of his companies, Broidy Capital Management."

And there are a lot of ethical issues here. Much of this material does seem to have been hacked by nation-states. That doesn't mean ignoring blockbuster stories like Broidy and Nader's schemes, but we're going on about a year now of information warfare between the two countries, largely waged in the US press, and essentially nobody seems to be interested in covering that story instead of what the documents say.

The comparison to the Podesta emails is tempting, but doesn't really hold up. Emails, even hacked emails, containing evidence of potential crimes (failure to register as a foreign agent if nothing else) and foreign entanglements by associates of the President have inherent news value that vastly exceeds the sum total of anything contained in Podesta's Gmail account. But there's a danger in what the press keeps doing here, which is to make the story entirely about the contents and not at all about how the emails came to be. We certainly saw this in 2016, where the DNC and Podesta emails were treated as manna from heaven and the question of where they came from wasn't discussed until it was far too late. This isn't the same thing, but it's the same pattern of behavior where another extremely important story, the hacking, is largely being ignored in favor of what is in the hacked documents, assuming they are all, in fact, genuine.

Also, I'd just like to register a complaint that someone burst into a pizzeria with guns over Pizzagate, yet this article discusses how Trump sold a photo op with someone convicted of 10 counts of sexually abusing minors despite unspecified objections from the Secret Service and nobody seems to care
posted by zachlipton at 4:10 PM on May 21, 2018 [60 favorites]

infini: "This is a good OP. Its good to see this finally distilled down to the essence of what it is - corruption."

They should have been impeaching him on day one for emoluments clause violations. It's not as salacious as a blow job but it has implications for actual bad things happening to the state.
posted by Mitheral at 4:14 PM on May 21, 2018 [18 favorites]

It sounds like the UAE and Saudi Arabia were trying to buy influence in the Trump administration through Cohen, Broidy, Flynn, Bannon. Qatar in turn tried to buy it from Kushner and through purchasing Trump condos.

This is "diplomacy by other means" in the hybrid warfare era.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:15 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

I just want to suggest that the best part of the AP's scoop on George Nader is that he used the codename.... "Vader" to conceal his identity.

“We ran all data bases including FBI and Interpol and found no issues with regard to Mr. Vader.”

Fire the writers.
posted by schmod at 4:17 PM on May 21, 2018 [26 favorites]

Speaking of hacking and a Presidential campaign that treated email security as the most important issue facing the nation, Politico, ‘Too inconvenient’: Trump goes rogue on phone security

The president, who relies on cellphones to reach his friends and millions of Twitter followers, has rebuffed staff efforts to strengthen security around his phone use, according to the administration officials.

The president uses at least two iPhones, according to one of the officials. The phones – one capable only of making calls, the other equipped only with the Twitter app and pre-loaded with a handful of news sites – are issued by White House Information Technology and the White House Communications Agency, an office staffed by military personnel that oversees White House telecommunications.

While aides have urged the president to swap out the Twitter phone on a monthly basis, Trump has resisted their entreaties, telling them it was “too inconvenient,” the same administration official said.

The president has gone as long as five months without having the phone checked by security experts. It is unclear how often Trump’s call-capable phones, which are essentially used as burner phones, are swapped out.

posted by zachlipton at 4:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [68 favorites]

Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock.... nobody?
posted by contraption at 4:31 PM on May 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

Speaking of hacking and a Presidential campaign that treated email security as the most important issue facing the nation, Politico, ‘Too inconvenient’: Trump goes rogue on phone security

D.C. is filled with illicit cell phone trackers, the local NBC TV reported: Potential Spy Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over D.C., Md., Va.

The technology can be as small as a suitcase, placed anywhere at any time, and it's used to track cell phones and intercept calls. The News4 I-Team found dozens of potential spy devices while driving around Washington, D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia. [...] The device, sometimes referred to by the brand name StingRay, is designed to mimic a cell tower and can trick your phone into connecting to it instead. [...]

The News4 I-Team asked Turner to ride around the capital region with special software loaded onto three cell phones, with three different carriers, to detect the devices operating in various locations.[...] And the I-Team found them in high-profile areas like outside the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue and while driving across the 14th Street bridge into Crystal City. The I-Team got picked up twice while driving along K Street — the corridor popular with lobbyists.

It's estimated only half of these cell phone trackers belong to US law enforcement—the rest are espionage hardware.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:39 PM on May 21, 2018 [36 favorites]

> The president, who relies on cellphones to reach his friends and millions of Twitter followers, has rebuffed staff efforts to strengthen security around his phone use, according to the administration officials.

>D.C. is filled with illicit cell phone trackers

Yeah, it is 100% certain that those Trump cell phone conversations are intercepted routinely by various foreign governments.

It is simultaneously too high value and far too easy pickings for the situation to be otherwise.
posted by flug at 4:59 PM on May 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

I almost forgot that John Kelly's phone had been hacked at some time before the transition.

One can only hope that the various Russian/Turkish/Israeli rootkits will try to coexist on his phone(s) and pull a Reservoir Dogs. Or that so much intel is leaving through the front door anyway that this won't even matter.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:07 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

It's amazing that George Nader has been in the news this long (though I've lost all ability to estimate time) and only today have I learned about his sex abuse convictions. And even more wild, I have no idea whether or not they'll ultimately prove relevant to everything else he's up to here. Probably not but, ugh, who knows.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:10 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, it is 100% certain that those Trump cell phone conversations are intercepted routinely by various foreign governments.

Why would they even need to do so when twitter exists.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:17 PM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

From that article in Politico

Giuliani predicted the Justice Department would place redactions on some parts of the material.

“But as long as they turn over the vast majority of it it gives you a real sense” of what the FBI was doing. “The question is what are the justifications for it? Did the justifications continue? Did they pick up anything valuable? That’s the most important thing to do. We think they didn’t.”

That doesn't sound like the sort of thing a lawyer should say, and it's definitely not the sort of thing you'd say if you thought your client were innocent. “Did they pick up anything valuable?”, forsooth.

I mean, the whole thing is fundamentally incoherent: Giuliani is Trump's private lawyer, and in that capacity he has no grounds for seeking disclosure from the prosecution before charges are laid. But here he is, arguing that Trump in his role as Chief Executive is entitled to know details of an investigation into alleged crimes. That may be a plausible legal argument, if only because it's a weak spot in the US Constitution, but in context it's an “Ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball” argument. This obviously isn't the sort of accommodation Trump could get from a court, so Giuliani – an officer of the court! – is basically telling Trump how to stymie an investigation. In fact, Trump has a duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, so the advice is possibly not just a breach of Giuliani's duty to the court, it's an act of collusion with a criminal.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:22 PM on May 21, 2018 [36 favorites]

In Missouri's multifaceted governor's scandal Judge Eric Burlison has named the Special Prosecutor who will decide where or not to re-file charges related to Greitens' sexual misconduct in 2015.

Special Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker is Jackson County Prosecutor. Jackson County is the second largest county in Missouri, in the Kansas City area and on the opposite side of the state from St. Louis, where the crime took place and where Gardner is located. FYI Baker is a Democrat, so we are certain to keep hearing bleating about the charges being politically motivated.

In his order, [Burlison] noted that Baker's office would serve as special prosecutor 'with regard to the investigation and possible prosecution of Eric Greitens in alleged criminal activity in regard to an incident on March 21, 2015, and other incidents involving the same victim from that date through September 1, 2015.'

It wasn't clear whether additional charges beyond invasion of privacy are possible.

Due to the statue of limitations, the Special Prosecutor will have about a month to decide whether or not to re-file charges related to the original charge. Statute of limitations issues may affect some of the other charges available for filing, as it has now been over three years since at least some of the events that happened.

In related news:

• FBI now investigating strongarming of state legislators by Governor in impeachment-related votes
• Greitens' abuse victim finally speaks publicly
• Side-scandal involving taxpayer funding of lawyers defending Governor from impeachment
• federal election malfeasance clear but not punished
• County Prosecutor declines to file charges related to false campaign finance forms filed by Greitens. The reports were corrected campaign finance reports filed after complaints were received about use of donor contact information lists from The Mission Continues, which Greitens founded before leaving to run for Governor. Per the House Committee Report #2 (see below), the corrected reports were false and knowingly filed falsely and deceptively. It is unclear why the County Prosecutor declined to file charges.
• House Committee Report 1 (sexual misconduct/abuse)
• House Committee Report 2 (campaign finance malfeasance)

posted by flug at 5:25 PM on May 21, 2018 [24 favorites]

It's amazing that George Nader has been in the news this long (though I've lost all ability to estimate time) and only today have I learned about his sex abuse convictions. And even more wild, I have no idea whether or not they'll ultimately prove relevant to everything else he's up to here.

This is from AP story:

When Nader landed at Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., a team of FBI agents working for Mueller was there to meet him. He was relieved of his electronic devices and later agreed to cooperate.

This detail lends itself to a pretty obvious guess why a pedophile might quickly decide to cooperate with Mueller's team.
posted by peeedro at 5:28 PM on May 21, 2018 [25 favorites]

I know this genre is played out but...

If Obama summoned the FBI Director and Attorney General to demand the evidence in an investigation into his conduct, he would've been impeached by the end of the day.
posted by chris24 at 5:43 PM on May 21, 2018 [78 favorites]

WaPo: The slippery slope of the Trump administration’s political embrace of calling MS-13 ‘animals’

The problem with that language and with turning it into the same sort of politicultural fight that we see with, say, kneeling in the NFL is that Trump’s rhetoric about MS-13 is not now or ever has really been about MS-13. Instead, it’s directly about the threat posed by immigrants to the United States, an argument that took another form in the very first minutes of his presidential campaign, when he called some immigrants from Mexico criminals and rapists. The idea has been to use specific examples of bad actors within or associated with the immigrant community as avatars for that community on the whole and to then enact policies that target immigrants broadly.

[emphais mine]
posted by triggerfinger at 5:54 PM on May 21, 2018 [48 favorites]

The idea has been to use specific examples of bad actors within or associated with the immigrant community as avatars for that community on the whole and to then enact policies that target immigrants broadly.

They give Trumpism too much credit to suggest that only immigrants are being demonized and will be targeted. Next on the "animals" list will be all the other street gangs, because the Trumpist rank and file already knows what kind of people are in those. After that will be the "deviants".
posted by Etrigan at 5:59 PM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

D.C. is filled with illicit cell phone trackers

Serious question: If this is true, which I don't doubt, how come we don't have recordings of Trump talking to Hannity or something like that? Sure it would be illegal, but also ratings gold.
posted by Dr. Send at 6:07 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Don't forget the "agitators". It's a term out of vogue, but I'm sure we can .. wait, I googled and Trump said it last year.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:08 PM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

I cannot believe how much I cannot believe. That document calling human beings animals over and over again is from whitehouse.gov? This is an actual white house release?
posted by agregoli at 6:09 PM on May 21, 2018 [55 favorites]

Next on the "animals" list will be all the other street gangs, because the Trumpist rank and file already knows what kind of people are in those.

But gangs like the Klan? "Very fine people."
posted by triggerfinger at 6:11 PM on May 21, 2018 [34 favorites]

I think reminding each other frequently of the difference in the treatment of Trump versus Obama by the GOP and the corporate media is an important vaccination against normalization, and it's never played out. This is not normal, and it's not acceptable.
posted by biogeo at 6:14 PM on May 21, 2018 [51 favorites]

Daily Beast, Elliott Broidy’s Company Got Its Biggest U.S. Government Contract Ever While He Pitched Trump Administration, in which Broidy's just cashing checks from everybody.
posted by zachlipton at 6:16 PM on May 21, 2018 [21 favorites]

how come we don't have recordings of Trump talking to Hannity or something like that?

Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to intercept some conversations with solicitations for bribes. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
posted by duoshao at 6:17 PM on May 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

GOP's stalling Obama's Supreme Court nomination pick pays off ... for now. Congress wrote the (now dated) law, and Congress can re-write it. 2018 is looking to be a(n even more) tumultuous year.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but in order to rewrite the law, Democrats need to win the House, Democrats need to win the Senate, Democrats need to win a super-majority in the Senate because McConnell will filibuster everything, and then Democrats need to win the White House to avoid a veto. This ain't happening in 2018.

The best Democrats can hope for is to win at least one house of congress and slow down the terrible things Trump and the Republicans want to do going forward. That would be a valuable accomplishment.

But Democrats are a long, long way from being able to undo the damage already done. Elections have consequences and the 2016 election will have very long lasting consequences.
posted by JackFlash at 6:27 PM on May 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

I've come to think of Trump's rise to power as part of a larger trend: the counterreaction of authoritarianism, or the Dictators Strike Back. Democracy was on an upswing throughout the last half of the twentieth century, along with concepts like human rights and international rule of law. This trend really picked up steam in the '90s, but before that there was significant pushback with the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. While authoritarian states were collapsing elsewhere, Jiang Zemin's China was figuring out how to combine one-party rule with a free market economy.

Then in the 21st century two things happened:

1. The election of Putin in Russia, who figured out his own (perhaps China-inspired) solution to running a successful dictatorship in the modern world - the Kleptocracy, or mafia state.

2. The American reaction to 9/11 showed the world that the United States was no longer willing to lead. Without an existential threat like the Soviet Union, America became preoccupied with its own fears and internal divisions. This has given hope to the leaders of other world powers that they can make their own impression on the globe and expand their influence without hindrance.

Since 2000 Kleptocracies have been on the rise, both because of countries attempting to duplicate China's example and because of the active efforts by Russia to sabotage the political process in other nations. Trump is a wannabe kleptocrat. That's all he is, right to the bones, and his era is an attempt (by him and the Republican Party) to remold the United States into something more like Russia. They're doing this for self-interested reasons rather than ideological ones, because that's what kleptocracy is: the victory of self-interest over ideals and rule of law.

I don't think Trump or the Republicans will succeed in changing the United States, because their preferred way of doing things is just too foreign to take permanent root in American soil, and American institutions are too strong. But the struggle continues.
posted by Kevin Street at 6:31 PM on May 21, 2018 [32 favorites]

I don't think Trump or the Republicans will succeed in changing the United States, because their preferred way of doing things is just too foreign to take permanent root in American soil, and American institutions are too strong.

I was born in the 70s, and for the entire time I've been politically conscious (which started sometime around the end of the Reagan era) we've been moving, in an accelerating way, back toward the plutocratic, mafia-like politics of the Gilded Age. And as in the Gilded Age, the air of magical thinking, unvarnished greed, and total, soul-rotting hypocrisy has been thickening all along the way.

There is nothing foreign about what is happening under Trump.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:39 PM on May 21, 2018 [107 favorites]

I don't think Trump or the Republicans will succeed in changing the United States

See, I disagree because I don't think Trump and the Republicans are trying to change the United States; I think they're a reflection of the United States. At least roughly half of it.

They aren't an aberration, they are an emergent property.
posted by Justinian at 6:39 PM on May 21, 2018 [66 favorites]

They are a retrograde death spasm. All this stupid bullshit shall be retconned.
posted by vrakatar at 6:51 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

They're an emergent property, but right now they're greatly aided by this worldwide trend of rising authoritarianism. As the most naked kleptocrat, Trump only got into office with Russian help. America is many things, but it's not as fundamentally corrupt as Trump would like it to be, and I don't think he'll have much success in changing it. He's more like a virus that will ultimately strengthen the organism by alerting its immune system to a new threat. Nor will the Republicans succeed in changing America into the Randian fantasy world that they want to achieve.
posted by Kevin Street at 6:51 PM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

America is many things, but it's not as fundamentally corrupt as Trump would like it to be

I really hope you’re right but I’m fearful of how quickly this can change. One of the more toxic things the right-wing propaganda organs have spread is the idea that the status quo was already that corrupt, more or less excusing everything as either inevitable or even balancing things out. It’s disturbing how many people are willing to respond to provable corruption with some babble about the Clinton Foundation, equate police shooting someone with a crook shooting an officer, etc.
posted by adamsc at 6:58 PM on May 21, 2018 [22 favorites]

Boston Globe: Federal judges in Boston are often sharply critical of ICE tactics.

In January, Chief US District Judge Patti B. Saris likened a group of Indonesian Christians facing possible deportation by the Trump administration to Jewish refugees trying to escape the Nazis. In April, Judge Indira Talwani rebuked ICE for arresting a Chinese national outside the courtroom after she had been placed on probation for fraud.

posted by adamg at 7:02 PM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- SC-05: Archie Parnell, who as the special election candidate came surprisingly close to flipping this seat is resisting calls to drop out after it has come to light he has a history of spousal violence. Ugh, very disappointing.

** MI-13: John Conyers III, son of the former holder of this seat has been ruled to not have met signature requirements to run in the primary (he is, of course, appealing). The challenge was ultimately from IAN Conyers, JCIII's cousin, who is also running for the seat.

** 2018 Senate:

-- WV: As discussed in the last thread, murderer Don Blankenship now plans to run as candidate for the Constitution Party. Online legal opinion seems divided on whether he has much of a chance getting around the state's sore loser law. If he gets the go ahead, this would seeming be a considerable boost to Manchin's chances of getting re-elected.

-- Politico roundup of WV and OH internecine tensions.

** Odds & ends:

-- Longtime North Dakota SOS Al Jaeger had dropped out of the GOP primary after a state convention endorsed his opponent Will Gardner (who had campaigned mostly on a strong voter ID platform). Gardner dropped out today after it came to light that he pleaded guilty a few years ago to peeping through women's windows. Jaeger is now jumping back into the race as an independent.

-- Federal court orders Texas to implement online voter registration for DMV interactions within 45 days.

-- New York Democrats to consider resolution to kick turncoat state Senator Simcha Felder out of the party.

-- Sounds like the right-to-work amendment that Missouri gov Greitens refused to move from the November general to the August primary has been moved to August by the legislature. The goal here is to suppress turnout.

====
Tomorrow: two special elections in Arkansas (both in very red districts), plus primaries in Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky, plus runoffs in Texas. Also of interest, a special election that would give Dems control of the Miami-Dade County government.

Previews: WP on GA gov, Vox on GA gov, Vox on TX gov, Vox on AR gov, DKE general roundup, 538 general roundup.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:03 PM on May 21, 2018 [28 favorites]

Boston Globe, Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are on purpose

But it’s not always Trump tapping out a Tweet, even when it sounds like his voice. West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style, according to two people familiar with the process.

They overuse the exclamation point! They Capitalize random words for emphasis. Fragments. Loosely connected ideas. All part of a process that is not as spontaneous as Trump’s Twitter feed often appears.

Presidential speechwriters have always sought to channel their bosses’ style and cadence, but Trump’s team is blazing new ground with its approach to his favorite means of instant communication. Some staff members even relish the scoldings Trump gets from elites shocked by the Trumpian language they strive to imitate, believing that debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch.
...
Staff-written tweets do go through a West Wing process of sorts. When a White House employee wants the president to tweet about a topic, the official writes a memo to the president that includes three or four sample tweets, according to those familiar with the process.

Trump then picks the one he likes best, according to the two people, neither of whom wanted to be named because they’re not authorized to talk about the operations. Sometimes Trump will edit the wording and sometimes he’ll just pick his favorite for blasting out to his 52 million Twitter followers.

Looking stupid to own the libs is what we've reduced the presidency to.
posted by zachlipton at 7:09 PM on May 21, 2018 [88 favorites]

In a turf war with Trump White House aides, free-range Trumpists are strategically leaking to CNN: Trump Listening to Outside Advisers, Not Insiders, On Fight With DOJ—Outsider advisers urged Trump to attack DOJ

A loose and informal group of Trump advisers outside the White House, some of whom think the President is being ill served by White House chief of staff John Kelly and White House counsel Don McGahn, have been aggressively campaigning to attack Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as part of a "deep state" plot against the President. The campaign has focused on pressing Trump-friendly media and the President himself to push Rosenstein to reveal details about the investigation that both the Justice Department and FBI do not want disclosed.[...]

The members of this group working to persuade the President and Trump-friendly media include ousted former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, President of the Trump Hispanic Advisory Council (and CNN commentator) Steve Cortes and many others. None of those reached for comment wanted to talk on the record. It was not clear how much Nunes is part of any of these conversations.[LOL–ed.]

The group over the weekend seemed to win a battle with White House insiders and succeeded in convincing the President to formally side with Nunes over his own Justice Department.[...]

Sunday morning, the group was trying to convince Trump to write a letter demanding that Rosenstein turn over material about the confidential source to Nunes. By Sunday afternoon, the President had tweeted what seemed to members of this outside group to be such an order.[...]

A member of the outsider group tells CNN that he felt the President was formally ordering the Justice Department to turn over the documents to Nunes, but that since Rosenstein attempted to blur that issue with others by assigning it all to the inspector general of the Justice Department to sort out, they would keep pushing for the President to issue a more direct order.

But some allies of the President believe that his push might actually hurt the cause of releasing this information. GOP congressional sources told CNN's Sarah Westwood that Trump's latest intervention might instead make the Justice Department less inclined to hand over the documents requested by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. If the FBI's use of a confidential source becomes the subject of an active investigation, the sources said, Justice Department officials might have even more reason to withhold records from lawmakers than they do already. That's why Trump's allies on Capitol Hill had pressed the President to assist them with their quest for documents—not to help them get a separate investigation opened. Now, some members and staffers fear Trump's attempts to help may backfire.

It seems ludicrous of CNN to give the likes of Lewandowski and Bossie the benefit of anonymous leaking when they both appear regularly on their network, especially when Trump supposedly "hates leaks". What's the betting that Bannon et al. are doing this because they have Trump's tacit approval to put pressure on Kelly and McGahn to let the Trumpists fight this out?
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:20 PM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

"There was some talk about the Libyan model last week, and you know, as the President made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn't make a deal," Pence said in an interview that aired Monday evening on Fox News.

When it was noted that the comparison could be interpreted as a threat, Pence replied: "Well, I think it's more of a fact."

Why would North Korea show up to talk now that the President, Vice President, and National Security Advisor have all threatened to kill Kim in a particularly painful fashion?
posted by zachlipton at 7:27 PM on May 21, 2018 [33 favorites]

This is an actual white house release?

Honestly when I first saw it I immediately assumed it was fake, because surely? right? come ON. So I searched the document title on the white house website. And there it was, oozing disgustingly everywhere like an infected butt abscess.

my desired outcome is no longer impeachment but old testament judgment. i have my seder plate and my glass of wine ready.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:45 PM on May 21, 2018 [82 favorites]

HuffPo: Blake Farenthold May Have Been Hired Illegally At His New Lobbyist Job | A Texas newspaper filed a lawsuit alleging the Calhoun Port Authority hired the disgraced former lawmaker without public notice, in violation of state law.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:51 PM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

They don't know what the Libyan model is. Actually, Pence might know but is acting like he doesn't so as not to make Trump look even worse. What a craven toady.

This summit is in two weeks. Are they going to go ahead with it without a deal already worked out? That's insane. And a recipe for disaster. These things aren't where you work out a deal, they are photo ops where you sign an already-agreed-to arrangement!
posted by Justinian at 7:51 PM on May 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

I don’t see how they plan to stop the workers from organizing.

Same as they always do. Fire a few, and see who crosses that line. Fire a few more and repeat.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:05 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

One of the more toxic things the right-wing propaganda organs have spread is the idea that the status quo was already that corrupt, more or less excusing everything as either inevitable or even balancing things out.

Right, just like workplace discipline, there is eventually a tipping point where even the good ones decide "fuck it, why would I be the only one following the so-called rules?"
posted by ctmf at 8:13 PM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

Tomorrow: two special elections in Arkansas (both in very red districts), plus primaries in Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky

The primary in KY-6 has turned ugly late, Gray got a fair bit of pushback in the district (and national condemnation) for turning negative after promising not to. Gray's ad wasn't that bad, the other candidate in the race State Sen. Reggie Thomas has been calling McGrath a "carpetbagger" from the beginning, but maybe the first time Gray has seemed worried.

All these candidates are good, for Kentucky values of "good" Democrats, it's a shame they're all packed into one district. Although this is the only other plausibly Dem district in the state and John Yarmouth has a well deserved lock on Louisville. I still think Gray is the only one that can actually win here, so I hope he pulls it out tomorrow.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:15 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

That's one of a couple tomorrow I'm a little worried about losing a winnable general race.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:37 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

Called it:

This is a thing everybody is very reluctant to accept, that despite his slogan Trump has no loyalty, not even a twisted one, to America. What he has is a loyalty to money & its sources. If those sources are Russian or Chinese, that is where his loyalties lie for as long as their money is streaming towards him. As a narcissist who can only comprehend atomic (as in unitary not nuclear) transactions, as soon as the transaction (the side directed at him at least) is complete he loses loyalty to its source. He is the personification of greed.

posted by scalefree at 9:00 PM on May 21, 2018 [21 favorites]

D.C. is filled with illicit cell phone trackers

Serious question: If this is true, which I don't doubt, how come we don't have recordings of Trump talking to Hannity or something like that?

Probably three reasons:
1) Cellphones promiscuously broadcast so-called metadata ("Hello! I'm a phone! My home service provider is XXXX and my number is YYYYYYY!"). This can't be encrypted, so all you need to do to pick it up is pretend to be a cell phone tower;
2) Actual calls are encrypted, and even if the encryption isn't strong, the fact that it's there means it would be illegal to intercept the call;
3) Publicly admitting you hacked the President's calls would probably earn you a visit from very serious people in dark suits.

But as a matter of fact there are undoubtedly people with those recordings, taken by cellphone interception or otherwise, and the reason we haven't heard them is that proof of wrongdoing is more valuable as evidence/kompromat than as material for the gossip pages of a newspaper.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:07 PM on May 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

** MI-13: John Conyers III, son of the former holder of this seat has been ruled to not have met signature requirements to run in the primary (he is, of course, appealing). The challenge was ultimately from IAN Conyers, JCIII's cousin, who is also running for the seat.

Do you want A War of the Roses? Because this is how you get a War of the Roses.
posted by happyroach at 9:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

Nunes and Meadows Are Undermining Trump’s Argument Against the Mueller Investigation (ASHA RANGAPPA and JED SHUGERMAN, Slate)

The text of Article II or the rest of the Constitution does not support the unitary theory. Rather, proponents of the unitary executive look to Justice Scalia’s lone dissent in Morrison v. Olson, a 1988 Supreme Court case which challenged the law giving Congress authority to appoint an Independent Counsel as a violation of the separation of powers. In Morrison, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for a 7–1 majority, upheld the constitutionality of Congress’ creation of an independent counsel, selected and supervised by judges. But Justice Scalia disagreed, stating, “We should say here that the President’s constitutionally assigned duties include complete control over investigation and prosecution of violations of the law, and that the inexorable command of Article II is clear and definite: the executive power must be vested in the President of the United States.” (That’s Justice Scalia’s own original emphasis on the word “complete.”)

One of us has argued previously that Scalia was wrong on his own originalist terms. Historically, most prosecution in England and America was private prosecution until the end of the 19th century. The first Congress also allowed some law enforcement officials to be removable by federal judges, and it contemplated giving the Supreme Court the power to appoint the attorney general and giving district judges the power to appoint district attorneys. Many early state constitutions also reflected that prosecutors had a mixed judicial role. Scalia’s dissent was contradicted by American history.

If supporters of the unitary executive really believe these powers are exclusively committed to the executive branch, why are they silent about such congressional overreach?
But Scalia also overlooked Congress’ investigatory and prosecutorial powers, in some of the ways that Nunes and Meadows are illustrating now.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:40 PM on May 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

WOSU (Ohio public media), Study: Plan Exempting High Unemployment Counties From Medicaid Work Rules Benefits White Areas

Many people who receive Medicaid in Ohio could soon have to work at least 20 hours a week to receive the government health insurance. The Ohio Department of Medicaid is waiting for federal approval of the plan.

But under the state’s proposal, people in counties with high unemployment would fall under a special exemption.

The proposal, which would exempt people in 26 overwhelmingly white Ohio counties from the work requirements, has officials at the Center for Community Solutions concerned.

John Corlett, president of the nonpartisan policy and advocacy group, says the new proposal would disproportionately affect urban Medicaid recipients in cities like Cleveland. It all comes down to county unemployment figures compared to city unemployment rates, he said.

“They don’t allow the requirements to be waived for communities within a county where the county may not have a high unemployment rate, but a particular community within a county, like for example the city of Cleveland, has an unemployment rate as high as some of these other communities that have been exempted,” he said.

First Michigan, now Ohio. These plans all just magically happen to exempt rural white unemployed Medicaid recipients from work requirements while targeting black communities.
posted by zachlipton at 9:45 PM on May 21, 2018 [69 favorites]

Going to be hi-lareous if it results in unemployed PoC moving to white areas.
posted by Mitheral at 9:57 PM on May 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

> Johann Georg Faust:
"Some food for thought 538 cooked up on Friday. Fair warning: it's about polls and Twitter.

Very Few Voters Actually Read Trump's Tweets: Perry Bacon Jr. & Dhrumil Mehta

A recent Gallup poll indicates only 8% of American adults admit to following 45's account, but only 4% admit to following and regularly reading the tweets.

This amounts to approximately 10 million people who consume the—holy shit, I just realized the mascot for Twitter is a bird because it regurgitates food into its babies' mouths.

Anyway, 10 million isn't a small number, but it's less than the official follower numbers being claimed. This would make sense, after discerning the demographic and robotic nature of the claimed followers.

Only about 15% of Republicans who have an account admit to following. Of course these days, this raises the question of "What is a Republican?" Despite this, Democrats apparently have more exposure to Trump's tweets than Republicans do.

538 comes to the agreeable conclusion that Twitter is ultimately just a stream-of-consciousness rather than a megaphone. And that various media outlets are doing the amplifying for him and should be more careful regarding this press coverage. On the other hand, these things are also treated variously as Schrödinger's Official Presidential Statements, ridiculous trial balloons, and extremely telegraphed decisions.

Personally, I'm curious to see information regarding the tweets we know were written by 45 versus those written by someone like Stephen Miller. I know someone was looking into a way to decipher the tweets written by different people on that same account, but I'm interested in pattern recognition for the content and topics covered as well as things like vocabulary, grammar, and syntax."

I don't follow 45 but I do grab all his Tweets (since March at least) into a Google Spreadsheet. Help yourself if it looks useful.
posted by Samizdata at 9:57 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Kaye Brennan writing in Just Security takes care not to bury the lede:
Getting to the Bottom of the Trump Tower Meeting

Donald Trump Jr. has no memory of Rinat Akhmetshin attending the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting, even though he was apparently dressed entirely in pink, and according to at least one attendee, did most of the talking.

([real], although I had to check)
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:59 PM on May 21, 2018 [51 favorites]

Presumably the Secret Service has a cell repeater and portable jammers to keep dipwad in a bubble?

If you rely on jammers and repeaters then you just know some weird radio shadow will mess things up for you. I mean, you have to presume that people might be trying to attach to Trump's phone all the time. I suppose the right thing to do is rewrite the phone's firmware so it declines to connect to unauthorised cell towers, but apparently the USA's IT budget doesn't stretch that far. At least, they declined to give Obama a guaranteed-secure phone capable of running arbitrary apps.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:38 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don’t see how they plan to stop the workers from organizing

Same as capitalist gangsters always do. See: Ludlow massacre
posted by benzenedream at 11:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

At least, they declined to give Obama a guaranteed-secure phone capable of running arbitrary apps.

Isn't that ("guaranteed security" and "arbitrary apps") impossible?
posted by entity447b at 11:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

With all this animals talk I'm reminded of how often Trump uses the phrase "fired like a dog" "moved on her like a bitch"

It's part of his personality, rendering people he doesn't like into animals that can than be abused.

And given that he apparently likes to contemplate hurting animals, we now have a president that Tony Soprano would find morally disgusting.
posted by angrycat at 3:27 AM on May 22, 2018 [33 favorites]

fwiw, re: iran
EU to reactivate 'blocking statute' against US sanctions on Iran for European firms - "EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced that the bloc plans to kickstart a 1996 law that would prohibit European companies from complying with US sanctions on Iran."

also btw from last year...
If the U.S. Reimposes Sanctions on Iran, Allies Will Follow[?] - "When I asked SWIFT's lawyers [in 2012] if they would voluntarily cut off Iran from their network, they arrogantly refused. When the White House found out that I was drafting an amendment for an upcoming Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs markup, Szubin put on a full-court press to stop it. But once again, thanks to some bipartisan negotiating, the amendment was adopted by the committee and within hours SWIFT was working with the European Union to find a way to comply." (emphasis added; SWIFT)
posted by kliuless at 3:33 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

If you rely on jammers and repeaters then you just know some weird radio shadow will mess things up for you. I mean, you have to presume that people might be trying to attach to Trump's phone all the time. I suppose the right thing to do is rewrite the phone's firmware so it declines to connect to unauthorised cell towers, but apparently the USA's IT budget doesn't stretch that far. At least, they declined to give Obama a guaranteed-secure phone capable of running arbitrary apps.

There are anti-stingray apps on Android, so it would be possible to hook up some level of protection. I would however assume that more serious adversaries would seek to 0-day compromise the legitimate cell towers.
posted by jaduncan at 3:46 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Same as capitalist gangsters always do. See: Ludlow massacre

Or the Battle of Blair Mountain. There are dozens of similar examples.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Last night, Trump endorsed Asa Hutchinson (a Chamber-of-Commerce-type Republican) for Arkansas governor over Jan Morgan (a person who declared her gun range a Muslim-free zone).

I want this to be something else, but two weeks of early voting have already happened, so it's probably just that a)polling says Morgan isn't going to win and that b)Asa would probably win in the general, while Morgan would probably be another Roy Moore (that's election Roy Moore, not teenagers Roy Moore).
posted by box at 4:56 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Yesterday I was offline and driving, so I turned on the radio to hear how things were going with Trump's tweet-declaration. As it turned out, there was some other scandalous development instead, I don't even remember wether it was the one about N Korea or the one about Iran, and I suddenly realized that no news editor is going to let three Trump-related disasters into one ten-minute newscast, let alone the hourly 3 minute versions. It's just too much crazy. I am not in America, but I'd bet it isn't much different if you are getting your news in your truck somewhere in the US.
Most people don't follow these endless threads, so the get the edited version of the insanity, and they have no idea how crazy it is. And I can actually follow the editors' reasoning. If our daily news looked like these threads, a lot of people wouldn't believe it. Even more people would believe Trump calling it all fake news. I was working at a left-wing paper during the run-up to the Iraq war, and when we reported the facts we were accused of propaganda, even by otherwise smart people, because they could not imagine that the US government would lie to their allies. This now is a hundred, or several hundred times worse. I don't know what the solution is, but there is a huge information gap, and the Trumpists are using it to their advantage.
posted by mumimor at 5:16 AM on May 22, 2018 [62 favorites]

Lawmaker introduces crowdfunding bill to pay for Trump's wall. I had 2 reactions to this:
A) Why don't you grow a brain and use the funds from all the coffers you assholes are looting for your fucking wall?
B) The people who will donate to this crowdfund are fewer than you think, and have fewer nickels to rub together.

Pardon me while I try to put even one Even together to Don't.
posted by yoga at 5:47 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

I’m wondering how much of this federal insanity state and local governments can survive. Like, what degree of collapse of our federal institutions will start to have knock-on effects that people in far-flung states can’t ignore? I’m not talking about active policy changes (which I know are already affecting people in practical ways). I’m talking about the federal government functioning poorly because of incompetence, understaffing , and/or being at war with itself. So far the insanity is both more and less than I predicted - I never thought so much scandal would accumulate and come out in a year and a half, but somehow life in my midwestern state capital, in my federally funded research group, is proceeding as ever.
posted by eirias at 6:21 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Crowdfunding for government projects

What a great idea

We could call it "targeted accruals across economic systems"

TAxES for short
posted by saturday_morning at 6:22 AM on May 22, 2018 [164 favorites]

Eirias, I'm wondering about the same thing - when will people in blue states and cities start feeling the pinch? California, where I live, is: blue, wealthy, and has good people in government for the most part. And yet, even here, we have the Stephon Clark police shooting and the unfortunate guy who had the nerve to be found with Mentos (!) by an off-duty police officer, meaning, police violence against young men of color is an issue even here in blue, well-governed Arcadia.

My assumption is, as I've said before, that the people who will feel the pinch first and hardest are the ones who live in pockets of blue in red states (and thus are more dependent upon the federal government being on their side), as well as vulnerable people (in particular, immigrants, young men of color, and LGBT-especially-T folks). Well-heeled suburbanites, otoh, probably won't be affected unless and until the economy crashes.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:31 AM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Just a reminder that runoff elections are happening in four states today. I can only speak to Texas, but the dems are facing off for governor are Lupe Valdez and Andrew White. Lupe is the first Hispanic lesbian sheriff elected in Texas, she served for ten years, and is slightly left of White. White is the son of former governor, and is a centrist democratic who believes he can peel off republicans from Gregg Abbott.

In district 32, Pete Sessions, this good progressive dems are running, I'm going for Lillian, but won't be devastated if her opponent wins. Since he's a former football player, and he's flush with cash, the odds are in his favor.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:40 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

meaning, police violence against young men of color is an issue even here in blue, well-governed Arcadia.

Has anyone ever suggested that police violence is less of a problem in blue, well-governed Arcadia? That strikes me as one of those problems, like school segregation, that is not actually better in blue states than in red ones.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:44 AM on May 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

zachlipton: Boston Globe, Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are on purpose

Presidential speechwriters have always sought to channel their bosses’ style and cadence, but Trump’s team is blazing new ground with its approach to his favorite means of instant communication. Some staff members even relish the scoldings Trump gets from elites shocked by the Trumpian language they strive to imitate, believing that debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch.

Looking stupid to own the libs is what we've reduced the presidency to.

Counterpoint: they're (unwittingly?) employing scammer email tactics, namely to filter out smart users who would immediately recognize the scam, thus ensuring that only the most gullible users respond, and to fool the victim into believing the scammer is not very sophisticated and can be tricked by the victim -- he's a great business man, but also a man of the people who's telling it like it is and not bothering with fancy words and formatting!
posted by filthy light thief at 7:08 AM on May 22, 2018 [44 favorites]

but somehow life in my midwestern state capital, in my federally funded research group, is proceeding as ever.

This is what fascism looks like, this is what the banality of evil looks like.
posted by nikaspark at 7:13 AM on May 22, 2018 [42 favorites]

Guardian: Rudy Giuliani won deal for OxyContin maker to continue sales of drug behind opioid deaths

I'm not saying that Giuliani should be executed, I'm saying that Trump says it.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [72 favorites]

Education Department Launches 'Top-To-Bottom' Review Of Teachers' Grant Program (NPR, May 22, 2018)

It's a financial nightmare for public school teachers around the country: Federal grants they received to work in low-income schools were converted to thousands of dollars in loans that they now must pay back.

NPR revealed these problems in a series of recent stories. The Department of Education now tells NPR it has launched a new, "top-to-bottom" internal review of all aspects of the TEACH grant program. Officials say the review is aimed at fixing the issues and that the department is "absolutely committed to improving" the program.

FUCKING HELL. Are you sure that this isn't a feature, not a bug? "Oops, those lazy/ liberal teachers don't get *free government money,* now they'll have to pay back their loans! Our bad! Let's convene another working group to investigate this. We'll have a meeting in June to plan for this commission, and then another in ... oh, how does October look?" (Yes, as of May 20, DeVos' national school safety commission has met twice so far, including an earlier meeting that was focused on planning, and it was only 4 strong, at least as of March 21, 2018 -- DeVos, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar -- a stellar line-up from Ms. "I trust parents and teachers, not Washington")

Fuck this sham of an administration and their grift that damaging America.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:21 AM on May 22, 2018 [73 favorites]

There’s definitely a lot to unpack in Trump’s fundamental carelessness and lack of competency. It goes all the way back to his campaign announcement speech and was on full display at the RNC, and his administration has been more and more of it. All the theories fit — it helps the scammer ID the mark. It shows his common touch. It helps the tribe sneer at the other and it helps them virtue signal one another. But the worst, maybe, is after all of that it tells us that competency and care simply do not matter — power and social position do. That’s a fundamental attack on the promise (however yet unrealized) of democratic meritocracy.

Frightening.
posted by notyou at 7:24 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

Going to be hi-lareous if it results in unemployed PoC moving to white areas.

I get you’re coming from a good place, but I don’t love the implications either of “ha-ha, now you’ll have to live with POC!” or that unemployed POC would just move to jobless counties so they could get state aid - it ties into a lot of negative stereotypes about people not wanting to work.

Honestly I also think it’s reasonable to exempt people who will have an exceedingly hard time finding jobs from employment requirements, but also think it should be expanded to urban areas as well. More people getting good things rather than less.
posted by corb at 7:25 AM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

Joanna Smialek, Bloomberg News: "Twitter Bots Helped Trump and Brexit Win, Economic Study Says"

Automated tweeting played a small but potentially decisive role in the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory, the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper showed this month. Their rough calculations suggest bots added 1.76 percentage point to the pro-“leave” vote share as Britain weighed whether to remain in the European Union, and may explain 3.23 percentage points of the actual vote for Trump in the U.S. presidential race.

posted by OnceUponATime at 7:26 AM on May 22, 2018 [16 favorites]

First Michigan, now Ohio. These plans all just magically happen to exempt rural white unemployed Medicaid recipients from work requirements while targeting black communities.

It's amazing how the only time I ever hear about counties, it's in the context of a policy that somehow just happens to make life shittier for people who aren't cis white hetero men.
posted by Etrigan at 7:32 AM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

Poll: Support for vaccines falls

The number of Americans who believe vaccinations are crucial to public health has fallen by ten percent in the last ten years, according to a new survey. A poll for Research America found that 70 percent say vaccinations for diseases like measles and polio are “very important.” That number is down from the 80 percent in November of 2008 who said the vaccines are crucial.

We're all getting stupider and the stupid is encroaching on all fronts. America is gorging on irrationality and the destination will be calamitous beyond reckoning.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:34 AM on May 22, 2018 [73 favorites]

Probably three reasons:
1) Cellphones promiscuously broadcast so-called metadata ("Hello! I'm a phone! My home service provider is XXXX and my number is YYYYYYY!"). This can't be encrypted, so all you need to do to pick it up is pretend to be a cell phone tower;
2) Actual calls are encrypted, and even if the encryption isn't strong, the fact that it's there means it would be illegal to intercept the call;
3) Publicly admitting you hacked the President's calls would probably earn you a visit from very serious people in dark suits.

But as a matter of fact there are undoubtedly people with those recordings, taken by cellphone interception or otherwise, and the reason we haven't heard them is that proof of wrongdoing is more valuable as evidence/kompromat than as material for the gossip pages of a newspaper.

The metadata is still pretty useful.

Even if the president's phone is secured the people he calls probably don't have the same level of IT support and you can target them for some spearfishing in order to capture the president's conversations from the other side of the call.
posted by srboisvert at 7:37 AM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Surprise, surprise - trying to undo rules that everyone was planning to address, even if they were complaining and lobbying against them IS BAD FOR BUSINESS -- Nothing Certain In Search For 'Regulatory Certainty' At EPA (NPR, May 22, 2018)

In his first address to career employees last year he told the gathered room at the EPA, "Regulators exist to give certainty to those that they regulate. Those that we regulate ought to know what we expect of them, so that they can plan and allocate resources to comply."

He's cited this in his efforts to delay, repeal or roll back the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the U.S. Rule, and a string of other measures.

But some argue that many of his actions as EPA administrator are having the opposite effect, and that they could be setting a troublesome precedent going forward.

With so many regulations now in limbo, farmers, agriculturalists and others who are regulated by the EPA are "in a state of sort of perpetual uncertainty," says Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union.

Nothing like trying to budget and invest for Trumpian uncertainty. In the words of our brave leader: "if it happens, it happens."
posted by filthy light thief at 7:41 AM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

B) The people who will donate to this crowdfund are fewer than you think, and have fewer nickels to rub together.

So, funny thing... in 2011, a year after passing SB1070, Arizona passed a bill to create a fund to build border fencing in the state. It was launched with a lot of hoopla and publicity. Real Americans were going to secure the borders, no matter what Washington thought. They were planning to raise $50 million.

The fund closed down at the end of last year after raising the massive sum of $270,000. So, if crowdfunding is the way you think you can build the wall, please proceed, lawmaker.
posted by azpenguin at 7:47 AM on May 22, 2018 [54 favorites]

EPA bars AP, CNN from summit on contaminants

The Latest on a hearing with EPA chief Scott Pruitt on a widespread contaminant in drinking water: [...] Guards barred an AP reporter from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building. When the reporter asked to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building.

All perfectly normal.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:50 AM on May 22, 2018 [63 favorites]

> Automated tweeting played a small but potentially decisive role in the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory

"Hey, that angry Twitter egg is right!" *goes off to vote against my own interests*
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:50 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

That would be a n00b move. What you want to do is have all your angry Twitter eggs ceaselessly amplify news stories, real and fake, that reinforce your goals then let the social media’s feed sorting algorithms plop them down in front of people so they don’t even know eggs were involved. THEN you have your angry Twitter eggs go harass normal people because, hey, tradition.
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

NBC News: Interior Dept. moves to allow Alaska bear hunting with doughnuts, bacon

The Trump administration is moving to reverse Obama-era rules barring hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting brown bears with bacon and doughnuts and using spotlights to shoot mother black bears and cubs hibernating in their dens. [...] Under the proposed changes, hunters would also be allowed to hunt black bears with dogs, kill wolves and pups in their dens, and use motor boats to shoot swimming caribou.

Cruelty shall be the whole of the Law.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:57 AM on May 22, 2018 [51 favorites]

Automated tweeting played a small but potentially decisive role in the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory

I’m not sure how we can really stop this honestly, and it’s a real problem that is only going to increase. People are easily influenced and now the tools to influence them are relatively cheap and easy for agents of all types to use. While I’m indignant about Russia, I would also be indignant if it was all homegrown.
posted by corb at 7:59 AM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

“While aides have urged the president to swap out the Twitter phone on a monthly basis, Trump has resisted their entreaties, telling them it was ‘too inconvenient,’ (an) administration official said.

I know it's fun to dump on this clown and I'm not giving him a pass from showing some willingness to engage in proper security practices. But if the IT staff can't handle this process in the manner of walking up and handing him an identically configured app-only phone and walking away with the old one then he's right, that is more inconvenient than it needs to be.

I'm more disconnected from this space than I used to be, but in years past there was a small but steady business in doing minor surgery on smartphones to remove the cameras so they'd be acceptable for use in medium-security environments. People I knew in DTRA or who worked at Navy Yard would get their iPhones altered in this way so they could take them to work. There's no reason that sort of thing can't be done for Trump's phones, but including removing the microphone from a data-only phone.

In some ways this is identical to the way that State Department IT failed Clinton (and Powell and Rice and Kerry etc) by being unable/unwilling to set up a proper solution. Personally I think it's stupid in a multitude of ways that Trump is a tweet-raging manbaby who can't be deprived of his rant receptacle, and ultimately it's his Executive branch and if their IT blows that's on him. But that's about larger process and care - of which they show none - and we should avoid dunking on users for insisting on getting their jobs done. Sadly, rage-tweeting horseshit is the job our country elected Trump to do.
posted by phearlez at 8:01 AM on May 22, 2018 [19 favorites]

I’m not sure how we can really stop this honestly, and it’s a real problem that is only going to increase.

“Computational propaganda” is a developing field of study.
posted by XMLicious at 8:08 AM on May 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

LRB - The Drift towards War.
This does not mean that war is inevitable, but the drift towards it is unmistakable and accelerating, whether or not anyone actually wants it. Trump, who has done nothing to stop gun violence in the US, has shown no more inclination to prevent regional warfare in the Middle East.
posted by adamvasco at 8:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Under the proposed changes, hunters would also be allowed to hunt black bears with dogs, kill wolves and pups in their dens, and use motor boats to shoot swimming caribou.

The Trapper and the Furrier by Regina Spektor gets more apt for this administration by the day.
(It inspired my 2017: Despair and Hope playlist)
posted by mikepop at 8:25 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

But if the IT staff can't handle this process in the manner of walking up and handing him an identically configured app-only phone and walking away with the old one then he's right, that is more inconvenient than it needs to be.

I would not at all be surprised to learn that he doesn't want the IT staff to have any of his passwords, and then complains that having to re-input them on a new phone is too much effort.
posted by Etrigan at 8:27 AM on May 22, 2018 [16 favorites]

SecretAgentSockpuppet: "Just a reminder that runoff elections are happening in four states today."

Primaries are in four states today, one of which (Texas) is having primary runoffs.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:36 AM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'm trying to imaging a worse job than doing IT support in the current Whitehouse.
posted by octothorpe at 8:37 AM on May 22, 2018 [35 favorites]

but somehow life in my midwestern state capital, in my federally funded research group, is proceeding as ever.

I spent a year as a contract archives cataloger at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, working mainly with SS records related to deportations of Jews to death camps and the seizure of their assets. Maybe the most unnerving thing about it was the commonplace, bureaucratic banality of the documentation of the destruction of thousands of lives - all rubber stamped, signed, and in duplicate. Right down to the coffee stains and the occasional cigarette ash burn. Hundreds of rolls of microfilm worth of it. ^*

Fascism doesn't represent a stark departure from the norm of a modern state, but the re-purposing of its machinery for evil (or still more evil) purposes. For those who weren't the targets of the Nazis, it very much felt like things were "proceeding as ever", or even improving.

I've said in the past here that I don't think the US is likely to be susceptible to a broad, Nazi-style campaign against racial / ethic minorities, and I still think that's the case. But serious damage is obviously being done to the democratic institutions that serve as a bulwark against fascism here, and I don't think we should let the fact that they continue to function for the time being lull us into complacency about the danger we're facing.

* And, contrary to stereotypes of German efficiency, filled with the same errors, inconsistencies, and angry handwritten annotations from up and down the chain of command.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:42 AM on May 22, 2018 [109 favorites]

Cook moves four House seats right:

CA-39 (R - open) | Lean D => Toss-up
CA-49 (R - open) | Lean D => Toss-up
NE-02 (R - Bacon) | Toss-up => Lean R
SC-05 (R - Norman) | Likely R => Solid R

Rationales are: possible top two primary lockout in the CA seats, not nominating Ashford the other night in NE, and this spousal abuse thing in SC. No argument on SC, I think the other three remain to be seen.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:45 AM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

For those who weren't the targets of the Nazis, it very much felt like things were "proceeding as ever", or even improving.

In the diaries of Victor Klemperer there's an anecdote in which a non-Jewish friend of Klemperer tells him that the situation must be improving for Jews in Germany, because he was suddenly seeing more and more Jews walking openly in the streets: he had no idea that this was because Jews had been forbidden from using public transportation. That's what it's like.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:53 AM on May 22, 2018 [130 favorites]

I’m not sure how we can really stop this honestly, and it’s a real problem that is only going to increase.

Something like:

(1) Social media companies, you have to ensure that all the ads on your platform are legal and that any directly or indirectly paid activity on your platform is legal. That is, if someone hires people to do stuff on your platform, you have to make sure that those people are legally permitted to do that stuff for pay, and that the legal stuff they're doing has whatever disclaimers or disclosures are required.

(2) Every year, we are gonna audit your asses, and you gotta pay us 1.0003^(number of times someone is exposed to illegal activity) dollars. That is, for 10,000 impressions it's a pittance, and at 100,000 impressions your fine is more than half of US GDP.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:59 AM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

Honestly I also think it’s reasonable to exempt people who will have an exceedingly hard time finding jobs from employment requirements, but also think it should be expanded to urban areas as well.

Not it's not reasonable, because it against the fucking law. Obamacare, the law of the land, says that the only requirement for Medicaid eligibility is income. Not work status, not health status, not wealth status and not drug status. Income. That's it.

Trump is simply failing to enforce the law and allowing red Republican states to receive waivers to the law in order to keep people from receiving the benefits they are due according to law.

This work requirement is similar to the drug testing requirement. When states required drug testing requirements for food stamps they found that 99% of recipients passed. The cost of the testing was greater than the money saved. The only purpose was to create bureaucratic barriers to eligibility.

The fact is that 80% of Medicaid recipients live in homes that have working adults. For those not working, the most common reasons not working are caring for family members, because they themselves are ill or disabled, or going to school.

And further, the working percentage is even higher in the states that expanded Medicaid because the working poor, those below the poverty level, are now eligible for Medicaid.

The purpose of these work requirements is not to encourage work. It is simple cruelty, to create more barriers, more hoops, more paperwork, more bureaucratic bullshit to discourage participation in Medicaid. If you don't fill out your documentation properly, you can be excluded from Medicaid for the next year.

And these dumbass Republicans don't even know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't even reliably measure the employment rate in rural counties. They simply do not have the sampling resolution to do so. Just to get a reasonable approximation, the BLS has to lump together several rural counties in order to have enough samples to come up with a number. The only reason for Republicans' county level exemptions is to hurt people of color and help white people.

The beauty of Obamacare Medicaid is that it eliminated the patchwork of arbitrary, differing, and confusing requirements in each state. There is now one simple requirement across the country -- low income. (In states that accepted Medicaid expansion money)

So no, these aren't reasonable exemptions because there should be no exemptions to a requirement that shouldn't even exist.
posted by JackFlash at 9:00 AM on May 22, 2018 [110 favorites]

ryanshepard, thank you for that horrible and unsettling image - as it should be.

I don’t feel complacent exactly. I feel like I’ve been on the crescendo of some kind of slow-motion panic attack for some time, especially this week (though perhaps this is the wrong thread for feelings). The fact that everything around me is proceeding as usual while it looks from the news like our democracy is dying is jarring. Is this what gaslighting feels like?

Rosie M. Banks, I guess you could say I live in that sort of place (reddish-purple state, blue city). I am dependent on two layers of government for my salary and I guess three layers for transportation (transit subsidies etc). I would think people in other parts of this red state would be more vulnerable than I am, because we are a rich city and much of the rural part of the state is poor and actually receives higher per capita government support, but I guess I can’t be sure.
posted by eirias at 9:03 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Security guards forcibly remove AP reporter from EPA building.
posted by Melismata at 9:08 AM on May 22, 2018 [26 favorites]

Ella Nilsen, Vox: The Democratic establishment torched this woman veteran in a Kentucky congressional race

Amy McGrath has been a fundraising and viral success — and voters will decide today if they’ll listen to the establishment.

posted by ZeusHumms at 9:10 AM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

I've said in the past here that I don't think the US is likely to be susceptible to a broad, Nazi-style campaign against racial / ethic minorities, and I still think that's the case.

The US has a long history of Nazi-style campaigns against minorities. It's why Hitler believed he'd get away with it.
posted by Merus at 9:17 AM on May 22, 2018 [17 favorites]

Vox, don’t use figurative stuff in headlines in 2018. I had to check that a woman wasn’t literally set on fire.
posted by erisfree at 9:20 AM on May 22, 2018 [59 favorites]

Today is Primary Runoff Election day in Texas. The big one is the Democratic nominee for Governor, the candidates are Lupe Valdez, former Dallas County Sheriff, and Andrew White, son of former governor Mark White. Valdez was leading White by about double in the primary election, but fell short of 50% so it moved to runoff.

The Texas Tribune has a good rundown, but the question basically boils down to the now standard Democratic infighting over the question of electibility, White is seen as more electable by many and not just centrists. Houston's biggest LGBT group endorsed White, which many outsiders found surprising since Valdez is a lesbian. Their rationale is that while White is explicitly running as a conservative Democrat he has a better chance of winning than Valdez and even a conservative Democrat would be better than another term of Greg Abbott.

In the closely watched District 21 race to determine who will replace outgoing long term and extremely influential Rep Lamar Smith (you may remember him as the Republican chair of the House Science Committee who denies global warming), the primary election has gone to a runoff for both the Democrats and the Republicans. Despite Smith handily winning reelection year after year this is seen as a possible pickup for Democrats which has given the seat more attention than it otherwise might get.

On the Democratic side the two entering the runoff are Mary Wilson and Joseph Kopser. In that election, as in the runoff, Kosper was the choice of the Democratic establishment getting both money and endorsements from the national party and prominant Democrats. Kosper outspent Wilson by close to 20 to 1. Wilson ran a grassroots campaign against the active opposition of the national Party and came in first in the primaries by a hair: 30.93% of the votes for her vs 28.98% for Kosper.

Again, the debate centers around electibility and the belief by some that only a conservative Democrat can win in Texas. It got ugly when Kosper put out what was seen by many as a push poll to emphasize the fact that Wilson is a lesbian. The San Antonio Express News has a good rundown of the primary election and its outcome.

On the Republican side, which is more likely to win TX-21 in the general election, both are far right wing Republicans and the real debate is over who is the most right wing.

Chip Roy is Ted Cruz' former chief of staff, he argues that birthright citizenship should end, the IRS should be abolished, and the US should adopt a national sales tax.

Matt McCall has run Tea Party supported primary challenges against Lamar Smith in prior elections and pledges that he will not vote for any debt limit ceiling increase that doesn't also include eliminating at least one department of the government. McCall would also like to abolish the 17th Amendment and end direct election of Senators.

Both candidates went for personal attacks during the primary, and are continuing that during the runup to the runoff.

Roy is the likely victor on the Republican side. The Austin-American Statesman has a good rundown of the two Republican candidates.

The TL;DR is that if the Republicans win in TX-21 (as is likely) then the person replacing Lamar Smith will, somehow, be even more of a right wing extremist than Smith was.
posted by sotonohito at 9:21 AM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Joanna Smialek, Bloomberg News: "Twitter Bots Helped Trump and Brexit Win, Economic Study Says"

Good news everybody! Twitter Is Going To Limit The Visibility Of Tweets From People Behaving Badly -- Act like a jerk, and Twitter will start limiting how often your tweets show up. (Alex Kantrowitz for Buzzfeed, May 15, 2018)

But of course Twitter explains (again) why it won't block Trump (back in January 2018) -- Twitter said that blocking or censoring the accounts of world leaders runs contrary to the social network's goal of fostering a "global, public conversation."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:31 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Kevin Drum at MoJo has a couple of interesting items back-to-back today.

First, Who Did Playboy Model Shera Bechard Really Have an Affair With?

It always seemed odd that Broidy had paid Shera Bechard $1.6 million for her silence ... [leading] Paul Campos to make the case that it was actually Donald Trump who had the affair, with Broidy taking the fall for him. [But the case was purely speculative.] ... After reading this AP story it sure seems a helluva lot more likely that Campos was right. By last November Broidy could practically smell his deals finally coming together. There was the $600 million deal with the UAE plus another deal worth $1 billion that he was pitching to Saudi Arabia. If he thought that taking a fall for Trump could be the final brick that would bring this all together, why wouldn’t he do it?

Next, and again perfectly in line with the thread title again, ZTE Lives! Thanks, Donald.

China recently invested $500 million in an Indonesian project that will feature Trump-branded hotels and a golf course. The investment looks like it’s already paying off.

Abusing public office for private enrichment? They're using anti-corruption guidelines as a To-Do list, and national security can get fucked as long as the spice keeps flowing.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:33 AM on May 22, 2018 [27 favorites]

It's estimated only half of these cell phone trackers belong to US law enforcement—the rest are espionage hardware.

Strictly speaking, they are all espionage hardware. I think this means that half are foreign espionage hardware.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:33 AM on May 22, 2018 [18 favorites]

That Vox story on the Kentucky race is weak tea. "The Democratic establishment" apparently just means Amy McGrath's opponent Jim Gray, who once said the DCCC encouraged him to run, though the party hasn't made any endorsements in the race. In fact, various national Democrats chastised Gray for an ad that points out that McGrath moved to the district specifically to run for Congress and had never lived there before (she had been in the military and is a Kentucky native, but from further north in the state). Gray apparently constitutes the Democratic establishment because he has prior political experience as mayor of Lexington and 2016 Senate candidate, not because the party is doing anything at all to tilt the scales on this race, and his ad constitutes "torching" McGrath because Vox likes it when people click on articles.
posted by vathek at 9:34 AM on May 22, 2018 [25 favorites]

There is only one Trump scandal.

A/K/A GUTTS: Grand Unified Theory of Trump Scandals.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:39 AM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

1. seeing his picture calms me down and makes me feel that someone, somewhere, is working against evil

I wonder if the best possible thing for Donald Trump wouldn’t be a Mueller investigation of infinite length. The knowledge that he’s there keeps us calm, myself included (and I suspect many on both sides of the aisle in Congress included), and that calmness works to Trump’s advantage. As Rebecca Solnit said, we keep waiting for the coup, and it already happened.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:40 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

sotonohito: "The Texas Tribune has a good rundown, but the question basically boils down to the now standard Democratic infighting over the question of electibility, White is seen as more electable by many and not just centrists. Houston's biggest LGBT group endorsed White, which many outsiders found surprising since Valdez is a lesbian. Their rationale is that while White is explicitly running as a conservative Democrat he has a better chance of winning than Valdez and even a conservative Democrat would be better than another term of Greg Abbott."

There's also been a lot of talk that Valdez hasn't been running a very strong campaign - it took her weeks to name a campaign manager, etc. Maybe some of that's politically motivated, but it does seem like she's not meeting the O'Rourke standard.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:40 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

@BenjaminWittes writes about the maneuvering and compromises of Wray and Rosenstein:

If Wray and Rosenstein can reach an accommodation they can live with—even a bad one—the exigent need to protect the Mueller investigation may well justify a step that would otherwise be unacceptable...

Second, let’s all be a little bit humble about judging these men. I have had harsh words for Rosenstein in the past, and Wray has handled some things suboptimally, in my view. But they are both right now in a simply impossible situation. And they are playing a critical role.

posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:44 AM on May 22, 2018 [16 favorites]

> The Democratic establishment torched this woman veteran in a Kentucky congressional race

That Vox article is making plenty of flawed assumptions, and it's one in particular that drives me nuts - It's assuming that they need to win over Trump voters, and that because there are 100,000 more registered democratic voters than Republican, that the Registered democratic voters that "flipped" to Trump are the decisive voters.

The reality is:
- Democratic turnout was very poor in that region over the past few elections, so it's not that Democratic voters "flipped" - they didn't vote in the first place.
- "Trump voters" cannot be "won over" in this election. You are not going to get someone who is a Trumpist to vote for EITHER an openly gay man or a woman for a position of authority.
- KY regional results are not always correlated to national results
- The KY democratic party is weird and frustrating, and any rational analysis of the party cannot be based on behavior of the nation as a large

Beyond that, that article is painting Gray in an extremely negative light- Outside of being a "big-city, older millionaire", Gray is someone who is very beloved for his past leadership as Mayor of Lexington, and is viewed in an extremely positive light by the people in the region - and he has been successful as an openly gay man in a region that is, putting it lightly, not the most tolerant of LGBT folk. He's had to overcome a lot of adversity to get to where he is. I don't think he should have run an attack ad against her, I think that was a really giant mistake - but to paint this as "Woman veteran newcomer attacked by THE ESTABLISHMENT" is conveniently ignoring a significant portion of Grays story, and it's also ignoring a significant amount of HER story...

It's really frustrating that the focus is on McGrath's lack of political experience as a virtue. She has actual positions that are much more engaging to those who would vote for her than 1. Veteran and 2. Outsider - For example, she believes strongly that healthcare is a human right, and that's one of her top campaign points.

This article is everything wrong with election coverage distilled into a single piece.
posted by MysticMCJ at 9:46 AM on May 22, 2018 [43 favorites]

EPA reverses course, lets reporters into hearing after outcry
posted by Chrysostom at 10:07 AM on May 22, 2018 [19 favorites]

McGrath and Gray are both good candidates. The DCCC did encourage Gray to get in the race after McGrath had already declared, but he might have done that anyway, he'd been openly debating his next political move ever since losing the Senate race. I've talked to some people in KY and they got the impression McGrath wasnt getting a lot of donor response at first, and that's why Gray got another call. McGrath has seemingly closed that initial money gap with more name recognition, she'd probably be fine from that perspective in the general now.

The DCCC does candidate recruitment, pretty much the whole point of their existence is to call people like Jim Gray and Phil Bredesen and ask them to run. They haven't pulled any underhanded tricks against McGrath like they did against Laura Moser in TX-7.

I do think Gray has the better chance to win, but that's based on his actual record as Mayor, it's not because he's going to win over Trump voters as some kind of stealth DINO. He's the most popular Mayor of Lexington in my lifetime, basically no one I know has a bad word to say about him. McGrath could win too in a wave environment, but she's going to have a lot more work to do without Gray's track record and popularity, and she might only be in office two years, where Gray could win several terms. If I had to pick, let's just take the lay up here please. Gray would be a bog standard business friendly Democrat that won't be a progressive firebrand like maybe McGrath would, but I can't see him voting against the party line much at all either.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:09 AM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

It always seemed odd that Broidy had paid Shera Bechard $1.6 million for her silence ...

Why indeed would he do this...

Susan Simpson (The View From LL2)
Dec 1, 2017: Elliott Broidy makes first payment under a $1.6M hush agreement negotiated by Michael Cohen, the president's personal attorney, that prevents Brechard from speaking of her affair/abortion with David Dennison.

Dec 2, 2017: Broidy gets a private meeting with Trump. ARTICLE SCREENSHOT

Dec 4, 2009: Broidy pleaded guilty to bribing a political official as part of a pay-to-play scheme by giving ~$140K to a model that the political official was having an affair with.
posted by chris24 at 10:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [41 favorites]

Mark Zuckerberg's face as Nigel Farage praises the social network for enabling Brexit, Trump, and the Italian election results.
posted by Artw at 10:17 AM on May 22, 2018 [35 favorites]

octothorpe: I'm trying to imaging a worse job than doing IT support in the current Whitehouse.

What's that you say? Well, maybe just barely. [YT]

--
odinsdream: This is emphatically not the case with the fucking President, where likely most or all of the attacks are going to be APTs.

I've heard the infosec staff from Harvard deliver talks at the springtime Security Camp in Boston a few times in recent years, and they are under constant, agile, thoughtful attack at all times, in addition to the same flood of garbage probes that everyone faces 24/7. Ugh, it was exhausting just getting walked through some of the timelines of particular incidents. Godspeed to you, nerds.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:18 AM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Israel and Evangelicals: New U.S. Embassy Signals a Growing Alliance

While Israel has long depended on the support of the Jewish diaspora, the Netanyahu government has made a historic and strategic shift, relying on the much larger base of evangelical Christians, even at the risk of turning off American Jews who may be troubled by some evangelicals’ denigration of their faith.

The paradox is well known: The beliefs of many evangelical Christians that Israel is special to God — and, for some, a marker in apocalyptic prophecies — lead many to hawkish support of the Jewish state while they simultaneously insist that salvation awaits only those who accept Jesus as their savior.

Mr. Netanyahu’s calculation mirrors that of his strong ally in Washington, where Mr. Trump has tapped a wellspring of evangelical support. Many of his top evangelical advisers attended the embassy dedication as well as private meetings with Mr. Netanyahu last week.

But liberal Israelis warn that the increasingly close ties between the Israeli right and the Christian right are accelerating a polarization that is turning support for Israel into a partisan question in Washington; not one Democratic lawmaker attended the embassy opening.

Liberal Jews also complain of a double standard, noting that Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government is far more vigilant about allegations of bigotry on the political left than among its conservative backers.
[...]
David M. Friedman, the American ambassador to Israel who presided over the embassy dedication, said evangelical Christians “support Israel with much greater fervor and devotion than many in the Jewish community.”

“You’re running a country, you need friends, you need alliances, you need to protect your people,” he said in an interview.

posted by zombieflanders at 10:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

As an IT guy, yeah. Trump seems like a nightmare to try and work with. He's one of those people who has to be right about everything, and who believes they already know everything so you can't tell him anything. My guess is that since most tech is likely completely opaque to him, Trump has decided it's just unimportant toys and that anyone who really pays much attention to technology is a fool and probably some sort of overgrown child.

Result is that he does stupid stuff with his tech, you can't tell him not to, you can't explain why doing what he did is a bad idea, and he will continue to do it because he sees any sort of security arrangements as just overgrown children playing with meaningless toys.

Naturally all of that masks a fundamental fear of technology that has developed since his formative years. Note his fascination with the White House phone system, which is old school enough he can at least sort of pretend to get it, his declaration that digital catapults for aircraft carriers were crap and everyone should use steam, and so on.

He's the sort of client every tech has had experience with, and that every tech dreads. When they're above you in a company it's time to dust off the resume because sticking around will be a miserable experience.

Chrysostom Yes,it's also true that Valdez has run a strangely incompetent campaign (her debate performance was also awful). I left that off though because despite her campaign being seemingly incompetent, she's got a double digit lead over White so clearly she must be doing something right even though it looks really incompetent from the outside.

Either that or the insider/outsider, more left / less left, straight white guy / lesbian Latina, dichotomy is more significant than her not very well run campaign.
posted by sotonohito at 10:30 AM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Twitter explains (again) why it won't block Trump (back in January 2018) -- Twitter said that blocking or censoring the accounts of world leaders runs contrary to the social network's goal of fostering a "global, public conversation."

Then don't block POTUS45. RealDonaldTrump is just a personal account; it should be subject to the standard terms of use.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:32 AM on May 22, 2018 [53 favorites]

Mark Zuckerberg's face as Nigel Farage praises the social network for enabling Brexit, Trump, and the Italian election results

Is he happy? Sad? One can never tell with replicants.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:34 AM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

Our Synagogue’s Custodian Is A Member Of Our Family - And ICE Just Deported Him
posted by bq at 10:38 AM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

Someone has to nail the Twitter leadership down on the question of whether it's conceivably possible for a world leader's account to violate the rules so egregiously that it is blocked. If the answer is no, then perhaps for the sake of honesty they should just remove the "report" button from those accounts. (Although the resultant excitement from deplorables about an "officially" unchained Donald might not be worth it.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 10:39 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

“We’re moving along. We’ll see what happens," says Pres Trump of planned summit with Kim Jong-un. But in Oval Office photo op with Pres Moon, @POTUS prepared for a postponement. "If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later.” "It may not work out for June 12th."

He never fucking knows. He says stuff like this all of the time because he has no clue what's going on and tries to bluff his way through these statements to sound like a big man, and because he thinks keeping people guessing helps his ratings (not his approval ratings, his TV ratings which are the only ratings he cares about). He's a fool and the longer the world has to deal with him, the worse off we all are.
posted by Servo5678 at 10:40 AM on May 22, 2018 [31 favorites]

An actual sinkhole has opened on the White House lawn. It’s growing Heather Timmons, Quartz [real]

“It was noticeably bigger between Sunday and Monday,” Herman said. “It’s more than a foot long right now,” he said. A second sinkhole has opened up right next to it, he said.

Pithy metacommentary on irony and/or narrative made manifest is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by Freon at 10:46 AM on May 22, 2018 [64 favorites]

CBS's Bianna Golodryga @biannagolodryga from Trump's pool spray with President Moon today: “What’s your next question?” Trump’s response after being asked if he has confidence in Rod Rosenstein.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:47 AM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Daniel Nexon, LGM: The Constitutional Crisis is That There is No “Crisis”

Of course, we’ve been in a constitutional crisis, at the very least, since Trump fired FBI director James Comey under transparent pretenses, only to immediately admit that the real reason was Comey’s handling of the Russia probe. Subsequent revelations have clarified that, prior to the firing, Trump pressured Comey to order the FBI to limit its investigation. [...]

Thus, various commentators have called for “red lines,” such as the “firing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Attorney General Jeff Sessions” or “Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.” A number of senators, including Republicans, have proclaimed “red lines,” such as firing special prosecutor Robert Mueller. But it remains unclear whether any such “red lines” exist, and for whom they matter. [...]

In his classic work, Arms and Influence, Thomas Schelling writes that:

“Salami tactics,” we can be sure, were invented by a child…. Tell a child not to go in the water and he’ll sit on the bank and submerge his bare feet; he is not yet “in” the water. Acquiesce, and he’ll stand up; no more of him is in the water than before. Think it over, and he’ll start wading, not going any deeper; take a moment to decide whether this is different and he’ll go a little deeper, arguing that since he goes back and forth it all averages out. Pretty soon we are calling to him not to swim out of sight, wondering whatever happened to all our discipline

Salami tactics work by exploiting ambiguity. They involve incremental violations—of borders, political commitments, or institutional norms—that can be excused away; they always seem to fall short of inviting retaliation. [...]

We might argue that Trump is a creature of “probes” and “testing.” That’s always been the nature of his confidence game. It would follow that salami tactics are a basic part of his arsenal. But I think this misreads the situation. Trump is also a creature of impulse. Whether the issue is withdrawing American troops from the Korean peninsula or firing Mueller, we see a pattern in which his advisors and aides constantly run interference. Trump wants to do something risky, for national security or his own political survival, and those around him scramble to ‘satisfy’ him while avoiding a crisis—or preventing the crisis from, so to speak, going nuclear. Everyone involved then breathes a sigh of relief.

The problem: in practice, this process produces a steady stream of “small violations” that are never enough to shift GOP elites, or provide a clear rallying cry for Democrats, and that buy even more time to propagandize the Republican base. [...]

The crisis never comes, and thus we continue on a very dangerous path.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:49 AM on May 22, 2018 [76 favorites]

Speaking of The White House lawn, did that tree French President Emmanuel Macron brought make it out of quarantine and get replanted?
posted by jazon at 10:54 AM on May 22, 2018

> It is absolutely worth it to spend enormous amounts of resources (money, people, time) to target Trump's personal phone, especially because of how he uses it.

Yeah, if I'm a nation state, maybe I break into every Apple Store in DC and replace their entire stock of iPhones with my slightly modified version of the hardware, which features always-on, always transmitting microphones.

Just in case some staffer gets the bright idea of walking to a store to buy a "random" iPhone with the belief that it might be safe to do so - like Trump ordering food from McDs.

Sure, it would be somewhat expensive. But imagine the payoff.

And if I can imagine this scenario, I am sure that foreign intelligence services have done better. Maybe they suborn the gold master iOS (and Android, equal time) software to behave in a certain way only when the GPS coordinates are in a certain range. Why not? It would be undetectable in usage testing, and all you need is to bribe a few people with access to the code and the two engineers who audit that obscure module.

If your target is the President himself, what level of investment might be justified? What pressure might you bring to bear?

Meanwhile, this jackass can't even be bothered to listen to basic advice from his own experts.
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:55 AM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

An actual sinkhole has opened on the White House lawn.

Maybe that's what happened to that tree they planted.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:58 AM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

Re: Broidy and Bechard: let’s imagine that Campos’ and Drum’s speculation is right, the affair was Trump’s, and Broidy’s money was meant to buy access. That happened in December and we found out about Daniels in January. The different price tags for the two hush payments surprised me. Is that why Daniels spoke up? Because she got wind of this other case somehow and realized she’d been stiffed? Or do we already have some other explanation for the timing?
posted by eirias at 10:58 AM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Don't be ridiculous; nobody would replace an entire iPhone store on the off-chance that the President's new phone is going to be one of them.

They just need to plant an intern near him so that when the president mutters something about "damn network is slow" the intern says "I can fix that for you! Let me install this app that speeds up the access!" And what they've got is some 99-cent "security speedup" app in the iStore that mostly does some pointless "monitor your batter life" activity, but is written to allow backdoor access if a specific password is given on installation.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:01 AM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

And if they want to plant someone near him, they don't go for White House staff; that place has actual security. (Sort of.) They look for waiter openings at Mar-a-Lago.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:03 AM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

Or you know, just have Trump give up allied sourced intelligence directly to your face in the Oval Office.
posted by PenDevil at 11:08 AM on May 22, 2018 [54 favorites]

Rationales are: possible top two primary lockout in the CA seats

If we don't take the House because a bunch of narcissists wouldn't drop out of the primary despite being behind in the polling... well, I actually won't be surprised. But seriously, drop the fuck out of these races if you're not one of the top 2 polling Democrats. Or I will be very cross with you.
posted by Justinian at 11:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

Really, though, pour one out for the foreign intelligence agencies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on 0-day exploits to compromise the President's phone only to realize that audio feeds of Fox & Friends are already widely available.
posted by 0xFCAF at 11:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [35 favorites]

> They just need to plant an intern near him

Maybe that's what the Germans did.

> They look for waiter openings at Mar-a-Lago.

And maybe that's what the Ukrainians did.

> nobody would replace an entire iPhone store on the off-chance that the President's new phone is going to be one of them.

If I'm the Chinese intelligence service, are you *sure* I wouldn't? Actually, maybe I suborn FoxConn.

> just have Trump give up allied sourced intelligence directly to your face in the Oval Office.

Yeah, if you're the Russians, you don't really need any of this, do you?
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

I imagine the Russians' main concern is how to avoid the other countries' surveillance operations when getting information from the White House.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:20 AM on May 22, 2018 [20 favorites]

But seriously, drop the fuck out of these races if you're not one of the top 2 polling Democrats

On top of too many giant assholes running, part of the problem seems to be the lack of reliable polling in House districts. There's pretty much just internal poll results, which lets the trailing candidates claim that they're not actually trailing.

If billionaires like Tom Seyer wanted to do some actual good with their money, paying for some legitimate polling in key House races could help. It's not the first thing I'd do with a billion dollars, but it's better than an impeachment billboard.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:24 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

I imagine the Russians' main concern is how to avoid the other countries' surveillance operations when getting information from the White House.

The Oval Office is probably bugged like a Cuban embassy. It's a wonder all the competing frequencies aren't making people's ears bleed.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:25 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

ErisLordFreedom: RealDonaldTrump is just a personal account; it should be subject to the standard terms of use.

Except Tweets by @realDonaldTrump are official statements of the @POTUS, per Justice Department back in Nov. 2017.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:28 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's not the first thing I'd do with a billion dollars, but it's better than an impeachment billboard.

But that might mean only running his self-aggrandizing television commercials every 15 minutes instead of every 10 minutes. Crazy talk. Good point about the polling though. There's got to be someone who can intervene here. We've got a golden opportunity to pick up a bunch of seats here in CA and we're on the verge of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
posted by Justinian at 11:29 AM on May 22, 2018

Yeah, if I'm a nation state, maybe I break into every Apple Store in DC and replace their entire stock of iPhones with my slightly modified version of the hardware, which features always-on, always transmitting microphones.

I'm kinda wondering if doing something similar hasn't occurred to the WH IT guys? There's probably big bucks out there for some recordings of SCOTUS/Hannity late-night love calls. You could always blame it on "hackers."
posted by Thorzdad at 11:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

An actual sinkhole has opened on the White House lawn. It’s growing Heather Timmons, Quartz [real]

Soon, The Orb will rise.
posted by mikepop at 11:40 AM on May 22, 2018 [51 favorites]

An actual sinkhole has opened on the White House lawn. It’s growing Heather Timmons, Quartz

That's an odd combination of growths
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:48 AM on May 22, 2018 [41 favorites]

Something weird is going on with the Ipsos generic ballot poll. Sample seems to have changed to far more Trump voters.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:50 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments deleted; let's not go down the sinkhole...uh... rabbit hole.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:56 AM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

Something weird is going on with the Ipsos generic ballot poll. Sample seems to have changed to far more Trump voters.

That may be true but the charts at that link aren't saying anything like that? It's just another way of expressing the generic ballot margin over time? Or are you basing the claim on info from someplace else.
posted by Justinian at 12:01 PM on May 22, 2018

Trump admits North Korea nuclear summit 'may not work out'.
The Bolton Administration Has Already Begun - Foreign Policy In Focus - May 16th. The hard-right national security adviser successfully tanked the Iran deal. His next target? The North Korea talks.
posted by adamvasco at 12:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

This seems to be real? Shining achievement: is Trump’s celebratory Kim​ Jong-un coin a little premature?

The newly minted coin commemorates a summit that hasn’t happened yet – let’s hope the North Korean leader turns up

From The Guardian.
posted by mumimor at 12:05 PM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

CBS's Bianna Golodryga @biannagolodryga from Trump's pool spray with President Moon today: “What’s your next question?” Trump’s response after being asked if he has confidence in Rod Rosenstein.

“My next question is ‘Why don’t you want to answer my question about your confidence in Rod Rosenstein?’”
posted by msalt at 12:05 PM on May 22, 2018 [54 favorites]

But it remains unclear whether any such “red lines” exist, and for whom they matter.

That's polite of the author to say, but it's pretty clear to whom they don't matter.

Why is anyone surprised when the party has made it an article of faith that the institutions of government are a problem to be rid of is not particularly interested in making sure those institutions can operate without interference? Why is anyone surprised when the core value of the modern GOP is doing anything at all to avoid accountability of private power ... doesn't want leadership to be accountable to public institutions, even if it's leadership they may privately/quietly recognize as corrupt and incompetent?

Modern Republican core values are operating as expected here. The fact that they have little to do with loving the institutions that have made America great isn't a shock.
posted by wildblueyonder at 12:06 PM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

From a few weeks ago, Dutch news magazine Zembla released a ½-hour documentary “Pounds And Poison From Moscow” (in English; “pounds” as in £) about Sergei Magnitsky's murder, the U.S. Magnitsky Act, the 2016 Trump Tower meeting (the one with Russia, obv), the repeated frustrated attempts during the last 6 years to get an equivalent to the Magnitsky Act enacted in the Netherlands, and the numerous assassinations in London by the Russian government.

(content warning: descriptions of murders and close-up forensic photos of injuries on Magnitsky's limbs)

Includes extensive interviews with Ben Browder, the American-British friend and associate of Magnitsky who champion the legislation in the U.S. and has been working in the Dutch and EU legislatures, and an interview with Heidi Blake, a Buzzfeed journalist whose book Poison In The System about the London killings was nominated for a Pulitzer.

There's also an interview with Natalia Veselnitskaya who alleges that Browder has “killed too many people already”. I guess because the Russian government claims that the financial fraud Magnitsky, Browder, and others were investigating when he died—supposedly due to a heart attack in their version—was actually perpetrated by them and they have been trying to cover it up? And she didn't meet with the Trump campaign on behalf of the Russian government, but “it would have been an honor” if she had.

At the end the Zembla documentary suggests that the Skripal poisoning has prompted... the Dutch Parliament, I think? to reconsider their own version of the Magnitsky Act. English Google results seem to indicate that nothing conclusive has happened yet.

Also btw last year Nikolai Gorokhov, a lawyer for Magnitzky's family, mysteriously fell from a fourth-story balcony in Moscow. He survived but suffered a skull fracture that put him in the hospital for quite a while and has no memory of what happened, but believes someone was trying to kill him.
posted by XMLicious at 12:09 PM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

Stopped Clock Jennifer Rubin, WaPo: Did Rosenstein and Wray play Trump?

I would suggest a third take on the meeting: Wray and Rosenstein, with Mueller’s full backing, might be setting up Trump. We know Mueller is already pursuing an obstruction-of-justice inquiry that might relate to acts such as Trump firing former FBI director James B. Comey, falsely accusing him of illegally leaking confidential material, pressuring Comey to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, helping draft a phony cover story to explain the June 9 Trump Tower meeting and conducting an extended campaign to smear, discredit and disrupt the work of the FBI and the special counsel. In that vein, wouldn’t a meeting directly ordering Wray and Rosenstein to conduct what amounts to a wild goose chase and to put confidential material into the hands of congressional allies be part of the pattern of possible obstruction they are investigating?

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:23 PM on May 22, 2018 [18 favorites]

NYT, Chances of China Trade Win Undercut by Trump Team Infighting. This is just a long litany of how not to have a trade negotiation. As Ilan Goldberg summarizes:

As someone who was part of diplomatic talks, this story on how Trump team screwed up China negotiations is a textbook case of nearly EVERY SINGLE THING you should NOT do. Bodes badly for North Korea summit. Let’s pick it apart step by grueling step

Before the talks. Fail to prepare. Don’t have sufficient deliberations to come to a common negotiating position as a team. This is where you need an engaged POTUS to listen to the disagreements among the team & set guidance. Of course Trump won’t do that.

During the talks. Because you failed to prepare have “profanity laced shouting matches” amongst yourselves in front of the Chinese encouraging them to exploit splits in the US team.

Have the President publicly tweet sensitive concessions he plans to make causing a backlash in Congress that shuts down those options before they’ve even been offered or negotiated. now you’ve taken away your negotiating space.

Also leak China’s concession to the press causing them to have to deny the concessions publicly and forcing the Chinese to & take a harder line. Now you’ve taken away your counterpart’s negotiating space.

After the talks fail have various members of the team come out with different positions that publicly criticize the results of the negotiations and each other. Because that sends a good signal before the next negotiating round.

Top it off with a front page NY Times story where clearly many of the US negotiators disparaged each other to the press. Because I’m sure they’ll now work really well as a team going forward.

Good luck with the North Korea summit. Glad we got rid of the JCPOA to negotiate a better deal. And of course we’ll get the ultimate deal on Israel-Palestine. God help us all

And remember, this is yet another problem entirely of Trump's own making. He's the one that started these trade talks and hired a bunch of idiots to run them.

----

McClatchy, Trump works to cut high-skilled visas in NAFTA deal

The administration wants to limit the number of eligible professions and decrease the number of visa renewals of Treaty NAFTA , or TN, visas as the countries renegotiate the 1994 trade deal. Trump, who has forced the renegotiation, has threatened to scrap it unless it addresses the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico.

“At the negotiating table, the U.S. statements have been basically, ‘Look, we want to scale this back, we don’t want to agree to expand it (visas),’" said Eric Miller, a trade consultant who has worked for the Canadian government and continues to advise them on the negotiations.

The discussions over the visas are continuing even though Congress passed a bill in 2016 barring any administration from trying to change the number of visas granted to a country as part of trade negotiations, after past presidents did just that.

Some people on Capitol Hill who have studied the 2016 law’s language say the administration can work around it by modifying the existing trade agreement instead of writing a new one.
...
Negotiators from the United States, Canada and Mexico missed an informal deadline last week set by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. to complete talks to allow lawmakers to vote on a new treaty this year. Talks continue, but it's highly unlikely now that Congress will consider the treaty this year, given their schedule and the upcoming midterm elections.

posted by zachlipton at 12:35 PM on May 22, 2018 [22 favorites]

Stopped Clock Jennifer Rubin, WaPo: Did Rosenstein and Wray play Trump?

"People" have been saying that the result was going to be DOJ throwing this to the Inspector General, i.e. "somewhat of a black hole," since about an hour after the tweet went out. Furthermore, would that Rubin exercised as much curiosity about DOJ regulations regarding its leadership acting as undercover agents as much as she does toward her own imagination.
posted by rhizome at 12:36 PM on May 22, 2018

Just got a fundraising email from CREW:

As you may have seen in the news last week, President Trump’s 2018 public financial disclosures were just released, and they immediately raised some very serious questions. By finally disclosing his payment to Michael Cohen, President Trump called the accuracy of his 2017 disclosures into question as he failed to report the Cohen loan in them, despite the fact that he was legally required to do so. (For a few links to articles covering last week’s breaking news, please see below.)

In response to this discrepancy and referencing CREW’s prior complaints on the matter, Office of Government Ethics Director David Apol referred these disclosures to the Department of Justice, publicly signaling that the government’s main ethics office believes the loan from Michael Cohen should have been disclosed on President Trump’s 2017 public financial disclosure. This kind of letter from OGE to the Justice Department about a potential disclosure violation by the president is extraordinary (it appears to be a first in OGE’s 40-year history), and it is gratifying that CREW’s complaint helped to spur it.

What does this mean? If the President intentionally failed to disclose the loan from Cohen last year, that is a crime. Failure to properly disclose information required to be reported can result in civil penalties of up to $50,000 and criminal penalties including imprisonment of up to one year. Federal law further prohibits anyone from knowingly and willfully making “any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch, with violations punishable by up to five years in prison.

What happens next? In response to this groundbreaking news, we have filed a criminal complaint against President Trump, calling for an investigation into whether he knowingly and willfully failed to report the Cohen loan on his 2017 disclosure forms. There is substantial evidence that President Trump had knowledge of the loan when he filed his public financial disclosures last year, despite his failure to report it. If the DOJ is not already investigating the president’s failure to disclose the loan last year, it should open an investigation immediately to determine whether there is evidence of a crime, including whether the President did, in fact, knowingly and willfully fail to disclose the loan.

This complaint is one of more than 200 legal actions we have taken concerning this administration. We are working to counter seemingly daily ethics violations from the White House, Administrator Scott Pruitt and the EPA, dark money groups, and others. We couldn’t do any of this without your much-needed support.

I gave. I'll give again.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:41 PM on May 22, 2018 [23 favorites]

How anti-abortion forces learned to love Trump

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night addresses the anti-abortion group that calls him the most "pro-life president" ever. It's the exact same group that just two years ago begged Iowa caucus voters to nominate “anyone” but Trump.

“I’m totally eating my words,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who's feting Trump at the group's annual gala in Washington. “It’s the happiest wrong I’ve ever been."
...
The Title X changes come on the heels of executive actions to undo an Obamacare requirement that most employers provide contraception in their employee health plans; the expansion of federal prohibitions on foreign aid to nongovernmental organizations that even mention abortion; the establishment of a federal office to review complaints from health care workers who have moral objections to performing some procedures; and deep cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
...
The Trump White House and SBA List are so in sync that the group encouraged guests at Tuesday's bash to stay at the Trump International Hotel. The organization even held a contest to win a trip to the gala that includes free accommodations at the venue. An SBA List spokeswoman said the group had already reserved a bloc of rooms at the Trump hotel, adding that it was “fun” for its attendees to stay at a Trump venue.

posted by zachlipton at 1:08 PM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

@chrisgeidner: Meanwhile, @MichaelAvenatti is back in court in New York, claiming: "We have reason to believe that plaintiff Michael Cohen, or members of his team, have begun to leak select audio recordings to the media that were seized in the FBI raids" — specifically about Stormy Daniels.

I'm not sure Avenatti is the most credible person to complain about leaks right now, but this seems to be entering a newly disturbing phase.
posted by zachlipton at 1:17 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Justinian: "That may be true but the charts at that link aren't saying anything like that? It's just another way of expressing the generic ballot margin over time? Or are you basing the claim on info from someplace else."

Here's the data. On April 1, Clinton voters were 48% of respondents. On May 17, 43.8% of respondents.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:21 PM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

@W7VOA: "I do have a real sense" that Kim Jong Un would find American investment, technology and know-how of "real value to his people," says @SecPompeo.

@Joshua_Pollack: NK Vice FM, last week: "The U.S. is trumpeting as if it would offer economic compensation and benefit in case we abandon nuke. But we have never had any expectation of U.S. support in carrying out our economic construction and will not at all make such a deal in future, either."

@nktpnd: It's amazing how the administration has a completely made-up version of North Korea in its head that's entirely divorced from everything North Korea is saying and doing. This isn't to say Kim Jong-un isn't interested in pursuing reform under his New Strategic Line, but he's not interested in total liberalization—rather, he'll want to see scores of Kaesongs around North Korea. What Pompeo is offering is effectively a poison pill for the regime.
posted by zachlipton at 1:29 PM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

"I do have a real sense" that Kim Jong Un would find American investment, technology and know-how of "real value to his people," says @SecPompeo.

Even the most amateur NK pundit would know any investment into NK is going straight into the DPRK leaderhip hidden bank accounts. This is just outright bribery.
posted by PenDevil at 1:32 PM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

Thanks Chrysostom. There does seem to be a meaningful change in the partisan makeup of the respondents in the last few weeks. The number of Republicans (and thus Trump voters) is up significantly while the number of Democrats is down marginally. But they aren't using special sauce to weight the respondents as far as I can tell? They're just reporting the raw results.

That partisan swing, plus a modest uptick in Republican support for Republican candidates (from very very high to very very very high) would be enough to account for much of the shift. So the question is whether that represents Republican enthusiasm kicking in or is a statistical anomaly. Perhaps previously depressed Republicans are now more likely to pick up the phone and say "yes, I am liking the racist and warmongery policies I am seeing and will now definitely vote for more racism and warmongering."
posted by Justinian at 1:42 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

OR maybe the Hillary voters are all out organizing and are too busy to respond?
posted by contraption at 1:44 PM on May 22, 2018

Could be a lot of reasons, we won't know until we see some more votes!
posted by Justinian at 1:46 PM on May 22, 2018

I just find it interesting that other pollsters have shown broadly similar trends to each other, and then we have Ipsos falling very suddenly off of a cliff.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:48 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

@MichaelAvenatti is back in court in New York, claiming: "We have reason to believe that plaintiff Michael Cohen, or members of his team, have begun to leak select audio recordings to the media that were seized in the FBI raids" — specifically about Stormy Daniels.

I'm confused. The FBI seized materials from Cohen's office. So doesn't he have the right to release any of them any way he likes (unless he has promised confidentiality to his client)?
posted by msalt at 1:51 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just ran across this 1951 quote from Senator Fulbright (Arkansas)

Scandals in Government are not a new phenomenon. What seems to be new about these scandals is the moral blindness or callousness which allows those in responsible positions to accept the practices which the facts reveal. It is bad enough for us to have corruption in our midst, but it is worse if it is to be condoned and accepted as inevitable.

posted by spamandkimchi at 1:56 PM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

I think I see whats leading to the partisan shift, Chrysostom, though it just pushes the question of causation back one level. The change in the age of respondents from early-mid april to now is striking. 18-34 is down from 36% of respondents to 28%, while 65+ goes from 10% to 18%. 35-49 is down about 4% while 50-64 is up about 4%

So the shift in the age histogram is huge with the fraction of the youngest respondents down the most, then the next youngest down half that, the next oldest up the same amount, and the very oldest up the most. Since age is hugely correlated with support for Trump that'll almost by itself explain the change.

Like I said that just pushes the question back one level though. Maybe young people are busy, like, living their lives what with the warm weather arriving while old folks are still sitting in front of Fox News waiting for the call.
posted by Justinian at 2:05 PM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

@ACLU: BREAKING: A federal court in Virginia has sided with Gavin Grimm saying that federal law protects transgender students from being forced to use separate restroom facilities. [article; opinion]
posted by melissasaurus at 2:11 PM on May 22, 2018 [94 favorites]

@ACLU: BREAKING: A federal court in Virginia has sided with Gavin Grimm saying that federal law protects transgender students from being forced to use separate restroom facilities. [article; opinion]

GOOD!
posted by zarq at 2:14 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Mueller tightens the vice:

Michael Cohen’s Business Partner Agrees to Cooperate as Part of Plea Deal
A significant business partner of Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, has quietly agreed to cooperate with the government as a potential witness, a development that could be used as leverage to pressure Mr. Cohen to work with the special counsel examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Under the agreement, the partner, Evgeny A. Freidman, a Russian immigrant who is known as the Taxi King, will avoid jail time, and will assist government prosecutors in state or federal investigations, according to a person briefed on the matter.
posted by PenDevil at 2:17 PM on May 22, 2018 [37 favorites]

Inae Oh, Mother Jones: "Lesley Stahl Shares Anecdote Explaining Why Trump Keeps Attacking the Press"

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.”

posted by OnceUponATime at 2:27 PM on May 22, 2018 [66 favorites]

*State* or federal. No federal pardons for state crimes!
posted by kerf at 2:27 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Paul Campos has more deeply irresponsible yet increasingly compelling speculation on the Broidy affair: Hey, Look: More Evidence That Broidy May Have Been Covering for Trump in That Playmate Affair

The story as we've been told it doesn't make a ton of sense. Broidy has a past history (yes yes, eponysterical, no relation to the best of my knowledge) of making payments to the mistress of the public official he's bribing.

A couple days after the Cohen raid, somebody calls up the Wall Street Journal to explain that there's another NDA on behalf of "David Dennison," but this David Dennison isn't Trump; it's Broidy. And Broidy promptly announced the affair with Shera Bechard and the subsequent pregnancy and abortion. Sure, there's getting out ahead of the story, but this was really convenient.

And then two days before Broidy gets his Oval Office meeting with Trump last November, the one where he repeats the Saudi/UAE talking points he's been handsomely compensated to pass along, Broidy wires $200K that ends up with Keith Davidson, followed by further payments that end up with Essential Consultants and Michael Cohen.

Again, this is a guy who has a prior conviction for bribing public officials, a scheme that involved paying the woman an official was having an affair with. And somebody (Qatar?) has hacked his emails and is spreading all kinds of dirt around. There isn't much in the way of actual evidence for Campos's theory that Broidy is covering up an affair for Trump, but it's hard to ignore the theory. And it's surely in both of their nature. I hear Trump has a story he likes to tell about that; something about "you knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in."
posted by zachlipton at 2:28 PM on May 22, 2018 [37 favorites]

phearlez: "I know it's fun to dump on this clown and I'm not giving him a pass from showing some willingness to engage in proper security practices. But if the IT staff can't handle this process in the manner of walking up and handing him an identically configured app-only phone and walking away with the old one then he's right, that is more inconvenient than it needs to be."

It's likely that the Cheeto insists on installing some questionable piece of malware and the "difficulty" is the time it takes him to get D.Jr to install some tetris knock off.


RedOrGreen: "Yeah, if I'm a nation state, maybe I break into every Apple Store in DC and replace their entire stock of iPhones with my slightly modified version of the hardware, which features always-on, always transmitting microphones.

Just in case some staffer gets the bright idea of walking to a store to buy a "random" iPhone with the belief that it might be safe to do so - like Trump ordering food from McDs.

Sure, it would be somewhat expensive. But imagine the payoff.

And if I can imagine this scenario, I am sure that foreign intelligence services have done better."

I'm reminded of this pair of stories:

By the way, the gentleman also told the story of how [the British] also bugged every new car going into Northern Ireland, and thus knew everything [Sinn Fein leader] Gerry Adams was discussing. They did this because Adams always conducted mobile meetings and always used new cars.

posted by Mitheral at 2:33 PM on May 22, 2018 [36 favorites]

> There isn't much in the way of actual evidence for Campos's theory that Broidy is covering up an affair for Trump, but it's hard to ignore the theory.

It's just that it would be unbelievably stupid for the same person to pull the same stunt (bribing someone by paying off his mistress) twice, and it would be monstrously idiotic for Trump to agree to such a scheme.

Which means, basically, it must be true.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

The Onion finally reads Michael Cohen's email from 2013 ...

Five years ago: this happened.

This week: this happened.
posted by WaspEnterprises at 2:36 PM on May 22, 2018 [21 favorites]

John Ward, Florida congressional candidate, is under fire for saying that he didn’t believe hurricane evacuees from Puerto Rico should be allowed to register to vote in the Sunshine State.

He's trying to walk it back, sort of:

“First of all, I don’t think they should be allowed to register to vote,” Ward said. “And it’s not lost on me that, I think, the Democrat Party’s really hoping that they can change the voting registers in a lot of counties and districts. And I don’t think they should be allowed to do that.”

Anyone know of a good ass mechanic? I may need a new one.
posted by Mitheral at 2:43 PM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

Congress passes rollback of banking rules put in place after financial crisis, sending bill to Trump to sign

The House voted to exempt small and regional banks from some of the most stringent rules put in place after the financial crisis, while also loosening some of the rules aimed at keeping the biggest banks from failing. The measure does not repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, as some in the GOP had hoped, but it does represent the most significant scaling back of the rules to date.

Supporters say the rollback frees banks from needlessly onerous rules and will boost economic growth, while critics say it exposes the economy to unnecessary risks at a time when banks are posting record profits.

The bill is near certain to become law. It is backed by the White House and was passed by the Senate in March.

posted by zachlipton at 2:43 PM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

Yeah, that bill was the second strike against Sen. Warner. His vote for Haspel was the third. THROW THE BUMS OUT!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:48 PM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Beware the “Reasonable” Take on the Mueller Investigation

So far, I’m sticking to my belief that Donald Trump probably didn’t personally collude with Russia. Beyond that, though, there’s just a mountain of evidence that points to massively illegal and unethical activity running through every facet of both the Trump campaign and the Trump White House. And that mountain is just what’s on the public record now. Once we learn everything that Mueller has discovered, the mountain is likely to turn into a super volcano.

I’m not surprised to hear some conservatives promoting the “reasonable” version of the Mueller investigation. But I am surprised that even some liberals are starting to hint at accepting it. I sure hope this doesn’t gain any more traction. There’s no need to go all X-Files on this, but there’s also no reason to downplay any of it. What Trump has done, and is still doing, almost certainly is Watergate 2.0.

I think it's possible Trump didn’t collude personally with Russia during the campaign, but I have no doubt the campaign was full of collaborators and Trump is totally guilty of obstruction of justice (and other corruption).
posted by kirkaracha at 2:48 PM on May 22, 2018 [24 favorites]

Under the proposed changes, hunters would also be allowed to hunt black bears with dogs, kill wolves and pups in their dens, and use motor boats to shoot swimming caribou.

this attitude combined with the administrations frankly prurient glee in calling people "violent animals" is extremely disturbing to me.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:51 PM on May 22, 2018 [49 favorites]

> XMLicious:
"“Computational propaganda” is a developing field of study."

Yeah, but effectively counterattacking programmatically is an issue. I am pretty sure you folks know I am no bot (because none of you have talked to my ex-wife), but, in the last 30 days, I have had my Twitter account frozen THREE times for "automated activity" which, for reasons of security by obscurity, no one will tell me what triggered said blocks.
posted by Samizdata at 2:52 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

John Ward, Florida congressional candidate, is under fire for saying that he didn’t believe hurricane evacuees from Puerto Rico should be allowed to register to vote

The other option would be to adapt to the changing district and earn the votes of these new constituents from Puerto Rico. /shrug
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 2:54 PM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

We already know Trump probably "colluded" with Russia. It's in the open! Don Jr was offered a meeting with Russian intelligence at which dirt on Clinton would be provided. He agreed enthusiastically and immediately called a blocked number. He met with the agents of the Russian government along with the most senior members of the campaign. He again called the blocked number immediately after the meeting. Donald Trump has a blocked number.

So we know based solely on public information that Trump probably colluded. I say only probably because it's kinda possible the number Don Jr called was't Trump. But who else would it have been? Besides Trump himself the only person senior to Don Jr in the campaign apparatus was Lewandowski the campaign manager and he was present at the meeting. Occam's razor and common sense both suggest the number Don Jr called before and after the meeting was Trump. They further suggest the conversation wasn't about the Yankees.

That's collusion. Or, as Mueller may view it, conspiracy to defraud the United States.
posted by Justinian at 2:57 PM on May 22, 2018 [53 favorites]

Nixon did’t personally break into the DNC’s Watergate offices, either. But that’s a distinction without a difference.
posted by msalt at 3:00 PM on May 22, 2018 [72 favorites]

didn’t collude personally

My opinion is pretty much the same as it was back in Sept, 2017.

"I totally believe that Trump "doesn't know anything" about the collusion his son, son-in-law, campaign manager, national security adviser, and attorney general, along with his laywer and some old friends, were getting up to. Of course he doesn't know. Who would tell him? The idiot confessed to obstruction of justice on national TV and leaked classified intel to the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office. Why would you tell him anything? But he knew one thing: he knew he was not supposed to ask any questions. He is good at not asking questions. He is good at forgetting things. And that what people have paid him for, his whole life."

(Original comment cites examples involving violations of labor laws at Trump Tower, money laundering at Trump Taj Mahal, and more money laundering, probably, at Bayrock.)

But now Trump himself is linked not only by his behavior encouraging and covering for Russia, and his citing of Russian propaganda on the campaign trail and amplification of the leaks... But also by the money from Viktor Vekselberg, the meetings with Torshin and Butina (including a public promise to Butina that he would consider scaling back sanctions), his false statements on behalf of Don Jr about the Trump Tower meeting, and his obstruction of the investigation by firing Comey.

So while he may not know all the details ("I don't ask questions!") I can no longer doubt that he knew something was up with his campaign's relationship with Russia, and was okay with it, and is now working to cover it up.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:03 PM on May 22, 2018 [32 favorites]

The Quvenzhane Wallis version of "Annie" I watched recently has a Michael Cohen-like fixer character. At one point he says to his politician boss: "You pay me a lot of money not to tell you about stuff like that."

I assume that's how it works with Trump too.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:12 PM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

Johnny Wallflower: "Yeah, that bill was the second strike against Sen. Warner. His vote for Haspel was the third. THROW THE BUMS OUT!"

Better put a note on your calendar for 2020, then.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:17 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Reason, Prison Reform Bill Passes The House; Is Prison Reform Dead?. This is a good quick look at the state of the FIRST STEP Act, which just passed the House, and the problems with doing prison reform without sentencing reform, which Sessions adamantly opposes.
posted by zachlipton at 3:22 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

John Ward, Florida congressional candidate, is under fire for saying that he didn’t believe hurricane evacuees from Puerto Rico should be allowed to register to vote in the Sunshine State.
He's trying to walk it back, sort of:
“First of all, I don’t think they should be allowed to register to vote,” Ward said. “And it’s not lost on me that, I think, the Democrat Party’s really hoping that they can change the voting registers in a lot of counties and districts. And I don’t think they should be allowed to do that.”

I mean, I'd kind of say that is not so much walking it back as explicitly reaffirming his view that they shouldn't be allowed to register to vote.
posted by jaduncan at 3:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [25 favorites]

The laws of the United States speak to something re: culpability called "willful blindness,"

"the situation where the actor, aware of the probable existence of a material fact, does not take steps to ascertain that it does not exist. Willful blindness would require an awareness of a high probability of the existence of the circumstance. United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697, 700 n. 7 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 951 (1976)."

Thus the prosecution's task would be to show he WAS aware of the issue of conspiracy with Russian criminals, and didn't do anything to ensure it would not happen.

For example, by not publicly asking the Russians to hack his opponent's emails
posted by mikelieman at 3:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

CNN, Trump's lawyers seek to narrow scope of special counsel interview

"We said we wanted the questions limited to Russian collusion," one of the sources with knowledge of the President's legal strategy tells CNN. Since that aspect of the investigation deals with the Trump campaign and transition team's interactions with Russians, it would exclude questions about Trump's actions once in office. And even within the pre-presidency category, Trump's lawyers want to narrow what questions the prosecutors can ask.

The focus on Trump's conduct prior to assuming the presidency also would exclude questions about the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey and possible obstruction of justice. One possibility Trump's lawyers are discussing is a combination of in-person and written answers: a limited Trump interview on Russia pre-presidency matters plus written answers to questions regarding obstruction. Trump's lawyers are insisting on an audio recording of any interview with the President, so there is no question exactly what was said.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

----

Politico, GOP fundraiser subpoenas AP over hacked emails, setting up legal showdown

A top Republican fundraiser has subpoenaed the Associated Press for information about the source of hacked emails that formed the basis of recent reports about him, people familiar with the matter tell POLITICO.

The AP has received the subpoena from Elliott Broidy — the subject of several recent articles about his efforts to lobby President Donald Trump and the U.S. government to adopt a hard-line stance against the Persian Gulf state of Qatar — and is planning to resist it, according to the outlet’s director of media relations, Lauren Easton.

The impasse sets up a potential legal standoff over press protections at a time when political battles are increasingly being waged via leaks of hacked data. A copy of the subpoena obtained by POLITICO demands the AP turn over all its information about its sources, including their names, along with information about how the AP obtained the hacked emails.

posted by zachlipton at 3:37 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Cohen's business partner strikes plea deal. Cohen's tough talk about not flipping might evaporate sooner than later.

A thought experiment: how much leverage would you have to have against you to flip if the Mafiya knew the intimate details of all of your family, could almost certainly drop a world of physical/legal hurt on all of them, and quite aside from just them flipping would make an instant enemy of both an unhinged US President and a famously murderous Putin?
posted by jaduncan at 3:39 PM on May 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

But Cohen's partner did just flip. So it's clearly not out of the question.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:42 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

I honestly don’t think Trump is physically capable of answering a direct question with a clear answer, which makes a lot of this lawyerly quibbling moot.
posted by valkane at 3:43 PM on May 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

Depends what his allegations are. He might have quite a lot to worry about from Putin if said allegations are likely to provoke a new range of sanctions or solidify Western/EU resolve to keep the existing sanctions going.
posted by jaduncan at 3:43 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't really care all that much how Trump answers, but he needs to be asked questions under oath like Bill Clinton had to do.

I mean, sure, I'd love something along Caine Mutiny/A Few Good Men lines as a bonus, but we need to follow precedent and the rule of law.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:48 PM on May 22, 2018 [18 favorites]

As one might expect, in KY-06, Gray doing well in Lexington, McGrath doing well in outlying areas. Still up in the air.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:51 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are on purpose

Lousy Grammar Doesn't Make You a Working-Class Hero

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.

posted by kirkaracha at 3:51 PM on May 22, 2018 [45 favorites]

I don't really care all that much how Trump answers, but he needs to be asked questions under oath like Bill Clinton had to do.

While that's true, it should be noted that lying carries the same penalty whether or not he is under oath. It's just charged under a different section of the USC.
posted by Justinian at 3:52 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump's lawyers are insisting on an audio recording of any interview with the President, so there is no question exactly what was said.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:53 PM on May 22, 2018 [36 favorites]

> [...] in the last 30 days, I have had my Twitter account frozen THREE times for "automated activity" which, for reasons of security by obscurity, no one will tell me what triggered said blocks.

> I don't follow 45 but I do grab all his Tweets (since March at least) into a Google Spreadsheet. Help yourself if it looks useful.

Not trying to be a smartass or anything; in fact, I sincerely appreciate the gesture. Just trying to highlight some of the potential rules for the game we're playing right now. For example, I'm not surprised about which of my actions resulted in receiving unsolicited calls from Russia's country code.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 3:55 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Here’s the thing, Embattled White Working Class Voters Who Voted Trump and Read Esquire...
posted by contraption at 3:59 PM on May 22, 2018 [35 favorites]

The impasse sets up a potential legal standoff over press protections at a time when political battles are increasingly being waged via leaks of hacked data. A copy of the subpoena obtained by POLITICO demands the AP turn over all its information about its sources, including their names, along with information about how the AP obtained the hacked emails.

Could be a guy sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds, someone in the Ecuador embassy, a GRU agent, who knows?

HURF DURF BUTTER EMAILS
posted by benzenedream at 4:20 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Cooper Fleishman
Donald Glover fans have taken over Trump fanpage /r/thedonald and now they're waging war on /r/The_Donald
http://www.reddit.com/r/thedonald
posted by chris24 at 4:35 PM on May 22, 2018 [89 favorites]

KY-06 still tight, but it looks McGrath may have it.

Abrams looks she may wrap up GA gov pretty early.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:46 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

And Amy McGrath has won the Dem nomination in KY-06, Gray conceding.

It's been pointed out that there was a huge increase in turnout in the rural counties of the district from the 2016 primary, not much change in the more Gray-favoring areas. So she may be a stronger candidate for the district than some have been saying.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:58 PM on May 22, 2018 [17 favorites]

If McGrath does win tonight and can win the general, that's the kind of statement victory in a Republican strong lean district the progressive wing desperately needs. These are the races progressive candidates need to win to take a much bigger role.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

So she may be a stronger candidate for the district than some have been saying.

10 seconds early. I'm surprised she's done this well, but that's a good surprised, she's a great candidate on policy and personally. Winning the general would be huge.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:05 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

The one and only Steve Kornacki notes a couple of small factoids about the Georgia gov. race:

In tiny, 99% white Towns County in far northern Georgia, Stacey Abrams looks like she's edged out Stacey Evans in the early vote -- 61 to 59.

Meanwhile, in equally small Terrell County, which has the fifth highest concentration of black residents of Georgia's 159 counties, Abrams is crushing it in the early vote, 73-27%.

posted by FelliniBlank at 5:16 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump is working his way through a teleprompter speech, and then: "your vote in 2018 is every bit as important as your vote in 2016, although I'm not sure I really believe that. I don't know who the hell wrote that line." Then he goes back to bashing Schumer and Pelosi, claiming that Pelosi is in favor of MS-13 (he's going to Long Island tomorrow to bash immigrants some more).
posted by zachlipton at 5:21 PM on May 22, 2018 [38 favorites]

Trump's decompensating before our eyes/TV cameras.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:27 PM on May 22, 2018

Then he goes back to bashing Schumer and Pelosi, claiming that Pelosi is in favor of MS-13

At a "Campaign for Life Gala" he ridiculed Nancy Pelosi for claiming that all human beings are people.

Then, exactly as at the State of the Union Address, he brought up to the stage another white couple who "adopted" a white child from an opiate-addicted mother. Then he groped the child.

Just having a regular one.
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:28 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Fletcher with substantial lead over Moser in TX-07.

Allred way up on Salerno in TX-32.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:28 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Paul Campos has more deeply irresponsible yet increasingly compelling speculation on the Broidy affair: Hey, Look: More Evidence That Broidy May Have Been Covering for Trump in That Playmate Affair

Paul Waldman, in a WaPo opinion piece, officially goes there and adds this layer to the theory:

There’s one more piece to this puzzle. We all know about Trump’s weird relationship with his daughter Ivanka Trump, how he often comments on her body and says things like “If she weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” Both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who says she had an affair with Trump, said that Trump compared them to his daughter, which is a rather odd thing to say to a woman you’re having sex with. Whatever the true nature of Trump’s feelings, it’s clear that he’s attracted to women who remind him of Ivanka Trump. I bring this up because Shera Bechard is a dead ringer for Ivanka Trump. An absolute dead ringer.

posted by peeedro at 5:31 PM on May 22, 2018 [45 favorites]

@daveweigel:

Every Dem establishment-preferred candidate in the TX runoffs won the early vote big: Fletcher in #TX07 (70-30), Kopser in #TX21 (60-40), Ortiz Jones in #TX23 (78-22), Hegar in #TX31 (59-41), Allred in #TX32 (71-29).

(note that's early vote only, today's in-person vote yet to be counted)
posted by Chrysostom at 5:33 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Bechard (and Daniels, to an extent) do look like Ivanka.

The creepy interpretation is as stated in the WaPo piece. The less creepy (but still creepy given Trump's statements in the past) interpretation is that Trump obviously has a type; thin, modely blondes with a certain look. Ivanka's mother Ivana looked like that (and therefore resembled Bechard and Daniels) so it is no suprise that Ivanka also looks like that. So Trump doesn't creepily lust after these other women because they look like Ivanka, he makes creepily lusty comments about Ivanka because she looks like Ivana, and Bechard, and Daniels etc.

I can't believe this is real life.
posted by Justinian at 5:38 PM on May 22, 2018 [36 favorites]

I don't know who the hell wrote that line

Here's the clip, which is worth watching to see just how surprised Trump is by the words that are coming out of his mouth.

For all the things Trump upends, he doesn't really do things so much as observe things happening around him and periodically yell unhelpful suggestions in their general direction. He's still just the guy watching cable news yelling at the set about how he could do a better job; he just now gets to enjoy seeing how much people care about his pronouncements.
posted by zachlipton at 5:38 PM on May 22, 2018 [20 favorites]

> Johann Georg Faust:
"> [...] in the last 30 days, I have had my Twitter account frozen THREE times for "automated activity" which, for reasons of security by obscurity, no one will tell me what triggered said blocks.

> I don't follow 45 but I do grab all his Tweets (since March at least) into a Google Spreadsheet. Help yourself if it looks useful.

Not trying to be a smartass or anything; in fact, I sincerely appreciate the gesture. Just trying to highlight some of the potential rules for the game we're playing right now. For example, I'm not surprised about which of my actions resulted in receiving unsolicited calls from Russia's country code."

Нет, приятель, совсем нет. Not thinking you are a smartass at all. (Although my opinion on 45 is not good and I am far from subtle.) I just have this weird thing about archiving information. I still have a complete archive of all the Ferguson documents that were released.
posted by Samizdata at 5:40 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Here's a surprise from Kentucky: the incumbent GOP House Majority Leader, Jonathan Shell, has apparently lost the primary in HD-71, 51-49.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:43 PM on May 22, 2018 [36 favorites]

No AP call yet, but all the online punditry are calling GA gov for Abrams. If she won in November, she'd be the first black woman governor.

On the GOP side, LG Cagle is leading with 41%. He needs to break 50 in order to avoid a runoff (which would presumably help out Abrams).
posted by Chrysostom at 5:47 PM on May 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

G. Elliott Morris (Crosstab)
Voters will cast about 100,000 ballots in #KY06 Democratic primary tonight tonight. They cast under 80k there in 2016. We’ll see if that sticks in November!

---

25% increase over a presidential election year primary in a midterm primary. D enthusiasm even in red Kentucky.
posted by chris24 at 5:49 PM on May 22, 2018 [37 favorites]

In the special to determine control of the Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners, we're heading to a runoff. The race is nominally non-partisan, but Democrat Eileen Higgins finished first with about 35% over two Republicans.

She might have a shot in a runoff - south Florida has a lot of turf wars between political families, two of whom were the Republicans. Might supress some turnout on the right in round 2.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:52 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Programming note: no Kornacki on MSNBC yet, but he's doing periodic cheap-ass live primary coverage from his office on Twitter.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:58 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here's a surprise from Kentucky: the incumbent GOP House Majority Leader, Jonathan Shell, has apparently lost the primary in HD-71, 51-49.

To a high school math teacher angry about the bill stripping teachers of their pensions.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:00 PM on May 22, 2018 [85 favorites]

Gina Ortiz Jones looks to have won TX-23 Dem primary handily. She will face off with incumbent Will Hurd, race is probably a toss-up.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:01 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thanks, T.D. Strange. Always appreciate your KY insights.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

>John Ward, Florida congressional candidate, is under fire for saying that he didn’t believe hurricane evacuees from Puerto Rico should be allowed to register to vote

>The other option would be to adapt to the changing district and earn the votes of these new constituents from Puerto Rico.

And of course the best option would have been to help the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico rebuild their infrastructure so they wouldn't have to flee to the mainland.

It's a crime that the press has allowed Trump to get away with his depraved indifference to U.S. citizens that aren't white men.
posted by JackFlash at 6:05 PM on May 22, 2018 [41 favorites]

In AR GOP gov, incumbent Asa Hutchinson (regular crazy) has won over gun range owner Jan Morgan (industrial strength crazy) handily.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Looks like former Rep John Barrow will be the Dem nominee for GA Secretary of State. There have been some pretty eyebrow-raising shenanigans in this office, so a pickup is important; Barrow is seen as the strongest candidate.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:36 PM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

Brian Beutler (Crooked Media)
“It was sort of like a gift,” Giuliani said of stolen emails that Trump campaign officials solicited publicly and privately, retaining his title as America’s worst lawyer.
HuffPo: Giuliani’s New Stance On Russian Collusion: So What? It’s Not Illegal.

In a recent interview with HuffPost, Giuliani initially disputed the notion that Trump’s daily citing, in the final month of his campaign, of Russian-aligned WikiLeaks and its release of Russian-stolen emails constituted “colluding” with Russia.

“It is not,” Giuliani said.

Then he switched tacks.

“OK, and if it is, it isn’t illegal... It was sort of like a gift,” he said. “And you’re not involved in the illegality of getting it.”

---

Matthew Segal (ACLU)
Literally the “it fell off a truck” defense.
posted by chris24 at 6:49 PM on May 22, 2018 [91 favorites]

For all the things Trump upends, he doesn't really do things so much as observe things happening around him and periodically yell unhelpful suggestions in their general direction. He's still just the guy watching cable news yelling at the set about how he could do a better job

But when he changes the channel to someone with whom he totally agrees, such as cynical conspiracy theory–purveyor Sean Hannity, he can't stop agreeing with the screen about how THAT'S TOTALLY RIGHT!

e.g. His tweets this evening (because his speech today to the pro-life zealots didn't provide enough of a narcissistic fix): "If the person placed very early into my campaign wasn’t a SPY put there by the previous Administration for political purposes, how come such a seemingly massive amount of money was paid for services rendered - many times higher than normal...
"...Follow the money! The spy was there early in the campaign and yet never reported Collusion with Russia, because there was no Collusion. He was only there to spy for political reasons and to help Crooked Hillary win - just like they did to Bernie Sanders, who got duped!"

Please note, the Trump White House has almost finished its second month without the calming influence of Hope Hicks.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

GA GOP gov looks virtually certain to go to a runoff between LG Cagle and SOS Kemp.

Pleasingly, Michael Williams, the "deportation bus" guy, got about 5%. He had also given up his state senate seat to run.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:07 PM on May 22, 2018 [38 favorites]

He was only there to spy for political reasons and to help Crooked Hillary win

Exactly. Which is why the FBI didn't say anything about the investigation until AFTER the election.

And how many Republicans are we up to who were helping Hilary win?
posted by chris24 at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

TX-07 Dem is over, goes strongly for Lizzie Fletcher over Laura Moser, about 68-31.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

TX-32 Dem also over, with well-funded ex-football player Colin Allred winning about 69-30 over Lillian Salerno.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:11 PM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

In AR-02, nationally backed candidate Clarke Tucker wins with about 58%, avoiding a runoff.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:13 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Trump: "If the person placed very early into my campaign wasn’t a SPY put there by the previous Administration for political purposes..."

I must once again applaud Mueller's team. Their style of keeping it close to their vest, giving no-one anything to work with until indictments drop, has Trump and Giuliani pretty much free-associating their worst fears to the general public.

( Narrator: The CI wasn't a political agent )
posted by mikelieman at 7:15 PM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

TX-21 Dem goes to Joseph Kopser, about 58-41 over Mary Wilson.

Texas Dems consistently going for the more moderate candidates tonight.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:16 PM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Follow the money! The spy was there early in the campaign

The Qanon folks have already brought this back around to their theories, claiming that "follow the money" is something their supposed 4chan informant says, in case you're wondering how this is playing in cuckoo land. This crap has a direct line into the White House.

Meanwhile, they don't seem to care that someone with an actual child porn conviction is now involved in these scandals, if you somehow thought any of this involved good faith.
posted by zachlipton at 7:19 PM on May 22, 2018 [30 favorites]

Re: the racist NY attorney from the previous megathread: And don’t miss the riff track of him hiding behind his umbrella.

Oh my god, that was amazing. I really needed that. I strongly recommend viewing that for anyone who needs a bit of catharsis right now.

posted by biogeo at 10:11 AM on May 19 [6 favorites +] [!]

Citizen acts like a dick to immigrants, gets hounded night and day by the media. President does it and gets normalized.
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:19 PM on May 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

WSJ, Israeli Intelligence Company Formed Venture With Trump Campaign Firm Cambridge Analytica

A company owned by Joel Zamel, an Israeli entrepreneur whose work has drawn the scrutiny of special counsel Robert Mueller, formed a strategic partnership with a data firm for President Donald Trump’s campaign in a joint bid to win business from the U.S. government and other clients after the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Psy-Group, one of Mr. Zamel’s firms, signed a memorandum of understanding with Cambridge Analytica LLC, a digital media firm that helped propel Mr. Trump to the presidency, these people said, Facebook Inc. in March suspended Cambridge over allegations that it improperly harvested the data of millions of Facebook users, accusations that in part led to the firm’s closure earlier this month.

The Dec. 14, 2016, memorandum, as described to The Wall Street Journal, outlines a partnership whereby the two firms could cooperate on a case-by-case basis to provide intelligence and social-media services, or pitch business to an array of clients.

A person familiar with the work of Psy-Group, a private intelligence firm, said the partnership was intended in part to help win government contracts—something that Cambridge and its parent company, SCL Group, were aggressively seeking to do as their allies in the Trump administration took power, according to people familiar with the efforts.

posted by zachlipton at 7:30 PM on May 22, 2018 [17 favorites]

“Your vote in 2018 is every bit as important as your vote in 2016 — although I’m not sure I really believe that,” Trump ad libs. “I don’t know who the hell wrote that line.”

Wasn't Trump the one who criticized Obama and Hillary for using a teleprompter?
posted by msalt at 7:50 PM on May 22, 2018 [30 favorites]

In TX Dem gov, Lupe Valdez has won the runoff, 53-47 over Andrew White.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:50 PM on May 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

In more Texas politics on the "Who will replace Joe Straus?" front we've got a series of 4 articles from the Texas Monitor profiling 4 candidates for the speakership, the first from March with the rather unsettling series of paragraphs:

King says he wants to create a system where bills, even marginal or unpopular, get to the floor without arbitrary intervention by the speaker or leadership of either the majority or minority party...

...All of this might sound to hard-line conservatives like a candidate throwing bones to moderates and Democrats for support. King calls it “treating everyone the way they want to be treated.”

“Everybody in the House has to have a role. One of the ways you do that is to level the playing field — is to set up the rules of order to allow people to get their bills to the floor, to have votes. If I were to completely cut out the Democrats — someone once told me that if your opponents don’t have something to do, they’re going to find something to do and you’re not going to like it.”

That “something to do,” in past sessions was form alliances that allowed Straus to block bills like property tax reform and several important to social conservatives like the “bathroom bill.” (link contained in the original article)

Second in the series is Tan Parker, who seems like a total ass, which means he's probably the perfect person to get the speaker role.

Thirdly, we have a profile of John Zerwas, who, according to the article is on a list of "...'bounties' on what they (Joe Straus' opponents) called a 'Dirty Dozen' of those priority House incumbents." of which "...Zerwas was at the top of its list."

Basically the article goes on to say that Zerwas is probably the only Republican who has the temerity to stand against tea party republicans in the 2019 Texas Lege Session, but he most likely doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning the speakership.

Moving on to the last in the series is a profile of Eric Johnson, a Democratic representative and the first african-american rep to run for speaker of the house, who appears to have a bad ass progressive voting record, but, who unfortunately doesn't stand a chance

I weep, I weep for my home state
posted by nikaspark at 8:03 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

TX-32 Dem also over, with well-funded ex-football player Colin Allred winning about 69-30 over Lillian Salerno.

ahahahaha yesssssss THERE WAS A REASON I LEFT, Y’ALL
posted by dogheart at 8:08 PM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

From the end of the last thread, regarding finding perfectly contrary comments for he same politician:

It's a text search of closed captioning files, time-indexed to the source material.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:44 AM on May

Is there a search engine for this? Or does one leech a bunch of .sub titles from the network's webpage, or -? Asking for a friend.
posted by petebest at 8:09 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

i mean i’m sad for the team and the volunteers, who were amazing, but i have a certain bittersweet satisfaction here
posted by dogheart at 8:14 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Another nice surprise: in GA HD-180, incumbent GOP member Jason Spencer - who you might remember threatened to lynch a former colleague for calling for removal of Confederate statues - has lost his primary.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:20 PM on May 22, 2018 [38 favorites]

NEWS: White House [through Sarah Huckabee Sanders] says meeting between DOJ and lawmakers will be Thursday [May 24th]. Reps. NUNES, GOWDY, FBI Director Wray, DNI Coats and DOJ's Ed O'CALLAHAN. No White House officials.

Adam Schiff @RepAdamSchiff:
"The White House has directed the DOJ and FBI to hold a partisan briefing on infomation the President wants given to his allies in Congress. No Democrats allowed.
"This is another serious abuse of power. There’s a bipartisan mechanism called the Gang of 8. They need to use it."

The Hill's Katie Bo Williams @KatieBoWill:
"House Intel Ranking Member Adam Schiff says they have been told by the Department of Justice and FBI that Chairman Nunes has “refused” to receive briefings alongside Democrats.
"Having spoken with Schiff, it sounds like he still anticipates that he will receive a separate, identical briefing on the same material that the DOJ briefs Nunes on—they just won’t receive it together.
"To clarify: DOJ is still providing the same information to Schiff, they’re just not receiving the briefings at the same time."

Abuse of power issues aside, this sounds as though Nunes is almost frightened of being in the same room as Schiff during these tense briefings—this won't be the first time the DoJ had to separately pass along the same exact information to the HPSCI Dems.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:26 PM on May 22, 2018 [65 favorites]

TX-32 Dem also over, with well-funded ex-football player Colin Allred winning about 69-30 over Lillian Salerno.

Yeah, I was afraid of that when I was getting a 4-color card stock giant flyer every day from Allred's campaign, and nothing in the last two weeks from Lillian. I know we had at least one Mefite working on Lillian's campaign, including, iirc, moving down here to the Dallas area to do so. My sympathies to everyone who worked so hard for a really great, truly inspirational woman.

But, Colin looks to be a good man. He says the right things, and in any case, he's a fuckton better than Pete Sessions, that old collaborating two-faced reprobate. So, even if it's not our preferred candidate, we need to keep action going to defeat Pete.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:27 PM on May 22, 2018 [17 favorites]

TX-07:

“The key objective here is to beat John Culbertson ... if this night turns out like it looks like it’s going to turn out, I encourage everyone to support [Lizzie Fletcher],” Moser says, to applause

I know it's not as colorful, but I'm seeing mostly party unity coming out of Dem primaries so far. Evans also endorsed Abrams immediately in GA gov.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:35 PM on May 22, 2018 [43 favorites]

i had moved down to dallas to work for lillian, but i got off that race a month ago for. well. very valid reasons, let’s say that. i would work for her again in any other endeavor. but i cannot say i’m displeased with this result.

(i’m gonna go work for the next six months to displace bruce rauner, because i love chicago and i love illinois, but mostly because my boss there will be my boss from hillary, who is a man i know i can trust absolutely. that’s important to me, after texas.)
posted by dogheart at 8:42 PM on May 22, 2018 [52 favorites]

Texas Tribune: GOP state House primaries almost all went for the more moderate candidate.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

I wasn't expecting to come here and post a review of the Roseanne season finale, but I'm doing that, because it's about more than Roseanne: The Roseanne Season Finale Is a Fairy Tale

The trials and tribulations of the Conner family have been touted as representative of a “real” America, as one of the few stories to give us a picture of the forgotten white working class. But again and again, the show refuses to connect any of Roseanne Conner’s cracks about Trump or fake news with the real ramifications of her positions. She believes that the government shouldn’t pay for people’s health care, but she’s thrilled to take FEMA assistance when their house floods. Her knee surgery will still be paid for with federal money, but because they’re getting the money after a flood rather than the basic need for health care, it’s acceptable. Earlier in the season, we were supposed to smile Roseanne as opened her heart to the new neighbors, a Muslim family that she initially assumed had purchased fertilizer to make bombs rather than to fertilize their lawn. But we’re not supposed to draw any through line between that grudging tolerance and the MAGA hat she keeps hanging in her laundry room.

With the end of the revival’s first season and the early glimmers of what fall TV will bring, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey has suggested that new episodes of Roseanne will now lean less on the politics, and instead will stick more to stories about “family trials and tribulations.” This looks like a way to emphasize universality, but it’s also precisely the problem with this entire season: It rejected the idea that there is a meaningful connection between politics and the family, and instead posited that you can draw a line between stories about a down-and-out working-class family without affordable health care and sufficient employment — that they are either about the family, or they are about politics. That line of thinking suggests that if Roseanne just stops joking about Hillary Clinton, the show will no longer be about politics in America. That if the Conners just hang in there long enough, their house will flood and they’ll be rescued by a potent, metastable mixture of Trump, God, and aid from the federal government — and somehow it won’t be about politics.

If the best future Roseanne can offer for working-class families is to wait around for a flood, then it’s not actually a show about an underrepresented reality in America. It’s a fairy tale masquerading as gritty realism. At their very best, fairy tales use fantasy to elucidate buried truths of the human condition — mermaids demonstrate the pain of transformation, and witches are a tangible embodiment of threat — and they use unbelievable plots to illuminate the unseen darkness and beauty of human existence. But Roseanne’s season-ending fairy tale, its final gesture of improbable wish-granting, is not illuminating. It’s a way for the show to hide.

The show is as much a fairy tale as the politician she praises. The working class struggles are rooted in the real problems we face as a country, but the answers are fantasy. That disconnect between politics and family is everywhere; you see it in all the "oh it's just politics; can't they get along?" talk. There's no recognition that people's political choices are directly correlated with policies that impact their family, that not being able to afford a necessary knee replacement has nothing to do with immigrants, isn't a normal state of affairs in countries with the wealth we have, and has an awful lot to do with voting for the people who have spent the past decade fighting efforts to try to make health care affordable. Roseanne, the modern GOP, there's no policy there, just team loyalty. And when you dramatize that, you're left with a deep nihilism: politics has nothing tangible to offer, it's just a team sport, so you might as well wear your team colors and hurl insults at the other guys. And then you cash your FEMA check and reassure yourself that you're not like those people, because you've earned it somehow, that all your problems are magically solved by God and the benevolence of Trump's disaster declaration rather than the hard work of slowly trying to make this country better a little bit at a time. GOP voters voted for a fairy tale, and now they got one for political entertainment too.

p.s. you're awesome, dogheart!
posted by zachlipton at 9:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [57 favorites]

In the charming GOP Dallas County Commissioner race, the really amazingly racist guy loses by an eyelash to the only quite racist guy.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:45 PM on May 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

ELECTION RESULT

GOP HOLD in Arkansas Senate 16:

Davis [R] 76.7%
Gallegos [D] 23.3%

Margin changes compared to previous races:

vs 2016 presidential result margin: Dem underperformance of about 1 point.
no good district margin numbers -a Dem has not run in this race in several cycles
posted by Chrysostom at 10:15 PM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Remember the sinkhole outside Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort which appeared almost exactly a year ago? Now there is a sinkhole on the White House North Lawn, just outside the Press Briefing room. Sadly, there has been a cover-up at the White House. There is a Team Sinkhole T-shirt for sale at Amazon. Or you can follow the White House Sinkhole's own twitter account.

Could this be a sign of things to come for America? Best laugh I've had all morning.
posted by whitelotus at 12:19 AM on May 23, 2018 [18 favorites]

That is a pickle, I have to admit. And what about Trump? Is he worried too?

Kim Jong Un is said to be worried about North Korea falling to a military coup while he's rubbing shoulders with Trump in Singapore.
posted by scalefree at 1:58 AM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

Betsy should be given a failing grade & made to repeat her confirmation hearing. This is just embarrassing. Every day it becomes clearer & clearer that the primary policy of the Trump administration is to leverage & sell off America itself, its resources, reputation & alliances to the benefit of Trump & his cronies.

Betsy DeVos doesn’t know the mission of her own civil rights office.

At a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) asked DeVos what should have been a simple question.

“I am concerned about the low performance of your civil rights office,” Fudge said. “Could you please just state for me the mission of your civil rights office?”

“The office of civil rights is committed to protecting the civil rights as determined under the law of this land,” DeVos replied. “And we do so proudly, and with great focus each day.”

“That’s not the mission statement,” Fudge noted. “Do you know what it is?”

Apparently, she does not.

“Perhaps you can share it,” DeVos said. “I have not memorized the mission statement.”

The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights mission statement consists of a single sentence that would fit in a tweet: “The mission of the Office for Civil Rights is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights.”

posted by scalefree at 2:19 AM on May 23, 2018 [49 favorites]

She actually did the thing where you just restate the question as an answer and hope no one notices. Teachers around the world just face palmed themselves.
posted by xammerboy at 2:44 AM on May 23, 2018 [51 favorites]

I think the sinkhole means the first lady will have to start a new tunnel
posted by mbo at 2:52 AM on May 23, 2018 [85 favorites]

John Ward, Florida congressional candidate: “First of all, I don’t think they should be allowed to register to vote,” Ward said. “And it’s not lost on me that, I think, the Democrat Party’s really hoping that they can change the voting registers in a lot of counties and districts.

This is your regular reminder that "Democrat Party" is a sophomoric but intentional insult, and every time the media prints or airs a quote with this phrasing, they're handing the Republican an opportunity not only to air their talking points but also publicly insult their opposition without criticism, repercussion, or even passing comment. It's an inherently biased act in favor of Republicans, and news media should stop treating is as "misspeaking" and refuse to air or print any quote that contains that petty garbage.
posted by Gelatin at 3:25 AM on May 23, 2018 [21 favorites]

Dave Weigel (WaPo)
Georgia Republicans outvoted Democrats by around 50,000 ballots in #GAgov primary. Four years ago, the margin was around 290,000 votes.


Matthew Isbell
Votes cast in the respective primaries has broken down to 55% GOP, 45% Dem. This is a stark improvement from 2014, where it was 65% GOP to 35% DEM. Dems did well around the black-belt of Georgia and made gains in Atlanta suburbs #gagov #GAPrimary
TURNOUT MAP


PublicPolicyPolling
With late reporting Democratic areas in, looks like Dems cast 48% of the vote in Georgia’s open primary. In 2016 it was only 37%, and Hillary still only ended up losing the state by 5. Another strong marker of comparative enthusiasm in 2018
posted by chris24 at 3:55 AM on May 23, 2018 [26 favorites]

The US has a long history of Nazi-style campaigns against minorities. It's why Hitler believed he'd get away with it.

We obviously have a history of it, but I do not believe that we're facing extermination camps for, say, Arab-Americans or Latinos in the US in 2018. We'll see.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:22 AM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

friends, I read that article about the possible upcoming civil war in the democratic party over impeachment in The New Yorker and it's truly bumming me out. Mostly because I am scared and angry and ready to march, and yeah I know the numbers don't support impeachment because there is zero GOP support, but fuck me. Are we really supposed to take Mueller's findings and say, 'hmmm, yes, the madman who has already caused calamity and is poised to do much worse has committed serious crimes, but let's carry on for another two years?

I mean, I can understand in that context why a voter would be apathetic and not vote (2018) or angry and take to the streets (post 2018 or who the hell knows).

A couple of organizers at yesterday's Tuesday's with Toomey were talking about how they were frightened apropos of what had happened w/r/t Trump and the DOJ in the last few days, and the guys on Pod Save America sound freaked. I'm freaked.
posted by angrycat at 4:32 AM on May 23, 2018 [13 favorites]

I've said in the past here that I don't think the US is likely to be susceptible to a broad, Nazi-style campaign against racial / ethic minorities, and I still think that's the case.
---
The US has a long history of Nazi-style campaigns against minorities. It's why Hitler believed he'd get away with it.
---
We obviously have a history of it, but I do not believe that we're facing extermination camps for, say, Arab-Americans or Latinos in the US in 2018. We'll see.

We're separating children from their parents and basically putting them in concentration camps. We're sending former refugees -- people who have been here decades, in some cases with US citizen family -- back to countries like Honduras where they will be in extreme danger of harm and death. We have rightwing individuals and groups plotting and attacking mosques and black churches and killing Sikhs, blacks, liberals, Muslims while the president calls them fine people. A president and White House and Party that calls immigrants animals, not people. A president's son who says Democrats - a party dominated by POC - aren't people. A president who tried to ban a religion that's 98% POC. A president who pardoned a man who ran latino concentration camps. A White House that puts out press releases of crimes by minorities.

We're already in 30s Germany. We're already in a Nazi-style campaign against racial/ethnic minorities.
posted by chris24 at 4:39 AM on May 23, 2018 [138 favorites]

There were 10 years between Nazis coming to power and the implementation of the Final Solution. It's been 16 months since Republicans took all three branches of government.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:03 AM on May 23, 2018 [29 favorites]

Our president on Twitter this morning: Everybody is with Tomi Lahren, a truly outstanding and respected young woman! @foxandfriends
posted by octothorpe at 5:06 AM on May 23, 2018

I think it's very difficult to use actual 1930s Germany as a comparison point to the US, while at the same time it's rhetorically useful and has emotional resonance. 1930s Germany was organized very differently from the US and was coming off of a series of crises very different from those the US has experienced. We're simply not going to see identical actions and social formations, and I think that it's very tricky to argue "we are in Nazi Germany"/ "No we're not". I think that the use of Nazi Germany as a metaphor is substantially about waking people up/emotional stuff rather than an invitation to argue whether X American thing is the equivalent to the freikorps.

It's also important, IMO, to remember that Germany wasn't a utopia pre-Hitler - the Weimar Republic had many admirable features, but it still had prisons, poverty, discrimination, totally normalized violence against women, violent strike-breaking, etc. I think what's important about the German example is the move from bad to worse - what was sudden, what was rooted in already-existing practice, what was popularly supported, what was enforced by violence, etc.

I also think it's important not to forget scale, and scale of dissent. In Nazi Germany and in territories conquered by the Nazis, dissent started out as very dangerous and became completely deadly. We have operating room right now that the left did not.

Germany is small, at least compared to the US. It's easy to govern from the center. It's far easier to enforce uniform policies. In the US, we have areas of relatively decent governance, we have basically dissident federal courts, etc. We have tools against the center that the left in Nazi Germany did not have.

This isn't, like, a call to complacency - it's a call to action. We have people in power who are morally no different from Nazis, but they also face constraints that the Nazis didn't, and we have to work those constraints as hard as possible. It would be better to hold the line even at today's atrocities than to slide further into the pit.
posted by Frowner at 5:08 AM on May 23, 2018 [90 favorites]

So while [Trump] may not know all the details ("I don't ask questions!") I can no longer doubt that he knew something was up with his campaign's relationship with Russia, and was okay with it, and is now working to cover it up.

Since Trump also seems to have been involved in money laundering shenanigans for the Russians that at best follow that same pattern (and at worst involve Trump's direct and criminal participation), this analysis appears to be sound.

From the information in the public domain, there's no question that Trump's campaign received illegal assistance from Russia -- campaign contributions from foreign nations are illegal, and that goes for in-kind contributions. It's also clear from the information in the public domain that Trump and his people -- including several Congressional Republicans -- are working furiously to cover it all up. The only question is how much more Mueller knows, and what charges will be forthcoming.

As Doonesbury's Mark Slackmeyer once said, everything known to date could lead one to conclude he's guilty. That's guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!
posted by Gelatin at 5:17 AM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's more interesting to compare nazi germany to US history as it had already existed. We had examples like institutional slavery by private ownership, and the profitability of repeated genocide for them to consider. Also the ideas (modern at the time) of eugenics and redlining for them to ponder.
posted by Harry Caul at 5:23 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Julian Sanchez
Just so we’re clear...

Guy who had a couple meetings with Papadopolous: basically a mole inside the campaign.

Papadopolous himself: basically a coffee boy; not even really part of the campaign.

🤔


Will Saletan
Ditto for Carter Page: a freelancer we barely knew, but surveillance of him = surveillance of Trump.
posted by chris24 at 5:42 AM on May 23, 2018 [72 favorites]

A useful recap of what Mueller's investigation is doing and likely outcomes. NYT. For me, I hope this drags on until 2020. The thought of Pence becoming president is gawdawful.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:00 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump's lawyers are insisting on an audio recording of any interview with the President, so there is no question exactly what was said.

I'm sure Mueller's people will have, ah, no objections whatsoever -- they'll want something they can play in court, after all. But for crying out loud, Trump's poor syntax, off-the-cuff delivery, and tendency to tailor his speech to what he thinks his audience wants to hear means there is question exactly what Trump said plenty of times, even when he's on tape. Only recently, his defenders reinterpreted his "animals" comment ("he isn't referring to immigrants in general, just MS-13!"). And his apologists pretend he didn't actually confess to obstruction of justice to Lester Holt on live TV.
posted by Gelatin at 6:06 AM on May 23, 2018 [6 favorites]

And I should also say that the high school math teacher who won the primary in Kentucky gives me great hope. Mobilize the teachers too!
posted by bluesky43 at 6:07 AM on May 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

Can't wait to see the equivalencies drawn today about how a drink thrown on Tomi Lahren is a form of violence the left is totally ignoring, too busy with their whining about police violence and alt-right rallies and sexual assault and all...
posted by Rykey at 6:09 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Letter to the editor, LA Times:

To the editor: So, the president wants to investigate the FBI to see whether his campaign was infiltrated.

What makes this all so unbelievable is the fact that it was his son and campaign manager who met with Russians to see whether they could get dirt on their opponent. It was Michael Flynn who was in Moscow being charmed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was son-in-law Jared Kushner who wanted a loan from Qatar (and after Kushner was denied the investment, Qatar was subject to a sudden change in U.S. foreign policy by the Trump administration).

If this is indeed a "witch hunt," then why has so much turned up?

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been proceeding methodically. Former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort has been indicted, and Flynn has pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mueller. Donald Trump Jr. has been called out for his phony Russian adoptions story.

If our president has nothing to hide, let's see his tax returns and his business' complete financial records.

Robert G. Brewer, Sherman Oaks

posted by ZeusHumms at 6:12 AM on May 23, 2018 [47 favorites]

Kim Jong Un is said to be worried about North Korea falling to a military coup while he's rubbing shoulders with Trump in Singapore.

Trump guaranteed his security. Presumably we'd drop in the 101st to restore the regime.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:14 AM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

zachlipton: The Qanon folks have already brought this back around to their theories, claiming that "follow the money" is something their supposed 4chan informant says, in case you're wondering how this is playing in cuckoo land. This crap has a direct line into the White House.

Meanwhile, they don't seem to care that someone with an actual child porn conviction is now involved in these scandals, if you somehow thought any of this involved good faith.

For what it's worth, a quick Twitter search for "qanon nader" shows a number of people musing about the same thing... but also some probably-genuine QANONers reckoning with the issue. One expresses disappointment in the president (really!), but the main line of rhetoric is to present George Nader as "Robert Mueller's star witness" and such, which is about what I'd expect here. Oh, and also that he's a "friend of the Clintons" like that doesn't apply equally to Trump (in terms of the time periods when the three of them traveled in the same circles).

Gelatin: But for crying out loud, Trump's poor syntax, off-the-cuff delivery, and tendency to tailor his speech to what he thinks his audience wants to hear means there is question exactly what Trump said plenty of times, even when he's on tape.

One key difference is that questioning involves follow-ups that he is legally obligated to answer. No one in the room at the meeting about ICE was going to ask "Hold on, Mr. President, precisely who are you calling animals?" but investigators would do the same for whatever word salad he concocts about "no collusion!", and expertly enough to lead him to spilling at least a few beans.

I don't have the highest hopes for testimony ever happening, but if it did the actual output should be meaningful, and the subsequent debate will be more like "Is it really fair to hold Dear Leader to any kind of legal standard at all, what about Crooked H", etc, rather than a question over whether or not Trump admitted to anything. (Which is close to where we are now anyway, considering how Trump's own defenders talk about "flipping" and such.)

octothorpe: Our president on Twitter this morning: Everybody is with Tomi Lahren, a truly outstanding and respected young woman! @foxandfriends

It's not as bad as "Melanie", but still a bit embarrassing to misspell Tammai Lorrond's name like that
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:23 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

per zarq:

Some light reading from the Guardian: 'Jesus never charged a leper a co-pay': the rise of the religious left.
From healthcare to tax and immigration, Rev William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign are driven by faith to focus on the disadvantaged


As someone who is constantly driven crazy by how the moniker of "Christian" has been co-opted by ultra-right evangelicals and Prosperity Gospel shitheads, I find this incredibly exciting.
posted by Anonymous at 6:28 AM on May 23, 2018

Trump: "If the person placed very early into my campaign wasn’t a SPY put there by the previous Administration for political purposes..."

I must once again applaud Mueller's team. Their style of keeping it close to their vest, giving no-one anything to work with until indictments drop, has Trump and Giuliani pretty much free-associating their worst fears to the general public.

The obvious pushback from the Democratic camp would be to point out six or seven of Trump's public own-goals and deplorable statements -- including the Access Hollywood tape -- and then say "we didn't need a spy."

(Also too, "follow the money?!" I realize Trump is all about projection, but he really, really is tempting fate by so many public invocations of Watergate.)
posted by Gelatin at 6:29 AM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

A useful recap of what Mueller's investigation is doing and likely outcomes. NYT. For me, I hope this drags on until 2020. The thought of Pence becoming president is gawdawful.

Seconding your recommendation of that NYT flowchart. But I keep in mind that Flynn has flipped, and if Pence is lying about not knowing Flynn was compromised, perhaps because of the WH briefing Yates had given prior, then Pence could be Spiro-Agnewed out before The Shit Hits The Fan.
posted by mikelieman at 6:33 AM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

The thought of Pence becoming president is gawdawful.

I know this is ye age-old debate, but for as evil as Pence is he is not the type to send off nuclear missiles in a fit of pique. He'd be more effective at some evil things but less people might die worldwide. I don't know if he has the same boner for gutting the State Department, and most of the terrible things he'd do (stacking the courts, destroying the rights of marginalized groups, anti-choice measures, etc) are happening anyway because they're under the purview of current appointees who are actually capable of doing their jobs. We might also see less defects of civil servants--it's easier to combat a sane enemy and he's not leading the Deep State charge. He also hardly inspires the same level of fervor.
posted by Anonymous at 6:36 AM on May 23, 2018

I'm sure Mueller's people will have, ah, no objections whatsoever -- they'll want something they can play in court, after all. But for crying out loud, Trump's poor syntax, off-the-cuff delivery, and tendency to tailor his speech to what he thinks his audience wants to hear means there is question exactly what Trump said plenty of times, even when he's on tape.

There are worse examples of Trump being deposed. I think this is the most recent example available, and man, I'd PAY MONEY to stream the Mueller's team deposition on PPV.

Donald Trump gives deposition on provocative rhetoric
posted by mikelieman at 6:37 AM on May 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

Pence is incredibly horrible, but keep in mind that he lost Indiana. He's not charismatic, he's not beloved, he has few connections, he doesn't have Trump's ties to the mob and oligarchs worldwide. He may be a clearer thinker than Trump, which should in theory make him more dangerous, but it's precisely Trump's incoherence and loose-cannon qualities which rile up the base. Pence will end up thinking about how to do the horrible things he wants to do, and that will weaken him. Pence is a terrible person, but he will be a lot easier to fight.
posted by Frowner at 6:54 AM on May 23, 2018 [40 favorites]

Guys can we not, we've been round the Pence v Trump carousel a number of times.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:57 AM on May 23, 2018 [20 favorites]

Mod note: Agreed, please let's take it as read that there are many reasons to oppose Pence too, and not get into a "which is worse" thing; it only ends in endless recrimination.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:02 AM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

Our president on Twitter this morning [re-tweets Fox News]

He went on a capitalization spree with this one: "SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!" And then he moved on to "Criminal Deep State", "Phony Collusion with Russia", "a made up Scam", and "a major SPY scandal".

Seriously, though, NYU historian and CNN commentator Ruth Ben-Ghiat has written up a very helpful analysis of how Trump conveys his message to his Twitter followers. "Wherever they are in the message, the all-capitalized words allow this professional marketer to isolate slogans he most wants you to notice and absorb -- usually phrases connected to his aim of discrediting people or media outlets critical of him and his presidency." This is a technique straight out of the political direct mail letters pioneered by the New Right in the 70s and 80s.

In addition, Trump's repetition of key words and phrases is basic advertising and sales practice with which Trump is well aquainted. He's not simply complaining about "Fake News", for example; he's promoting the very concept of "Fake News". This toxic phrase, having entered our cultural lexicon, counts as his biggest rhetorical triumph. Worse, it's succeeded as a propaganda campaign among his followers to discredit critical news sources. The 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media and Democracy found, "Four in 10 Republicans consider accurate news stories that cast a politician or political group in a negative light to always be “fake news.”"

Meanwhile, the Top Minds on /r/The_Donald are now promoting "#SPYGATE (Operation Boomerang)" as their next meme project for Internet saturation...
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:11 AM on May 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

GOP lawmaker: Julian Assange is a ‘very honorable man’

If you guessed Rohrabacher, you win absolutely nothing because of course it's Rohrabacher.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:14 AM on May 23, 2018 [39 favorites]

I'd like to remind everyone that Umberto Eco's article Ur-Fascism (which has seen the rounds here before, this is not new information) is a good whetting stone to help keep our minds sharp when pondering "where is the potential rise of fascism occurring?"

The article answers a lot of the preliminary questions for us, and I don't want to derail this thread with that conversation, I just want to put this here as a helpful guide to better shape our sentiments and understandings and perspectives for the days ahead.
posted by nikaspark at 7:29 AM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

Democrats are hiding from the Mueller investigation and have no coherent message on it: despite the indictments and guilty pleas by some of Trump’s top campaign aides, a majority of Americans answer “no” when asked whether the investigation has uncovered any crimes.

Max Bergmann:

Democrats are unbelievably losing the political fight over the Russia scandal. This is of their own doing. They've ceded the field and aren't fighting the fight. They want this to be bipartisan but the GOP has decided to go on offense - "witch hunt!"/deep state/liberal FBI 1/ Meanwhile the public have lost the plot and are lost. They don't know basic facts - 20+ indictments, 4 Trump campaign officials indicted, a suspected Russian agent on the campaign - b/c no one is hammering home these facts. 2/ Reminding the public of known facts is not the media’s job. That is the job of politicians. But Dems have no message on the Russia investigation. Instead they are scared to talk about it and think it’s too confusing. 3/ Instead, Democrats want to talk about process – the need for an investigation! And are literally on the defensive “defending the investigation” or “protecting Mueller,” while the GOP is on offense attacking Mueller. 4/ But by focusing on the process, the public has forgotten what the investigation is all about! And the GOP effort is working. The public now generally views the investigation along partisan lines, despite Dems deliberately trying to avoid being seen as partisan. 5/ However, when the public is reminded of key facts – people have pleaded guilty! - or reminded of why this investigation happened – they had these sketchy meetings they lied about! - it has a real impact. 6/ So for Dems this situation is solvable! But to solve it you need a clear message. 7/ But this is where the political consultant industrial complex says don’t talk about Russia! Polls say talk about Health care and puppies! Yes talk about that! But it is possible to walk and chew gum. 8/ First, Trump scandals are having an impact on his approvals. W/o them Dems in tough spot - w/ 4% unemployment, Trump is drafting off of the Obama economy. So talk about cleaning up Washington, stopping corruption and holding Trump accountable. 9/ Lastly, Dems need to shape the coming battlefield over the outcome of the Mueller investigation. Do you not think Mueller will find evidence of serious of crimes by the POTUS and his associates? If not, I have some land to sell you… 10/ So knowing what’s coming – perhaps it makes sense to spend time NOW working to shape public opinion. 11/ Imagine it is May 2008 and you know the financial crash is coming in September 2008 – what would be the politically smart thing to do? Talk about Wall Street! Subprime mortgages, financial regulations, etc. But pollsters w/d tell you you’re crazy! No one cares... 12/ So knowing what's coming, Dems s/d get ahead of the curve. Convey to the public what the investigation is about, hammer key facts, and make the public question the president's behavior. There is so much to work with. END

posted by T.D. Strange at 7:43 AM on May 23, 2018 [44 favorites]

So, like, which is it? Should we only be talking about red meat issues that effect the daily lives of the American voters because no one but nerds cares about Russia, like I keep getting told? Or should we hammer about Russia day and night, like I have also been told?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:48 AM on May 23, 2018 [22 favorites]

Reporters are being barred from the EPA's chemicals summit again today.

"I’m standing at EPA’s chemicals summit, where I’m told by security that I can’t enter and can’t stand inside because it is invite only and no press. They were polite but refused to call public affairs staff, even if I gave them the number (which they said they didn’t have)." - Emily Holden on Twitter
posted by marshmallow peep at 7:49 AM on May 23, 2018 [30 favorites]

Democrats are unbelievably losing the political fight over the Russia scandal. This is of their own doing.

Just last week (or more? I don't know how time works anymore) we were talking about how the American people don't care about Russia and it's a losing conversation for Dems to have and instead Dems must STAY ON MESSAGE about JOBS and HEALTHCARE. I wish we could talk about what to prioritize in messaging without this constant lens of "the Democrats managed to fuck everything up again despite the advantages they totally definitely have". Please. I have to get through these 6 months until the midterms and I am an atheist so I have no one to pray to.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:51 AM on May 23, 2018 [52 favorites]

But Dems have no message on the Russia investigation. Instead they are scared to talk about it and think it’s too confusing.

What part of "Trump sold the country out to the Russians to help him get elected" is confusing?

Okay, okay, we can keep it simple: "Trump sold the country out to the Russians." Heck, he himself blew an Israeli intelligence op that planted a listening device at ISIS headquarters by blabbing to the Russians.

And while it may not be "illegal," because the President can declassify whatever he pleases, it's wrong.

So maybe the Democrats should adapt the message of another prominent conservative, Barry Goldawater: "In your hearts, you know he's wrong."
posted by Gelatin at 7:55 AM on May 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

49 Democrats in Congress (16 Senators and 33 Representatives) just voted to roll finance oversight back to the pre-2008 crash days, and six gave cover to appoint a torture fetishist to the CIA. These were battles that were winnable by a united caucus, and yet apparently no one even tried to stop them.

That they can't summon up the courage or organization on something else that should be criminally easy to push back on shouldn't be surprising anymore.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:01 AM on May 23, 2018 [35 favorites]

But Dems have no message on the Russia investigation. Instead they are scared to talk about it and think it’s too confusing.

"The Trump Campaign illegally met with Russian criminals in Trump Tower, and Trump Jr. admitted it on twitter fora all the world to see"

is the most succinct talking point I can distill.
posted by mikelieman at 8:04 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

I don't think Democrats are necessarily fucking things up. I think we may be losing the information war for a number of fascinating reasons that will probably be written about extensively. We know that POTUS colluded with a hostile foreign power to obtain the presidency. How are people not in the streets? I mean, is this even disputable any more? I guess because people have jobs and kids and a limited tolerance for engaging in this bullshit.

I think when the history of this is written, it's going to be about the same human psychology that's created horrors of the past. Apathy. Tribalism. The reaction to limited resources. The reaction to the unknown that's demonized for political purposes. Hate and fear and ignorance. A lack of empathy.
posted by angrycat at 8:06 AM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

Y'all, please see the title of this thread. The Russian collusion and all the illegal, immoral, and unethical acts are not separate from a Democratic message about jobs and healthcare and whatever else "real Americans" really care about. Trump and his cronies, along with the GOP, sold out the American people to enrich themselves, their friends and their corporate donors. It's not hard.

Unrelated, and ignore if derail, but I don't understand the Democrat/Democratic thing and why people are so worked up about it.
posted by runcibleshaw at 8:12 AM on May 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

What good does being in the streets do? It doesn't seem to make a difference.
posted by agregoli at 8:14 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

I don't think Democrats are necessarily fucking things up.

Losing several major battles in a matter of weeks, on decisions that will have decades of impact, when they could have won them is the definition of fucking things up.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:14 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

"The Trump Campaign illegally met with Russian criminals in Trump Tower, and Trump Jr. admitted it on twitter fora all the world to see"

is the most succinct talking point I can distill.

I'm fond of "The Republicans sure act like they think Trump is guilty."

(Or they know it.)

And don't forget that Trump basically confessed to obstruction of justice on live TV and Twitter. With Lester Holt, and again in demanding that the Justice Department justify its investigation of his to his lickspittles in Congress.

The things we know about what Trump and his people did is a massive scandal. The fact that the Republicans are politicizing it means they know they have no defense on the merits. And that's entirely apart from whatever else Mueller knows.
posted by Gelatin at 8:15 AM on May 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

PLEASE do not start a "are the Democrats fucking up/no they are not fucking up" line of argument in here.
posted by agregoli at 8:16 AM on May 23, 2018 [22 favorites]

runcibleshaw:"Trump and his cronies, along with the GOP, sold out the American people to enrich themselves, their friends and their corporate donors. It's not hard."

The problem with summarizing this way is that you'll never convince the average Trump supporter that there is anything wrong with personal encrichment, no matter the circumstances - so even if you can get said Trumpeter to agree that Trump's actions were illegal, they will immediately dismiss the illegality as unimportant.
posted by namewithoutwords at 8:17 AM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

"In your hearts, you know he's wrong."

In your guts, you know he's nuts.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:21 AM on May 23, 2018 [62 favorites]

It's two different groups of people telling us these things. The "red meat issues only, Russia is a DISTRACTION" crowd is made up of leftier-than-thou Salon / The Nation / Chapo types who were skeptical of the Russia investigation from the beginning and aren't going to let facts get in the way of their story. The "Democrats are doing the Russia thing wrong" crowd is made up lazy mainstream pundits who do believe that there was/is collusion and corruption, but also believe that there's ONE WEIRD TRICK to getting a nation that's been desensitized to scandal to suddenly grab their torches and pitchforks and demand impeachment.

In the world we're actually living in, no amount of Democrats doing anything is going to change what Robert S. Mueller does with his investigation, and that's all that really matters. The noise is just two different constituencies competing for their version of how to blame Democrats for everything.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:23 AM on May 23, 2018 [35 favorites]

We know that POTUS colluded with a hostile foreign power to obtain the presidency. How are people not in the streets?

Because there is a media organization that is working very hard to advance the counter-argument that "no, we don't 'know' that" and that it's "fake news". And that media organization is assisted by the other myth that "you know why you're poor? It's those other people taking your jobs (it has nothing to do with us corporations cooking the books so that we get everything and trying to pit y'all against each other)".

You are assuming htat everyone is working from the same series of assumptions about the state of the world. They aren't.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:27 AM on May 23, 2018 [11 favorites]

I think when the history of this is written, it's going to be about the same human psychology that's created horrors of the past. Apathy. Tribalism. The reaction to limited resources. The reaction to the unknown that's demonized for political purposes. Hate and fear and ignorance. A lack of empathy.
That history may have been recently published. Mishra's Age of Anger.
A history of militant lowbrows engaging in resentful violent nihilism often, as a feature of our post-Enlightenment culture.
posted by Harry Caul at 8:27 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

We're already in 30s Germany. We're already in a Nazi-style campaign against racial/ethnic minorities.

By 1933, Germany had Dachau, by 1937 Buchenwald. I'm not saying that the US is a model of civil liberties or tolerance at all, but some sense of perspective is useful here.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:27 AM on May 23, 2018 [14 favorites]

Basically: what message could Democrats have that would make Fox News turn on Trump? That's not an trivial issue.

There is no message that would make Fox News turn on Trump, short of "the president announced today that he will be changing his party designation to Democratic." Fox News is the party mouthpiece of the GOP. Trying to figure out a strategy to get them to change their stripes is as productive as trying to reach out to Trump voters. You're not going to convince them, because you can't reason your way out of something you didn't reason your way into. Our only chance is to blast an equally loud message from the other side, which starts with high-profile D's trumpeting the Mueller investigation every. single. day. until the press has no choice but to cover it. Take a page from the GOP book of deflection, and pivot every question into talking points about the president's corrupt team and the money he took in exchange for unknown services rendered to hostile foreign governments. Beat that dead horse until the carcass is no longer recognizable. This is an honest-to-god national disgrace, and if the media won't report it of their own accord, it's up to the Dems to goddamn well MAKE them cover it.
posted by Mayor West at 8:28 AM on May 23, 2018 [11 favorites]

In the world we're actually living in, no amount of Democrats doing anything is going to change what Robert S. Mueller does with his investigation, and that's all that really matters.

What Democrats and their media personalities can do is point out that what Trump is doing about the investigation is itself a scandal. Republicans have decades of experience in running fake scandals -- Whitewater, Benghazi, Emailgate, etc etc -- and Democratic presidents did not respond with public acts of obstruction of justice.
posted by Gelatin at 8:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [6 favorites]

We're already in 30s Germany. We're already in a Nazi-style campaign against racial/ethnic minorities.

By 1933, Germany had Dachau, by 1937 Buchenwald. I'm not saying that the US is a model of civil liberties or tolerance at all, but some sense of perspective is useful here.

It's almost as if the growth of an American version of racist fascism and oppression would have different details and different branding than the Nazi Germany of 80-90 years ago.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:37 AM on May 23, 2018 [18 favorites]

What Democrats and their media personalities can do is point out that what Trump is doing about the investigation is itself a scandal. Republicans have decades of experience in running fake scandals -- Whitewater, Benghazi, Emailgate, etc etc -- and Democratic presidents did not respond with public acts of obstruction of justice.

If they really wanted some rhetorical effect, they could emphasize that this is not just a scandal, but that the GOP government is actively disloyal to the United States.
posted by The Gaffer at 8:38 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Beat that dead horse until the carcass is no longer recognizable. This is an honest-to-god national disgrace, and if the media won't report it of their own accord, it's up to the Dems to goddamn well MAKE them cover it.

Adam Schiff has been a good example. His committee's minority report garnered some media attention, feeding as it did into the media's hunger for lazy "he-said, she-said" storylines, and his twitter feed and public statements are both appropriately dramatic for the criminal enterprise currently occupying the White House and for playing to the media's other bias, sensationalism.
posted by Gelatin at 8:39 AM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

By 1933, Germany had Dachau, by 1937 Buchenwald. I'm not saying that the US is a model of civil liberties or tolerance at all, but some sense of perspective is useful here.

Dachau was just a prison for political prisoners (which was also bad) until around 1938.
posted by srboisvert at 8:39 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

For insight on the messaging question, I (unsurprisingly) recommend Alexandra Erin's thread.

Some key points are (1) staying "above the fray" to avoid low blows from the other side is a mistake (one of her catchphrases is "you can't withhold ammunition from a munitions factory") and (2) the notion of Russia-Lago vs "issues" is a false dichotomy, because a corrupt government is also one that isn't working for you, the people.

For more insight and some strong encouragement, I highly recommend this thread of hers. It reiterates another valuable message, which is that when say Democrats will win in November, it's not a prediction, it's a promise.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:41 AM on May 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

What good does being in the streets do? It doesn't seem to make a difference.

South Korea, 2016

Ukraine, 2014

We may only need 3.5% of the population.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:41 AM on May 23, 2018 [22 favorites]

I'm fond of "The Republicans sure act like they think Trump is guilty."

From the Washington Post last week: Now We Know What Trump Will Say When We Learn What He’s Hiding—"It has been said many times: For a man protesting his innocence, Trump sure does act guilty. And that, more than anything, creates the air of mystery shrouding this topic. But at least we now know what he’s likely to say if and when we learn what he is hiding."

And last month:
Why Do Trump’s Defenders Assume He’s Guilty?—Atlantic Monthly
Trump Keeps Saying He’s Innocent. So Why Does He Keep Sounding Like He’s Guilty?—Washington Post
Republicans Can't Understand Why Trump Is Acting Guilty—NYMag

And last December:
Republicans Are Acting Like Trump's Guilty—The Week

And last July:
Fmr. Watergate prosecutor: Trump 'is clearly acting guilty'—NBC

And March of last year:
If Trump Is Innocent, Why Is He Acting So Guilty?

Sometimes it takes a lot of repetition for a message to sink in. But note the increasing frequency with which this is occurring.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:41 AM on May 23, 2018 [52 favorites]

> What Democrats and their media personalities can do is point out that what Trump is doing about the investigation is itself a scandal. Republicans have decades of experience in running fake scandals -- Whitewater, Benghazi, Emailgate, etc etc -- and Democratic presidents did not respond with public acts of obstruction of justice.

I'm not sure who "their media personalities" are here, but elected Democrats have been using phrases like "obstruction of justice" in regards to Trump's behavior for at least a year now. If the media isn't set up to allow those statements to rise to the top of the nightly newscasts, no amount of Democratic working of the refs is going to change that, because the media ecosystem generally follows the money rather than the demands of the people they're covering. That the Republican worldview is often more aligned with the corporate interests of media conglomerates is unfortunate, but it's not something Tom Perez, Keith Ellison, Nancy Pelosi, or Chuck Schumer can do a damn thing about.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:43 AM on May 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

the notion of Russia-Lago vs "issues" is a false dichotomy, because a corrupt government is also one that isn't working for you, the people.

Exactly. I like the phrase "Trump is selling you out" because it applies to so many situations (China, big business, drug companies, as well as Russia) and because it's a psychological bridge for Trump fans. Yeah I know he spoke to you and promised a lot, but....
posted by msalt at 8:47 AM on May 23, 2018 [6 favorites]

Mod note: Gonna suggest that we leave it here on the generic "how hopeless are things", "how similar to Nazi Germany are things", "how much do Dems suck", and related general themes we've explored many times. Fully understand where those feelings are coming from, but spending all our idle time reinforcing them to each other isn't great for everyone's mental health. If you need to vent those feelings, there's the venting thread. Let's keep this thread for updates and more-specific/constructive/novel stuff.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:47 AM on May 23, 2018 [20 favorites]

South Korea, 2016

Ukraine, 2014

Slovakia & Armenia, 2018.
posted by progosk at 8:48 AM on May 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

If the media isn't set up to allow those statements to rise to the top of the nightly newscasts, no amount of Democratic working of the refs is going to change that

I didn't mean to imply that Democrats aren't doing so art all -- as I mentioned, Schiff brings plenty of righteous fire. But yeah, working the media refs seems to be more effective for Republicans than Democrats, in part, perhaps, because the media seems to have accepted that Republican complains about the so-called "liberal media" were made in good faith. And NPR, in particular, seems utterly desperate to normalize this president and pretend that his scandals fit into their normal worldview. (Ron Howard narrator voice: They don't.)
posted by Gelatin at 8:50 AM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Reminding the public of known facts is not the media’s job.

This is _exactly_ the media's job. They Are. Not. Doing. It.
(Not doing it well, at any rate. It's arguable they cough up the odd fact in the course of droning a both-sides narrative)
posted by petebest at 8:51 AM on May 23, 2018 [33 favorites]

Meanwhile the public have lost the plot and are lost. They don't know basic facts - 20+ indictments, 4 Trump campaign officials indicted, a suspected Russian agent on the campaign - b/c no one is hammering home these facts. 2/ Reminding the public of known facts is not the media’s job. That is the job of politicians.

Bull fucking shit. That anyone would say this underscores just how completely and effectively the right wing has co-opted the systems of public discourse in our country. This is why everyone seems to feel they need to blame the Democrats for everything: everyone else, including our nonpartisan media, has abrogated all responsibility for maintaining a functioning society.

PLEASE do not start a "are the Democrats fucking up/no they are not fucking up" line of argument in here.

I would love it if people would stop skewing every news story with a "Democrats are fucking this up" angle in here. At this point it's borderline trolling. But as long as that narrative keeps appearing in these threads, I think it's absolutely vital that it be pushed back against. Because it's false, and because it promotes despair, and because it serves the interests of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Criticizing individual Democrats for bad decisions is great: criticism is valuable and how we get better. Criticizing specific Democratic party policies or tactics is great. "Democrats are fucking this up, like they always do" is false and worthless.
posted by biogeo at 8:52 AM on May 23, 2018 [74 favorites]

Vox: After months of debate, the Senate has finally reached an agreement on a bill to curtail sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. And Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell have promised the bill will pass in “short order.”
posted by Chrysostom at 8:57 AM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

This is _exactly_ the media's job. They Are. Not. Doing. It.
Actually their job is to generate revenue for their owners, and most of them do that with consistent professional loyal ingenuity.
posted by Harry Caul at 9:03 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Also, I'm despairing at ever getting final numbers out of the state of Arkansas, but it was a GOP Hold for the other state Senate seat as well, looks like probably about the same performance as the 2016 presidential results (no Dem had run for this seat in quite some time, so no district comparison).
posted by Chrysostom at 9:05 AM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

BBC: Trump lawyer 'paid by Ukraine' to arrange White House talks

Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (£300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved.

The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine's leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law. The meeting at the White House was last June.

Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country's anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:17 AM on May 23, 2018 [53 favorites]

BBC: Trump lawyer 'paid by Ukraine' to arrange White House talks

Just a reminder that for some, including myself, the whole "what the heck is the deal with Trump and Russia?" thing began when Trump's people changed a Republican platform plank on Ukraine, and only on Ukraine, prior to the convention.

Trump's campaign has been up to its eyebrows in the Russia scandal since before he was officially nominated.
posted by Gelatin at 9:21 AM on May 23, 2018 [54 favorites]

Just a reminder that for some, including myself, the whole "what the heck is the deal with Trump and Russia?" thing began when Trump's people changed a Republican platform plank on Ukraine, and only on Ukraine, prior to the convention.

Poroshenko has no love for Russia, so I don't think it makes sense to file this under "Trump-Russia".
posted by BungaDunga at 9:26 AM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Poroshenko came to power after the Russia-backed autocrat was kicked out of the country. If anything, getting him into the room with Trump hurts the Russian line that everyone in power in Ukraine are fascists and that's why they needed to annex Crimea.

Foreign heads of state paying off the President's fixer in order to get face-time with Trump is terrible in ten thousand ways, and it's further evidence that the guys around him are willing to use their proximity to the President for basically anything as long as it comes with a payday.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:31 AM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Know what the Democrats aren't fucking up?

Running a candidate in every damn seat. Losing an election in Arkansas with 25% of the vote is still a far cry better than getting 0% of the vote because we didn't run a candidate.

25% is still 1 in 4 people. Those folks have family members, coworkers, and neighbors who voted for the other side. We only need to convince one of the other three to vote for us, and that 25% is now more engaged, more likely to vote in the general elections for statewide/national candidates, and helping keep the Democratic party alive in local races (where we can win local races on local issues and help bolster the Democratic Party's reputation in these not-quite-purple states).

Maybe next time we'll learn some lessons, and get 35% of the vote -- and more the time after that. We aren't going to build momentum by doing nothing, and 25% is a solid foothold. There's a lot we can do with 25%, even if it isn't going to win us any elections today.

Last year, I wrote about finding a small pocket of blue in West Virginia. 1 in 4 people won't win an election, but if they work together, they can still provide a really fucking good support network and provide a strong counter-narrative amid a sea of hatred.
posted by schmod at 9:32 AM on May 23, 2018 [107 favorites]

The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine's leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law. The meeting at the White House was last June.

...

Just a reminder that for some, including myself, the whole "what the heck is the deal with Trump and Russia?" thing began when Trump's people changed a Republican platform plank on Ukraine, and only on Ukraine, prior to the convention.

...

Poroshenko has no love for Russia, so I don't think it makes sense to file this under "Trump-Russia".

It's all part of the same con. Ukraine wants US support in its dormant but hot war with Russian backed separatists. Cohen sounds like he's been in their ears suggesting that if they lay off their guy Manafort and show a little appreciation ($$$) he can see his way to making Trump more agreeable to their cause. The whole point is to use the fact that he's president to shake down everyone they can.
posted by dis_integration at 9:32 AM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm in Brussels, on Friday began putting a so-called blocking statute in place to shield European companies doing business with Iran from U.S. sanctions. It’s the first time in more than two decades that the measure is being invoked.
posted by infini at 9:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

The change involved softening a statement of support for pro-Western elements in Ukraine, which certainly tilted to Russia's advantage.

The issue is of interest to investigators in Congress and the team working for Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller because the idea of arming Ukrainians in the fight against pro-Russian separatist forces was staunchly opposed by the Russian government — and, it seems, the Trump campaign as well.

And according to this story, Trump himself directed the change.
posted by Gelatin at 9:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

This BBC scoop is absolutely part of the bigger Trump-Russia scandal, as much a quid pro quo as Ukraine receiving a multi-million dollar missile deal from the Trump administration after they stopped cooperating with Mueller about Manafort. If anything, it's worse that other countries in addition to Russia can use the scandal to leverage Trump.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

U.S. Sanction Power May Be Reaching Its Limit
The response to the Iran decision shows the global economy won’t be bossed around forever.
posted by infini at 9:35 AM on May 23, 2018 [6 favorites]

Maybe next time we'll learn some lessons, and get 35% of the vote -- and more the time after that. We aren't going to build momentum by doing nothing, and 25% is a solid foothold. There's a lot we can do with 25%, even if it isn't going to win us any elections today.

idk if it's the terrible chronic pain hangover making me super emotionally labile but this comment gave me a lot of hope, thank you.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:35 AM on May 23, 2018 [35 favorites]

The "is the media doing its job on the Russia investigation?" is missing the point. On balance I think the answer is mostly "yes" except for Fox News... but the majority of Americans either watch Fox News or don't watch/read the news at all. It doesn't matter how well the NYT/WaPo/CNN/MSNBC/whoever covers the story if someone's entire consumption of the news consists of stories occasionally pushed onto their Facebook feed. Or scuttlebutt around the metaphorical water cooler from some dude who watches Fox News and Infowars.

People in this thread who read or watch the news daily, like me, are major outliers.
posted by Justinian at 9:53 AM on May 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Committee to Investigate Russia has an Everything We Know About Russia and President Trump timeline.

The timeline was originally at Bill Moyers' web site.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:59 AM on May 23, 2018 [21 favorites]

Trump Is Already the Anti-Abortion Movement’s Best President Ever - Reagan was an inspirational leader for the RTL movement, and George W. Bush was a true believer. But Trump delivers. As president he has done many things to damage his self-proclaimed reputation as a great deal-maker. But the deal he struck with those who desperately want to deny women reproductive rights is going strong
posted by growabrain at 10:01 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

In addition, Trump's repetition of key words and phrases is basic advertising and sales practice with which Trump is well aquainted.

Narcissists use repetition to convince people to go along with their internal script of how things "really are". They also have trouble changing their internal scripts and will, for example, keep complaining about a situation that's resolved or blaming someone for something it's been established the other person didn't do. Maybe there's a little skill involved with his repetition, but mostly it's a narcissistic personality trait being milked by people who know something about marketing.
posted by camyram at 10:03 AM on May 23, 2018 [36 favorites]

The problem with summarizing this way is that you'll never convince the average Trump supporter that there is anything wrong with personal encrichment, no matter the circumstances - so even if you can get said Trumpeter to agree that Trump's actions were illegal, they will immediately dismiss the illegality as unimportant.

I think the low-hanging fruit no one is picking is flagrantly tying everything to the Constitution. Trump, on national television, called for Russia to carry out a cyberattack on the United States. Mike Flynn registered himself as a foreign agent and is now a convicted felon. Paul Manafort registered himself as a foreign agent too.

The important stuff happened in public and can't be explained away as fake news. All the Special Counsel investigation is doing is sweeping away the flimsy lies and pretenses they've been trying to excuse themselves with since it all came out.

The legal details and interpretations of courts' interpretations of interpretations built up like barnacles don't matter, it's like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. The authors of the Constitution wouldn't have known what a cyberattack was, but Trump definitely levied war against the United States and thus committed treason. They also would have never heard of the office of the National Security Advisor and today no one knows what an emolument is but the authors of the Constitution incontrovertibly intended for it to be unconstitutional for someone to become President by trading favors and money with European powers, to install paid foreign agents into the top echelon of the U.S. government, and to proceed with selling the services of said U.S. government to European powers and what they would have called Oriental potentates.
posted by XMLicious at 10:06 AM on May 23, 2018 [20 favorites]

I think the low-hanging fruit no one is picking is flagrantly tying everything to the Constitution. Trump, on national television, called for Russia to carry out a cyberattack on the United States. Mike Flynn registered himself as a foreign agent and is now a convicted felon. Paul Manafort registered himself as a foreign agent too.

Trump's properties, which he didn't even bother to put into a blind trust, routinely take payments from foreign governments in an obvious violation of the emoluments clause. Trump was in violation of the Constitution from the moment he swore, falsely, to preserve, protect, and defend it.

The authors of the Constitution wouldn't have known what a cyberattack was, but Trump definitely levied war against the United States and thus committed treason.

Mitch McConnell was presented with evidence of Russian interference in the election, and told Obama and Biden that he would not only deny knowing about it but also claim that any move by Obama to tell the American people was a partisan attempt to influence the election itself. The Constitution requires an overt act of aiding enemies of the United States before at least two witnesses; there you have it.
posted by Gelatin at 10:13 AM on May 23, 2018 [43 favorites]

Hey, at least not all Republicans are turning a blind eye to obstruction of justice:

Immigration hard-liners’ anger toward Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for her warning about a federal sweep for undocumented migrants in Northern California led an Iowa congressman to propose criminal penalties Monday for officials who talk about such operations in advance.

Republican Rep. Steve King introduced the “Mayor Libby Schaaf Act of 2018,” which would ban officials from “the purposeful broadcast ... of information relating to any imminent action by a federal law enforcement officer or agent.” Violations could result in up to five years in prison.

King said his bill would make clear that disclosing an imminent enforcement would amount to obstruction of justice.

“I want lawless, sanctuary city politicians to hear this message clearly: If you obstruct ICE, you are going to end up in the cooler,” King said in a statement.

posted by Atom Eyes at 10:17 AM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

NBC's Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1: Federal judge rules that Trump can't block Twitter users.

Naomi Reice Buchwald, United States District Judge, Memorandum And Order, 17 Civ. 5205 (NRB)

This case requires us to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, “block” a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States. The answer to both questions is no.

Let the Great Unblocking begin, @Jack!
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:21 AM on May 23, 2018 [69 favorites]

Trump Is Already the Anti-Abortion Movement’s Best President Ever - Reagan was an inspirational leader for the RTL movement, and George W. Bush was a true believer. But Trump delivers. As president he has done many things to damage his self-proclaimed reputation as a great deal-maker. But the deal he struck with those who desperately want to deny women reproductive rights is going strong
I guess this a clear signal that Pence is getting what he signed up for: Gilead.
posted by mumimor at 10:22 AM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Waiit, does that mean all public officials are prohibited from blocking people on Twitter? And presumably other social networks?
posted by Etrigan at 10:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

Seems pretty unambiguous to me.
posted by contraption at 10:38 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

> Republican Rep. Steve King introduced the “Mayor Libby Schaaf Act of 2018,” which would ban officials from “the purposeful broadcast ... of information relating to any imminent action by a federal law enforcement officer or agent.” Violations could result in up to five years in prison.

Oh good. Can we apply this to Devin Nunes for leaking stuff related to an active FBI information? How about applying it to Trump for leaking an active intelligence-gathering operation?

What's that? I missed the little asterisk where it says this law only applies to DemocRATs? Of course, of course.

(And in response to runcibleshaw's question, that stupid childish RAT is the whole reason for the "Democrat party" phrasing favored by Republicans, as Gelatin described way upthread.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:38 AM on May 23, 2018 [16 favorites]

Quoting myself: Trump's properties, which he didn't even bother to put into a blind trust, routinely take payments from foreign governments in an obvious violation of the emoluments clause. Trump was in violation of the Constitution from the moment he swore, falsely, to preserve, protect, and defend it.

I've been thinking about this concept, and believe that pushing the narrative that Trump is a liar should be an easy job for Democrats, and questioning the sincerity of his oath of office could hit Trump where it hurts -- undermining his legitimacy. How could Trump have been sincere about preserving and protecting the Constitution when he was in violation the moment he took the oath? Oh, his defenders say he didn't know what an "emoluments clause" is? How could Trump be sincere about the oath when he doesn't even know what it means?

Trump breaks promises all the time. He's full of big talk and short on hands delivering. So far all he's really accomplished is give corporations a big tax cut, which, let's face it, just shows you where congressional Republicans' priorities really were.

Trump can't be trusted. He's been given a chance, and he's muffed it again and again. He's a phony. There's no "we'll see what happens;" we know what happens. He's full of baloney, the truth is not in him, and it shows, again and again.
posted by Gelatin at 10:39 AM on May 23, 2018 [11 favorites]

Federal judge rules that Trump can't block Twitter users.

So how exactly is something like this enforced? Like, what if he simply ignores the ruling and continues to block people?
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:54 AM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fox and Friends test-running their hot take for when it starts here.

Fox Host: Kim Probably Hates That ‘He Has To Murder His People’
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:56 AM on May 23, 2018 [21 favorites]

David Von Drehle, WaPo Opinion: "Now we know what Trump will say when we learn what he’s hiding"

"Urging [Nunes] to keep at it, Kimberly A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote that he might sort out “who was pulling the strings” that appear to tie former Trump advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos to Russia, “and what was the goal? . . . Entrapment?”

She was echoing Nunes himself, who during an earlier interview with Fox News used the term “setup” rather than Strassel’s fancier word. But the idea was the same, and by week’s end it was everywhere. The influential Townhall website went with “spying.” The website for radio bigfoot Rush Limbaugh referred to “an infuriating story of entrapment.”
...
Where I come from, only guilty people trot out the I-was-stung defense. Indeed, the most infamous use of this jargon in Washington — the late Marion Barry’s “Bitch set me up!” — followed the mayor’s dismayed realization that his crack-smoking had been caught on hidden camera.
...
But at least we now know what [Trump] is likely to say if and when we learn what he is hiding."

posted by OnceUponATime at 11:05 AM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

msalt: Wasn't Trump the one who criticized Obama and Hillary for using a teleprompter?

And now we know why - teleprompters make you say the darnedest things.

Doktor Zed: Meanwhile, the Top Minds on /r/The_Donald are now promoting "#SPYGATE (Operation Boomerang)" as their next meme project for Internet saturation...

Where the boomerang is the president's own words, swinging around to smack him in the back of the head?

Speaking of fake news, Wired got an exclusive sneak peak at Facebook's three new announcements on fake news:

The first new announcement is a request for proposals from academics eager to study false news on the platform. Researchers who are accepted will get data and money; the public will get, ideally, elusive answers to how much false news actually exists and how much it matters. The second announcement is the launch of a public education campaign that will utilize the top of Facebook’s home page, perhaps the most valuable real estate on the internet. Users will be taught what false news is and how they can stop its spread. Facebook knows it is at war, and it wants to teach the populace how to join its side of the fight. The third announcement—and the one which the company seems most excited about—is the release of a nearly 12-minute video called “Facing Facts,” a title that suggests both the topic and the repentant tone.

posted by filthy light thief at 11:06 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

“You can’t fight big money with big money” how a Bronx activist is trying to change the game of money in politics
posted by The Whelk at 11:08 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Where I come from, only guilty people trot out the I-was-stung defense. Indeed, the most infamous use of this jargon in Washington — the late Marion Barry’s “Bitch set me up!” — followed the mayor’s dismayed realization that his crack-smoking had been caught on hidden camera.

Let's not forget that the floating of the "perjury trap" trial balloon was to prepare people for the fact that Trump was likely to lie under oath by denying his illegal activities. Activities that Mueller, of course, knows all about.

But it isn't a perjury trap even when it turns out the prosecutor knew you were going to lie. A Morton's fork, maybe, but not a perjury trap.
posted by Gelatin at 11:08 AM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Gelatin: Oh, his defenders say he didn't know what an "emoluments clause" is? How could Trump be sincere about the oath when he doesn't even know what it means?

In all fairness, nobody reads the terms and conditions

(coming soon: that argument, in non-ironic form, from a Fox News near you)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:13 AM on May 23, 2018 [9 favorites]

@awprokop (Vox): Mueller has put off Papadopoulos's sentencing for months while his cooperation has continued. Today he tells court he's ready to move ahead with it.
posted by pjenks at 11:13 AM on May 23, 2018 [13 favorites]

Kushner receives permanent security clearance.

Ctrl+F "backchannel" - 0 results

Ctrl+F "SF-86" - 0 results
posted by Rhaomi at 11:15 AM on May 23, 2018 [42 favorites]

The problem with summarizing this way is that you'll never convince the average Trump supporter that there is anything wrong with personal encrichment, no matter the circumstances - so even if you can get said Trumpeter to agree that Trump's actions were illegal, they will immediately dismiss the illegality as unimportant.

Well.... Almost.

If the **RIGHT PEOPLE** are doing it, then yes personal enrichment no matter what the circumstances is good.

But if the wrong people are doing it, then personal enrichment in the most legal possible circumstances is either inherently bad, evidence of crime, or evidence of racist beliefs about that group.

Personal anecdote. I had a job that involved a lot of driving in the company of a Trump supporter. One one occasion he was complaining bitterly about a contractor, a gentleman from somewhere in India who had moved to the US decades ago. He told me that all "those people" care about is money.

Several days later he was explaining to me that Trump ripping off his contractors was just good business practice and Trump would be a fool to have done anything else.

Personal enrichment, even under blatantly criminal circumstances, is conditional based on the race or other in group/out group status of the person in question.
posted by sotonohito at 11:15 AM on May 23, 2018 [42 favorites]

Trump, on national television, called for Russia to carry out a cyberattack on the United States

Just my two cents -- I don't think this is the best talking point anymore. In the sense that we now have better ones. I mean, you and I agree that it indicates an openness to accepting help.

But for a lot of people, it seems like "If Trump were really up to something shady, would he really announce it like that?"

Tucker Carlson let Rep Eric Swalwell come on his show to try to describe evidence of collusion [Facebook video]. Swalwell did his best to lay out the timeline over Carlson's incredulous chuckles, but when he got to that bit about soliciting hacked emails on national television, he couldn't stop Carlson from derailing the whole segment into an argument over the significance of that one line. "So you think President Trump is so dumb he tries to send secret messages to Russia via televised news conference?" "So DID Russia ever find those 30,000 missing emails? No? They're still missing?" "Do you think its possible he was joking?" "Do you think it's a crime to joke about Russia?"

(And also... "Do you think it's a crime to try to improve relations with Russia?" "Did you know the US killed 200 Russians in Syria a little while ago, and Trump sent weapons to Ukraine and bombed Assad? He's actually TOO tough on Russia.")

Anyway, there's much stronger evidence now against Trump. Maybe if you find yourself arguing with right wingers, try to lead with "Viktor Vekselberg gave Michael Cohen $500,000, why?" And "Paul Manafort offered briefings to to Oleg Deripaska, why?" And "Natalia Veselnitskya attended Trump's inauguration. Why?"

If nothing else you might make them aware of something that wasn't covered on Fox News...
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:18 AM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

@markknoller: "I called them 'animals' the other day and was met by rebuke," says @POTUS of his description of MS-13 gang members. "They're not people. They're animals," he reaffirms.

This is a really messed up event.
posted by zachlipton at 11:21 AM on May 23, 2018 [34 favorites]

Step 1: Use the term "animals" when spewing a response about people crossing the border. Get AP and others to back down, beg forgiveness and murmur "context" after their first, honest reports.

Step 2: Put a document about "MS-13 animals" on the White House web site.

Step 3: Trump on "alien minors" crossing the border: "They look so innocent. They’re not innocent.” (via Daniel Dale's Twitter)
posted by maudlin at 11:21 AM on May 23, 2018 [29 favorites]

Homan just now: "I think the president is too kind describing them as animals. Animals kill for food, MS-13 kills for pleasure."

New Homeland Security head. A lot of people are going to die if this isn't stopped.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:26 AM on May 23, 2018 [53 favorites]

schmod: Know what the Democrats aren't fucking up?

Running a candidate in every damn seat. Losing an election in Arkansas with 25% of the vote is still a far cry better than getting 0% of the vote because we didn't run a candidate.

25% is still 1 in 4 people. Those folks have family members, coworkers, and neighbors who voted for the other side. We only need to convince one of the other three to vote for us, and that 25% is now more engaged, more likely to vote in the general elections for statewide/national candidates, and helping keep the Democratic party alive in local races (where we can win local races on local issues and help bolster the Democratic Party's reputation in these not-quite-purple states).

Maybe next time we'll learn some lessons, and get 35% of the vote -- and more the time after that. We aren't going to build momentum by doing nothing, and 25% is a solid foothold. There's a lot we can do with 25%, even if it isn't going to win us any elections today.


I flagged your comment as fantastic, schmod. I am heartened to see Democrats both running and winning in races that many haven't touched for years. Even in races where we don't win, merely running candidates is a signal to the other side that we're serious, not cowed or complacent. And running candidates strengthens our local Democratic party apparatus and gives us a deeper bench to draw on in the future.

When we vote, we win. When we build our party from the ground up, we launch our future Barack Obamas, Hillary Clintons, Kirsten Gillibrands, etc. who become stars on the national scene.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:31 AM on May 23, 2018 [44 favorites]

Waiit, does that mean all public officials are prohibited from blocking people on Twitter? And presumably other social networks?

Yes, the genie is being let out of the bottle. The collateral damage will be a lot of harassment of government officials in the name of "freeze peach", but it's the long overdue of responsibility of Twitter (and Facebook and Google, et al.) to shut that shit down with some real community moderation and enforcement of T.O.S. participation rules.

So how exactly is something like this enforced?

A nice class action lawsuit against Twitter/Facebook/Google should get their attention.

(And it's another occasion to give thanks to MeFi's dedicated mod team and the site's robust moderation tools. It just goes to show that building a healthy community is easier if taken seriously early on instead of being kicked down the road at every opportunity.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:31 AM on May 23, 2018 [31 favorites]

... and Rod Rosenstein (via Dan Dale again): Rod Rosenstein on "alien children": "We're letting people in who are creating problems. We're letting people in who are gang members. We're also letting people in who are vulnerable. Many of these alien children who have no parents, no family structure...develop gang ties."

The Deputy Attorney General. Fuuuuuuuck.
posted by maudlin at 11:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [22 favorites]

CBO report on Federal Subsidies for Health Insurance Coverage for People Under Age 65: 2018 to 2028 is out

The agencies expect insurers to raise premiums for benchmark plans offered through the marketplaces in 2019 by an average of roughly 15 percent over the premiums charged in 2018. Part of that increase is projected to occur because plans are expected to have a less healthy mix of enrollees after the penalty related to the individual mandate is no longer levied beginning on January 1, 2019. In total, CBO and JCT expect, premiums for nongroup health insurance will be about 10 percent higher in 2019 than they would have been if the individual mandate penalty remained in place and was enforced. The lack of a direct payment for CSRs and the rising costs of health care per person are also anticipated to contribute to the overall increase.

A 15% average increase in ACA health insurance premiums, mainly caused by Republican sabotage. Slap that into a 30 second ad and get it in front of every voter in America.
posted by zachlipton at 11:34 AM on May 23, 2018 [46 favorites]

US gov’t employee in China left with brain injury after strange sounds, pressure -- The case draws eerie similarities to mysterious "health attacks" in Cuba. (Beth Mole for Ars Technica, May 23, 2018)

The US government issued an alert Wednesday following reports that a government employee stationed in southern China experienced “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure” and sustained a brain injury.

The case draws clear and eerie parallels to mysterious health problems that affected US diplomats in Cuba, who also experienced unexplained episodes of unusual sounds and pressure followed by diagnoses of traumatic brain injury.

Responding to an email from the New York Times, a spokesperson for the United States Embassy in Beijing said that the unnamed employee was working in the US consulate in the city of Guangzhou, just northwest of Hong Kong, and experienced a variety of symptoms from late 2017 until April of this year. In statements to the BBC, she noted that the employee had been sent back to the US. Last Friday, the 18th of May, “the embassy was told that the clinical findings of [an] evaluation matched mild traumatic brain injury,” she wrote.
...
Guesses and notions of what could explain their experiences and injuries abound, including malfunctioning surveillance equipment and a covert sonic weapon. But no clear leading hypothesis has emerged, and US officials have not suspected foul play from Cuba or China in either case.

Still, the US government is on edge. The embassy in Cuba remains staffed by a skeleton crew, and a travel alert is still in place. For those in China, the government urges vigilance: “While in China, if you experience any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source. Instead, move to a location where the sounds are not present.”

posted by filthy light thief at 11:35 AM on May 23, 2018 [14 favorites]

Trump is now proposing a scheme by which we deduct "a rather large amount of money" from foreign aid for every person from a country who comes here, "if we give them aid at all, because despite all the reports we hear, I don't believe they're helping us one bit."

Yeah. That will really help improve living conditions in these countries so people don't make desperate journeys to the United States.
posted by zachlipton at 11:36 AM on May 23, 2018 [16 favorites]

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
posted by kirkaracha at 11:39 AM on May 23, 2018 [41 favorites]

Chrysostom: Vox: After months of debate, the Senate has finally reached an agreement on a bill to curtail sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. And Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell have promised the bill will pass in “short order.”

Introduced by Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the bill promises to address major flaws in the current sexual harassment reporting process for members of Congress and congressional staff by reforming the Congressional Accountability Act. (It’s similar to what Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has been pushing.)

Specifically, the legislation eliminates mandatory “cooling off” periods before victims of harassment can file complaints against their harassers, doubles the length of time victims have to file a lawsuit in federal court (from 45 to 90 days, it appears -- ed.), and requires members of the Senate to pay back the Treasury for any settlements related to the harassment they committed.

Currently, if a congressional staffer is harassed, the Office of Compliance initiates a four-step process: a 30-day counseling period, a mediation effort, an administrative hearing or civil action (a lawsuit), and an appeals process. Victims can’t even make a formal complaint about sexual harassment until three months have passed, including a 30-day period after enduring a mediation process with their harasser.
...
In a statement, Gillibrand, who tried to force a vote on a harassment bill in the Senate last week, praised the bill, saying:

Today’s announcement of a bipartisan deal in the Senate that would finally end a system designed to protect harassers in the halls of Congress is an important step forward. By passing this reform, we can finally make sure that when a member of Congress sexually harasses or discriminates against someone on their staff, the taxpayers are not left holding the bag, and it finally removes the barriers that were preventing many victims of harassment and discrimination from reporting what had happened to them, like the absurd “cooling off period” before a formal complaint could even be filed.

posted by filthy light thief at 11:41 AM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

The speed with which his regime is adopting the language of dehumanization and their eagerness in competing to be the most radical is a five-alarm bell. This rhetoric and behavior is self-perpetuating and given enough time necessitates committing actual atrocities. And it's happening very fast, and without any cover of an obvious inciting incident. There isn't much time.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:42 AM on May 23, 2018 [80 favorites]

Trump is now proposing a scheme ...

I have a rule about political discussion -- if an idea starts with "Why don't we just...", then it is a dumb idea.

Maybe it's dumb because the speaker hasn't thought through the second- and third-order effects, maybe it's dumb because there's no way most people will stand for it, maybe it's dumb because it's already been tried and failed, maybe it's dumb because it's already been tried and is actually current policy. But it's still gonna be dumb.
posted by Etrigan at 11:45 AM on May 23, 2018 [13 favorites]

Betsy Woodruff, Trump Gang Dragnet Caught a Teen Who ICE Said Looked Like He Was in MS-13. He Wasn’t. This is another one, right in Suffolk County where Trump is making declarations about "animals" right now.
posted by zachlipton at 11:47 AM on May 23, 2018 [30 favorites]

triggerfinger: The problem with that language and with turning it into the same sort of politicultural fight that we see with, say, kneeling in the NFL

Speak of the devil: NFL changes national anthem policy to ban kneeling (Sam Farmer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 23, 2018)

NFL owners reached a consensus Wednesday on their national anthem policy, addressing the most controversial and divisive issues in recent memory.

Under the new policy, players who do not choose to stand for the anthem before games will have the option of staying in the locker room. But a club will be fined if players or league personnel are on the field and do not stand “and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.”

“We want people to be respectful of the national anthem,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. “We want people to stand — that’s all personnel — and make sure they treat this moment in a respectful fashion. That’s something we think we owe. [But] we were also very sensitive to give players choices.”

Shortly after the NFL announced its new policy at the league’s annual May meetings, the NFL Players Assn. tweeted its response and lamented it was not consulted about the decision.

That's right, it's a decision by the old white men about what the players, 70% of whom are black, can or can't do before the game starts. Speaking of the players: USA Today's "For The Win" (FTW) section picked up some player responses on Twitter -- my favorite:

Well with all due respect sir, the guys protesting don’t force the networks to show it on TV. They don’t force the media to cover it. The people don’t get to escape their reality’s that players are protesting for. There’s no relax button for them

— Damon Harrison Sr. (@snacks) May 23, 2018

(And football fans mocked Trump's "Spygate" tweet and tied it instead to the time the Patriots videotaped the NY Jets' practice, which was dubbed Spygate ... back in 2007)
posted by filthy light thief at 11:52 AM on May 23, 2018 [24 favorites]

MS-13 is, by almost all accounts, a terrible gang. It's also not one that's big enough to warrant the king of response Trump has on offer -- which makes sense in that Trump is only using the gang as a proxy for immigration writ large.

I would also imagine that Trump's, ah, endorsement can only aid MS-13 by bolstering its rep. Nice job breaking it, hero. (Obligatory warning: TVTropes link)
posted by Gelatin at 12:07 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Zephyr Teachout just announced she's running for NY AG. [tweet]
posted by melissasaurus at 12:08 PM on May 23, 2018 [28 favorites]

Kushner receives permanent security clearance.

@lrozen: Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell has excellent PR sensibilities. Got everyone to make this headline, not that JK was questioned by Mueller again.

So, now we know that Mueller's team interviewed Kushner for 90 minutes in November 2017 and for 6-7 hours last month (WaPost, Philip Rucker, today). The first interview is said to have centered on Michael Flynn, while

in mid-April, Kushner sat for six to seven hours of questions that covered many topics, including his work on the Trump campaign, the transition and in the White House, according to the person familiar with the matter. This person said Kushner was asked in the April session about Trump’s decision in May 2017 to fire Comey.

posted by pjenks at 12:12 PM on May 23, 2018 [18 favorites]

Trump: "Our people are rougher than them. Toughness is the only language they understand." [...] "I'll tell you, the ICE guys are rougher than MS-13. They're rougher, they're tougher, they're meaner. They throw these guys into the wagons, the rolling jails, and people are applauding, and it's like a war, like an occupied territory. When you see these guys getting tossed in wagons, people are cheering. And in one way it's wonderful and one way it's terrible."

The audience is applauding. This is not a drill.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:14 PM on May 23, 2018 [56 favorites]

Loin girding time. Just be here in the morning pls

Opinion: US strategy on Iran entails regime change
The US may have forgotten that Washington toppled Iran's first democratic government back in 1953, replacing it with the Shah's dictatorship — but the Iranians haven't

Iran says U.S. will face same fate as Saddam Hussein if it attacks: TV

The Art of the Regime Change
And make no mistake: If war does come and the result is more lives lost and more dollars squandered, and it maybe even ignites a broader regional conflict, the fault will rest solely with the man who currently sits in the Oval Office. No amount of dust kicking, blame casting, and semiliterate tweeting will be able to disguise that fact.
posted by infini at 12:17 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Trump used to keep a book of Hitler speeches by his bedside and echoed Hitler in his speech withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:18 PM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

MS-13 is responsible for 207 murders since 2012.

I was wondering how this number stacks up against the number of people killed by US police so far in 2018, and I found this WaPo page.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:18 PM on May 23, 2018 [24 favorites]

They're rougher, they're tougher, they're meaner.

dads, hug your fucking sons once in a while. maybe it'll inoculate them from fetishizing this Rough Men Ready To Do Violence shit.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:24 PM on May 23, 2018 [58 favorites]

melissasaurus: "Zephyr Teachout just announced she's running for NY AG. [tweet]"

Also throwing their hats in: NYCity Public Advocate Letitia James, former Cuomo and Hillary aide Leecia Eve.

All three are women, Eve and James are African-American.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:35 PM on May 23, 2018 [22 favorites]

I'll tell you, the ICE guys are rougher than MS-13.

MS-13 is a bunch of homicidal sociopaths who would kill you as soon as look at you, and are so dangerous that we need to break all the rules to get 'em out of here pronto... but they've got NOTHING on our border patrol guys, who by the way you should venerate unconditionally.
posted by Mayor West at 12:36 PM on May 23, 2018 [114 favorites]

I was wondering how this number stacks up against the number of people killed by US police so far in 2018

Sigh. When I'm benevolent dictator, every public discussion of public health issues (e.g., causes of death) will result in little butler robots showing up with signs indicating just how big of a deal the topic is or isn't.

Some guy's presidential campaign: Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.

Helpful Robot:

 ------------------------------------------------------------------
| Deaths in the US Due to Terrorism Since from 1970-2016: 3,648[1] |
| Deaths in the US Due to Drunk Drivers, Per Year: over 10,000 [2] |
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
                                |
                                |
                                |
                                |

Vote Trolley Problem 2020.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:41 PM on May 23, 2018 [43 favorites]

Benjy Sarlin (NBC)
"Giuliani said he was concerned that the president would become a target or that the interview would be a perjury trap because the 'truth is relative'"
WaPo: In reversal, Giuliani now says Trump should do interview with Mueller team
- “They may have a different version of the truth than we do,” Giuliani said.
- Perjury shouldn't really be a thing because the concept of a shared objective reality is itself absurd isn't usually what you hear from former prosecutors
posted by chris24 at 12:41 PM on May 23, 2018 [56 favorites]

Trump's supporters think his corruption is a sign of being a good politician. All politicians are corrupt. Hillary's speaking fees and foundation payments are the same as the payoffs to Cohen, only more transparent and honest in nature.

Trump ran on being corrupt. He doesn't pay taxes, because he's smart. He can fix the loopholes, because he knows best where they are. Trump refuses to stop running his businesses while in office. His tax scam was likely illegal and his businesses almost unquestionably unconstitutional.

I understand that Fox News has created an alternate reality where all politicians are corrupt. I'll even grant there's a point in there somewhere. I also understand making a Faustian bargain that accepts that Trump is crook, but will ban abortion and keep American white.

What I don't understand is that he's transparently selling his country's interests to Russia, China, Qatar, etc. in exchange for personal gain, and no one is even batting an eyelash. I really thought that would be a red line for his base.

Anyway, at first the whole degradation of norms thing didn't really strike me as particularly important, but now that I see half the country doesn't care about Trump's corruption I stand corrected.
posted by xammerboy at 12:54 PM on May 23, 2018 [53 favorites]

From the same article linked by Benjy Sarlin and chris24:

“I guess I’d rather do the interview. It gets it over with it, it makes my client happy,” he said. “The safe course you hear every lawyer say is don’t do the interview, and that’s easy to say in the abstract. That’s much harder when you have a client who is the president of the United States and wants to be interviewed.”

I think this can be filed into the "talking about Trump like a three-year-old" folder. So one question whose answer I honestly don't know: When Trump reads/hears Giuliani saying this, will he be angry at the condescension (which happened in the past)... or simply pleased at what could be read as loyalty ("He wants to make me happy")? Depends on the hour of day, I suppose.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:56 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

So things seem to be going full murderous authoritarian. What do we do? Who is organizing to stop this? How can I help? (If you tell me to vote in November I will personally come to your house and say very mean things to you)
posted by runcibleshaw at 12:58 PM on May 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

And make no mistake: If war does come and the result is more lives lost and more dollars squandered, and it maybe even ignites a broader regional conflict, the fault will rest solely with the man who currently sits in the Oval Office. No amount of dust kicking, blame casting, and semiliterate tweeting will be able to disguise that fact.


That's all right. It's people's desire to believe that'll do it.
posted by trig at 1:05 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 House:

-- DCCC dumping in $1.6M into CA-39/A-48/CA-49 in an effort to avoid Dems getting locked out of the top two spots.

-- VA-05: Something weird is afoot with incumbent GOP Tom Garrett, and he may be retiring. District went 53-42 Trump, might be reachable with no incumbent.

** 2018 Senate -- TX: JMC poll finds Ted Cruz up 47-40 on Dem nominee O'Rourke [MOE: +/- 4.1%].

** Odds and ends:

-- Wrap-ups on yesterday's primaries from Vox and 538.

-- TX gov: That JMC poll mentioned above finds LG Abbott up 48-38 on Dem nominee Valdez.

-- OK gov: SoonerPoll finds Dems competitive in potential gubernatorial matchups. Outgoing GOP gov Fallin is massively unpopular, so Dems may have a shot here.

-- WI gov: PPP poll has likely Dem nominee Evers up 49-45 on incumbent Walker [MOE:+/- 3.9%].

-- Court rejects appeal by Kris Kobach of the contempt finding against him.

posted by Chrysostom at 1:09 PM on May 23, 2018 [28 favorites]

- Perjury shouldn't really be a thing because the concept of a shared objective reality is itself absurd isn't usually what you hear from former prosecutors

We're really doing this? This is happening? The defense is going to be that in this post-modernist era there's actually no such thing as truth? I guess I'm not actually surprised but still.

Zephyr Teachout just announced she's running for NY AG

Third times the charm I guess? Teachout seems like a good person but I don't think will go any further than the last two times she ran for office. I still think Preet would be a good AG though I agree it would be symbolically important to elect a woman. Of the declared candidates I lean towards, on balance, Leecia Eve. But I'm not as averse to establishment types as a lot of people.
posted by Justinian at 1:23 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

We're really doing this? This is happening? The defense is going to be that in this post-modernist era there's actually no such thing as truth? I guess I'm not actually surprised but still.

"Place your left hand on the Bible and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to say anything at all that occurs to you to say?"

...might work for Trump at that.
posted by Gelatin at 1:27 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

"I'll tell you, the ICE guys are rougher than MS-13. They're rougher, they're tougher, they're meaner."

So ICE is rougher, tougher, and meaner than animals? It sounds like we may have a serious problem on our hands.
posted by flarbuse at 1:32 PM on May 23, 2018 [24 favorites]

I still think Preet would be a good AG though I agree it would be symbolically important to elect a woman.

He hasn't gone full Sherman-esque, but he still sounds like 95% no.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:42 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Coen Brothers with the New New Giuliani defense first.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:42 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'll tell you, the ICE guys are rougher than MS-13. They're rougher, they're tougher, they're meaner.

In 2016, 61 alleged MS-13 members in the Boston area were arrested on a variety of RICO charges (hmm, who was president then?). As of yesterday, 48 of the 61 have either pleaded or been found guilty, some for the particularly brutal murders of teens as young as 15 in East Boston (one of whom was both shot and stabbed repeatedly by several MS-13 members). ICE had nothing at all to do with the investigation, the indictments, the arrests, the trials or the sentences (look at who's missing in the long list of credits in this press release). It was dogged and standard police work by the FBI, State Police and local police in several cities that have declared themselves sanctuaries, aided by community members who felt they could trust at least the local police.
posted by adamg at 1:48 PM on May 23, 2018 [67 favorites]

Kushner receives permanent security clearance.

Yesterday, as USA Today reported, Trump signed the security clearance reform bill — but indicated he may not comply with it.

President Trump signed a bill Tuesday aimed at reducing the backlog of security clearance investigations — but later reserved the right not to comply with it on constitutional grounds. In a signing statement Tuesday night, Trump said provisions of the bill — the Securely Expediting Clearances Through Reporting Transparency Act of 2018, or SECRET Act — encroach on his authority as commander-in-chief. Among the provisions Trump objected to: A section requiring the White House Office of Administration to report on its process for conducting security clearance investigations for White House officials.

That process came under scrutiny in January when it was revealed that Staff Secretary Rob Porter — the official responsible for the entire paper flow in and out of the Oval Office — had been working without a permanent security clearance for more than a year. His clearance had been held up because of allegations of domestic violence from two ex-wives.[...]

The security clearance bill passed both the House and Senate unanimously after the National Background Investigations Bureau stopped releasing statistics about the backlog in security clearances. Most of the bill simply instructs the administration to provide Congress with reports on the problems causing that backlog.

But Trump said in his signing statement that the Constitution makes him responsible for the security clearance process. [...] Trump also argued that because the Constitution gives the president the power to recommend to Congress measures he believes are "necessary and expedient," Congress can't tell the intelligence community to make recommendations unless the president signs off on them.

And today, the NYT publishes a story sourced by Kushner's lawyer about how the uncertainty over his security clearance has been sorted out. What a coincidence.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:52 PM on May 23, 2018 [25 favorites]

). It was dogged and standard police work by the FBI, State Police and local police in several cities that have declared themselves sanctuaries, aided by community members who felt they could trust at least the local police

Some months ago I crashed my bike near a park near Boston, right by a group of Salvadorans who were there chilling out.

They helped me to my feet. They checked that I had a working phone and could use it to call 911 if I needed to.
They asked me if I was going to do that. I said I was not sure. So they fled.

Let that sink in.

They fled in fear because someone was about to call 911 to ask for medical help for himself.

Fuck Trump.
posted by ocschwar at 1:53 PM on May 23, 2018 [152 favorites]

Who is organizing to stop this? How can I help? (If you tell me to vote in November I will personally come to your house and say very mean things to you)

The Democratic party is organizing to stop this, and Indivisible (if you can't find a local group go start one!), and Swing Left and Flippable and so on. Also Amnesty International, CREW, and the ACLU, and Moms Demand Action and The Women's March and United We Dream and and Black Lives Matter, and so on. Just... us. That's who is organizing. There's no cavalry. We need to do the stuff we're already doing, but we need more of us doing it.

It may not seem like glamorous work to help those groups by knocking on doors and phone banking and writing postcards and letters to the editor and fundraising and holding house parties and so on, but it's the real work that needs to be done right now. This is what organizing looks like!

I mean... 42% of the country, and all three branches of government are on team Trump right now. Also, pretty much the whole military, and a majority of wealthy people and corporations, and the majority of civilian gun owners. Also several very popular propaganda outlets. Also a bunch of religious leaders. Those are not trivial advantages.

On our side we have 1) the truth 2) the law 3) the bureaucracy 4) The actual majority of the population 5) Trump&co's utter incompetence. Those are not trivial either.

It's not clear who will win. There are no rules to history, and it could go either way. But it's pretty clear to me that we have a better chance of winning elections and court cases than we have of winning a violent conflict.

We should be doing more than just voting. We should continue to protest and donate and write and speak and sue and thwart and try to rally more people to our cause... But we should also appreciate that our best chance right now is still a bunch of indictments from Mueller combined with winning at least one house in November. And we can't do much to help with the indictments.

You can say mean things if you want, but I think voting in November and getting as many other people to vote too is the most important. Do all the rest too, but know that the elections are our best chance, and maybe our last really good chance, for a while.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:53 PM on May 23, 2018 [76 favorites]

Miami New Times, Guard Threatens to Arrest Activist Recording Conditions at Miami ICE Facility

Every day, dozens of elderly people and parents with small children are forced to arrive before the sun rises at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's office in Miramar, where they stand for hours in long lines without shelter from the sun or rain. And there isn't enough parking for everyone forced to arrive for ICE check-ins, so tow trucks have been filmed waiting to haul immigrants' cars away. Some people are detained at their meetings and never return.

Now, after activists have published multiple videos of the horrid conditions outside the facility, security guards have begun threatening to "detain" activists documenting the problems. Yesterday local organizer Maria Asuncion Bilbao was trying to post a Facebook Live stream of the line of immigrants forced to stand in the rain when a guard whipped out a pair of handcuffs and threatened to arrest her.

ICE blames security contractors and says they're not responsible.
posted by zachlipton at 2:10 PM on May 23, 2018 [45 favorites]

The defense is going to be that in this post-modernist era there's actually no such thing as truth? I guess I'm not actually surprised but still.

Gorsuch is the intended audience for the sentiment.
posted by rhizome at 2:29 PM on May 23, 2018

I would also imagine that Trump's, ah, endorsement can only aid MS-13 by bolstering its rep.*

That's a good point, and I wonder if it's a feature, rather than a bug.

1. Exaggerate danger posed by MS-13 (and, by proxy, all immigrants)
2. Exaggeration is pointed out
3. Meanwhile, MS-13 actually becomes more dangerous because of all the free advertising
4. "See, I was right about MS-13!" (and, by proxy, all immigrants)
posted by gurple at 2:31 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

UK, peeps. Bannon's about to be interviewed on Newsnight.
posted by popcassady at 2:33 PM on May 23, 2018

WSJ, Trump Administration Weighs New Tariffs on Imported Vehicles. Up to 25% on imported cars, which will also somehow be justified on national security grounds because words mean nothing anymore and there's no such thing as truth, just ask Giuliani.
posted by zachlipton at 2:33 PM on May 23, 2018 [16 favorites]

Liar: Stop Calling Me a Liar!

Tucked within a fresh New York Times Magazine piece by Mark Leibovich about the White House press office is a gem of an encounter between the author and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

“It certainly bothers me,” she said of the “liar” rap. “Because one of the few things you have are your integrity and reputation.” She added that “there’s a difference between misspeaking or not knowing something than maliciously lying.”
...
No one would argue that a person’s integrity isn’t of paramount importance, I said. But I asked Sanders if there is a danger in linking your integrity to a president who might not always be known for accuracy. There have been many instances where the president has not told the truth, I said.

“But you’re asking about me,” Sanders said, not challenging the premise.

True, I said, but she has to speak for him. I asked the question another way: “Is it possible to be factual if you’re speaking for someone who is trying to make a point that is not factual?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Sanders said. “I’m not following totally.”

posted by kirkaracha at 2:43 PM on May 23, 2018 [55 favorites]

We've got "animals" to label immigrants generally through the MS-13 bit (which doesn't qualify for anything regarding subtlety anymore), large camps of people awaiting deportation, an immigration paramilitary force (and it's actual militia analogues along the border) successfully infiltrated by white supremacists (via FBI reports), and the president shouting about how rough they should be.

Outside of the mass removal part of ethnic cleansing, has the Bosnia level stuff started already and will we actually start to hear about it when it does?
posted by Slackermagee at 2:43 PM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

Brian Beutler, How the Media Rewards Bad Faith

The notion that Republicans didn’t actually care about infosec practices, and that reporters knew they didn’t care, isn’t just bitter gloss on bygone reporting decisions. It is a fact reporters themselves have let on in their collective response to serial Trump-era infosec lapses. It is so taken for granted in the halls of power that Republicans don’t actually care about this issue, and never did, that nobody even bothers to ask them to square their hair-on-fire behavior in 2016 with their insouciance today. Two years ago, House Speaker Paul Ryan repeatedly and publicly requested that Clinton be stripped of her security clearance because of her email practices. On Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the Trump phone-breach story broke, he held a routine Capitol briefing for reporters and fielded zero questions about it.
...
There’s a broad (and correct) media consensus that Republicans feign outrage about alleged infractions, then proceed to do much worse when in power—that right-wing politics is built on a foundation of feigned outrage and bad faith. But there’s also a broad (and incorrect) consensus that this should not factor in to how journalists interpret and report on the parties.

Josh Marshall, Stop Talking about “Norms”

As I said, we’re confusing ourselves, confusing ourselves with the language of norms. Norms are tripwires to avoid abuses of office. But even as we see in front of our eyes the most extreme abuses of office we’re still talking about norms. That’s nuts. The abuses of office are the big thing.
...
The other problem with “norms” – perhaps the really critical one – is that they can easily sound like some precious bureaucratic niceties which simply aren’t that important. I was listening to the aforementioned CNN segment and it started to sound like that to me – ornate concepts from a world of foreign or elusive proprieties. Who before Trump talks so much about “norms”? It can all sound frivolous and precious. Maybe you need a President who will upset the apple cart a bit and try new things?

Again, we’re confusing the issue. It’s not norms. The President is trying to obstruct and stymie and hamstring a lawful investigation into his own crimes and those of his associates: by repeatedly lying, firing and threatening to fire people, intervening in law enforcement decisions in his own interest, fabricating fake stories to impede the investigation. The list goes on and on and even those of who know better are becoming inured to it. The President is in the midst of a massive, more or less public and months long effort to cover up his own crimes and the crimes of his associates. That’s really clear-cut. It’s obvious to anyone why that’s not okay. So we need to state that clearly so everyone will know what is at stake. We should stop talking around the issue and say this as clearly as we can because our future depends on it.

posted by zachlipton at 2:53 PM on May 23, 2018 [50 favorites]

We aren't going to build momentum by doing nothing, and 25% is a solid foothold. There's a lot we can do with 25%, even if it isn't going to win us any elections today.

In Texas in November, the person running against Greg Fucking Abbott will be a lesbian Latina. Do I think Lupe Valdez will win? No, unless something really dramatic happens between now and then. But is it a big deal that she will be on the ballot? That a lot of people will vote for her? That she was the choice of the Texas Democratic Party? Yeah, I think it matters. It's the Overton Window moving, bit by tiny bit.
posted by threeturtles at 3:11 PM on May 23, 2018 [55 favorites]

We aren't going to build momentum by doing nothing, and 25% is a solid foothold. There's a lot we can do with 25%, even if it isn't going to win us any elections today.

It's the Overton Window moving, bit by tiny bit.


I was speaking with my dad on Sunday about gun control, and talking about repeal of the 2nd amendment. He said it could never happen, and I told him it all starts with people talking about it.

There was a time in this country when what is now suggested by members of the GOP was "crazy talk" supported by only a small minority. But they kept talking, and organizing, and running for office and moving the window.

And now we're going to move it back.
posted by rocketman at 3:19 PM on May 23, 2018 [27 favorites]

NFL changes national anthem policy to ban kneeling

Looks like there's at least one halfway-decent owner:

Jets chairman Christopher Johnson says that his players are free to take a knee or protest during the anthem without fear of repercussion.

Johnson tells Newsday he'll pay any fines out of his own pocket and not sanction any players.

posted by zombieflanders at 3:22 PM on May 23, 2018 [109 favorites]

guess there's not gonna be a cushy ambassadorship in his future then.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:26 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Johnson is actually the brother of Jets owner Woody Johnson, who's a Trump supporter and a real asshole (but I repeat myself). Woody is on a leave of absence from the team while he serves as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. There are no halfway-decent NFL owners.
posted by vathek at 3:27 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

The TPM article linked by zachlipton also makes a good point about "conflicts of interest" — the phrase is meant as a kind of tripwire to head off the possibility of corruption. The corruption itself, in the near-pure form we're seeing, isn't a conflict of interest, it's mutual interests — the public good doesn't even factor in as an "interest" to conflict with anything.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 3:32 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

"Many of these alien children who have no parents, no family structure... develop gang ties."

So... I guess we should go ahead and have ICE separate parents from their children even more. That will solve the problem.
posted by Behemoth at 3:39 PM on May 23, 2018 [19 favorites]

Something weird is going on with Tom Garrett (R-VA-5). The freshman lawmaker says he's not resigning, but his chief of staff no longer works there, suddenly, and he might not run for reelection, though we have no idea why. That could put the likely-R seat (Trump +11) in play.
posted by zachlipton at 3:43 PM on May 23, 2018 [12 favorites]

FBI confirms Trump gave Kushner a security clearance over career professionals:

Rep. Don Beyer:

Today the White House and Jared Kushner’s representatives are saying that the decision to grant Mr. Kushner’s clearance was made by career personnel, and that this decision was the deserved outcome of an above-board process.

Both claims are false or misleading. 1/ he claim that Kushner's clearance was granted by ‘career’ personnel and not the White House contradicts the FBI, which told us "the granting or suspension of Mr. Kushner’s clearance would be the responsibility of the client adjudication entity, in this case, the White House"👇2/ [pic] The suggestion that Mr. Kushner has been adequately forthcoming during this process, or that he deserves a security clearance, is belied by his constant failure to honestly disclose his foreign contacts and business conflicts, and to properly complete his ethics filings. 3/ Kushner had to update his SF-86 multiple times after failing to disclose connections with foreign officials and entities, including an attempt to set up a back-channel communication with the Kremlin. He has also been fined for repeated failure to file ethics disclosures. 4/ JHared Kushner does not deserve a permanent security clearance.

Kushner has been deceptive and dishonest, and there are many reasonable questions about whose interests he is serving in his efforts to influence US foreign policy. 5/ That the White House kept him in his position and granted him a permanent security clearance makes it clear that Congress needs to step in and create new safeguards for this process, which it should do by passing legislation I put forward: the Security Clearance Review Act. 6/6

posted by T.D. Strange at 3:54 PM on May 23, 2018 [47 favorites]

Some legal analysts have said that one potential problem for the President based upon the idea that the President can't be indicted is that he could then lose his 5th Amendment privilege. Because the idea behind the 5th Amendment is that you can't be forced to incriminate yourself, and if you can't be indicted then nothing you say can incriminate you. I'm no legalologist but that seems like a problematic analysis. Because while it may be true (nb: untested) that a sitting President can't be indicted, he or she could be indicted for those crimes once he or she is no longer President.

If you can still be arrested, tried, and jailed for something you still have a 5th amendment privilege even if that arrest etc can't be carried out for a few years. But as I said I'm no lawyerologist.
posted by Justinian at 3:57 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm making a special exception-that-proves-the-rule to my "don't quote the nonsense that comes out of Giuliani's mouth" rule because Giuliani now says he last talked to Trump a "couple weeks ago." He says other unspecified lawyers are talking or corresponding with Trump.

This concludes your regularly scheduled reminder that spouting uninformed random nonsense is Giuliani's only purpose in this process and that nobody speaks for Trump but Trump (and he doesn't really speak for himself either).
posted by zachlipton at 4:06 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's just over a month since Rudy Giuliani said he would be joining Trump's legal team and "I don’t think it’s going to take more than a week or two to get a resolution." Is September 1 sooner or later than two weeks?
posted by kirkaracha at 4:10 PM on May 23, 2018

Looks like there's at least one halfway-decent [NFL] owner
...
Johnson is actually the brother of Jets owner Woody Johnson, who's a Trump supporter and a real asshole (but I repeat myself). Woody is on a leave of absence from the team while he serves as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. There are no halfway-decent NFL owners.

The new terrible policy was decided by unanimous consensus of the owners. This includes Paul Allen (Seahawks) who had previously appeared capable of acting like a decent human being. Jed York (49ers, also previously capable of decency) chose to abstain rather than making a stand against the policy.

There are no halfway-decent NFL owners. Not even the Packers.
posted by saturday_morning at 4:16 PM on May 23, 2018 [26 favorites]

I'm making a special exception-that-proves-the-rule to my "don't quote the nonsense that comes out of Giuliani's mouth" rule because Giuliani now says he last talked to Trump a "couple weeks ago."

Giuliani and Trump were said (by Giuliani!) to have spoken over the phone this past weekend!

WAPO: Justice Department calls for inquiry after Trump demands probe into whether FBI ‘infiltrated or surveilled’ his campaign

“It would depend on if they subpoena him. And if they subpoena him, there will be litigation. So no timeline on that,” Giuliani said. “That’d be unfortunate, but it could happen.”

Throughout the weekend, Trump appeared consumed by the revelations about the role played by the FBI source in the Russia investigation, repeatedly tweeting about the matter and consulting by phone with Giuliani.

“He called me very early, 6:30 a.m., and we spoke Saturday night,” Giuliani said. “We concluded last night that he should do something to ask the Justice Department.”

Giuliani in the original Italian-American means "squidink nozzle," apparently.
posted by notyou at 4:22 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Josh Marshall caught something buried in a recent NYT story: In Michael Cohen’s Rolodex, an Investor Tied to Russia Saw Pay Dirt. After explaining that Cohen didn't do much for Columbus Nova, pitching them on "alcohol-infused ice pops, distressed taxi medallion loans and an oil and gas operation in the United States" that they didn't want to invest in and not delivering the investors they sought, we get to the ninth paragraph:

The consulting contract, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not specify the services Mr. Cohen was to provide. Representatives for Columbus Nova have said that Mr. Vekselberg, one of seven Kremlin-linked oligarchs who were hit with sanctions in April by the Trump administration in retaliation for Russian meddling in the 2016 election and other aggressions, has never owned the firm and had no role in its decision to hire Mr. Cohen as a consultant. Mr. Vekselberg met with Mr. Cohen multiple times, a person briefed on their discussions said. Although the purpose of those meetings is unclear, Mr. Vekselberg would have an interest in the administration’s stance on Russia.

Seems significant.
posted by zachlipton at 4:34 PM on May 23, 2018 [22 favorites]

There are no halfway-decent NFL owners. Not even the Packers.

I'd boycott the NFL for this but I'm already doing that for a dozen other shitty things that they've done.
posted by octothorpe at 4:39 PM on May 23, 2018 [19 favorites]

Contrast with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks statement today after police released video of their violent arrest of Bucks player Sterling Brown

The abuse and intimidation that Sterling experienced at the hands of Milwaukee Police was shameful and inexcusable. Sterling has our full support as he shares his story and takes action to provide accountability.

Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated case. It shouldn’t require an incident involving a professional athlete to draw attention to the fact that vulnerable people in our communities have experienced similar, and even worse, treatment.

We are grateful for the service of many good police officers that courageously protect us, our fans and our city, but racial biases and abuses of power must not be ignored.

There needs to be more accountability.

The Milwaukee Police Department and local officials have acknowledged the challenges they are working to address, and we urge them to enact higher standards and more direct accountability. We all want to be able to trust each and every officer serving to protect us.

Incidents like this remind us of the injustices that persist. As an organization, we will support Sterling and build on our work with local leaders and organizations to foster safe neighborhoods and better our community.

posted by T.D. Strange at 5:06 PM on May 23, 2018 [36 favorites]

Waiit, does that mean all public officials are prohibited from blocking people on Twitter? And presumably other social networks?

The ruling looks like it's saying that an official public announcement/discussion platform can't block people:

We hold that portions of the @realDonaldTrump
account -- the “interactive space” where Twitter users may directly
engage with the content of the President’s tweets -- are properly
analyzed under the “public forum” doctrines set forth by the
Supreme Court, that such space is a designated public forum, and
that the blocking of the plaintiffs based on their political speech
constitutes viewpoint discrimination that violates the First
Amendment.

So, presumably, any official who kept a personal account separate from the "elected person in an official role" account would be able to block all they want on their personal account.

So how exactly is something like this enforced?

Assuming the target won't just comply ("we must assume that the President and Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional"):
1) Back to court to insist that Twitter be required to enforce this ruling, on the grounds that they're aiding illegal behavior if they won't (this may seem obvious, but it's rather a legal stretch) or
2) Back to court to sue Mr Trump for contempt of the court order, and for denying people access to their elected officials - with a punitive monetary award to the victims, presumably to *handwaves* pay them for the hassle of setting up a second, unblocked account, and the continued hassle of having to deal with two accounts.

I don't assume he'll comply. I do assume Twitter will react to a court order demanding they remove the block button from his account - and that of any other official political accounts. "React to" may not mean "comply" (because among other things, I bet they don't actually have that code written), but since they don't want to be the target of a nationwide class-action lawsuit for voter interference, I expect them to be scrambling to do *something* about it.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:06 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

There have been a lot of obituaries for amazing people on the front page recently. Luis Posada was not someone who deserves to be in their company. But his story does explain a lot about how our foreign policy in the past has led to problems in Latin America now.
posted by TedW at 5:19 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Bleacher Report points out the obvious with this bullshit NFL anthem policy: Why is the NFL handling this so poorly, crafting a policy based on fear, not practicality? The answer remains clear, according to a variety of league sources: an intense fear of President Donald Trump.

This is a fact. This is the truth. This is the core basis for the NFL's decision. This has been told to me before, and it was reiterated by several people Wednesday.

"Our league," one team official said, "is f--king terrified of Trump. We're scared of him."

What does the NFL fear? It fears boycotts of games. It fears people not watching its product on television. It fears people not buying its products.

There is, however, no proof that any of this would happen.

In fact, the NFL recently signed a streaming deal with Verizon for $2 billion. The NFL's bottom line remains fat and happy.

The NFL's actions reflect something scary about America now. Everything is transactional. Social justice. The plight of civil rights of certain American citizens. All of it is secondary to money, and fear of a boorish president.
posted by TwoStride at 5:20 PM on May 23, 2018 [53 favorites]

Mueller Asked About Money Flows to Israeli Social-Media Firm, Source Says
posted by adamvasco at 5:24 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

More on car tariffs from the Post:

German officials have grown frustrated trying to convince Trump that Germans don’t want to buy from American companies, which specialize in large sport-utility vehicles rather than smaller cars more suited to European lifestyles.

Trump has obsessed over German cars above all others, according to a senior White House official familiar with the talks. Though the president is now driven in an armored black Cadillac limousine known as “the beast,” he has owned various foreign models, including Maybach, Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz and McLaren.

Somehow I suspect this has more to do with him not liking Merkel than any actual trade policy, seeing as we've largely stopped making any vehicles that Germans not actively engaged in the construction trade would possibly want to buy (the top three bestselling vehicles in the US right now are all pickup trucks) or pay to refuel.
posted by zachlipton at 5:31 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Waiit, does that mean all public officials are prohibited from blocking people on Twitter? And presumably other social networks?

My non-lawyer read is that the answer comes down to what blocking does on Twitter other than ensuring that you won't see messages from the blocked person: it also prevents the blocked account from seeing tweets, searching for them, or viewing other people's replies in context. Since Trump is using his account officially, the argument is that hinders you from seeing official Presidential communications and participating in the conversations around them. So I'd think the second question is only true to the extent that other social networks follow Twitter's behaviour in this regard: if it works more like Twitter's mute function the argument that you've suffered some injury would go away as long.
posted by adamsc at 5:44 PM on May 23, 2018

Because last time went so well...

@realDonaldTrump
Will be interviewed on @foxandfriends tomorrow morning at 6:00 A.M. Enjoy!

---

And about that Nobel...

Jonathan Cheng (WSJ)
KCNA: "We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us. Whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision…of the U.S."
posted by chris24 at 6:04 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's a taped interview so they can edit the unhinged ranting into something barely resembling coherence. Even Fox doesn't trust Trump not to lose it live on air again.
posted by Justinian at 6:08 PM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

"It's a taped interview so they can edit the unhinged ranting into something barely resembling coherence.

Sneak Preview
posted by mrgoat at 6:16 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

InTheYear2017 linked to two tweets by Alexandra Erin above. I think they're worth posting, at least partially. They're definitely worth reading.

LRT: Trump is blaming the Democrats for pushing the investigation and whipping up public sentiment against him regardless of what they do. Sitting on the sidelines to try to prove him wrong won't work... they'll still pay the political price for attacking him but reap no benefit.
The media keeps making the same mistake, too: being extra accommodating to try to fend off or disprove Trump's accusations of bias. He happily accepts the concessions and attacks them anyway.

Because the concessions prove that it works.
Trump's goal is not to come to an understanding or an equitable division of anything. His goal is to take all the marbles, have everyone agree that he is the greatest, and destroy anyone who might be a threat.
You can't get on his good side except by showing you are willing to give up everything, to be sacrificed for his gain.
So once you commit yourself to the goal of working with him, finding common ground with him, you will inevitably give up more and more at no benefit to yourself until you wise up or get used up.
The Democrats, I think, want to believe they are better than the man who ran on "lock her up".
They are missing how hard it would be to sink to his level. Just honestly pointing out his corruption would not do it.

The Democrats want to run on the issues.

I say: great!

They need to realize Trump is an issue. His criminal associations are issues. His corruption is an issue. His systematic dismantling of government protections is an issue.

Once they take the idea of running against Trump off the table, what can they run on? Running on health care is impossible if you can't explain how Trump threatens it. Running on real tax reform is impossible if you won't explain the GOP tax scam.
They can't even promise the American people straight talk and a square deal and have it mean anything if they aren't willing to call Trump a liar and point out specific lies.
Hopefully as campaign messaging comes together they will start to realize these things.

In the meantime, if you have any contact with a candidate or their campaign, give them a little nudge.

Ask them what they will do about Trump.
Tell them your number one issue and area of concern as a voter is Trump and the direction he is taking the country.
The left-wing tendency to say "Let them call names, we'll fight them on the issues" has handed the right an enormous weapon for destroying their credibility on the issues.
Meanwhile the right is so audaciously bad on the issues that pointing it out sounds like name calling.
You cannot stay out of the gutter and hope to win a fight when the fight is in the gutter.
Especially not when you are being dragged into it anyway.
The saying "Never mud-wrestle a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it." is cute and folksy but does not apply when the pig knocks you down into the mud and attempts to gore you to death.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, babies, it feels like it's been a while since I've really buckled down and done this, but I want to talk a bit about the State of the Union, so to so to speak, and what is a bit scary to me right now but what fills me with hope.
As many of you know, I met with journalist and fellow weird Twitter pundit @KillerMartinis yesterday and we had a pretty wide-ranging conversation that did touch on politics and where we might be heading.
Right now trying to look ahead to the November elections kind of feels like staring in shock across a blood-drenched battlefield. There's a lot of horror likely to continue unfolding between now and then.
I'm not going to mince words: the fascism is getting more open. Each time it does and we try to sound the alarm and are told "It's too early, you're exaggerating", it helps set a new baseline by which the *next* level will also be treated as no big deal.
But we've got the syllogism of "undocumented immigrants are gang members and gang members are animals" going out in official White House statements and publications, and the less explicit one between "immigrants" and "undocumented", also "Spanish speakers" and "brown people"....
...and the only reason to classify a group of people as animals is to excuse treating them as less than human, and that's where we're at on immigration. Dehumanization and "warehousing" in camps.
I've talked before about how Trump's methodology -- and more generally the fascistic methodology -- is to always double down, always accelerate. The only victory they care about is total victory, so they will push until they fall apart or they win everything.
This is why Trump never walks back these kinds of statements and won't let his PR people walk them back for long, and why it feels like the rate of change itself is changing. We're not just accelerating, we're accelerating by more and more each time.
This is what scares me. I said this the other day, when the White House put out the release with the repeated references to "violent animals", that it downright terrifies me. Because of how open it is. How little hesitation the political apparatus is showing in embracing it.
This, on the other hand, is what fills me with hope: A Fitting End to Paul Ryan's Fraudulent Political Career

It is not possible for Trump to miscalculate in his power grabs because he's not calculating. He *must* keep grabbing more and more, faster and faster all the time, because the whole thing falls apart if he stops.

But it also might fall apart if he keeps going.
The prospect of a GOP defeat in November... look, to be very bluntly honest, not only is it not a sure thing we're going to win, but we don't even automatically win even if we do win.
The rise of fascist autocracy could mean that six months from now, the White House feels perfectly secure declaring any unfavorable election result invalid and enough of the country goes along with it to make it either real, or a real problem (as in: civil war).
But right now, the story is that the GOP is in trouble and expecting a defeat or at least a terribly close contest for control of Congress in November. And as long as that story is still being told, it will be hard for them to convincingly claim they were robbed come November.
I don't want us to be complacent. Our biggest weapon going into November is going to be ENTHUSIASM.

Confidence that we WILL win can be a great way to deflate turnout, sadly.

Confidence that we CAN win might just make it happen.... [remainder at Thread Reader]
posted by triggerfinger at 6:25 PM on May 23, 2018 [30 favorites]

The North Korea statement also takes aim at Pence directly, calling him a "political dummy":

At an interview with Fox News on May 21, the U.S. Vice-President Pence has made unbridled and impudent remarks that north Korea might end like Libya, military option for north Korea never came off the table, the U.S. needs complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, and so on. As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice-president. If he is vice-president of 'single superpower' as is in name, it will be proper for him to know even a little bit about the current state of global affairs and to sense to a certain degree the trends in dialogue and the climate of detente. We could surmise more than enough what a political dummy he is as he is trying to compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya that had simply installed a few items of equipment and fiddled around with them.

Soon after the White House National Security Adviser Bolton made the reckless remarks, Vice-President Pence has again spat out nonsense that the DPRK would follow in Libya's footstep. In view of the remarks of the U.S. high-ranking politicians who have not yet woken up to this stark reality and compare the DPRK to Libya that met a tragic fate, I come to think that they know too little about us. To borrow their words, we can also make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now.

Are we going for the Nobel Political Dummy Prize now?

Meanwhile, from our side: Trump administration wants more high-level talks with North Korea before summit

The Trump administration wants additional high-level talks with North Korea and assurances from Kim Jong Un that he is committed to giving up his nuclear program before next month's planned historic summit in order for the meeting to go ahead, a senior administration official involved in planning for the talks told CNN.

"We need to have more conversations about what we would be talking about before we know if this is going to be useful," the official said.

North Korea's statement is obviously inflammatory and threatening, but it also points to a simple reality, which is that the US doesn't have a negotiating position, and everyone in the White House is saying different things all the time. There's no plan here, just people spouting nonsense that range from absurdly high expectations of a deal to threats to violently brutalize KJU's internal organs.

Anyway, do those sound like the words of a country that's about to give up nuclear weapons?
posted by zachlipton at 6:30 PM on May 23, 2018 [15 favorites]

Adam Schiff stated on Maddow just now that the Justice/FBI meeting with Congress tomorrow will be with the Gang of Eight. Which is not at all what Trump, Nunes, Meadows et al. had in mind.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:39 PM on May 23, 2018 [19 favorites]

(or so he was told by "the head of an intelligence agency who is also a cabinet member").
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:41 PM on May 23, 2018

That's Torturer Gina Haspel, yes?
posted by Justinian at 6:45 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Schumer and Warner are in this.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:47 PM on May 23, 2018

I'm betting it was Dan Coats. He's about the most rational person in that clown car.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:56 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Speaking of the "it's not the media's job to repeat facts", Most Don’t Know Mueller Has Uncovered Crimes (via Politicalwire)

A new Navigator Research survey finds that 59% of Americans believe that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has not yet uncovered evidence of crimes, even though Mueller has already obtained five guilty pleas and 17 criminal indictments.

Matthew Yglesias: “That suggests that the press as a whole has not done a good job of actually conveying factual information to our audience, that Democrats’ messaging on the investigation has not been clear enough on the most damning point (Trump, even if otherwise innocent, is guilty of hiring crooks and trying to prevent an investigation into their activity), and that Trump’s counterstrategy of muddying the waters around the investigation has been fairly successful.”

We need to get out of this sixties mentality of The News asap. They, more than Trump, are responsible for this continuing. They're responsible for this *existing* too, but we're so far beyond that now. Fire corporate news. Find another way.
posted by petebest at 7:05 PM on May 23, 2018 [39 favorites]

Mueller's office has an interesting filing opposing greater public access to the Manafort search warrants and other documents. It kind of reads as a rebuttal to Giuliani and recent polls of sorts, taking pains to point out that "the Special Counsel's investigation is not a closed matter, but an ongoing criminal investigaiton with multiple lines of non-public inquiry." It includes a reminder as to how many criminal charges they've filed so far (22 individuals and entities) and an appendix listing them all, just for good measure.
posted by zachlipton at 7:08 PM on May 23, 2018 [26 favorites]

Adm. Rogers, maybe? He retires next week.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:09 PM on May 23, 2018

Alex Jones Sued by 6 More Sandy Hook Families
posted by Artw at 7:25 PM on May 23, 2018 [47 favorites]

@mattzap: From what I understand, there will be 2 briefings on the FBI source tomorrow — the 1st with Nunes/Gowdy, the 2nd with the Gang of 8/Gowdy. John Kelly is going to both — contrary to what Sarah Sanders said. But this has evolved so much today who knows what tomorrow brings.

Yeah this is just all kinds of shenanigans here. Why does Nunes have to have his own meeting first?
posted by zachlipton at 7:26 PM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

There is literally no reason to hold two meetings unless the first meeting with Nunes/Gowdy is completely political in nature and concerns how to weaponize intelligence against Mueller and the Democrats. This is unacceptable and Schiff et al should demand to be let in.
posted by Justinian at 7:30 PM on May 23, 2018 [27 favorites]

So he can have a head start to run over to the White House and blab to Donald?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:30 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

Nunes and Gowdy are going to make some demand or threat of Rosenstein that they don't want Democrats to see them make, but fuck me if I can figure out what it is.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:32 PM on May 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

Oh but wait there's more. @burgessev: Speaker Paul Ryan will not attend Gang of Eight meeting, per @AshLeeStrong: "The speaker has a longstanding schedule commitment and will not be attending. Chairmen Gowdy and Nunes will continue to lead in this space for House Republicans."

Ryan could stop this anytime he wanted to. Instead, he's sticking his fingers in his ears and refusing to hear it.
posted by zachlipton at 7:34 PM on May 23, 2018 [36 favorites]

Media Matters's Matt Gretz reviewed all 487 of Sean Hannity’s segments about the first year of Robert Mueller's investigation and has reached a conclusion about his intentions—Study: Sean Hannity Spent The Last Year Laying the Groundwork For an Authoritarian Response to the Russia Probe

To watch Hannity’s broadcast over the last year is to plunge into a strikingly paranoid vision of America today.

“A soft coup is underway right here in the United States of America,” Hannity said last June, “in an attempt to overturn November's election results and forcibly remove a duly elected president from office, sinister forces quickly aligning in what is becoming now, in my mind, a clear and present danger.”[...]

Hannity presents his show as the only venue willing to tell the truth about the story, casting reporting about Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election not as the result of serious journalism, but as part of a plot against the president.[...]

This study reveals the four prongs of the overarching strategy Hannity has followed over the past year: delegitimizing the press, defending Trump from collusion claims, and creating a counternarrative that targets the investigators. All of those build to the authoritarian endgame Hannity's conspiracy theory is courting -- which is supported by the series of guests who help sell his tale to the Fox audience.

I. Delegitimizing the press: “The media has been corrupt and lying to you, the America people.”[...]
II. The defense: “Tinfoil hat conspiracy theories about so-called Trump Russia collusion” (which isn’t a crime)[...]
III. The counter-attack: Trump as victim of “the biggest abuse of power corruption case in American history”[...]
IV. The authoritarian endgame: “Mueller's probe is tainted. Hillary is a criminal.”[...]

Trump is listening. [...] Egged on by Hannity, he reportedly threatened to fire Mueller and Rosenstein in order to curtail the probe into his activities and those of his allies, and he regularly suggests his perceived enemies have broken the law and publicly pressures the Justice Department to respond.

If Trump ever takes such dire steps as firing Mueller and Rosenstein -- or forcing investigations of his enemies -- he has every reason to believe that Hannity’s propaganda effort will keep the Republican base on his side, forestalling any real accountability.

(Incidentally, Gertz was able to get a couple of sentences about this dire situation into the Washington Post article Democratic Leaders Face Pressure To Counter Trump’s Attacks On Mueller’s Russia Investigation.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:06 PM on May 23, 2018 [27 favorites]

While we're at it, why is Kelly present at these meetings? His boss is the person under investigation. That the White House has any role here at all is massively inappropriate.
posted by zachlipton at 8:11 PM on May 23, 2018 [49 favorites]

Why does Nunes have to have his own meeting first?

Either the content in the two meetings will be different or Nunes doesn’t want anyone able to contradict his lies about what he is told. Which is silly, because it isn’t like anyone is actually calling out his lies when he makes them.
posted by winna at 8:23 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think the most plausible explanation is that the meeting with Kelly, Nunes, and Gowdy serves two purposes. One, it lets them coordinate strategy. And two... remember that meeting is first. They get to put out their own spin and framing without rebuttal exactly like they did with the Comey memo bullshit they pulled. A lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its pants.
posted by Justinian at 8:27 PM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

It's a confused piece, but not necessarily on the part of the German officials. These are giant multi-nationals, and their foreign models are often very different to the American models. The German officials may well be saying 'no-one wants the cars that America makes for its own market' and it's being interpreted by the article as 'no-one wants American cars'.
posted by Merus at 8:44 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ford is essentially stopping manufacture of cars in the US. And it's the cars made in the US that are of concern here.
posted by Mitheral at 8:44 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Trump is listening. [...] Egged on by Hannity, he reportedly threatened to fire Mueller and Rosenstein

At This late date, we can safely assume Hannity and Trump are sharing the same 12 neurons. Trump talks to Hannity more than his wife.
posted by benzenedream at 8:47 PM on May 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

In more 'disappointing union news from the front', we have: Planned Parenthood Is Asking Donald Trump’s Labor Board For Help Busting Its Colorado Union.

It's hardly the first progressive organization to engage in union-busting - the NLRB's case files reveal a lot of sad stories, and I know we're seeing a lot of it all over the country - but it still definitely hurts in the current climate. While no one expects for-profit corporations to care about the workers who run their operations, it's reasonable to expect nonprofits to do so.
posted by corb at 9:17 PM on May 23, 2018 [28 favorites]

Sitting on the sidelines to try to prove him wrong won't work... they'll still pay the political price for attacking him but reap no benefit.

I play a lot of video games and doing so has, I think, given me some insights that apply to the larger world. I used to play a lot of Mechwarrior Online. Big, stompy robots that shoot each other. It's a slower and more tactical game than your standard issue military shooter like Call of Duty.

In one game mode one team is tasked with defending a base against attack and the other team must try to capture the base. If you're the attacking team, you MUST attack, you have to be aggressive as it's the obviously the only available strategy. The defenders, on the other hand, can sit back in the base and wait for the attackers to come to them. They can fall back into the base or they can counter-attack. Much as Trump and the GOP are basically stuck being on the attack while the Dems have the option of playing defense or trying to attack the GOP right back.

When you get right down to it, defending has two possible outcomes. You hold the line or your fall back. You might get lucky and fall back slowly while making your attackers bleed more than you. Make it a war of attrition, as it were. That is almost never the case so it's either hold ground or lose ground. You never, ever, gain ground while playing defensively. The attackers generate some momentum and it's hard to turn that back around.

The teams that do the best in that game mode live by the old saying, "The best defense is a good offense." It keeps the attacking from building or maintaining their momentum. Most importantly, it adds the third option of gaining ground.

So, to me, all else being equal the odds break down like this.

Defend:
Chance of gaining ground: 0%
Chance of holding ground: 50%
Chance of losing ground: 50%

Attack the attackers:
Chance of gaining ground: 33%
Chance of holding ground: 33%
Chance of losing ground: 33%

"Ah, but what if you defend until the moment is ripe to counter-attack?" asks the straw-man in the corner.

Well, the teams that are coordinated enough to actually pull that off simply don't bother. Defending is just losing as slowly as you can. You want to win? Attack hard and fast. Teams that start out defending and then counter-attack are teams that start out losing and manage to turn it around. It's orders of magnitude more successful to start out aggressive and stay that way.

That doesn't necessarily mean attacking the same way the other team is but it DOES mean figuring out an effective means of attack and then attacking them HARD and I really think that's what everyone on "our team" should be doing.
posted by VTX at 9:34 PM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

Planned Parenthood, aside from turning to the Trump administration, appears to be playing hardball locally, too. A week after Emily Sirota, a candidate for Colorado House District 9, publicly reiterated her support of the organization’s unionization efforts, Planned Parenthood leadership endorsed her primary opponent Ashley Wheeland, despite Sirota’s longstanding support of reproductive rights.

What the fuck. That does it, I am voting in the Democratic primary this summer and I am voting for Sirota. I hadn't seen a whole lot of difference between the two candidates in that I thought they were both acceptable, though their transportation platforms are both nonexistent. And hey, PPRM: consider my usual charitable priorities altered while y'all keep this shit up.
posted by asperity at 9:36 PM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

@awprokop (Vox): Mueller has put off Papadopoulos's sentencing for months while his cooperation has continued. Today he tells court he's ready to move ahead with it.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti @renato_mariotti has posted Twitter thread with a very good analysis of all Mueller's possible motives and options behind this (Thread Reader version). His final point, on whether Papadopoulos will be sentenced at the same time as a guilty plea from a completely new target he helped flip or will be thrown to the mercy of the court for not panning out: "Papadopoulos could still be required to cooperate, although it would be harder to motivate him after his sentencing. Realistically, however, prosecutors are cautious about proceeding with scheduling sentencing for cooperators. They don't do it until the cooperation ends."

Given how indiscreet he's been, Mueller may have decided that Papadopoulos would be a liability on the witness stand.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:50 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

Planned Parenthood isn't union-busting, and The Intercept should be ashamed for implying that it is; PPRM looks like it is, and they should be yet more ashamed still.

The wording is needlessly confusing, but it's my PP affiliate and my state house district and the flames on the sides of my face didn't stop me from noting the difference between the national org and local affiliate. So much rage for what PPRM's doing here.
posted by asperity at 10:03 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

DC Examiner Senior Editor Dave Brown @dave_brown24 zooms in on an AP photo*: Item #9 on Mike Pompeo's to-do list for the 23rd: "Call Lavrov"

Wall Street Journal Seoul Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng @JChengWSJ notices: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be heading to Pyongyang, says Chosun Ilbo, citing Russian news agencies. (On May 31st, per Chosun article)

* Why do Trump and his aides have such trouble covering up their goddam notes?
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:04 PM on May 23, 2018 [17 favorites]

Remember how Trump got the unqualified Jim Bridenstine through as the head of NASA? While that remains a thing that totally sucks, it took an unexpected turn:

WaPo: NASA head Jim Bridenstine, once doubtful, confirms he believes humans are the leading cause of climate change

During testimony before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) asked Bridenstine whether he believes greenhouse gases are the primary cause of climate change. Bridenstine quickly replied in the affirmative.

“The National Climate Assessment, that includes NASA, and it includes the Department of Energy, and it includes NOAA, has clearly stated it is extremely likely, [that] is the language they use, that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming, and I have no reason to doubt the science that comes from that,” Bridenstine said.

Schatz followed up by asking, “Is it fair to call this an evolution of your views?”

Bridenstine replied: “Yes.”

On further questioning from Schatz, Bridenstine also committed to defending the independence and integrity of climate science at NASA.

Whoops.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:13 PM on May 23, 2018 [83 favorites]

In Q1 2018, Ford was the #5 best selling car manufacturer in Germany, behind VW, Mercedes, Audi, an BMW, but ahead of every other brand in the world. Opel, which is part of General Motors, was #6.

Ford of Europe builds cars that Europeans will drive (in countries where roads are narrow and gasoline is more than six bucks a gallon), not F-150's and Explorers; none of them are built in the US. (And Opel and Vauxhall got sold off a few years ago and are no longer part of GM.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:14 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I got burned a couple of threads back after I enthusiastically scooped everyone with something from The Intercept that later turned out to be highly misleading / actually false. I’ve been keeping an eye on them since, and I have to say that I now treat them as being as reliable as The Daily Mail, which is to say, not at all.

Their bad faith and willingness to lie (or exaggerate to the point of falsehood or whatever), means that they are completely useless as a source, because even if you read very carefully and analytically, separating statements from innuendo, there’s no way to know whether the statements that they’re making are even true to the best of their knowledge.

I’d happily never see a link to them again.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 11:04 PM on May 23, 2018 [41 favorites]

Huh. Watching CNN at the moment and they are not both siding the Nunes shit in the slightest. It’s like they’re growing a spine just when it doesn’t matter any more.
posted by Artw at 11:13 PM on May 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

Given how their bungling incompetence completely fucked over Reality Winner, I've mentally relegated the Intercept to "unserious fringe noise"
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 11:19 PM on May 23, 2018 [26 favorites]

i would advise taking controversial news that causes internal discord from plausibly compromised sources (such as glenn greenwald’s the intercept) critically, with a level head, and prioritize them appropriately..
posted by polyhedron at 1:20 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

There have been many instances where the president has not told the truth, I said.

“But you’re asking about me,” Sanders said, not challenging the premise.

That last bit there is how one should do journalism. Bravo.
posted by Gelatin at 2:56 AM on May 24, 2018 [62 favorites]

For the first time in history, D House candidates are approaching gender parity. 43% of candidates thus far are women, by far the highest ever for a major party with the previous high being 29%. And it's 51% of candidates where there's no incumbent.

Meanwhile, Rs are at a 30 year low of 7% women candidates.
posted by chris24 at 4:02 AM on May 24, 2018 [39 favorites]

It's shocking to me that like 45% of women still vote for the Republicans. I mean, it's also shocking that 55% of men vote for them but I grok voting to maintain your own privilege more than I grok voting to maintain someone else's privilege. Or maybe unconsciously white women have decided that maintaining white privilege trumps (hah!) gender inequality? Or even consciously I guess.
posted by Justinian at 4:19 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

@axios: Trump on @foxandfriends to NFL players who don't stand for the anthem: "You shouldn't be playing ... Maybe you shouldn't be in the country."
posted by zombieflanders at 4:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [24 favorites]

Plenty of women are fine with male supremacy. Most (all?) Evangelical women, for example. They used to call that “false consciousness.” I personally call it self-defeating, but I’m about as far from Evangelical as you can get.

Also, Elizabeth Drew, who knows from impeachment, has written that the number of Trump’s impeachable offenses keeps growing:

In fact, Trump’s interference with the federal investigation of himself makes Nixon look like a pussy-cat, but then, unlike Trump, Nixon didn’t have a Congress controlled by his own party to protect him. Trump is clearly colluding with some right-wing House Republicans to mess with the Justice Department...

posted by GrammarMoses at 4:33 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

Is the number of women candidates as a whole increasing, or is the fall in Republican women candidates swallowing up the gain in Democratic ones?
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:35 AM on May 24, 2018

Is the number of women candidates as a whole increasing, or is the fall in Republican women candidates swallowing up the gain in Democratic ones?

From 2016, D women candidates rose from 29% to 43%. R women fell from 12% to 7%. So still a big net increase.

The graph in the link is really telling. A perfect hockey stick.
posted by chris24 at 4:38 AM on May 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

Ford is essentially stopping manufacture of cars in the US.

Er, I was all like "cite?" but I'd forgotten they said that , it was an FPP as well iirc.

The catch is "cars" - Ford will still make gas-guzzling SUVs and the Mustang. Which . . is a car but also a horse? They're not building horses tho.

But srsly what does it take to put a Tesla-class electric watermelon engine in a Mustang? Have bass speakers pump out burbling idle noises at the stoplight, whatever, just gimmie the EV, Ford!

(Narrator: He doesn't get the EV)
posted by petebest at 4:44 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

It's a taped interview so they can edit the unhinged ranting into something barely resembling coherence. Even Fox doesn't trust Trump not to lose it live on air again.

CBS's Mark Knoller @markknoller tallies it up:

By my count, it's Pres Trump's 23rd interview with Fox News since taking office. Far more than any of the other networks:
ABC -1
CBS – 1
CNN – 0
NBC – 3 (4 if you count CNBC).

But Fox got their red meat from Trump—"Maybe you shouldn't be in the country."—and Trump's going to get his distraction in the media from today's Rosenstein briefing on Capitol Hill.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:24 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Zuckerberg set up fraudulent scheme to 'weaponise' data, court case alleges - bit of a weird one as the company suing is itself some kind of weird privacy violating scraper.
posted by Artw at 6:00 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Now Paul Ryan is attending the Nunes-Gowdy briefing, so he can go ask for another several million dollar check.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:33 AM on May 24, 2018

That Guardian article and headline are misleading, at best.

What happened is that Six4Three is/was an app developer that was entirely reliant on Facebook's "app economy" and had its image-recognition-based business model undermined when FB revised their user data restrictions, and so Six4Three sued FB for unfair competition under California's UCL.

As a part of its campaign it set up a "gripe site" to recruit similarly-burned developers to sign on to its platform of demands for 'developer rights' in the "Facebook app economy." Facebook then went after the "gripe site" on a copyright basis (for use of "Facebook" in the domain name), prompting the Federal action for a declaratory judgment by Six4Three (which was filed in late 2016).
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:45 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

“The evidence uncovered by plaintiff demonstrates that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was not the result of mere negligence on Facebook’s part but was rather the direct consequence of the malicious and fraudulent scheme Zuckerberg designed in 2012 to cover up his failure to anticipate the world’s transition to smartphones,” legal documents said. . . .

In its latest filing, Six4Three alleges Facebook deliberately used its huge amounts of valuable and highly personal user data to tempt developers to create platforms within its system, implying that they would have long-term access to personal information, including data from subscribers’ Facebook friends.

Once their businesses were running, and reliant on data relating to “likes”, birthdays, friend lists and other Facebook minutiae, the social media company could and did target any that became too successful, looking to extract money from them, co-opt them or destroy them, the documents claim.

Six4Three alleges up to 40,000 companies were effectively defrauded in this way by Facebook. It also alleges that senior executives including Zuckerberg personally devised and managed the scheme, individually deciding which companies would be cut off from data or allowed preferential access.

If I'm reading it right, Facebook doesn't deny this was their practice. They say they can do it because . . . that's right, Free Speech. Because . . . Okay, I don't know why that's supposed to work.
posted by petebest at 6:46 AM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Daniel Dale: Breaking: Trump issues letter to Kim Jong Un cancelling their summit.

"You can't fire me! I quit!"
posted by PenDevil at 6:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [34 favorites]

Il Douche is tweeting off the rails again. This time SPYs!, money! etc.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:51 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's shocking to me that like 45% of women still vote for the Republicans. I mean, it's also shocking that 55% of men vote for them but I grok voting to maintain your own privilege more than I grok voting to maintain someone else's privilege. Or maybe unconsciously white women have decided that maintaining white privilege trumps (hah!) gender inequality? Or even consciously I guess.

Misogyny, and male supremacy, starts as soon as you’re born. It’s there for every developmental stage. It invades your most intimate relationships. Every single thing you’re taught about and by the world is steeped in it from the moment you are born. In general, developmental trauma has a profound effect on your experience of the world, and, more perniciously, on your very sense of self. (I have theories on this, obviously. But the Stepford Wife trope becomes way creepier the more you read about developmental trauma.)

Some day maybe we’ll get serious research on the developmental effects of misogyny, racism, and other minority status — and I do not expect them to be the same — but that day is not today.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:51 AM on May 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

@MolotovFlicker:

Someone just interrupted South Korean Presidential Security Council member Kim Heung-Kyu while he was talking to inform him that the president pulled out of the summit.

"Well that changes what I was going to say."

posted by zombieflanders at 6:51 AM on May 24, 2018 [72 favorites]

What Happened in Vegas -- The days, weeks, and months after the worst mass shooting in modern American history (Amanda Fortini for the California Sunday Magazine)

It's a good, long piece that looks at how Vegas has, and hasn't, changed in the wake of Stephen Paddock killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 more (a figure that has been revised up to 851, encompass not only victims of gunshot wounds but those injured from shrapnel, trampling, and attempts to scale barbed-wire and chain-link fences while fleeing). Unfortunately, the article claims "He didn’t appear to be acting for any ideological cause. His motive remains hazy, mysterious," even reposting some of the conspiracy theories mentioned by locals, when new evidence shows he was probably a far-right extremist. Still, a good in-depth look at what happened before, during and after the shooting.

tl; dr: even though this was a tragedy that has left a mark on many people, the worst worst mass shooting in modern American history became just another forgettable tragedy in a matter of days, in part because of the Harvey Weinstein stories, the aftermath of the devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, and the terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:57 AM on May 24, 2018 [20 favorites]

They say they can do it because . . . that's right, Free Speech. Because . . . Okay, I don't know why that's supposed to work.

Anti-SLAPP motions are about a particular meaning of "free speech," and can have a surprisingly wide application.

Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16(e) divides “protected activity” into four categories. The first two categories include speech or petitioning activity that either occur in or are made “in connection with” legislative, executive, or judicial proceedings. The third category addresses statements made in certain other public forums relating to “an issue of public interest.” Finally, the fourth category serves as a sort of catchall encompassing various other forms of speech or petitioning activity “in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest.”

This would probably be that last prong. And that may not be wrong, these data privacy questions are indeed a matter of public interest and that complaint is super shady imo. Lots of sensational language about how awful Facebook and Zuck are, but little substance in terms of anything actionable. And the gravamen of the underlying California UCL complaint is that Facebook was wrong to revise its privacy rules because it harmed app developers reliant on all of that personal data, and used its platform to exert leverage and pick winners and losers among those developers. No one is an angel here.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:59 AM on May 24, 2018

So do the taxpayers get refunded for the Kim Jing-Un challenge coins?
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:07 AM on May 24, 2018 [48 favorites]

Breaking: Trump issues letter to Kim Jong Un cancelling their summit.

Dear Mr. Chairman:

We greatly appreciate your time, patience, and effort with respect to our recent negotiations and discussions relative to a summit long sought by both parties, which was scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore. We were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant. I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. Therefore, please let this letter server to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place. You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but our are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.

I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you. In the meantime, I want to thank you for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families. That was a beautiful gesture and was very much appreciated.

If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write. The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth. This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.

Sincerely yours,

1) Kim Jong Un demoted from Supreme Leader
2) Royal We
3) Commas on sale at Costco?
4) Non sequiturs à gogo
5) "Mine's bigger"
6) Is "hostages" the diplomatically-correct term?
7) I cancelled the summit but call me if you change your mind. Passive/aggressive much?
8) "great prosperity and wealth." Always be closing.

Also: Nobel Punk Out Prize
posted by kirkaracha at 7:10 AM on May 24, 2018 [60 favorites]

Holy shit, is that the actual text of our cancellation?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 7:17 AM on May 24, 2018 [59 favorites]

It's real.

Edit: AP article.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:18 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Oh my god. It's happened again. My rage reserves have run dry.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:23 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

The actual letter says "serve" not "server." Small favors.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:23 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

There are several typos in the text here that are not in the original text. The actual letter is still an embarrassment but does not say "server to represent" or "but our are so massive."

This isn't to pick on kirkaracha, who I assume was quickly transcribing what I've only seen as an image.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:24 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Conservative subreddits that were all HAIL GREAT TRUMP THE KOREAN PEACE BRINGER NOBEL PRIZE TIME LIBS OWNED last week are already cheering the cancellation as brilliant because Kim called Pence stupid and Kim was going to cancel anyway and nobody thought Kim was serious about the talks. One more battle won in the total war against Eurasia Eastasia North Korea.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:24 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world

anyone care to venture a guess as to wtf that is supposed to mean? its bad for the world for the summit not to happen but good for both the US and NK? Srsly?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

This isn't to pick on kirkaracha, who I assume was quickly transcribing what I've only seen as an image.

My bad, couple of transcription errors. Sorry about any confusion.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah the typos aren’t in the original, but the narcissism and dimwittedness are true to the source.

Good grief what a terrible time this is.
posted by notyou at 7:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [22 favorites]

Was this letter just written so his base could think they could have written this letter? I believed it was fake at first because surely this could never go out as diplomatic correspondence. I...it’s such a small thing compared to his everyday evil but I am legitimately stunned.
posted by corb at 7:29 AM on May 24, 2018 [33 favorites]

DC Examiner's Kelly Cohen @politiCOHEN_: .@willripleyCNN on phone from north korea now. says he was the first person to read to the north korean officials he was with trump's letter. they had all just been together seeing a nuclear site dismantled. he said they were in shocked, got up, left and are all on the phone.

Also, the Washington Post's @joshrogin drily observes, Bolton - 1, Pompeo - 0 #NorthKorea
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [30 favorites]

It's shocking to me that like 45% of women still vote for the Republicans. I mean, it's also shocking that 55% of men vote for them but I grok voting to maintain your own privilege more than I grok voting to maintain someone else's privilege. Or maybe unconsciously white women have decided that maintaining white privilege trumps (hah!) gender inequality? Or even consciously I guess.

I'm thinking of a comment in a MeFi thread about white people (specifically women in this case) calling the cops on black people who were doing very innocuous things (basically Existing While Black). Some white women, especially those from a more conservative and/or religious background, have an almost childlike approach to the world where they look to white men (cops, husbands, in this case political leaders) to protect and guide them. It's a leftover from Victorian times when well-off white women, and white women who aspired to middle-class prosperity, were the Angel in the House, protected by a big strong husband who dealt with the outside world.

This, I think, is behind a lot of the "white women voted for Trump" phenomenon. They are or aspire to be protected by strong men, and Trump fits into that. (I think this is behind why a lot of older, white women defended Al Franken on the Democratic side. Franken was the big, strong man who was going to make them feel all cozy and protected and defended against the baddies.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 7:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Thoughts on Planned Parenthood: (1) If we're separating "Planned Parenthood" from the regional affiliates that do most of the work, then PPFA shouldn't get credit for the good things their affiliates are doing either. For example, it doesn't look like the national org has any clinics, so I guess we should stop referring to those clinics' services as something that "Planned Parenthood" provides.

(2) The national org's professed neutrality on unionization is no different from "neutrality" on any other issue of consequence: it is simply a tacit endorsement of entrenched power. Neutrality on unionization is anti-union, just as neutrality on abortion is pro-forced-birth.

Planned Parenthood is a crucially important force for good in this country, but this still isn't OK.
posted by shenderson at 7:33 AM on May 24, 2018 [20 favorites]

We had weeks of "Noble Trump through his in-your-face tweets has brought peace to the Korean peninsula. He heap big statesman." It's so bloody obvious that Trump had nothing to help the peace process and yet the press was so fawning.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:35 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

This, I think, is behind a lot of the "white women voted for Trump" phenomenon. They are or aspire to be protected by strong men, and Trump fits into that. (I think this is behind why a lot of older, white women defended Al Franken on the Democratic side. Franken was the big, strong man who was going to make them feel all cozy and protected and defended against the baddies.)

This is a weirdly demeaning way to talk about what you seem to be describing as Stockholm syndrome

I do recall a few articles after the election that indicated that women who voted for trump were more motivated by fear of losing male protection, though from what was always left implicit. So whether it was from men, black people, both, or a more general amorphous sense that everything would descend into a rapey Hobbesian nightmare unless white men are in charge is unclear. But all of those things are bound up with male supremacy.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:38 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

White won't vote for Trump because of white supremacy, not Stockholm syndrome.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:42 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

RIP this coin, May 21st 2018 - May 24th 2018
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:42 AM on May 24, 2018 [36 favorites]

Christ. Trump's letter to Kim reads like some staffer put together a standard boiler-plate note and then Trump mad-libbed in a bunch of his favorite words and general wannabe mafia talk.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 7:44 AM on May 24, 2018 [24 favorites]

White women vote for Trump because of white supremacy, not Stockholm syndrome.

Exactly. They calculate that white supremacy benefits them more than gender equality would. That's why racial bias was the main predictor as to whether or not someone would vote Trump. That applies to women too.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:45 AM on May 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

So now in addition to the Scaramucci measurement, we have the summit coin too?
posted by Melismata at 7:45 AM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]

Therefore, please let this letter server to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.

Truer words were never blathered.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:47 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

Can we start referring to that as the shitcoin? Please?
posted by jferg at 7:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [28 favorites]

I'm thinking of a comment in a MeFi thread about white people (specifically women in this case) calling the cops on black people who were doing very innocuous things (basically Existing While Black). Some white women, especially those from a more conservative and/or religious background, have an almost childlike approach to the world where they look to white men (cops, husbands, in this case political leaders) to protect and guide them. It's a leftover from Victorian times when well-off white women, and white women who aspired to middle-class prosperity, were the Angel in the House, protected by a big strong husband who dealt with the outside world.
I know quite a few women who infantilize themselves by default. It's creepy and sometimes it depresses me and makes me think nothing will ever change. But then I remember all of my friends who don't. Also, if those infantilizing women are relatively close to me, I'll call them on it. I don't know that it works, but at least they are noticed.
posted by mumimor at 7:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

RIP this coin, May 21st 2018 - May 24th 2018

Now it's certain to become a collector's item of great worth, and appear in the reboot of Brewster's Millions when Donald Glover puts it into a pop machine.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:49 AM on May 24, 2018 [21 favorites]

Can we start referring to that as the shitcoin? Please?

I was thinking Mootcoin; it has a nice polysemy.
posted by cortex at 7:50 AM on May 24, 2018 [29 favorites]

So Un was invited, but now he's uninvited. Unless they all change their minds again then Un can be ununinvited.

Also, based on the well-known axiom "Time is money", can we now conclude that 1 Mooch = 0.3 Shitcoin?
posted by Freon at 7:53 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

A lot of people are comparing this to a breakup letter (and I implicitly did that above), but maybe the closer parallel is a rejection letter (for a job, school, magazine submission, etc) -- it has the whole "We regretfully decline your application, but you're welcome to try again" vibe.

A phrase that stuck out to me and hasn't been discussed much here or on Twiter: We were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant. What does this even mean? Just generic "I don't care! Who cares!" ranting? So effing weird.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:53 AM on May 24, 2018 [21 favorites]

It's like a rejection letter to a job applicant at a bullying firm.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:56 AM on May 24, 2018 [29 favorites]

"We were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant." What does this even mean?

Negging.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:57 AM on May 24, 2018 [35 favorites]

This is the regular reminder that the leader of North Korea's family name is Kim. His given name is Jong-un. Referring to him as "Un" is like referring to Trump as "Nald."
posted by neroli at 7:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [56 favorites]

White women vote for Trump because of white supremacy, not Stockholm syndrome.

False dichotomy -- it's both.

Many white women voted for Trump because Bring Back 1950. That was a world in which (white) women's roles were well defined, and the rules to succeed within that world were also well defined. Those rules were incredibly confining (to understate), of course, but How To Succeed In Life As A Woman was clear. You keep up your looks and your figure, you clip some coupons and keep a neat home and have the kids freshly washed and dinner on the table when your Man comes home, and .... you're set for life, your Man takes care of you, done. No need for any of this career, voting, having your own bank account and/or business confusion and ways to fail like modern life.

And there's some truth to it, really. We talk about the tightrope that women have to walk, strong but not too strong, the demands of Having It All, all the time. It's fucking hard.

There are Rules to follow in the 1950 social order, but if you followed them, you're safe. That's why the Rules must be upheld, and that's why white women voted for Trump.

Those Rules include and depend on on white supremacy. And buying into it is Stockholm syndrome.
posted by Dashy at 7:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [28 favorites]

I'm assuming no one is surprised by this. My guess is some group with influence within the inner circle realised they had fuck all prepared to enter the discussions and no way to even reach a nonsensical press release for the end of it.

Trump probably thought he could just do a Dennis Rodman and get all the kudos. Dennis Rodman's team was much more competent.
posted by michswiss at 7:59 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

They calculate

I wish people would stop using this kind of terminology with respect to elections, but also kind of more generally. The vast majority of people do not calculate shit. Like literally almost no one. People act on emotion, and come up with rationalizations for their actions or positions after the fact.

I bet there’s a whole fascinating debate to be had about the various feedback loops between emotional response and belief systems, but people are not rational. That we think we are proves there’s a little Dunning Kruger in all of us.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:59 AM on May 24, 2018 [66 favorites]

'If you change your mind in the future about us calling off this meeting, just let us know...'
posted by Myeral at 8:00 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

I'm assuming no one is surprised by this. My guess is some group with influence within the inner circle realised they had fuck all prepared to enter the discussions and no way to even reach a nonsensical press release for the end of it.

I'm surprised a faction with any grounding in the reality of international relations had enough sway with Trump to make this happen.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:00 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I wish people would stop using this kind of terminology with respect to elections, but also kind of more generally. The vast majority of people do not calculate shit.

Point taken. A better word to choose would have been "rationalize" or "feel" or something.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:04 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

We had weeks of "Noble Trump through his in-your-face tweets has brought peace to the Korean peninsula. He heap big statesman." It's so bloody obvious that Trump had nothing to help the peace process and yet the press was so fawning.

But this is more of the same, is it not? Trump is playing the tough guy; it’s a pre-emptive breakup in an attempt to get some hand. Isn’t this a known part of his negotiating “strategy”?
posted by nubs at 8:05 AM on May 24, 2018

This is the regular reminder that the leader of North Korea's family name is Kim. His given name is Jong-un. Referring to him as "Un" is like referring to Trump as "Nald."

It feels more like referring to Bush 43 as "W" to distinguish him from his also-president father.
posted by Miss Cellania at 8:06 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

@DafnaLinzer: This letter was made public while foreign reporters are still inside North Korea where they went to witness test site dismantlement.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:06 AM on May 24, 2018 [45 favorites]

do recall a few articles after the election that indicated that women who voted for trump were more motivated by fear of losing male protection, though from what was always left implicit.

It’s from other men. And - it’s more complicated than the easy hot takes would have it, unfortunately.

Misogyny, and the exploitation of women, has existed for a long, long time. It has been, in a sense, a prison that none of us can escape from. It is harder to be a woman alone in the world than it is to be a man in the same situation on very fundamental levels. It is also, in many places, unsafe.

Over time, women have clawed some few protections - pieces of making things better within a wholly misogynist system. Things like long-term alimony, understanding that a woman’s unpaid labor helped contribute to her husband’s success, and so she would continue to enjoy the fruits of that success. The social pressure on men to marry women that they made pregnant also had the effect of lowering the individual risk for a woman. And women not being expected to work outside the home meant that they only had one job, not two. Fault-based divorce meant that men were less likely to behave badly because it increased their financial risk. These things - while complete with problematic features, and able to exist only within that misogynistic system - had some good effects.

Now we are in kind of a weird place, where huge strides are being made towards women’s equality, but some of the first things being dismantled - both small and large - are those protective expectations - and it’s hard for a lot of people. When alimony awards are more about “let’s help you get on your feet again until you are working” rather than “his career is because of you”, there is a real loss of protection. Marriage, and childbearing, are riskier. Many men now have an expectation that women will work after marriage, /without/ losing the expectation that the woman is also responsible for all the emotional labor and the hard work of running a house.

The Republicans have, in the past, handled this by saying “let’s go back to a time when even if we weren’t advancing towards equality, you had some protections against the void.” Dems, from what I can see, tended to respond to this by saying “don’t worry, it will be better soon” but without showing their work. And for those of us like me, who have no faith things are really going to get better for women, that is a really hard ask. It’s saying “trust us”, while having taken an active step in dismantling protections, and it felt accelerationist and not really like those concerns were being heard.

Now we are in a seismic shift in politics - angry MRAs are taking over the Republican side and it doesn’t feel like they’re supporting those protections either - but also, Dems still aren’t showing up except for things the vast majority of men are willing to support and that is just not enough.

If I had to cast my vote on “who’s doing enough for women” I would be making a write in for schadenfrau. I don’t have politicians who are up to the end game standard, and I don’t believe that most if any of them even want it.
posted by corb at 8:10 AM on May 24, 2018 [35 favorites]

Anna Fifield (WaPo Asia bureau chief): South Korea's presidential Blue House seems blind-sided by Trump's cancelation of the summit: "We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means," says spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.

South Korea's president has just called an emergency meeting at the Blue House, summoning his chief of staff, national security adviser, foreign minister, unification minister and intelligence chief. It's midnight in Seoul.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:16 AM on May 24, 2018 [45 favorites]

We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means

we reach, man
posted by thelonius at 8:17 AM on May 24, 2018 [30 favorites]

@DafnaLinzer: This letter was made public while foreign reporters are still inside North Korea where they went to witness test site dismantlement.

It can't be overstressed how Trump's letter was timed to cause the maximum embarrassment to the NK regime in front of representatives of the international press.

And earlier this morning, Trump told Fox & Friends:

Q: June 12th, you gonna be in Singapore?

Trump: We'll see what happens. I mean, right now, we're looking at it, we're talking about it, they're talking to us. We have certain conditions. We'll see what happens. But there's a good chance. And it would be a great thing for North Korea. If that happens, it would be a great thing for North Korea. Most importantly, it would be a great thing for the world. So we'll see what happens.

Here's hoping Fox remembers that he made them look like chumps as well.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:18 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means

You mean they haven't figured out yet that he has no idea what he's doing, he's not a politician, he has no interest in learning how to be a politician, and he's an abusive narcissist to boot? Oh, dear.
posted by Melismata at 8:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

Trump: We'll see what happens. I mean, right now, we're looking at it, we're talking about it, they're talking to us. We have certain conditions. We'll see what happens. But there's a good chance. And it would be a great thing for North Korea. If that happens, it would be a great thing for North Korea. Most importantly, it would be a great thing for the world. So we'll see what happens.

That's Used Car Salesman speak for "No, but I don't want to be honest with my answer ".
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Sadly, I was forced to cancel the Summit Meeting in Singapore with Kim Jung Un.

god damn it
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:22 AM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]

In global politics, some administrations are considered especially heinous. These are their stories.

jung jung
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:24 AM on May 24, 2018 [40 favorites]

Jungian slip?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:25 AM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Daniel Dale's comprehensive interview with the Arms Control Wonk (Jeffrey Lewis).

DD: Hi Jeffrey, it's Daniel Dale from The Toronto Star. Im writing about the North Korea news, and I just want to ask you for your assessment of how Trump has handled this file over the last couple of months. Anything you could say would be appreciated. Thank you!

JW: Goat rodeo

DD: Hahaha. 1) any chance you could expand this even into one sentence? 2) I will quote goat rodeo unless you object.

JW: This is a total goat rodeo.

posted by maudlin at 8:25 AM on May 24, 2018 [134 favorites]

Here's hoping Fox remembers that he made them look like chumps as well.

Narrator Voice: They won't.


So I can't help but wonder if this cancellation was meant as a distraction for the upcoming meetings with Rosenstein, or some other shoe they know is about to drop. I suspect some really powerful stuff is going to leak this afternoon, for better or worse.
posted by Twain Device at 8:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

Three "we'll see what happens" plus one "if that happens" in one paragraph. Presidential eloquence.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

As far as I can tell the letter doesn't bother to hide that the reason for cancellation was a sense of personal slight -- it gives no cause more substantial besides Kim demonstrating "tremendous anger", like that was a new thing for either leader.

This alone is galling because Trump and his fans' whole thing about North Korea was that past presidents had failed, whether by being too lenient, too stringent, etc, but this time he'd do what it takes to get it done! And yet here he is overtly not getting it done by being a by-God special snowflake.

There are just two ways I can imagine for a true Trump stan to resolve this: One is basic cult-leader authoritarianism: Kim should just know that Donald and the USA deserve constant praise and zero scorn, and thus any further deterioration of a peace process is entirely the fault of Kim and NK. (It's different with Clinton/Bush/Obama because for non-God-emperors like them to expect that kind of deference is unseemly.)

The other notion, which I'm actually seeing here and there on Twitter, is that this letter and its bizarreness is All Part of the Plan, that Kim is being played like a fiddle here, somehow.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:27 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

I think I’ve mentioned this in these threads before, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading about complex trauma lately, and one of the things that infuriated me most is the paucity of research I’ve been able to find (with my layman’s access, anyway) on trauma associated with systemic oppression. Last I looked, there was some stuff on how misogyny and sexism fuck with women long term, but there was like...one person trying to do some work on how racism trauma works. Which...what the actual fuck. And I’ve honestly never even looked very hard for anything about how toxic masculinity affects men developmentally, but uh, that should also be a thing.

Because I feel like the only way we can begin to obviate the effects of this shit is if we understand how it works — how it’s perpetuated, or transmitted, how it’s internalized, what protective factors can innoculate you against the most pernicious effects, how the effects can be reversed, all the things. And, more cynically, there are people who need to see the effects of systemic oppression medicalized before they’ll actually believe it’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

Anyway. Looking at this stuff through a trauma lens shines a new light on it, for me. I just wish we had more lights.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:27 AM on May 24, 2018 [40 favorites]

So I can't help but wonder if this cancellation was meant as a distraction for the upcoming meetings with Rosenstein, or some other shoe they know is about to drop

Increasing the odds of nuclear armageddon every time you need to distract from your crimes is a winning strategy and will surely end well.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:29 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Increasing the odds of nuclear armageddon every time you need to distract from your crimes is a winning strategy and will surely end well.

Agreed. I'm not saying its a winning strategy, I'm just saying its a strategy.
posted by Twain Device at 8:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump on Fox and Friends *this morning*: "I mean, right now, we're looking at it, we're talking about it, they're talking to us."

Later this morning: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says North Korea did not respond to repeated requests from U.S. officials to discuss logistics for the now-canceled summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un."
posted by Dr. Send at 8:33 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

Q: Is Trump dumb enough to [insert text here]?
A: Yes. Always yes.

Today the inserted text is "anticipate that North Korea will be an honest and polite interlocutor and only say nice things about the United States of America".
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:34 AM on May 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

Boston Globe, Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are on purpose

Sadly, I was forced to cancel the Summit Meeting in Singapore with Kim Jung Un.

From the Boston Globe article:

“If the political conversation is about Donald Trump’s typos, that plays into the narrative that the coastal elites don’t understand ordinary Americans who make typos,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. Farnsworth recently wrote a book on how presidents connect to supporters.

Another professor pointed out the intentionality that goes hand-in-hand with Trump's incompetence: "It’s what he uses language for — the strategic interests served by his sloppiness." And Trump also gets to disrespect Jong Un—which is immediately picked up by his followers and factotums, from Lou Dobbs on down.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:35 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

So now in addition to the Scaramucci measurement, we have the summit coin too?

4 Scaramucci and 7 Summits ago....
posted by mach at 8:36 AM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]

Pelosi says Adam Schiff will be attending both DOJ meetings today
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:36 AM on May 24, 2018 [41 favorites]

There’s never one unitary reason this administration ever does anything, because there’s no one actual in charge making consistent, rational, strategically considered decisions. It’s governance by racist evil hive mind, with an emotionally unstable, rock throwing toddler at the center of it.

So one advisor might have wanted a “distraction.” Another might want actual fucking war on the Korean Peninsula.

I know which one we should be more worried about, and which one should perhaps be occupying our thoughts.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:43 AM on May 24, 2018 [33 favorites]

The South Korean government chose to go out on a limb with Trump, who has unilaterally chosen to humiliate them on a matter of existential importance. America is a vastly powerful nation, and it's hard to avoid doing business with the American President, but who would do so willingly? What allied leader would now choose to stake their personal success on the trustworthiness of Donald Trump?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:57 AM on May 24, 2018 [61 favorites]

@ddale8: Trump is speaking on North Korea. Calls the cancellation "a tremendous setback for North Korea, and indeed, a setback for the world." Says the U.S. military is "ready." Says Japan and South Korea will pay the costs of any necessary U.S. military operation. Trump says a "lotta things can happen" such as the "existing summit could take place" or there could be a summit at a "later date."

@AP: BREAKING: President Trump says US military is `ready if necessary' to respond to `foolish or reckless act' by North Korea.

@HayesBrown: He also says ROK and Japan are "not only ready should foolish or reckless acts be taken" but also will "shoulder much of the cost of any financial burden, any of the costs associated by the united States in operations if such an unfortunate situation is forced upon us."

So we're back to this again. And threatening to stick South Korea, which has recently taken a strikingly conciliatory tone with North Korea, with the bill after I don't even know what, is a hell of a thing.
posted by zachlipton at 9:02 AM on May 24, 2018 [56 favorites]

"If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write."

Trump chose to announce the summit, schedule the summit, and cancel the summit. But the buck doesn't stop with him. It's the other guy's job to have a change of heart and fix the situation.

Is this man capable of taking responsibility for anything? (Yes, but only if it's something unambiguously positive, and most likely something he is not responsible for.)
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:03 AM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

So do the taxpayers get refunded for the Kim Jing-Un challenge coins?

Disclaimer from White House Gift Shop website, per NPR's Steve Inskeep @NPRinskeep: "If Summit Does Not Occur You can Request a Refund but Most Supporters Have Said They Want This Heirloom of Political History Regardless of Outcome."

It's grifters—and arbitrary capitalization—all the way down.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:07 AM on May 24, 2018 [29 favorites]

Trump says a "lotta things can happen" such as the "existing summit could take place"

I'm trying to imagine how Kim Jong-Un might achieve this. Perhaps he could speedily commission a CGI propaganda video of Donald making a hole-in-one.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

The South Korean government chose to go out on a limb with Trump, who has unilaterally chosen to humiliate them on a matter of existential importance.

There's a likely precedent in Donny's outing of the Israeli agent, where the two countries are still cooperating at a base level, but the quality and efficacy of that cooperation absolutely plummets.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:11 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

> The South Korean government chose to go out on a limb with Trump, who has unilaterally chosen to humiliate them on a matter of existential importance.

And:

> US military is `ready if necessary' to respond ... threatening to stick South Korea, which has recently taken a strikingly conciliatory tone with North Korea, with the bill

The US is not a reliable partner for any international relationship. That should have been obvious right from Trump's inauguration, painfully obvious when he blew a top-secret allied intelligence operation, then NAFTA, Paris, Iran, etc., etc., etc.

It should have been drummed into even our most obtuse friends by now: work with the US and you can expect to have the rug yanked out from under you at the worst possible time.

The problem is, our international partners are likely to have long memories, even if we clean house starting in January and hopefully in 2020. And we are going to need their help to clean up the mess. The FSM help us all.

(First, though, we have to get through to a new Congress in 24-ish Scaramuccis, which is also worth 72-odd Shitcoins.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [17 favorites]

Disclaimer from White House Gift Shop website, per NPR's Steve Inskeep @NPRinskeep: "If Summit Does Not Occur You can Request a Refund but Most Supporters Have Said They Want This Heirloom of Political History Regardless of Outcome

Makes me wonder if they never had plans to actually follow through with the summit and it was really just all about hawking cheap trinkets to the rubes.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:13 AM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]

You Can't Break Up With Me, Trump Tells Kim Jong-un, I Broke Up With You!

You can’t break up with me. I broke up with you. No, you hang up first.

So, after all the big talk about the Nobel Prize, and about how this would be the foreign policy triumph that would make the president* a president, the Singapore Summit is off. The South Koreans are back on a knife’s edge. The Chinese are laughing up their sleeves. And the rest of the world doesn’t trust the government of the United States as far as it can throw Trump Tower. However, we do have those commemorative medallions that already were struck, which likely will be the highest-priced items on whatever our future robot overlords have for an eBay.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:16 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

His people and his pundits are going to say this is strategy. While this holds, they'll say he's not being suckered by Kim. When there are noises about things getting back on track for a(nother attempted) summit, they'll say he was wise to walk away from the table to make Kim crawl back and that he weakened Kim's posture.

But all of that requires utterly ignoring everything else we've seen from this White House. Like schadenfrau says above, there are a million bullshit things going on all at once, and they're all stupid and corrupt.

There's no strategy here. It's chaos all the way down. And his supporters will stuff their heads up their own asses and ignore that, too.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

There's no strategy here. It's chaos all the way down.

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer @JaneMayerNYer: "For Art of the Deal-Ologists, including Tony Schwartz who wrote it, a key theme was Trump portraying himself as a winner when in fact his finances were cratering dizzyingly into irrecoverable debt."

It's the same scam, whether practiced in Trump Tower or the White House.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:29 AM on May 24, 2018 [52 favorites]

@dsupervilleap: .@POTUS says the dialogue with North Korea 'was good until recently and I think I understand why that happened.' He declined to be specific, telling @jonkarl: 'Someday I’ll give it to you. You can write about it in a book.'

@DavidNakamura: Let me guess, Trump thinks his "good friend" Xi Jinping double-crossed him?

I see we've moved on to a new blame-deflection strategy that can't possibly go wrong this time.
posted by zachlipton at 9:37 AM on May 24, 2018 [17 favorites]

huge strides are being made towards women’s equality, but some of the first things being dismantled [...] Dems, from what I can see, tended to respond to this by saying “don’t worry, it will be better soon” but without showing their work.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill Obama signed as President, after it passed the Senate with 100% of Democrats voting for it and all but 5 Republicans voting against it.

Literally the first bill he signed. The very first thing after Democrats gained control of all three branches, the very first thing, was for women's equal pay.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:41 AM on May 24, 2018 [165 favorites]

I knew there would eventually be a major "Trump abruptly ________" headline, but I'm still waiting for my preferred version.
posted by yhbc at 9:46 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm assuming no one is surprised by this. My guess is some group with influence within the inner circle realised they had fuck all prepared to enter the discussions and no way to even reach a nonsensical press release for the end of it.

No one is surprised. (Given the other thread, I wonder if we will retire the Ron Howard narrator voice.) My guess is John Bolton convinced Trump never to negotiate for something he can demand by force. Except, of course, the US isn't in a strong position in the Korean Peninsula, something that never seems to diminish the faith a neocon like Bolton, who doesn't pay a personal price for military disaster, has in the use of force.
posted by Gelatin at 9:51 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Think of this like having a large, busy military base in midtown Manhattan or River North Chicago.

Or like the Presidio in San Francisco.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:56 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Mueller Filing: Probe Is Ongoing With ‘Multiple Lines Of Non-Public Inquiry’

Special Counsel Robert Mueller stressed that his investigation into Russian election meddling was ongoing and consisted of “multiple lines of non-public inquiry,” in a court filing Wednesday evening in a lawsuit brought by media companies seeking the release of certain records related to the probe.

“Many aspects of the investigation are factually and legally interconnected: they involve overlapping courses of conduct, relationships, and events, and they rely on similar sources, methods, and techniques,” the special counsel said. “The investigation is not complete and its details remain non-public.”
...
“The fact that certain charges have been brought does not imply that the Special Counsel’s investigation into the assigned matters is closed,” Mueller said, arguing against the release of the records. “Nor does it imply that the search warrant materials could be unsealed at this time without creating a serious risk of jeopardizing the ongoing and interconnected aspects of the investigation.”

posted by kirkaracha at 10:01 AM on May 24, 2018 [29 favorites]

What To Make Of President Trump’s Letter to Kim Jong-un

Diplomatic communications are usually worded with great care and precision. They aren’t letters one person writes to another. They are documents which communicate specific realities and goals between states. In this case, I completely believe that Donald Trump himself wrote this letter or dictated it. In fact, I feel almost certain he did. The words resonate with a genuine hurt and anguish, mixed with moments of menace and still hope for the future. It reads needy. It’s like a letter you write to a romantic partner who has abandoned you without saying so. You write, hurt, finalizing what is already clear.

We are in an era of candor and transparency. But one would hope it goes without saying that this is no way to conduct diplomacy, certainly not when nuclear weapons are at the center of it.
...
We can rehearse [rehash?] all the reasons this fell apart. But fundamentally this was a massive goof by the President that ended up blowing up in his face. There’s simply no other way to put it. It’s not clear that we’re in a worse place now than we were before the meeting was announced. But we soon may be. It is notable that this report suggests the White House released this letter before informing the North Koreans of the decision. That was a bad, dangerous mistake. It seems, based on their initial response, that Trump had not consulted extensively and perhaps not at all with the South Koreans either.
...
It’s not good to have a President who is this emotionally needy or one that conducts dangerous foreign policy on whims and ignorance. The entire thing is a ridiculous and embarrassing chapter in our history.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:06 AM on May 24, 2018 [82 favorites]

Samantha Bee: Give him the Nobel Participation Prize.
posted by supercrayon at 10:08 AM on May 24, 2018 [78 favorites]

I did sign up for postcards to voters a while back and was immediately overwhelmed by it. I wasn't sure how to say something to someone in another state about a candidate I don't know on the back of a postcard.
posted by runcibleshaw at 10:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

@aawayne: The White House just called reporters to the Oval Office, where they found ... Sylvester Stallone. Via @justinsink He's pardoning boxer Jack Johnson, who was convicted of violating an old, racist law prohibiting the transport of women across state lines. [posthumously]

Meanwhile, Tom Garrett is doing a really weird Facebook Live. He doesn't seem to be quitting, but is furious as hell about former Virginia women’s basketball coach Joanne Boyle's adoption situation and the lack of response from DHS officials.

He's now moved on to a litany of complaints about people who don't like him, which has ranged from him insisting he's condemned Charlottesville Nazis and the idea that he wants to raise park fees is "excremental product of a bull." King David is now involved. I don't know. It's all really odd.
posted by zachlipton at 10:10 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

I wasn't sure how to say something to someone in another state about a candidate I don't know on the back of a postcard.

I just pick one or two of the pre-supplied talking points. It doesn't take much to fill a postcard. In this situation the medium really is the message.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:14 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

I wasn't sure how to say something to someone in another state about a candidate I don't know on the back of a postcard.

This is my formula these days...

"Hi. Hope you don't mind this friendly reminder from a volunteer about the upcoming election. Democrat Jane Doe is running for Specified Office.

Jane will fight for

* bullet point one from the campaign
* bullet point two from the campaign
* bullet point three from the campaign.

This is her slogan! Please make a plan to vote Tues May XXth.

Thank you!"
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:18 AM on May 24, 2018 [45 favorites]

(Almost always the required talking points are name of the candidate, office, date of the election, and slogan. So this covers them all while giving a little detail about why voting is in the voters' own best interest.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:20 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Trump just posthumously pardoned the first black World Heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson which people have been campaigning for since 2008. There's no question his conviction under the Mann Act was a racist miscarriage of justice. So, why didn't Obama pardon him? Perhaps it was a desire to keep the pardoning process non-political, or perhaps it was in regards to Johnson's physical abuse of women.

I had guessed that Trump took this action after being asked by Don King. In fact he was asked by Sylvester Stallone.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

@kaitlancollins: Wow — @LauraAJarrett saw Emmett Flood leaving the Department of Justice alongside Nunes, Gowdy, Ryan and Kelly. Flood replaced Ty Cobb on Trump’s legal team earlier this year.

We're just not even bothering to give the appearance of good faith, are we?
posted by zachlipton at 10:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [48 favorites]

Maybe pardoning dead people without address any underlying injustice is performative nonsense?
posted by Artw at 10:35 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

From Political Wire and the AP: Democrats Propose Swapping Tax Cut for Teacher Salaries

“Responding to teacher walkouts across the country, congressional Democrats on Tuesday proposed raising teachers’ salaries by canceling the tax cut for the nation’s top 1 percent of earners,” the AP reports.

“The Republican-controlled Congress was unlikely to support the idea of giving states and school districts $50 billion over a decade to fund the teacher raises at the expense of dismantling the hard-won tax bill.”

“But the proposal gives Democrats an issue they can use ahead of the November midterm elections. Teachers have won widespread support, even in conservative areas, as they complain about low pay.”

posted by Gelatin at 10:43 AM on May 24, 2018 [63 favorites]

The NFL Is So Scared of Trump That It Now Will Fine Teams If Players Don’t Stand for the Anthem - Edwin Rios, Mother Jones.

They weren't always this way towards him; his experience as a USFL team owner, led to a brutal smackdown by the NFL, and the end of the USFL.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:43 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

The NFL Is So Scared of Trump That It Now Will Fine Teams If Players Don’t Stand for the Anthem - Edwin Rios, Mother Jones.

This is not normal.

This is fascism. With a side of oligarchy, but this is a symptom of fascism.
posted by Dashy at 10:46 AM on May 24, 2018 [60 favorites]

Since Trump says the U.S. is a "Third World" country, let's pay him to leave
posted by growabrain at 10:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Maybe pardoning dead people without address any underlying injustice is performative nonsense?

I don't have a problem with pardoning dead people (Alan Turing) and the Jack Johnson conviction seems to have been a bunch of racist horseshit. I also think that we can address both older, non-pressing, smaller issues at the same time we address right now, big deal issues. That being said, that these people can support a single, individual black man who just happens to have been dead for 70 years while accepting support from and providing support to current day, active, white supremacists is yet more racist horseshit.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:04 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

South Korean spokesperson: "We are trying to figure out what President Trump’s intention is and the exact meaning of it."

Don't we have a State Dept. or something?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [33 favorites]

> White House lawyer Emmet Flood

Is he a White House lawyer, a personal lawyer for Trump, or are we no longer doing these distinctions as a country?

In fact, was Flood even formally employed in either capacity? There was an announcement that he would be, but maybe he's "volunteering his time" like Paul Manafort did? Do we know?
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:14 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Morbidly curious how they try to spin this.

I think that we're pretty far beyond that point. Like, they're not even trying to hide the ratfuckery so I would be astonished if they made any actual attempt to justify it beyond "it happened bc trump said so"
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:15 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Don't we have a State Dept. or something?

We still don't have an ambassador to South Korea.
posted by chris24 at 11:17 AM on May 24, 2018 [42 favorites]

I think that we're pretty far beyond that point. Like, they're not even trying to hide the ratfuckery so I would be astonished if they made any actual attempt to justify it beyond "it happened bc trump said so"

I've said before how Trump's defenders basically don't even bother pretending that Trump isn't guilty; they talk about how he's supposed to get away with it.

Along similar lines, Trump's constant attacks on the probe and Federal law enforcement -- except BCP/ICE -- are a fairly startling tacit admission of guilt. Not to mention further obstruction of justice.
posted by Gelatin at 11:18 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

VTDigger: Border Patrol checks citizenship on Amtrak Vermonter train at White River Junction, 94 miles south of the Canadian border.

Agents boarded multiple trains Friday through Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson Stephanie Malin confirmed Wednesday. ...

The Vermonter train, which travels daily between Washington, D.C., and St. Albans, does not cross any international borders.

posted by adamg at 11:19 AM on May 24, 2018 [54 favorites]

Wow, they're going full-on Papers Please.
posted by GrammarMoses at 11:20 AM on May 24, 2018 [65 favorites]

Don't they have some kind of gross handwavey "authority" for everywhere within 100 miles from an international border or something? Or is that DHS?
posted by poffin boffin at 11:20 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Border Patrol and, yep, 100 miles (and that includes coasts!). For what it's worth, this predates Dear Leader, as Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont can attest.
posted by adamg at 11:24 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

The Vermonter train, which travels daily between Washington, D.C., and St. Albans, does not cross any international borders.

This may be a complete coincidence, but USCIS has a major service center in St. Albans, Vermont.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:24 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

...everywhere 100 miles from an international border or something?

Yes, and it's been that way since at least 9/11. Anecdotally, my old man was stopped in Rochester (?), on a bus going from Buffalo to NYC, at least fifteen years ago. Rochester is a ways from the Canadian border by land, but for purposes of counting the 100 miles, the border was the shoreline of Lake Ontario, neatly encompassing most of upstate New York. This is nothing new.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:27 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

Border Patrol and, yep, 100 miles (and that includes coasts!)

Plus the Great Lakes count as coastal borders, so in practice most of the US population lives in the "border zone."
posted by contraption at 11:27 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

VTDigger: Border Patrol checks citizenship on Amtrak Vermonter train at White River Junction, 94 miles south of the Canadian border.

Ahh, yes, finally we're tackling the scourge of (check notes...) French Canadians coming here to steal our jobs.
posted by dis_integration at 11:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Why is it the coast and not that 50 mile-or-whatever line that demarcs our waters?
posted by Slackermagee at 11:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I really wouldn't be surprised if that location got this visit from the jackboots solely because it's so close to the 100-mile limit. Literally just some combination of throwing their weight around, "making a point", seeing what they can get away with, etc. Of course that's motivation is involved in most of their actions, but I mean they might not have bothered to concoct any other pretense.

On viewing more comments, Faint of Butt's point is definitely also worth consideration. Possibly someone in the agency's leadership figured it would be good to catch any person with the audacity to interact with immigration services. The fundamental operating principle here is that anyone seeking citizenship or residency (barring acceptably-white people) is a kind of scofflaw by definition (that's what Trump means when he rants about "loopholes" in the immigration system).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

adamg's link notes that

Amtrak policies require passengers to provide government issued photo identification when asked “any time by Amtrak police or any law enforcement officer.” Government issued photo identification is not necessarily proof of citizenship, unless the ID is a passport or an enhanced driver’s license.

posted by XMLicious at 11:34 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Though it's worth pointing out that an Amtrak customer's failure to follow Amtrak's policy on this matter could not have "be arrested by BCS" as a legal consequence.
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:37 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

> Don't we have a State Dept. or something?

We still don't have an ambassador to South Korea.

Admiral Harry Harris was nominated only last Friday, but even that was Pompeo's idea to reshuffle him from a prospective ambassadorship to Australia. And it's a bad sign when the administration wants a career military officer and not a diplomat for the position.

Meanwhile, Trump's profoundly undiplomatic cancellation puts the US in a precarious position, as US Senate Foreign Relations Committee alumnus Frank Jannuzi @FrankJannuzi outlines in a Twitter thread:

Where does this leave us? Trump's early morning letter is a classic example of his incompetence - barely coherent, full of internal contradictions, at once conciliatory and deeply provocative, threatening, in essence, a nuke strike on DPRK. The letter should NEVER have been sent.[...]

DPRK has no doubt by now sized up our President, and found him to be a completely unreliable negotiating partner (e.g. Iran withdrawal, TPP withdrawal, Paris Accord withdrawal, threats one day, concessions the next). They will not easily re-engage.[...]

Moreover, DPRK has secured its flanks -- improved relations with China and ROK, leaving USA isolated in its attempt to assemble "maximum pressure" on DPRK going forward. DPRK makes USA appear to be the party walking away from diplomacy. A huge diplomatic defeat for USA.[...]

The entire fiasco leaves USA marginalized -- demonstrably incompetent in handling the fundamentals of diplomacy. No message discipline. No roadmap. A State Department team marginalized, their expertise squandered. A petulant White House appears thin-skinned and petty.[...]

I am in Seoul this week, meeting with our allies. I can report that this announcement takes ROK COMPLETELY by surprise. They had NO INKLING that Trump was about to pull the plug on the summit. So once again, damage done (serious harm) to US credibility as an ally.

Allies don't treat each other this way. Trump's temper tantrum has grave implications for our ally, and to do this to them at 1130 pm, with no warning (none was given), is inexcusable. This kind of snub has consequences long-term. How can Seoul trust DC going forward?

ROK will respond responsibly, maturely. They will sleep on this horrible development, and no doubt issue a modest, careful, controlled and hopeful message tomorrow, looking forward to a summit meeting in the future. But inside, they will be SEETHING mad, disappointed, crushed.

And Yonhap news agency reports that Moon expresses 'deep regret' over cancellation of U.S.-N. Korea summit, which is incredibly strong language, diplomatically speaking.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:45 AM on May 24, 2018 [58 favorites]

adamg: The Vermonter train, which travels daily between Washington, D.C., and St. Albans, does not cross any international borders.

adamg: Border Patrol and, yep, 100 miles (and that includes coasts!). For what it's worth, this predates Dear Leader, as Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont can attest.

contraption: Plus the Great Lakes count as coastal borders, so in practice most of the US population lives in the "border zone."

Indeed: Inside the Massive U.S. 'Border Zone' (Tanvi Misra for CityLab, May 14, 2018)

That’s striking because the border zone is home to 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population, and around 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population, according to a CityLab analysis based on data from location intelligence company ESRI. This zone, which hugs the entire edge of the United States and runs 100 air miles inside, includes some of the densest cities—New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. It also includes all of Michigan and Florida, and half of Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a prior rough analysis by Will Lowe, a data scientist at MIT.

Emphasis mine.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:49 AM on May 24, 2018 [17 favorites]

And if you live near or travel along the US-Mexico border, here's a user-made Google Map of Routes to Avoid - Border Patrol Checkpoints.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:51 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

I am in Seoul this week, meeting with our allies. I can report that this announcement takes ROK COMPLETELY by surprise. They had NO INKLING that Trump was about to pull the plug on the summit. So once again, damage done (serious harm) to US credibility as an ally.

Again, do people really not realize how crazy and unqualified Trump is?
posted by Melismata at 11:52 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

> Again, do people really not realize how crazy and unqualified Trump is?

There are probably literally millions of adult Americans who don't even know that there was a summit planned, and/or that it has been cancelled.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:01 PM on May 24, 2018 [30 favorites]

Rudy: “We want to see how the briefing went to today and how much we learned from it. If we learned a good deal from it, it will shorten that whole process considerably.”

Cool, looking forward to the 'attorneys allowed to attend classified briefings' thing getting rolled out to all defendants
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:03 PM on May 24, 2018 [54 favorites]

I feel like people not living under the constant barrage of horrors that is the US media currently, and also with the experience of having a lifetime of relatively normal human beings in the office of US president, might thus have normal human expectations of normal human behavior, and therefore might express not unusual levels of surprise when confronted with the shit smeared screaming racist moron reality.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:04 PM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Meanwhile, Trump's profoundly undiplomatic cancellation puts the US in a precarious position

Honestly whether or not Trump is beholden to the Russians it's hard to imagine a situation more favorable to them internationally. The US is diplomatically kaput. By cancelling the Iran deal and completely bungling the promising opportunity of rapprochement with DPRK, Trump has, in about 30 days, completely destroyed any credibility the US has on the international stage. Why would *anyone* *ever* make a deal with this country again? The next president (insh'Allah) will have to start from scratch with all our allies and be history's greatest diplomat to try and regain the ground lost here.
posted by dis_integration at 12:06 PM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]

Everything you need to know about tuesday’s Primaries
posted by The Whelk at 12:07 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

If we're talking about the South Korean officials specifically: knowing that someone is erratic doesn't make their actions unsurprising, and it doesn't mean that such a person could never catch you off guard. Often, quite the opposite, since you have no basis to predict just what they will or won't do... so it's a surprise no matter what.

It's generally in-character for Trump to throw a fit and cancel something, but it's not like the chance of that happening this particular time was 99%. So South Korea didn't "know" that would happen, and had to operate with the presumption that the meeting was still on.

Now, that said, the letter puts them past the "fool me once" mark. So it's not impossible for SK to tell the world they truly can't trust Trump at all. One reason I grant that unlikely is their well-founded fears of affecting his temper. Don't confuse any apparent deference to him (like Moon's offhand suggestion that Trump could get a Nobel) for actual naivete rather than self-preservation.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:12 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Watch for Trump to start spinning this whole summit incident as the time he "almost" won a Nobel Prize, and really he was robbed of it, and the committee called him on the phone and told him he'd done more to deserve it than anyone else ever but their hands were tied etc.
posted by contraption at 12:19 PM on May 24, 2018 [22 favorites]

The failed Trump-Kim summit: the story of a trainwreck foretold.
posted by adamvasco at 12:19 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

The next president (insh'Allah) will have to start from scratch with all our allies and be history's greatest diplomat to try and regain the ground lost here.

I think I've said this in a previous thread, but, I think Trump is going to be seen by the world as a huge anomaly and, while there will definitely be some damage to repair, I think most nations will be very happy to deal with a non-Trumpian White House again.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:25 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]

Trumpeters are trying to spin this ten different ways: Kim will come crawling back, or it’s a strong bargaining move, or he got his way with test site destruction, or North and South Korea will talk directly now. One woman on /r/The_Donald thinks Trump and Kim (who she calls Un) have already met and made a deal, but they’re just boosting public interest with this dance.
posted by msalt at 12:26 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

The instability and chaos is not doing democracy good anywhere. It's no coincidence that there has been a global trend for authoritarians in many countries look to entrench their holds. Putin and Xi, both deeply entrenched, simply look more stable if you are Rwanda, Uganda, or what have you
posted by stonepharisee at 12:32 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump is going to be seen by the world as a huge anomaly

Assuming we get to a non-Trumpian administration again, I fully expect to suddenly never be able to find anyone who voted for Trump except for the handful of pundits whose entire careers rest upon it. This is gonna be like all the people who were totally never in favor of the Iraq invasion and how gosh, there just aren't that many people who really voted for W (especially the second time, when he actually did win the popular vote).

They're still going to whine and moan and rant about Democrats, but they will never once admit to having supported this insanity.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:32 PM on May 24, 2018 [37 favorites]

I think most nations will be very happy to deal with a non-Trumpian White House again.

And have to worry that in four years, white America elects another racist fascist imbecile.

It's not that other countries won't ever trust or like American leaders again, it's that they can't trust American voters ever again.
posted by chris24 at 12:34 PM on May 24, 2018 [49 favorites]

I think I've said this in a previous thread, but, I think Trump is going to be seen by the world as a huge anomaly and, while there will definitely be some damage to repair, I think most nations will be very happy to deal with a non-Trumpian White House again.

The problem with this idea is that it's now very plain to everybody how fragile any agreement we make is, and any agreement we enter into is going to have to take into account that we're eventually (or maybe almost immediately) going to elect a psychopath who's going to unilaterally cancel it. It doesn't matter that you're negotiating with Obama when Trump could happen next year and fuck the whole deal.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:35 PM on May 24, 2018 [22 favorites]

Yes, what Thorzdad said. A few weeks ago I met a smart young woman (late 20s) who was interning at a media outlet in D.C. (I forget which one), and I asked her what the atmosphere was like there.

Are people killing each other? I asked. Are Dems and Repubs fighting in the streets?

No, she said, everyone is just waiting for this to be over so things can get back to normal.

But aren't there lots of fights and jockeying for positions and trying to normalize Trump and...

No, she said a couple more times, everyone is just waiting for this to be over so things can get back to normal.

Don't confuse any apparent deference to him (like Moon's offhand suggestion that Trump could get a Nobel) for actual naivete rather than self-preservation.

Thanks for the reply, InTheYear2017, that answers my question (why the author was claiming that ROK people were shocked, shocked). Now if we could just convince the Trumpers et al that the naivete is all an act, not a real thing that shows a sign of weakness, that we know about this diplomacy thing WAY better than you ...
posted by Melismata at 12:36 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Trump might be viewed as an anomaly, but the damage is done. The world has seen that any deal that the US enters into can be scrapped at a whim. How much political capital are world leaders going to invest in trying to work out complex matters with the US, knowing full well that all of that work and risk-taking could pretty much vanish into thin air with a new administration? Trade deals are going to be viewed as very risky. Trying to tackle climate change... you're better factoring the US out and then if you get anything out of us, it's a bonus. Etc. The world knows that America cannot be trusted.
posted by azpenguin at 12:37 PM on May 24, 2018 [22 favorites]

I think I've said this in a previous thread, but, I think Trump is going to be seen by the world as a huge anomaly and, while there will definitely be some damage to repair, I think most nations will be very happy to deal with a non-Trumpian White House again.

I don't think it can be that simple. Unless we burn the Republican Party to the ground and salt the earth, even during a Democratic administration there's always going to be the looming knowledge that the opposition party will do anything it can to undo any deal you make, even if the people at the table right now are genuinely acting in good faith. If we have President Gillibrand (or whoever) in four years but the Teahadists are still running the GOP, then you'd have to be an idiot to sign a treaty with the U.S. and not hedge your bets against the next administration setting it on fire just because they can.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:37 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

There’s never one unitary reason this administration ever does anything, because there’s no one actual in charge making consistent, rational, strategically considered decisions. It’s governance by racist evil hive mind, with an emotionally unstable, rock throwing toddler at the center of it.

There's no strategy here. It's chaos all the way down.

Yeah, I generally think of Trump as a malevolent half-broken Roomba (sorry, Ricky, I love you, honey). He just caroms meanderingly from one thing to another mostly randomly, but usually in the shittiest possible direction.

Also, Don McGahn is the fucking White House Counsel. Emmet Flood is Trump's personal attorney, and if Kasie Hunt doesn't stop calling him a "White House lawyer," I may need to shotgun Pimm's until I fall into a coma.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:40 PM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

“This Is RICO 101”: Why Robert Mueller Isn’t Taking Rudy’s Bait

This investigation is classic Mueller: he is doing a classic, organized crime case. This is RICO 101, working your way up and sideways. You pop a few guys for gambling, and no one is going to do a million years for gambling, but you’re gonna get their scratch pads, then you move on to their associates. You flip one guy who you arrest with no fanfare. It’s exactly what Mueller has been doing his whole goddamn life. It’s just that this time the boss of the family happens to be the leader of the free world. Mueller doesn’t care if he gets Trump. He doesn’t care if he doesn’t get Trump. He has no political agenda. He is digging through the layers and bringing back the truth, and the truth is going to be whatever it is going to be.

posted by kirkaracha at 12:42 PM on May 24, 2018 [71 favorites]

Senator Portman (R-OH): "Given the nature of the regime it’s not surprising that they canceled."

This seems like a pretty clear understanding of the Trump regime, assuming that's what the senator meant...
posted by mabelstreet at 12:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]

In this case, I completely believe that Donald Trump himself wrote this letter or dictated it. In fact, I feel almost certain he did.

Confirmed by the Washington Post's Seung Min Kim @seungminkim: Senior White House official tells us in the briefing room that Trump “dictated every word of the letter himself."

Every. single. word. (No wonder the White House official doesn't seem to want to be identified admitting this.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [54 favorites]

after a certain point, the rest of the world may only decide to talk to democratic administrations and ignore republican regimes. americans will be viewed more like recurring cicadas, but they're terrible every eight years...

Alternatively, the rest of the world may adopt the same attitude that the U.S. does towards "allies" like Egypt: that it's a terrible shame, but it's just more convenient to have a dictator or military oligarchy in charge and behaving predictably rather than a democracy that can elect the Muslim-Brotherhood-slash-Republicans and suddenly invade or threaten annihilation of random countries.
posted by XMLicious at 12:47 PM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

but they will never once admit to having supported this insanity.

I think you're way underestimating the number of people like my parents that will insist that no matter what, it's better than a Hillary administration would have been. And the sheer number of Republicans that will insist that whatever happens in the next two and a half years that the problem was not what happened but that things didn't go far enough.
posted by Candleman at 12:49 PM on May 24, 2018 [24 favorites]

Since Trump says the U.S. is a "Third World" country, let's pay him to leave yt

Speaking on behalf of the Other 95% Of The Planet, what makes you think we want him?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:51 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

after a certain point, the rest of the world may only decide to talk to democratic administrations and ignore republican regimes.

I would assume the opposite. They will only talk with Republicans, because Democrats believe in doing things the right way and being responsible to norms and obligations (even to deals made by people they don't like), and Republicans are more likely to respect deals made by other Republicans.
posted by agentofselection at 12:52 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

WSJ, President Donald Trump Cancels North Korea Summit

The president ordered the White House to release the letter before alerting allies to avoid leaks, a White House official said.

Who cares if it leaks? You can't just do this.
posted by zachlipton at 12:53 PM on May 24, 2018 [44 favorites]

They won't have to wait until a particular political party becomes the administration. They'll just negotiate with the party directly. It already happened right under our noses.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:54 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

For future Republicans, trump will replace Reagan as the glowing embodiment of the Great Conservative President.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:55 PM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

Pete Buttigieg (Democratic mayor of South Bend IN): So... the summit was canceled because POTUS was offended because NK got angry because Mike Pence made a prediction that Kim would get overthrown and killed, was that it?

Tweeter replying under the name "David Dennison": No. It was more like when you didn’t study for the test so you pull the fire alarm at school.

A little of column A, a little of column B.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:56 PM on May 24, 2018 [63 favorites]

I would assume the opposite. They will only talk with Republicans, because Democrats believe in doing things the right way and being responsible to norms and obligations (even to deals made by people they don't like), and Republicans are more likely to respect deals made by other Republicans.

Yeah, but the Republicans are currently demonstrating that they're incapable of coming to an agreement on anything. You can't negotiate with Donald Trump any more than you can "negotiate" with mashed potatoes.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:57 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Just like the US is used to dealing with other countries when their political parties change (UK, Italy, etc.), I think other countries are used to adjusting when the winds change here. Ok, Carter. Oh, wait, Reagan. Ok, now Clinton. Give the rest of the world some credit.
posted by Melismata at 12:57 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think you're way underestimating the number of people like my parents that will insist that no matter what, it's better than a Hillary administration would have been. And the sheer number of Republicans that will insist that whatever happens in the next two and a half years that the problem was not what happened but that things didn't go far enough.

This is one of those moments where I feel like I’m perpetually Mike Pence in this

“I don’t feel good.”
posted by Bacon Bit at 12:59 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

The big shift that may happen is if the global community moves off the dollar. That was a huge threat before the Iraq war, and I'd guess it has reappeared. It's clearly part of the threat from Iran now, and I'd guess China is all in at this point, which they weren't during the Bush regime. It's difficult to guess where Russia is, but probably they'd prefer Euros over Dollars.
The crash in 2008 interrupted a run against the dollar, because the Euro was still not established. I'm not certain the situation today is the same.
posted by mumimor at 12:59 PM on May 24, 2018 [16 favorites]

Shot: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake: ‘Our presidency has been debased’

“Our presidency has been debased,” Flake said. “By a figure who has a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction and division. And only a passing familiarity with how the Constitution works.”

He added: “Simply put: We may have hit bottom.”

Chaser: Senate Advances Court Pick Who Said Planned Parenthood ‘Kills Over 150,000 Females A Year’

The Senate judiciary committee voted Thursday to advance U.S. District Court nominee Wendy Vitter, a vocal opponent of abortion rights who initially didn’t tell senators about her past extreme comments on the topic.

Every Republican on the committee voted for Vitter, a New Orleans lawyer and President Donald Trump’s choice for a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Those GOPers were Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Texas), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and John Kennedy (La.).

posted by zombieflanders at 1:00 PM on May 24, 2018 [21 favorites]

Yeah, but the Republicans are currently demonstrating that they're incapable of coming to an agreement on anything.

Speaking of...

House Chief Deputy Whip Patrick T. McHenry on Thursday said an immigration discharge petition that GOP leaders oppose will get to 218 signatures after the recess, and the only way they can stop it is finding legislation Republicans can pass — something he acknowledges is a big reach.

The discharge petition, which is just five signatures shy of the 218 needed, would force a vote on a queen of the hill rule that would set up votes on four immigration measures, with the one getting the most votes above the required simple majority threshold prevailing. The process is likely to produce a bill that a majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans support.

GOP leaders argue it is equivalent to turning the floor over to Democrats and have urged their conference not to sign the discharge petition.

Yet two more Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Tom Reed of New York, signed the petition Thursday before the House departed for its Memorial Day recess, bringing the total number of GOP signatories to 23.

With all but three Democrats signed on as well, the petition now has a total of 213 signatures, only five away from the 218 needed for one of the signatories to be able to call the queen of the hill rule up for a vote on June 25. Only two more Republican signatures are needed if the remaining three Democrats sign it.

posted by chris24 at 1:01 PM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Open #Floodgate®
posted by growabrain at 1:03 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

R. Eric Thomas, Analyzing Trump's Breakup Letter to Kim Jong Un

I could quote more, but this really sums up everything: "This is that thing where summer lovin' turns to nuclear winter."

Wendy Sherman comes in second in the competition, describing the letter as a: "13-year-old stream of consciousness in a break-up letter over summer camp."
posted by zachlipton at 1:08 PM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]

@pbump:

Pew asked Americans if the U.S. had a responsibility to accept refugees.

No group -- racial, by age, religious or political -- was less supportive of that idea than white evangelical Protestants.

posted by zombieflanders at 1:09 PM on May 24, 2018 [82 favorites]

WSJ, Roger Stone Sought Information on Clinton from Assange, Emails Show

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone privately sought information he considered damaging to Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The emails could raise new questions about Mr. Stone’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in September, in which he said he “merely wanted confirmation” from an acquaintance that Mr. Assange had information about Mrs. Clinton, according to a portion of the transcript that was made public.

In a Sept. 18, 2016, message, Mr. Stone urged an acquaintance who knew Mr. Assange to ask the WikiLeaks founder for emails related to Mrs. Clinton’s alleged role in disrupting a purported Libyan peace deal in 2011 when she was secretary of state, referring to her by her initials.

“Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30--particularly on August 20, 2011,” Mr. Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio personality who had interviewed Mr. Assange several weeks earlier. Mr. Stone, a longtime confidant of Mr. Trump, had no formal role in his campaign at the time.

Mr. Credico initially responded to Mr. Stone that what he was requesting would be on WikiLeaks’ website if it existed, according to an email reviewed by the Journal. Mr. Stone, the emails show, replied: “Why do we assume WikiLeaks has released everything they have ???”

In another email, Mr. Credico then asked Mr. Stone to give him a “little bit of time,” saying he thought Mr. Assange might appear on his radio show the next day. A few hours later, Mr. Credico wrote: “That batch probably coming out in the next drop...I can’t ask them favors every other day .I asked one of his lawyers...they have major legal headaches riggt now..relax.”

Mr. Credico said in an interview with the Journal that he never passed the message on to Mr. Assange or his lawyers, but “got tired” of Mr. Stone “bothering” him, and so told Mr. Stone he had passed along the message. Mr. Credico said he did so because he owed Mr. Stone a favor for helping him book Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson as a guest on his show.
...

Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the emails hadn’t been provided to congressional investigators.

“If there is such a document, then it would mean that his testimony was either deliberately incomplete or deliberately false,” said Mr. Schiff, who has continued to request documents and conduct interviews with witnesses despite the committee’s probe concluding earlier this year.

A lawyer for Mr. Stone, Grant Smith, said the emails hadn’t been turned over to House investigators because they were “not encompassed within the scope of the committee’s request.” Mr. Stone said the emails were preserved at the request of the Senate, which is also conducting a Russian interference probe, but Mr. Smith said they hadn’t yet been turned over to investigators there.
...
As Mr. Credico has become more vocal about what he says are discrepancies in Mr. Stone’s account, Mr. Stone has responded with a series of threats, according to emails and text messages reviewed by the Journal.

In early April, in one of those emails, Mr. Stone accused Mr. Credico of serving as an informant.

“Everyone says u are wearing a wire for Mueller,” the April 7 email said. Two days later, Mr. Stone wrote: “Run your mouth = get sued.” Mr. Credico denies being an informant.

posted by zachlipton at 1:14 PM on May 24, 2018 [24 favorites]

A lot of people are up in arms about Flood, but Clinton's White House Counsel disagrees.

Jack Quinn
I said on CNN that it is appropriate for the White House Counsel to be at bipartisan intelligence briefing re Russia investigation. That office represents the presidency as an institution, not its occupant. Excluding him would only help justify the outrage of excluding Dems #CNN

Josh Marshall
Retweeted jack quinn
I at least partly agree with this. Flood is in the counsels office. He’s not that president’s personal atty. So it’s very different than if like Rudy were there. In Trumpland people find a way to be sleazy. But based on what we know this isn’t inapropriatw on its face.

---

And yes Quinn said White House Counsel rather than Special Counsel on the White House staff, but his point remains the same that he represents the office of the presidency, not the man. Still suspect imo, but here's an opposing view.
posted by chris24 at 1:17 PM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

How possibly can emails from Roger Stone about WikiLeaks not be part of the House Intelligence Commiittee's request? What kind of investigation is Nunes running that wouldn't ask for such a thing? I know, I know, that was rhetorical.
posted by zachlipton at 1:17 PM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

The rise of cryptocurrencies has created a unique opportunity for market forces to spearhead a shift toward a truly neutral reserve asset. With the leadership of the US – the issuer of the main international reserve currency – more unpredictable than ever, it is an opportunity that should not be missed.

Mapped: The Countries With the Most Foreign Currency Reserves

The London Metal Exchange is planning to introduce yuan-denominated metal products, according its chief executive, a sign the currency’s status in international finance is on the rise.

“At present, investors are trading our products in US dollars. We would definitely like to explore the possibility of launching products denominated in offshore renminbi,” Matthew Chamberlain said in an interview in Hong Kong.

Dollar weakens as Trump nixes North Korea summit

From the "news" it seems the almighty dollar won't be replaced anytime soon, in fact Merkel is not going to discuss replacing it when she visits China.

Its massive, bigger than anyone else.
posted by infini at 1:17 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

The official spin from the Secretary of State and several Senate Republicans would appear to be, contrary to our own lying eyes, that it was really North Korea that cancelled the summit.

Which is a tacit admission that Trump walking away was a huge, embarrassing, and possibly dangerous error.

Every Democrat who gets on TV and radio should say "If Republicans need to pretend Trump didn't do what he did, they need to work with us to exercise some oversight and restore sane and credible foreign policy."
posted by Gelatin at 1:19 PM on May 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

Pew asked Americans if the U.S. had a responsibility to accept refugees.

No group -- racial, by age, religious or political -- was less supportive of that idea than white evangelical Protestants.

Pretty sure it's because they are intimately familiar with Luke 10:25-37, the story popularly known as "The Snake".
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:19 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Mod note: Periodic mod note about how even though shit is crazy, which shit always is, please try to keep the low-hanging-fruit riffing to a minimum so the thread doesn't balloon faster than necessary.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:24 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

You can't negotiate with Donald Trump any more than you can "negotiate" with mashed potatoes.

Well, they're both easily manipulated if you butter them up enough.
posted by Riki tiki at 1:25 PM on May 24, 2018 [98 favorites]

You know the Trump loyalists are a cult of personality because anything Trump does makes him a smart man and a brilliant dealmaker. Trump basically calls Obama a weakling traitor for considering meeting NK with few preconditions? Smart man! Trump agrees to meet NK with no preconditions? Brilliant dealmaker! Trump briefly acts conciliatory? Obviously that's the right thing to do and he's a good dealmaker. Trump loses it and pulls out, threatening nuclear armageddon? It's because he is a smart man who knows when to walk away. Literally any action Trump takes is more evidence of how brilliant a dealmaker he is.

Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed.
posted by Justinian at 1:57 PM on May 24, 2018 [40 favorites]

James "Spying on you? We-he're not spying on you" Clapper, former head of NSA says Russia turned the election for Trump

Russians not only affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election — they decided it, says James Clapper, who served as the director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, and during the 2016 vote.

He also has a new book, yay. Is this too low-hanging? That the DNI and former NSA head says point-blank no-shit a foreign country swindled enough people into voting for a mobbed-up pinhead as president? I concede that these days it's pretty low hanging.
posted by petebest at 1:58 PM on May 24, 2018 [20 favorites]

Axios, Ivanka Trump now has full security clearance, too

Ivanka Trump's security clearance was upgraded to permanent Top Secret at the same time as Jared Kushner's upgrade on May 1, according to a person briefed on the matter. The White House declined to comment on this story.

Yeah, this all sounds really legit.
posted by zachlipton at 2:00 PM on May 24, 2018 [57 favorites]

James "Spying on you? We-he're not spying on you" Clapper, former head of NSA says Russia turned the election for Trump

Everyone knows the NSA is terrible because of leaks from a guy who lives in Moscow now as reported on by a guy who regularly distorts things to shift blame from Russia to Hillary Clinton.
posted by Artw at 2:11 PM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Ivanka Trump's security clearance was upgraded to permanent Top Secret at the same time as Jared Kushner's upgrade on May 1

A remarkable coincidence that the extensive background checks concluded at exactly the same time!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:31 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

NYT: Border Patrol Agent Kills Woman Who Crossed Into Texas Illegally, Authorities Say

The officer was searching for “illegal activity” in a culvert on a residential street in Rio Bravo, a border town about seven miles south of Laredo, when a group of undocumented immigrants started to hit him with “blunt objects,” United States Customs and Border Protection said. The officer, whose name was not released, fired at least one shot with his handgun, fatally striking the woman in the head.

A woman who lives next door to the site of the shooting disputed the federal agency’s account of the events, saying that the property does not have a culvert and that she did not see any weapons that the group could have used.

“They were on the very corner on that lot where there was a tree,” the woman, Marta V. Martinez, said in an interview Thursday morning. “There was no weapon. They were hiding.”

Murder and blatant coverup. Bear witness to these stories while the New York Times still deigns to print them between articles admiring Nazis.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:31 PM on May 24, 2018 [89 favorites]

WaPo, In an internal memo, the White House considered whether to simply ‘ignore’ federal climate research

Catanzaro, who prepared the memo for a meeting of senior White House and agency officials that took place a couple of days later, asked whether the Trump administration should “consider having a firm position on and a coherent, fact-based message about climate science — specifically, whether, and to what extent, anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the climate system, and what level of concern that warrants.”

The memo presented three options without endorsing any of them: conducting a “red team/blue team” exercise to “highlight uncertainties in climate science”; more formally reviewing the science under the Administrative Procedure Act; or deciding to just “ignore, and not seek to characterize or question, the science being conducted by Federal agencies and outside entities.”

It did not consider touting federal scientists’ findings.

posted by zachlipton at 2:40 PM on May 24, 2018 [28 favorites]

Buzzfeed: Border Patrol Agents Are Accused Of Brutally Attacking Migrant Kids: “These documents provide a glimpse into a federal immigration enforcement system marked by brutality and lawlessness.”

A 16-year-old girl sexually assaulted, a stun gun used on a boy, a 17-year-old run over by a patrol vehicle: These are just a few of the complaints levied by migrant children against US border authorities in a report published Wednesday. The report, compiled by the ACLU and the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, is based on more than 30,000 pages of records related to complaints of abuse filed by unaccompanied immigrant minors and supporting documents from between 2009 and 2014. The documents were released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The complaints in this report predate a president and regime whose opinion is that migrant children "aren't so innocent" compared to the "animals." Imagine what's coming.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [57 favorites]

R. Eric Thomas, Analyzing Trump's Breakup Letter to Kim Jong Un

Today, the White House released a passive-aggressive letter from the President of the United States to Kim Jong Un cancelling their June 12th meeting and directing the North Korean leader to a YouTube link for Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." Like a friend who sends a screenshot of a private text fight to a groupchat, the Trump administration got up extra early today to accomplish all the petty they have planned.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:55 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

White House statement on Flood & Kelly's attendance at the meetings today - paraphrasing, because it's an image instead of text: 'neither Flood nor Kelly attending the meetings, but made brief remarks prior to the meetings started to relay the President's desires for transparency...they departed before the meetings officially started.'

In response, Adam Schiff's Statement on Presence of Emmet Flood at Briefings, per NBC's Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1:

Emmet Flood's presence and statement at the outset of both meetings today was completely inappropriate. Although he did not participate in the meetings which followed, as the White House's attorney handling the Special Counsel's investigation, his involvement — in any capacity — was entirely improper, and I made this clear to him.

His presence only underscore what Rudy Giuliani said: the President's legal team expects to use information gleaned improperly from the Justice Department or the President's allies in Congress to their legal advantage.

And immediately after the meeting, Schiff had told reporters, “Nothing we heard today has changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the FBI or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the Trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols.”

In the end, though, this may well have been the political equivalent of marketing campaign by Trump, who, according to the AP, "told one ally this week that he wanted “to brand” the informant a “spy,” believing the more nefarious term would resonate more in the media and with the public."
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:03 PM on May 24, 2018 [21 favorites]

Like most people, I was expecting Trump to fuck this up, but like most people, I was still somehow shocked by how completely, thoroughly and distinctively he fucked it up.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:12 PM on May 24, 2018 [63 favorites]

Dang. Roger Stone is going to Prison.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:18 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

I didn't expect the summit to go ahead... until they actually fucking scheduled it. Trump is a stupid old man who just says shit and then people have to actualize the shit he says and maybe I need to spend some time in the MetaTalk thread.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:19 PM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]

Politico, George Conway’s Tweets Raise West Wing Eyebrows

On some occasions, Conway has even gone outside the boundaries of Twitter when he couldn't contain his apparent grievance any longer.

“Drivel,” he told Reuters in an interview last week, referring to Rudy Giuliani’s assertion that the president cannot be the subject of a subpoena. He has also emailed people who have written things critical of Trump and quietly suggested improvements in their arguments, according to people who have received his unsolicited two cents.
...
But in conservative legal circles, his tweets are reverberating in a way that has not much at all to do with his wife. There, George Conway is seen as rebuking the silence of his fellow Federalist Society members—the elite, conservative lawyers who have generally chosen to give Trump a pass on his breaches of long-cherished legal norms and traditions in exchange for the gift of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
...
By keeping its collective mouth shut, the Federalist Society—a nationwide network of conservative lawyers with its power base in D.C.—has amassed huge influence in the Trump administration, essentially hand-selecting not only Gorsuch but recruiting ultraconservative judges to fill vacancies from appellate courts on down. It’s a status the organization does not want to jeopardize through rash tweets or the signing of petitions that might make one feel good on issues that matter less to them than a complete reorientation of the federal bench.

The executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, has called around to prominent lawyers and funders in town, warning them not to get on the wrong side of the Trump administration, according to a source who was briefed on the calls. After all, Leo expects to play a lead role in at least one more Supreme Court pick during Trump’s tenure. (Leo did not return calls for comment.)

At times, the society has even broken with the mainstream of the conservative legal establishment in its effort to stand with the administration. On Friday, for instance, the Federalist Society is hosting a call “examining the legality of the Mueller Investigation.” The featured speaker is Steven Calabresi, a law professor and co-founder of the organization who has argued that Mueller’s probe is unconstitutional. Calabresi also happens to be a friend of Conway’s—it’s a small, Federalist Society world, after all.
...
In an interview, Calabresi admitted that Conway may be giving voice to what other members of the Federalist Society think but are too scared to say. “There is a range of viewpoints about Trump, including some people who are Never Trumpers but have been quiet about it, in part because of the judicial nominations,” he said.

But after Conway attacked his own argument that the Mueller probe is unconstitutional, Calabresi called back to amend his comments. “At this point, George is very far off the reservation of what many Federalist Society people think,” he said.

The article says he stepped down from partnership at his firm to move to DC and was fairly far into the process to run the Justice Department's civil division, a huge gig, when Comey was fired, which is the point he began to have second thoughts and started tweeting. I've always thought of his tweets as more of a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to his clients that he's not crazy whatever his wife does, but recasting this as a rebuke of the Federalist Society's silence on rule of law issues (if not outright complicity in exchange for having total control over the judiciary) is an interesting characterization.

Calabresi's argument that Mueller's appointment is unconstitutional is pretty crap too
posted by zachlipton at 3:20 PM on May 24, 2018 [19 favorites]

It seems to me the distinction between "spy" and "informant" is hard to parse and in fact a bit functionally blurry at times. The important point to make is that the FBI started investigating people in the Trump campaign because they were acting as agents of a foreign power, not because the FBI were Democratic party loyalists looking to get one over on Trump.
posted by contraption at 3:22 PM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

Dang. Roger Stone is going to Prison.

Beg pardon?
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:23 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

So Calabresi's true claim here is not the sensational one that Mueller is violating the Appointments Clause; it's the far more modest claim that Mueller is acting in excess of the authority that has been delegated to him, through his appointment, by the relevant regulations.

And surely the appropriate remedy for that scenario would be for Trump's handpicked Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to choose to fire Mueller. But he has chosen not to, because Mueller is doing a good job. The constitutional argument against Mueller is utter horse-shit.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:24 PM on May 24, 2018

re Roger Stone in deep doo-doo
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:25 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

> Trump is a stupid old man who just says shit and then people have to actualize the shit he says and maybe I need to spend some time in the MetaTalk thread.

In a better timeline, the damage he causes might be somewhat mitigated by people in a position to do something about it telling him "no" from time to time, but as it is they either lack the necessary convictions to do so, are attempting to use him to further their own goals whether or not they personally support all of Trump's, are True Believers, and/or would literally rather die than do anything that might put their reelection at risk.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:31 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

CBOOOOOOOOOOO. An Analysis of the President’s 2019 Budget.

It's not like anyone is passing anything resembliing Trump's budget, but it shows how much the White House just makes stuff up.

@kylegriffin1: CBO estimates that the government will take in $1,900,000,000,000 less in revenue and spend $300,000,000,000 more over the next decade than the White House estimated under its latest budget proposal.
posted by zachlipton at 3:56 PM on May 24, 2018 [42 favorites]

Congressional Republicans are now proposing a Kickstarter for the border wall, so maybe they can do something similar for the missing two trillion in revenue. Surely Mexico would help out?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:59 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

6 Ways Trump Could Repurpose the Kim Summit Commemorative Coin

On Monday, the United States minted a garish commemorative coin to celebrate next month’s planned meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore. On Thursday, the meeting fell apart. Within hours, the coins were put on discount as the White House gift shop’s deal of the day, the original $24.95 price tag slashed to $19.95.

If you’re wondering why the White House would go ahead with the production of the coin given the meeting’s cancellation, the gift shop attempts to explain: “The Coin Will be Made Whether or Not the Summit Occurs as Scheduled, Because the Theme is Coming Closer to Peace and Celebrates the Act of Communication Among Countries.” Sounds like the coin maker isn’t granting refunds.

The Warning Coin version is nice.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:03 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Eric "Game Theory" Garland has become the living embodiment of the Galaxy Brain meme:

(RE: trump's pardon of Jack Johnson)
TRUMP ATTEMPTING TO SET PRECEDENT TO EXCUSE HUMAN TRAFFICKING OF PROSTITUTES.

PAY ATTENTION.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:04 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]

This coin is not a coin of honour
No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here
posted by saturday_morning at 4:05 PM on May 24, 2018 [71 favorites]

> CBO estimates that the government will take in $1,900,000,000,000 less in revenue and spend $300,000,000,000 more over the next decade than the White House estimated under its latest budget proposal.

Well, it's not like the United States has any pressing needs that $2,200,000,000,000 could go towards fixing. I think we can all agree that the money is better off in Jeff Bezos' bank account, where it can be spent on personal mecha suits and other amusements, in addition to hardware and software systems capable of tracking the individual movements of every molecule on Earth.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:16 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

CNN: Assange's refuge in Ecuadorian embassy 'in jeopardy'

While Assange has in the past claimed his position in the embassy was under threat, sources say his current situation is "unusually bad" and that he could leave the embassy "any day now," either because he will be forced out or made to feel so restricted that he might choose to leave on his own. His position there is "in jeopardy," one source familiar with the matter said.

{kisses fingers}
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:19 PM on May 24, 2018 [31 favorites]

Assange and his lawyers say he has been detained without charge for 2,720 days

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:29 PM on May 24, 2018 [67 favorites]

NYT, Turf War Between Kushner and Sessions Drove Federal Prisons Director to Quit

When Jared Kushner hosted a high-profile summit meeting on federal prison reform at the White House last Friday, some in attendance noticed that the man who was ostensibly in charge of the federal prison system, Mark S. Inch, a retired Army major general, was nowhere in sight.

Only Mr. Kushner and a few others knew that Mr. Inch, a genial former military police commander appointed to oversee the Federal Bureau of Prisons and its more than 180,000 inmates just nine months ago, had two days earlier submitted his resignation as the bureau’s director to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

By the time President Trump entered the East Room, Mr. Inch had already been ordered to vacate his office and had begun packing up books and memorabilia from his 35-year military career.

Mr. Inch told Mr. Rosenstein he was tired of the administration flouting “departmental norms.” And he complained that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had largely excluded him from major staffing, budget and policy decisions, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. Mr. Inch also felt marginalized by Mr. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, in drafting prison reform legislation, the officials said.
...
Early in the administration, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Sessions came to an agreement, according to a former administration official involved in their talks. Mr. Kushner would press ahead with prison reforms but avoid a politically divisive issue he cared even more strongly about, sentencing reform, which the attorney general and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, both adamantly oppose.

But Mr. Sessions, not Mr. Kushner, controls the prison bureau. And he has quietly worked to ensure that any reforms that might be seen as excessively lenient toward inmates are put into place only after time-consuming study, according to officials.

posted by zachlipton at 4:36 PM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]

I would assume the opposite. They will only talk with Republicans, because Democrats believe in doing things the right way and being responsible to norms and obligations (even to deals made by people they don't like), and Republicans are more likely to respect deals made by other Republicans.

Foreign governments have already started dealing directly with states and cities to route around the chaos of the current federal administration. This started almost the moment Trump took office.
posted by srboisvert at 4:42 PM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]

Congressional Republicans are now proposing a Kickstarter for the border wall, so maybe they can do something similar for the missing two trillion in revenue.

Actually, I think they're on to something. Maybe we could revert to a Kickstarter for a couple other items in lieu of using taxes - the defense budget, say. I'd rather make my own tax dollar contribution to that fund optional, myself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:20 PM on May 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

Arizona Daily Star, Parents, children ensnared in 'zero-tolerance' border prosecutions

Alma Jacinto covered her eyes with her hands as tears streamed down her cheeks.

The 36-year-old from Guatemala was led out of the federal courtroom without an answer to the question that brought her to tears: When would she see her boys again?

Jacinto wore a yellow bracelet on her left wrist, which defense lawyers said identifies parents who are arrested with their children and prosecuted in Operation Streamline, a fast-track program for illegal border crossers.

Moments earlier, her public defender asked the magistrate judge when Jacinto would be reunited with her sons, ages 8 and 11. There was no clear answer for Jacinto, who was sentenced to time served on an illegal-entry charge after crossing the border with her sons near Lukeville on May 14.
...
“I only wanted to ask about the whereabouts of my child in this country,” Chun said.

Kimmins responded she didn’t know where his child was and suggested he ask officials at the facility where he will be detained.

posted by zachlipton at 5:36 PM on May 24, 2018 [30 favorites]

NYT: Concerned by Trump, Some Republicans Quietly Align With Democrats

As the old saying goes: "Better late than never, oh wait I mean fuck off."
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:50 PM on May 24, 2018 [33 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Richard Spencer news:

@kulturalmarx:
everyone always says it's unrealistic when villains explain their entire diabolical plan to the protagonist and yet here we are
posted by Artw at 5:57 PM on May 24, 2018 [29 favorites]

Making the rounds.
posted by Melismata at 6:43 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

My understanding is that he endorsed Cuomo because Nixon failed to garner enough support to make the ballot. You need support of 25% of state delegates to get on the ballot and Nixon got less than 5%, with the remaining 95+% supporting Cuomo. So he's the nominee. That basically makes it Perez' job to endorse him.

I guess Nixon could run as a write-in primary candidate or something but the writing is on the wall.
posted by Justinian at 7:27 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

Oh, apparently you can also submit enough signatures. That should be possible for Nixon which does make Perez' move seem premature. If she didn't make the ballot at all, fine go for it, but she still might.
posted by Justinian at 7:29 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

re Roger Stone in deep doo-doo

And getting deeper.

CNN: Roger Stone's Finances Examined by Special Counsel

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has been probing Roger Stone's finances as it summons a series of witnesses to gather more information about one of President Donald Trump's longtime advisers, according to people familiar with the situation.

Mueller's team has questioned associates about Stone's finances, including his tax returns.[...]

So far, Mueller's team has contacted at least eight of Stone's current or former associates, Stone told NBC News on Sunday. He subsequently told CNN "they are all young people who have no knowledge about my personal, political or business activities."[...]

Some of those names are still unknown, and Stone declined to provide them. In addition to subpoenaing Kakanis, Mueller's team subpoenaed Jason Sullivan, Stone's former social media adviser, to appear before the grand jury.

(These recent leaks about Stone seem more likely to be coming out of the DoJ/FBI/Treasury—the so-called Deep State striking back after Trump's #SPYGATE rantings.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:39 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Right, like I said in my followup given she could still make the nomination ballot through a signature threshold Perez should have held off until seeing if that happened. Like you I don't see any real upside to coming out for Cuomo now.

I have no problem with Perez endorsing once Cuomo is the nominee, though, even if Nixon runs under the WFP line. His job is to endorse the Democratic nominee. But until Cuomo wins the nomination (or if Nixon doesn't get on the ballot) there's no reason not to wait.

The signature threshold seems to be 15,000. It sounds like Nixon has the organization to get that, yes?
posted by Justinian at 7:48 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

She still might make the ballot and, if she wants, will be on the November general election ballot under the Working Families Party line (we have ballot fusion here in NY).


It is my understanding that she has been on the record as saying she will not do this although I acknowledge I don't have receipts. It would be disasterous for WFP - even more than the initial endorsement.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:03 PM on May 24, 2018

Justinian: "The signature threshold seems to be 15,000. It sounds like Nixon has the organization to get that, yes?"

Probably. Getting on the ballot via signatures in New York is difficult and expensive, but Nixon is running a serious campaign here, and should be able to do it.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:42 PM on May 24, 2018

Speaking of such things, Letitia James got 85% of the delegate count to be the NY AG nominee. Zephyr Teachout and Leecia Eve got less than 25%, so will be going the signature route to get on the primary ballot.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

AZ Central: Montini: The feds lost – yes, lost – 1,475 migrant children
"The Office of Refugee Resettlement reported at the end of 2017 that of the 7,000-plus children placed with sponsored individuals, the agency did not know where 1,475 of them were.

"Republican Sen. Rob Portman said, “It’s just a system that has so many gaps, so many opportunities for these children to fall between the cracks, that we just don’t know what’s going on — how much trafficking or abuse or simply immigration law violations are occurring.”"

Monstrous bureaucratic incompetence and callousness.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:15 PM on May 24, 2018 [71 favorites]

yeah, could we please not do this today? please.

Horseshit, we have to do this. Over half of America says that it's okay to call MS-13 animals. But Trump conflates MS-13/Mexicans/Latinos/Americans all the time. An awful lot of people don't do nuance. Hate crimes by white guys yelling something along the lines of "get out of my country!" are noticeably and obviously on the rise. People who look like me and my family are increasingly being confronted by random assholes. We separate refugees from their children and put people in camps owned by private companies. We passed Grim a while ago.

The amping up of dehumanizing rhetoric about minority populations is terrifying even for those of us brown people whose families have been here much longer than Trump's.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:15 PM on May 24, 2018 [119 favorites]

AZ Central: Montini: The feds lost – yes, lost – 1,475 migrant children

When you take children from their families, not to be seen again, that's not "losing" that's stealing.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:17 PM on May 24, 2018 [38 favorites]

That’s about one out of five children. A state run foster care system would be burned to the ground if it did that.
posted by kerf at 9:27 PM on May 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

anem0ne: "after a certain point, the rest of the world may only decide to talk to democratic administrations and ignore republican regimes. americans will be viewed more like recurring cicadas, but they're terrible every eight years..."

But you can't tell when America will lose it's mind again and unilaterally withdraw from anything out of pure spite for the previous administration or just because it's a Tuesday.

chris24: "And have to worry that in four years, white America elects another racist fascist imbecile.
"

Or a competent unabashed racist fascist.

Doktor Zed: ""The Office of Refugee Resettlement reported at the end of 2017 that of the 7,000-plus children placed with sponsored individuals, the agency did not know where 1,475 of them were."

$Deity! even the fucking Nazi's didn't lose 22% of the people they detained.
posted by Mitheral at 9:37 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

1500 kids handed to traffickers or smugglers or the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is not "lost." It's some type of horrific ICE / CBP side business. I don't even know how to wrap my brain around the awfulness.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:41 PM on May 24, 2018 [33 favorites]

re Roger Stone in deep doo-doo / And getting deeper.

You'd think all these Trump guys and even the GOP generally would be HUGE fourth amendment fans, because you could pretty much pick any of them at random and be sure that going through their finances with a microscope would put them in jail.

posted by ctmf at 9:43 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

Incidentally, I called this.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:02 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lost -1400 children, i guess we know what Kelly's "or whatever" is...

Fema re: Puerto Rico- criminally negligent ethnic cleansing
ICE: racial police
GOP = Nazis
I know saying it and not doing anything is false comfort, but not saying it is complicity. These are the monsters of our times, they must be stopped.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 10:09 PM on May 24, 2018 [28 favorites]

I really doubt this is the end of Trump's negotiating with North Korea. The letter says he's cancelling the summit, but that Kim should talk to him if he's willing to start negotiating again. Kim's already responding, and will continue to jerk Trump's chain from now until he leaves office. There's a reason common wisdom before Obama was to not negotiate with autocrats. Attention alone rewards them.
posted by xammerboy at 10:21 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]

$Deity! even the fucking Nazi's didn't lose 22% of the people they detained.

That’s a weirdly reassuring thing to say, actually. I mean, would you complain if they had?

Put that way, there is a remote possibility that those 1475 kids weren’t “lost,” but *got the fuck out of there* and are with some auntie or whatever and doing just fine.

Dead in a ditch is also a possibility. But there’s a glimmer of hope, at least.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:22 PM on May 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

From the article that was linked "A documentary from the PBS program "Frontline" said that the federal government has actually released some of the minors to human traffickers." This is a life threatening situation. It is not ok. These are only the 1,475 CHILDREN that we know about, from LAST YEAR. How many from this year are "misplaced" already? How many are being picked over by human traffickers tonight or being sold to their predators now, as I type this or now as you are reading it?
posted by W Grant at 10:33 PM on May 24, 2018 [23 favorites]

"Trump's Mirror" is a terrifying thing, but it is true far too often that whatever awful thing Donald or his 'people' accuse others of doing is something that they themselves are doing. I made the bad (and delete-worthy, I know) joke that the claims about the child prostitute ring in the pizza parlor basement meant that there IS one in the basement of Trump Tower. But with ICE handing over hundreds of children to traffickers, it's getting closer and closer to the terrible truth.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Isn’t Qanon also predicated on some massive fictional paedophile scheme? And here they are actually really running one - I expect it to have zero impact on the qanonists whatsoever.
posted by Artw at 11:00 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am curious why this story is blowing up now when the NYT story landed a month ago. This should be an enormous scandal, and it was reported a month ago, and suddenly it’s very online.
posted by chrchr at 11:56 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

if i may share with the class, i would like to give to y’all something i posted on twitter tonight. i believe it is relevant to the conversation that we have all been having since 2016. forgive me, i’m not fluent enough in html to blockquote, but i’ll break it up paragraph by paragraph. to wit—

pro fucking tip: don’t let your siblings die before you and your mom have to find them. i’m gonna carry the sounds she made to my fucking grave. my poor mom, y’all. my mommy.

she gave up so much so i can do what i do, and her reward is that she has to bury her own fucking kid. she had to close my sister’s eyes. she had to do that for her child.

i mean i know that what i’m feeling now is just a shadow of the pain Black people have had to endure for centuries. i know that. it’s part of why i do what i do.

we fought a lot, my sister and i. a loootttt. and i had to endure her resentment of me for a long while. but she was still my blood, and i loved her.

i loved her and she’s dead now. i have to go home and bury my big sister, who always loved me. and then i have to keep fighting. and this is so, so hard. and it’s worth it.

i believe with all of my heart that it’s worth it. everything we do. it all matters. keep fighting, you bastards. i’m crying now and i haven’t cried all day. but in the end, love wins. i promise you, love wins.

(thank you for everything, metafilter.)
posted by dogheart at 12:03 AM on May 25, 2018 [95 favorites]

Re the Q of how will the rest of the world trust the US, post-Trump: earlier today, through a series of vaguely-related coincidences, I was re-reading this bit of inside baseball from the 2003 Davos World Economic Forum. (BTW, the MeFi discussion at the time was not taken well by the author…)

A short summary would be that, outside the US, the political and business world was utterly sick of having to deal with the USA's self-absorbed "my way or the highway" unilateralism on any number of important subjects - war, the Middle East, climate change, IP, human rights, terrorism, decreasing resources, etc - and was already well on the path to deciding "it's easier to just do business in countries whose governments agree with yours".

Now that the USA has shown that not only will it elect a mentally-unstable narcissistic toddler (provided it promises to keep doing exactly what the world disliked 15 years ago, only harder), but that half its polity and voting public will happily ride that demented rattlesnake until the bitter end - well, do you think it'll be easy for the USA to regain (or, optimistically, keep) its position at the top?

Maybe if it was a one-off, the US would get a second chance. Arguably, post-Bush II, this is the second chance…
posted by Pinback at 12:44 AM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

Isn’t Qanon also predicated on some massive fictional paedophile scheme? And here they are actually really running one - I expect it to have zero impact on the qanonists whatsoever.


Re: Trump's Mirror, I give you the FBI's FOIA archive on Jeffrey Epstein, of the Jane Doe v. Trump & Epstein child rape lawsuit infamy, over here is the woman with the pseudonym "Tiffany Doe"'s declaration in support of plaintiff's protection order, reading in part:

"5. In June, 1994 while performing my duties as a recruiter of adolescent woman to attend Mr. Epstein's parties, I met a 13 year old adolescent woman, the Plaintiff in this matter, at the Port Authority in New York City who said she had come to New York City in the hope of starting a modeling career."

Status of this case. She filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss on November 4th, 1996.

On Oct. 17, 2016, three weeks before the Nov. 8 election, Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen incorporated Essential Consultants LLC in Delaware.

on Oct. 27, 2016, Essential Consultants made a $130,000 payment to Daniels’ attorney at the time.

I will go vomit now.
posted by mikelieman at 1:58 AM on May 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

Re the Q of how will the rest of the world trust the US, post-Trump: earlier today, through a series of vaguely-related coincidences, I was re-reading this bit of inside baseball from the 2003 Davos World Economic Forum. (BTW, the MeFi discussion at the time was not taken well by the author…)

Good catch. It's really frustrating to see how people knew what was going to happen and couldn't stop it at all.

Now that the USA has shown that not only will it elect a mentally-unstable narcissistic toddler (provided it promises to keep doing exactly what the world disliked 15 years ago, only harder), but that half its polity and voting public will happily ride that demented rattlesnake until the bitter end - well, do you think it'll be easy for the USA to regain (or, optimistically, keep) its position at the top?

Maybe if it was a one-off, the US would get a second chance. Arguably, post-Bush II, this is the second chance…

Yeah, "they" gave Obama the Nobel prize for winning the US election. I don't think "they" are going to be as optimistic again.
posted by mumimor at 2:49 AM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

From ten days ago, Y. Varoufakis (with A. Goodman) on U.S. credibility (and more), going forward.
posted by progosk at 4:12 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Blowing up trust in a bullying way is probably the real day that Trump finally became presidential.
At least he's following that norm.
posted by Harry Caul at 4:16 AM on May 25, 2018

To me the most mind-fucky thing isn't that this summit blew up, because Jesus, we knew that was going to happen. It's that the device that blew it up, the letter was dictated by Trump, and apparently its delivery was Trump-designed too. There's not a buffer between the Mad King and the actions of the U.S., is what I'm saying. Nobody stopped this or massaged this or did anything to shelter the world from the actions of this narcissist. That's terrifying.
posted by angrycat at 4:47 AM on May 25, 2018 [92 favorites]

At Trump Tower, Michael Cohen and Oligarch Discussed Russian Relations, By William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Mike McIntire, New York Times

In Mr. Cohen’s office on the 26th floor, he and the oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, discussed a mutual desire to strengthen Russia’s relations with the United States under President Trump, according to Andrew Intrater, an American businessman who attended the meeting and invests money for Mr. Vekselberg. The men also arranged to see one another at the inauguration, the second of their three meetings, Mr. Intrater said.

posted by Freon at 7:12 AM on May 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

I'm so sorry for your loss, dogheart.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:19 AM on May 25, 2018 [35 favorites]

Melismata: A few weeks ago I met a smart young woman (late 20s) who was interning at a media outlet in D.C. (I forget which one), and I asked her what the atmosphere was like there.

Are people killing each other? I asked. Are Dems and Repubs fighting in the streets?

No, she said, everyone is just waiting for this to be over so things can get back to normal.

Emphasis mine, because if this is a media outlet that reports the news, then waiting for things to be over and get back to normal IS NOT WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING. For example, said this morning (audio only for now, transcript up later) Rachel Martin, talking to ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, said "the president's supporters will say 'it may be unconventional, it may be uncomfortable, it may be even risky, but maybe that rhetoric was what opened that window to the these talks in the first place," 1) as if the talks had happened (THEY DIDN'T, TRUMP CANCELLED THEM), and 2) as if Trump's supporters' ideas are worth airing without caveats.

Yes, I understand Martin was posing a question to Mullen to prompt a response, but that framing was based on something that hasn't happened BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT CANCELED IT AND SAID WE MIGHT HAVE A NUCLEAR WAR INSTEAD.

This is not normal. People who support Trump's tantrums and petty power plays on the global scale as normal are making the situation worse now, and for the future. Things will not go back to normal if we pretend things are normal now.

I'm not saying that journalists should go full #Resist, but call out authoritarian, fascist, corrupt actions as such. Say "Trump's supporters will say that his bombastic rhetoric got North Korea to the point of a meeting, even though Trump then cancelled the meeting." Don't skip past the uncomfortable truths because they're divisive - these truths are only divisive because many people realize that they're bad ideas and actions. /rant
posted by filthy light thief at 7:31 AM on May 25, 2018 [70 favorites]

I read "there" as applying to Washington D.C. in general rather than the media outlet in particular, but maybe I'm taking too charitable an interpretation. I know that my co-workers in DC media aren't assuming that we can just wait this out.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:34 AM on May 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

@jimsciutto: #NorthKoreanSummit back on? Defense Secretary James Mattis tells reporters “we have got some, possibly some good news on the Korea summit, where it may, if our diplomats can pull it off, may have it back on even.”
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:54 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

New Jersey doing good stuff on climate change.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:59 AM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

Am I the one who has to spend all day tomorrow making a youtube response video to this summit mess composed of news clippings over Katy Perry's song "Hot N Cold" in the "Ken Burns" crossfade style?

So god help me if that's my duty to democracy then so be it.
posted by nikaspark at 8:04 AM on May 25, 2018 [14 favorites]

@jimsciutto: #NorthKoreanSummit back on? Defense Secretary James Mattis tells reporters “we have got some, possibly some good news on the Korea summit, where it may, if our diplomats can pull it off, may have it back on even.”

Political Wire relays the WaPo quoting Trump himself (for whatever that's worth):

“President Trump had canceled the June 12 summit in Singapore on Thursday but now says it is possible that a meeting could take place as originally planned,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Trump: “We’ll see what happens. We are talking to them now. They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it. It could even be the 12th.”

I can hardly wait for a presidency that isn't four years of making it up as they go.
posted by Gelatin at 8:08 AM on May 25, 2018 [24 favorites]

If anyone in MN knows of public demonstrations or anything protesting the abuse of undocumented and immigrant children, please message me. Or if you have other action ideas. I'll keep calling my senators and rep but I truly am at a loss of what else to do.

Suggestions of orgs to donate to are welcome as well.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:20 AM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

Going into the holiday weekend, anonymous White House leakers are insinuating to the Washington Post that there could soon be another firing/resignation from the Trump administration—‘We’re Closed!’: Trump Vents His Anger Over Immigration At Homeland Security Secretary:

President Trump began berating Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the Oval Office earlier this spring, according to administration officials, griping about her performance and blaming her for a surge in illegal border crossings.[...]

The president has chastised her on several occasions this spring, including a much publicized meeting earlier this month when he attacked her in front of the entire Cabinet. He has grown furious because his administration has made little progress building the border wall, and his most ardent supporters have blamed Nielsen for not doing more to halt the caravan of Central American migrants whose advance Trump saw as a personal challenge. [...]

Nielsen has complained that it is almost an impossible task working for Trump, according to administration officials and others familiar with her thinking, and that he doesn’t understand the nuances of immigration law.

It remains unclear, according to several people familiar with the situation, how much longer the relationship can last, but the strains illustrate the difficulty faced by Trump subordinates who are tasked with delivering policy solutions to match his most soaring promises.

“The president has a very rudimentary understanding of what the border is all about and how you secure it,” said a former DHS staffer who worked closely with Nielsen. “And she’s also not one of the border fire-eaters that have his ear right now. She’s in an impossible, no-win situation.”

And, the leakers would like to remind the Washington Post's readers, Donald Trump is a bigot:

The night before Trump delivered his first speech to Congress in February 2017, he huddled with senior adviser Jared Kushner and Miller in the Oval Office to talk immigration. The president reluctantly agreed with suggestions he strike a gentler tone on immigration in the speech.

Trump reminded them the crowds loved his rhetoric on immigrants along the campaign trail. Acting as if he was at a rally, he then read aloud a few made up Hispanic names and described potential crimes they could have committed, like rape or murder. Then, he said, the crowds would roar when the criminals were thrown out of the country — as they did when he highlighted crimes by illegal immigrants at his rallies, according to a person present for the exchange and another briefed on it later. Miller and Kushner laughed.

A senior White House official said that while the president did discuss the “crowd enthusiasm for crackdowns on criminal aliens,” the official disputed that Trump used Hispanic names to illustrate the point.

Nielsen can't claim she didn't know what she was getting into when she signed up: "Nielsen got a glimpse of Trump’s intense anger over immigration last June when she was present for part of a meeting where Trump, Kelly, Miller and then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson all began yelling and insulting each other, according to former and current administration officials." The. Best. People.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:42 AM on May 25, 2018 [32 favorites]

Emmy Rae, I sent you a memail - but for other folks, there are a bunch of Minnesota-specific resources at the bottom of this page. The legal orgs tend to be more email list-y, some of the others are facebook-centric.

I think another thing to do would be to write all your city reps stating your support for immigrants, hatred for ICE, etc and your willingness to vote on those lines. Frey is a flawed mayor, but he's making some noises that are not entirely bad and I think he needs to know that this will not cost him politically.

MIRAC and CAIR are the ones to follow on facebook for protest and call-in information.

I hate this too and feel like I want to do more but am not sure what.

There is also a program misleadingly called "Countering Violent Extremism" that targets Somali Minnesotans for "intervention". If you have the opportunity to convey non-support to politicians, that is worth doing.

Things are going to shit here - far more homeless people than I've ever seen before due to opiods and rising rents, gentrification rendering huge swathes of the city basically unrecognizable, garbage racist policing, everyone I know is either broke or poor.
posted by Frowner at 8:53 AM on May 25, 2018 [20 favorites]

A collection of excellent Ann Telnaes political cartoons at the Washington Post: The Big Con: A visual history of Trump's conflicts of interest.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:59 AM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

he doesn’t understand the nuances of immigration law.

I assume one of the said nuances is that, as is regularly pointed out here, the majority of undocumented immigrants don't enter the country illegally. They enter on visas and overstay them. And border security has absolutely no effect on that method: unless we're willing to outright forbid foreigners from entering the US even for short-term visits, there's not actually a whole hell of a lot to be done about those.

OK, I lied above. If we really, really wanted to root out visa overstays, there's definitely more that could be done, but that gets into the second nuance he probably doesn't get: a lot of our economy is based on undocumented workers (to our shame, because it's an incredibly exploited sector of our workforce). Crack down on that, and several industries (agriculture, particularly) go into shock. Industry and politicians talk a good game about immigration enforcement, but at the end of the day, they don't actually want immigrants gone, just scared.
posted by jackbishop at 8:59 AM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

@quancyclayborne:
For those of you getting discourage remember:

-- Trump is bleeding supporters like a stuck pig - the only ones remaining are his base (~25%)

-- Politico reported that 200 million people are now registred to vote, the largest in history.

If we can keep this up, we will win.
posted by Artw at 9:07 AM on May 25, 2018 [55 favorites]

Long thread on the Ipsos weirdness that is driving changes in the generic ballot and Trump approval averages.

Obviously, I don't want to be the unskewed polls guy, but this does seem odd.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:10 AM on May 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

Also, serious immigration control is almost entirely bullshit.

1. Capital can move as it pleases, which is inevitably going to work to human detriment. Even with total freedom of movement, people can't keep up with money, but with little freedom of movement for humans, capital movement will always be used to screw actual humans.

2. Did god make the borders? Borders were made by humans, almost always by horrible violence and without any popular accountability.

3. If nation states can fuck people over through violence and "free" trade, people will always try to go somewhere else. If the US is going to back violent regimes all around the world and then shut out the people who are trying not to die or be horribly impoverished, well, that's a very bad and hypocritical thing.

4. De facto, strict immigration controls between large countries with enormous borders can't be enforced without great expense and great brutality. You're going to get brutality no matter what as long as you're trying to control people who really, really need to move.

5. Hatred of foreigners is exacerbated by the politics needed for strict immigration controls, and hatred of foreigners is a gift to the right.

In a statist society, there's probably some administrative reasons for some small amount of border bureaucracy, but far more at the library-card level than what we have now.

Except for the bare minimum of evidence-based border bureaucracy, borders are some bullshit.
posted by Frowner at 9:13 AM on May 25, 2018 [87 favorites]

Why, Kim Jong Un, why? (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

We must mourn what might have been.

It would have been amazing. It would have been the greatest summit of our time. Thomas Jefferson would have fallen demurely off Mt. Rushmore to make room. “I am not worthy,” would have creaked from his enormous stone lips, as he fell, “but I shall clear the way for one who is: The man who has solved Diplomacy.”

We must cast our commemorative coins into the commemorative sea. There is nothing to commemorate. The brave new world, in which Oceania and Eastasia found peace at last, is no more. But Mike Pence has been protected. No one can call him a “political dummy” and expect to sit down with Donald Trump. Donald Trump will stand and walk and sit down with many people, very fine people, but this — he could not countenance this.

Perhaps Leader Kim knew this. Perhaps this was why he allowed his minister to insult Vice President Pence: because he knew what would have happened if he had sat down with Donald Trump.

North Korea, of course, would have completely denuclearized without asking for any concessions whatsoever. That would have been the very first thing that would have happened. The things that would have happened after that would have been so beautiful that thinking of them, and knowing that Leader Kim made them impossible, fills my heart with a raw ache. The commemorative coins would have sold out, immediately, and their value would have increased each year exactly the way the value of Beanie Babies hasn’t.

And now it can never be.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:25 AM on May 25, 2018 [15 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump (5:04 AM - 25 May 2018):

The Democrats are now alluding to the the concept that having an Informant placed in an opposing party’s campaign is different than having a Spy, as illegal as that may be. But what about an “Informant” who is paid a fortune and who “sets up” way earlier than the Russian Hoax?

Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain? And to think that the party in question, even with the expenditure of far more money, LOST!

"Everyone knows there was a Spy, and in fact the people who were involved in the Spying are admitting that there was a Spy...Widespread Spying involving multiple people.” Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist Senior Editor But the corrupt Mainstream Media hates this monster story!

Democrats are so obviously rooting against us in our negotiations with North Korea. Just like they are coming to the defense of MS 13 thugs, saying that they are individuals & must be nurtured, or asking to end your big Tax Cuts & raise your taxes instead. Dems have lost touch!

Very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea. We will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!

posted by christopherious at 9:26 AM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

But the corrupt Mainstream Media hates this monster story!

Now this is the moment when he became president.

Democrats are so obviously rooting against us in our negotiations with North Korea.

I don't really have a rooting interesting in this situation. I'm just trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

asking to end your big Tax Cuts & raise your taxes instead

True. If you're rich.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:38 AM on May 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

I just don't think these nonsense statements by Trump achieve anything. People who think Trump is incompetent will continue to think so. People who profess to love Trump will continue to do so. People who aren't tuned in will continue to not be tuned in. He's just shouting into the void.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:38 AM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

christopherious: @realDonaldTrump ... Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain?

What the what? First, recall that the Democrats were blocked on judicial nominations, and now your corrupt party is gladly ratfucking the country for decades to come with its political and religious extremist judges, so that pretty much indicates that the Dems had nothing near absolute power.

Also recall when you PUBLICLY ASKED Russia to hack your opponents emails? Of course not, that was in the past and you forever live in the present.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:41 AM on May 25, 2018 [17 favorites]

The obvious, literal interpretation of that tweet is that Donald Trump believes that the Democratic Party had absolute power during the 2016 campaign despite having a minority in the House and Senate. He thinks of the presidency as having absolute power. Which shouldn't really be a surprise.
posted by skymt at 9:47 AM on May 25, 2018 [40 favorites]

I really really hope we (the press, the left, etc.) don't take the bait and get bogged down in some stupid "spy" vs. "informant" debate. It's fine to correct the record, but for fuck's sake do it in the context of "Yes, the FBI, which though a nonpartisan agency is staffed mostly by conservatives, did find it necessary to employ an informant within the Trump campaign when it became apparent that members of that campaign were foreign agents engaged in crimes, some of which they have confessed and are awaiting sentencing for, and some of which remain under active investigation."
posted by contraption at 9:56 AM on May 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

Sen Chris Coons [D-DE]: Based on new information we learned this week, I’m very concerned that Donald Trump Jr. provided false testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I’m asking the Committee Chairman to bring Trump Jr. back in to testify-in public this time. Here’s the letter I sent yesterday.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:58 AM on May 25, 2018 [65 favorites]

He knows all he has to do is yell "SPIES" and the NYT will run 5 days of "Spygate???" headlines.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:03 AM on May 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

This quote from DJT: "But what about an “Informant” who is paid a fortune and who “sets up” way earlier than the Russian Hoax?"

Does it seem to say "How dare you get information on me before the actual collusion started?" Because that's the way I read it. Maybe all the head-desking finally broke my brain.
posted by puddledork at 10:04 AM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hmm, the plot thickens in VA-05:

Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett and his wife turned the congressman’s staff into personal servants, multiple former employees to the freshman Republican told POLITICO — assigning them tasks from grocery shopping to fetching the congressman’s clothes to caring for their pet dog, all during work hours.

posted by Chrysostom at 10:04 AM on May 25, 2018 [20 favorites]

‘A lot of dial tones’: The inside story of how Trump’s North Korea summit fell apart

Inside the White House residence, the first alarm sounded about 10 p.m. Wednesday when national security adviser John Bolton told Trump about North Korea’s public statement threatening a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown” and mocking Vice President Pence as a “political dummy.”

Trump was dismayed by Pyongyang’s bellicose rhetoric, the same theatrics Trump often deploys against his adversaries. Bolton advised that the threatening language was a very bad sign, and the president told advisers he was concerned Kim was maneuvering to back out of the summit and make Americans look like desperate suitors, according to a person familiar with the conversations.
...
Tony Schwartz, who co-authored “The Art of the Deal” with Trump, said the president scotched the summit to save his ego.

“Trump has a morbid fear of being humiliated and shamed,” Schwartz said. “This is showing who’s the biggest and the strongest, so he is exquisitely sensitive to the possibility that he would end up looking weak and small. There is nothing more unacceptable to Trump than that.”
...
For Trump, the cancellation brings one silver lining — at least in the eyes of his lawyer. Giuliani said the president would now be free to focus on whether to sit for an interview with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team in the Russia investigation.

Still, Giuliani added, he believes Trump is more likely to eventually sit down across from Kim than Mueller.

“I think it is more inevitable than a Mueller interview,” Giuliani said. “At least they’re not going to try to trap him into Korean perjury.”

posted by kirkaracha at 10:04 AM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

I just don't think these nonsense statements by Trump achieve anything. People who think Trump is incompetent will continue to think so. People who profess to love Trump will continue to do so. People who aren't tuned in will continue to not be tuned in. He's just shouting into the void.

The entire universe didn't blame the cancellation of the summit on Kim like they were Supposed To, so hello narcissistic injury and lots of word salad. I used to call it "ranting to the heavens" when my narcissist parent did it. Our ceiling fan heard a lot about how No One Else knew how to Do Things Correctly and How Dare people Underestimate their Brilliance.
posted by camyram at 10:12 AM on May 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

He knows all he has to do is yell "SPIES" and the NYT will run 5 days of "Spygate???" headlines.

Betteridge's law has a corollary: Even though the answer to the headline is almost always no, lots of people will still think it suggests yes.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 10:12 AM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

“I think it is more inevitable than a Mueller interview,” Giuliani said. “At least they’re not going to try to trap him into Korean perjury.”

Ah, yes, the infamous Korean perjury trap. Just as the solution to the famous Chinese finger trap is to resist the urge to pull, a little known secret to avoiding a Korean perjury trap is—and this is counterintuitive, I know—to resist the urge to lie.
posted by Room 101 at 10:14 AM on May 25, 2018 [46 favorites]

Does it seem to say "How dare you get information on me before the actual collusion started?" Because that's the way I read it. Maybe all the head-desking finally broke my brain.

By pointing to what seems to be ongoing concern from the FBI about Russian contacts with his campaign, Trump is basically conceding that those contacts existed.

It's been fascinating seeing how much wrongdoing Trump and his apologists are willing to admit to, tacitly or otherwise, and how much more they imply by how desperately they work to try to cover it all up.
posted by Gelatin at 10:14 AM on May 25, 2018 [17 favorites]

On a lighter note: Because of filthy light thief's comment in a previous thread, 2 weeks ago I subscribed to my local weekly paper, which is independently owned (not owned by Sinclair or GateHouse). It's not cheap. In fact somebody left a voicemail confirming my subscription, and her tone was surprised and telegraphed "Is this a mistake? or a practical joke?" But I didn't really get, before reading all y'all's comments here since 11/08/16, about how vital this sort of thing is -- how lack of support for, and engagement with, local media and politics, corrodes democratic ideals and cornerstones that I grew up taking for granted.

This week's edition had 3 items that caught my eye, which I would otherwise never have heard about (there's a county-wide daily paper, owned by GateHouse, but it doesn't have the following items):

1. There have been 3 reports to police about a "nude 'bigfoot,'" some guy(s?) who's out at night / wee hours of morning, running, in the nude. Police spokesperson: "[In this city,] nudity, with no other lewd action, is not a criminal offense. . . . [Reports say no] lewd behavior accompanied the activities of the nude individuals." (!! I did not know this. I'm not ok with a guy exposing himself to me while staring at me, but an isolated guy enjoying the warming spring winds around his dangly bits when few people are likely to see him strikes me as funny...though maybe it would give cover to assholes, I dunno.)

2. At a local independent cafe, the local police department has a monthly "Coffee With A Cop" opportunity to have coffee with a cop and ask questions. I've heard the Police Chief speak before at a Resistance meeting, and grilled him a bit about how they check for white supremacist candidates for the police force. He fielded my questions satisfactorily. So I think I'll go to the next Coffee w/ Cop. I'm thinking about asking about what I've read here, and at CAIR, about how some police academies train recruits using anti-Muslim rhetoric & other bigoted exercises. If I need to pivot away from a charged topic like that, I'll ask about the line between indecent exposure and "nudity with no other lewd action."

3. A committee of residents, public officials and community leaders had their first meeting about making this small city a Not In Our Town (NIOT) community. (The article says that in the 1990s, there was a hate crime here against a Chinese-American, a stabbing resulting in a punctured lung.) At this meeting, the Police Chief encouraged people to especially report crime against immigrants. The organizers are planning future meetings.

Thanks to the MeFite who posted the NIOT link months ago in one of these threads. This article might not have caught my eye otherwise. It's ploddingly written. I'd half-heartedly thought about trying to get NIOT started here, but I'm not white, and I'm an introvert so I'm not well connected, and the task and risk to my faith in humanity seemed too much. Probably I'll find that this NIOT group is like most White-dominated groups, full of well-meaning Trump-hatin', White-oblivious & -defensive people, but I have found more woke White people speaking up to defend me when I open my mouth lately, so. Crossing fingers. Also I think I may offer social media help to the paper. Their twitter and Facebook pages haven't been updated since September 2017.

tl;dr: Your town, too, could be a NIOT town!
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 10:42 AM on May 25, 2018 [72 favorites]

But what about an “Informant” who is paid a fortune and who “sets up” way earlier than the Russian Hoax?

Let's not overlook this. To Trump, the campaign's illegal meeting with Russian criminals in Trump Tower, which was admitted publicly on Twitter by Donald Jr. is a "Hoax".

If he's that dissociated from reality, why bother trying to parse the rest of his rantings?
posted by mikelieman at 10:45 AM on May 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

“I think it is more inevitable than a Mueller interview,” Giuliani said. “At least they’re not going to try to trap him into Korean perjury.”

Jesus Kee-rist. This thing again. You know how to avoid a 'perjury trap'? Don't lie. Tell the truth, like you're supposed to. There. Simple. Done.

Ladies and gentlemen: Rudy Giuliani, legal mastermind. Every time he complains about a 'perjury trap', he's basically conceding that his client is going to lie, and that he has reason to lie.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:51 AM on May 25, 2018 [64 favorites]

Berkeley Breathed's first comic, the college-based "Academia Blues" from 1978, is being rerun on gocomics.com. And the one today was depressingly as true today as 40 years ago.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:22 AM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

Jaw-droppingly bad business practices by Mickey "Sez Who?" have been found by the Forward: Exclusive: Michael Cohen’s Trump Org Emails Tied To Crooked ‘Taxi King’

Michael Cohen’s use of his Trump Organization email to conduct his taxi business has become more legally significant after his former medallion manager, Evgeny Freidman, agreed to work with federal prosecutors as part of a plea deal, according to experts and reports.

That’s because public records obtained exclusively by the Forward show that Cohen used his Trump email on multiple occasions to conduct business for his NY Funky Taxi Corp. medallion, which Freidman managed since at least 2012. Cohen’s taxi dealings were part of records seized by federal investigators after they raided his home and office.

David Shapiro, a financial crimes expert and former FBI forensics investigator, told the Forward that Cohen’s use of the “trumporg.com” address makes it much harder for him to argue he was only acting in a legal capacity for the company. Shapiro also said that it potentially exposes other members of the Trump Organization to federal investigations if Freidman testifies against Cohen.

“He’s conducting business, he’s not practicing law. There’s a potential conspiracy charge [against the Trump Organization],” Shapiro said.

“I am really astounded by the sloppiness of it all. It’s so careless.”

And if this situation wasn't stupid enough, "Shapiro added that investigators could now more easily subpoena all of Cohen’s Trump Organization emails going back a decade, when records show he started to conduct his taxi business with that address."
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:45 AM on May 25, 2018 [51 favorites]

So, today I actually had time to call my senators and reps during work (aka when someone actually answers the phone). I am represented in Washington by Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith and Keith Ellison. On each call I asked the person who answered "Has Senator/Rep X made a statement in response to Donald Trump's comments calling immigrants, including children, animals?"

Each time they said the person has not made a statement but they would be happy to pass along a message. I think it is a major failing even my notably liberal folks haven't made a statement. It concerns me that the Democrats aren't immediately and aggressively pushing back on that (I know there are one-off exceptions). I told the staffers that I think it is important to publicly rebuke these statements and ultimately to defund and disband ICE, which is acting in accordance with the White House's "animals" sentiment.
posted by Emmy Rae at 12:02 PM on May 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

oneswellfoop: "Berkeley Breathed's first comic, the college-based "Academia Blues" from 1978, is being rerun on gocomics.com."

Pedantry: It's "Academia WALTZ".
posted by Chrysostom at 12:02 PM on May 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

zachlipton: WaPo, In an internal memo, the White House considered whether to simply ‘ignore’ federal climate research

Meanwhile, facing the uncertain reality that we can't ignore: In a Warming West, the Rio Grande Is Drying Up -- Even in a good year, much of the Rio Grande is diverted for irrigation. But it’s only May, and the river is already turning to sand. (by Henry Fountain, with photographs and video by Josh Haner, for New York Times, May 24, 2018)

LEMITAR, N.M. — Mario Rosales, who farms 365 acres along the Rio Grande, knows the river is in bad shape this year. It has already dried to a dusty ribbon of sand in some parts, and most of the water that does flow is diverted to irrigate crops, including Mr. Rosales’s fields of wheat, oats, alfalfa and New Mexico’s beloved chiles.

Because last winter’s mountain snowpack was the second-lowest on record, even that irrigation water may run out at the end of July, three months earlier than usual. But Mr. Rosales isn’t worried. He is sure that the summer thunderstorms, known here as the monsoon, will come.

“Sooner or later, we’ll get the water,” he said.

The monsoon rains he is counting on are notoriously unpredictable, however. So he and many of the other farmers who work 62,000 acres along 140 miles of the Rio Grande in central New Mexico may get by — or they may not.

“Nobody’s got a whole lot of water,” said David Gensler, the hydrologist for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, whose job is to manage the river water that is delivered to Mr. Rosales and the others through diversion dams, canals and ditches. “If we use it up early in the season and don’t get any rain further on, the whole thing’s going to crash.”

Parts of the state got some much-needed rain this week, which may help Mr. Gensler extend his irrigation water a bit. But whatever happens this spring and summer, the long-term outlook for the river is clouded by climate change.

The Rio Grande is a classic “feast or famine” river, with a dry year or two typically followed by a couple of wet years that allow for recovery. If warming temperatures brought on by greenhouse gas emissions make wet years less wet and dry years even drier, as scientists anticipate, year-to-year recovery will become more difficult.

“The effect of long-term warming is to make it harder to count on snowmelt runoff in wet times,” said David S. Gutzler, a climate scientist at the University of New Mexico. “And it makes the dry times much harder than they used to be.”

With spring runoff about one-sixth of average and more than 90 percent of New Mexico in severe to exceptional drought, conditions here are extreme. Even in wetter years long stretches of the riverbed eventually dry as water is diverted to farmers, but this year the drying began a couple of months earlier than usual. Some people are concerned that it may dry as far as Albuquerque, 75 miles north.

Unfortunately, New Mexico farmers aren't (generally) trying to address the changing climate, and instead take the "feast and famine" cycle as the norm, and continuing to use flood irrigation to water their crops (NMSU guide on pecan irrigation, but the background still applies, and the idea that there's a better way to irrigate different crops is key), and the current administration is chock full of conmen (and women) from the top down, including Scott "farmers are the first conservationists and environmentalists" Pruitt (which he said to Iowa farmers who were previously asked to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff that can pollute lakes, rivers and streams, and contribute to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico).

tl;dr: farmers, don't look to the government for any guidance or help, particularly when they bury their heads in the (dry, dry sand) with regard to preparing for and addressing climate change.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:12 PM on May 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

That’s because public records obtained exclusively by the Forward show that Cohen used his Trump email on multiple occasions to conduct business for his NY Funky Taxi Corp. medallion

How could Cohen be so stupid as to use a work email account for his other shady line of business? Answer: he didn't consider them to be separate. Cohen's #1 job is to launder money for Trump, and his crazy taxi business is an important element of that.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:13 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

So, today I actually had time to call my senators and reps during work (aka when someone actually answers the phone). I am represented in Washington by Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith and Keith Ellison. On each call I asked the person who answered "Has Senator/Rep X made a statement in response to Donald Trump's comments calling immigrants, including children, animals?"

That's a good idea. I will do that too, though I will need to leave voicemails.
posted by Frowner at 12:13 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Regarding the use of the phrase "perjury trap," I think the point of that phrase (and maybe this is obvious and it's just taken me a long time to figure it out) is to set up a PR defense for when he Trump inevitably perjures himself. To whit, "it was entrapment and thus wasn't really perjury." This both absolves him in the eyes of his supporters and gives the Republicans cover when they don't impeach him. "Oh, well, he lied to the FBI, but it was a perjury trap so we don't need to impeach."

Thu, any lie Trump tells to the FBI was because he was tricked or trapped and not because he is a liar. I don't think the Republicans using this rhetorical device are any more sincere about it than they've been sincere about anything in the past thirty or so year. Just more bunk or the bunk god.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:13 PM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

Tied: abolish ICE
Wired: Prosecute ICE
posted by The Whelk at 12:14 PM on May 25, 2018 [23 favorites]

> Tied: abolish ICE
Wired: Prosecute ICE

Tired: False Dichotomies
Wired: Por que no los dos?
posted by tonycpsu at 12:16 PM on May 25, 2018 [18 favorites]

Border patrol agents murder young woman, pretty clearly lie about it.

I am only sorta facebook competent, but an organizer on FB, Ramon Mejia, says that they've identified her -

Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzáles
Her family called her "Princesita"
Indigenous Maya from
Quezaltenango, Guatemala

Murdered by a U.S. Border Patrol Agent
Rio Bravo, Texas on Wed, May 23, 2018

There is a picture and she looks like a young teenager.

We need to step up our efforts. Right now it is not hard for ICE to operate at all. I bet that a small but consistent campaign of civil disobedience - like what's going on now, but with more people and more frequently - could really make things difficult enough to challenge them. Obviously short of revolution in the streets people can't challenge their every act, but they have it easy now, so any regular inconvenience will seem like it's a really big deal to them.

Also, call and write any representative who is at all likely to be sympathetic. They may not help but if we can get to them even a little, they might not vote to protect ICE, and it's pretty obvious that there's going to be anti-protest pro-ICE laws coming down the pike.

What about actually meeting with our legislators? Anyone can request a meeting. Minnesotans, for example, could go in a body to meet with Klobuchar or Ellison. It might not get any action out of them, but it might keep them from going along with worse things. (Both voted yes on the most recent "Blue Lives Matter" bill.)
posted by Frowner at 12:27 PM on May 25, 2018 [33 favorites]

We need to step up our efforts. Right now it is not hard for ICE to operate at all. I bet that a small but consistent campaign of civil disobedience - like what's going on now, but with more people and more frequently - could really make things difficult enough to challenge them. Obviously short of revolution in the streets people can't challenge their every act, but they have it easy now, so any regular inconvenience will seem like it's a really big deal to them.

If one person out of twenty responded to incidents like yesterday's "papers please" Amtrak stop by telling ICE to go fuck themselves, it would completely hamstring their ability to get anything done. Mass surveillance actions, and mass actions against people of color specifically, rely on the consent of the governed. I for one pledge to do everything in my power to interfere with the unlawful actions of border patrol, even if it comes at the cost of my own security and happiness. If a few of you join me, we can cripple their ability to destroy the lives of immigrants.
posted by Mayor West at 12:36 PM on May 25, 2018 [37 favorites]

Frowner and other Twin Cities mefites: I'd be up for an office visit en masse. I'm too scared to do it alone.


Twin Cities and area mefites: I'm not sure how best to coordinate this, or if a visit is best or if there's some other better option (although I think a visit is a good idea, TBH). What if I made a meet-up thing? Could we use that as a starting point?

I've not done this kind of thing for years and years, but I did have sit-downs with legislators long ago about the Prairie Island nuclear plant so I know it can be done.
posted by Frowner at 12:39 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

WTF Is The White House Gift Shop? A TPM Special Report
By Josh Marshall
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:40 PM on May 25, 2018 [24 favorites]

@ToddHarrisonDC:

I watched this portion of @realDonaldTrump's speech at the Naval Academy today, and can't let it go. In just 2 minutes he makes at least 6 factual errors. Watch the clip and then read the rest of this thread: https://t.co/4QrUFktStp

Error #1: The $700B defense budget for FY18 is not the largest ever. It was larger under the Obama administration: $710B in FY11 and $714B in FY10. And that's without adjusting for inflation!

Error #2: The number of ships in the Navy today is not the smallest since the end of WWI. We have 283 ships today, and in 2007 (Bush administration) we had 279.

Error #3: The Navy will not get to 355 ships "very soon." The Navy's 30-year plan says it will not get to that level until after 2050, but it could possibly be accelerated to the 2030s. Either way, it's not very soon.

Error #4: Getting to 355 ships is not an increase of "a couple of hundred" ships. Here's the math: 355 - 283 = 72

Error #5: The 355-ship fleet has not yet been "approved." The ships have not all been authorized yet, and Congress appropriates the money one year at a time.

Error #6: This year's military pay raise is not the first in ten years. There were pay raises in each of the past ten years, & some were higher than this year's raise.

The deliberate indifference to the truth surely classifies them as lies and not errors, but it's amazing how blandly normal this all is. I only blinked at this one because it was so many in such a short time; Daniel Dale catalogs 1500+ of these things. Now the President an just make up nonsense about the military, in a speech to service members, and it won't even merit a question at the next press briefing let alone a scandal.
posted by zachlipton at 12:59 PM on May 25, 2018 [82 favorites]

@quancyclayborne:
For those of you getting discourage remember:

-- Trump is bleeding supporters like a stuck pig - the only ones remaining are his base (~25%)

This just seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. It's false. Trump and the Republicans are in their best position since just about the inauguration. Which should make Ds work harder rather than give up. But the solution isn't to lie to yourself, I don't think?
posted by Justinian at 1:04 PM on May 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

It's true, Trump's approval has been on an upward trend this year.

The RealClearPolitics average agrees.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:11 PM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

It will be interesting to see if the upward trend continues after the failure of the Korea talks. That seems to have been pushing the ratings upward lately, but now, with the #somuchwinning streak continuing, the ratings might trend back down. Perry Bacon at FiveThirtyEight weighs in.

Trump's ratings have always been abysmally low compared to most other Presidents - even Bush II got higher ratings pre-9/11. And, barring something like 9/11, ratings seem to go lower as the President's tenure goes on and the honeymoon effect wears off. Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight again: Trump is historically unpopular in his first year.

Not that this excuses complacency! But without a Korea success, Trump's ratings don't seem to have a lot to boost them right now.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:20 PM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

From the article that was linked "A documentary from the PBS program "Frontline" said that the federal government has actually released some of the minors to human traffickers."

WHAT.

I'm . . . WHAT?!!
posted by petebest at 1:20 PM on May 25, 2018 [22 favorites]

Long thread on the Ipsos weirdness that is driving changes in the generic ballot and Trump approval averages. Obviously, I don't want to be the unskewed polls guy, but this does seem odd.

I still think that the change in the partisan makeup in the responses, as I pointed out upthread, is being driven directly by the change in the age histogram of the respondents. I don't know why old people are making up much more of the sample and young people much less but it seems to be the case and Franklin doesn't mention it specifically.

(There has still been a shift towards Trump/Rs even with Ipsos removed from the averages, it's just a bunch smaller.)
posted by Justinian at 1:21 PM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Everyone who is aware of the existential threat Trump and his oligarch backers poses to the country should be working against their agenda in whatever way they can, it really doesn't matter what his support numbers are. Paying attention to the polls didn't work out so well in 2016.
posted by benzenedream at 1:22 PM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

It wasn't the polls that fucked up it was the analysis of those polls. 538 was telling everyone who would listen that Trump might win and getting mocked for it.
posted by Justinian at 1:27 PM on May 25, 2018 [29 favorites]

From the article that was linked "A documentary from the PBS program "Frontline" said that the federal government has actually released some of the minors to human traffickers."

WHAT.

I'm . . . WHAT?!!

The article in question says "In 2014, at least 10 trafficking victims, including eight minors, were discovered during a raid by federal and local law enforcement in Portman’s home state of Ohio. As FRONTLINE examined in the recent documentary Trafficked in America, HHS had released several minors to the traffickers. The committee said the case was due to policies and procedures that were “inadequate to protect the children in the agency’s care.”"
posted by BungaDunga at 1:29 PM on May 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

That "WTF is the White House Gift Shop" TPM report that Cookiebastard linked is fascinating. Like, somehow something that seems simple turns out to be really weird, not at all transparent, and quite possibly something that isn't what it claims to be. In fact, it may be quite in keeping with the title of this thread.

The highlights:
-The White House Gift Shop is a rickety website only;
-it is/was apparently registered as a corporation in DC in 2010, though other information claims it was created by Truman and was an extension of a fund intended to support members of the White House Police after tragedies.
-currently, it claims that all money raised is used to support small law enforcement agencies (less than 70 members) with firearms and firearms training.
-its current corporate status is listed as "revoked"

So what has our investigation found? It seems pretty clear to me that The White House Gift Shop has no actual connection to the White House or the U.S. government. It seems like it either did or does have some sort of informal connection the Secret Service. But that’s not clear. Indeed, it’s not even clear it has a current legal status as a corporation.

posted by nubs at 1:30 PM on May 25, 2018 [15 favorites]

The real White House gift shop. (Which, thanks to your outcries, decided not to double their fees.)
posted by Melismata at 1:35 PM on May 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

That incident actually comes from a Senate committee report which goes into a lot more detail about what happened.

According to the indictment, beginning in 2011, the defendants and unnamed conspirators brought Guatemalan nationals to the United States to work in forced labor. Around March 2014, the defendants started recruiting minors, as they believed they would “be easier to bring successfully into the country, easier to control, and harder workers.”143 The indictment further alleges that the traffickers obtained deeds to real property from the victims’ families to secure the victims’ smuggling debt and would retain the deeds to the properties if any part of the debt went unpaid.144 The traffickers lured the victims to travel to the United States on the promise that they would be able to attend school once they arrived.145 Several of the minor victims were detained by immigration officials and transferred to HHS custody. In each instance, either a defendant or one of the defendants’ associates falsely represented to HHS that they were a family friend of the victim so that the victims could be released to the defendants.146 They did so via interviews with HHS care providers and the submission of falsified Family Reunification Applications, which HHS requires sponsors to complete prior to releasing an unaccompanied alien child to the sponsor.147 When contacted by ORR care providers, the parents of the UACs corroborated the sponsors’ stories.148

It seems to me that the traffickers and the parents were agreeing to have the children placed with them, because they had paid them money to smuggle their children and feared them collecting on the debt.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:35 PM on May 25, 2018 [15 favorites]

Daniel Dale catalogs 1500+ of these things.

The Washington Post listed over 3,000 as of April 30.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:52 PM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

WaPo, Trump takes aim at federal bureaucracy with new executive orders altering civil service protections

President Trump issued three executive orders Friday aimed at overhauling the federal bureaucracy by making it easier to fire poor performers, sharply curtailing the amount of time federal employees can be paid for union work and directing agencies to negotiate tougher union contracts.

The orders could result in the biggest changes in a generation to civil service protections long enjoyed by federal workers.

posted by zachlipton at 1:53 PM on May 25, 2018 [23 favorites]

Motherboard, Joseph Cox, Leaked Documents Show Facebook’s Post-Charlottesville Reckoning with American Nazis

In January, 5 months after Charlottesville, Facebook added slides discussing the company’s position on white nationalism, supremacy, and separatism. While it says Facebook does not allow praise, support, or representation of white supremacy, it does allow the same sort of positions for white nationalism and separatism, according to one of the slides obtained by Motherboard.

Explaining its motivation, another section of the document reads that nationalism is an “extreme right movement and ideology, but it doesn't seem to be always associated with racism (at least not explicitly).” Facebook then acknowledges that “In fact, some white nationalists carefully avoid the term supremacy because it has negative connotations.”

The article features a slide explaining that you can't support white supremacy on Facebook, but you can support white nationalism and white separatism: "By the same token, we allow to call for the creation of white ethno-states (Eg. "The US should be a white-only nation")"
posted by zachlipton at 2:09 PM on May 25, 2018 [31 favorites]

can't support white supremacy on Facebook, but you can support white nationalism and white separatism:

How do they thread this needle? I’m just aghast. In what way is saying “I want to create a white ethnostate” not white supremacy?
posted by corb at 2:14 PM on May 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

I guess if they don't say their racist white ethno-state would be any good?
posted by saturday_morning at 2:19 PM on May 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

You can be a nazi but you can’t be a Nazi.
posted by Artw at 2:19 PM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

I would seriously be okay with a Social Media Tax Subsidy that covers the financial losses which stem from social media corporations allowing their fields of white supremacy engagement to lay fallow.
posted by nikaspark at 2:27 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

Nazish
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:27 PM on May 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

A kind of Nazi buyback program. Turn in your racists and ethnic cleansers and armchair fascists, get a little relief on your Q3 estimated tax filings.
posted by cortex at 2:29 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

You can be a nazi but you can’t be a Nazi.

More like you can be a Nazi but not a garden variety run-of-the-mill racist.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:29 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm stunned that they put in writing that "we allow to call for the creation of white ethno-states (Eg. 'The US should be a white-only nation')". It's a loophole the size of the Mariana Trench. They'd be better off banning support for all ethno-states, even non-white ones, if that's their hangup.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:29 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

Wonder what the most pro-life president EVAH will have to say if the Irish Times exit poll proves accurate on repealing their 8th Amendment banning abortion. They have it as a landslide 68% repeal, 32% save.

Final official results tomorrow around midday US time.
posted by chris24 at 2:29 PM on May 25, 2018 [42 favorites]

Honestly, what is the moral distinction between "I support a whites-only US" and "Get out of my country, black man"?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:30 PM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

It sounds like Facebook is fine with "Get out of my country, black man," just not "Get out of my country, black man, because I consider you to be genetically inferior."
posted by contraption at 2:33 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

I mean, I'm pretty sure that the distinction between white supremacy and white nationalism is that the latter has a political philosophy and a plan, not merely amorphous hate and entitlement.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:33 PM on May 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

Honestly, what is the moral distinction...

The distinction is the value created by high-friction engagement and increased mindshare when millions of infuriated and angry people argue on your social media platform for hours upon hours on end.
posted by nikaspark at 2:34 PM on May 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

Okay Minnesotan mefites: Sometime this weekend I will figure out and create a meet-up with a view to folks getting together to decide on some actions to take against the abuse of immigrants (or if people just want to cut straight to the "visit Keith Ellison" part we can do that too, I'm not attached to any process.)

I personally am open to a variety of actions and strategies from the very moderate to the less moderate and from the time-consuming to the phonecall-based; in my view, I'd be glad to work with any left-of-center person who is interested in working against ICE's abuse of immigrants.
posted by Frowner at 2:42 PM on May 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

By the way, anyone who's not yet seen the latest political cartoon by pro-trump kook Ben Garrison, please feast your eyes upon "The Wizard of Twitter"

(He's either a madman or a genius—or possibly both, but definitely not neither.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:57 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

The 2018 electoral "Blue Wave" is ultimately dependent on a surge of previously-inactive voters, which would seriously confound all the pollsters' "Likely Voters" model (and has done so in many of the special elections so far), but absolutely NEEDS action from both Democratic Party and Other Liberal organizations to get people registered to vote, make sure the registrations are 'bullet proof' (because the Repubs are gunning for them) and make it convenient to actually vote (let them have their hissy fits over 'busing in voters'). I've said before that it needs to be Priority #1. (And Frowner, please add it to the agenda of any "meet Keith Ellison" event, because it is the base on which all the true fixes of the current terrors can be built.)

As for the proposed "biggest changes in a generation to civil service protections long enjoyed by federal workers", Trump promised to "run Government like a business", meaning one run like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos do (or Don Blankenship). I'm just semi-surprised the attacks on civil service weren't rolled out earlier.

And (because I'm sorry for changing the subject), it really isn't any new "rise in Racist/Nazi/White Supremacist/White Nationalist attitudes", it's a rise in the openness of those attitudes, thanks to the combination of Facebook (and Twitter and YouTube) as a public medium and Trump as a public example. Just one more thing "the polls" totally missed while Obama did his victory lap about a "post-racial America".
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:59 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

piggybacking on all this Minnesota-specific discussion: I've been thinking for a while now it might be useful to create some way in Metafilter to identify and join forces with others in your own state, for activism purposes. I don't know what the best way to do this would be (MetaTalk? Projects?) maybe with like a formally-designated point person for each, that way we can MeMail them if we don't want to publicly announce our states of residence.
posted by robotdevil at 3:01 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

One of the executive orders, which allows employees accused of misconduct being Democrats to be fired more easily,

Let's be up front about what this is
posted by xigxag at 3:02 PM on May 25, 2018 [35 favorites]

I don't know why old people are making up much more of the [Ipsos] sample and young people much less but it seems to be the case and Franklin doesn't mention it specifically.

The shift does coincide with the start of Finals Week / end of semester at many US colleges and universities. I wonder if Ipsos was using school emails or phone numbers to contact a lot of their younger cohorts, or some other form of polling which was tied to physical presences at colleges and universities, and if the start of summer means they're no longer getting enough responses.
posted by halation at 3:03 PM on May 25, 2018

CNN: Border Patrol slightly changes account of undocumented woman's fatal shooting

Alterations: no attack with "blunt object" weapons, instead the officer was "rushed" and "allegedly assaulted," and Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez was no longer "one of the assailants" but "a member of the group." OK.

And this from today. This is either intentional timing for maximum troll-effect or had to have been knowingly allowed by snickering lib-tears-mugs ICE employees down the line:

Careers at ICE @ICEgovCareers

Today is National #MissingChildrensDay.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:18 PM on May 25, 2018 [25 favorites]

I made a Minneapolis event before I saw Frowner's post. You can see it here.

Calling all Twin Cities MeFites who want to talk to their legislators! Join us.
posted by Emmy Rae at 3:25 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

So white supremacists have deliberately started using obfuscatory language to make their positions more palatable to the mainstream.

““The way ahead is through politics,” he said. “We can infiltrate. We can take the country back.” Years before Donald Trump launched a presidential campaign based in part on the politics of race and division, a group of avowed white nationalists was working to make his rise possible by pushing its ideology from the radical fringes ever closer to the far conservative right. Many attendees in Memphis had transformed over their careers from Klansmen to white supremacists to self-described “racial realists,” and Derek Black represented another step in that evolution. He never used racial slurs. He didn’t advocate violence or lawbreaking. He had won a Republican committee seat in Palm Beach County, Fla., where Trump also had a home, without ever mentioning white nationalism, talking instead about the ravages of political correctness, affirmative action and unchecked Hispanic immigration.”

“These racist aspirations are most commonly articulated as the desire to form a white ethnostate — a calculated idiom favored by white nationalists in order to obscure the inherent violence of such a radical project. Appeals for the white ethnostate are often disingenuously couched in proclamations of love for members of their own race, rather than hatred for others.”

And Facebook’s response is tailor made to accommodate and amplify this rhetoric. To the point that I’m wondering if there are some “racial realists” who have infiltrated Facebook.
posted by supercrayon at 3:25 PM on May 25, 2018 [24 favorites]

Hey, Facebook...

Richard Spencer, one of the leading figures in the white supremacist alt-right movement, told his podcast co-host that the alt-right didn’t actually believe in free speech and that the alt-right only claimed to advocate for it for “radically pragmatic” reasons.

Spencer and other alt-right advocates have argued for years that their ideas should be given platforms and unwarranted credibility under the guise of free speech. Their free speech argument has earned the alt-right column after column in national news publications and has been used as a bludgeon to argue that universities should be required to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to guarantee alt-right activists’ security on campus. The free speech argument has served as the alt-right’s admission ticket into mainstream politics, but Spencer’s recent statements seem to indicate the alt-right’s appeal to free speech is disingenuous.

posted by chris24 at 3:30 PM on May 25, 2018 [36 favorites]

Just got an email newsletter from Nancy Pelosi entitled "Hands Off Our Democracy" and linking to A Better Deal for Our Democracy, which describes a three-part effort to "restore a government of, by and for the people":

* make votes count - push for automatic voter registration, protect election infrastructure, restore voting protections in states with a recent history of discrimination, require all states to establish independent redistricting commissions to fight gerrymandering
* strengthen ethics laws (fewer details here)
* fix campaign finance - "increase and multiply the power of small donors" (not sure what that means, but it sounds intriguing), improve enforcement of campaign finance law, "end the scourge of dark money," and "a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United"

There are occasional comments in these threads about how the Democrats need to be ready to with specific programs the moment they retake Congress. It's good to see official positions calling out these major structural problems with American Democracy and offering some specific programs to make things better - NOW, even while they're still the minority party, reminding people that one party HAS noticed the diverse threats to our democracy, and wants to do something about them.
posted by kristi at 3:32 PM on May 25, 2018 [40 favorites]

This excerpt from Trump's Naval Academy speech is worth highlighting despite the lack of attention it's gotten:

In recent years and even decades, too many people have forgotten that truth. They have forgotten that our ancestors trounced an empire, tamed a continent, and triumphed over the worst evils in history. In every generation, there have been cynics and critics that try to tear down America. But in recent years, the problem grew worse. A growing number used their platforms to denigrate America’s incredible heritage, challenge America’s sovereignty, and weaken America’s pride.

We know the truth, will speak the truth, and defend that truth. America is the greatest fighting force for peace, justice, and freedom in the history of the world. And in case you have not noticed, we have become a lot stronger lately. A lot. We are not going to apologize for America. We are going to stand up for America. No more apologies. We are going to stand up for our citizens. We are going to stand up for our values. And we are going to stand up for our men and women in uniform.

Because we know that a nation must have pride in its history to have confidence in its future.

Setting aside for a moment this bland version of American history that, er, whitewashes over our darkest moments and struggles, and that some of our best successes have come from slowly working to try to overcome the worst moments of our history, wait, did he just say we "tamed a continent?" Tamed?
posted by zachlipton at 3:33 PM on May 25, 2018 [50 favorites]

The “tamed” jumped out at me too. Dispicable.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:36 PM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

wait, did he just say we "tamed a continent?" Tamed?

I assume he was talking about early Native Americans
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:37 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Get fucked with this “tamed a continent” bullshit. The ongoing erasure of indigenous people and the theft of their land by settler colonialists and their subsequent genocide is a national disgrace. Not suprised to see noted white supremacist Donald Trump spouting this hateful rhetoric.
posted by supercrayon at 3:38 PM on May 25, 2018 [25 favorites]

Millennials born in 1980s may never recover from the Great Recession
posted by Artw at 3:41 PM on May 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

Ari Melber: Breaking: Randy Credico says Julian Assange told him he is now willing to talk to @RepAdamSchiff investigators for the Russia probe.

Credico says he relayed this to Schiff’s staff *this Wednesday* in their meeting.
Asked if Assange is just trolling, Credico says no, insists Assange asked him to relay his offer to talk directly to Schiff.

Credico was supposedly a go-between for Stone to Assange and pled the 5th when questioned by Mueller. 1/699.

As they say, whoa if true. 699/699.
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:43 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

For those obsessing like me about the weirdness in the Ipsos generic ballot polling it should be noted that the 5 day rolling average ending yesterday is back up to like D+7. It's almost like obsessing over polling fluctuations is crazy making. 🤷 I might stop doing that.

NARRATOR: He didn't.
posted by Justinian at 3:43 PM on May 25, 2018 [33 favorites]

wait, did he just say we "tamed a continent?" Tamed?

Tame the trackless waste
No virgin land left chaste
All shining eyes, but never seeing

posted by The Tensor at 3:45 PM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

did he just say we "tamed a continent?" Tamed?

That’s Stephen Miller verbiage for sure. He’s been out of the spotlight lately but that slimy little racist is still showing up to the White House everyday and working out the Trump doctrine of white supremacy
posted by dis_integration at 3:47 PM on May 25, 2018 [42 favorites]

Because we know that a nation must have pride in its history to have confidence in its future.

Please, please will somebody take away Stephen Miller's copy of Intro to Classical Rhetorical Forms.
posted by notyou at 3:49 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

triumphed over the worst evils in history

Including slavery! Uh, TBD.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:51 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

A growing number used their platforms to denigrate America’s incredible heritage, challenge America’s sovereignty, and weaken America’s pride.

Fuck, just add "White" before every "America" in that sentence. And "heritage" is close to a KKK trigger warning for me thanks to "Heritage Not Hate."

And "a growing number" of what? Russians? And what platforms? Twitter?

We are not going to apologize for America. We are going to stand up for America. No more apologies.

More Obama Apology Tour bullshit.

our ancestors trounced an empire

With the help of France and Spain, which we got through diplomacy. We would have lost the Revolution without weapons and money and soldiers from France, and the French beat Cornwallis at Yorktown.

The victory at Yorktown would not have been possible without the French. French money and credit paid for the campaign. French troops made up half the army there. French military engineers largely directed the siege. And most importantly the French navy repelled the British navy’s attempt to rescue the besieged British army.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:05 PM on May 25, 2018 [29 favorites]

Credico says he relayed this to Schiff’s staff *this Wednesday* in their meeting.
Asked if Assange is just trolling, Credico says no, insists Assange asked him to relay his offer to talk directly to Schiff.

Looks like somebody is looking for a new place to stay
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:09 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

NBC has a scoop linking Trump to a freelance intelligence ops company that their source calls "almost privatized wing of Mossad". Black Cube: Inside the Shadowy Israeli Firm Accused of Trying to Undermine the Iran Deal

Internal Black Cube documents obtained by NBC News and interviews of sources with direct knowledge of Black Cube’s operations reveal a business intelligence company with governmental contracts and a special department for politically motivated work.

A source familiar with Black Cube’s outreach to [former Obama administration aide Colin Kahl and his wife, Rebecca] told NBC News that it was part of an effort to discredit Obama administration officials who had worked on the Iran nuclear deal – and, by extension, the deal itself. Black Cube sought evidence of nefarious behavior, such as financial or sexual impropriety, by the deal's architects, including Colin Kahl. Operatives hoped to obtain such evidence by befriending their targets or their targets’ associates.[...]

The same source said the Iran operation was launched just days after President Donald Trump visited Israel in May 2017. The source said he was told that the work was being carried out “for Trump,” but there is no evidence that the Trump administration had anything to do with the operation, which may have been commissioned by an outside group or agency with no connection to the administration. The identity of Black Cube’s client on the Iran work remains a mystery.

“You’ll never find their name on a contract,” the source said. “I can’t prove that it was the administration other than what I was told.”

When Trump rages on Twitter about "an “Informant” who is paid a fortune [...] to spy for political reasons", Trump's Mirror suggests he's aware of everything about Black Cube's Iran Deal operation.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:18 PM on May 25, 2018 [28 favorites]

Credico says he relayed this to Schiff’s staff *this Wednesday* in their meeting.
Asked if Assange is just trolling, Credico says no, insists Assange asked him to relay his offer to talk directly to Schiff.

Ari Melber @AriMelber updates:

Rep. Schiff’s office just gave us this response:

“Our committee would be willing to interview Julian Assange when he is in U.S. custody, not before.”

Sounds like Credico was privately turned down or put off at that meeting, tried to leverage his position by talking publicly to NBC, and just got shut down hard.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:22 PM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

That whole bullshit Trump speech is like standard gross Eurocentric American history textbook copy (or Westward Ho-type movie voiceover) from the 1950s-60s. Totally "normal sounding" and "traditional" to people with the mindset and frame of reference of Trump's base.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:23 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

WSJ, T-Mobile Says It Hired Lobbying Firm Tied to Former Trump Aide Corey Lewandowski

T-Mobile said late Thursday in a statement it hired Turnberry Solutions in August. “Corey Lewandowski is now affiliated with that firm and they have offered perspective to T-Mobile on a variety of topics, including the pending transaction,” the company said.

According to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with his involvement, Mr. Lewandowski receives a cut of the fees paid to the lobbying firm on the T-Mobile contract. The precise nature of his work with Turnberry Solutions and how long he has worked with the firm are unclear. Mr. Lewandowski shares Capitol Hill office space with the small lobbying firm, founded last year by two of his close associates.

Mr. Lewandowski has previously denied any relationship with Turnberry Solutions and didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Jason Osborne, a lobbyist for Turnberry Solutions, said Mr. Lewandowski, a friend of 20 years, offers strategic advice to the firm but that he isn’t compensated “in any way” by Turnberry Solutions. He also said Mr. Lewandowski does nothing that would trigger the need for him to register as a lobbyist.

Turnberry Solutions’ contract with T-Mobile began Aug. 1, but it didn’t register its work until Jan. 23, according to a federal lobbying disclosure form. Lobbying firms are required by law to register new clients within 45 days. Failure to do so can subject the firm to a fine of up to $50,000.

It's really weird how Lewandowski continues to disclaim all knowledge of "the lobbying firm based in THE HOUSE WHERE HE LIVES" yet things like this seem to keep happening.

WaPo, Trump says the first lady is ‘doing great.’ She hasn’t been seen in public for two weeks. I hope she's fine, and it's her business if she wants to be seen in public or not, though I have concerns about the White House being actively misleading instead of just not providing information she doesn't want to provide. But this is spooky:

According to a pool report, President Trump responded by pointing to a window in the White House residence, and said: “She’s doing great. She’s looking at us right there.”

Reporters turned to look at the spot he indicated, but there was no sign of the first lady.

posted by zachlipton at 4:25 PM on May 25, 2018 [26 favorites]

WaPo, Trump says the first lady is ‘doing great.’ She hasn’t been seen in public for two weeks. I hope she's fine, and it's her business if she wants to be seen in public or not, though I have concerns about the White House being actively misleading instead of just not providing information she doesn't want to provide.

Yeah. I have no idea what's going on. But an embolization procedure is usually outpatient and even when it isn't does not require 5+ days of hospitalization followed by weeks of bedrest. Something is obviously up. Without knowing what that is it is impossible to say whether it is our business or not. So I can't even say I hope we find out. If it's something we should know I hope we find out. If it isn't I hope she recovers or recuperates or is otherwise ok.
posted by Justinian at 4:28 PM on May 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

It's a cosmetic surgery touch up.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:35 PM on May 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump sounds like Hitler in that Naval Academy speech. Jesus H Christ.

"We know the truth, will speak the truth, and defend that truth. America is the greatest fighting force for peace, justice, and freedom in the history of the world. And in case you have not noticed, we have become a lot stronger lately. A lot. We are not going to apologize for America. We are going to stand up for America. No more apologies."
posted by feste at 4:42 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

Mod note: That's enough speculation about Melania and DV jokes are gross, cut it out.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 4:44 PM on May 25, 2018 [27 favorites]

NBC has a scoop linking Trump to a freelance intelligence ops company that their source calls "almost privatized wing of Mossad".

Related, from Chemi Shalev at Haaretz: The Countless Israeli Connections to Mueller’s Probe of Trump and Russia. The Israel-lobbyists, Netanyahu cronies, psyops manipulators and well-connected oligarchs — could it all be just one big coincidence?

So Likud, who like the GOP is also led by a bigoted wannabe authoritarian mired in corruption, fond of attacking any Jews to his left, and welcoming of theocratic rule at home and abroad, has apparently decided to join in on the free-for-all that is the subversion of American democracy. I feel like they're gambling that their craven actions will help the fascists in the US and Europe consolidate power, and seem willing (eager, even) to accept the cost of destroying faith among a diaspora--one that they are increasingly antagonistic towards--that a Jewish democratic state may still exist in their lifetimes.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:47 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

Tamed a continent. FFS.

This Manifest Destiny narrative is baked into popular understanding of American history, e.g. a Schoolhouse Rock explanation of Manifest Destiny as the need for "elbow room".
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:02 PM on May 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

Well. This sounds delightful. It's got a little bit of everything. A slice of Fredo Jr, a dollop of Russian money launderers, some National Rifle Association for taste. Just the right cocktail for going into the Memorial Day weekend!

'Trump's son should be concerned': FBI obtained wiretaps of Putin ally ahead of Trump Jr. meeting

The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank who has forged close ties with U.S. lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, that led to a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during the gun lobby’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016, a top Spanish prosecutor said Friday.

José Grinda, who has spearheaded investigations into Spanish organized crime, said that bureau officials in recent months requested and were provided transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a convicted Russian money launderer. On the wiretaps, Romanov refers to Torshin as “El Padrino,” the godfather.

“Just a few months ago, the wiretaps of these telephone conversations were given to the FBI,” Grinda said in response to a question from Yahoo News during a talk he gave at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. Asked if he was concerned about Torshin’s meetings with Donald Trump Jr. and other American political figures, Grinda replied: “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned.”

posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:08 PM on May 25, 2018 [45 favorites]

The Countless Israeli Connections to Mueller’s Probe of Trump and Russia. The Israel-lobbyists, Netanyahu cronies, psyops manipulators and well-connected oligarchs — could it all be just one big coincidence?

No paywall via google search
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:09 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Robert Costa on Washington Week tonight said something like Full disclosure, Halper was one of my professors at Cambridge. SpyPizzaGhaziFakeNews™!
posted by XMLicious at 5:26 PM on May 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Schoolhouse Rock explanation of Manifest Destiny as the need for "elbow room".

Whoa. I grew up watching Schoolhouse Rock and still love a lot of the songs but that is pretty damn bad. There's literally blank white spaces for the whites to white into.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:55 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

Wall Street Journal: Israeli Intelligence Firm’s Election-Meddling Analysis Comes Under Mueller’s Scrutiny—Psy-Group presentation outlines ways Trump campaign was helped by fake social media accounts

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have obtained a presentation prepared by an Israel-based private intelligence firm that outlines ways in which Donald Trump’s 2016 election was helped by fake news and fake social-media accounts, according to people familiar with the presentation and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Mueller’s interest in the presentation suggests his investigation is focusing on the role of social-media manipulation during the 2016 campaign. Intelligence officials have said that cyber-influence campaigns, sometimes covertly sponsored by foreign governments, are expected to become a major part of political campaigning in the coming years.

The presentation consists of nine slides and was prepared by the Psy-Group, a firm that boasts of ties to elite Israeli intelligence agencies. It isn’t clear who received the Psy-Group presentation, but it appears to have been created sometime after the 2016 election.

People familiar with the presentation describe it as an internal analysis drawn up by the firm to drum up U.S. political business—saying that it was essentially used as marketing material for the firm’s operation and analytical capabilities. It also represents a “proof of concept” of how a firm like Psy-Group would have manipulated the 2016 campaign as well as future campaigns, people said.

It is unclear how much of the presentation consists of the firm’s analysis of online activity during the campaign and how much is a hypothetical pitch.[...]

After the 2016 election, the firm started to pitch for business in the U.S., including for the 2018 midterms. As part of its pitch to potential political clients, the Psy-Group said it had the capability of leveraging fake social-media accounts, which they call avatars, on behalf of political campaigns.

“Psy excels at the use of online avatars that appear natural, unbiased and object[sic]. These avatars are highly effective at directing political messaging to target audiences,” marketing materials reviewed by the Journal say. These fake social accounts could be used for “narrative warfare” or to “echo campaign messaging,” the firm said.

"Narrative warfare" sounds exactly like the kind of propaganda campaign Team Trump has been waging against reporting, but obviously they need professional help with it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:10 PM on May 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

Craig Silverman (media reporter for BuzzFeed who has become an expert in disinformation) has a caveat on that report: This presentation from an Israeli intelligence firm used info from of my reporting — and got some facts wrong. They seem to have failed basic reading comprehension, and did little to no original work of their own.

From what we know, it strikes me as more of a bad marketing pitch that does a mediocre job of describing things others have done than actual information about their capabilities or past actions, but I'm sure more remains to be seen.
posted by zachlipton at 6:18 PM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

From Law & Crime: Mueller Probes Israeli Social Media Manipulation Company’s Cyprus Bank Account
Joel Zamel, one of the founders of the company, apparently met at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. in Aug. 2016.
one of Zamel’s firms “had previously worked for oligarchs linked to Mr. Putin, including Oleg V. Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev
Zamel is represented by Marc Mukasey who has been the deputy and the law partner of Rudy Giuliani for years.
posted by adamvasco at 6:26 PM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

Chris Hayes covered the family separation atrocity tonight and visibly had trouble keeping his shit together at several points. Very good interview with two folks who work directly with the parents. CBP is taking some of these kids -- sometimes as young as a year old -- from legally entering asylum seekers in, like, Texas or San Diego and moving them to "facilities" in Chicago for up to months at a time.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:28 PM on May 25, 2018 [63 favorites]

This Manifest Destiny narrative is baked into popular understanding of American history, e.g. a Schoolhouse Rock explanation of Manifest Destiny as the need for "elbow room" yt .

You should cut them a break. That's just a bad translation from lebensraum.
posted by Justinian at 6:31 PM on May 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

TPM Update (I'm glad he's digging into this; I started down the rabbit-hole yesterday and it was pretty clear this stinks though I didn't get that far): White House Gift Shop, TPM Investigation Continues!

There was once an actual ‘White House Gift Shop’ in the basement of the Old Executive Office Building. But the current ‘The White House Gift Shop’ is a private for profit company which has no connection to the White House or the Secret Service or any other government entity, despite that fact that it seems to go to some lengths to give the impression that it does.

The Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund, which used to run the gift shop and later contracted it out to be run on its behalf, seems to have shut down entirely a couple years ago. This isn't a Trump scam (the Trump retail scam is over here); just another weird grift being exposed.

Chris Hayes covered the family separation atrocity tonight

Yes. Please watch. This was extraordinary work. I cannot imagine what kind of a person goes to work to separate asylum claiming children from their parents.
posted by zachlipton at 6:37 PM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

The Hill: Cohen Still Serving as RNC Deputy Finance Chair, Group Says

President Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen continues to serve as the Republican National Committee's (RNC) deputy finance chairman despite being the subject of an FBI raid and ongoing criminal investigation, RNC spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday.

"There's ongoing litigation, and we'll take it step by step, but yes, he is still [serving as deputy finance chair]," McEnany told the online news-streaming service Cheddar.

Asked whether the RNC was concerned about Cohen's potential violations of campaign finance law, Kayleigh demurred, saying that she was instead concerned about the April raid on Cohen's home, office and hotel room.

If Cohen was doing any of the same kind of "consulting" on the GOP that he did for the Trump administration, you can bet they're concerned.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:02 PM on May 25, 2018 [29 favorites]

Chris Hayes covered the family separation atrocity tonight

I dunno, this just felt like the snap right before - something big. Coming down. This is so specifically and pointlessly cruel. Beyond wrong. Viscerally evil.
posted by petebest at 8:34 PM on May 25, 2018 [14 favorites]

@tparsi: Wow! @RichardEngel got his source to speak on camera that it was Trump that hired Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube to target former Obama's officials and supporters of the #IranDeal (including myself) in order to discredit and silence us...

Here's the video, from Maddow's show. It's a hell of a story. Parsi says he was warned by someone in the US Government after the election that "the Trump people" were going to come after him.

Black Cube's incompetence in using the same identies to go after Obama administration officials who worked on the Iran deal and Weinstein's accusers is almost hilarious, but the idea that the White House is, indirectly and with plausible deniability, behind this is astonishing.
posted by zachlipton at 8:40 PM on May 25, 2018 [54 favorites]

Has Trump's Mirror failed to predict yet? So there must have been someone they consider a spy in the HRC campaign. (not that it matters now, just, huh.)

Then again I don't see why not, both ways.
posted by ctmf at 8:42 PM on May 25, 2018

but the idea that the White House is, indirectly and with plausible deniability, behind this is astonishing

Is it? the president committed treason with Russia to win the office. Committing more treason with Israel in office is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At this point nothing should be surprising, the coup already happened, we're living under an occupying regime.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:44 PM on May 25, 2018 [36 favorites]

Has Trump's Mirror failed to predict yet? So there must have been someone they consider a spy in the HRC campaign.

I mean, less a spy and more the Russian intelligence services, so it's kind of Trump's Magnifying Funhouse Mirror in this case.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:58 PM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Didn't James O'Keefe claim to have an operative in the Clinton campaign at some point, or something like that?
posted by XMLicious at 9:06 PM on May 25, 2018

“But the proposal gives Democrats an issue they can use ahead of the November midterm elections. Teachers have won widespread support, even in conservative areas, as they complain about low pay.”

The news media still can't wrap their heads around the fact that teachers are demanding not just salary increases but adequate financing of public education. The hive mind boggles.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:50 PM on May 25, 2018 [72 favorites]

Richard Spencer, one of the leading figures in the white supremacist alt-right movement, told his podcast co-host that the alt-right didn’t actually believe in free speech and that the alt-right only claimed to advocate for it for “radically pragmatic” reasons.

Spencer and other alt-right advocates have argued for years that their ideas should be given platforms and unwarranted credibility under the guise of free speech. Their free speech argument has earned the alt-right column after column in national news publications and has been used as a bludgeon to argue that universities should be required to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to guarantee alt-right activists’ security on campus. The free speech argument has served as the alt-right’s admission ticket into mainstream politics, but Spencer’s recent statements seem to indicate the alt-right’s appeal to free speech is disingenuous.

I'm reminded here of Christian Dominionist whackjob Gary North, and his musings about the uses of "religious liberty" arguments. Dissimulation may be an effective near-term tactic for ghouls, but I have to believe (and fervently hope) it's less so when you're willing to boast about it openly ahead of time like you're some kind of fucking Bond villain.
posted by non canadian guy at 11:03 PM on May 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

That whole bullshit Trump speech is like standard gross Eurocentric American history textbook copy (or Westward Ho-type movie voiceover) from the 1950s-60s. Totally "normal sounding" and "traditional" to people with the mindset and frame of reference of Trump's base.

"My fellow settlers! We stand here at the edge of civilization, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Lookin' west, at our Destiny! What may appear to the faint-hearted as a limitless expanse of godforsaken wilderness is, in reality, a golden opportunity for humble, God-fearin' people like ourselves and our families and our children and the generations a-comin' to carve a new life... out of the American Indian!"
posted by non canadian guy at 11:17 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

Smoking gun
posted by growabrain at 1:30 AM on May 26, 2018

I just want to thank law professor Noah Feldman for his nightmare fuel in the latest Slate Trumpcast, in which he addresses the question of what happens if Mueller has compelling evidence that Trump is guilty. Ideally, he would be impeached. But what if he remains in power, could he be prosecuted?

I was trying to follow Noah Feldman's arguments somewhat unsuccessfully, but my most significant takeaway was that the system is not built for a Trump, because the Founding Fathers would have thought that such a man would resign in disgrace at this point. We have HDTV and iphones and modern medicine; they had honor.
posted by angrycat at 2:04 AM on May 26, 2018 [35 favorites]

The entire system broke down in the election of Trump. From the voters to the electoral college to the Congress. Partly its because it hasn't been tested like this since at least the Civil War, and partly because there are ways we've actively made our government worse since it was designed. Obviously we've also gotten rid of slavery, Jim Crow, women being disenfranchised, etc. But retaining the electoral college while removing its ability to be a check on a stupid populace, doing the same with the Senate by retaining the unrepresentative nature of the chamber while again making Senators far more dependent on the whims of their constituents, and so on and so on have made our government much more susceptible to a corrupt demagogue.

It's obvious now that the structure of our government is fundamentally flawed but to fix it would require the very people those flaws benefit to acquiesce. That.... seems unlikely. I mean, it happened in South Africa but it wasn't neat and it wasn't all that peaceful. So that's not exactly happy-making.

And this isn't a dig at the founders. They made mistakes, yes, but they also were among the first to take a stab at this kind of government. And they got a lot right. The United States has lasted a lot longer in a recognizably congruent form than most countries. But they weren't perfect and their errors are compounding over time.
posted by Justinian at 2:23 AM on May 26, 2018 [46 favorites]

The Risky Business of Speaking for President Trump by Mark Leibovich, NYTimes
This is a few days old, but still worth reading: mostly based on interviews with Hogan Gidley and Sarah Sanders, it demonstrates how stupid all these people are. Gidley and Sanders both come off as people who genuinely don't get what is wrong with doing what they do.
posted by mumimor at 2:26 AM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

George Will asks: What's the best way to tell if someone is a conservative?

"No elaborate catechism is required to determine whether someone is a conservative. A single question, as simple as it is infallible, suffices: For whom would you have voted in the presidential election of 1912?"

... And if they have no idea what you're talking about, say something shitty about brown people.

Ears up like a dog? Conservative.
posted by BS Artisan at 5:02 AM on May 26, 2018 [17 favorites]

Apparently Moon and Kim had a surprise meeting today and...hugged it out?
posted by Literaryhero at 5:19 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Apparently Moon and Kim had a surprise meeting today

It really is astonishing to me how much consequentiality America's ceded, not due to any external pressure, but out of sheer boredom and pique and incompetence. We used to have a seat at every table, and we are now giving the nations of the world an object lesson in how little they really need us around in order to get things done. It happened with east Asian trade: when we didn't show up for a summit, the other participants went ahead and put it together without us. It's happening with the Iran JCPOA: we're re-establishing sanctions, but it looks very much like every other participant in the agreement is going to go ahead with the status quo ante, with or without us. ANd now in Korean peace talks, we break the off in a snit and both Koreas seem to be of the opinion that two's company but three's a crowd and we were becoming impossible to work with anyways.

Seriously, we have, in scarcely a year, gone from being the one vital participant in pretty much every act of international trade and diplomacy to being an irritating troublemaker who's best left out if anyone wants to get anything useful done. And we did that to ourselves.
posted by jackbishop at 6:02 AM on May 26, 2018 [133 favorites]

Question regarding this horror show of separating children from migrant/asylum-seeking parents (forgive me, I'm traveling and can't do the reading & viewing right now): Is this specifically a Trump admin policy, or does this horror show pre-date the Trump regime?

I realize that sounds like an awful "both sides" question and I feel uncomfortable asking it. Everyone involved in this shit should go to jail forever and I don't care what party they're in. I ask because I'm so used to "bbbut Obama" re: national security and immigration stuff that it's bugging me as I see this issue discussed online. I can fully believe the Trump regime has "lost" 1475 kids already but at a glance that looks like the kind of number that has grown over time. It's not like ICE weren't doing draconian shit before; they've just got a full license to be absolute monsters now.

So: new shitshow policy, or fresh abuse of an old?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:32 AM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

(Not to abuse the edit window: I know Chris Hayes has this, but other than him and Twitter and here, I'm not seeing much of it, and that's a whole 'nother WTF issue.)
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:32 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was trying to follow Noah Feldman's arguments somewhat unsuccessfully, but my most significant takeaway was that the system is not built for a Trump, because the Founding Fathers would have thought that such a man would resign in disgrace at this point. We have HDTV and iphones and modern medicine; they had honor.

Reflecting back on the Framers' POV, I believe in their system -- as built -- someone who was outraged at this kind of behavior would have challenged the offender to a duel of honor.

See Also: Burr–Hamilton and Jackson-Dickinson
posted by mikelieman at 6:33 AM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

FWIW: Apologies again, I got the Chris Hayes clip to work and it addresses my question though without the detail I'd like. Mods, no argument if you want to delete those posts as clutter.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:49 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

The whole crux of our current situation is that those of us with a sense of shame don't know how to deal with those who have none, and indeed can't really even conceive of what makes such people tick. Meanwhile, those with no shame look at Trump and realize that all the years they spent pretending to have shame were pointless. You don't need to do that anymore. People with shame just let you do whatever you want while we sit slack-jawed and uncomprehending, flailing over what to do, since or stern disapproval didn't seem to be effective.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:52 AM on May 26, 2018 [76 favorites]

stern disapproval didn't seem to be effective

This is surely true for fraction of Trump supporters, but there is a larger portion who absolutely can feel shame. And if they say anything which sounds suspiciously liberal in their homes, churches, or schools, they will be ashamed for that by the people whose opinions really matter to them, their family and friends.

They feel shame for doubting Trump, not for backing him.
posted by OnceUponATime at 6:58 AM on May 26, 2018 [8 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS.

(1) "put pressure on the Democrats to stop hitting themselves"
(2) "put pressure on the party with the least amount of political power in a hundred years to regain control of government" OK, sport.
(3) This is a good example of how he frames all of his undeniable atrocities against the innocent and defenseless: "it's terrible what the powerless party's making me do, if only they would let me lay the border minefield and dig the alligator moat then the children would be blowed up or eaten and this wouldn't be happening to them."
(4) their
(5) Thanks for at least bringing up how thousands of kids are being disappeared under your watch and direction. Nice of somebody to do it, since news media on the whole don't seem to give a shit.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:31 AM on May 26, 2018 [60 favorites]

@scaryblackdeath: "new shitshow policy, or fresh abuse of an old?"

Here's a run-down by FactCheck.org: Trump Blames Own Border Policy on Democrats
posted by StrawberryPie at 7:40 AM on May 26, 2018 [30 favorites]

Seriously, we have, in scarcely a year, gone from being the one vital participant in pretty much every act of international trade and diplomacy to being an irritating troublemaker who's best left out if anyone wants to get anything useful done. And we did that to ourselves.

To be clear, you’ve always been that way to the rest of us. You’ve just never had a leader we could trick into storming out in a huff.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:49 AM on May 26, 2018 [42 favorites]

To be clear, you’ve always been that way to the rest of us.
Exactly. At the very least Trumpism might be a wake up call for americans to realize how destructive and baffling a force we have been in the world for over a hundred years already.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:53 AM on May 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS.

Nice kids you got there

Be a shame if I took 'em
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:55 AM on May 26, 2018 [19 favorites]

So, after Ireland was like “GTFO” and Facebook and Google etc banned foreign ads in Ireland’s abortion/are women people referendum, and the forces of Good have beaten the absolute shit out of the forces of Evil in said referendum, can we at least make the argument that the 2016 US election was actually stolen?

Go ahead and make that argument for Brexit, too. But goddamn.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:56 AM on May 26, 2018 [60 favorites]

Facebook and Google both made something of a mess of their policy in the Irish case. From the Irish referendum FPP, a surprisingly thorough social media analysis of the campaign. A lot of detail in there.
posted by stonepharisee at 9:11 AM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

Mean while John Kennedy, great hope of the dem establishment, continues to be a bit of a clueless idiot.
posted by Artw at 9:23 AM on May 26, 2018

John Kennedy is a Republican.
posted by shenderson at 9:35 AM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

It says so right there on his twitter bio and everything. I think you're confusing him with Joe Kennedy?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:37 AM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's obvious now that the structure of our government is fundamentally flawed but to fix it would require the very people those flaws benefit to acquiesce.

And, honestly, it's rotten all the way down, at every level. Harvey Weinstein is out on bail in half an hour while Kalief Browder spent 3 years in Rikers because his family couldn't afford $900 bail. Trump is shining a light on just how much wealthy white men can get away with, but it's everywhere, in everything. The concentration of wealth and power seems insurmountable.
posted by Mavri at 9:41 AM on May 26, 2018 [51 favorites]

Immigration restrictions are the one issue that, to me, feels most like our era's equivalent of the Atlantic/American slave trade. I'm not saying the degree of evil is exactly the same (but family separation gets into the why-bother-quantifying territory, especially because many of these kids do end up in literal slavery). And I'm not saying it will inevitably lead to the same conflict. It's just that the parallels are difficult to miss.

In the years prior to the Civil War, the mainstream position was that the status quo of slave and free states should remain, with the most vigorous debate concerning the iffy status of new territories, not the overall horror of the institution's very existence. A small, radical minority believed in total abolition. A larger, non-majority-but-very vocal group believed conversely that the rights of slave-holding overrode every other possible concern, and that states had no right to provide harbor for escaped people and keep federal enforcers away — but that was seen as too stringent even by the centrists. Anyone who believed in total abolition probably had to hold their nose to vote for Lincoln. He was an abolitionist in personal conviction, but didn't promise to use his power to end slavery altogether (but was still perceived that way by his opponents who suffered a kind of Lincoln Derangement Syndrome). As part of his political wrangling, he vocally assuaged whites' worries that his opposition to enslaving black people meant he supported the notion of them having total rights.

I basically believe in open borders. If you're not a criminal fleeing justice and you don't have a rare highly-contagious illness, I think you deserve the rights of American citizens. So I have trouble fully settling into acceptance of anything less, though I do respect more moderate views (especially if the concern is about funding the safety net, not bogus racist nonsense about "culture"). I just think a drawback of those views is that it becomes a small amount more difficult to articulate opposition to especially-severe policies like this one. When you've spent decades treating this issue "neutrally" because you don't want to accuse anyone of xenophobia and you yourself don't want to be accused of, I dunno, xenophilia, then you lose rhetorical firepower.

But regardless of my personal beliefs, separating families like this is a unique evil. Democrats have to be able, and willing, to run against it, without feeling like a media outlet confronted with the "dilemma" of whether or not to call white nationalists Nazis. I'm becoming confident that's a real possibility. I don't think that 2018 carries a magic limit on the number of political third rails we can slice apart — Democratic candidates and incumbents are talking honestly about guns (without somehow having to say "abolish the 2nd", because all they need to do right now is fight the other side's absolutism). They can start talking honestly about border security and the American Dream, too.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:47 AM on May 26, 2018 [16 favorites]

There are enough differences that I wouldn't want to make comparisons between Ireland's referendum and the US election. No electoral college type issues, just for example. On brexit, whatever.

On the kids being separated from families thing - I've been trying to track this down because it sounded familiar - not that this policy existed beforehand, that's not what I found. But the facilities were a thing. According to Vox's Weeds podcast from Feb 2nd, titled "MS-13 Explained", less than 5 minutes in. Dara Lind mentions special protections for unaccompanied children and "family units" at the border, because they're not allowed to hold children in immigration detention. So unaccompanied children are held by HHS either in "facilities" or placed with a relative. She doesn't mention what's done with family units, and I haven't managed to find anything about that process that was written before it became a big partisan story.

(The rest of the podcast episode send to be about MS-13. They don't return to this topic.)
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 10:02 AM on May 26, 2018

Wait, there's a Kennedy who's a republican and a Nixon who's a democrat? Has the whole world gone topsy-turvy?!
posted by misterpatrick at 10:13 AM on May 26, 2018 [24 favorites]

Isn’t Qanon also predicated on some massive fictional paedophile scheme? And here they are actually really running one - I expect it to have zero impact on the qanonists whatsoever.

posted by Artw at 11:00 PM on May 24 [1 favorite +] [!]

This. Once a conspiracy theorist prematurely concludes the conspiracy is REAL!!!! then all facts must bend to support the conspiracy. Any outlet reporting contrary facts are by definition lying or pawns in the conspiracy. The first rule of conspiracy club is there is no coming back from conspiracy theory.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:16 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

On the kids being separated from families thing - I've been trying to track this down because it sounded familiar - not that this policy existed beforehand, that's not what I found. But the facilities were a thing.

Family detention has been the long standing US policy, even under Obama. Obama also opened two massive new family detention centers, remember the unaccompanied minors freakout of 2014? There's an immigration lawsuit going on since the 80s over the policy that the Obama administration was found in violation of and so was the Trump administration for that matter, and there was a 2016 DHS committee that reccomended the end of family detention [pdf], but it still keeps happening anyway. Because ICE / CBP was a lawless gang before too.

But the whole "rip kids from their screaming mothers" thing as an intentional policy choice, no, that's new under Trump. Republicans voted for gratuitous cruelty, and that's the one thing he's delivering. Well, that and Republican judges to enshrine gratuitous cruelty as precedent.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:24 AM on May 26, 2018 [51 favorites]

"No elaborate catechism is required to determine whether someone is a conservative. A single question, as simple as it is infallible, suffices: For whom would you have voted in the presidential election of 1912?"

Phew. Elaborate catechisms tests for Republicans are my biggest concern right now.

I suggest the following questions instead:

It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet with millions of dollars in it.

You’ve got a little boy. He shows you the large mammals he has killed and his rifle.

You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
posted by srboisvert at 10:45 AM on May 26, 2018 [20 favorites]

For whom would you have voted in the presidential election of 1912?

The candidates in the 1912 presidential election were:

William Howard Taft, Republican and incumbent president
Woodrow Wilson, Democrat
Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive ("Bull Moose Party")
Eugene V. Debs, Socialist

I think Will's correct conservative answer is Taft. I would probably have voted for Teddy Roosevelt since his New Nationalism platform included national health service, social insurance, minimum wage for women, worker's comp, and women's suffrage.

Plus, he got shot in the chest during a speech and finished the speech. Hardcore.
The bullet was slowed down by his steel eyeglass case and a folded copy of his 50-page speech.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:01 AM on May 26, 2018 [40 favorites]

I would've voted for Eugene V. Debs.

Because 1912 me has never heard of Ralph Nader or Jill Stein.
posted by box at 11:05 AM on May 26, 2018 [22 favorites]

I wouldn't have voted for anyone in the 1912 election, because I don't live in one of the six states that had enfranchised women. Does George Will even realize that there are people in the US who are not white men?

(I have many thoughts about this question, but this is not the place.)
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:18 AM on May 26, 2018 [86 favorites]

The organized socialist movement in 1912 was in a very different position from where it is today and Debs can't reasonably be compared to Nader or Stein.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:19 AM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

Let's not relitigate the 1912 election.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 11:26 AM on May 26, 2018 [217 favorites]

By the time Debs was Bernie Sanders' age, he had:

Been imprisoned for resisting the WWI draft

Run for president five times, once from said prison

Been dead for 7 years

The year before he died, he spoke to a conference of progressives:

Let it be understood that the economic power is always and everywhere the political ruler. How are you going to wrest this power from the hands of the autocracy, who are in the minority, unless you organize the workers and their sympathizers, who are in the majority, unless you educate and organize the masses? And build up the political power that will wrest from them the power they have to oppress and exploit the people by taking from them the private ownership of the instruments of production that make them the economic masters and the political rulers of the nation?

The question for us to consider is simply this: are or are we not in favor of this nation owning and controlling its own industries? That is the fundamental question. That is what confronts this body. As long as you permit a relative few to privately own the sources and means of wealth, the tools of production, they will be in power. You will be in servitude. You will produce the wealth and they will have it under whatever administration you may have. They will do nothing and you will have that, and that is what you have been getting under the administration of both the Republican and Democratic parties all of these years."

But yeah, #lolgreenparty, amirite?

posted by Richard Saunders at 11:35 AM on May 26, 2018 [31 favorites]

I think historically Teddy was the spoiler in this election- if he hadn't run third party, Taft might have swung it.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:39 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mod note: If people really want to dig into 1912 election, better to make a separate thread for that.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:43 AM on May 26, 2018 [44 favorites]

[If people really want to dig into 1912 election]


Easily my favorite mod note so far.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:49 AM on May 26, 2018 [57 favorites]

The Stupid Missile Crisis has an excellent ring to it.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:50 AM on May 26, 2018 [15 favorites]

Trump is an anomaly.

I agree in an knee jerk way, but when I really think about it I'm not so sure. Bush and his cabinet represented the very best of the Republican party. They were its superstars. There's very little Trump is doing that most Republican presidents wouldn't be. His innovation is his extremist positions on immigration and isolationism, but these came out of his recognition of a new political reality. That reality isn't going away. In fact, the Republican party seems to be doubling down on it. The next Republican candidate may not be crazy or stupid, but he may very well run on building the wall and isolationism.
posted by xammerboy at 12:23 PM on May 26, 2018 [8 favorites]

There's very little Trump is doing that most Republican presidents wouldn't be. His innovation is his extremist positions on immigration and isolationism, but these came out of his recognition of a new political reality.
I remember people talking about immigration and isolationism in what we would now call trumpian terms during Bush Jr, in private situations. The difference Trump made was (only) to say it out loud.
posted by mumimor at 12:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

Does anyone know of a good site or other resource which gives updates on the situation with Iran? So much is happening that I don't feel like most big mainstream sources are providing enough depth. What's happening with US sanctions? How are the Europeans reacting? When will Iran decide whether to start up their centrifuges again? Etc.
posted by Justinian at 12:46 PM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

I remember people talking about immigration and isolationism in what we would now call trumpian terms during Bush Jr, in private situations. The difference Trump made was (only) to say it out loud.

So basically, look at what right-wing kooks were saying back in the 90s on Usenet, and in the 2000s on LiveJournal. The people we dismissed because their nativist ideas were so far out there. Look at what the right-wingers are saying in places like Mad Genius Club or Vox Populi. That's gong to be the talking points of the next Republican president. They'll say directly in policy speeches that white men are under threat, and that we need to make the world safe for white entrepreneurs.

The genie is out of the bottle, and subtext is now text. The next 40 years are going to be a very ugly time. And as climate change accelerates, it will get even worse.
posted by happyroach at 12:50 PM on May 26, 2018 [22 favorites]

@ddale8: This is a ridiculous lie about the Times. The senior White House official is not only real - the official said June 12 was extremely unlikely *at an in-person White House briefing to the media* on Thursday. [responding to Trump's instance that the Times made up a source]

This is precisely why the press has to stop the "senior official" anonymous background briefing game. It's always been an inappropriate practice, hundreds of reporters who all obviously know who they're talking to listening to the same conference call and then not using their name, but it's entirely untenable when Trump tells lies about his own staff.

This isn't a mystery. We know the official is Matt Pottinger; we have it on tape. The press can just do this every time, say they will print the name of everyone the White House officially puts out to speak for the administration, and stop doing this.
posted by zachlipton at 12:51 PM on May 26, 2018 [69 favorites]

Two items I haven't seen mentioned yet; one relevant, one maybe somewhat less so (but still Stupid Trump related).

Facebook ad policy change upsets Mississippi Republican primary. As such a move that needed to be taken, I think, but they're tearing down the goalposts and flinging them across the field where a play is going. There may well be consequences further down the line for smaller, less organised and financially strong campaigns to reach their target voters, but I don't immediately see how that can be solved.

The other is a school shooting (nearly) thwarted. Not by doors, not by guns or guards, but by SCIENCE!. If a teacher T throws a basketball B of mass M with a velocity v towards a shooter S, how many shots are fired before S is overpowered?. One student and the teacher were wounded, shooter was arrested.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:57 PM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

Trump is an anomaly.

Only in a very very limited temporal and geographic context at best: historically kings/dictators/chieftans/heads of state have tended towards Trump. Even in recent U.S. history you have LBJ and his constant dick shennanigans.


The difference Trump made was (only) to say it out loud.

And there lies the rub, although Trump is just the bowl in this case. He just lucked out again in the rich flaccid-brained white guy lottery and rolled along at the right time. There was significant work went into preparing the ground so that it was OK to say the quiet parts loud and repeatedly get away with it.

It's possible that social democracy was the anomaly.
posted by Buntix at 12:57 PM on May 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

Trump is what happens when you take the GOP narrative and zero out the empathy levels
posted by angrycat at 1:03 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

@ddale8: This is a ridiculous lie about the Times. The senior White House official is not only real - the official said June 12 was extremely unlikely *at an in-person White House briefing to the media* on Thursday.

Also, CNN's Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins reports, "This official made this comment in the briefing room, down the hall from the Oval, and the only reason it wasn't on the record was because the White House insisted that it be on background. So this is not the President vs. the media, it's the President vs. his own White House."

For the record, here's the NYT's story: Trump Says North Korea Summit May Be Rescheduled (It portrays Pompeo as trying to find a diplomatic solution to the confused situation amid the typically chaotic Trump White House, but nothing worse than what we've come to expect from them.)

Trump's flipping out because he can't control the narrative about the North Korean summit. This narcissistic insecurity is also what compelled him to abruptly cancel it while refusing to give any advance notice to his own staff, diplomats, or US allies. He also knows that his supporters love it when he bashes the presses, even when his typos—intentional or not—make him look like frantic or sloppy, e.g. "The Failing The New York Times". But once he'd gotten this ranting out of his system, he felt free to leave for his afternoon golf session.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:17 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

Also, CNN's Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins reports, "This official made this comment in the briefing room, down the hall from the Oval, and the only reason it wasn't on the record was because the White House insisted that it be on background. So this is not the President vs. the media, it's the President vs. his own White House."

I disagree. This is the President vs. the media, and he just doesn't care about "his own White House" or the truth. He has attacked the media for repeating things that he himself said, on the record, on tape.
posted by Etrigan at 1:22 PM on May 26, 2018 [20 favorites]

Of course, once Trump finished with golf, he was back on Twitter, ranting about how "This whole Russia Probe is Rigged. Just an excuse as to why the Dems and Crooked Hillary lost the Election and States that haven’t been lost in decades. 13 Angry Democrats, and all Dems if you include the people who worked for Obama for 8 years. #SPYGATE & CONFLICTS OF INTEREST!" and "With Spies, or “Informants” as the Democrats like to call them because it sounds less sinister (but it’s not), all over my campaign, even from a very early date, why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or “Justice” contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?"

Either he didn't enjoy himself on the links today, or he met up with his old cronies who riled him up about the Mueller probe.

Also, the FBI did in fact warn Trump at his first intelligence briefing, in August 2016, that Russians would try to infiltrate his campaign, per NBC.

(Incidentally, it occurs to me that "The Failing The New York Times" might be a glitch in the @RealPressSecBot bot that I use to track Trump's tweets, since it preserves the deleted ones. Trump's original tweet refers to "The Failing @nytimes".)

I disagree. This is the President vs. the media, and he just doesn't care about "his own White House" or the truth.

Agreed, but where's the mainstream journalist who will go on the record with that? Trump's Twitter attack resulted in only defensive protestations from the likes of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, but tomorrow they'll return to taking his calls for "deep background". This is what Trump really meant on Thursday when he answered a reporter's question about Kim's unpredictability, "Everybody plays games. You know that. You know that better than anybody."
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:50 PM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

Either he didn't enjoy himself on the links today, or he met up with his old cronies who riled him up about the Mueller probe.

It's a strategy. The more he shouts about it, the more people will doubt the facts. The more they will believe everyone is against him. The more they will sympathize with him. The more they will forget the source of the lie when they repeat it as possibly true or definite fact. Trump spends a great deal of time flooding everyone with bullshit so he can introduce doubt. He's been using that tactic for years. He did it during the campaign. This is his way of spinning the truth to deflect it away from him.
posted by zarq at 2:51 PM on May 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

The horrible part is that it works. The Fox News zombies either believe him or pretend they do to own the libs, and the squishy middle isn't paying much attention so they just throw up their hands and say who knows what the truth is, everyone is corrupt.
posted by Justinian at 3:12 PM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

That "squishy middle" (the apathetic non-voters, not the so-called moderates) has been the whole game from the start of this debacle, and if we can't get them to start thinking and paying a little attention we are going to stumble our way into full-on fascist autocracy. If ever there was time to risk seeming rude, to risk losing friends and alienating family, this is it. People need to be confronted with the truth of what is happening, and then not be permitted to change the subject.
posted by contraption at 3:18 PM on May 26, 2018 [28 favorites]

The horrible part is that it works. The Fox News zombies either believe him or pretend they do to own the libs

Case in point, hot off the Fox News presses: Trump calls for Democrats to end ‘horrible law’ that he says separates children from parents at border. Presented as fact, with the entire article just repeating his lie except for 1 sentence, snuck into the middle of the text:

While the law says nothing about separating families, it does say that children travelling alone from countries other than Mexico and Canada must be released in the “least restrictive setting” -- namely a family or shelter.

So in other words he's lying and is himself taking deliberately inhumane actions. But the revelation of the lie is simply put there with the expectation that nobody will acknowledge it as such. It's disturbingly on-the-nose Doublethink.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [36 favorites]

He's been using that tactic for years. He did it during the campaign. This is his way of spinning the truth to deflect it away from him.
This is a tool that did not last in NYC. Even as early as The Apprentice debut, New Yorkers were over him, he was already just the butt of a million jokes.
posted by Harry Caul at 3:50 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post: Trump’s actions on North Korea have consequences. Here’s a list of them.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:52 PM on May 26, 2018 [8 favorites]

"This official made this comment in the briefing room, down the hall from the Oval, and the only reason it wasn't on the record was because the White House insisted that it be on background. So this is not the President vs. the media, it's the President vs. his own White House."

There is literally no reason for the NYT to agree to quote *anything* "on background". There's no law requiring that the President gets to dictate which conversations are "on the record" or not. On the record is not *a thing*, except where the journalist makes the affirmative decision to KEEP a conversation "off the record". Unless something is actually classified, everything else is an editorial decision.

No, preserving access isn't a good reason. The administration needs legitimate news orgs, including the New York Times, to get its message out on any given day. If the Times and WaPo and others stopped this shit, and quoted every statement by every administration official by name, without exception, they'd be reduced to FOX and Brietbart for their spin. The Times is in a position of strength. They *affirmatively choose* day, after day, after day, after day, to help the Trump administration lie to the country "on background".

There's another way other than reprinting without question every word that Trump and Sanders say. The NYT chooses this way.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [36 favorites]

The administration needs legitimate news orgs, including the New York Times, to get its message out on any given day.

I'm not sure I buy that. If legit news orgs don't cooperate with "on background" briefings, I think this White House would just exclude them. So Fox is the only one with the story, how does that hurt the administration with Trump supporters?
posted by Chrysostom at 4:38 PM on May 26, 2018

It's a strategy. The more he shouts about it, the more people will doubt the facts.

Also, the louder he is, the less the news writes about what Pence is up to.
posted by rhizome at 4:45 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

This doesn't sound good:Democrats Go All-Out to Avoid Disaster in California House Races
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:54 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

The voters in those districts should vote in the primary for whichever Democrat is polling best. But no, apparently tactical voting is the root of all evil or something. God forbid the wrong Democrat be elected. Better to have Rohrbacher (R - Moscow) again.
posted by Justinian at 5:04 PM on May 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

I shouldn't put all, or probably even most, of the blame on the voters though. The jungle primary system was a dumb idea. I love California but we don't always think our cunning plans all the way through and ranked choice would be a much better way to approach the "problem" the jungle primary system supposedly addressed. But no, let's do this cool new thing which couldn't possibly have bad unintended consequences.
posted by Justinian at 5:11 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

ranked choice would be a much better way to approach the "problem" the jungle primary system supposedly addressed

Maine is giving it a go. [NBCNews] Maine tries 'ranked-choice' voting: A ballot can 'count' more than once.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:17 PM on May 26, 2018 [14 favorites]

On the record is not *a thing*, except where the journalist makes the affirmative decision to KEEP a conversation "off the record". Unless something is actually classified, everything else is an editorial decision.

Just curious: have you ever worked as journalist yourself? Or known anyone who has?
posted by neroli at 5:23 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

Heh. Had assumed the jungle primary was something people came up with before people had fingered out ranked choice was the ideal. First past the post is terrible anyway but first past the post with a large number of options, some similar, is worst of all. Having two winners instead of one doesn’t make that any less dumb.
posted by Artw at 5:24 PM on May 26, 2018

So Fox is the only one with the story, how does that hurt the administration with Trump supporters?

That the NYT is only concerned about the impression it makes with Trump supporters is sort of the whole problem here.

Just curious: have you ever worked as journalist yourself? Or known anyone who has?

No. I took several media/first amendment law and whistleblower related electives in law school, and I feel pretty confident that "on the record" is not a legal concept, but a journalistic practice. Unless information is classified or otherwise restricted by contract, it's a choice to keep it secret from the reader, including the identity of the President and his advisers speaking "on background"
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

"on the record" is not a legal concept

That's correct. It is a concept based in in journalistic ethics, which is an actual thing, not some situational hand-wavey bullshit. Without it, a lot of vital information that you've learned from the press would never would have gotten to you.
posted by neroli at 5:35 PM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

And when does ethics stop extending to proven liars? Because the apparent answer is “never”.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:37 PM on May 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

It’s one of those “norms” we keep hearing about.

I’m impressed at the speed with which the press releases the name after Trump blew the whole thing up, rather than limping on and taking the beating for politeness sake.
posted by Artw at 5:44 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Right, so the White House invites the press to an off the record briefing, then promptly turns around and denies what was said. Trump gets to undermine faith in the press and press helps him do it. How do journalistic ethics support that? We're not talking about a whistleblower here. They're deliberately setting up journalists and knocking them down. Why do journalists have to participate in their own destruction?
posted by Mavri at 5:47 PM on May 26, 2018 [30 favorites]

In the last half year there have been journos from NYT and WaPo who have stated that as far as they are concerned an off the record agreement is broken when a source lies to them and they’re willing to name that source.

I don’t think it’s a big leap to say this applies when the administration briefs reporters in a supposed official but off the record event and then makes them out to be liars by claiming it never happened and the outlet is printing lies.
posted by phearlez at 5:50 PM on May 26, 2018 [43 favorites]

And then angrily confront anyone on twitter who suggests that their entire ethical framework is some sophist bullshit when applied the real world.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:52 PM on May 26, 2018

Trump calls for Democrats to end ‘horrible law’ that he says separates children from parents at border.

Seriously, if corporate news can't find it within their grasp to destroy this particular spin on the story into dust I think we're done here. It will be proven that there is no integrity to corporate news at all. Zero. This is up-is-down, war-is-peace bullshit real and for true.
posted by petebest at 6:06 PM on May 26, 2018 [52 favorites]

Mod note: Consider the journalistic ethics debate fully aired.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:34 PM on May 26, 2018 [18 favorites]

Daily Beast: The Oligarch Who Met With Michael Cohen Flees the Press at Putin's Big Economic Summit

There were moments on Friday when silver-bearded Russian tycoon Viktor Vekselberg, normally a paragon of self-assurance, looked like an old bear cornered by hounds at this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Vekselberg, who reportedly is worth some $15.5 billion, had agreed to participate in a panel about the Russian-U.S. business “dialogue” at a time when his name is being linked to investigations focused on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.[...]

Other participants at the Friday forum panel about U.S.-Russia business tried to cast themselves as people bravely defending the world’s stability in the midst of a new Cold War. But through much of the conversation Vekselberg just listened nervously, shaking his leg, staring down at the floor.

While its framing inspires a satisfying bit of schadenfreude, the article in general provides a useful overview of how Vekeslberg and his peers are enduring the spotlight after their attempts to woo the Trump administration have blown up in their faces—just like everyone who's tried to do business with Trump.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:41 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Twitter thread on the what-about-Obama-isms.
posted by Artw at 8:09 PM on May 26, 2018 [18 favorites]

Heh. Had assumed the jungle primary was something people came up with before people had fingered out ranked choice was the ideal.

Ranked choice (by this I assume you mean IRV, which is but one of many ranked choice methods) is not ideal, though, except under particular assumptions.

First past the post is terrible anyway but first past the post with a large number of options, some similar, is worst of all. Having two winners instead of one doesn’t make that any less dumb.

Actually, having two winners does make it less dumb. FPTP with just two candidates is just as good as any other (non-intentionally-shitty) method, so it's not a bad idea in principle to winnow things down to two candidates and then use FPTP. It's just too bad that the method of winnowing is a plurality vote without any sort of delegation/transfer of votes.

(My new pet voting system is STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff). That's the good stuff right there. Score voting to winnow down to two surviving candidates; then choose the winner out of those two by seeing which survivor was ranked higher than the other on more ballots).
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:28 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Twitter thread on the what-about-Obama-isms.


Yep. In a nutshell, there were issues under Obamacare, but he took concrete steps to fix or at least alleviate them (DACA, promoting DAPA and systemic reviews for racism and violence). He was obstructed by Republicans.

In contrast, Trump is doing his best to make the issues worse (rescinding DACA, stoking anti-immigrant fear and hatred, turning a blind eye to racists). He is being supported by Republicans.

There is no equivalency here. There is no “both sides do it” here.
posted by darkstar at 8:29 PM on May 26, 2018 [31 favorites]

The Maine tries 'ranked-choice' voting article linked by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick was all right, but the headline saying "A ballot can 'count' more than once" is a basically-wrong way to describe instant runoff. That specific misunderstanding has lead to both social and legal hurdles, with both ordinary citizens and judges throughout the 20th century mistakenly (or perhaps dishonestly) asserting that the system violates one-person-one-vote.

Each ballot only ever counts once at most. What can happen is for the ballot to move around multiple times as it "seeks" a sufficiently-popular candidate to merit the votes. In fact, one purpose of systems like instant-runoff is to reduce vote wastage — conventional plurality voting is where your ballot will "count less" assuming you didn't pick a top-two candidate, because you may as well have not voted at all. (The equivalent can happen in instant-runoff, it's just rarer.)

I'm not saying that system is truly ideal — simple approval voting, where your ballot really can count multiple times, also has a lot to say in its favor. But misrepresentation of instant-runoff bugs me, especially because there's a pop culture example for available comparison: reality shows like American idol, where candidates are eliminated in one election after another. Instant-runoff just compresses those elections into one mega-election by assuming each voter's preferences would never have changed.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:35 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Jeez, that supposed to be “In a nutshell, there were issues under Obama”, not “under Obamacare”.
posted by darkstar at 8:40 PM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

We'll always not have Infrastructure Week.

The White House formally drove a dagger into the passage this year of the kind of massive infrastructure package called for by President Donald Trump.

What is on the White House’s legislative agenda for the rest of the year includes another tax package, a farm bill, more federal judiciary nominations — and possibly immigration legislation.

White House legislative affairs chief Marc Short told reporters Friday that infrastructure will slide into 2019. He blamed election-year politics, saying Democrats have signaled in recent conversations they are uninterested in handing Trump a victory ahead of the midterm elections.
...
That means Congress will “take it up next year,” Short said, contending there is “bipartisan interest” in a massive measure — perhaps as big as $1.5 trillion — to overhaul the country’s aging roads, bridges, airports, tunnels and seaports. That conclusion is based on his conversations with Blue Dog Democrats and several bipartisan caucuses on Capitol Hill, Short said.

posted by kirkaracha at 9:15 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Democrats going in on a massive infrastructure spending bill for Trump when Republicans were unwilling to do anything for Obama even in the face of a second great depression is a good way to convince the electorate that the only way to ever get anything accomplished is to elect Republicans.
posted by Justinian at 9:27 PM on May 26, 2018 [37 favorites]

This is basically where I'm at now, and seemingly where a lot of you guys are at too: Sorry, Mr. Obama. Unity Is Not Coming, and One Side Has To Win .

tl;dr - Obama is a great man and a wonderful person but that time has passed. Now we must be like California and crush the right because they will never moderate or compromise.

As someone who lives here, he's right. We didn't improve the state by finding common ground with the batshit rightists in the central valley. They are as batshit as ever. Maybe more so. Instead we made like Conan and crushed our enemies and saw them driven before us. California is better for it.
posted by Justinian at 10:14 PM on May 26, 2018 [70 favorites]

I have to disagree. California Republicans crushed themselves. They ran partially coded racist anti-hispanic campaigns in a state with a rapidly expanding hispanic population. Democrats didn't take California from Republicans. Republicans were too addicted to racism to stop themselves from handing California to Democrats.
posted by rdr at 10:55 PM on May 26, 2018 [10 favorites]

No they most certainly didn't. Impartial redistricting crushed the CA Rs and allowed a Dem supermajority, which took away the ability of the Rs to block any revenue raising legislation. Voters were allowed to see what an unfettered D administration was like, and were ok with Browns centrist approach. Hispanic voting was a factor but if so why is the Central valley, with a high 52% Hispanic population, full of assholes like Nunes?
posted by benzenedream at 11:36 PM on May 26, 2018 [14 favorites]

Let's face it: gerrymandering, stocked courts, corporate money, electoral votes, propaganda news outlets, disinformation campaigns.... We're not on a level playing field. What happened in CA after the gerrymandering stopped was a miracle. One I really think could apply to the whole country if adopted nationwide.
posted by xammerboy at 12:49 AM on May 27, 2018 [22 favorites]

Here are some phonecall suggestions for calling about ICE selling/"losing"/abusing/whatever-the-fuck-they're-doing the children in their custody.

I expect that since it's Sunday, those of us with phone anxiety could call and leave messages instead of getting live people.

I have been thinking about this whole business. Even if there is some reform about the treatment of children:

1. It will almost certainly be incomplete and a smokescreen, because not only is this a large bureaucracy but that's who these people are. These are people who can lock children into detention rooms or order it done.

2. Abuse of adults will continue. ICE (the very name makes me vomit because obviously it was constructed be people who thought it sounded "badass") has been doing this for years and years. I'm not some big-time immigration issues activist, but I've been going to stuff off and on for ten years, and in all that time people have been dying in detention, being taken away from their families, having meds withheld, kept in intolerable conditions, and just generally treated with sadism.

3. ICE won't be "reformed" until it is essentially reformed out of existence. I assume that there's some kind of pragmatic debate to be had about how to handle the mere logistics of taxes and fees and services and customs duties when people cross the border, but until ICE-qua-ICE is gone these same things will keep happening.

4. It is performative racism. The US is very, very large. The economic effects of deporting even a pretty big number of people are very, very small, while the terror and human suffering caused to those people is very great. The reason this keeps going on is not economic - it's because it's a morality play, cheap entertainment for people who like to think about others suffering. (Also the momentum of a large government bureaucracy.)

5. Most people go through immigration court with no lawyer and they lose. At a protest I was at last week, one of the speakers said that when people have lawyers, a substantial majority (I want to say she said 80% but I'm not sure) win their cases. Even if you grant the legitimacy of deportation courts, which I do not, they are predatory courts which rely on keeping defendants helpless.

If - and it's a big if - the separation of children and families can be stopped by public outcry, it is not enough. We can't be bought off with one reform (which will, if I know ICE, be a phony reform anyway). The whole thing has to go down.
posted by Frowner at 5:32 AM on May 27, 2018 [55 favorites]

The whole thing has to go down.

I mean, I have learned that I am not necessarily the most leftist (whatever that means anymore) MeFite. And I am hardline abolish ICE.

Abolish, investigate, and prosecute every single one of them. Make it all public. And find those fucking children.

Bring the entire enormous, terrifying power of the state to bear, and find those fucking kids. Find them and punish the people responsible. If we don’t use all this terrifying power for this, it serves no just purpose.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:48 AM on May 27, 2018 [44 favorites]

The real Russian Collusion was the lives we destroyed along the way.

@realDonaldTrump
Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt? They journeyed down to Washington, D.C., with stars in their eyes and wanting to help our nation...They went back home in tatters!
posted by chris24 at 5:49 AM on May 27, 2018 [17 favorites]

I really don't understand this tweet, more than usual. Not just the nonsense (what does "others" refer to???) but the overall point - who went home in tatters??? What???
posted by prefpara at 5:56 AM on May 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

Not just the nonsense (what does "others" refer to???) but the overall point - who went home in tatters???

Hope Hicks is the 'young and beautiful' one, and necessarily the one he cares about (to the extent he can experience care as an emotion) because of that youth and beauty. Since it's plural, he may be lumping Ivanka in there, too. He doesn't really care about 'the others' that he himself has shame-meatloafed or dignity-wraithed, but added it in reflexively, as he always does, to make the situation sound bigger than it is.
posted by halation at 6:06 AM on May 27, 2018 [24 favorites]

Much like JFK inspired a generation of the best and brightest to join the Peace Corps, make a difference, even go to the moon, God Emperor Trump has motivated dozens of racist fascists to cut immigration, build a wall, imprison POC. And this investigation is really harshing their Nazi buzz.
posted by chris24 at 6:11 AM on May 27, 2018 [36 favorites]

"The levers of accountability are all in Republican hands, and Republican legislators are either afraid of Trump’s base, or actively working with him to strip mine the country."

A fairly cogent summary of the current state of things, though there's not much new info there for readers of these threads...
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 6:13 AM on May 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

So I just called the ICE tipline (1-866-347-2423) and reported a terrorist gang operating on the border that is separating parents from children. The first time I called I got hung up on before I could also suggest that it's better to quit than to work for America's Gestapo. The second time, I got it out before I was told to have a nice day. I don't feel better. I'm shaking with rage and helplessness.
posted by prefpara at 6:22 AM on May 27, 2018 [104 favorites]

Not just the nonsense (what does "others" refer to???) but the overall point - who went home in tatters???

Monday will be the two-month anniversary of Hope Hicks's departure from the White House. The position of Director of Communications remains vacant.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:35 AM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

Kyle Griffin (MSNBC)
Q: "So you think that the Mueller probe is legitimate?"

Rudy Giuliani: "Not anymore. I don’t. I did when I came in. But now I see Spygate..." (via CNN)

VIDEO

---

ABC News Politics
As Pres. Trump pushes the unproven claim of an FBI spy in his campaign, Sen. Rubio says: “It appears that there was an investigation, not of the campaign, but of certain individuals who have a history that we should be suspicious of that predate the presidential campaign.”

VIDEO

---

Countdown to Rubio to caving and joining John Cornyn in 5, 4...

The Hill
No. 2 Senate Republican: There’s no difference between an FBI informant and spy http://hill.cm/laifwTd
posted by chris24 at 6:43 AM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]

It's been days since we discussed Shera Bechard, the women with whom Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy supposedly had an affair that lead to an abortion and a $1.6 million payoff brokered by Michael Cohen. Anyway, Broidy is now suing Qatar for hacking his email account (best known as the vector exposing his efforts to get gigantic consulting contracts with Saudia Arabia and UAE), which his spokesperson alternately claims is how the affair came to light and denies saying any such thing.

Anyhoo, I got curious about Shera Bechard and decided to look at her recent Twitter history. It's fascinating in light of the speculation that her paramour was actually Trump. In amidst a lot of normal stuff--cute dogs, professional announcements, paeans to cannoli--she retweets Ronan Farrow directing people to his New Yorker article on Michael Cohen and, repeatedly, lengthy posts from Narcissist Sociopathic Awareness, Narcissist Support, and NPD Abuse and Recovery. Hmmmm.....
posted by carmicha at 6:48 AM on May 27, 2018 [35 favorites]

Please keep putting Rudy on TV.

Axios
Rudy Giuliani says believing if Trump obstructed justice "is a matter of interpretation."

VIDEO

---

"The obstruction part I'm not as comfortable with. The president's fine with it; "He's innocent!" I'm not comfortable because it's a matter of interpretation, not just hard and fast true not true."

Plus a nice Freudian slip about firing Mueller that Rudy gets very nervous/defensive about.
posted by chris24 at 6:56 AM on May 27, 2018 [14 favorites]

So I just called the ICE tipline (1-866-347-2423) and reported a terrorist gang operating on the border that is separating parents from children. The first time I called I got hung up on before I could also suggest that it's better to quit than to work for America's Gestapo. The second time, I got it out before I was told to have a nice day. I don't feel better. I'm shaking with rage and helplessness.

It's good that you did this. I hate calling - the adrenaline rush, the feeling that I was rude, etc. But if we can use all the weapons we have, we might be able to stop this or at least keep it from getting even worse. This is one of those situations where every little bit really does help, and where multiple strategies are additive - some people call, some people protest in the streets, some people write, some people donate, some people meet with their representatives, some people spread information (some people do multiple things, of course) and all those things make it harder for ICE to operate and harder for politicians to back ICE in the hopes of getting votes.

One thing that worries me in this is the possibility of laws that punish protesting/resisting/criticizing ICE. IMO, at least some reason to make as much noise as possible is to try to make this so politically unpopular that it won't happen.

Similarly with laws and orders making things worse, or with ICE agents getting even more paramilitary just on their own. Even if the only result of all this is to keep it from getting worse, that's worth doing. Make it unpopular, create a consensus - someday we will have political power and if the will is there we can tear it down.

Even if we can't do it today, we can prosecute these people for their crimes later on. We can create social formations that will have long memories, we can send these people to jail, we can smash the architecture which lets them act.

History always turns and fortune favors the prepared mind.
posted by Frowner at 7:11 AM on May 27, 2018 [25 favorites]

In that Axois CNN video, Rudy transitions from obstruction to perjury in a way I can't follow, something like "If Trump fired Comey because of the Russia investigation, you could say it's obstruction… and then you could say it's perjury, which is even easier for them."

As I understand it, from the moment he took office until now, Trump hasn't done anything that could qualify as perjury because he's never been under oath in that time. (Unless he lied to a federal agent, but I don't think that's called "perjury" and I don't think it counts outside of being questioned? If I call up a federal agent and tell them pigs have wings, I don't think that's a crime.).

So the only sensible inference I can make is that Rudy believes that Trump, if asked why he fired Comey, would probably lie (or say something the narrow-minded nitpickers would call a lie, just because it was knowingly the opposite of the truth or something).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:14 AM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

So the only sensible inference I can make is that Rudy believes that Trump, if asked why he fired Comey, would probably lie (or say something the narrow-minded nitpickers would call a lie, just because it was knowingly the opposite of the truth or something).

Yeah, I think he means that if/when Mueller questions Trump on the obstruction issue, Trump will perjure himself. So while Rudy thinks Mueller may not have an airtight obstruction case -- though always nice when the president's own lawyer says it's a possibility his client obstructed justice depending on how you look at it 😳 -- he thinks Mueller can use questions about it to get Trump to lie under oath and have an easier time proving that perjury than obstruction.
posted by chris24 at 7:20 AM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]

In today's installment of "laugh to keep from screaming," Michael Avenatti says: Trump and Cohen "created a swamp in this White House that makes the Everglades look like a plastic backyard pool."
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:09 AM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]

A Christian Nationalist Blitz A NYTimes opinion piece by Katherine Stewart:

America’s Christian nationalists have a new plan for advancing their legislative goals in state capitols across the country. Its stated aim is to promote “religious freedom.” Not shy, they call it “Project Blitz.”

“Blitz” accurately describes the spirit of the enterprise, but the mission has little to do with what most Americans would call religious freedom. This is just the latest attempt by religious extremists to use the coercive powers of government to secure a privileged position in society for their version of Christianity.

The idea behind Project Blitz is to overwhelm state legislatures with bills based on centrally manufactured legislation. “It’s kind of like whack-a-mole for the other side; it’ll drive ‘em crazy that they’ll have to divide their resources out in opposing this,” David Barton, the Christian nationalist historian and one of four members of Project Blitz’s “steering team,” said in a conference call with state legislators from around the country that was later made public.

posted by mumimor at 8:23 AM on May 27, 2018 [20 favorites]

America’s Christian nationalists have a new plan for advancing their legislative goals in state capitols across the country. Its stated aim is to promote “religious freedom.” Not shy, they call it “Project Blitz.”

White nationalists. Not "Christian nationalists," white nationalists. They're comparing themselves to the Blitzkrieg, for fuck's sake. Listen to them.

And in other rising-tide-of-fascism news, in his ongoing twitter meltdown marathon Elon Musk is dogwhistling antisemitism to shore up his support with Nazis.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:35 AM on May 27, 2018 [58 favorites]

I seem to remember someone else haveing a blitz of some kind. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, because it's a snappy name or something.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:40 AM on May 27, 2018 [10 favorites]

And in other rising-tide-of-fascism news, in his ongoing twitter meltdown marathon Elon Musk is dogwhistling antisemitism to shore up his support with Nazis.

I will say this for Twitter: it has reeeeaaally killed the illusion that our billionaire overlords are anything other than extremely lucky and narrowly skilled idiots, just like the rest of us. No way do these dummies “deserve” such disproportionate power.

Thanks Twitter!
posted by schadenfrau at 8:47 AM on May 27, 2018 [70 favorites]

Rudy transitions from obstruction to perjury in a way I can't follow,

I think he's trying to expand the normalization and political-cover-to-excuse from "perjury trap" theory to obstruction by conflating the two things.
posted by ctmf at 9:07 AM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think he's trying to expand the normalization and political-cover-to-excuse from "perjury trap" theory to obstruction by conflating the two things

Like that they're going to float "obstruction trap?"
posted by rhizome at 9:26 AM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

I believe in their system -- as built -- someone who was outraged at this kind of behavior would have challenged the offender to a duel of honor.

Guys how about if we allow duels of honor again, but only for citizens against politicians who have been found to violate the law but yet somehow walk free? I suggest David Weber’s Ellington Protocol.
posted by corb at 9:33 AM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

They don't think he can be criminally charged, and they're not even trying to defend him really. They've stopped even pretending he might be innocent. It's all about shoring up Republican opinion to shield him from impeachment.

Trump’s war of attrition against Mueller bears fruit among Republicans

The pattern continues to repeat itself. Step by step, week by week, the president and his allies cross lines that legal experts insist should not be crossed. The president’s ongoing conflict with the Justice Department and his inflammatory tweets about the Mueller investigation have become so commonplace that it can be easy for people to forget how abnormal it all is.

...

Trump’s efforts have moved public opinion in ways that must cheer the president. Over time, there has been an erosion in support for the Mueller investigation among Republicans. This partisan division will shape the environment whenever Mueller concludes his investigation and particularly if he delivers a report highly critical of the president.

...

Those shifts in opinion reflect both the degree to which Trump has taken over the Republican Party and the degree to which there has been little pushback from GOP congressional leaders when he has crossed the lines. While these leaders say they support the Mueller investigation, they have resisted calls for legislation that would offer protections.

...

The gap between the Jeff Flakes of the Republican Party and what increasingly is a pro-Trump majority among rank-and-file Republican voters underscores how successful the president has been in shaping opinion ahead of whatever judgment is leveled by the special counsel and his team. Trump’s strategy of confrontation probably will only intensify in the weeks or months ahead.

posted by T.D. Strange at 9:34 AM on May 27, 2018 [27 favorites]

Giuliani on CNN State of the Union: Is Trump happy that Cohen tried to sell access to him? "I don't think the President's worst critics would say that he likes that. The President came to drain the swamp."

For the record, I would say that the President does indeed like selling access, and I don't even consider myself his worst critic, because I don't believe him to be the literal antichrist
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:39 AM on May 27, 2018 [10 favorites]

I think even his worst critic would say he’s hate it... if he wasn’t getting a cut.
posted by Artw at 9:52 AM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

T.D. Strange: The gap between the Jeff Flakes of the Republican Party

... are imaginary, or only present in his rhetoric and not his voting?

zombieflanders: Shot: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake: ‘Our presidency has been debased’ ... but then Chaser: Senate Advances Court Pick Who Said Planned Parenthood ‘Kills Over 150,000 Females A Year’ where Every Republican on the committee voted for Vitter, including Flake.


triggerfinger: They need to realize Trump is an issue. His criminal associations are issues. His corruption is an issue. His systematic dismantling of government protections is an issue.

Buntix: Only in a very very limited temporal and geographic context at best

For example: How Britain let Russia hide its dirty money -- For decades, politicians have welcomed the super-rich with open arms. Now they’re finally having second thoughts. But is it too late? (Oliver Bullough for The Guardian, May 25, 2018)

In March, parliament’s foreign affairs committee asked me to come and tell them what to do about dirty Russian cash. As a journalist, I’ve spent much of my career writing about financial corruption in the former Soviet Union, but the invitation came as something of a surprise. After all, ever since I was at school in the 1990s, British politicians have welcomed Russian money to our shores. They have celebrated when oligarchs have bought our football clubs, cheered when they’ve listed their companies on our Stock Exchange. They have gladly accepted their political donations and patronised their charitable foundations.

When journalists and academics pointed out that these murky fortunes could buy influence over our democracy and undermine the rule of law, they were largely dismissed as inconvenient Cassandras warning MPs to beware Russians bearing gifts. But earlier this year, after the poisoning in Salisbury of the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, those little-heeded prophecies jumped straight into the pages of Hansard. “To those who seek to do us harm, my message is simple: you are not welcome here,” Theresa May told the House of Commons on 14 March, in a speech that blamed Russia for the attack. “There is no place for these people, or their money, in our country.”

Corruption and self-serving is the easy way in politics (and policing). Otherwise, The Untouchables wouldn't be nearly so remarkable a story. Trump is only unique because he's so brazen about it all.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:05 AM on May 27, 2018 [13 favorites]

As I understand it, from the moment he took office until now, Trump hasn't done anything that could qualify as perjury because he's never been under oath in that time.

The Republicans came pretty close to claiming that Bill Clinton was always under oath because of the oath of office.

Here's Jeff Sessions opening the impeachment trial:

It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that President William Jefferson Clinton has persisted in a continuous pattern to lie and obstruct justice. The chief law officer of the land, whose oath of office calls on him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, crossed the line and failed to protect the law, and, in fact, attacked the law and the rights of a fellow citizen. Under our Constitution, such acts are high crimes and equal justice requires that he forfeit his office.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:07 AM on May 27, 2018 [35 favorites]

On the subject of Memorial Day, Defense One executive editor Kevin Baron @DefenseBaron points out: "Trump has never visited the troops he commands in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or any war zone. #MemorialDayWeekend"

(By this time in Obama's presidency, he had visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

As for how Trump's observing this holiday weekend on Twitter, Philip Rucker ‏@PhilipRucker notes:

We're not yet halfway through Memorial Day Weekend and President Trump has tweeted:
-4 attacks on Mueller's Russia probe
-4 attacks on Democrats
-2 attacks on The New York Times
-1 attack on Chicago's mayor

With Trump tweeting about "Why didn’t the 13 Angry Democrats investigate the campaign of Crooked Hillary Clinton, many crimes, much Collusion with Russia?", I'm beginning to think his account is being composed in doge.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:34 AM on May 27, 2018 [41 favorites]

13 Angry Democrats: in theaters July 4
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:47 AM on May 27, 2018 [12 favorites]

Remember how two weeks ago WH Comms Director Mercedes Schlapp, wife of CPAC head Matt Schlapp, stood up in a WH meeting and said:

“You can put this on the record ... I stand with Kelly Sadler"?

This was in response to Sadler's leaked comment that John McCain's opinion didn't matter because he was dying anyway. (And despite the fact that Schlapp very publicly "stormed" out of the WHCD with her husband -- on the way to the after-party in their limo while tweeting about vulgar, rude elites?)

Weellllll... White House comms team turns on each other in front of Trump (Axios)

Shortly after word leaked that Kelly Sadler had taken a nasty shot at John McCain, President Trump convened a meeting in the Oval Office for a tiny group of communications staffers, according to sources familiar with the gathering. Sadler, Mercedes Schlapp, Raj Shah, and John Kelly all gathered in front of the Resolute Desk for a conversation with Trump about the leaking problem. They were the only people in the room, though the door to the outer Oval was open.

What happened: The president told Sadler she wouldn’t be fired for her remark. He added, separately in the conversation, that he’s no fan of McCain. Then Trump, who had grown obsessed with the leaking problem, told Sadler he wanted to know who the leakers were. Sadler then stunned the room: To be completely honest, she said, she thought one of the worst leakers was Schlapp, her boss.

Schlapp pushed back aggressively and defended herself in the room. And in follow up conversations after the meeting, some of Schlapp’s colleagues also came to her defense. (In a prior meeting, she had said, "You can put this on the record: I stand with Kelly Sadler"). Sadler went on to name other people she also suspected of being leakers.

posted by chris24 at 12:18 PM on May 27, 2018 [22 favorites]

So who leaked the details of the leak meeting to Axios?
posted by octothorpe at 12:32 PM on May 27, 2018 [12 favorites]

I wish Axios didn't leak it. There are important things to worry about other than all those boring palace intrigue leaks that they probably have a full time staffer storyboarding.
posted by Yowser at 12:34 PM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

So who leaked the details of the leak meeting to Axios?

Veteran journalist Ronald Kessler, in his recent book The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game, reported, “Trump phones Maggie Haberman of The New York Times directly, as well as Philip Rucker of The Washington Post, and Jonathan Swan of Axios, feeding them stories attributed to ‘a senior White House official,’ creating the impression that [the] White House leaks even more than it already does.”

So literally anyone in the Oval Office could have leaked these details to Swan.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:39 PM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

100 dollars to the first WH aide who walks into the oval office blaring "We Don't Need Another Hero" on their phone.
posted by PenDevil at 12:41 PM on May 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

They've stopped even pretending he might be innocent. It's all about shoring up Republican opinion to shield him from impeachment.

Ryan Struyk (CNN)
Giuliani on Mueller attacks: "It is for public opinion, because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach, not impeach. Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, are going to be informed a lot by their constituents. So our jury... is the American people."


Bill Kristol
Retweeted Ryan Struyk
An amazing admission by Giuliani, that Mueller has presumably discovered and will presumably report potentially impeachable offenses.
posted by chris24 at 1:04 PM on May 27, 2018 [77 favorites]

TPM: Giuliani Demands Docs On Confidential FBI Informant As Condition Of Trump Testimony

Trump & Co. seem REALLY worried about that informant. Wonder why? He doesn’t seem to have done anything more than buy 3 guys a beer and ask what’s going on.
posted by msalt at 1:06 PM on May 27, 2018 [15 favorites]

On the subject of Memorial Day, Defense One executive editor Kevin Baron @DefenseBaron points out: "Trump has never visited the troops he commands in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or any war zone. #MemorialDayWeekend"

Also disconcerting that American warzones now require an "et al" because really who can remember them all or fit them in a 280 character tweet.
posted by srboisvert at 1:33 PM on May 27, 2018 [24 favorites]

Just to follow up on Frowner's excellent point that "since it's Sunday, those of us with phone anxiety could call and leave messages instead of getting live people", I wanted to remind everyone that faxes work great too, and you can send free faxes via FaxZero to your Senators and Representatives (and even representatives outside your district, if you're so inclined).

There's so much we can do. Contact your legislators. Contact your mayor and city council. Contact your Board of Education and Attorney General and urge them not to cooperate with ICE. Look for organizations like the ACLU and the Legal Aid Justice Center and coalitions like the Asian Law Caucus and Advancing Justice-Los Angeles and donate or volunteer. (Those are links to info about specific lawsuits - search on "ICE immigration lawsuit" to find LOTS more.) Contact your state legislators to urgently implement directives against state agencies holding people for ICE (see this Oregon Corrections policy, for example).

None of us has a magic wand to remove Trump and Pence and Sessions and disband ICE immediately. But there are a lot of people - organizations with tons of knowledge of the law and the system - who are working on this, at ALL levels of government. We can help.

Go help.
posted by kristi at 1:50 PM on May 27, 2018 [31 favorites]

NBC: The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism

Since the founding of the United States, politicians and pundits have warned that partisanship is a danger to democracy. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties, or factions, could "allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men" to rise to power and subvert democracy. More recently, many political observers are concerned that increasing political polarization on left and right makes compromise impossible, and leads to the destruction of democratic norms and institutions.

A new study, however, suggests that the main threat to our democracy may not be the hardening of political ideology, but rather the hardening of one particular political ideology. Political scientists Steven V. Miller of Clemson and Nicholas T. Davis of Texas A&M have released a working paper titled "White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy." Their study finds a correlation between white American's intolerance, and support for authoritarian rule. In other words, when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

posted by chris24 at 1:58 PM on May 27, 2018 [89 favorites]

when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

When taken in conjunction with studies showing that support for a strong social safety net is highest in relatively homogenous populations and suffers when people think marginalized groups will be helped this speaks really badly about human beings. We are apparently not good at all.
posted by Justinian at 2:03 PM on May 27, 2018 [26 favorites]

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties, or factions, could "allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men" to rise to power and subvert democracy.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:26 PM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

We're Making Undocumented People Straight Up Wear Yellow Bracelets Now

Another day, another nauseating peek into the hellish, unfeeling bureaucracy our country has created for undocumented parents and their children.
...
Not only are we ripping families apart for the unthinkable crime of crossing the border, immigration officials are also apparently making parents wear yellow insignia to denote their status. They couldn’t even pick another color!

posted by kirkaracha at 2:36 PM on May 27, 2018 [55 favorites]

So Trump tweeted (I'm not linking to this asshole.):

Why didn’t President Obama do something about the so-called Russian Meddling when he was told about it by the FBI before the Election? Because he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win, and he didn’t want to upset the apple cart! He was in charge, not me, and did nothing."

Is there a reasonable alternative reading to this besides "It is Obama's fault I colluded with Russia because he didn't stop me."
posted by Justinian at 3:04 PM on May 27, 2018 [77 favorites]

Obama did try to do something.

Biden: McConnell stopped Obama from calling out Russians


And of course, contrary to Trump's Deep State narrative, Obama was trying not to unfairly skew the election.


Asha Rangappa (Just Security, fmr FBI CI special agent)
One of the many details that gets lost in the narrative that Obama was "out to get Trump" is this: @Comey in August of 2016 wanted to write an op-ed warning the public that Russia was attempting to interfere in our elections. Obama *objected* bc it would look unfair to Trump. 🤔
posted by chris24 at 3:17 PM on May 27, 2018 [50 favorites]

Obama...man I love you but you’re truly the Ned Stark of politics.
posted by supercrayon at 3:22 PM on May 27, 2018 [124 favorites]

There is a new, four-part documentary on the newspaper Mefites love to hate and its Trump coverage. You can watch The Fourth Estate for free by signing up to a free week from Showtime. It's about as tedious — and as important — as these threads. Don't forget to unsubscribe when you're done. You're welcome. Carry on.
posted by kemrocken at 3:33 PM on May 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

NYT review of documentary about NYT. Interestingly, it notes a couple ways the doc was not critical enough...
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:36 PM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

A bipartisan group of senators are trying to get a bill passed to stop hidden foreign money in elections using shell companies. The Shell Company Abuse Act aims to criminalize using or helping set up shell companies to pass foreign money to election campaigns.
Maybe a good one to call our senators about?
I tried multiple times to post a link to a website about it but Metafilter kept crashing my iPad.
If you google search the phrase "Shell Company Abuse Act" it will be the top link.
posted by Gadgetenvy at 4:47 PM on May 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm not linking to this asshole.

There's always @UnfollowTrump.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:52 PM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

In other news, Giuliani flat out admitted today in an interview that their efforts to make Spygate a thing are flat out an effort to attack and discredit the investigation.

In short: he admitted to intentional and organized conspiracy to obstruct justice on national television.

Tell me again how that doesn't result in an immediate arrest and banishment from the political arena, because I'm not sure I understand.
posted by Archelaus at 5:01 PM on May 27, 2018 [35 favorites]

Because the army answers to the subject of the criminal investigation. Complicates things a bit.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:05 PM on May 27, 2018 [7 favorites]

FYI, I decided to add some of the Israel/Qatar/UAE/Saudi Arabia stuff to my site. It's not a ton of detail, but if you need a place to fish links out of, it's here.

The collusion section also has a lot more Viktor Vekselberg / Michael Cohen stuff now, if you missed any of that. Roger Stone's section has also been bulked out a little, and Don. Jr's.

My goal is just for more people to know this information, so as always, feel free to copy and paste and share without worrying about attribution.
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:51 PM on May 27, 2018 [48 favorites]

I.... i... can't... can someone fact-check this for me? I can't.. I just can't even.

@brownblaze: Everyone, there’s no need to worry, the private prison company running ICE detention facilities has a special prison bus for babies. [includes photograph of what is clearly a prison bus, outfitted with Graco child seats in every position]
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 5:59 PM on May 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

The original tweet on this is from yesterday from NYCSouthpaw and they are a dependable, valuable Twitter person I've posted here many a time and who is followed and retweeted by many of the big names and reporters you know. So I have no reason to doubt it's veracity. (The link no longer works.)

@nycsouthpaw
I was reading about ICE’s largest family detention facility—Karnes, which is run by a private contractor—and I happened upon this photo on the contractor’s blog. As my friend put it, they’ve got a prison bus for babies down there. PIC
https://www.geogroup.com/News-Detail/NewsID/428
posted by chris24 at 6:04 PM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]

prison bus for babies

I can't get the "geogroups" link to work now, but earlier today I read (I think at that same link) that those buses are for taking kids on field trips. Zoos and nature centers and so on. As I recall, it said they had been purchased in December, 2016, which would be under Obama.

The car seats don't look like infant car seats to me. They appear to be high backed boosters, appropriate for kids up to 8 years old (though with straps installed for smaller kids.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 6:10 PM on May 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I can't get the "geogroups" link to work now,

Archive.is got it:

The expansion of the Karnes County Residential Center (KCRC) was completed in early December 2015, and increased the capacity to 1,158 beds.

The expansion created new demands to an already unique transportation mission by requiring larger capacity vehicles to provide offsite field trips. These field trips are part of the contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Field trips are provided to all children, ages four through seventeen enrolled in educational programs provided by the John H. Wood Charter School, located at KCRC. Field trips consist of going to a variety of places, such as the San Antonio Zoo, seeing a movie at the local theater, going to the park, etc.

The transportation requirements to handle the increased school enrollment were presented to corporate officials at the end of the 3rd quarter 2015. On February 4, 2016, two new fleet vehicles were delivered to the KCRC to fulfill contractual obligations. The first vehicle is an eighteen-seat passenger bus that is ADA compliant with rear wheelchair lift system and the second bus has twenty-six seats. These vehicles do not have standard GTI security equipment such as steel cages or window bars or screens. Both buses have camera systems and digital video recorders to record all activity during transport.

Due to the unique transportation criteria, KCRC officials worked very closely with GTI Vice President Ed Stubbs and Corporate Fleet Manager Paul Gossard, to outfit and configure the bus cabins to meet ICE requirements and to be compliant with the terms of this unique contract. Both buses are outfitted with standard commercial grade cushioned seating. Each seat has a convertible child safety seat and is equipped with a DVD system with four drop down screens to provide entertainment to the children with onboard movies during transport missions.

...

posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 6:15 PM on May 27, 2018 [12 favorites]

Ah, that feeling of relief when you learn that babies snatched from their parents are not transported en masse in a baby prison bus, but rather just one or two at a time in a more conventional vehicle.
posted by Behemoth at 6:21 PM on May 27, 2018 [48 favorites]

The Shell Company Abuse Act aims to criminalize using or helping set up shell companies to pass foreign money to election campaigns.

The intent part is kind of weak. It would be hard to prove that against any competent fraudster. (Note: I'm not considering the Trump family and cronies competent for this purpose, so I guess it would have some benefit)
posted by ctmf at 6:41 PM on May 27, 2018

kirkaracha Thing is, many of the people involved in early democracies tended to object to political parties largely on the grounds that they'd get people too involved in politics and allow people not of the de facto (if not official) aristocracy to gain power.

Yamagat Aritomo, like Washington and many other aristocrat/politicians was deeply concerned about political parties forming. And like Washington mostly his concern was rooted in the belief that the great masses shouldn't be involved in the important decisions of politics but rather should simply vote for whatever aristocrat was selected for them by a benevolent, but behind the scenes process that did not involve the great unwashed masses.

Political Parties have problems, I won't claim otherwise. But the problems of parties existing are superior to the problems of parties not existing.

Washington and many of his contemporaries, were often like Yamagata (or Yamagata was like them, considering he came after), and basically looking to democracy as a sort of public stamp of approval on people chosen by the great wise men of society. The idea of democracy being employed by others to challenge those great wise men of society and the non-aristocrats putting forth candidates of their own was their great fear.

If you look over the documents of the American founders you'll often find a theme of protecting the government from the people by means of limiting democracy. Thus the Senate being elected by state governments, thus the original limitations on the franchise, thus the opposition to parties.

Like unions, political parties allow challenges to power structures.
posted by sotonohito at 6:42 PM on May 27, 2018 [11 favorites]

OnceUponATime, once again, I have to say how much I appreciate all the work you've put into your site, organizing and summarizing all those links. The writing is excellent - clear ("The first important thing to know is:") and concise.

You are doing a Really Good Thing there, and I thank you for all the ongoing work of doing it.
posted by kristi at 6:59 PM on May 27, 2018 [41 favorites]

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties, or factions, could "allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men" to rise to power and subvert democracy.

Washington could be a bit of a doofus and the thing he was talking about parties or factions subverting was not anything you or I would recognize as a democracy. It was a democracy like apartheid South Africa was as democracy.

If you want to think of the US becoming at least weakly democratic, so that anyone who was an adult white man could vote, that wasn't done by Washington or by the constitutional convention or any of the framers. That shit got done by parties and partisan politics. Schattschneider had it right in the 40s when he wrote that political parties created democracy and that modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:20 PM on May 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

Thanks kristi. If I'm going to obsess I might as well do it publicly, I guess.

I broke the link in that prior post, though I fixed it with the fit window. But if someone hasn't re-loaded and the link is not working right, try this one.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:36 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

Ah, that feeling of relief when you learn that babies snatched from their parents are not transported en masse in a baby prison bus, but rather just one or two at a time in a more conventional vehicle.

Look, I'm not going to defend ICE, but ICE was/is holding loads of children with their mothers. (and abusing the women held there). After a judge ruled the place was unfit for children, residents were dumped outside en masse.

It seems to me that this bus was designed to augment the education facilities that existed on the site for the children held there and this bus was designed to at least make the site appear to be fit for holding children. Evidently, it wasn't. But insofar as the new Trump doctrine of sending children to "foster care, or whatever", they won't need such buses, because they will be holding their mothers in prison, not in family detention centers.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:08 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

Hmm. A thread...

@jduffyrice
Now that we’re all on twitter because of this game, I am making a public service announcement: PLEASE STOP SHARING THAT STORY ABOUT 1500 KIDS MISSING. The outrage I’ve seen is a result of a total misinterpretation and could SERIOUSLY threaten the children you want to save.
posted by Artw at 8:57 PM on May 27, 2018 [28 favorites]

Thank you for highlighting that thread, Artw. The nearly content-free conversation around the "missing" children has not sat right with me since it began. I am way too little informed about the subject to be talking about it, but the discourse seemed off, and I couldn't find any reporting that seemed any more informed than I am.

One thing to note: the statistic described checking up on 7 thousand-ish children in the space of three months. That's a tiny fraction of the number of unaccompanied minors! How many are there left to check up on? How long have we been checking up on them, how many were checked on in other months, how many of them could be contacted? I don't know! Is anyone asking? Again, I don't know!

It seems to me that before 2016, these phone-checks were simply not happening, so... no statistics about missing children. But it's because we weren't looking for them, and the statistics about how many children were missing their immigration hearings? Those don't make the news.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

The phone calls described in the statistic are 30-day check-ins (see page 8 of this PDF) performed by case managers after unaccompanied children are released to the care of sponsors. Even making those calls is a fairly new program, and the statistics cover October-December 2017. I don't believe we have any data on calls after that, though there's even less reason to pick up the phone today than there was last year.

ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) officially considers children no longer their legal responsibility after they've been placed with sponsors (about 85% are parents or close relatives, but ORR has been faulted for placing children with traffickers). That's a problem, because, in the abstract, it really does seem like the government should bear some degree of responsibility for unaccompanied children for more than a hot second. No responsible foster care system places children and then just walks away. But when it comes to this government in particular, especially an ORR taken over by a bunch of right-wingers who have spent most of their time trying to ensure no child in their care possibly receives an abortion, that's a tough sell. Many of these kids are under deportation proceedings. When these guys call up a sponsor to say "hey how's everything gong?," it's not that surprising that everyone doesn't pick up the phone. More monitoring is supposed to happen when children are placed with non-relatives or other special circumstances.

So yeah, going all #WhereAreTheChildren as if you want the Trump Administration to conduct a nationwide manhunt for kids in fragile situations is not all that helpful. What we need is a government that can be trusted to care for unaccompanied children and then actually ensures that care is provided; right now, we have neither.

What's happening now, and what's being conflated with the above, is that even some children seeking asylum are being separated from their parents at the border, even when families have presented themselves legally at a port of entry and applied for asylum. This is both sickening and a betrayal of the entire asylum system. In many more cases, families cross illegally, are caught, and are separated when the parents are charged with a crime, even when the parents claim asylum at that point. In an amazingly Kafkaesque twist, the children in this situation are then deemed unaccompanied, since the parents have just been arrested.

The third thing going on is a recent report documenting horrific abuse of children by immigration officials during 2009-2014 (full report, links to supporting documents).
posted by zachlipton at 10:02 PM on May 27, 2018 [38 favorites]

Reiterating what BungaDunga and zachlipton are saying, Artw's link states that the issue of children being separated from their parents is real and "unconscionable and sickening", and is only proposing that the 1500 unsuccessful phone calls trying to check on the former charges of the ORR may in part be due to people refusing to cooperate with the government under Trump, so it's a bad idea to give them any sort of mandate to overcome that resistance or engage in more active surveillance of refugee children.
posted by XMLicious at 10:12 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

Just to emphasize that there are absolutely no good outcomes here. @nycsouthpaw:

See a lot of people sharing an argument to the effect that ORR being unable to reach ~1500 kids is good news bc it means they’re being sheltered from federal law enforcement. That may be in some cases, but it’s not so simple.

ORR was investigated by the Senate after it unwittingly released eight Guatemalan teenagers into forced labor at an Ohio egg farm. That investigation found that the agency didn’t do standard due diligence for foster care placements.

You can read more about the egg farm case here. It appears the parents effectively consigned their children into indentured servitude in exchange for the money necessary to get them to the US, and ORR didn’t have systems in place to catch the scheme. It’s certainly to be hoped ORR has its act together now, is doing proper diligence, and all those sponsors ducking its outreach have the kids best interests at heart in doing so. However, the hearing last month didn’t offer much comfort on that score.

It's a sign of how extremely fucked up the entire situation is that "it's good the government doesn't know where foster kids are" is an actual argument that is being taken seriously.
posted by zachlipton at 11:20 PM on May 27, 2018 [38 favorites]

OnceUponATime, what an amazing recap of the Trump story so far!
posted by xammerboy at 12:12 AM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

We're so screwed: Iran lists demands for staying in nuclear deal

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei this week said his country would stay in the deal on three strict conditions. He said the EU had to protect Iranian oil sales from US sanctions and continued to buy Iranian oil.

He also demanded European banks safeguard trade with Iran, including by keeping the country inside the Swift international payments system.

Finally, he also urged France, Germany and the UK not to seek a new agreement on Iran’s ballistic missile programme, or its regional activities, including its presence in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Broadly, Russia and China agree with these terms.

posted by Joe in Australia at 12:52 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Well, at least they still want to be in the deal.

I guess this is the first manifestation of the end of the US as a dominant figure in international relations - if the US doesn't want to be involved the rest of the world will interpret that as damage and route around it.

We could see the same thing on the Korean Peninsula - the two Koreas keep talking and arrive at their own solution, probably sponsored by China. And from there I would think that fairly rapidly Pacific and Asian countries would start to move to closer alignment with China.

The US could find itself friendless very very quickly, if that's what it wants.
posted by awfurby at 1:09 AM on May 28, 2018 [15 favorites]

I guess this is the first manifestation of the end of the US as a dominant figure in international relations -

Putin is probably self high-fiveing (I'm going to just pretend this is a thing) once a day.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:31 AM on May 28, 2018

We're so screwed: Iran lists demands for staying in nuclear deal

The article takes no position on whether Iran's demands are realistic or not. What are the odds that the EU shelters Iran from US sanctions? 0%? 99%? I'm sure it's in between, but I have no basis for judging whether it is 10% or 90%.
posted by Justinian at 1:50 AM on May 28, 2018

The article takes no position on whether Iran's demands are realistic or not. What are the odds that the EU shelters Iran from US sanctions? 0%? 99%? I'm sure it's in between, but I have no basis for judging whether it is 10% or 90%.
I don't think they realistically can shelter Iran from the sanctions, and I think Iran knows this. They are trying to pressure Europe to pressure the US, it's desperate, but it's all they've got. It's all a huge tragedy.
posted by mumimor at 1:53 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

The article takes no position on whether Iran's demands are realistic or not.

I don't think they realistically can shelter Iran from the sanctions, and I think Iran knows this.

I didn't read it as asking for shelter from the sanctions that we know are coming from the United States. If you look at their three points, they read like the Iranian version of what the EU has been saying:

1. Keep the oil flowing
2. find a way to keep the money flowing
3. stick to the agreement we took 10 years to hammer out

From what little I've read, that's what the EU's statute is supposed to enable

my own random and useless 2 cents worth is this: one day or another the EU and the Rest of the World will have to face the fact of USD hegemony and decide what they want to do with their necks in this noose thus it might as well be dealt with today
posted by infini at 2:23 AM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Iran's demands go way beyond "sheltering" it from US sanctions: they include condoning its ballistic missile program and its "presence" in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Also, for Iran to remain in the SWIFT banking system, the system would have to be basically broken into a US and a European part. That will make it a lot harder to, e.g., monitor international financial transactions and to maintain sanctions against other nations. No wonder the article says that Russia and China are happy with these terms! And the quid pro quo for these permanent and irrevocable steps is that Iran won't refine highly-enriched uranium for a number of years. It's even possible that the EU would be obliged to pay Iran for the cost of US sanctions.

This is a far worse arrangement than the one Trump broke. It is literally nuclear blackmail and it effectively hands several nations over to a reactionary clericalist regime. The end game will be a regime stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, armed with ballistic missiles and (even assuming it adheres to its obligations) nuclear missiles in a decade. Trump has really, really hurt the US and the rest of the world generally.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:36 AM on May 28, 2018 [25 favorites]

The issue that "find a way to keep the money flowing" is really hard, both because oil is traded in dollars, and because the international banking system is so integrated it will be difficult for any bank to engage without getting hit by US sanctions big time (what Joe in Australia says about SWIFT, except IMO it is literally impossible to break up SWIFT).
I mentioned upthread or in an earlier thread that there was some speculation back then that Iraq's threat to trade oil in Euros instead of dollars was the actual trigger for the war (though everyone agreed that Cheney and his friends had been plotting for an Iraq war for ages). I'm pretty certain that if Iran and the EU start trading in Euros, we will see an Iran war, and that war will be worse than the Iraq war by an order of magnitude. The only people who want an Iran war are a handful of US hawks, the Saudis and some Israelis. Neither of these have any idea what they are doing. So on top of stupid Watergate, we'll have stupid Gulf war. Stupid all the way down.
I also think that every adult in the room knows this, including the ayatollahs, and this is why I think it is an empty threat and a desperate action. (Also they are seeing that Kim Jong-un is being very successful after starting out with absurd threats, and that surely influences their reasoning, though I personally don't think they are in the same position as NK).
posted by mumimor at 2:50 AM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

It wasn't just the nuclear bomb that made N. Korea so dangerous. They also suddenly had ballistic missiles with global reach. There are all kinds of WMDs that can be created once you have the ballistic missiles: chemical, germ, dirty, etc.
posted by xammerboy at 3:00 AM on May 28, 2018

It's not that Iran aren't as strong as North Korea, they are certainly a lot stronger, both economically and militarily. But they have more, and different enemies, and not least, the American resentment towards Iran after 1979 is different from the issues the US have with North Korea. Basically, a large part of the South Korean population and the current South Korean government wants peace. And the Korean war lies so far back no one really remembers. I can't see any legitimate ally of the US having the same engagement in peace with Iran as South Korea has with the North.
posted by mumimor at 3:13 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

If I were running Iran I would go all in with the Russians. Lend us a few nukes, like you did with NK? Advisors and training for our armed forces? Yes, please! Anything to make this bullshit war an impossibility.

I know there are a lot of US folk here on Metafilter, but sorry - you are the baddies. I am looking forward to a world where you are not able to throw your weight around like you do these days.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:26 AM on May 28, 2018 [26 favorites]

The thing is, many if not a majority of Iranians want economic integration with the West. And Russia has nothing to give, apart from arms. It'll be interesting to see how the Chinese One Belt project works out.
posted by mumimor at 4:12 AM on May 28, 2018

I am looking forward to a world where you are not able to throw your weight around like you do these days.

So are a whole bunch of us stateside, I assure you.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:42 AM on May 28, 2018 [41 favorites]

Forget about broad-based pay hikes, executives say
posted by Artw at 5:57 AM on May 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

"Forget about keeping your head connected to your body," workers respond.
posted by contraption at 6:32 AM on May 28, 2018 [70 favorites]

@pacelattin:
Friend who just retired from Secret Service has confirmed that Melania Trump has moved back to New York for the "foreseeable future" and will now cost us millions in additional protection daily.

He said that the agents assigned to her detail have been told to prepare.

If so that would be a point in favour of the “he clocoed her one” theory.
posted by Artw at 6:52 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

....or their son is out of school for the summer? Let's not speculate here.
posted by schmod at 7:08 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

If so that would be a point in favour of the “he clocoed her one” theory.

Counterpoint, she's as tired of his bullshit ( or more ) then any of us and she has the opportunity for a separation-without-legal-separation, so I don't blame her one whit. Especially after the whole "Cohen paid off Daniels so that Melinia wouldn't hear about it and be unhappy" angle.
posted by mikelieman at 7:10 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Maybe Hank Siemers wants to put a ring on it.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:14 AM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

you are the baddies.

Compared to what the US holds itself out as? Yes. Compared to Putin's Russia? No.

I am looking forward to a world where you are not able to throw your weight around like you do these days

We're already there. How's it going?
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:14 AM on May 28, 2018 [43 favorites]

The alternative to the US-EU led post-war order is China’s authoritarian model of “we’ll pay to help you build things, but give us total control in exchange”. That’s what they’re already exporting to Africa and looking to take global as Trump blows everything up. US created often flawed but usually well intentioned institutions, or China dictates international conditions. Pick one.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:24 AM on May 28, 2018 [14 favorites]

US created often flawed but usually well intentioned institutions, or China dictates international conditions. Pick one.

With Trump at the wheel, the choice is no longer ours.

(Also, while I agree with you that the majority of the US' forays into foreign affairs have ... actually that's hard to say as well given the last 16 years of shenanigans in Iraq and Afghanistan - not to mention the CIA black-sites... it's a difficult thing to see the US as 'baddies' when you are 'on that team.' But the view of the non-US world is not universally pro-US, something that rarely filters back to US media but... for much of the rest of the world the US is just another country - shiny and cool-looking, yes, but not the symbol of universal envy so often portrayed.)
posted by From Bklyn at 7:32 AM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

"The other is a school shooting (nearly) thwarted. Not by doors, not by guns or guards, but by SCIENCE!. If a teacher T throws a basketball B of mass M with a velocity v towards a shooter S, how many shots are fired before S is overpowered?. One student and the teacher were wounded, shooter was arrested."

These shootings are so common that they pass almost without notice. The Noblesville shooting was in a middle school science class. Ella Whistler was shot in the head. She is 13. So is the boy who shot her. Jason Seaman ("teacher T") did throw a basketball at the shooter, but then he tackled, disarmed, and restrained him while telling his students to run, preventing further child casualties. He was shot three times in the process.

Please note that this was a school shooting and not a mass shooting. Congress determined in 2012 after Sandy Hook that a mass shooting requires at least 3 homicides. Three people have to die before the feds can get involved. We wouldn't want to waste valuable resources on these "minor" shootings. They would be swamped.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:33 AM on May 28, 2018 [66 favorites]

Arguably the problems of climate and resource distribution on the planet can only be addressed if we recognize that there are many competing and overlapping constituencies who need to work towards an equilibrium, rather than the naive idea of one of them getting it right and the others falling in line. If there is a silver lining to current events in the US is it perhaps precisely to alert us all to the fact that no one is in charge, no one is boss, no "single superpower" can reign, and negotiation among competitors is inevitable.
posted by stonepharisee at 7:51 AM on May 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

it's a difficult thing to see the US as 'baddies' when you are 'on that team.'

For over 30 years now, Russia and China have thrown their weight behind a principle of "state sovereignity above all", in a disgusting parallel to the Congress of Vienna of 1816.

For this they;ve stoodbehind outright genocidaires in Burma, Yugoslavia, and other locales.

Anyone who is "looking forward" to seeing these forces prevail against the US's former policies is actively in denial about the resulting dark age.
posted by ocschwar at 8:11 AM on May 28, 2018 [58 favorites]

Anyone who is "looking forward" to seeing these forces prevail against the US's former policies is actively in denial about the resulting dark age.

Roman empire (of the current us military machine across the world) collapses under dictatorships > resulting dark ages (again.)
And so it goes.
"To the extent that Americans think about these bases at all, we generally assume they’re essential to national security and global peace. Our leaders have claimed as much since most of them were established during World War II and the early days of the Cold War. As a result, we consider the situation normal and accept that US military installations exist in staggering numbers in other countries, on other peoples’ land. On the other hand, the idea that there would be foreign bases on US soil is unthinkable.

While there are no freestanding foreign bases permanently located in the United States, there are now around 800 US bases in foreign countries. "
posted by Harry Caul at 8:21 AM on May 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Roman empire (of the current us military machine across the world) collapses under dictatorships > resulting dark ages (again.)
And so it goes.

How many people are you willing to let die to support your moral high ground?
posted by steady-state strawberry at 8:50 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Mark Rubio:

RUBIO: So I think the president is facing these -- and his lawyers are reacting -- they’re -- they’re responding to what -- what they’re facing and the things that are happening to them. I can tell you what I know. Number one, if there is an FBI informant or any sort of inappropriate action that’s been taken targeting a political campaign, the president’s or any, we want to know about it and it should be punished.

As far as what I have seen to date, it appears that there was an investigation not of the campaign but of certain individuals who have a history that we should be suspicious of that predate the presidential campaign of 2015, 2016. And when individuals like that are in the orbit of a major political campaign in America, the FBI, who is in charge of counterintelligence investigations, should look at people like that.

But they’re not investigating the campaign, they’re investigating those people. In fact, you could argue --

RADDATZ: So you’re saying President Trump was wrong?

RUBIO: I have seen no evidence that there -- that those people were part of an investigation on the campaign. If that exists, I would want to know about it, we should all know about and that -- that would be wrong and we should -- we should do something about it. But up to now, what I have seen is evidence that they were investigating individuals with a history of links to Russia that were concerning.

And that was appropriate, if that’s all that happened.

So close.
posted by Artw at 9:07 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Gah. No moral high ground meant! Just sadness, resignation, horror at the US war machine. Like most of the world.
posted by Harry Caul at 9:09 AM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

Good grief with today’s Memorial Day tweet the President is reaching for new lows.

Here’s one way through the catastrophe: Have a thoughtful day today, and stay positive about what we can do tomorrow to fix it.
posted by notyou at 9:11 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Anyone who is "looking forward" to seeing these forces prevail against the US's former policies is actively in denial about the resulting dark age.

... or courting it.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 9:45 AM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

The dark ages are already well underway in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen... and it looks like y'all are keen for that to spread to Iran now, too, maybe North Korea. In my lifetime I have not seen a US military intervention that improved things for the people living there. How shitty Russia or China might make things is academic, and they would have to try really fucking hard to be as bad as the US.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:26 AM on May 28, 2018 [12 favorites]

North Korea is already in a dark age due to the crazy repressive dictatorship it already has- not every evil in the world is the US's fault.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 10:28 AM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

China doesn't have the force projection and isn't interested. "We build roads and ports, you let us control the resource extraction" sounds way better than "we bomb you back to the stone age".
posted by Meatbomb at 10:29 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

We build roads and ports, you let us control the resource extraction" sounds way better than "we bomb you back to the stone age".

Neo-imperialism sounds better than short-term military intervention. Got it.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 11:10 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Neo-imperialism sounds better than short-term military intervention. Got it.
So remind me how long USA has been in Afghanistan and what has been achieved?
What is the plan? Is there one?
posted by adamvasco at 11:22 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

The choice isn’t between approving of US military adventurism or not, it’s between US built institutions like NATO and the UN and the WHO and WTO and on and on continuing to function more or less as designed, or those institutions failing because the Republicans abandoned the liberal order, and giving over to the pure hard power dynamic favored by Russia and China.

There’s more at stake than whether you would’ve voted for the Iraq war in 2002.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:28 AM on May 28, 2018 [36 favorites]

China doesn't have the force projection and isn't interested.

Wrong on both counts; although it would be comforting to believe that, particularly the second part. Look into the militarisation of the SCS, Xi’s recent root-and-branch reforms of the PLA, the second aircraft carrier that just came into service (which may not sound like a lot, but that puts China joint second in the world - with Italy - behind the US, which has 11. Even Russia only has one.)

I’d also note that I was in China during their frightening 2015 military parade, or, as China put it, their “celebration of the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and World War II (1939-45)”. I didn’t see the English language commentary on CCTV, but the announcer introduced their two varieties of nuclear missiles as follows: “this one is specially designed to take out an aircraft carrier!” [...] “And this one can reach Guam!”

Make of that what you will.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 11:29 AM on May 28, 2018 [10 favorites]

The US is very much culpable for the division of Korea, particularly through deliberate strangling of the People's Republic of Korea. The US military made a deliberate choice to step into the shoes of the Japanese occupiers (and to keep the collaborators in positions of power rather than bringing them to justice), instead of letting the people of Korea shape their own destiny. The consequences of that choice are still reverberating.

It may also be worth recalling that Kim Il Sung took decades to consolidate absolute power. He could never have pulled it off without the constant threat of American invasion.

If -- on this day dedicated to the memory of the millions of lives needlessly cut short by military adventurism -- we really must discuss the evils that the massive US military and intelligence services supposedly keep us safe from, we must keep our eyes open to the fact that the US played a huge role in creating most of those evils in the first place.
posted by shenderson at 11:29 AM on May 28, 2018 [20 favorites]

I really doubt Russia will simply give Iran a nuke. It's possible, certainly Putin wouldn't have any moral objections. But I'm a bit dubious on it from a realpolitik standpoint. I'm not at all sure China would approve, and they share a pretty big border and a great deal of trade across it.

I'm even more doubtful China will hand one over to Iran. They like the destabilization of the American world order as much as anyone else, but as others have noted China is more concentrated on soft power projection at the moment and doubtless doesn't want other major powers getting the idea of destabilizing its own hegemony.

If China could be traced to Iranian nukes it'd hurt Chinese trade worldwide and right now that's Xi's grand strategy.

That said, I think if Iran were to develop an atomic weapon on its own, China would see it as a positive development. An Iranian hegemony over much of the Middle East would be easier for China to deal with than the current patchwork but mostly US/EU allied power setup. And China has problems with Pan-Turkish Sunni terrorist/resistance groups inside its borders. An Iranian, that is Shi'a, hegemony would present such groups with an external enemy to focus on and make Xi's life easier.

Plus, of course, China wouldn't mind seeing someone poke America in the eye, both from a political/trade/economics standpoint and just because if America is taken down a peg it makes it easier for China to move up a peg.

So I wouldn't be surprised at all to see China, subtly of course, encouraging the Iranian nuke program. But not doing anything overt like giving Iran a nuke.
posted by sotonohito at 11:31 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

"relax, I got your bases covered"

Security troops on US nuclear missile base took LSD

Yet Air Force investigators found those implicated in the F.E. Warren drug ring used LSD on base and off, at least twice at outdoor gatherings. Some also snorted cocaine and used ecstasy. Civilians joined them in the LSD use, including some who had recently left Air Force service, according to two officials with knowledge of the investigation. The Air Force declined to discuss this.
posted by infini at 11:32 AM on May 28, 2018

And yeah, perhaps its time more Americans made the effort to step out of the filter bubble and seek out media and op eds from around the world. otoh thanks to the TwitterBot in Charge I have no idea if its already too late

me, I just get death threats served up through this here cybersphere for opening my WoC mouth
posted by infini at 11:35 AM on May 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Security troops on US nuclear missile base took LSD

From one missile base to another!
posted by chappell, ambrose at 11:50 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

As a PS to my comment on China, I’d note that soft power and hard power are utilised to the same ends. The Chinese government leaning on multinationals to describe Taiwan as a part of China on all corporate websites across the world (on pain of being shut out of the Chinese market) are of a piece with the military exercises that they’re running off Taiwan’s shores, which are explicitly “intended to threaten Taiwan”.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:00 PM on May 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

it’s between US built institutions like NATO and the UN and the WHO and WTO

I'm not going to comment on the UN or WTO, but the WHO is very European, is based out of Geneva and dates back to the League of Nations of which the USA was definitely not a member, and even further back to the International Sanitary Conferences held by France beginning in 1851. It is not a US-built institution.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:04 PM on May 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

China doesn't have the force projection and isn't interested. "We build roads and ports, you let us control the resource extraction" sounds way better than "we bomb you back to the stone age".

China's stated party goal is to rule the earth. If you say the wrong thing in China, you disappear. Their tactics have been updated, but their goals remain the same. They have no problem with how Kim runs North Korea. Donald Trump dreams of being a penny ante dictator. Xi dreams of total control of every thought and action of every person on the planet. They don't hide it.
posted by xammerboy at 12:14 PM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm not going to comment on the UN or WTO, but the WHO is very European, is based out of Geneva and dates back to the League of Nations of which the USA was definitely not a member, and even further back to the International Sanitary Conferences held by France beginning in 1851. It is not a US-built institution.

True, but: take a look at who's funding it, and what the last 18 months of total recklessness by the US in general has done to the WHO's confidence in its ability to maintain staffing levels and any sort of R&D budget. France has temporarily stepped up to cover any shortfalls due to the Americans' inability to find their ass with both hands and a flashlight erratic financial backing, but everyone in the organization is fearful for the future. Institutions matter, and the US is capable of toppling them by its own inaction.

Source: younger sister who is employed by the WHO in Geneva and is no longer banking on it being a career
posted by Mayor West at 12:16 PM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

China's stated party goal is to rule the earth . . . . Xi dreams of total control of every thought and action of every person on the planet.

Seriously? Reference please? That is some serious cold-war-era fear mongering. A communist hiding in every closet and under every bed! They have eyes and ears everywhere! Beware! Beware!
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:20 PM on May 28, 2018 [16 favorites]

China's stated party goal is to rule the earth.

John: But he's citing that desire as a basis for our strategy. You can't cite your enemy's delusional hopes as a basis for a rational strategy. Goals don't exist in a vacuum, they're linked to capability. David Koresh was utterly committed to being Jesus Christ. See how far that got him.

posted by Mayor West at 12:26 PM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Chinese ever done for us?
posted by SPrintF at 12:30 PM on May 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Security troops on US nuclear missile base took LSD

Considering the alternatives, I think this is actually a "Best Case Scenario", and literally "The Least of our Problems"
posted by mikelieman at 12:36 PM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

What is going on in China right now is no joke, and I just don't think we should ever have to choose between wrongs. The current US administration is a huge threat to global peace and so is the current Chinese administration. As someone who is neither Chinese nor American, I don't want to choose between evils. I want peace and democracy to rule.
posted by mumimor at 12:37 PM on May 28, 2018 [28 favorites]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Chinese ever done for us?

paper, and gunpowder
posted by infini at 12:40 PM on May 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

Trump gathering for rich Chinese
posted by infini at 12:43 PM on May 28, 2018

Rudy went to the Yankees game today for his birthday. The PA announced he was there and wished him a happy birthday.

The crowd booed him vociferously.

I love my city.
posted by chris24 at 12:51 PM on May 28, 2018 [98 favorites]

Don’t forget railroads.
posted by Melismata at 1:07 PM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

World domination used to be a stated political party plank, just Hamas' stated goal is to kill all Jews. Currently, the first policy of Xi Jinping Thought is ensuring Communist Party of China leadership over all forms of work in China.

What does leadership over all forms of work look like? It's not hard to see. Just look at some examples of Chinese news from today's paper:

China is video capturing students faces while studying, so an algorithm can rate their attentiveness at all times.

By the year 2020, China wanst to implement a program where citizens rate every other citizen's actions according to their fealty to the state and adherence to law.

Trump's bad, but wouldn't even dream of doing stuff like this.
posted by xammerboy at 1:13 PM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Guys maybe the Usa as bad as China or what discussion could have it’s own thread?
posted by supercrayon at 1:15 PM on May 28, 2018 [22 favorites]

Mod note: Yeah this is a pretty protracted jaunt down a path that doesn't seem to have any useful destination.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:20 PM on May 28, 2018 [19 favorites]

"Maybe that group of core Trump supporters think today's tweet is a good idea, though it's difficult to see how."

There's no "maybe" about it, and it's only difficult if you're not in the cult.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:35 PM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Good grief with today’s Memorial Day tweet the President is reaching for new lows.

"Our dead soldiers think I'm the greatest President ever! Nice!"

Sorta real but paraphrased.
posted by Justinian at 1:43 PM on May 28, 2018 [14 favorites]

And this story reaches its inevitable conclusion: Rep. Garrett announces he is an alcoholic and will not seek re-election.

“Any person — Republican, Democrat or independent — who has known me for any period of time and has any integrity knows two things: I am a good man and I’m an alcoholic,” Garrett, fighting back tears, said in a video shot Monday afternoon on Richmond’s Capitol Square. “This is the hardest statement that I have ever publicly made by far. It’s also the truth”

His Facebook Live the other day was, frankly, concerning, and this sounds like a wise decision. Good luck to him, and good luck to Leslie Cockburn!
posted by zachlipton at 2:55 PM on May 28, 2018 [13 favorites]

The video of the crowd at Yankee Stadium booing Giuliani is delightful.
posted by zachlipton at 3:05 PM on May 28, 2018 [27 favorites]

Rudy went to the Yankees game today for his birthday. The PA announced he was there and wished him a happy birthday.

The crowd booed him vociferously.

I love my city.

I'm glad that happened but also holy hell, fuck the nydailynews website. That thing crashed my browser twice, then the tab three times, then was uncloseable, then stuck the leaving-the-tab-call-to-action popup permanently requiring a final browser reboot. Jeeeeeeesus.
posted by lazaruslong at 3:15 PM on May 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

Garret won his last race by 17+ points but a bunch of that was incumbency and VA5 is R+6 on Cook's political rankings so it's winnable if the Dems have a good day. Good luck, Virginia. We're all counting on you.
posted by Justinian at 3:18 PM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

Oh, that's Leslie Cockburn's district!

Have the Republicans started attacking her as a Hollywood Liberal for being Olivia Wilde's mom yet? It's gonna happen and I'm sure it will be ugly.
posted by Justinian at 3:26 PM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

lazaruslong, you can see the video snippet here without having to load that buggy cluttered news page.
posted by blueberry at 3:29 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

G. Elliott Morris (Crosstab)
GOP Rep. Garrett becomes the 44th Republican to retire in the 2018 midterm cycle. His seat, #VA05, now has a 1-in-3 chance of being flipped by the Democrats in November.
posted by chris24 at 3:29 PM on May 28, 2018 [12 favorites]

Everyone's trying to get out of the great kompromat eruption that's coming. Financial or behavior, they've all got something to hide, and I'm not excluding Dems.
posted by ctmf at 3:33 PM on May 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

Your big takeaway from the past 16 months is that everybody on both sides sucks? I mean, I know that's how a lot of people feel but seeing it in the wild is still jarring.
posted by Justinian at 3:42 PM on May 28, 2018 [61 favorites]

VA-5 is the same district Tom Perriello won in 2008, it's absolutely winnable.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:26 PM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

it’s my home district, and the field team is solid, if not the powerhouse of 17. i don’t know who has that district, however. i’ll find out soon. i’m cautiously optimistic, because leslie is a really good candidate, but all in all, i’m delighted with this news, and hope garrett can get the help he needs.
posted by dogheart at 4:32 PM on May 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

[Missouri] Republicans worry Greitens will ‘burn it all down’ and threaten Hawley’s chances

“He doesn’t care about the Republican Party. ... It’s all a lie. It’s all a façade,” Keller said, noting Greitens’ past as a Democrat. “He’s absolutely willing to burn it all down … not just control of the U.S. Senate, but endangering our supermajorities in the Missouri House and Senate that many of us worked decades and the better parts of professional lives to create.”

Greitens’ campaign is even running political ads across the state seeking to link the Republican-led effort to impeach him to Democrats, a clear way to put pressure on GOP lawmakers in an election year.

John Hancock, the state’s former GOP chair, called the situation in Jefferson City bitter and nasty.

“You can argue about the facts of this case … but what you can’t argue is that this has divided the Republican Party,” he said.

Greitens’ legal team accused Hawley in open court of pursuing his investigation of the governor to boost his Senate campaign.

Hawley’s office later said that Greitens was improperly spending state money on his legal defense against impeachment, prompting the governor’s office to say the attorney general “has basic facts wrong” and that “the Governor’s adversaries would no doubt like to deprive the Governor’s office of counsel.”

Robyn Kuhlmann, a political scientist at the University of Central Missouri, said in an email that Hawley is in a precarious position because Greitens “still has a slim majority of Republicans in the state approving his job performance. … And that means that his message is probably resonating with quite a few Republicans who may not turn out to support a Hawley candidacy due to lack of excitement.”

Your tears are delicious.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:49 PM on May 28, 2018 [32 favorites]

Daily Beast, TMZ Goes MAGA: How Harvey Levin’s Gossip Empire Became Trump’s Best Friend. Kind of a lot here.
posted by zachlipton at 5:54 PM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

(Note, again, Trump’s use of the word “killer” as high praise in that TMZ piece.)
posted by adamgreenfield at 6:07 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Have the Republicans started attacking her as a Hollywood Liberal for being Olivia Wilde's mom yet? It's gonna happen and I'm sure it will be ugly.

Honestly, I think that she's so elite that her eliteness may be lost on voters. I think that her brand of elite is far enough outside most people's frame of reference that it's going to be hard to smear her with it. "Her family owns an ancestral estate in Ireland" doesn't have quite the same bite as "owns a Prius and eats arugula."
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:08 PM on May 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

Hmm. A post on Daily Kos (yes, I know) regarding Campos's theory (above) that when Broidy paid $1.6m to Shera Bechard he was actually covering for Trump:

About that Broidy Statement of "Admission"....

1. Broidy never actually claims to have had an affair with Ms. Bechard (only a “consensual relationship”, such as that between payor and payee….). There is no mention at all of a sexual relationship.
2. Broidy never claims to have impregnated Ms. Bechard, only that “this woman shared with me that she was pregnant”.
3. Broidy never claims to have entered into, or desired to enter into, an NDA with Ms. Bechard, only that he “offered to help her financially during this difficult period”.
4. Broidy never claims that Michael Cohen reached out to him for any reason related to his involvement with Ms. Bechard, only that Cohen reached out to him. He does not make any specific claim as to his reason for hiring Mr. Cohen.
5. He does not apologize to his wife or his family for his relationship with Ms. Bechard. He apologizes for a more general “the hurt that I have caused”.

The only things actually admitted in this statement are:
Michael Cohen contacted Broidy after hearing from Ms. Bechard’s attorney.
Broidy found out that she was pregnant.
Broidy "retained" Cohen and offered to assist Ms. Bechard financially.
And that’s it.

Note that Broidy did not actually claim anything that contradicts Campos’ theory...

posted by Joe in Australia at 6:29 PM on May 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

T.D. Strange: "VA-5 is the same district Tom Perriello won in 2008, it's absolutely winnable."

The concern here is that the Dem nominee has made some...controversial...statements about Israel.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:32 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Though the metaphor of Samson bringing down the temple to describe Trump has cropped up from time to time among rightwing commentators, lately mainstream pundits are picking up this theme to underscore the dangers behind Trump's #SPYGATE campaign as Trump appears to crack under the pressure of the Mueller investigation:

Mike Allen, Axios: Trump's torch-it-all strategy "Trump's language is getting darker and more ominous, suggesting the FBI's activities during the 2016 elections were 'bigger than Watergate,' and [last Monday] claiming a 'criminal deep state' conspiracy to get him. It’s like a gigantic, presidential whack-a-mole, with Trump pounding any new threat as it pops up, leaving nothing to chance. [...] This adapts a classic Trump technique that he used during the campaign: constant, withering criticism combined with brutal belittling, in an effort to create tectonic shifts in voter attitudes."

Charles Pierce, Esquire: President* Trump Is Ready to Pull the Whole Temple Down on His Head—The FBI, the Justice Department, the rule of law—it'll all be among the wreckage.

Jeet Heer, The New Republic: Trump Won’t Hesitate to Tear It All Down—The president is sinking in scandal, but has drawn political strength from his willingness to destroy institutions—including his own party.

But if Trump is planning his usual exit strategy of dousing everything in gasoline and threatening to light a match if he isn't allowed to walk away, what's Mueller's? Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence under Mueller, told Chris Hayes last Thursday:

It's easy for us to say look, the team's keeping their head down, marching forward, they're mission-oriented. Here's the reality. Everyone around them, the public, their friends, backyard barbecues, everybody is saying when will this thing get wrapped -- than the special counsel himself. He wants to get this done. and he's very sensitive, I'm sure, to the fact that his job is not necessarily guaranteed.

So the way it affects the team, they start to create a exit strategy, a rescue strategy. They have their charges ready to be filed. They have drafts of reports ready to go in the event they get the word that people are being fired, dismissed. They will press send. It will go to various U.S. attorneys or state attorneys general and they have a plan for that. So that's how this kind of pressure is affecting the team.

In any case, tomorrow night Trump will host a MAGA rally in Nashville, so that's bound to see him in eyeless-in-Gaza mode.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:42 PM on May 28, 2018 [20 favorites]

Daily Beast, TMZ Goes MAGA: How Harvey Levin’s Gossip Empire Became Trump’s Best Friend. Kind of a lot here.

Not new though, TMZ was stumping for Trump from the beginning. June 2017: The inside story of how TMZ quietly became America’s most potent pro-Trump media outlet

The concern here is that the Dem nominee has made some...controversial...statements about Israel.

Her and her husband wrote a book 30 years ago that Republicans are claiming is anti-Semitic. Republican claims shouldn't be taken in good faith, ever. We Read Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s Book on the US-Israeli Intelligence Relationship. It’s Not Anti-Semitic in the Slightest.

By the way, we suspect that the complete lack of anti-Semitism in the book is exactly why no one has yet directly quoted the book itself in making the case that the authors are anti-Semites. Instead, note that the Virginia GOP has only quoted reviews of the book – mostly by right wing sources, such as this one in Commentary, by a character named Angelo Codevilla (who, among other things, said “The story of the [Jonathan] Pollard [spying] case is a blot on American justice,” and that “the life sentence ‘makes you ashamed to be an American.'”) – and people who claim to be offended by the book. One bizarre example is the citation of an Amazon review (with a “quote” that’s not even in the book) from one “Rafael Eitan.” Had those citing Eitan read the Cockburns’ book, they would have learned that Rafael Eitan was a major Israeli military/intelligence figure who is heavily criticized in the book— and who had died ten years before that Amazon review was posted. It was a crank account, apparently. A few highlights from Eitan’s career, by the way, include: being found “in breach of duty that was incumbent on the Chief of Staff” for his role in the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinian civilians; “established an ultra-nationalist party called Tzomet“; “was a supporter of the Israeli alliance with Apartheid-era South Africa”; etc.

If you have any doubts about our analysis, we have one simple ask: go read the book yourself. You don’t even need to read the whole thing. Even 30 minutes of your time will show you that, yes, this book certainly doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the individual Israelis, Americans, and other key actors at the heart of the long history of the US-Israeli intelligence relationship. But it in no way, shape, or form engages in the kind of evil and pernicious stereotyping, demagoguing, and conspiracy theorizing that infects so much our politics, particularly on the far right.

Sure maybe Republican bad faith attacks will work, but that's what they are. John Kerry wasn't actually a traitor just because Swiftboating was effective. She wrote a serious foreign policy book. That's it. That's the whole 'controversy'.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:48 PM on May 28, 2018 [30 favorites]

"A presidential Memorial Day message" by Ann Telnaes
posted by growabrain at 8:39 PM on May 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

"“He doesn’t care about the Republican Party. ... It’s all a lie. It’s all a façade,” Keller said, noting Greitens’ past as a Democrat. "

I'm so fascinated by this reaction, which happens over and over and over again -- like clearly a bunch of these people are just assholes and moved to the party of assholes, but even for the ones who are naked opportunists, when do you start to realize that all the unprincipled opportunists join THE SAME PARTY because that party has absolutely zero controls on candidate quality? Like, is there ever a point when the institutional GOP looks at the mote in their own eye? Is there ever a point when they wonder why all the racists, assholes, misogynists, and unprincipled opportunists pick their party?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:17 PM on May 28, 2018 [39 favorites]

WaPo, ‘The only one’: In new West Wing season, Trump calls the shots and aides follow

The result: a White House solar system in which the president functions as the sun and his aides and advisers circle around him, but with no clear lines of orbit. Giuliani, for instance, weighed in during a recent interview with The Washington Post on a topic totally outside his Russia-investigation purview: Iran.

“The president down the road is thinking regime change in Iran,” Guiliani said. “There is no doubt that at some point, we have to make that change. What side of history do you want to be on?”

At least two people in Trump’s circle — one current White House official and one former — likened the dynamic in the West Wing to HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” They chose the show, they said, not because of the internecine conflicts and deadly family feuds, but because of the general sense of confusion and seesawing fortunes.

“I would liken it to ‘Game of Thrones’ a little bit, not for the obvious reason, but from a factual standpoint,” said the current official. “No one knows where anyone else is, and everyone is playing everyone else a little bit. Everyone is essentially in business for themselves.”

NYT, Trump Pulls Conspiracy Theories From the Fringes to the Oval Office. It's the Times, so it can't resist a stupid dig at Hillary Clinton, but I wanted to highlight this bit:

Former aides to the president, speaking privately because they did not want to embarrass him, said paranoia predisposed him to believe in nefarious, hidden forces driving events. But they also said political opportunism informed his promotion of conspiracy theories. For instance, two former aides said Mr. Trump had resisted using the term “deep state” for months, partly because he believed it made him look too much like a crank.

But Mr. Trump saw that it played well in the conservative news media, and so in November, he began using it, the two aides said. The strategy appears to have yielded results. Several polls have shown a dip in public approval of the special counsel investigation over the past several months, as the president has repeatedly attacked it. And a Monmouth Poll released in March found that a bipartisan majority believes an unelected “deep state” is manipulating national policy.

posted by zachlipton at 9:18 PM on May 28, 2018 [13 favorites]

@GrecianFormula: From Koyodo on #NorthKorea talks along DMZ: “U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said North Korea has expressed reluctance to ship all of its nuclear weapons and missiles outside the country.”

@IRHotTakes: I see Captain Understatement is part of the negotiating team.
posted by zachlipton at 9:21 PM on May 28, 2018 [31 favorites]

Your big takeaway from the past 16 months is that everybody on both sides sucks?

Not at all. Just that neither side is squeaky-clean and politics works partially by having dirt on everyone possible. I'd imagine nearly every US member of congress has financial stuff they wouldn't be proud of being in the paper.

Only one side is just plain evil, though.
posted by ctmf at 9:53 PM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

“The president down the road is thinking regime change in Iran,” Guiliani said. “There is no doubt that at some point, we have to make that change. What side of history do you want to be on?”

The side that respects the rule of law. The United States has no standing to change the governments of other countries, and it's disgusting that an outrageous statement like this is made unchallenged.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:33 PM on May 28, 2018 [36 favorites]

Would any agreement, even one where North Korea pledges complete denuclearization, in which the US withdraws from South Korea be able to pass muster in the Senate? Would Republicans really sanction such a move just to make Trump look good?
posted by Justinian at 10:33 PM on May 28, 2018

Would Republicans really sanction such a move just to make Trump look good?

"Yes"
posted by benzenedream at 10:44 PM on May 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

If we've learned anything in the last 18 months the answer to any question that begins "Would Republicans...???" is, yes.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:45 PM on May 28, 2018 [20 favorites]

Uh, maybe I condensed my thoughts a little much there. It doesn't seem to me that sanctions relief and economic assistance would be enough to get NK to completely denuclearize without something major from the US like withdrawing its forces and giving security guarantees. I think they must be aiming more for economic assistance and security guarantees in exchange for trashing their ballistic missiles and stopping further development. That's basically the same deal they've always gotten... except they actually have the nukes now so halting further development is closing the barn door once the horses have escaped.

Unless NK is on the brink of collapse anyway and Dear Leader thinks this is his only chance to stay in power. I suppose its possible. Maybe he figures he's got nothing to lose at this point so might as well try to extract as much out of Trump as possible before it becomes clear he has no choice. And Trump can't walk away from Singapore without a deal; if NK won't budge from something even Trump knows he can't accept his rage will be truly dangerous. But I can't figure NK's end game here. I know this is kind of all over the place but that's because the whole situation is confusing as hell. The scary part is that I doubt Trump is any better informed or coherent on the matter than I am, and he's the one with the nuclear stockpile at his fingertips.

Does anyone have a more informed clue what the hell is happening over there? Is NK on the brink of collapse and they are gonna try to leverage actual denuclearization to save themselves? Doesn't any deal in which they don't fully denuclearize make Trump look like a total chump after he pulled out of the Iran deal?
posted by Justinian at 10:45 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Well Kim Yong Chol just hopped on a plane to the US, which would make him one of the highest ranking North Koreans to visit the US in decades, so something is happening.
posted by zachlipton at 11:06 PM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

I don't think NK actually giving up nukes was ever on the table, they have a long history of agreeing to concessions to dial back the aggressiveness in exchange for economic relief, only to restart the cycle of madman theory in order to extract more. They have a cyclical nature of ratcheting up and down their belligerence according to whatever benefits the Kim family most at the time.

Trump walked right into their traditional gambit, which was obvious and predictable, first by playing along as the American Devil or whatever and validating their entire worldview, then by reversing himself and agreeing to a meeting. Kim wins either way. They weren't in all likelihood going to launch a first strike at any point, but the threat of one gave them more grounds to make the same platy for concessions they've made before, along with a real deterrent for any US led regime change.

And now by walking away he's somehow given Nk the moral high ground. All he had to do was literally show up and shake hands. There's a fair point that the situation needed some sort of new approach, and South Korea here already did the real hard work of opening Kim up to maybe another way. Have a photo op, scale down the attacks, and have the real diplomats to real work afterwards. There's a possible deal that looks a lot like Iran, maybe even withdraw of some US forces would be worth it for verifiable cessation of the NK program. Maybe not how anyone else would've done it, but maybe there was the skeleton of a decent deal there, especially with a dovish SK administration eager to make a statement. He really could've made this an actual win.

Except he's a fucking moron. They didn't do any of that actual background work to even know what a real negotiation with NK would look like, or in any sort of wider context. Ending the Iran deal and pulling out of the NK summit within what, 10 days? says there's no plan. There's just Trump reading the headlines on FOX and talking to Bannon or Kelly or Miller or whoever the fuck, and now John Bolton trying to sabotage any hint of actual progress until it's just total incoherence and idiocy to any informed observer, or ally, or adversary. FFS, they didn't even tell South Korean about the cancellation of talks until after it was announced...because he's more concerned about domestic leaks to the Washington Post than coordination against potential nuclear attack against one of our closest allies.

I think all this can be easily explained by an administration full of fucking morons than only watches FOX News, never listens to subject matter experts, and perpetually has to justify the moronic decisions of a mostly senile Russian controlled fascist ex post facto.

Well Kim Yong Chol just hopped on a plane to the US, which would make him one of the highest ranking North Koreans to visit the US in decades, so something is happening.

Postscript: if a deal somehow does still get done, it's going to be due to heroic work by career State department people and South Korea, in spite of Trump trying to fuck it up at every turn. There's no reason to "call off" the summit with that kind of idiotic statement and then career negotiations still go on other than the President is an unstable fuckwit who does shit and then smart people have to try and somehow try to fix it if they're in a position to do so.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:15 PM on May 28, 2018 [22 favorites]

They're not going to give the guy who pulled out of both the Paris climate deal and the Iran nuclear deal a Nobel prize for yet another show deal with NK where we bribe them into relatively modest concessions but let them keep nukes. Trump can't be stupid enough to think that?

...

oh
posted by Justinian at 11:39 PM on May 28, 2018 [21 favorites]

If I were North Korea / China my goal would be to get the United States to open trade and de-militarize. In return I would gladly agree to de-nuclearize. This is what I think would be the worst case scenario, therefore Trump will do it.

Trump's already committed to nothing less than total de-nuclearization. He's already boxed himself into a position where he can't accept a deal that looks anything like the Iran deal he just walked away from.

Trump's already stated he doesn't want to pay to defend other countries. He's already put a ton of his presidential credibility on the line to complete this deal. He'll agree to anything.

And so what if North Korea does de-nuclearize? They already have the threat of nuclear retaliation through their allied China proxy. With ICBMs, there are plenty of alternative WMD deterrents they can create including germ, chemical, and dirty bombs.

After, China becomes very friendly with North Korea, supporting Kim while investing heavily in their economy in return for massive military security and influence.

This would essentially be giving up the entire South-East Asia game to be able to declare a "win", but isn't that perfect Trump?
posted by xammerboy at 12:30 AM on May 29, 2018

Nota bene: Korea is not "Southeast Asia". If you mean something else by "South-East Asia" then your terminology is a little confusing..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:16 AM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

This would essentially be giving up the entire South-East Asia game to be able to declare a "win", but isn't that perfect Trump?
posted by xammerboy 46 minutes ago [+] [!]

Nota bene: Korea is not "Southeast Asia". If you mean something else by "South-East Asia" then your terminology is a little confusing..
posted by Nerd of the North Moments ago [+] [!]

True, Korea is not Southeast Asia, but the point is more relevant and whether or not things shake out that way or not, it illustrates perfectly how half-assed the Trump administration is approaching the situation. No concept of what they want long term, just looking for the this month political win.

Trump, playing chess like checkers and when it doesn't go his way, flipping the board and storming off. *oof* felt a little nauseous there, as the implications sink in
posted by From Bklyn at 1:21 AM on May 29, 2018

Sorry, meant East Asia
posted by xammerboy at 1:52 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mod note: A few deleted. As suggested, please just use "DJT" or "#45" if you don't want to write "Trump"; throwing in various misspellings is just making people grouchy and creating a derail.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:34 AM on May 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

xammerboy: Trump's already committed to nothing less than total de-nuclearization. He's already boxed himself into a position where he can't accept a deal that looks anything like the Iran deal he just walked away from.

Of course he can. In the minds of himself and his supporters, the two situations are necessarily different — one of the deals was put together by (boo! hiss!) Obama, the other by (hurrah!) Trump. And if an Iran-like deal were put together and someone asked him how it wasn't Iran-like, he'd first talk about his "good relationship" with Kim, because he really does think international politics reduce to the qualities and personal interactions of countries' leaders.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 4:22 AM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

Yes, and with Trump's deal, the NK inspections will be handled by a bunch of Whitehouse appointees...as opposed the globalist "expert" inspectors in Iran. Don't be surprised to see Dennis Rodman there again.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:39 AM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't know whether this is good or bad, but Trump seems to be constitutionally unable to make binding agreements. Look at the difficulty the Republicans had getting him to agree to a taxation bill that actually benefited him. If it comes down to it I suspect he'll derail any treaty with North Korea because he'll suddenly decide he doesn't like the terms.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:10 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump's already stated he doesn't want to pay to defend other countries. He's already put a ton of his presidential credibility on the line to complete this deal. He'll agree to anything.

I have found the problem in your policy analysis.
posted by Mayor West at 5:23 AM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

If it comes down to it I suspect he'll derail any treaty with North Korea because he'll suddenly decide he doesn't like the terms.

I find it hard to imagine there can be a particularly great deal with the DPRK in terms of complete denuclearisation, because nobody sane would be likely to agree to that without something massive in return. Once Kim hands over their nukes they are not going to be shipped back to them if the deal collapses. The US could withdraw from RoK and 'denuclearise' whilst maintaining the power to either ICBM Pyongyang or just pop up some nuclear subs/carrier groups/whatnot offshore at will. DPRK would be giving up their only force equaliser in return for more or less nothing beyond Trump and Bolton's temporary goodwill and lack of desire to risk a war with them at the moment...and just after they unilaterally ripped up the Iran agreement.

It would indeed look like the Libyan model or just the possibility of utter humiliation for Kim at the loss of the fruits of over a decade of massive R&D spending and a functional guarantee of security for nothing. I'm not sure he can hand over the nukes and remain safe.
posted by jaduncan at 5:23 AM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

For the NPR crowd to evaluate...

Kevin M
I have followed you for years, and listen to @NPR would just once like to see a positive worded statement from you about @realDonaldTrump


Steve Inskeep
Hey thanks for listening. My job is not to be “positive” or “negative” but to tell true stories. Granted we may miss a story or get it wrong; but if NPR reports facts about the president that seem negative to you, that means the president did something that you don’t agree with.
posted by chris24 at 5:24 AM on May 29, 2018 [126 favorites]

Also I know it's like .15 Scaramuccis old and we've already moved on to bigger and bolder scandals, but I really want to call this out again:

“The president down the road is thinking regime change in Iran,” Guiliani said. “There is no doubt that at some point, we have to make that change. What side of history do you want to be on?”

Is it actually possible for someone to be this much of a dimwitted pissant, and still lurch through the day without occasionally forgetting to breathe in and out in succession? Does he have to buy his shoes custom-order, so that he can swap out those pesky shoelaces for velcro fasteners? Do his spoons come specially double-blunted so he doesn't blind himself while eating his pudding cup?

Rudy you worthless sack of shit, have you really not cracked a history book once in your goddamn adult life? Or how about a Time fucking Magazine? Did it occur to you to ask one of the career State Department employees bustling around you day in and day out if the United States had, say, some kind of history of meddling with Iranian government? Some dark legacy that would make this a profoundly stupid and tin-eared thing to say?

I mean, even if we hadn't toppled Iranian democracy sixty years ago and gotten ourselves directly into this mess by our own stupidity, the president is trying to negotiate the denuclearization of another rogue nation, and you just hemmed and hawed and guffawed into your sherry that j/k, we're totally going to send in Seal Team fucking Six to knock out Khamenei and Rouhani because Iran has no credible nuclear threat. You're like the event horizon of stupidity, you slack-jawed, gibbous shitheel. This kind of buffoonery should relegate you to mucking outhouses for the rest of your miserable life, but it's not even a goddamned blip on the radar of this long national nightmare.
posted by Mayor West at 5:47 AM on May 29, 2018 [90 favorites]

At least two people in Trump’s circle — one current White House official and one former — likened the dynamic in the West Wing to HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” They chose the show, they said, not because of the internecine conflicts and deadly family feuds, but because of the general sense of confusion and seesawing fortunes.

And it's now Wilbur Ross's turn in the hot seat, Politico reports: Ross Tries to Reclaim ‘Killer’ Status With Trump In China Trade Talks—The commerce secretary has been increasingly marginalized in the administration in recent months amid jockeying over protectionism.

Trump himself has lashed out at Ross in Oval Office meetings, telling the man who once helped bail him out in Atlantic City that he’s “past his prime” and “no longer a killer” and trying to bench him from making trade deals, according to three people familiar with the comments. Despite being one of the administration’s leading protectionist voices early on, Ross was initially left off a May trade delegation to China led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

But now Ross is heading back to China in early June in hope of cutting some type of trade deal that delivers on Trump’s campaign promises to extract concessions from Beijing on behalf of American workers.[...]

Ross also hurt himself politically when he brought back to the president two potential deals with China last year. One would have cut China’s production of steel, though some policy experts say China was already planning to so by closing some plants. The other deal would have allowed imported cooked chicken from China into the U.S. in exchange for opening up the Chinese market to U.S. beef.

In a meeting in the Oval Office, Ross tried to cast the beef deal as a big win — but the president viewed it as too small and a bad agreement, an original sin in this White House. He reamed out Ross in front of a small cadre of officials, according to the three people briefed on the exchange, and told Ross he wanted him out of the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's Jenny Leonard @jendeben has breaking news: "NEW: The WH announces it has decided to go forward with the 25% tariff on $50B worth of Chinese imports. Final list to be published by June 15; tariffs to be imposed ‘shortly thereafter.’ Investment restrictions to be announced by June 30 and implemented ‘shortly thereafter.’"

We have always been at trade war with Eastasia.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:04 AM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

NEW: The WH announces it has decided to go forward with the 25% tariff on $50B worth of Chinese imports.

Good luck with that DPRK deal, guys. I am sure Xi will be gagging to give Trump a win now.
posted by jaduncan at 6:13 AM on May 29, 2018 [20 favorites]

Reminder to DC residents: TODAY is the last day you can register to vote in the primary on June 19th. Check and make sure you're registered!
posted by everybody had matching towels at 6:28 AM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

If we've learned anything in the last 18 months the answer to any question that begins "Would Republicans...???" is, yes.

That is, if the question is not about giving up their (or Trump's) power.
posted by Stoneshop at 6:31 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Joe in Australia: Look at the difficulty the Republicans had getting him to agree to a taxation bill that actually benefited him. If it comes down to it I suspect he'll derail any treaty with North Korea because he'll suddenly decide he doesn't like the terms.

Yes, and if by a miracle he does agree to something, he'll try changing it post-hoc, because that's what he always did in his business life. One reason he calls any deal his predecessors made "terrible" is because they stuck to the terms as written rather than break them after the fact, and from his point of view that's leaving money on the table.

Steve Inskeep (quoted by chris24): if NPR reports facts about the president that seem negative to you, that means the president did something that you don’t agree with.

This is a pretty good point about how revealing it can be when deplorables call something about Trump "fake news". The other day I saw someone online declare that the "River of Blood" monument on one of Trump's properties (which describes a completely made-up Civil War battle in very Trumpian language) was photoshopped. Which sort-of implies that they felt the same embarassment the rest of us did, that he would do something like that.

It would be nice if NPR consistently walked the walk on this. I'm guessing that they're solidly in the crowd that says things like "The word lie is editorializing." But it's still something.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:44 AM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

This is a pretty good point about how revealing it can be when deplorables call something about Trump "fake news".

"Fake news", as used by Trump, has always meant "This is true, but I want you to ignore it."
posted by Etrigan at 6:51 AM on May 29, 2018 [34 favorites]

You'll be shocked to find out that unhinged racist Trumpette Roseanne has gone on an unhinged racist Twitter rampage where she:

Called ex-Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett an ape.

Claimed Chelsea Clinton is married to Soros' nephew.

And that this is part of Soros' mind control plot to overthrow the government.

And that Hillary is a colostomy bag of shit.


Reminder, ABC just renewed the reboot of Roseanne for season 2.
posted by chris24 at 6:56 AM on May 29, 2018 [48 favorites]

Justinian Would any agreement, even one where North Korea pledges complete denuclearization, in which the US withdraws from South Korea be able to pass muster in the Senate? Would Republicans really sanction such a move just to make Trump look good?

I'm not entirely sure the Senate Republicans would pass a bad deal just to make Trump look good.

I do, however, think the Senate Republicans might have a different definition of "bad deal" than we do. There's still an isolationist streak in the Republican Party, and I suspect some of them are in general agreement with Trump's protection racket theory of the US military. Our presence in South Korea is big, expensive, and to the casual viewer isn't really beneficial to the US.

Plus, racism and regionalism, there's a widespread tendency among many Americans of all political stripes to assume that what goes on in East Asia is sort of irrelevant, or a sideshow, to the **REAL** political problems and concerns.

If Trump got imaginary concessions that nevertheless poll well and a chance to downsize or eliminate the US military presence in South Korea, I think some Republicans would see it as genuinely good.

I also suspect that some of the real war hawk types might see it as good in the sense that they hope it will result in aggression that they can then respond to with a war.

Plus, any Republican has to know that going against Trump on anything is extremely likely to hurt their re-election chances. I'm fairly sure that a lot of Republicans who might otherwise be inclined to reject a really awful deal would vote for it simply to avoid enraging the MAGAhats in their state and getting a primary challenge. Especially given Trump's well known love of vengeance, any Republican who gets between Trump and his fantasy of getting the Nobel Prize knows they'd be at the top of Trump's shit list.

I could, possibly, see the less Trumpish Republicans covertly encouraging the Democrats to block the treaty and then having a sacrificial Republican (Flake or someone else retiring anyway) join them to stop it. But I can't see a widespread Republican opposition.
posted by sotonohito at 7:12 AM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

chris24: if ... facts about the president that seem negative to you, that means the president did something that you don’t agree with.

Ooh, that's my retort to family-in-law who posted a picture of Scott Peeley with the text "Breaking News: no matter what happens, we will twist it to make Donald Trump look bad." Thanks, Steve Inskeep!

On NPR: I was thinking about how journalists ask questions while listening to NPR this morning (its still the most diverse news source I get via over-the-air radio), and I realized that I'm listening as an informed audience member - I'm trying to keep up with news on so many fronts thanks to everyone who shares information in these long threads, but we're unique in this effort to Know Everything Now. So for less-informed listeners, I can appreciate the hosts asking questions that sound uninformed, because they're asking questions for the listeners.

Still, I wish they would try to do less "balanced reporting" when one side is consistently trying to unbalance everything all the time.

(And it sounds like Kevin M is just focusing on the negative coverage of Trump, which is ample because so is the volume of negative things coming from Trump, but NPR also reads Trump's tweets without providing rebuttal:

And he also issued a series of tweets around Memorial Day, including one in which the president said those who died defending the nation would be, quote, "very happy and proud" of how well the country is doing today. And he went on to boast about the strength of the Trump economy.

And scene! Er, that's a wrap. You, the listener, are free to make of his statements what you will, but this is where they chose to end this segment. To be fair, they couldn't interview the dead and ask for their thoughts.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:16 AM on May 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

Harvard study estimates thousands died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria

The official US government death toll is 64. The study puts it at two orders of magnitude higher at around 4 600.
posted by PenDevil at 7:29 AM on May 29, 2018 [68 favorites]

And he also issued a series of tweets around Memorial Day

Ugh. My local TV news covered this by quoting the first part of this tweet. "Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today."

They did not mention that the tweet went on to say: "Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!"

Pisses me off. They have no business editing out his awfulness for their viewers. Sounds like NPR at least mentioned that this was followed by boasting.

I have not seen any media cover Trump's infinitely more awful Memorial Day Facebook post, though...

"In honor of Memorial Day, we're doing 25% off all #MAGA gear. Use code REMEMBER."

I know this is trivial shit compared to what Trump is doing to immigrants and poor people. But I just can't get over the breathtaking hypocrisy of people on the right nitpicking Obama's salutes or insisting that football players rise for the anthem or lose their jobs, while Trump commercialized fricking Memorial Day to line his own pockets. If Obama had done this, can you imagine how heads would explode? Yet now, nothing.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:30 AM on May 29, 2018 [44 favorites]

You'll be shocked to find out that unhinged racist Trumpette Roseanne has gone on an unhinged racist Twitter rampage

And she retweets, approvingly, similarly awful opinions from the absolute worst of Twitter. (She's hopped on the bandwagon for UK gammon-favorite former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, for instance.) None of that's surprising, of course, but it should not be acceptable for ABC to employ her.

ABC's web feedback form for complaints is here, and maybe Sleeping Giants could get involved (the show's main advertisers include McDonald's, KFC, Subway, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola).

NPR also reads Trump's tweets without providing rebuttal

Likewise, NPR's web feedback form is here, but one can always take a page out of the opposition's playbook and complain to congress (even though their federal funding is minuscule). NPR didn't become a shining example of captured media overnight, but they've show they'll respond to pressure...eventually.

My local TV news covered this by quoting the first part of this tweet.

Yes, it's an uphill battle if we're going to complain to every media outlet that compromises their coverage of Trump, but the American Right got us where we are today through the constant, unyielding application of political pressure toward every venue.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:36 AM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Mod note: A couple deleted; let's not use this thread as a place for every "this horrible thing happened" or "people are shitty these days" story; trying to keep it more narrowly on potus45 and US politics.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:48 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure how many of you read Shakesville, but I thought she had an important post this morning about the midterms: Trump Suggests the Midterms Will Be Compromised

She concludes:
The best hope we have of overcoming the imminent attacks on the midterm elections is to make sure that even remotely winnable races aren't even close. We have to make every race a blowout.

That isn't going to be easy, but there isn't going to be a "blue tsunami" without an ocean of voters to overwhelm the attempts to defeat us outside the ballot box.

Get ready to get out the vote. The president has signaled his intent to cheat. We had better steel ourselves for the hard work it's going to take this fall to thwart him and the forces with whom he'll be colluding. Again.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:53 AM on May 29, 2018 [36 favorites]

Well Kim Yong Chol just hopped on a plane to the US, which would make him one of the highest ranking North Koreans to visit the US in decades, so something is happening.

And amid Trump's batshittier-than-usual tweet storm this morning, he misspelled his name as "Kim Young Chol". (Mostly, though, it was his usual railing against the Special Counsel, Democrats, "Crooked Hilary Clinton", the "Rigged Witch Hunt", the "Fake Mainstream Media", et al., but he capped it off with a Nixonian flourish—"But the forgotten men & women WON, I’m President!")
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:53 AM on May 29, 2018

The official US government death toll is 64. The study puts it at two orders of magnitude higher at around 4 600.

4,600 Americans were directly killed by Republican racism in just one crisis. Four thousand six hundred.

More than were killed in the 9/11 attacks, more than were killed by Katrina and ensuing Republican racism, more than were killed in fucking Pearl Harbor.

This does not include the migrants without American citizenship that we are doing God knows what to, or the millions of black Americans who have been fucked over by the 13th, murdered by police, or simply slowly killed by the incessant grind of systemic and structural racism.

I don’t have the skill set, but someone, somewhere, should be keeping track of this body count. We will have a lot to account for.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:54 AM on May 29, 2018 [78 favorites]

but he capped it off with a Nixonian flourish—"But the forgotten men & women WON, I’m President!")

Less Nixonian, more Joffreyan.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:56 AM on May 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

You'll be shocked to find out that unhinged racist Trumpette Roseanne has gone on an unhinged racist Twitter rampage

I went to report the Valerie Jarrett tweet and Barr has now removed it (although the Soros and Hillary stuff remains) saying she apologises and is now leaving Twitter. I understand that it is not the first time she has indicated that she will do that
posted by Myeral at 8:04 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

And that Hillary is a colostomy bag of shit.

For context.... she's referring to a favorite talking point on various conservative blogs (most recently Gateway Pundit, yesterday). They keep showing the images of Clinton with bulges on her upper back. During the campaign they called it a defibrillator vest (the bulge does not resemble one) or a back brace (same, they're mostly worn low, but even the over the shoulder models are much more form-fitting.)

Because they want to show her as infirm and sickly. As opposed to Trump, who appears to be terrified of going down stairs and has literally had doctors forge his medical reports to maintain the illusion that he's not a 20-piece box of chicken mcnuggets away from a quintuple bypass.

Anyway, depending on the venue and situation, Clinton's most likely either wearing a wireless mic or bulletproof armor (the latter either sewed into her jackets or a separate vest.) Because Republicans have spent decades trying desperately to turn her into the most hated person in America.
posted by zarq at 8:10 AM on May 29, 2018 [33 favorites]

I went to report the Valerie Jarrett tweet and Barr has now removed it (although the Soros and Hillary stuff remains) saying she apologises and is now leaving Twitter. I understand that it is not the first time she has indicated that she will do that

She'll just say vile racist shit elsewhere. Wonder how long she'll be able to do so before the Disney Network fires her?

Meanwhile, @ChelseaClinton: "Good morning Roseanne - my given middle name is Victoria. I imagine George Soros’s nephews are lovely people. I’m just not married to one. I am grateful for the important work @OpenSociety does in the world. Have a great day! https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/1001310680111243269 …"

Chelsea Clinton's ability to gracefully rise above the most disgusting things that have been thrown at her continues to astonish me.
posted by zarq at 8:18 AM on May 29, 2018 [89 favorites]

Another light opinion day from SCOTUS, still nothing on Masterpiece Cake or any of the voting/gerrymandering cases.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:22 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Chelsea Clinton's ability to gracefully rise above the most disgusting things that have been thrown at her continues to astonish me.

In a world of performative cruelty, being gracious, kind, and considerate is an important act of rebellion.
posted by nubs at 8:25 AM on May 29, 2018 [102 favorites]

Another light opinion day from SCOTUS, still nothing on Masterpiece Cake or any of the voting/gerrymandering cases.

Today, it's what they're not saying:
UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday announced it would not take up the lawsuit against an Arkansas law that bans medication abortion for many.

Background:

Arkansas lawmakers in 2015 passed Act 577, an anti-choice restriction that requires physicians who provide medication abortion to have a signed contract with a backup provider who has admitting privileges at a hospital. The law also mandates that the administration of the medication abortion drugs follow an outdated FDA protocol. [...]

Should the Arkansas law take effect, it could leave Arkansas with one health center in the state that provides abortion services, according to the petition filed with the Court. They note that, for example, patients in Fayetteville, where the University of Arkansas is located, would have to travel 760 miles to Little Rock over the course of several days to comply with the state’s myriad abortion restrictions. This effectively amounts to a total abortion ban for many, advocates claim, because they cannot afford the cost of time off work, child care, and travel.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:28 AM on May 29, 2018 [27 favorites]

UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday announced it would not take up the lawsuit against an Arkansas law that bans medication abortion for many.

Damn. This opens the door for every Republican legislature and governor to try and push through bills that limit access to abortions. They'll whittle away at Roe until it is effectively neutralized in half the country.
posted by zarq at 8:31 AM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

I went to report the Valerie Jarrett tweet and Barr has now removed it (although the Soros and Hillary stuff remains) saying she apologises and is now leaving Twitter.

Bad timing on Barr's part: Chris Hayes, "As it happens, @ValerieJarrett will be participating in tonight's special town hall on Everyday Racism on @MSNBC."
posted by gladly at 8:33 AM on May 29, 2018 [26 favorites]

Call them lies’? Why we sometimes don’t use the L-word when Trump is wrong" [Daniel Dale, The Star] wherein DD defends using words other than "lie" (although he has used "lie" occasionally).

The thing is: it’s bad whether it’s intentional or unintentional, a false claim or a lie.
...
It’s not good that the president deliberately utters inaccurate things. It’s also not good that the president so frequently utters inaccurate things because he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

posted by porpoise at 8:55 AM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Not the first time she's called a black woman an ape.

"Susan Rice is a man with big swinging ape balls"
posted by chris24 at 8:58 AM on May 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

In other cases, it’s far less clear that he’s being wrong intentionally — because, with Donald Trump, you regularly can’t rule out the possibility that he is confused or ignorant.

The commander of one of the most powerful military forces on the planet can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. One would think that the President consistently showing signs of a serious, dangerous mental illness would be something the public should be informed about.

Journalists should be shouting the news from the rooftops and warning everyone who will listen about him.

Instead, they're arguing over dictionary definitions.
posted by zarq at 9:03 AM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

Chelsea Clinton's ability to gracefully rise above the most disgusting things that have been thrown at her continues to astonish me.

Considering how cruelly she was treated by the media as a child, not just by conservative media but by pretty much the majority of late night jackasses in the 90s, she's unfortunately had a lot of practice.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:03 AM on May 29, 2018 [31 favorites]

Trump says Mueller probe will meddle in midterms

My carefully developed political analysis of this is: ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
posted by tarshish bound at 9:03 AM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

from: Trump says Mueller probe will meddle in midterms

Trump’s reference to “13 Angry Democrats” is a jab at Mueller’s team of investigators, which the president and his allies have complained is stacked with Democrats and critics of the administration, even though Mueller himself is a registered Republican. Trump has long decried Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt” ginned up by embarrassed Democrats as an excuse for Democrat Hillary Clinton’s surprising loss in the 2016 election.

I feel it's important to remind myself when shit like this is tossed around, that the Courts have roundly denied this shit whenever it appears in a real proceeding, and that while playing to "The Court of Public Opinion" is pretty much all the Trump Crime Family has to use, the "Court of Public Opinion" has jack to do with the Court of Law.

Despair is a sin. Relax. Mueller's team have worked their entire lives toward this moment. We WILL SURVIVE.
posted by mikelieman at 9:10 AM on May 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

Not the first time she's called a black woman an ape.

Disgusting. ABC has issued no statement about it, either.
posted by zarq at 9:15 AM on May 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

A reminder that ABC refuses to show an episode of Black-ish because it addressed kneeling football players.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:22 AM on May 29, 2018 [75 favorites]

while playing to "The Court of Public Opinion" is pretty much all the Trump Crime Family has to use, the "Court of Public Opinion" has jack to do with the Court of Law.

Despair is a sin. Relax. Mueller's team have worked their entire lives toward this moment. We WILL SURVIVE.

I get where you are coming from; however, I don't think anyone should relax. The Court of Law is not the Court of Public Opinion, yes, but the Court of Public Opinion can do a lot of damage to the point of undermining the rule of law and the will of those who need to enforce it. This isn't as straightforward as we'd all like it to be.

What happens if Mueller's team drops the ball? What happens if they deliver, and no one cares because the waters are so muddy and everyone is exhausted anyways? Maybe these are slim chances, but they are chances. Despair is a sin, yes, but so is sloth (acedia; "without care"). Be vigilant, be involved, be engaged. Don't expect any institution to save you.
posted by nubs at 9:26 AM on May 29, 2018 [20 favorites]

I may have the opportunity to ask Senator Gillibrand an in-person question in the near future and am not sure what exactly to say. Would love to hear any suggestions.
posted by cybertaur1 at 9:28 AM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Wanda Sykes @iamwandasykes: "I will not be returning to @RoseanneOnABC." She was a consulting producer for the show.

--

On Friday, TV Guide published a story about the show's politics and how it handled islamophobia and racism in season 1.
posted by zarq at 9:29 AM on May 29, 2018 [33 favorites]

nubs: Don't expect any institution to save you.

How to topple a dictator: the rebel plot that freed the Gambia -- After 22 years, Yahya Jammeh seemed unassailable. His brutal and reckless rule was finally ended by a small but courageous resistance (Philip Róin and Mikkel Danielsen for The Guardian, 22 May 2018)

tl;dr: VOTING MATTERS (and so does having open and honest elections)

Some background: The reckless plot to overthrow Africa's most absurd dictator -- In December, a handful of middle-aged American immigrants attempted to topple the autocratic ruler of the Gambia. They had few weapons and an amateurish plan. What possessed them to risk everything in a mission that was doomed to fail? (Andrew Rice for The Guardian, 21 Jul 2015; last modified 29 Nov 2017)
posted by filthy light thief at 9:31 AM on May 29, 2018 [19 favorites]

I may have the opportunity to ask Senator Gillibrand an in-person question in the near future and am not sure what exactly to say. Would love to hear any suggestions.

"Senator, thank you for opposing Trump's dangerous and unqualified cabinet picks. I respect your efforts to hold this administration accountable for its many unconscionable actions. Considering what we now know about ICE's abuse of immigrant families and children during its brief existence under Democrat and Republican administrations alike, will you commit to working to abolish and dismantle ICE?"
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:34 AM on May 29, 2018 [23 favorites]

A reminder that ABC refuses to show an episode of Black-ish because it addressed kneeling football players.

ESPN also suspended Jemelle Hill for speaking out on Twitter against racism. ESPN like ABC is owned by Disney.
posted by chris24 at 9:35 AM on May 29, 2018 [26 favorites]

ABC has issued no statement about it, either.

And @therealroseanne is still an active account.

I submitted my complaint to ABC via their web page, telling them I would be boycotting their programming and contacting their advertisers (which include Subway, Outback Steakhouse, Pepsi, Ashley Furniture Industries, Lyrica, Pfizer, Haribo, Samsung, and Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Intuit/Quickbooks, Verizon, Coke, Hotels.com , and JCPenney). And, people on Twitter are suggesting everyone call ABC's corporate HQ at 212-456-7777.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:40 AM on May 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

>> I may have the opportunity to ask Senator Gillibrand an in-person question in the near future and am not sure what exactly to say. Would love to hear any suggestions.

> "Senator, thank you for opposing Trump's dangerous and unqualified cabinet picks. I respect your efforts to hold this administration accountable for its many unconscionable actions. Considering what we now know about ICE's abuse of immigrant families and children during its brief existence under Democrat and Republican administrations alike, will you commit to working to abolish and dismantle ICE?"

Under "Democratic and Republican administrations alike" - but other than that, yes, I'd agree with this.

Another possibility:

I respect your efforts to hold this administration accountable for its many unconscionable actions. Given what we have learned about the role of unwritten norms in our system of government and how easily these norms can be violated, would you agree that we need to codify some of them into law? For example, requiring the release of tax forms, or the divestment of business interests, or prohibiting un-elected family members from sitting in on diplomatic negotiations?
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:48 AM on May 29, 2018 [13 favorites]

Pressuring ABC on Roseanne makes it less likely they'll cancel something like Fresh Off the Boat.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:48 AM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Pressuring ABC on Roseanne makes it less likely they'll cancel something like Fresh Off the Boat.

It's also possible to report Roseanne's twitter account itself to Twitter (I know, I know, but I've seen them start to take reports of harrassment a tiny bit more seriously, so maybe it's a strength-in-numbers kind of thing).

Perhaps the Roseanne stuff could be its own FPP at this point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:50 AM on May 29, 2018

(Or if that separate thread suggestion just made all the mods scream as one, then forget I said anything)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:50 AM on May 29, 2018

Called and commented online. When you call, you'll get a live person who asks how to direct your call. Said I was calling to express my outrage that a star of one of their shows had called a black woman an ape and ABC had made no statement or canceled the show. He was polite and said "I can transfer you to our comment department." Once there you go through a menu and can leave a 30 second message. You don't speak to a live person.
posted by chris24 at 9:51 AM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Some background: The reckless plot to overthrow Africa's most absurd dictator

Previous thread on the unsuccessful 2014 coup in the Gambia staged by a Gambian-born Texan and a US-Gambian dual national.
posted by XMLicious at 9:51 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Despair is a sin. Relax. Mueller's team have worked their entire lives toward this moment. We WILL SURVIVE.

Oh God this gives me flashbacks to these threads just prior to the election. "Hillary Clinton has worked her entire life toward this moment. She's got this. Relax."

I wanted to believe it so much.

But we can't relax. We can't despair either. We have to keep working.
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:52 AM on May 29, 2018 [60 favorites]

But we can't relax. We can't despair either. We have to keep working.

Despair is a sin of commission, relaxation is a sin of omission.
posted by contraption at 9:58 AM on May 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

Apparently America is the only developed nation on Earth that allows the sale of pornography.

Porn Leads To School Shootings, GOP Congresswoman Says. “I think that is a big part” of the spike in such attacks, Rep. Diane Black asserts.

WASHINGTON ― Does anyone know what kind of porn Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) is watching?

Whatever it is, the 67-year-old Black, who is running for governor of Tennessee, said it’s a “big part” of what is driving the spike in school shootings.

During a meeting last week with local pastors, Black raised the issue of gun violence in schools and why it keeps happening.

“Pornography,” she said.

“It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,” she continued. “All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause.”

posted by scalefree at 10:03 AM on May 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

Under "Democratic and Republican administrations alike" - but other than that, yes, I'd agree with this.

Sorry about that - I'm pretty sure I never got this wrong until I found out there was a wrong way to do it. Now I'm all turned around on which is right and which is wrong.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:04 AM on May 29, 2018

I may have the opportunity to ask Senator Gillibrand an in-person question in the near future and am not sure what exactly to say. Would love to hear any suggestions.

Don't stress about it. Just say or ask whatever's sincerely on your mind at the time.

There's no One Weird Trick that's going to suddenly get her to adopt some new position, right there on the spot, because a random constituent asked her to. The flip side of this is that you don't need to worry about what the exactly optimal thing to say or ask would be.

If you want to be convincing, then assuming you're not a substantive expert in some policy area just go with whatever you most sincerely give a shit about.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:07 AM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

Porn Leads To School Shootings, GOP Congresswoman Says
WASHINGTON ― Does anyone know what kind of porn Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) is watching?
...
“It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,”

Also, where the hell is she grocery shopping?
posted by chris24 at 10:08 AM on May 29, 2018 [44 favorites]

Diane Black is a hateful, malicious, wretched human being and if she told me the sky was blue, I'd have to verify it myself because she lies and distorts the truth with every breath.
She actually introduced a bill to prevent the Library of Congress from correcting outdated subject heading terms because she's such a bigot.
posted by teleri025 at 10:20 AM on May 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

Mod note: A bunch of short comments deleted. Let's take gun control stuff to gun thread.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:24 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sorry folks, that was less an "ugh" of despair as of frustration at the realization that Trump will likely question the legitimacy of the Democrats retaking the House/Senate (knock on wood/doors), should the voting break that way, which would give him "leverage" in an impeachment battle.

We WILL SURVIVE.

This I certainly believe, and I think without that hope the work of surviving and building the next world would be too hard, so thanks for that reminder, mikelieman.

As for the courts you mention, in my limited experience the law is a set of rituals carried out by humans, not an inevitable natural force but something that has to be carefully enacted over and over again (and is sometimes done so justly and sometimes unjustly) and that work gets really hard when it comes against powerful people to the point that people often just give up. I would hope those who oversee the administration of law in this case will be brave and principled, because often that can in turn bring around public sentiment. When people see good being done, they are more likely to feel that good should be done.

Watergate unfolded in the way it did in part because there was eventually enough trust between the court of public opinion and the court of law, as bolstered with some force by the media (apparently CBS aired readings of the White House transcripts, with its reporters reenacting the roles of Nixon and his aides,) that Republicans overcame their initial skepticism about the scandal, its "politicization", and the media's presentation of it, to turn strongly against Nixon.

Suppose for a second that the Republican party electorate had still strongly backed him, even after all the revelations - that leaders felt rightly or wrongly that they could not convince their own constituents that Nixon was not being framed by deceitful people, was not having his presidency stolen. I could imagine congresspeople in either party weighing heavily the prospect of serious civil unrest, which they could use to justify inaction.

All of which is to say that I usually try to focus my energies on taking care of the causes I care about and assume that when Mueller or others finish their investigation, that their findings will carry larger weight than current polling seems to suggest, or that if it won't then we will have leaders wise enough to disregard public opinion and administer justice. But then sometimes I wonder if focusing on rebuilding that trust in one way or another (whether it's fair to have to do so or not) is something I should be trying to help as an urgent concern, as someone for whom that work is not currently too personally painful.

And then sometimes I ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
posted by tarshish bound at 10:35 AM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

Sorry folks, that was less an "ugh" of despair as of frustration at the realization that Trump will likely question the legitimacy of the Democrats retaking the House/Senate (knock on wood/doors), should the voting break that way, which would give him "leverage" in an impeachment battle.

Questioning legitimacy? I doubt Trump wants to open that particular can of worms, since his presidency isn't legitimate right now.

But he can question all he wants; a Democratic House and/or Senate will just go on its merry way showing the American people how oversight committees that aren't engaged in a conspiracy to cover up Trump's crimes handles investigations.

And while it's vanishingly unlikely Democrats will hold enough Senate votes to prevail in impeachment proceedings, we'll see how whatever they turn up moves other Republicans -- particularly if Trump is perceived as electoral poison after a blue tsunami.
posted by Gelatin at 10:41 AM on May 29, 2018

This opens the door for every Republican legislature and governor to try and push through bills that limit access to abortions. They'll whittle away at Roe until it is effectively neutralized in half the country.

I mean... this started happening in 2010, and 1/3 of all abortion restrictions passed since Roe were in the last seven years alone. It's already the case in Ohio. And Indiana. And Michigan. In 2017, at least 28 states passed measures to roll back abortion access.

In most parts of the country, we're already back to a pre-Roe situation because the situation you described has already been fully implemented. And if and when Roe is overturned, dozens of states will have automatic trigger laws that go into effect that finish off the job their own legislatures have already started.
posted by mostly vowels at 10:51 AM on May 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

ABC cancels Roseanne.
posted by Etrigan at 10:51 AM on May 29, 2018 [142 favorites]

> But he can question all he wants; a Democratic House and/or Senate will just go on its merry way showing the American people how oversight committees that aren't engaged in a conspiracy to cover up Trump's crimes handles investigations.

From your keyboard to God's ears, but a huge swath of the American public has already demonstrated that they wouldn't give a shit about any of it if Trump got up on a podium and admitted to all of it and more. I have a hard time believing that they'll accept literally *anything* from a Democratic House and/or Senate.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:52 AM on May 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

ABC cancels Roseanne.

Trump is going to defend her, too. Watch. He may stay out of it for 24 hours, maybe even holding out until the weekend, but once his people aren't sitting on him he's gonna rant about how unfair this is. And he'll never once criticize her awful racist bullshit.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:54 AM on May 29, 2018 [23 favorites]

Inside the Pro-Trump Effort to Keep Black Voters From the Polls
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:57 AM on May 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

My sympathies lie with the cast and crew now suddenly put out of work by Barr's awful beliefs. Maybe ABC can launch a reality/game show where John Goodman travels around the world and people win money if they spot him in public. Call it "John Goodman Is Hard To Find."
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:58 AM on May 29, 2018 [46 favorites]

. He may stay out of it for 24 hours, maybe even holding out until the weekend,

He has a rally in Nashville tonight, so more like six.
posted by Etrigan at 10:58 AM on May 29, 2018 [14 favorites]

He may stay out of it for 24 hours, maybe even holding out until the weekend,

Hahaha... don't you know he has a rally tonight?
posted by pjenks at 10:59 AM on May 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Questioning legitimacy? I doubt Trump wants to open that particular can of worms, since his presidency isn't legitimate right now.

Nightmare scenario: I'm pretty sure that if Trump demanded the right to delay or redo the next Congressional election, the Congressional Republicans would be concerned, very concerned, and then pass a resolution backing him and refusing to seat the new Congress.. Of course it would end up in the courts, but that could take months, even years, and spark a major legitimacy crisis.

Our best hope is that the White House is so incoherent and confused they won't even manage to challenge the 2018 elections.
posted by happyroach at 10:59 AM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said in a statement.

Good.

I hope the rest of the cast find replacement work immediately.
posted by zarq at 10:59 AM on May 29, 2018 [32 favorites]

a huge swath of the American public has already demonstrated that they wouldn't give a shit about any of it if Trump got up on a podium and admitted to all of it and more. I have a hard time believing that they'll accept literally *anything* from a Democratic House and/or Senate.

Trump's supporters are hopelessly tribal, but the news coverage will have a different dynamic than it currently does. Right now, Republican congressional committees soft-pedal their investigations at best, decline to call witnesses, refuse to allow adequate questioning, and release reports that omit incriminating facts, leaving it to Democrats to release minority reports when they can, filling in the blanks from Republicans looking the other way. The one advantage for Democrats is that doing so fed the media's lazy appetite for easy "he-said, she said" stories ("Today on NPR: Republicans see no criminal behavior on Trump's part, while Democrats say the majority's report is incomplete. We'll discuss the developments with a Republican strategist next on All Things Considered.")

Acknowledging, of course, that Fox News will always provide cover for Trump, the situation with a Democratic house of Congress will be vastly different. Democratic investigations will -- one hopes -- ask hard questions, and on the record, and under oath. Republicans will basically be left in the position of saying "nuh-uh!", but their "see no evil" act will be less persuasive when the evidence is in front of them. And their denials may -- one hopes -- cost them with voters who aren't prepared to accept Trump's criminality for purely tribal reasons. Even Nixon eventually lost public opinion, and just from what's in the public domain, it's likely we'll have a whole arsenal of smoking guns.
posted by Gelatin at 11:04 AM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Democratic investigations will -- one hopes -- ask hard questions, and on the record, and under oath.

Not only of the White House, but of politicals at every Agency. If demoncrats take either house, I expect to see a mass exodus of political appointees, further reducing their ability to accomplish any of their policy goals.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 11:11 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Breitbart staffer recruited Sanders activist Bruce Carter to get African Americans to support the Republican—or stay home.

That’s the subhead line (terminology?) from the article TD Strange linked above.

Apparently he was most active in Pennsylvania.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:16 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mod note: couple deleted. There's a Roseanne thread now so let's take that over there.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:21 AM on May 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

Questioning legitimacy? I doubt Trump wants to open that particular can of worms, since his presidency isn't legitimate right now.

He was certainly open to using the same arguments during his election, and even tried to initiate legal action on Election Day 2016 before things broke his way, and I think his personal calculus is to do whatever he thinks he can get away with, especially if it creates a chaotic situation that can reshuffle things and maybe put him somewhere besides the losing pile.

a blue tsunami.

Given voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the like, the wonderful +7 D lead in the generic ballot is apparently just enough to take back the House (which would take a 24 seat swing). Put another way, polling gives the Dems the same chance of retaking the house (~65%) that was given to Hillary by 538.

The Senate is looking much harder, especially now that NJ Sen Menendez's lead is closing in the wake of his ethics issues, although this is somewhat balanced by the Greiten situation in Missouri.

Which is just to temper expectations and say that the very real blue wave we've been seeing in the special elections might (I hope I hope I hope) be enough to retake the House, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's a significant enough wave to put the fear of whatever into the GOP and not just be something they can spin as a typical midterm election.

Although losing does give you ground to be challenged, so maybe anti-Trump people in the GOP would seize on it, and that might start to make him more politically toxic.

In any case, I hope you're right!
posted by tarshish bound at 11:23 AM on May 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

That Menendez poll is baloney, it's got super high undecideds for a guy who has been Senator for more than 12 years.

Obviously, anything can happen, and he's dirty as hell, but he's not going to lose this year.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:28 AM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Former aides to the president, speaking privately because they did not want to embarrass him, said paranoia predisposed him to believe in nefarious, hidden forces driving events.

Paranoid, you say?

"According to two White House officials, Trump has been privately wondering whether Obama is actively working behind the scenes to undermine or undercut his presidency," the Daily Beast reports: Trump’s Plan for Political Survival: Blame Obama for Everything

"In private conversation, he has repeatedly brought up Obama’s supposed “spying” right before his shock election victory, with one close confidant characterizing it as more often “musing than definitive” statement or a firm conviction that he’s uncovered the crime of the century. And yet, those musings often spill over into public, with the current president often comparing the last one to Richard Nixon based on conspiracy theories or right-wing memes."
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:34 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

with the current president often comparing the last one to Richard Nixon

"No Nixon! No Nixon! You're the Nixon!"
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:37 AM on May 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

I spent the weekend in Philadelphia & New Jersey with a troop of Boy Scouts; we went to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and hiked around Valley Forge and explored the new Museum of the American Revolution and even to a national cemetery in NJ to visit a specific grave on Memorial Day to witness to self-sacrifice. Thanks to some great advice on AskMe, I finally read the first pamphlet in Paine's American Crisis series. I got help from a wonderful AAA driver named Eddie. The kids heard stories about war and politics and "taxation without representation" and about fighting and settling and law-making and fear. And you guys, when I returned from my news blackout last night, with my head full of high ideals, I sagged.

"The Revolutionary War is a great testament in favor of plebian virtue."
- Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention, 1787

"The people themselves must be the ultimate makers of their own Constitution."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1912

"...I do not conceive that we are more inspired--have more wisdom--or posses more virtue than those who will come after us. The power under the Constitution will always be with the people."
- George Washington, 1787

(emphasis mine)

We had a good six hours of driving on the way home last night, and I explained a lot of stuff to the 13-year olds in my car: about the Gilded Age and trust-busting and Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia, and extraction industries versus finance) and about Mideast oil and lots of other things that somehow they've missed out on in Social Studies classes. And as we talked, I felt more and more despair that we've lost control of our own destiny, and that it's been eagerly seized by grifters, who are in turn watched over with Henry F. Potter-esque satisfaction by the modern robber barons named Koch.

The kids listen, and nod along, but will they do better? Can they do better, given the education and the tools they receive? Can they beat a system that's acting against them?
posted by wenestvedt at 11:38 AM on May 29, 2018 [62 favorites]

Thank you wenestvedt. real american history is difficult to get across.
posted by Harry Caul at 11:40 AM on May 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Gerrymandering can be a double-edged sword in wave elections, too. If one increases the number of likely Republican seats by drawing, say, a bunch of 55%-45% Republican districts, one is likely to lose a lot of them if the vote tips, say, 7% the other way.
posted by Gelatin at 11:50 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gerrymandering can be a double-edged sword in wave elections, too.

That's a fair point. I'm glad that the Dems have so many people running in so many places, and I hope that some of that effect comes into play.
posted by tarshish bound at 11:56 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Double-edged, but not equally so. No matter how you slice it*, it's still "We win up to 55%, you win in the other 45%"

* (Ha!)
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:56 AM on May 29, 2018

President Trump Is Taking Control of the Mueller Probe in Slices

In the meantime, Trump’s disguised ends are growing increasingly naked. Over the weekend, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani called the Mueller investigation “illegitimate.” Rather than denying that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, he is portraying collusion as some murky and undefinable act. “Look, you can’t say you’re spying on the Russians if what you’re trying to do is to show the Russians are colluding, whatever the hell that means, with the Trump campaign,” he told Bill Hemmer. “You go out to the outer orbit [of the campaign], how do I know what’s going on?,” he declared on CNN. “But I don’t think that would matter. You can’t, you know, there’s just collusion with a guy 50 rungs down on the campaign? Not that I’m saying it happened, but if it did, I don’t know what that means.”

So now Giuliani is simultaneously all but conceding that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and calling the entire investigation illegitimate. Trump’s defensive line on the facts of the case is retreating at the same moment his procedural attack on the investigation is advancing. Republicans are converging on the position that they have the right to decide which laws matter and who should be investigated.

50 rungs down on the campaign? Manafort was the campaign manager. Donald Trump Jr. is Trump's son and Jared Kushner is his son-in-law.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:02 PM on May 29, 2018 [40 favorites]

If one increases the number of likely Republican seats by drawing, say, a bunch of 55%-45% Republican districts, one is likely to lose a lot of them if the vote tips, say, 7% the other way.

538 estimates that the Dem popular vote needs to exceed the GOP's by 7 to take the House. Their model puts the Dem generic ballot at +6%. The Senate is rough territory but Dems shouldn't even count their chickens in the House.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:04 PM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

So now Giuliani is simultaneously all but conceding that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and calling the entire investigation illegitimate. Trump’s defensive line on the facts of the case is retreating at the same moment his procedural attack on the investigation is advancing.

These points -- that Trump's own lawyer is basically admitting his client is guilty, on national TV, and that the attacks on the legitimacy of the campaign is the only defense Trump has -- absolutely must be highlighted by every Democrat who talks to the media. Don't let the media get so caught up in the horse-race narrative that they overlook the fact that Trump's own people don't bother pretending he's innocent.

And remember what Josh Marshall said -- these people have been acting guilty since Day One, so it's likely there's still one or more horrible truths they are fighting like hell from getting out into the open. (Such as, say, a bankrupt Trump laundered money for the Russian mob.)
posted by Gelatin at 12:08 PM on May 29, 2018 [26 favorites]

Keep in mind that the real edge the Dems need on the generic ballot is unknown. It's just a best guess estimate, and there is not even universal agreement on the number.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:08 PM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

That's true, though the other estimates tend to be higher rather than lower don't they?
posted by Justinian at 12:10 PM on May 29, 2018

I am pretty terrified that the Dems are going to do exactly what they did for 2016 and assume that they're going to win and use that as an excuse to in-fight and vote third party and just not turn out. I wish we'd all stop talking about a wave as an inevitability and treat this election season like we're on the edge of losing everything.
posted by Anonymous at 12:10 PM on May 29, 2018

And also keep in mind that Democrats have been wildly, and consistently, outperforming previous tallies in the various special elections.

There's no call for complacency, but Democratic voters, far from despairing, seem to be positively itching for a chance to vote Republicans out.
posted by Gelatin at 12:11 PM on May 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

I am pretty terrified that the Dems are going to do exactly what they did for 2016 and assume that they're going to win and use that as an excuse to in-fight and vote third party and just not turn out. I wish we'd all stop talking about a wave as an inevitability and treat this election season like we're on the edge of losing everything.

All I can say is that in other Dem-leaning places I hang out, NO ONE is taking it for granted. Any mention of a favorable poll quickly attracts 200 people shouting, "Trust nothing, redouble your efforts!"

I've lost the tab, but there was just an article about how, despite the media pushing the narrative, there's actually been very little infighting. People are fighting for their person in the primary, and then lining up behind whomever got the nod.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:23 PM on May 29, 2018 [48 favorites]

White House pledges more action against China in trade war just days after truce declared.
posted by adamvasco at 12:24 PM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Justinian: "That's true, though the other estimates tend to be higher rather than lower don't they?"

Eh, I think I've seen as low as 5, maybe 9 on the high side (with the exception of that Brennan Center study, which got a lot of push back on methodological grounds - it didn't properly account for incumbency, for one thing).

The generic ballot also pretty much inherently assumes uniform swing. There's been some evidence from the specials that the swing has actually been kind of lumpy, favoring Obama-Trump areas. So, *maybe* we might see wider divergence from the median this time, who knows.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:27 PM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

How do you beat a liar? You don’t play his game - Jessie Tarlov, OpEd for TheHill

I agree with the general premise - but the big suggestion is to go back to the tried and true Democratic Party messaging style.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:28 PM on May 29, 2018

Anyway, a Dem win in either house is not at all an inevitability! I think part of the issue is that the media narrative tends to lurch around. It was too pro-GOP for a while, then in early spring it leapt straight into "all over but the shouting" for a Dem landslide, and then a slight move in the generic ballot and they were right on to "Dem gains a mirage?!?!?" When factually, not that much has changed since last summer.

We're about five months out and most signs are favorable for the Democrats. The generic ballot tends to drift toward the out party from about this point. Nothing is inevitable, and Democrats should absolutely continuing working hard to make this happen. But - you'd still much rather be in their position than in the GOP's.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:32 PM on May 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

McKay Coppins has a long profile of Stephen Miller, Trump’s Right-Hand Troll

I can't quote the whole thing in here, and it's everyone-is-focused-on-roseanne-and-not-puerto-rico-or-the-trade-war day anyway, so I'll just highlight two things to mock and cringe over. In honor of Trump's rally tonight:

Trump uses the deceitful, poisonous snake to represent Syrian refugees and undocumented immigrants. It is objectively one of the most demagogic things he regularly says out loud (as an added bonus, it also works as a metaphor for Trump himself, something he seems to know and delight in). It is quintessentially Trumpian rhetoric: shocking, offensive, and destined to send his haters into paroxysms of outrage.

It also thrills Miller to no end. In his office, he spent several minutes describing to me—in meticulous, loving detail—how Trump conceived of this oratorical device himself; how, before certain speeches, he would announce to aides, “I’m gonna do ‘The Snake,’ ” which meant that Hope Hicks had to print off a fresh copy of the lyrics from her computer, where she kept them saved in a Word document for these special occasions; how Trump would go through each line and expertly “hand edit” the page, making tweaks “so that it works better as spoken word, or lands more dramatically in certain areas”; how the president’s crowds still show up to rallies hoping to hear him do “The Snake”; and how, on the days when he does, the opening lines are greeted as if they are “the first three chords of ‘Free Bird.’ ”

And on Trump's decision-making process:

When President Trump needs to learn about an issue, he likes to stage his own cable-news-style shout-fests in the Oval Office. In lieu of primped pundits, he has to make due with White House staffers, but the basic concept is the same: Two people with conflicting points of view whacking away at each other as forcefully—and entertainingly—as possible. Trump seems to process information best in this format, according to people who have worked in the administration. Often, when the debate lacks a voice for a position the president wants to hear articulated, he will call Miller into the room and have him make the case.

Inviting experts to debate important issues is actually a good way for the president to gather information to make decision—oh wait, I said experts.

Ok, just one on being a horrible person:

This question, of how seriously to take Miller, carried over into his interactions with women—like when he approached a woman on campus who he knew disliked his politics and, apropos of nothing, said, “You and I would make beautiful babies together.” Women who knew him told me they saw such remarks as escalations in his endless quest to provoke. One recalled that she was “typically disgusted” by his creepy comments, but didn’t feel “violated.” Another said, “He liked getting a rise out of people in a very sociopathic way.”

posted by zachlipton at 12:35 PM on May 29, 2018 [19 favorites]

‘The only one’: In new West Wing season, Trump calls the shots and aides follow

The White House communications director’s job has been vacant for exactly two months. But in practice, it has been filled since the day Hope Hicks said farewell to her unofficial replacement — President Trump himself.

The president also has unofficially performed the roles of many other senior staffers in recent months, leaving the people holding those jobs to execute on his instincts and ideas.

And that’s exactly how Trump likes his West Wing.

posted by kirkaracha at 12:37 PM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

And in other rising-tide-of-fascism news, in his ongoing twitter meltdown marathon Elon Musk is dogwhistling antisemitism to shore up his support with Nazis.

I'm way behind here, but I don't want to let this one slide. The tweet in question asks "Who do you think *owns* the press?", which sounds suspicious, except the context makes it clear that the answer is "powerful people", as Musk himself clarified after being accused of anti-Semitism. If he had a history of saying things that appear to be anti-Semitic, I'd be less inclined to take his word, but a brief googling suggests that's not the case.
posted by shponglespore at 12:37 PM on May 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

Chrysostom: there was just an article about how, despite the media pushing the narrative, there's actually been very little infighting. People are fighting for their person in the primary, and then lining up behind whomever got the nod.

I see the occasional flare up in FB groups and other discussion forums, and I immediately wonder if that's the pot being stirred by bots/Russians/etc. It seems to get responded to, and shut down pretty quickly, with calls for unity. But there is always a risk of wedge issues slicing off support, and watering down focus.
posted by jetsetsc at 12:38 PM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I know we have a Roseanne thread, but this is more about Don Jr. The president's son retweeted both of Roseanne's anti-semitic Soros tweets; the one where she said he was buying candidates to overthrow the republic and the one where she said Soros was a Nazi collaborator and profiteer.
posted by chris24 at 12:39 PM on May 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

Not to despair, but what do we **DO** if the Democrats get a majority of the votes in 2018, but the Republicans still hold the House and Senate?

It's happened before, and with increasing urbanization and continued gerrymandering it seems to be one of the main Republican strategies (along with vote suppression).

So say the worst comes to pass, we get a vote majority but not a seat majority. What then?

Is there a plan? Is there a way to turn that into something other than a permanent sidelining of the majority of the voters? I don't want to give into despair, but I think to avoid that I need some sort of plan of action, and after googling and wracking my own brains I can't think of anything. What am I missing?
posted by sotonohito at 12:40 PM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

shponglespore - the number of supportive replies featuring images with swastikas that tweet got heavily suggests otherwise.
posted by Artw at 12:42 PM on May 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's the old "not racist, but #1 with racists!" thing again. I can accept that he didn't mean for the answer to be "the Jews," but when a fuckton of Nazis responded with "yeah, it's totally the Jews!" he should have reconsidered his phrasing. The fact that he's willing to take support from whatever corner offers it, Nazis included, says more about him than the one tweet in and of itself.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:47 PM on May 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

The tweet in question asks "Who do you think *owns* the press?", which sounds suspicious, except the context makes it clear that the answer is "powerful people", as Musk himself clarified after being accused of anti-Semitism.

Context. Hundreds of earnest Nazi memes in response. Every alt-right podcaster and youtuber currently gushing about how Musk is sending them a message of invitation. The love him now. In sheer numbers he got a real boost in supporters, supporters that are not abandoning him after his "clarification."

And I find it very hard to believe that Musk didn't know what he was doing. You might as well be arguing "let's not go overboard here, it's clear that Trump *really* meant MS-13 when he called immigrants animals."
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:48 PM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

If he had a history of saying things that appear to be anti-Semitic, I'd be less inclined to take his word, but a brief googling suggests that's not the case.

The issue is that Musk's tweet brought on days of thousands of people spouting unambiguous anti-Semitism in response. If you're someone who attracts a following online, if your mentions (which you obviously pay attention to) are filled with anti-Semitic hate in response to something you've said, you really do have some affirmative responsibility to immediately disavow that and perhaps reflect on how you've come to be leading a hate mob, no matter what your actual intentions. The same when your fans attack women on your behalf.

As Neil Gaiman put it: If you set people on other people it’s bullying, even if you think you have right on your side.
posted by zachlipton at 12:49 PM on May 29, 2018 [32 favorites]

I think to avoid that I need some sort of plan of action, and after googling and wracking my own brains I can't think of anything.

Sustained non-violent direct action. The US hasn't seen such a campaign in five decades and may be overdue.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:55 PM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

I'm way behind here, but I don't want to let this one slide. The tweet in question asks "Who do you think *owns* the press?", which sounds suspicious, except the context makes it clear that the answer is "powerful people", as Musk himself clarified after being accused of anti-Semitism. If he had a history of saying things that appear to be anti-Semitic, I'd be less inclined to take his word, but a brief googling suggests that's not the case.

Why you feel the need to cover for Musk is beyond me. Even setting aside that his family fled South Africa immediately after apartheid ended, the first people he blamed for the response were, naturally, Jews "revealing their inner bigot."

Let's be real: Musk is a big boy who has lived through the last two years and he knows what words mean. No need to play semantic games here.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:56 PM on May 29, 2018 [44 favorites]

He's not the one who said "powerful people," though -- that came from the person he was arguing with, Joshua Topolsky, who co-founded Vox Media. I'm perfectly willing to believe this started as inapt phrasing on his part, which he then leaned way the fuck into because he's rich and full of himself and can't admit his own fallibility no matter what. Which is its own aspect of the problems that America is now neck-deep in -- it helps show that in 2018 it takes more than not personally believing that Hitler was right to avoid palling around with Nazis.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:07 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

The politics of bigotry has polarized enough that to genuinely disavow it (whether you're a media outlet discussing Rosanne's "racial charginess" or you're probably-antisemitic-but-maybe-not Elon Musk) is to pick sides in a larger culture war. Hence, anyone reluctant to pick sides in general will passively cast their lot with the xenophobes.

It would be better if that weren't the case, and no faction "owned" anti-bigotry so it could be more "safe" to espouse, but here we are. It's a disturbing situation that evokes an old Onion story (which also feels prescient with respect to its actual topic): "Candidate Turns To Focus Group For Position On Rape".
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:12 PM on May 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

When the President Testified: People in the Room Recall Clinton’s 1998 Interrogation

JAY APPERSON, deputy independent counsel: The president was invited six times to voluntarily appear before the grand jury and six times declined. The delays, of course, caused the investigation to continue while they were publicly attacking us for, what was it, ‘six years and $60 million’? So the president largely was responsible for that delay for lots of reasons, including the declination to appear while publicly attesting that he was cooperating fully. This sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?

posted by kirkaracha at 1:15 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I teach part-time at a community college.

This semester, I had an experience with a very well-connected faculty member that had me not breathing a word of politics outside the classroom (inside the classroom, I use Trump as an example of shitty writing, so that scratches a certain itch).

The faculty member and I were talking about teaching character in lit classes, as we're both English teachers, and I had just listened to Mike Pesca over at Slate make this analysis as to why the Stormy Daniels is taking up so much air, this was a couple of months ago, and Pesca was talking about the importance of character in driving narrative. Which I thought was a cool point, but wow, as soon as I mentioned Stormy Daniels this faculty member just flew away in the conversation. She changed the subject to colonization on Mars or something about as far away from our discussion as could be.

My school's main campus is in the wealthy Philadelphia suburbs, and in the English department you get a lot of white ladies who probably look at me with horror because I've had I think one manicure in my life and I dye my hair and then let it grow out so it's like five different colors, I'm like not the English teacher you want to introduce to your mom, if you know what I'm saying.

So after the Stormy Daniels oh but hey let's now talk about something completely unrelated to that embarrassing slip about politics I did not bring up politics at all. Nobody else does either. A zillion other gossipy things in the faculty room, but not politics.

So then I have no lie an actual panic attack when an administrator comes up to me in the hall and sez Angrycat I hear you're an ACTIVIST and I almost for real asked ?are you on metafilter? Because I really don't fucking know how anybody at school would know, say, about my proud labors over my vagina dentata sign for the women's march. And then the admin said will you come speak on a panel this fall about activism and friends, I said yes only because I was desperate for the conversation to end.

Anyways, now I have a semester off and in the fall, for no good reason, I'm speaking to community college students about how to activist. But my activist credentials are so shitty! I've only been arrested once! I've never been dragged out of my wheelchair as have my ADAPT brothers and sisters! I suck as an activist!

So, friends, I've got a semester off, and I'm doing every single march, volunteer option, postcard whatever that I can think of. Because I am TERRIFIED that I'm a bad activist and the idea that I suck and basically all of my are you worthy shit that I've been in therapy for decades for is activated and I want a good grade on all my activism efforts.

And I look at myself and think, man, I am really fucking vain, or insecure, or something, I should be doing this shit because I believe in the Republic or something, and instead I'm worried about the judgment of community college students.

But, you know, whatever works. It makes me get more postcards in the mail.
posted by angrycat at 1:19 PM on May 29, 2018 [128 favorites]

I think to avoid that I need some sort of plan of action, and after googling and wracking my own brains I can't think of anything.

Sustained non-violent direct action. The US hasn't seen such a campaign in five decades and may be overdue.

I’m with Jane McAlevey, capital in this country relies on just on time supply chains. Major strikes in a few key locations could seriously ruin peoples days
posted by The Whelk at 1:38 PM on May 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

Mod note: Couple deleted; let's not drive this off into callout vs counter-callout over Musk tweets.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:40 PM on May 29, 2018

I've never worried about either party 'performing' enough.
One vote only equals one vote right?
It's always a question of where and how much the previous non-voter ends up getting up, and taking action in each election.
So for any party it's a a matter of identifying, presenting and effectively promoting a platform that motivates usual non-voters to vote. Other targets are secondary in importance. Whichever party can bring in more previously non-ccommital votes is more successful than any that 'secures the base'. It's basic math.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:46 PM on May 29, 2018

Official GOP ad: Democrats' Midterm Message: MS-13 Killers....They Aren't So Bad

Dehumanization entering the party platform. The RNC is just a Working-towards-the-Führer Engine.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:46 PM on May 29, 2018 [25 favorites]

... capital in this country relies on just on time supply chains. Major strikes in a few key locations could seriously ruin peoples days


I hear there's a country way down south with a lot of stalled trucks. Just terrible how these things break down right in the middle of the highway.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:50 PM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Loony Left Update:

‘Guerrilla warriors for health care’ on the Medicare For All campaign (Yahoo)
Labor and healthcare, a phamlet on the intersection of labor issues and the push for universal healthcare (PDF)
NYT on women leading primary challenges including NYC DSA’s Alexandria Ocasino-Cortez (who has amazing buttons)
Activists call for rent control in Long Beach
DSA and the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington fight a tax cut for businesses
posted by The Whelk at 1:58 PM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

Democrats' Midterm Message: MS-13 Killers....They Aren't So Bad

And any Dem worth their salt could use the counterattack "GOP Midterm message: AK-15's.....they're better than your kids"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:58 PM on May 29, 2018 [39 favorites]

There's a rumor going around that Greitens is about to resign. He's expected to make a statement in about 10 minutes, which will supposedly be at this link.
posted by zachlipton at 2:05 PM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

May be related to this: Judge orders Greitens’ secretive nonprofit to turn over documents to House committee

Looks like Greitens' exit is ultimately being forced by his dark money scandal, not his sexual assault scandal.

*This sentence has been brought to you by Politics In The Year 2018
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:10 PM on May 29, 2018 [35 favorites]

Oh! And if you’re in the metro DC area, there’s a series of public meetings coming up about the possibility of establishing a Public Bank
posted by The Whelk at 2:13 PM on May 29, 2018 [13 favorites]

Isn't Greitens supposed to be the test case for 45's future policy of fronting it out no matter what? And now a money scandal (one of many) is bringing him down under threat of impeachment?

I'll take it.
posted by Devonian at 2:21 PM on May 29, 2018 [28 favorites]

Last time Greitens had a big pre-promoted announcement, it was tripling down on his refusal to quit despite being a gross rapist, so I'm skeptical.
posted by FelliniBlank at 2:23 PM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Republicans' Midterm Message: Wage Crisis? Hey Look Over There
Republicans' Midterm Message: What Gun Problem? Hey Look Over There
Republicans' Midterm Message: Treason? What Treason? Hey Look Over There
et cetera, et cetera
posted by contraption at 2:25 PM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Local TV reporting that Greitens will be resigning.
posted by EarBucket at 2:26 PM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

(Oh! And the exiled residents of 85 Bowery are expected to resume their hunger strike tomorrow, please come by and support 11-6 lower Manhattan)
posted by The Whelk at 2:27 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Looks like Greitens' exit is ultimately being forced by his dark money scandal, not his sexual assault scandal.

At this stage of late capitalism, the only sin that can't be forgiven is not hiding your graft well enough.
posted by nubs at 2:27 PM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

@Kevinliptakcnn: Sarah Sanders on Roseanne: "We have a lot bigger things going on in the country right now." Says Trump remains "extremely focused" on North Korea summit. "That's what he's spending his time on, not other things."

So "extremely focused" that he's headed to Tennessee for a rally now, where I suspect he'll be spending his time on a lot of petty grievances that are not, in fact, bigger things going on in the country right now.
posted by zachlipton at 2:29 PM on May 29, 2018 [14 favorites]

Greitens is out. I'm being told Lieutenant Governor Mike Parson will serve through 2020.

Effective Friday June 1 at 5pm. He still loves Missouri.
posted by zachlipton at 2:30 PM on May 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

In his resignation speech, Governor Greitens says he thanks "those who have sweated beside me".
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:31 PM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

"This ordeal has been designed to create an incredible amount of strain on my family."

Pore feller.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:31 PM on May 29, 2018 [15 favorites]

Hmmm, wonder if this will have any impact on Hawley's Senate run.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:32 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Now he's crying. Why am I holding this mug?
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:33 PM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

"We have a good and proud story to tell our children." wow excellent maybe you can make a picture book
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:33 PM on May 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

Lis Power (MMFA)
Holy shit, Shep is on a roll today.

In just 2 minutes Shep dismantles almost every single recent Fox News narrative.

"Trump claimed Feds spied on his campaign ... calls it Spygate. Fox News can confirm it is not. Fox News knows of no evidence to support the president's claim"

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 2:35 PM on May 29, 2018 [44 favorites]

Mod note: Folks let's not livetweet this press conference; just wait a bit and give a more substantive recap.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:35 PM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Well I hope Philip "Moon Valjean" Sneed got exactly what he wanted.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 2:38 PM on May 29, 2018

Elsewhere, Utah confirms that three initiatives will be on the ballot in November: Medicaid expansion, medical marijuana, redistricting reform.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:38 PM on May 29, 2018 [32 favorites]

CNN op-ed by Mirian G., At the border, my son was taken from me

After I told the officers that I was here to seek asylum, they brought me into a room and asked me questions about why I had come to the United States. I told them of the danger that I had faced in Honduras -- resulting from a military crackdown against protests following a contested presidential election. Each day people were disappearing; I fled just after the military tear-gassed our home.

I turned over documents that showed both my identity and my son's, including my Honduran ID card, his birth certificate and his birth record from the hospital -- and the latter two documents listed me as his mother. The officers kept all these documents, and they never asked any questions about whether he was my son.

We spent that night in a facility -- it would be the last night that my son would sleep in my arms for months.

When we woke up the next morning, immigration officers brought us outside where there were two government cars waiting. They said that I would be going to one place, and my son would go to another. I asked why repeatedly, but they didn't give me a reason.
The officers forced me to strap my son into a car seat. As I looked for the buckles, my hands shook, and my son started to cry. Without giving me even a moment to comfort him, the officer shut the door. I could see my son through the window, looking back at me -- waiting for me to get in the car with him -- but I wasn't allowed to. He was screaming as the car drove away.

posted by zachlipton at 2:44 PM on May 29, 2018 [60 favorites]

NBC News, CIA report says North Korea won't denuclearize, but might open a burger joint

A new U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded that North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon, three U.S. officials told NBC News — a finding that conflicts with recent statements by President Trump that Pyongyang intends to do so in the future.

President Trump is continuing to pursue a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even though the CIA analysis, which is consistent with other expert opinion, casts doubt on the viability of Trump's stated goal for the negotiations, the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile.

"Everybody knows they are not going to denuclearize," said one intelligence official who read the report, which was circulated earlier this month, days before Trump cancelled the originally scheduled summit.

In an odd twist, a list of potential concessions by North Korea in the CIA analysis included the possibility that Kim Jong Un may consider offering to open a Western hamburger franchise in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, according to three national security officials. It suggests Kim is interested in a peaceful gesture to an American president whose love of fast-food burgers is well known — and who, during the 2016 campaign, had said he wanted to talk nukes over a burger with the North Korean leader.

We live in such a stupid time.
posted by zachlipton at 3:08 PM on May 29, 2018 [64 favorites]

At the border, my son was taken from me

WaPo: White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly came off as rather callous in an interview [when] NPR’s John Burnett noted that many felt that a policy of pulling children away from parents if families entered the country illegally was “cruel and heartless.” Kelly dismissed that concern. “I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” he said. “The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.”

This happened in Texas, but I'm sure there are cases in all the border states. I don't know if it would wind up being more than a stunt, but maybe California could file for habeas directly in the Supreme Court for release of any minors separated to California and its children's services agencies. There is no Federal "foster care or whatever" that I'm aware of, and this is one of those opportunities to flip the script on states' rights chest thumping and suits to which a state is a party is a basis for original SCOTUS jurisdiction.

Under normal circumstances they'd probably refuse, I think suits by one state against the US are usually filed in circuit court under concurrent jurisdiction and original jurisdiction is reserved for states suing each other, but these aren't normal circumstances and there's a Constitutional basis for it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:19 PM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Giuliani says Trump won’t sit for Mueller interview unless all FBI source documents can be reviewed

President Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said Tuesday that Trump will not agree to an interview with the special counsel until prosecutors allow the president’s legal team to review documents related to the FBI’s use of a source to interact with members of Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Thanks for moving the goalposts again. Here's a subpoena.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:51 PM on May 29, 2018 [30 favorites]

Harvard report says 4645 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria. For perspective on this:
1833 deaths attributed to Hurricane Katrina
2411 total US combat deaths in Afghanistan
2977 deaths as a result of 9/11 attacks
4424 total US combat deaths in Iraq War“
posted by The Whelk at 3:54 PM on May 29, 2018 [74 favorites]

AP:

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner says her office has reached a “fair and just resolution” on criminal charges against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, now that he’s stepping down. But, she says, details won’t be released until Wednesday.

Presumably, his resignation was part of a plea deal.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:06 PM on May 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

There's been some speculation as to why McCain, who clearly hates Trump, is holding on to his seat past the deadline which would bring an election which would on its face seem to be helping Trump and his agenda. While I am looking sideeye at the source, Newsmax is reporting that there is almost universal expectation among those familiar with the situation that Ducey will appoint Cindy McCain to fill the seat when McCain... uh... leaves.

Even though it's Newsmax that makes sense to me. It's something McCain would do, being McCain, since it makes the seat still about McCain and that's what he's about. But hey at least Cindy McCain probably hates Trump at least as much as John does! So it could be worse.
posted by Justinian at 4:08 PM on May 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's also because giving the GOP another Senate seat to defend would hurt the party, and we've seen time and time again that no matter how much McCain hates Trump he will never turn on the Republican Party as a whole, even as that party trips over itself to embrace Trump and shit on him publicly.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:14 PM on May 29, 2018 [19 favorites]

Harvard report says 4645 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria.

So when do we start using the G word about Puerto Rico? Thousands of people sounds a lot to murder by neglect but the population is 3 million so it's a bit unambitious for genocide. On the other hand the clear intention is to drive people out and render the islands uninhabitable.
posted by Artw at 4:17 PM on May 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's also because giving the GOP another Senate seat to defend would hurt the party

Yeah, this seems like a way to shiv Trump without simultaneously sticking it to Republicans as a whole. I'd like to see an election for obvious reasons but given that's not happening I'll be glad if Trump has yet another thing to rage and cry about.
posted by Justinian at 4:18 PM on May 29, 2018

Reuters, Trump administration will fingerprint child migrants' parents. Painted as a prudent child protection step in terms of having some idea who you're releasing children to (non-parent sponsors are already fingerprinted as part of a background check), the move could put parents in the agonizing position of fearing to claim their children because their immigration status could be reported to DHS.
posted by zachlipton at 4:20 PM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

TBH, I'm not sure what the Dem bench in AZ is like, either.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:22 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

there is almost universal expectation among those familiar with the situation that Ducey will appoint Cindy McCain to fill the seat

Since she has no political experience and the family money's from her father's mob connections she's an excellent choice for a Trump-era GOP senator.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:34 PM on May 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

TBH, I'm not sure what the Dem bench in AZ is like, either.

Ummmmmm we'll get back to you on that one in about 10 years.
posted by azpenguin at 4:40 PM on May 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

NYT, Trump Asked Sessions to Retain Control of Russia Inquiry After His Recusal

By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been receiving the presidential silent treatment for two days. Mr. Sessions had flown to Florida because Mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban.

When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.

Mr. Sessions refused.

The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president’s public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general.
...
When Mr. Trump learned of the recusal, he asked advisers whether the decision could be reversed, according to people briefed on the matter. Told no, Mr. Trump argued that Eric H. Holder Jr., President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, would never have recused himself from a case that threatened to tarnish Mr. Obama. The president said he expected the same loyalty from Mr. Sessions.

Giuliani's defense does not help much:

Mr. Giuliani said he had not discussed Mr. Sessions’s recusal with Mr. Trump but said that a request that Mr. Sessions reassert control over the Russia investigation would be within the bounds of the president’s authority.

“‘Unrecuse’ doesn’t say, ‘Bury the investigation.’ It says on the face of it: Take responsibility for it and handle it correctly,” Mr. Giuliani said on Tuesday evening.

posted by zachlipton at 4:55 PM on May 29, 2018 [34 favorites]

That Menendez poll is baloney, it's got super high undecideds for a guy who has been Senator for more than 12 years.


Weirdly enough, Menendez is just not the type to make news. I'm pretty sure I voted for him, and I still had to look up who my senator was, in like 2015. He runs boring forgettable ads. The radio guys don't mention his name. It's weird, honestly. Senators aren't supposed to be so forgettable.

Speaking of, my primary ballot here in NJ's 7th district has #Resist printed under one candidate's name. Also weird.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 5:12 PM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Trey Gowdy: FBI’s Use of Informant for Trump Campaign Was Appropriate

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Tuesday that the FBI’s use of an informant for the Trump campaign in 2016 was appropriate, joining top Democrats in disputing President Donald Trump’s characterization of the informant as a spy.

“I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump,” Gowdy said during an interview on Fox News.

So that's interesting, especially since Gowdy attended the classified briefing. I'm sure they'll have a new series of ridiculous complaints any minute now.

Trump is busy recounting his electoral college victory and calling Pelosi "the MS-13 lover," if you were wondering how that's going. They've now moved on to "lock her up" chants, followed by Trump asking the crowd to raise their hands if they are currently "infiltrating our campaign." After complaining about his campaign being "infiltrated" (guess he didn't get the memo from Gowdy), he's now discussing how "crazy Bernie Sanders" "got screwed" and Jay-Z's use of profanity. It is nearly June 2018.
posted by zachlipton at 5:29 PM on May 29, 2018 [32 favorites]

Gonna be awesome when his brain skips a track and he forgets what year it is and starts railing against "our President."
posted by contraption at 5:38 PM on May 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

"Weirdly enough, Menendez is just not the type to make news. I'm pretty sure I voted for him, and I still had to look up who my senator was, in like 2015. He runs boring forgettable ads. The radio guys don't mention his name. It's weird, honestly. Senators aren't supposed to be so forgettable."

Menendez. Menendez. I know that name. Why do I know that name?

Oh. I just faxed him a thank-you note for being one of three top senators calling for multi-agency inspector-general investigations into the Trump administration’s failure to fully implement congressionally mandated sanctions against Russia. (hat tip to scalefree for commenting about the probe in the last thread.)

I find it inspiring watching our representatives look for ways to push back, resist, stand up for the law, while we're waiting for our chance to vote more Democrats into office.
posted by kristi at 5:53 PM on May 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

Currently watching the excellent documentary about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 on PBS. Man, nothing has changed.
posted by Melismata at 6:00 PM on May 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Tuesday that the FBI’s use of an informant for the Trump campaign in 2016 was appropriate

Oh, great! That clears that up. I'm sure donnie shitstain and his apologists will stop pushing it. They have such a truthlove of bigly truth things.
posted by vrakatar at 6:19 PM on May 29, 2018

I hope the rest of the cast find replacement work immediately. (re: roseanne)

I don't. I feel for them, but that shit needs to be fucking radioactive. Don't do projects with people like that.
posted by ctmf at 6:27 PM on May 29, 2018 [20 favorites]

The timeline in the Sessions story fills in some interesting gaps. Trump tried to get Sessions to unrecuse himself, and failing that, to resign. Priebus was told by Sessions' office that Trump would have to ask him to resign himself if he wanted it, so he ignored the issue and hoped it would go away. Then we got a weird warning from Chuck Grassley (ok, all his tweets are weird, but this particularly so) that his committee is very busy and doesn't have time to confirm an AG. Then Priebus was fired two days later.
posted by zachlipton at 7:10 PM on May 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

This is mostly "old" news by now, but with a great recap that I couldn't not share: Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens Resigns (NPR, May 29, 2018)

After several months of bitter legal battles and political tussles, first-term Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens said Tuesday he is resigning as of Friday.

Greitens had been facing a felony charge and possible impeachment during an investigation of claims that he tried to dodge the state's campaign disclosure laws and to blackmail a former lover.

"This ordeal has been designed to cause an incredible amount of strain on my family; millions of dollars of mounting legal bills, endless personal attacks designed to cause maximum damage to family and friends," he said in a statement from his Jefferson City office.

Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, who was elected separately, will succeed Greitens.

Prior to taking office, Greitens had pledged to root out "corrupt career politicians," but his brief, 17-month tenure was plagued by scandal.

How very Trumpian. May we be able to say the same thing in some very near time about Donald.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:34 PM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

Uhhhhhh. Politico, Trump bragged about classified Syria skirmish at fundraiser

The White House has tried to avoid discussing a February skirmish between U.S. troops and Russian mercenaries in Syria, but that didn’t stop President Donald Trump from bragging about the Pentagon’s performance at a recent closed-door fundraiser.

The details of the battle remain classified, but speaking to donors in midtown Manhattan last Wednesday, Trump said he was amazed by the performance of American F-18 pilots. He suggested that the strikes may have been as brief as “10 minutes” and taken out 100 to 300 Russians, according to a person briefed on the president’s remarks, which have not previously been reported.

American officials have long feared that a clash with Russian forces in Syria would add tension to the already strained relationship between the two countries, and they intentionally avoided Russian targets last month when they bombed the country in response to Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons. According to The New York Times, which last week provided the first detailed description of the battle, the confrontation lasted four hours and left between 200 and 300 pro-Assad forces dead.

White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah declined to comment on Trump’s remarks because information about the Syria strikes remains classified.

This was pretty much the cold war igniting into a very hot war, where everyone has maintained a polite veneer of pretending it didn't quite happen because the implications of fully acknowledging what did happen are too great to stomach. And now he's treating it as fodder for great dinner conversation. And perhaps if you want to decline to comment on the grounds the strikes are classified, you shouldn't brag about the strikes to a bunch of donors first?
posted by zachlipton at 7:39 PM on May 29, 2018 [58 favorites]

We’d be better off with Ted Stryker as president. At least he wouldn’t tell her the parts about Macho Grabde that were classified.
posted by azpenguin at 7:46 PM on May 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Wait, what?

Trump ordered US forces to engage **RUSSIAN** forces in Syria? And killed maybe 300 Russian soldiers?

And we're getting this news third hand through a dinner conversation he's alleged to have had?

I literally cannot think of words for this. It's beyond horrifying or reckless. I don't think there are words to describe the combination of hubris, ignorance, arrogance, and utter contempt for the American people that this, if true, represents.

To casually attack the soldiers of a nuclear armed nation, then brag about that to dinner guests while keeping the American people in the dark is displaying an ignorant contempt for the possible consequences that is breathtaking in its scope.

He's tapdancing on a the precipice of nuclear Armageddon and doesn't even seem to be aware that's what he's doing.
posted by sotonohito at 7:46 PM on May 29, 2018 [30 favorites]

Has the US ever been involved in a clash which killed hundreds of Russians before? I know there were Russian "advisers" in Vietnam and some were undoubtedly killed but there was nothing like a pitched battle with this sort of body count. I'd heard about this battle but I didn't realize the scale, probably because it keeps getting referred to as a "skirmish".

Skirmishes don't tend to kill hundreds of people on one side.
posted by Justinian at 7:47 PM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Trump ordered US forces to engage **RUSSIAN** forces in Syria? And killed maybe 300 Russian soldiers?

Trump is being a giant reckless asshole but that's not really what happened. Russian "mercenaries" themselves attacked US forces. The Russians were the aggressors. The American troops were defending themselves and did so pretty well apparently.

That doesn't make Trump's Syria or Russia policy anything short of awful but tactically the US forces were completely in the right... and they weren't officially Russian soldiers they were "mercenaries". Who were undoubtedly there with the support of the government but that's still the fig leaf.
posted by Justinian at 7:50 PM on May 29, 2018 [29 favorites]

Justinian: "That doesn't make Trump's Syria or Russia policy anything short of awful but tactically the US forces were completely in the right... and they weren't officially Russian soldiers they were "mercenaries". Who were undoubtedly there with the support of the government but that's still the fig leaf."

I feel like you're saying these words as if they're supposed to calm panic, but I don't see how it changes the situation materially.
posted by TypographicalError at 7:52 PM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh we knew about the strikes on Russian mercenaries before. We've at least known the broad outlines since just after it happened in February, but the Times published a detailed account last week. They're mercenaries, at least nominally, not regular Russian army, which is kind of a polite fiction that we can thank for this not immediately escalating further. But it's still obviously an incredibly delicate situation, really one of the most important security issues of our time, and not an acceptable topic to brag about at dinner parties for big donors.
posted by zachlipton at 7:55 PM on May 29, 2018 [18 favorites]

The Toronto Star's diligent Daniel Dale @ddale8 live-tweeted Trump's Nashville rally in all its psychopathology. Even by Trump's standards, it's a catalogue of some exceptionally weird moments—"We'll do it all with these big beautiful hands. Look at these hands."; "We have respect for our great American flag...and we always proudly stand for our national anthem. Thank youuu. What's THAT all about?"; "In the end, Mexico's paying for the wall. [...] They're going to pay for the wall, and they're going to enjoy it." After all this and more, Dale concludes, "One thing I still haven't figured out well, and I don't think anyone really has, is how to capture Trump's level of rally unhingedness in a regular article. The only good way is to list like 30 things he said."

Think Progress's Aaron Ruper @atrupar offers a similar blow-by-blow, with the bonus of video excerpts. Seeing Trump work the crowd gives a better impression of his performance than simple quotations, but he seems no less unhinged for it.

and they weren't officially Russian soldiers they were "mercenaries".

These would be the mercenaries hired by Kremlin-aligned oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a.k.a. Putin's Chef, whose Internet Research Agency is at the center of Mueller's indictments over Russian interference in the 2016 election.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:59 PM on May 29, 2018 [27 favorites]

He's tapdancing on a the precipice of nuclear Armageddon and doesn't even seem to be aware that's what he's doing.

I'd believe he's not aware. I might even believe he generally doesn't think in terms that would leave him room to be aware.

But I don't see any reason to believe that he'd actually mind turning most of the world into a cinder. He's probably frustrated with a system that's resisted just handing him the keys when he won such an unlikely victory. And that system is of course always so constantly very unfair to one of the all-time stable genius good-genes high qualitiest human beings ever like himself. What other explanation is there for how he's treated, other than the corruption so clearly manifest everywhere else in the world but himself as the shining center of judgment, strength, and quality?

And on top of that, maybe he's even processed his own mortality. At some level, he probably knows he's going to die. Normal people sometimes think of death as unfair. How does someone who thinks of themselves in such sui generis terms regard their own coming demise?

What such a person do if revenge is what they care about most, and fate put in their hands the ability to take revenge on anyone? On everyone?
posted by wildblueyonder at 8:00 PM on May 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

Re: Ethnic cleansing by mass negligent homocide in Puerto Rico.
Just as Sandy Hook was the watershed moment where we decided it was compatible with the american way of life for kids to be slaughtered in schools over and over again, Katrina was the moment Puerto Rico became possible. We've never had the reckoning with the Bush years, and all that aweful is just growing like the thin edge of a wedge. Suspicious election shenanigans with voter rolls, torture, a police survielance state, detension camps for religious minorities, public money to approved religious groups, tax cuts for the rich, no bid deals for industry cronies, regulatory capture, war crimes, etc. First as tragedy then as farce.

Heck-of-a-job Bushy.
I weep for Puerto Rico, this is only the beginning of their suffering. Weather is unpredictable, racism is opportunistic and all too predictable.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 8:06 PM on May 29, 2018 [35 favorites]

Trump's call-and-response with the audience of "What was the name?" "ANIMALS!" was chilling.

His prepared remarks (and as delivered) added a new twist too. The line this time was "we have tamed continents." It was "our ancestors tamed a continent" the other day. So we're just doubling down and extending this to multiple continents now. It came alongside praise of Jackson, in case the meaning was somehow ambiguous.
posted by zachlipton at 8:08 PM on May 29, 2018 [28 favorites]

FYI, Dem HOLD in special election in Mississippi House 30 runoff, 52-48.

I don't have presidential margins, and MS specials are weirdo anyway, since they are run without party labels. Nevertheless, good to hold the seat.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:10 PM on May 29, 2018 [18 favorites]

And we're getting this news third hand through a dinner conversation he's alleged to have had?

Dude, we've known about this for weeks

The TV show Madame Secretary wrote it into their season

I guess you have too much of "a life" to obsessively refresh this thread
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:21 PM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

@cmarinucci: It's official --The Republican Party is now a third party in California, surpassed in numbers by both Democrats and "no party preference" or independent voters.
posted by zachlipton at 8:35 PM on May 29, 2018 [70 favorites]

The President of Mexico has a response to Trump's rally.

Enrique Peña Nieto:
President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.

Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).
posted by chris24 at 8:40 PM on May 29, 2018 [51 favorites]

Various local media coverage of today's developments in the Greitens case:

KMBC (Kansas City) video coverage of resignation, Greitens' speech, reaction of state legislators, etc

AP Greitens roundup (mostly or perhaps all via David Lieb, the APs Jefferson City correspondent)

The special prosecutor considering whether to refile an invasion of privacy charge against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens says the investigation continues, even though the governor is resigning. . . . St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said in a statement that her office had reached “fair and just resolution” on criminal charges against Greitens. Gardner said only that more details would be released Wednesday.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Trouble lurked between the lines of Greitens' perfect story

In hindsight, though, Greitens’ spectacular flame-out over the past five months, ending with his edge-of-tears announcement Tuesday that he is stepping down as Missouri’s governor, was perhaps as preordained as his rise. A potentially combustible flaw of hypocrisy could be glimpsed in the space between Greitens’ words and actions before and during his tenure in office.

KCStar: Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens resigns, ending political career once aimed at presidency

A Rhodes scholar and former Navy SEAL, Greitens was once considered one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party — a rock star who traveled the country campaigning for his fellow GOP governors, all while building his national profile and donor base for an almost inevitable run at the White House.

KCStar: Who is Missouri’s new governor? Mike Parson, in many ways Greitens’ polar opposite

Mike Parson couldn’t be much more different than the man he is replacing to become Missouri’s 57th governor. . . .

Parson is 63, grew up on a farm in rural southwest Missouri and has held elected office since 1993, including 12 years as Polk County sheriff and 11 years in the Missouri General Assembly before being elected lieutenant governor in 2016. . . .

Parson is the consummate insider, with long relationships with legislative leaders and a reputation as a deal maker.

Springfield News-Leader, Missouri Times (whose publisher Scott Faughn was embroiled personally in the case), MissouriNet court decision - campaign finance violations - resignation.
posted by flug at 8:41 PM on May 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Trump ordered US forces to engage **RUSSIAN** forces in Syria? And killed maybe 300 Russian soldiers?

This is very old news, particularly in post-2016 years. More importantly: according to every account I've read, which included intercepted calls from one of the Russian survivors, the pro-Assad forces involved attacked an American-held position. They knew what they were doing and did it anyway and got their asses stomped for it. To be blunt, I wouldn't believe Trump actually gave a single order involving this whole fiasco unless someone produced tapes, and even then I'd suspect they were doctored to make him look attentive. It was probably over before he ever heard about it.

We can go around and around about whether or not we should be involved in Syria at all. That much is fair. But no, Trump did not order US forces to go attack the Russians. It was the other way around, and it's a damn good thing the American forces came out on top. Had the Russians succeeded in that attack, imagine where we'd be right now. Beyond the loss of lives, the result would be that either Trump retaliates or Trump buckles and neither of those are good outcomes.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:53 PM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

On a slightly personal note re: Greitens, I think that everyone who has had to deal with the governor's office in Missouri has seen Greitens as something of a "man from Mars" in Missouri politics.

He flew in with his own organization, funding, people, everything. He was just completely disconnected from local and state politics in almost every way.

There has been some recurring and recent noise about "he wasn't a real Republican". But he certain wasn't a "real" Democrat, either. He was really just playing his own game, for himself. And he was playing the game he needed to in order to court the funders he needed.

Take a look at how much of his campaign funding came from in-state vs out-of-state (twice as much from out of state). Take a look at the list of his donors who gave $100K or more and note how many are real people vs anonymous committees, and how many in-state vs out-of state.

Of the $100K & more donors, there is really only one major Missouri donor, David Humphreys.

Point is, when you are working on your local or statewide issue and you need to engage the Governor's office, you have got literally nothing to work with. Unless you're pals with Humphreys, Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs, or whatever.

That is why so many sighs of relief are being heard about Lt Gov Parson moving into the Governor's mansion. With Parson, you'll be able to make your pitch, build your circle of support, make your case, maybe you'll win and maybe you won't.

But at least you'll be able to play the game.

Greitens was playing a very different game, not a good one for the state, and not the same one the rest of us are.
posted by flug at 8:54 PM on May 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

chris24: "Also, where the hell is she grocery shopping?"

The $10 banana store, duh.

odinsdream: "Tell me how you think anyone gets to where Musk is in life and isn't aware of the "everyone knows jews control the media" thing. Honestly."

Have you met a tech Bro?
posted by Mitheral at 8:54 PM on May 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Enrique Peña Nieto:
President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.

Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).

As context, Trump's comment on the wall and Mexico was worse and creepier than usual: "They're going to pay for the wall, and they're going to enjoy it" (Daniel Dale).
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:54 PM on May 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

patients in Fayetteville, where the University of Arkansas is located, would have to travel 760 miles to Little Rock over the course of several days

Sorry, I read this and was wondering how Arkansas got as big as Texas. It is 200 miles at best from Fayetteville to Little Rock. Still sucks though and should not be happening.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 8:56 PM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sorry, I read this and was wondering how Arkansas got as big as Texas. It is 200 miles at best from Fayetteville to Little Rock. Still sucks though and should not be happening.

It's because the law would require two round trips with a multi-day waiting period in between.
posted by jedicus at 8:59 PM on May 29, 2018 [21 favorites]

>>would have to travel 760 miles to Little Rock over the course of several days

>Sorry, I read this and was wondering how Arkansas got as big as Texas. It is 200 miles at best from Fayetteville to Little Rock.

I think the theory is you'd have to take two round trips over the course of a couple of days--thus nearly 800 miles travel.
posted by flug at 9:00 PM on May 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

It was still a weird line that made me do a double take.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:04 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I bet Sheena Greitens files for divorce by Friday.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:04 PM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's because the law would require two round trips with a multi-day waiting period in between.

I think the theory is you'd have to take two round trips over the course of a couple of days--thus nearly 800 miles travel.

Ahh thank you for the clarification.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 9:11 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Re Greitens' resignation, Josh Marshall points out (subscribers only) that:

Greitens held firm on sex, blackmail, allegations of revenge porn and sexual assault. He resigned with close to no notice when forced to turn over the records from his dark money group. ... A GOP lawmaker [is quoted as] saying that opening the books on the dark money group would be “catastrophic.” ... What could possibly be in those records?

Hmmm. Sounds like a fun project for an intrepid local reporter, maybe.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:12 PM on May 29, 2018 [59 favorites]

Hopefully Sarah Fenske, but probably Jason Rosenbaum and Rachel Lippman.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:17 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

The officers forced me to strap my son into a car seat. As I looked for the buckles, my hands shook, and my son started to cry. Without giving me even a moment to comfort him, the officer shut the door. I could see my son through the window, looking back at me -- waiting for me to get in the car with him -- but I wasn't allowed to. He was screaming as the car drove away.

posted by zachlipton at 2:44 PM on May 29 [41 favorites +] [!]

These people are monsters. We need to take back the executive and make sure the next President ends this barbarity.
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:34 PM on May 29, 2018 [27 favorites]

The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank who has forged close ties with U.S. lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, that led to a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during the gun lobby’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016, a top Spanish prosecutor said Friday.
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:38 PM on May 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

That was half a mooch ago!
posted by Justinian at 9:46 PM on May 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

Giuliani says Trump won’t sit for Mueller interview unless all FBI source documents can be reviewed

Should have tried this in school: "Sure, I'll take the test, but first you have to give me a copy of all the answers."
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:50 PM on May 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

Vanity Fair, Emily Jane Fox, Keeping Up with the Kushners: With Jared Back on Top, Kim Kardashian Heads to the White House

After months of back-channel talks between Kim Kardashian and Jared Kushner, the high priestess of reality television is coming to the White House. By late afternoon on Wednesday, Secret Service agents will wave Kardashian and her attorney through the southwest appointment gate to the West Wing, where they will meet Kushner to discuss prison reform before he walks with them to sit down with President Donald Trump, likely in the Oval Office, along with White House counsel. According to a person familiar with the meeting, Kardashian plans to ask Trump to pardon a woman serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time drug offense. (White House staffers have joked about who will get to accompany her to the West Wing, and what they should wear for the occasion. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)
...
Kardashian, a more recent prison reform evangelist, appears to be approaching the White House meeting with equal seriousness. She will not be bringing the camera crew for her reality show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, nor will she bring a publicist or her sisters, according to the person familiar with the situation. (Her husband, Kanye West, who recently tweeted a photo of his red Make America Great Again hat, will not be present either, though there have been talks about him making a White House appearance of his own at a later, to-be-determined date.) Instead, Kardashian hopes to make a legal argument to President Trump for why he should pardon Alice Johnson, a 62-year-old great-grandmother serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time drug offense. More than 21 years after Johnson went to prison, Kardashian came across Johnson’s story on Twitter earlier this year and reached out to Ivanka, who connected her to Kushner, according to the source. In an interview earlier this month, Kardashian said that, if given the opportunity, she would “explain to [Trump] that, just like everybody else, we can make choices in our lives that we’re not proud of and that we don’t think through all the way.”

Imagine if the pardon power was used as part of a well-thought out process, rather than solely for the benefit of people particular celebrities who have caught the ear of the administration happened to notice on Twitter. Anyway, tomorrow is going to be a really stupid day (starting with a hearing in the Michael Cohen search warrant case at 10:30am, follow @klasfeldreports for coverage of that).

I still can't believe we just went through a whole day where it barely registered that we have research that thousands died from malicious neglect in Puerto Rico and Trump kicked off a trade war with China.
posted by zachlipton at 10:11 PM on May 29, 2018 [34 favorites]

I guess you have too much of "a life" to obsessively refresh this thread

Or a case of Trump Horribleness List Overflow. Tends to be rather common.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:58 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Bill Browder: Urgent: Just was arrested by Spanish police in Madrid on a Russian Interpol arrest warrant. Going to the police station right now.
posted by PenDevil at 1:51 AM on May 30, 2018 [26 favorites]

Here's the BBC on the Bill Browder story. Very worrying.
posted by Devonian at 1:53 AM on May 30, 2018 [19 favorites]

Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.

Well, there's another count of obstruction of justice, as that story makes fairly clear.

"Unrecuse" may not mean "bury the inquiry," as Giuliani unconvincingly asserted, but "needs a loyalist overseeing it" fairly well does.
posted by Gelatin at 2:24 AM on May 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

Browder has been freed. And the story Devonian posted updated with details.

@AFP
#BREAKING Anti-Kremlin financier Browder freed after brief detention in Spain, police say
posted by chris24 at 4:28 AM on May 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Tuesday that the FBI’s use of an informant for the Trump campaign in 2016 was appropriate

How many conspiracy theories have they blown through now?

Fox News’ Judge Napolitano Calls Trump’s ‘Spygate’ Claims ‘Baseless’: There’s ‘No Evidence Whatsoever’

Napolitano, who made the comments while appearing on The Story With Martha MacCallum today, explained why he thinks the evidence for “Spygate” is lacking with the following statement:

“The allegations by Mayor Giuliani over the weekend which would lead to us believe that the Trump people think that the FBI had an undercover agent who inveigled his way into the campaign and was there as a spy on the campaign seem to be baseless. There is no evidence for that whatsoever. But the other allegation about this professor whose name we are not supposed to mention, talking to people on the periphery of the campaign, that is standard operating procedure in intelligence gathering and in criminal investigations.”

The former judge continued by saying that if FBI’s investigation was rooted in a “nefarious” mission, like Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani has claimed, then he “would want to see evidence of that before I made an allegation that outrageous.”

posted by chris24 at 4:36 AM on May 30, 2018 [13 favorites]

Next up on "Dare The Mods", we've got little Timmy Politico singing, "Still No Sign of Melania". Take it away, Timmy!

The White House has released almost no information about Melania Trump’s condition since May 14, when her spokeswoman said the first lady was undergoing a routine embolization procedure at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center ‘to treat a benign kidney condition.'

Her team chose to leave unexplained her extended five-day hospital stay for a procedure that is typically completed in one, or her subsequent disappearance from events at which the public has come to expect to see her next to her husband. The directive to reveal less, not more, has been coming straight from the first lady.
posted by petebest at 5:14 AM on May 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

After Aide’s Morbid Joke, Trump Leads Nashville Crowd In Booing John McCain

President Donald Trump led the crowd at a campaign-style rally in Nashville on Tuesday in booing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as Trump, again, attacked the senior senator for his “no” vote on repealing and replacing Obamacare last year.

“We had it done, folks, it was done, and then early in the morning somebody turned their hand in the wrong direction,” Trump said, referencing McCain without using his name. “The person that voted that way only talked repeal and replace. He campaigned on it.

Stay classy, Mr. President.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 6:37 AM on May 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

I had totally forgotten about Be Best before reading that Politico story on the conspiracy theories about Melania's whereabouts. On top of everything else, that sad-ass website doesn't look much better than the one I put together using Microsoft FrontPage for a library school assignment in 1998.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:39 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fox News
.@MZHemingway: “We have no evidence of any treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the election.”
VIDEO


John Whitehouse
Retweeted Fox News
so now we're setting the bar at actual treason????


Adam Davidson
Retweeted Fox News
I have one factual quibble with this:
We have a ton of evidence of treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the election.
posted by chris24 at 7:09 AM on May 30, 2018 [68 favorites]

What Happened to Jill Stein’s Recount Millions?
posted by Artw at 7:14 AM on May 30, 2018 [21 favorites]

zachlipton: Another said, “He liked getting a rise out of people in a very sociopathic way.”

In fewer words: he's a sociopath.

I was honestly surprised he's still around, given that I haven't seen his name in the news, because so many in Trump's orbit crave the spotlight, where Stephen Miller is happy making people angry in general, not at him specifically.

Also, the article is definitely something that's designed to stroke his ego, and minimize how negative his groups are, like when the Yale College Republicans hosted a barbecue next to pro-union hunger strikers last year, which McCay Coppins described as "silly and relatively harmless," except it was mocking the eight graduate students who were fasting in protest of Yale’s refusal to begin bargaining with graduate student union Local 33, so the message was 1) your protest is silly, so 2) your cause is merit-less in our eyes. I wonder if there were any Republican grad students who would benefit from the Local 33's efforts.

And now Stephen's efforts are working on me, because I'm pissed off at him and his ilk.

So for some more positive news: In Win For Privacy Rights, Court Says Police Need Warrant To Search Area Around Home (Nina Totenberg for NPR, May 29, 2018)

In a win for privacy rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that police may not search the area around a private home without a warrant, even when they think they have seen stolen property on the premises.

In other words, police can't just look on property or peek in windows, see something they think is illegal and start searching without a warrant.

The case began when an orange and black motorcycle twice evaded police in Virginia. After some investigation, Albemarle County police were able to track down the driver, Ryan Collins, to his girlfriend's house. Later, Officer David Rhodes saw a similar motorcycle under a tarp outside a private home.

When Collins arrived at the home, he was arrested and charged with receiving stolen property and convicted. The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the conviction, ruling that the search was proper.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reversed that decision. Writing for the court majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the private area around a house, known as the curtilage, is part of the home itself and cannot be searched without a warrant. The court rejected the police's contention that the motorcycle was like an automobile, which the court has long ruled can be searched without a warrant if an officer sees something in plain sight.

Sotomayor noted that the court has always said that the power to search an automobile does not extend to the area around the house. The majority noted that police must have a warrant to search a suspect's home and to enter the curtilage.

And finally, thoughts on lowering the bar with regard to collusion, treason, and Trump: like the problem with Gerrymandering, is it possible that with enough evidence (and possibly the results of Mueller's investigations) that the whole thing tips against Trump and enough people "yeah, of course he's unfit to be president, look at that list of crimes!," making his impeachment less of a shock? "Huh, the trial ended today? I thought he was impeached last week," people might say, as Trump is lead away in handcuffs. "I wonder if they'll let him do something like The Apprentice: Prison Edition while he's in jail." Anyway, that's my happy thought for the day.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:18 AM on May 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

In other Fuck Putin news:
The head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) says Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko is still alive, a day after Ukrainian authorities announced he had been killed by a gunman at his apartment in Kyiv.

(There’s some Twitter noise that the announcement was a ruse to draw out the assassins.)
posted by Artw at 7:42 AM on May 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

Gowdy: I have never met or spoken to Trump

[Jeff Foxworthy voice] If a member of your transition team sees the evidence against you, decides to retire and then claims to have never met you, you might be the President.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:43 AM on May 30, 2018 [79 favorites]

Murder in Ukraine, a play in 3 acts:

Prominent Russian journalist who criticised Kremlin shot dead in Kiev.

Arkady Babchenko: Ukraine blames Russia for journalist murder.

Russian journalist who was reported killed is still alive. Arkady Babchenko has appeared at a news conference in Ukraine.

Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist who was reported to have been shot dead in Kiev, has turned up alive at a news conference in Ukraine.

Babchenko, a Kremlin critic, emerged at a police press conference on Wednesday afternoon in front of journalists who had been expecting updates on the investigation into his murder.

Babchenko staged his death in coordination with Ukrainian police as part of an investigation into threats made against his life, officials explained. The plan had been in place for more than a month.

posted by scalefree at 7:47 AM on May 30, 2018 [24 favorites]

Man, the PR campaign for the Americans series finale got way out of hand.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:49 AM on May 30, 2018 [37 favorites]

Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist who was reported to have been shot dead in Kiev, has turned up alive at a news conference in Ukraine.

Wow. NPR gave this "murder" a lot of play this morning, including noting details such as him being shot in the back outside his apartment as he was returning from the grocery, his wife finding him in a pool of blood, and him dying in the hospital. I hope this ruse draws out the Russian assassins so they can be brought to justice (and, not incidentally, rendered useless by Putin and his thugocracy).
posted by Gelatin at 7:52 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

(Those details, by the way, seem carefully calculated to provoke outrage, and the story made clear that Ukrainian officials pointed the finger at Russia. I wonder how news organizations feel about being deceived, or if they agreed to be party to the ruse.)
posted by Gelatin at 7:55 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

The journalist apparently did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged. "Special apologies to my wife," he said.

I'm sure Arkady's spouse isn't happy about this, but at least it's for a better reason than when most American public figures apologize to their wives.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:56 AM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

In an era of "Fake News", this Babchenko ruse seems irresponsible, frankly. At least an arrest came out of this operation, per Mother Jones. The inevitable price will be decreased trust in media reports, though.

(Watch to see if Bill Browder's arrest earlier today is accused by Russian bots of being a stunt.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:01 AM on May 30, 2018 [13 favorites]

As a sidebar to the evolving Arkady Babchenko story, I'm here to recommend his book One Soldier's War in the strongest possible terms.

As for the current situation, Max Sneddon, the Financial Times' Moscow correspondent, via Twitter, says:

Babchenko and Ukraine have given the Kremlin infinite ammunition to say "I know you are, but what am I?" every time someone accuses them of lying over MH17, Ukraine, Skripal, etc

But also:

The only thing I can think of even remotely similar to this is the time that Vince McMahon staged his own car-bombing on WWF - Donald Trump thought it was real and asked Triple H if Vince was OK

And more seriously:

From the sounds of it Ukraine has made much more effort to set up the fake Babchenko murder rather than to catch the very real murderers of fellow reporter Pavel Sheremet, or even interrogate suspects with ties to Ukrainian secret services
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:14 AM on May 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Helluva an ad for the young progressive D primary challenger in NY-14.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018)
Follow Follow @Ocasio2018
More
It's time for a New York that works for all of us.

On June 26th, we can make it happen - but only if we have the #CourageToChange.

It's time to get to work. Please retweet this video and sign up to knock doors + more at http://Ocasio2018.com to bring our movement to Congress.

VIDEO
posted by chris24 at 8:42 AM on May 30, 2018 [22 favorites]

In an era of "Fake News", this Babchenko ruse seems irresponsible, frankly. At least an arrest came out of this operation, per Mother Jones. The inevitable price will be decreased trust in media reports, though.

Journalists in Russia and Ukraine should definitely keep America's "fake news" debate as their top concern while there are literal hitmen out gunning for their lives.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2018 [11 favorites]

Pretty conflicted about the whole Babchenko thing, but two important considerations:
- It's easy to debate greater journalistic ethics when it's not your own life on the line. If Babchenko had reason to believe this was the best way to save himself, I'm not sure I can fault him for this choice.
- Ukrainian authorities claim they have evidence of Russian special forces targeting more journalists in Ukraine.
posted by Behemoth at 8:47 AM on May 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

MAGAbots are going to yell about fake news all the time anyway, I wouldn’t worry about events in the real world reinforcing that when they have so much to be going on in the real world.
posted by Artw at 8:51 AM on May 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Journalists in Russia and Ukraine should definitely keep America's "fake news" debate as their top concern while there are literal hitmen out gunning for their lives.

Before Trump popularized "fake news", the KGB's black propaganda department was running dezinformatsiya campaigns. Dissenters and independent journalists in Eastern Europe have been dealing with this kind of thing for a long time from the Kremlin. This episode by the Ukrainian authorities isn't going to help them in the long run.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:52 AM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

A pleasant surprise...
Anti-Semitic Senate Candidate Patrick Little Now Polling At 0%
posted by Artw at 8:56 AM on May 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

Trump didn't popularize the term "fake news" he co-opted it from the left where it was used to refer to the rise of websites in eastern european countries creating made up news stories to fuel conspiracy theories that would, in turn, get spread around by Russian bots.
posted by VTX at 8:58 AM on May 30, 2018 [45 favorites]

He may have co-opted it but he certainly popularised it. I just want to spit every time I hear anyone say 'fake news' and that's because I can only hear it in Tr*mp's rancid voice.
posted by h00py at 9:02 AM on May 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

Erik Prince is all over the map. Literally.
In the Trump-Russia story, a few people in Trump’s orbit have appeared repeatedly, attending ‘secret’ meetings and pursuing self-enriching business deals — Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Elliot Broidy, George Nader. Among this group of frenetic deal-makers, Erik Prince may be the most prolific in pitching and launching new business ideas, while striving to spread his influence and operations around the world.
Now that Erik Prince has several advocates in the White House, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it appears that he may have an opportunity to make a comeback.
posted by adamvasco at 9:10 AM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

If NBC did to Trump and the Apprentice in 2011 – when he went birther – what ABC did yesterday, he wouldn't be president today. Excusing/ignoring racism has consequences.
posted by chris24 at 9:12 AM on May 30, 2018 [143 favorites]

I wonder how news organizations feel about being deceived

Most of them seem to be pretty OK with it.
posted by banshee at 9:13 AM on May 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

In an era of "Fake News", this Babchenko ruse seems irresponsible, frankly.

And that's presuming that the current 'ruse' story is correct and not itself some kind of ruse.

Well the fact that the supposedly murdered person was at a press conference talking to reporters leads me to cautiously believe that he was in fact not murdered.

Talking about what journalists should or should not think about false news stories seems besides the point here given that they were all taken in, as was the supposed victim's own spouse.

I'll offer my worth-less-than $0.02 here, as someone who feels pretty strongly about journalism, government transparency, etc - this strikes me as a perfectly reasonable action by the government. This wasn't some effort to hide the truth in an ongoing manner; they came clean about it in a matter of days. Oh maybe this part is fake doesn't strike me as a good faith complaint since they announced an arrest and will, presumably, be forthcoming with more information.

If we're going to say that government can't use short-term misdirection like this then I don't see how any sort of productive misinformation happens. Fake deployments to improve battle outcomes seem like they'd be right out, for example.

Conflating this with "fake news" which never comes clean and only exists to move public opinion seems pretty overblown.
posted by phearlez at 9:15 AM on May 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

Assides from anything else, because they are not "fake news" they get to update their story, not double down on it.
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Trump, who is too busy to weigh in on the Roseanne affair, has of course weighed in on the Roseanne affair and made it all about him. Some future edition of the DSM is going to feature him as a prime example of narcissistic personality disorder.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:17 AM on May 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

I met Ocasio-Cortez at a progressive muslims event a few months ago and she is indeed fantastic. Focused and passionate about her goals and the people she'd be representing. Juat the kind of person you'd want in office -- someone who will fight for you. Her district is NY-14, which covers part of the Bronx (including Eastchester), and Queens: Astoria, Jackson Heights and essentially the entire stretch North and South of Northern Blvd all the way back to the border of Flushing. She's running against Joe Crowley, who's the highest ranked member of the House from NY. Crowley is not a terrible rep and he does have high seniority in the House. (He's something they like 4th in line for Speakership.) But he's part of the Democratic party machine and is firmly ensconced. Beating him will be an uphill battle.
posted by zarq at 9:19 AM on May 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

Greg Abbott has announced support for a "school Marshall program" which basically means more "armed cops who who are trained to shoot inside school during a mass shooting"

on edit: this is in Texas. Of course.
posted by nikaspark at 9:35 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

She's running against Joe Crowley, who's the highest ranked member of the House from NY. Crowley is not a terrible rep and he does have high seniority in the House. (He's something they like 4th in line for Speakership.)

If I'm reading this FEC data right, through end of 1Q18, Crowley had raised $2.8M, Ocasio-Cortez had raised $127k. Definitely a tough path for her, especially for someone who has been around since 1999.

Crowley is Democratic Caucus Vice-Chairman, which is the fourth highest position in caucus leadership. Strictly speaking, though it's not fourth for the Speaker, as there are elections for the Speaker (and other positions) - you don't just move up.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:39 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

"armed cops who who are trained to shoot inside school during a mass shooting"

Yes, wonderful, great, because if there's one thing that cops have proven without a shadow of a doubt it's that they can always correctly tell who is an actual armed threat and who is just a kid holding a sandwich.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:41 AM on May 30, 2018 [63 favorites]

‘The only one’: In new West Wing season, Trump calls the shots and aides follow

While the Washington Post employs a high-toned TV drama analogy to describe the Trump White House, its press shop has descended into reality TV–level in-fighting, the Daily Beast reports: Trump Aides Brutally Turn on Each Other in War on Leaks—The Oval Office confrontation between Mercedes Schlapp and Kelly Sadler was more dramatic and damaging than widely assumed.

Two sources recounted that Schlapp remained heated, saying that in separate conversations detailing what happened in the Oval, she referred to Sadler as “a bitch.”[...]

Whether or not an epithet was used, for some inside the administration, is of secondary concern. Far more important was the chaos that the episode illuminated about the state of the president’s communications staff. After weeks of trying to patch together a coherent operation, the framework appears to be falling utterly apart. Leaks, chief among them the one involving Sadler’s McCain comments, have decimated morale. But factionalism was the real poison, with aides growing more and more convinced that enemies within are spreading gossip and innuendo to enhance their own standing.[...]

[S]ources close to the president suggested that firings would come sometime soon and that they would be targeting members of the communications team. Late last week, Schlapp and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders met to discuss potential personnel changes as a means of stemming the flow of White House leaks. And according to two administration sources, Sadler’s name was among those raised as a possible target for dismissal.

The White House has entered its third month with position of Director of Communications vacant after the departure of Hope Hicks (and her calming influence).
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:42 AM on May 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ah! True. Thanks Chrysostom. :)
posted by zarq at 9:43 AM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

my son who attends middle school in Texas, has been instructed by me to "run in a zig zag pattern, however, if you are cornered and you know you are going to die then your job is slow the shooter down and take as long as possible to die"

literally this is what parents tell their kids. When we did fuck all after Sandy Hook is when this country gave up on enacting any kind of gun control measures which amount to anything more than tossing off and calling it genius.
posted by nikaspark at 9:45 AM on May 30, 2018 [64 favorites]

So the Michael Cohen hearing this morning was interesting. From Courthouse News: Judge Reads Riot Act to Lawyer for Stormy Daniels. The most interesting bit is that Avenatti accused the Cohen team of leaking part of a taped conversation between Cohen and Keith Davidson and that there are other such tapes out there, saying he received a call from a reporter asking for comment.

Here's the late-breaking aftermath:

@chrisgeidner: JUST IN: In the wake of today's hearing — where Avenatti faced aggressive questioning from Judge Wood and rough opposition from Cohen's lawyers — Avenatti has withdrawn his motion to be admitted for the purpose of representing Stormy Daniels in court in the Cohen matter. He says he will re-file if needed at a later point, but this definitely suggests a backing down, for now, on this issue. (Although it's not quite clear to me what that really was beyond what he's already gotten out of it.)

@emptywheel: Wood gave Avenatti a choice between her court or the court of public opinion. He chose the latter.
posted by zachlipton at 10:03 AM on May 30, 2018 [13 favorites]

WaPo, How spies can use your cellphone to find you – and eavesdrop on your calls and texts too, in which did you know SS7 is wildly insecure?:

Surveillance systems that track the locations of cellphone users and spy on their calls, texts and data streams are being turned against Americans as they roam the country and the world, say security experts and U.S. officials.

Federal officials acknowledged the privacy risk to Americans in a previously undisclosed letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) last week, saying they had received reports that “nefarious actors may have exploited” global cellular networks “to target the communications of American citizens.”

The letter, dated May 22 and obtained by The Washington Post, described surveillance systems that tap into a global messaging system that allows cellular customers to move from network to network as they travel. The decades-old messaging system, called SS7, has little security, allowing intelligence agencies and some criminal gangs to spy on unwitting targets — based on nothing more than their cellphone numbers.

“I don’t think most Americans realize how insecure U.S. telephone networks are,” Wyden said in a statement. “If more consumers knew how easy it is for bad guys to track or hack their mobile phones, they would demand the FCC and wireless companies do something about it. These aren’t just hypotheticals.”

Wyden also revealed in a separate letter Tuesday that a major American cellular carrier has referred an “SS7 breach” involving customer data to federal law enforcement officials for investigation. He chastised the Federal Communications Commission in the letter, saying it had “failed to address this ongoing threat to national security.”

Daily Beast, Satellite Images Show North Korea Scrubbed Nuclear Test Site Before Unilaterally Destroying It

On Friday, the White House National Security Council’s top East Asia staffer Matthew Pottinger told surrogates in an off-the-record briefing that was independently described to The Daily Beast that “What you didn't know is that Secretary Pompeo and the South Korean government were both promised that experts would be invited to verify today's demolition and to do some advance work there.”

Pottinger referred to the North’s failure to make good on the apparent offer he described as a broken promise, concluding that “we will not have forensic evidence that much was accomplished.”

This is a big problem if you want any hypothetical deal that may or may not be made in a couple weeks to involve some kind of verifiability. What's the point in having a big negotiation if they can't even agree to have experts verify the demolition of the test site?

Greg Sargent, Trump and Roseanne are putting on the same show. But Trump’s is hurting lots of people.

Writing at Crooked Media, Brian Beutler argues that the firing of Roseanne Barr unmasks a delusion about Trump’s America that has been kept alive (ironically enough) by an elite media in the grip of a journalistically misconceived obligation to Trump country. We read story after story portraying Trump voters in ailing Midwestern manufacturing and Appalachian coal communities as suffering from an economic anxiety that is meant to ennoble Trump’s America and cleanse the media of its 2016 sin of overlooking its extent and reach. As Beutler notes, Barr was supposed to represent that America, but now she has let slip darker impulses animating untold swaths of it, ones that Trump continues to speak to directly, as he did last night.

These regional economic divides are real and important, and I don’t believe that all Trump voters would thrill to Barr’s racism. Indeed, elevating Barr as a symbol of Trump’s America — as Trump himself has done — actually shows contempt for Trump voters as a class. But in a sense, this is what some in the media have done by creating a hollow, idealized portrayal of Trump’s America, and Barr’s downfall punctures that illusion. As Beutler puts it: “Roseanne is the Trump supporter who shows up at Trump rallies.”

Fully puncturing that illusion requires an acknowledgment that, however representative those people are, they are who Trump is talking to, not just at his rallies but also with his policies.

I think this is is an interesting way of approaching the "are all Trump supporters racist?" question. Forget trying to analyze the inner souls of everyone who voted for him and just look at who he speaks the loudest to. His own staff has certainly noticed "their supporters get hype over overt racism."

Daily Beast, Dems Give Up on Trying to Get Cable News to Care About Anything but Russia: "The party wants to talk health care. They really do. But they can’t get cable bookers or programmers to care." Most people don't watch cable news, so this isn't huge of an issue in and of itself, but who goes on cable news winds up perpetuating a feedback loop about "the narrative," and the narrative is falsely that Democrats don't have policy beyond impeachment because nobody will have them on to talk policy.

@juliehdavis: President @realDonaldTrump is correct about his crowd last night. My estimate was way off, and we have corrected our story to reflect the fire marshal’s estimate of 5,500 people. When we get it wrong, we say so. nyti.ms/2H2ETXo

I suspect we're going to be hearing about this for years while everyone ignores the gazillion lies that came out of Trump's mouth.

Avenatti is now on TV saying Trump's voice appears on these Cohen/Davidson tapes.
posted by zachlipton at 10:48 AM on May 30, 2018 [26 favorites]

Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate
request.

It's like once treason is in the air you might as well go whole hog and undue the American Revolution and call for someone loyal to the English crown to oversee the investigation.
posted by srboisvert at 10:59 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

A GOP lawmaker [is quoted as] saying that opening the books on the dark money group would be “catastrophic.” ... What could possibly be in those records?

Hmmm. Sounds like a fun project for an intrepid local reporter, maybe.

I think we will be hearing a lot more about dark money in the coming months. I suspect it is why the Republicans have stood firm behind Trump and why so many of them are suddenly retiring. I'd bet the RNC is up their neck in illegal contributions and PAC activities and many Republicans were in on it.

If only there were a functioning FEC...
posted by srboisvert at 11:07 AM on May 30, 2018 [37 favorites]

Avenatti is now on TV saying Trump's voice appears on these Cohen/Davidson tapes.

gee, zachlipton, way to bury the lede... :)
posted by martin q blank at 11:09 AM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

I swear, this fucking guy [shaking fist] --

CNN Politics: In tonight's edition of The Point with Chris Cillizza: Bernie Sanders is the most important 2020 candidate

posted by FelliniBlank at 11:18 AM on May 30, 2018 [18 favorites]

Quinnipiac Texas polls:

Senate: Cruz up 50-39 on O'Rourke

Governor: Abbot up 53-34 on Valdez.

MOE: +/- 3.8%
posted by Chrysostom at 11:23 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Speaking of buried ledes, the NYT, in their story today Judge Suggests Review of Cohen Documents Is Moving Too Slowly, mentions only glancingly in the penultimate paragraph that the Feds have the contents of Michael Cohen's shredder: "Among the items not yet cleared for release, a prosecutor said in court on Wednesday, were two BlackBerry phones and the contents of one of Mr. Cohen’s shredders. A total of eight boxes of documents, about a dozen cellphones, iPads and computers, and 19 hard drives and thumb drives were seized on April 9 when federal agents raided Mr. Cohen’s office, apartment and hotel room."

Sure, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for a lawyer/businessman to shred sensitive documents, but in their first motion, the Feds told the judge they were worried Cohen would destroy evidence. And we've yet to see convincing innocent explanations for Michael Cohen's actions, whether in his own affairs or for the Trump Org's.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:30 AM on May 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

In tonight's edition of The Point with Chris Cillizza: Bernie Sanders is the most important 2020 candidate

New Apple CEO Tim Cook: "I'm Thinking Printers" (The Onion, 2011)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:40 AM on May 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

Chrystosom was that Tex Sen polling done before or after Ted Cruz cursed the rockets?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:41 AM on May 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

@KlasfeldReports: Did you get that? Avenatti appears to have seamlessly shifted from the argument that the tapes are privileged as to his client to the argument that they must be released immediately en route from the courthouse to the MSNBC studio.

Yeah, I can see why he withdrew his motion to make a formal appearance in the case if he wants the, er, flexibility to shift his position from 'these tapes are privileged, and I must be in court to protect my client's interests in them' to 'release them to the public immediately.'
posted by zachlipton at 11:41 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Virginia Senate passes budget with Medicaid expansion. House has already passed, and gov Northam backs, so this should be the real deal.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:43 AM on May 30, 2018 [59 favorites]

Chrystosom was that Tex Sen polling done before or after Ted Cruz cursed the rockets?

Cruz tweeted that evening of May 28, it looks like. Polling sample was May 23-29, so mostly before.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:46 AM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

NYT, Big Banks to Get Reprieve from Volcker Rule

Big banks are getting a big reprieve from a post-crisis rule aimed at curbing risky behavior on Wall Street.

Federal bank regulators on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping plan to soften the Volcker Rule, opening the door for banks to resume some trading activities restricted as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. The changes would give the largest banks significant freedom to engage in more complicated — and possibly riskier — activities by largely leaving it up to Wall Street firms to determine which trading is permissible under the rule and which is not.

The Federal Reserve, along with four other regulators, took steps on Wednesday to ease several parts of the Volcker Rule, which was put in place to prevent banks from making risky bets with depositors’ money. The rule, which took the agencies more than three years to write, has been criticized by Wall Street as onerous and harmful to the proper functioning of financial markets.

Regulators said on Wednesday that the rule’s intent will remain in place but that the regulation needed to be simplified so that banks can more easily comply with it and Washington can adequately enforce it.

How is financial crisis formed?

Also, in 20 minutes, we'll have President Trump Remarks at White House Sports and Fitness Day
posted by zachlipton at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

I've made a new blog post with more recent figures regarding the drop of violent crime rates in U.S.-Mex border cities.
Bottom line: in the five border cities examined, all the cities on the U.S.-Mexican border with a population of over 100,000, overall violent crime has decreased dramatically. Eleven of fifteen individual categories in these cities have decreased at a rate greater than that experienced in the U.S. as a whole.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:16 PM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

Helluva an ad for the young progressive D primary challenger in NY-14.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018)

Holy shit, that was amazing, thanks for linking the video chris24.

Everyone should watch that. Whether she wins or loses, that's what every Democrat's ad should look like and be saying. Trump voters liked him for how "real" he was. This ad proves that you don't have to be a racist shitball in order to be appealingly "real." She's doing it right. I donated to her and am going to share this video with people and I hope she inspires others to run similar campaigns.
posted by robotdevil at 12:24 PM on May 30, 2018 [36 favorites]

Whether she wins or loses, that's what every Democrat's ad should look like and be saying. Trump voters liked him for how "real" he was. This ad proves that you don't have to be a racist shitball in order to be appealingly "real." She's doing it right.

She's a Brand New Congress candidate and is a former campaign organizer for Sanders 2016.

There are a lot of shots of her in that ad that would be familiar to anyone who lives here. Walking the street at night. Taking the subway. Changing into heels on the subway platform. :) The shot of her speaking around time index 1:51 could have been taken in almost any living room in Queens or the Bronx, including mine. It might even have been hers. Bars on the windows. Window air conditioner. That footage emphasizes her status as a working class New Yorker. Her criticisms are on target as well. Her opponent is required by law to live in the district and he has a house in Woodside. But his kids attend school in Virginia, where he also has a home. (Convenience to DC, no doubt.) So voters are being represented by someone who has chosen not to send his kids to NYC public schools.
posted by zarq at 12:38 PM on May 30, 2018 [26 favorites]

Dems Give Up on Trying to Get Cable News to Care About Anything but Russia:

I was going to link to the DNC YouTube channel as a way of saying, "Media is what you make of it, it's 2018" and so on, but the DNC channel is all about the 2016 convention and now I haz a sad.

(The Democrats is apparently the actual YT channel, but I was already bummed. Besides, it could use more cartoons.)
posted by petebest at 12:48 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Her opponent is required by law to live in the district

Is there a relevant New York law here? You are not federally required to live in your own House district, just the same state.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:50 PM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

an elite media in the grip of a journalistically misconceived obligation to Trump country

3,000,000 more votes, dude.

The Working Class That Wasn't
• The most common jobs for workers without college degrees have never been industrial
• The vast majority of working-class Americans work in the service sector
• The American working class is rapidly growing more diverse

In terms of demographics, white workers are underrepresented in this group compared to the nation as a whole; in 2015, they made up 59 percent of the working class versus 64 percent of the adult U.S. population. By 2032, people of color are set to become the majority in this section of the labor force.

The Racist Fixation on the 'White Working Class'

And, if we are going to divide the working class into demographic subgroups, which group is most in need of help with these problems?

The black working class.

In America, black people have higher unemployment, lower incomes, worse health care, and far, far less wealth than any other racial group in this country. White people are actually the most well-off portion of the working class, and of every other class. It is inconceivable that ostentatious concern for the “white working class” could be motivated by a genuine desire to help solve the problems of all working class people. If the motivation was a simple desire to help the working class, everyone would say that we must pay attention to the working class.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 12:50 PM on May 30, 2018 [36 favorites]

Trump interrupts his prepared remarks, which mention how sports teach kids social skills, to ask "do I have social skills? I don't know. I have social media. I don't know about skill but I have a lot of media." Then he goes back to reading his remarks and being surprised by them. He tells the kids present to "have a great life."

Oh, one of the guests present, I believe a member of the council, uses a wheelchair, but they didn't make the little stage accessible.

And we have an appearance, or something, via twitter: @FLOTUS: I see the media is working overtime speculating where I am & what I'm doing. Rest assured, I'm here at the @WhiteHouse w my family, feeling great, & working hard on behalf of children & the American people!
posted by zachlipton at 12:51 PM on May 30, 2018 [11 favorites]

Changing into heels on the subway platform. :)

Exactly! That was the moment I was like, oh shit, and then some, uh . . . dust got in my eye.

I've never seen a moment that feels like my own life appear in a political ad like this. It is powerful, more than I could have anticipated. Of course it's going to resonate with people. As a young, broke, angry female person I daydream constantly about quitting my job and running for office because FUCK ALL THIS SHIT ALREADY. I can't, because reasons. So . . . seeing someone else go there is invigorating and inspiring beyond anything else I've seen up until this point. (She states in her ad that "going into politics wasn't the plan.") Man, do I hear that. MOAR please.
posted by robotdevil at 12:53 PM on May 30, 2018 [26 favorites]

I wonder who wrote that for her.
posted by Melismata at 12:53 PM on May 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

working hard on behalf of children & the American people!

Since the best thing the Trumps could do for children and the American people is to drop out of sight, she’s not wrong.
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:54 PM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

She's running against Joe Crowley, who's the highest ranked member of the House from NY. Crowley is not a terrible rep and he does have high seniority in the House... Through end of 1Q18, Crowley had raised $2.8M, Ocasio-Cortez had raised $127k. Definitely a tough path for her, especially for someone who has been around since 1999.

All true, and she definitely has an uphill battle. But having quality progressive candidates in a primary is not just to win (though that would be nice), but also to move the conversation. If Crowley has to pay attention to the issues she raises, and move himself a little left in order to win, that is also an important victory.
posted by jetsetsc at 12:54 PM on May 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

And we have an appearance, or something, via twitter: @FLOTUS: I see the media is working overtime speculating where I am & what I'm doing. Rest assured, I'm here at the @WhiteHouse w my family, feeling great, & working hard on behalf of children & the American people!

n.b. Her personal Twitter account, @MELANIATRUMP, is this very moment geotagged to New York City (it changed on Saturday).
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:56 PM on May 30, 2018 [46 favorites]

I wonder who wrote that for her.

She probably handed her phone to Shelly Miscavige.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:01 PM on May 30, 2018 [20 favorites]

working hard on behalf of children & the American people!

Trump just minutes ago did an event for kids at the White House, alongside Ivanka. Melania has always been the trotted-out-Trump for child or family-related events, and Donald is usually hidden for them. If she's working hard on behalf of children in the White House, it makes not one goddamned lick of sense for her to be absent. Something's up.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:02 PM on May 30, 2018 [25 favorites]

White House Sports and Fitness Day

Trump also introduced the co-chairs of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, 'three of the biggest legends in American sports history': Mariano Rivera ('I've watched him win so many games,' and three unnamed baseball experts said he was 'the greatest to ever pitch'), Herschel Walker ('an amazing guy'), and Misty May Treanor ('I've watched her so much, mostly on television.' He refers to her repeatedly as 'Misty May'--'May' is her maiden name).

Bill Belichick couldn't make it, but the Wake Forest tennis team is there.
posted by box at 1:04 PM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

It makes not one lick of sense that the whereabouts and condition of the FLOTUS should reasonably be in doubt, at all, and yet here we are.
posted by Gelatin at 1:05 PM on May 30, 2018 [20 favorites]

All true, and she definitely has an uphill battle. But having quality progressive candidates in a primary is not just to win (though that would be nice), but also to move the conversation. If Crowley has to pay attention to the issues she raises, and move himself a little left in order to win, that is also an important victory.

Totally agree, and even non-successful primaries from the left can be good. Just pointing out that she faces long odds in actually winning the nomination.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:06 PM on May 30, 2018

they didn't make the little stage accessible.

Sorry. Link didn't work. Try here.
posted by zachlipton at 1:07 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lots of skirting around conspiracy theories here. Leave Melania alone?

Maybe she's having a mental health episode. Maybe she's not recovering well from the kidney thing but doesn't want to make a big deal of it. Maybe she has a really big cold sore and doesn't feel like going outside. Maybe she had a more serious health procedure and it's none of our damn business. Maybe she's telling the truth.

This whole thing reminds me of when people here were speculating that Trig Palin was secretly not Sarah Palin's baby. It's gross and should stop. Melania Trump is in a ceremonial position that has no real responsibility and it really does not matter where she is at any given moment. Let her sit inside and binge watch The Americans, or whatever. Don't indulge in Lefty Alex Jones black helicopter speculation. She isn't engaged in identifiable malice at the moment and deserves a shred of privacy.
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:11 PM on May 30, 2018 [27 favorites]

I wonder who wrote that for her.

She did it herself.

"One great thing about our campaign video: not a single consultant was involved. I wrote the script. My family is the closing shot. That's my actual bodega. Detroit DSAers @means_tv worked with our team to film and tell the story. Volunteers coordinated the shoot."
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:11 PM on May 30, 2018 [42 favorites]

Is there a relevant New York law here? You are not federally required to live in your own House district, just the same state.

Not sure. I believe so but I could be wrong.
posted by zarq at 1:13 PM on May 30, 2018

Lots of skirting around conspiracy theories here. Leave Melania alone?

The first lady has been missing for three weeks. Will it be unseemly to talk about it in three months or three years? Will it be up to historians to give her the Princes in the Tower treatment?
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:14 PM on May 30, 2018 [41 favorites]

But when we're at the point where the official FLOTUS account is actively claiming one thing while the private Melania Trump account suggests another

Melania CHANGED HER TWITTER BIO, WHAT IS THE WHITE HOUSE HIDING FROM US??

the first lady has been missing for three weeks. Will it be unseemly to talk about it in three months or three years,

There's a difference between "missing" and "not available for press photo ops".
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:16 PM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

And there's a difference when you're actively lying to the public.
posted by Melismata at 1:18 PM on May 30, 2018 [28 favorites]

I wonder who wrote that for her.

She did it herself.

I'm pretty sure Melismata was referring to the FLOTUS tweet, but the timing confused me as well.
posted by history_denier at 1:28 PM on May 30, 2018 [22 favorites]

i didn’t see the polling for Ocasio-Cortez, but i kind of feel like she could pull it off by field margin.
posted by dogheart at 1:32 PM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I wonder who wrote that for her.

"Working overtime" is one of Trump's favorite phrases.

At the same time, putting out a weird tweet isn't 'no comment'-ing, and invites speculation.

On Monday, independent journalist Sarah Kendzior framed it this way: "Trying to imagine the reaction if a previous president had a record of beating and raping his first wife, emotionally abusing his second wife, sexually assaulting multiple women...and then his third wife is abruptly hospitalized and not seen for 17 days and counting"

So far, the only sighting of Melania in the wild that I can turn up is by CNBC's Eamon Javers from this morning: "Not that this will deter the conspiracy theorists, but I saw the First Lady walking with her aides in the West Wing yesterday afternoon." (But as they say on the Interwebs, "pix or it didn't happen!")

One thing this odd business underscores, however, is that Team Trump has the tabloids locked down—in the Obama era, TMZ and the National Inquirer would be all over the story of a missing FLOTUS.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:34 PM on May 30, 2018 [52 favorites]

It makes not one lick of sense that the whereabouts and condition of the FLOTUS should reasonably be in doubt, at all, and yet here we are.

I think it makes every bit of sense that we don't know where she is unless she wants us to. What makes no damned sense is the compelled role of the FL.

And there's a difference when you're actively lying to the public.

Personally I draw a distinction when someone lies about something that's nobody else's fucking business.

People should get to be related to the person who is President (or who was President) without it being an obligation. Whether that be nonsense ceremonial activities or worrying for their own safety or where they live. I'd like to see Metafilter and the world in general get out of her and Barron's business. If the older kids had any integrity and would just fuck off and quit grifting I'd include them in that too, but they've inserted themselves into government when convention didn't demand they do so. Melania should get to live in NYC if that's where she wants to be and we should all STFU about whatever cost keeping them safe entails.

I'm all for concern for her well-being if there's some legit reason to think something is up, though it's hard for me to lend that much credence when people in the West Wing can't order a turkey on rye for lunch without it getting leaked. This feels way more salacious than legit concern.
posted by phearlez at 1:37 PM on May 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Melania should get to live in NYC if that's where she wants to be and we should all STFU about whatever cost keeping them safe entails.

Should we really "STFU"? Why? When apparently we don't have money to admit refugees, to provide healthcare for children, to house the homeless, to fix crumbling bridges and roads? We have money for nothing else, but we have money for this? (Well, and tax cuts, of course.) But no, fuck that. Melania can live in her 24h-doorman-secured multi-million-dollar-building. With a private security detail, if she likes. But if she's going to cost the taxpayers of this country millions of dollars a day in public funds for that preference, we have a right to criticise her for it, I think. Just as we have a right to criticise the many Trump appointees who take private and chartered flights. Pay it out of pocket, if you want, but don't make everyone else pay for it.
posted by halation at 1:42 PM on May 30, 2018 [106 favorites]

Mod note: Let's call it enough on "where's Melania" medical or whatever-dark-secrets theorizing? Easy to get off down a bad track there.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:44 PM on May 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

All she has to do is say "no comment," or "thanks for your concern, I don't feel like talking or disclosing my whereabouts right now." Instead, a staff member sends a boilerplate tweet that makes her sound like any other FLOTUS. I'm being lied to enough in this administration. Why can't she do that simple thing? Why do we keep pretending that everything is normal?
posted by Melismata at 1:44 PM on May 30, 2018 [23 favorites]

a boilerplate tweet that makes her sound like any other FLOTUS

did other FLOTUSes (FLOTi?) feel compelled to make smarmy digs at the media when they found it necessary to confirm to the world, via tweet, that they were still alive?
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:56 PM on May 30, 2018 [11 favorites]

Melania should get to live in NYC if that's where she wants to be and we should all STFU about whatever cost keeping them safe entails.

Nope. Because I'm paying for it.

Until Congress shares that burden with all Americans the way they're supposed to instead of foisting it off on people who have the misfortune of living in New York, I'll complain as much and to whomever I like. And no one gets to dictate otherwise. I work hard. I pay my city and state taxes.

My city tax dollars are going to her security detail and NYPD overtime fees. I did not sign up for that. Let Congress get their heads out of their asses and fund the secret service and NYPD properly so my hard earned money isn't being paid out to protect privileged people who make more money in a year than I will make in a lifetime.
posted by zarq at 1:58 PM on May 30, 2018 [74 favorites]

"feeling great, & working hard on behalf of children & the American people!" is not smarmy. It's gushy, which is what a lot of FLOTI were.
posted by Melismata at 2:00 PM on May 30, 2018

The damned subways are falling apart and this city is struggling to keep them running. We're facing massive cuts in service and years of repairs and upgrades and I should worry about Melania fucking Trump?

Hell no.
posted by zarq at 2:01 PM on May 30, 2018 [20 favorites]

"Working overtime" is one of Trump's favorite phrases.

First he was rockin’ in the free world with Neil Young, and now he’s takin’ care of business with Bachman Turner Overdrive? Are you guys sure he wasn’t born in Canada? Have you seen the long form birth certificate?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:03 PM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

How Trump’s Election Shook Obama: ‘What if We Were Wrong?’. Ben Rhodes has a book coming out (which might make a good subject for an FPP of its own once all the reviews and excerpts are in), and this article quoting from it has a bunch of reflections on the election, digs at Clinton, blaming McConnell, and this:

The day Mr. Obama hosted Mr. Trump at the White House after the election seemed surreal. Mr. Trump kept steering the conversation back to the size of his rallies, noting that he and Mr. Obama could draw big crowds, but Mrs. Clinton could not, Mr. Rhodes writes.

Afterward, Mr. Obama called a few aides to the Oval Office to ruminate on the encounter. “I’m trying to place him in American history,” he said.

“He peddles” bull, Mr. Rhodes answered. “That character has always been part of the American story. You can see it right back to some of the characters in Huckleberry Finn.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Obama answered, “that’s the best we can hope for.”

John Bolton Hires Top Staffer From Truly Batshit Anti-Islam Hate Group

Case in point: Bolton has hired Fred Fleitz, his former chief of staff, as the National Security Council’s executive secretary, as Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Who dis? Surprise, surprise: another member of the depressingly extensive anti-Islam nonprofit world.
...
The Center for Security Policy, where Fleitz is senior vice president for policy and programs, is “known for its accusations that a shadowy ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ has infiltrated all levels of government,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its founder, Frank Gaffney, argued Barack Obama is a Muslim back in 2009 and accused prominent conservative Grover Norquist of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which got his organization banned from the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. He’s also suggested that government officials like John Brennan and Janet Napolitano are agents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2011, a column on the CSP site argued for establishing a committee, not unlike the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee, to investigate jihadism in the U.S. government

If you're wondering where Roseanne gets this stuff, it's coming from inside the White House.
posted by zachlipton at 2:04 PM on May 30, 2018 [35 favorites]

Just catching up, and looking way up the page at another weird story of Bill Browder getting arrested in a friendly country due to a completely bogus Interpol red flag issued by Russia. This isn't the first time that's happened, he was recently detained at Heathrow trying to come to the U.S. because Putin keeps telling Interpol he's wanted on a Russian warrant and they keep complying.

Early this month Browder was interviewed by Preet Bharara on his always excellent podcast about the Magnitsky Act, Russia and Putin, and how his life is in constant danger. The story of Magnitsky's death is especially harrowing, but the interview will also leave you with a deeper appreciation of just how fucked up it is that our current administration wants to make nice with Putin, and how criminal that 2016 meeting in the tower was.

Stay Tuned with Preet (May 3rd podcast is the Browder interview)
posted by mcstayinskool at 2:09 PM on May 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

FWIW, Ocasio-Cortez is endorsed by the NYC DSA.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:15 PM on May 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

How Trump's Pressure Influenced the NFL to Change its Anthem Rules (WSJ)

The reporter has some depositions from Colin Kaepernick's greivance against the NFL.

“This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” Mr. Trump said in a phone call, according to a sworn deposition given by [Dallas Cowboys owner] Mr. [Jerry] Jones and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”

“I was totally supportive of [the players] until Trump made his statement,” Stephen Ross, the Miami Dolphins’ owner and creator of programs advocating for social justice, said in his deposition. Noting that owners’ conversations with Mr. Trump were relayed during a league meeting, he said: “I thought he changed the dialogue.”

Mr. Kaepernick, who ignited the anthem demonstrations in 2016 to draw attention to racial inequality and other social justice issues, has remained unsigned despite statistics superior to other quarterbacks who have gotten jobs. His grievance argues that Mr. Trump was an “organizing force in the collusion” because of the president’s relationships with various NFL owners, many of whom have backed him with campaign contributions.

No collusion.
posted by box at 2:19 PM on May 30, 2018 [30 favorites]

"Working overtime" is one of Trump's favorite phrases.

I have no idea whats going on and am not yet willing to speculate (though there will come a point where I think we deserve answers) but it's obvious Trump wrote that tweet. I don't see how anyone could believe otherwise.
posted by Justinian at 2:20 PM on May 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

But if she's going to cost the taxpayers of this country millions of dollars a day in public funds for that preference, we have a right to criticise her for it, I think. Just as we have a right to criticise the many Trump appointees who take private and chartered flights. Pay it out of pocket, if you want, but don't make everyone else pay for it.

So to be clear here, if Michelle Obama were to get a professional opportunity tomorrow that required her to live somewhere other than where President Obama is currently living and working - that's your position about her too? Sorry you want to do this other thing, missy, but you have to stay with your man if you want us to keep you safe.

Fuuuuuuuck that.

When apparently we don't have money to admit refugees, to provide healthcare for children, to house the homeless, to fix crumbling bridges and roads? We have money for nothing else, but we have money for this?

This sounds a lot like the "why should those union employees get those living wages and worthwhile pensions when the rest of us don't" thinking to me.
posted by phearlez at 2:29 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

“Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”

WSJ paywall strikes again.

I'm trying to figure out what he means by that: does he think the protests will inevitably be crushed because he's on the other side? Does he mean he's giving all the owners their marching orders now because he sees a personal win for himself? Is he saying the mere existence of the issue helps him?

The latter interpretation feels like the sort of concept that's too sophisticated for Trump to understand, but all of them are unsettling as fuck given the direction the NFL owners have taken.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:32 PM on May 30, 2018

WSJ paywall strikes again.

PSA: The Wall Street Journal's twitter account provides a pass-through for the stories they promote on it. In the case of the Trump-NFL one, it's https://t.co/b3SwoJyp3e.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:37 PM on May 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

Trump also introduced the co-chairs of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, 'three of the biggest legends in American sports history': Mariano Rivera, ... Herschel Walker ('an amazing guy'), and Misty May Treanor


Herschel Walker played for Trump's New Jersey Generals of the USFL, back in the 1980s, and by all accounts they became legit friends. Walker even took Don, Jr. to the zoo on a day off.
posted by msalt at 2:42 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

If Being Routinely Insulted Turns People into Extremists, Why Aren't Democrats Extremists?

So where's our Trump? Why haven't we dumped all the left-centrists and conciliators and reachers-across-the-aisle and begun rallying around a candidate who says all Republicans are subhuman, addle-pated, criminal-minded scum?

We've had people in our party who were somewhat Trumpish -- Alan Grayson, Cynthia McKinney -- but they've been pushed to the margins (although Grayson keeps trying to make his way back to the mainstream). Hell, we could have embraced Roseanne Barr herself back when she positioned herself as a lefty.

But we didn't. We take a lot of abuse from the right. Somehow, we manage not to rush into the arms of conspiracy-minded demagogic bigots.

posted by tonycpsu at 2:57 PM on May 30, 2018 [88 favorites]

Lots of skirting around conspiracy theories here.

To be fair, it is the Trump administration. The whole thing exists due to conspiracy to commit (well, there are a plethora of options here). Some "conspiracy people" think-or-thought Trump had it together enough to expose the JFK assassination, or to audit the Fed or stop chemtrails or whatever, but they didn't expect to be so awash in his own money-laundering, assault, and fraud conspiracies. Although per The Internet he's still taking down global pedophile rings almost single-handedly though, which, hey. Good for him.
posted by petebest at 3:08 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Why haven't we dumped all the left-centrists and conciliators and reachers-across-the-aisle and begun rallying around a candidate who says all Republicans are subhuman, addle-pated, criminal-minded scum?

It's not a bad question.
posted by contraption at 3:08 PM on May 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

Quite a leap to go from this:
"Why haven't we dumped all the left-centrists and conciliators and reachers-across-the-aisle..."

to this:
"...and begun rallying around a candidate who says all Republicans are subhuman, addle-pated, criminal-minded scum?"

as if the one necessitates the other.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:17 PM on May 30, 2018

Matt Yglesias, The raging controversy over whether to call Trump’s lies “lies,” explained. Ignore the dumb headline, scroll down:

Trump frequently makes representations about things where it’s simply not possible to immediately know for sure whether he’s telling the truth, typically because they refer to his private plans or activities. As president, for example, Trump has said that he would develop a plan to provide every American with health insurance, that the North Korean government had agreed to denuclearize, that he would promote a “bill of love” to help DREAMers, that he would take on the National Rifle Association to reduce school shootings, and that he would develop a tax plan that rich people would not benefit “at all” from.

None of this was true. Critically, none of it was demonstrably false at the time Trump said it. But equally critically, a reasonable person would have known better than to believe in any of it because Trump lies all the time.

Yet the troubling thing about media coverage of Trump isn’t that the press has failed to label lies as lies once they are proven to be lies. It’s that these kinds of statements continue to be taken at face value when they are made, as if they were offered by a normal, reasonably honest person. But Trump is not a reasonably honest person. He is someone who flings around unconfirmed accusations and demonstrable falsehoods with abandon — and who does so, by his own admission, for calculated strategic purposes.

Nobody can stop him from acting this way if he wants to, but we don’t need to act naive about it. When a hardcore serial liar says something new, treat his claim with the extreme skepticism it deserves.

This is the much harder problem than dealing with whether a news story should say "lie" or "falsely claimed" or whatever. Everyone still operates under the general assumption that the President saying something is newsworthy, because for hundreds of years, the President saying something has been more-or-less associated with rationality and, at usually, not worse than half-truths. And the exceptions have generally been notable, rather than a dozen-a-day barrage. Fact checking is a great model for dealing with people who purport to tell the truth and sometimes say false things, but it falls apart against a constant bullshitter, especially when people who know he's full of shit are already aware, and everyone else doesn't care. How do you effectively communicate the just maddeningly unhinged array of nonsense that is a Trump rally? No write-up can do it justice. And what do you do with the people who just don't care? The Times fact-checker valiantly tried (there are links in the original):

During the rally, Mr. Trump also reiterated many claims that The Times and others have previously debunked: that Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, supported MS-13 (she never said this), that illegal border crossings had declined 40 percent (they recently increased), and that tax cuts he signed into law last year were the largest in history (they rank 12th). He also incorrectly described other countries as not “sending their best” through the diversity visa program (applicants enter of their own volition), claimed construction had begun on his border wall (it hasn’t), and said that the suspect in the Manhattan truck attack in October had sponsored two dozen family members through “chain migration” (this is implausible).

But it hardly matters. And as mentioned upthread, Democrats can't get on TV unless they're talking about Russia, so nothing else gets through there.

I still think there's an opportunity for a bunch of really short sharable visual pieces that focus on one little topic at a time (which, I guess, is what Correct the Record was trying to do during the campaign). 20 seconds to explain that Trump promised the rich wouldn't benefit from the tax bill but look how much they did. 15 seconds on Trump thinking health insurance could cost $12/year. And then end each one with the quick pitch for a Democratic alternative. I don't know if it would make any difference, but Democrats have a message, and they need to break through the Trump-driven news cycle with it somehow.
posted by zachlipton at 3:21 PM on May 30, 2018 [20 favorites]

Herschel Walker played for Trump's New Jersey Generals of the USFL, back in the 1980s

An earlier draft of my comment identified him as "The all-time rushing leader... of the USFL."

But then I didn't feel like saying something mean about Misty May Treanor.
posted by box at 3:22 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

> This one lifts me.

Along with what TWF said, also possibly that he is personally enthusiastic about it and isn't going to let go (probably in large measure for the reasons TWF gave--he's not going to let go of an issue that is win/win for him).

What worries me here is that this is Trump AGAIN throwing his weight around in the business and employment arena for his own specific and personal benefit. Like the Amazon/postage thing (actually directed at the WAPost, which he personally dislikeds), like the AT&T/Time Warner merger thing (bec. Trump doesn't like CNN), etc etc etc.

It seems both slimy and wrong in many different ways. And either is or should be illegal.
posted by flug at 3:36 PM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

> He wins no matter what.

That does, somehow, seem to be The Story of Donald Trump's Life.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:39 PM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

I don't see how anyone could believe otherwise.

And I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Trumpies working overtime.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:40 PM on May 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

NM Gov candidate profited from high-risk insurance plans. < Politico
posted by Harry Caul at 3:40 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

He wins no matter what.
That's the power of American-made glass floors. You can't even hear the masses banging their heads from the space below them.
posted by Harry Caul at 3:43 PM on May 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

n.b. Her personal Twitter account, @MELANIATRUMP, is this very moment geotagged to New York City (it changed on Saturday).

Her personal account has been that way for awhile. (Wayback Machine link)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 3:46 PM on May 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

...addle-pated, criminal-minded scum...

If it quacks like a duck... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, I did leave out subhuman.
posted by Behemoth at 3:56 PM on May 30, 2018

The person I quoted is halation and if there's a way to read that as anything other than begrudging paying for her security I'll be damned if I can tell what it is. Zarq's separate comment about the costs being borne by NY rather than the feds is a reasonable complaint but I'll still disagree that her life should be constrained because of Congress' failures.
posted by phearlez at 3:57 PM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

For those who like their anger delivered in the form of brutal, cutting mockery:

Op-Ed: An Intellectual's Defense of Roseanne

Imagine this: You’ve created a TV show that, among endless prestige television offerings, manages to secure fantastic ratings and inspire lively conversation. You’ve made a show not just for men or for women, for conservatives or for liberals, but truly for everyone who is white. And then, in the blink of an eye, after you’ve sent a tweet that would get you fired from a job in in practically any industry, your show is gone.

I might be the only non-Trump voter who thinks this, but that doesn’t sound fair to me.

posted by prefpara at 3:58 PM on May 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

I do in fact begrudge paying for her security, so yes, phearlez, you read that correctly. According to the legislation passed by Obama which granted lifetime security, in the case of a divorce, the divorced spouse loses protection, and adult children are not granted protection. This is reasonable. I would argue that if they separate, protection should not continue, and it's hard to read 'nah it's not for work or anything, i'd just rather live in a totally different state from my spouse, actually' as anything other than a separation.
posted by halation at 4:03 PM on May 30, 2018 [18 favorites]

NYT, F.B.I. Official Wrote Secret Memo Fearing Trump Got a Cover Story for Comey Firing

The former acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, wrote a confidential memo last spring recounting a conversation that offered significant behind-the-scenes details on the firing of Mr. McCabe’s predecessor, James B. Comey, according to several people familiar with the discussion.

Mr. Comey’s firing is a central focus of the special counsel’s investigation into whether President Trump tried to obstruct the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. McCabe has turned over his memo to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

In the document, whose contents have not been previously reported, Mr. McCabe described a conversation at the Justice Department with the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, in the chaotic days last May after Mr. Comey’s abrupt firing. Mr. Rosenstein played a key role in the dismissal, writing a memo that rebuked Mr. Comey over his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton.

But in the meeting at the Justice Department, Mr. Rosenstein added a new detail: He said the president had originally asked him to reference Russia in his memo, the people familiar with the conversation said. Mr. Rosenstein did not elaborate on what Mr. Trump had wanted him to say.

To Mr. McCabe, that seemed like possible evidence that Mr. Comey’s firing was actually related to the F.B.I.’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and that Mr. Rosenstein helped provide a cover story by writing about the Clinton investigation.

One person who was briefed on Mr. Rosenstein’s conversation with the president said Mr. Trump had simply wanted Mr. Rosenstein to mention that he was not personally under investigation in the Russia inquiry. Mr. Rosenstein said it was unnecessary and did not include such a reference. Mr. Trump ultimately said it himself when announcing the firing.

posted by zachlipton at 4:08 PM on May 30, 2018 [28 favorites]

An earlier draft of my comment identified [Herschel Walker] as "The all-time rushing leader... of the USFL."

Walker had 61 touchdowns and 8,225 yards in the NFL proper -- 43rd most all-time in a league that started in 1899 -- so let's not diminish his real achievements just because he has bad taste in friends.
posted by msalt at 4:11 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

her life should be constrained because of Congress' failures.

I wonder if -- with the Stormy Daniels disclosure -- Trump violated the half-assed prenup one of his fine team of The Best Attorneys drafted, and she's got him over the barrel, and can divorce him penalty free.

As a taxpayer, her security is paid for at the White House, and if she doesn't want to live there, that would be a problem EXCEPT IF she's lucky enough to get out from under Trump's influence, and can tell him "Fuck you, I'm not even pretending anymore", then more power to her.
posted by mikelieman at 4:13 PM on May 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's also reasonable to ask what is the appropraite level of protection the tax payers should have to bear? The Obamas owned one house. Bush owned one (much larger) ranch. The Trumps are costing millions per day securing an entire fucking block of downtown Manhattan PLUS an entire goddamn golf course. And whatever we're paying for Uday and Qusay's business travel these days. Oh, and much of that money goes directly into the pockets of their real estate holding company.

This isn't even remotely comparable to prior expectations placed on the Secret Service for protection of the President and his extended family.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:15 PM on May 30, 2018 [97 favorites]

According to the legislation passed by Obama which granted lifetime security, in the case of a divorce, the divorced spouse loses protection, and adult children are not granted protection. This is reasonable. I would argue that if they separate, protection should not continue, and it's hard to read 'nah it's not for work or anything, i'd just rather live in a totally different state from my spouse, actually' as anything other than a separation.

So President Obama gets a work opportunity now - let's say, a visiting professorship for a year in California - and Michelle Obama doesn't want to move, instead choosing to stay in Chicago. No security for you unless you follow your man.

I don't see how this is at all reasonable and given that the spouses of Presidents have exclusively been women, not sexist.
posted by phearlez at 4:15 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Walker had 61 touchdowns and 8,225 yards in the NFL proper -- 43rd most all-time in a league that started in 1899 -- so let's not diminish his real achievements just because he has bad taste in friends.

Trump pal Jerry Jones probably owes most (all?) of his team's great success in the 1990s to Herschel Walker: the Cowboys traded Walker and some other players/picks to the Minnesota Vikings for some of their players and a pile of draft picks, one of which was used to draft future hall of famer Emmit Smith (among others).

So, indeed, Trump always wins.
posted by notyou at 4:18 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Great meeting with @KimKardashian today, talked about prison reform and sentencing.

With photo to prove the badness of this universe.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:22 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Maybe Congress can offer retired Presidents and members of their families each vouchers they can use to purchase security services on the free market? That'd cut back on Trumpian abuses and give former first ladies and children flexibility to contract for their own security needs.

Short of that, we're kinda stuck looking after the First Family.
posted by notyou at 4:25 PM on May 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

The Obamas owned one house. Bush owned one (much larger) ranch. The Trumps are costing millions per day securing an entire fucking block of downtown Manhattan PLUS an entire goddamn golf course.

Here’s the thing, and it’s a bitter pill, but it’s real.

The reason that people protect the children and spouse of the President is specifically so that terrorists can not threaten Presidents to change their behavior. It’s not a benefit for the people being protected, it’s a benefit to the taxpayers so that we can’t have Presidents making policy based on who might assassinate their children.

Now in the case of Trump, he is open to blackmail and bribery, but we can’t protect people differently based on our perceived assessment of their susceptibility.
posted by corb at 4:43 PM on May 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

I'll still disagree that her life should be constrained because of Congress' failures.

Unlike the rest of us.
posted by banshee at 4:53 PM on May 30, 2018 [21 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: There is no one better to represent the people of N.Y. and Staten Island (a place I know very well) than @RepDanDonovan, who is strong on Borders & Crime, loves our Military & our Vets, voted for Tax Cuts and is helping me to Make America Great Again. Dan has my full endorsement!

That's a blow to Michael Grimm (who has many issues, like felony tax fraud-sized issues), who was running as a Trump-aligned candidate to the extent he got Scaramucci to campaign for him.

Also, the tweet is a lie:

@njagoda: Actually, Donovan was a "no" vote on the tax bill, due concerns about the $10,000 cap on the SALT deduction.
posted by zachlipton at 5:04 PM on May 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

The reason that people protect the children and spouse of the President is specifically so that terrorists can not threaten Presidents to change their behavior.

Obviously.

The reason there's a secret service budget is to make sure that it won't place an undue burden on one city and its residents. In theory.

Trump has taken full advantage of the secret service detail, and has put them very far over budget. To the point that they couldn't pay hundreds of agents. And he hasn't restricted his own movements or tried to save anyone any money despite years of racist loon ranting on Twitter about President Obama's every movement. And for that matter Secretary Clinton's.

Congress can fix this. They can also make sure the NYPD isn't being asked to provide millions of dollars worth of protection for his damned building on Fifth Avenue. Or that the secret service have to go unpaid for his incessant golf games. Or to protect his Florida mansion.

They should set aside funds. Permanently. Permanently expand the secret service's budget. They can also place an annual limit on expenditures for unofficial White House travel, restricting the president’s ability to take unlimited taxpayer-funded vacations. Including to mar-a-lago. He does not need to be there. He has a place to stay in DC and at Camp David. And they could also set limits on how many administrative staffers can accompany the President on trips. We live in a world of instant communication. Some people do not need to be present to do their jobs.

If he wants to exceed those limits or his family want to go on business trips then let them pay. We shouldn't have to.
posted by zarq at 5:06 PM on May 30, 2018 [73 favorites]

I'm not super happy that the people of New York are having to bear these costs. It would be marginally better if the burden was shifted to the federal budget. I'm for that.

But the whole thing is just one more relatively minor indignity we're subjected to. It doesn't even make the top 100. This shit isn't normal but until we replace the grifters and criminals in the white house it'll keep happening.
posted by Justinian at 5:07 PM on May 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Can we fucking drop the budget of Melania's protection derail?
posted by runcibleshaw at 5:10 PM on May 30, 2018 [18 favorites]

We can absolutely criticize her decision to live in the most expensive spot on the planet to keep her secure.

Can you seriously not spot the difference between "Don't spin wild conspiracy theories based on a Twitter bio" and "Don't criticize her at all" ?
posted by 0xFCAF at 5:40 PM on May 30, 2018

NYT, F.B.I. Official Wrote Secret Memo Fearing Trump Got a Cover Story for Comey Firing

So, this morning @RealDonaldTrump goes on an extended attack on Sessions after the NYT broke the story last night's story about him pressuring Sessions over recusal, and this evening the NYT breaks another story about Trump pressuring Rosenstein over Russia in his memo about firing Comey, right? Is that the timeline? Because it looks like the NYT's Michael Schmidt has a source at the DoJ who's leaking scoops to him in the wake of Trump's #SPYGATE antics last week (scoops that, incidentally, put Sessions and Rosenstein in awkward positions).

Meanwhile, Roger Stone checked in with the Daily Beast: Senate Intelligence Committee Now Wants to Grill Roger StoneStone’s lawyer, Grant Smith, told The Daily Beast that the committee last week sent them an email with a list of search terms for communications to use to determine which electronic communications to turn over to the Senate Intelligence Committee. At the same time, according to Smith, the committee said its members would like to question Stone after receiving the documents. Smith said the process has been amicable and that the interview date has not yet been set.

Stone told The Daily Beast he hopes the interview with the committee will be public, and said he has “already begun to think about what to wear.” And Stone went on Alex Jones's show to claim Mueller is going to frame him in order to get him to flip on Trump. Stone, proclaiming he is no John Dean and "will never roll on Donald Trump", makes a pitch for loyal Trumpists to donate to his legal fund.

Coincidentally, a defense fund for Manafort has been launched, too, because he's "struggling to pay legal bills".

Grifters gonna grift.
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:41 PM on May 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

In actual political news, the primary for electing someone to be in charge of the world's 5th largest economy and to lead the vanguard of progressive politics in America is in a few days. In a perhaps unsurprising move the SF Chronicle has endorsed former mayor of SF Gavin Newsom while the LA Times has endorsed former mayor of LA Antonio Villaraigosa. Both papers more or less acknowledge the other mayor is the only alternative choice who comes close to getting their endorsement.

I agree with them and I am torn. Originally I had been supporting Newsom but on reflection I realize part of that is because, living in LA, I was confronted with Villaraigosa's struggles and ambiguities up close while Newsom's were remote and at a distance. So now I'm not sure.

What are fellow California peeps thoughts on the primary for governor?
posted by Justinian at 5:45 PM on May 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

Mod note: The Melania thing seems to have run what course it could. Let's move on. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 5:52 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

but we can’t protect people differently based on our perceived assessment of their susceptibility.

We could put a hard cap on the protection budget and legally compel the protectees to abide by the directives of the Secret Service within the parameters of the budgeted protection during the President's term.

There's a real simple solution to both of these problems that every other president has followed.

Divestment.

We shouldn't be paying unlimited funds to secure the President's comically enormous target of a commercial property that also happens to house his personal penthouse, because it should be illegal for him to continue owning that property while serving in public office. Same for his golf course. And his hotels. This is a simple issue that's only complicated because Republicans refuse to enforce any semblance of oversight.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:53 PM on May 30, 2018 [75 favorites]

Newsom is slick and ambitious, but Villaraigosa is gross. Not just the personal life stuff, but his shilling for Herbalife, payday vendors and other interests that exploit his Latino base.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:54 PM on May 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

What are fellow California peeps thoughts on the primary for governor?

My vote's for Klement Tinaj. I like his policies regarding sweet roundhouse kicks; a topic on which his opponents are conspicuously silent.

Truthfully I'm leaning Newsom, but I have to admit that it's more motivated by name recognition than I'd like. I have a lot more reading to do, particularly about Villaraigosa.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 5:56 PM on May 30, 2018

Newsom is slick and slimy. He’s had everything handed to him and played a relatively uneducated-sounding attempt at being a lefty with absolutely no street cred to back it up.

I don’t know much about Villaraigosa, so I have some reading to do on him.

I do know that whoever wins CA has a shot at the White House, and I’m squicked out by the idea that Newsom might be the Dem’s version of Trump, ugh.
posted by samthemander at 6:01 PM on May 30, 2018

Living in SF, I was confronted with Newsom's struggles and ambiguities up close (literally; at one point I lived two blocks away) while Villaraigosa's were remote and at a distance.

Which is to say, yeah, I'm not crazy excited about either of the two choices who have any real shot at winning. They've both done gross things, personally and professionally. And while I don't care a ton about the personal, that he combined the two isn't so great. I admire Newsom's efforts to take bold stands on where we should be going (gay marriage, marijuana legalization (eventually), now single-payer). Dave Talbot had a good column last year (before the Chronicle stopped paying him, despite him being the best thing they had going for them in years) on why Newsom can make progressives queasy, including his past obstinance on sanctuary city policy (Newsome's views have evolved there).

Art Agnos, a former progressive mayor of SF, summed up Newsom as:

“I call Gavin the greatest one-night stand in politics. He looks great, he talks great. But you wake up the next morning and you ask yourself, ‘What was that all about?’”

He talks a good game, and the follow-through is rather eh.
posted by zachlipton at 6:03 PM on May 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

Ca Gov: John Chiang

No hope of making the runoff, but clearly the best choice.
posted by notyou at 6:16 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

It'd been a while since Zinke'd done something disgusting. Literally days!

Interior Secretary Doubles Down On ‘Konnichiwa’ Comment To Hanabusa

“I grew up in a little logging, timber town, railroad town in Montana and a lot of my family lived through the years of the internment camps. I’ve long since had friends that were Japanese families that went through that,” Zinke told Breitbart Radio.

There was in fact Japanese internment in Montana, and his attempt to garner sympathy with his white family's plight of living around the camps is near-equivalent to "my grandfather died in the Holocaust: he fell off a guard tower." If you look into his eyes when he tries to mimic empathy, you can see his nictitating membranes flicker.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:18 PM on May 30, 2018 [70 favorites]

Both Newsom and Villaraigosa have histories of cheating on their spouses. I'm not standing in judgement, but I think it reflects poorly on their character and integrity. I voted (early) for Chiang.

In the end, of course, I'm voting for the Democratic candidate. May the Republicans keep their third party status in California for a few more decades!
posted by SPrintF at 6:49 PM on May 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

CA Governor: League of Pissed-Off Voters endorses Delaine Eastin. Harvey Milk Club also endorses Eastin.

Personally, I always really liked Newsom, especially after he chose to recognize same-sex marriage in San Francisco, but I know he has a lot of shortcomings and a lot of people who have paid more attention have more complaints than I do. Haven't decided yet who gets my vote on Tuesday.
posted by kristi at 7:07 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

I admire Newsom's efforts to take bold stands on where we should be going (gay marriage, marijuana legalization (eventually), now single-payer).

This is more or less why I like him and I'm sure distance makes his obvious opportunism more palatable. But seriously, watch the Herbalife expose documentary, Betting on Zero. (I suspect it was partially funded by Herbalife's antagonists, but still.) And then consider that Villaraigosa was still defending them recently. That is really gravely fucked up. From the LAT article I linked:

In the final four months of 2013, Villaraigosa was paid $162,500 by Herbalife, according to his tax return for that year. He worked for the company until August 2016, shortly before he launched his gubernatorial bid. From 2014 to 2016, he earned nearly $3.5 million in consulting fees from multiple companies. Because he was compensated through a multi-member limited liability company and was not required to disclose how much each client paid for his services, it is not clear how much of that money came from Herbalife.

...

Newsom accused Villaraigosa of "shilling" for the company when the matter was raised during a recent debate at UCLA. He said Villaraigosa cashed in after serving two terms as mayor by working for a company known for "predatory practices against communities of color."

Villaraigosa forcefully defended the company, arguing that it offered opportunities to make ends meet for people in disadvantaged communities.

"… they give people a shot at building, if not a small business, at least a little extra income on a monthly basis," Villaraigosa told La Opinión in November. "My mother sold Tupperware and Avon, I know why Latinos and blacks do it: They need a few extra bucks. It's called a multiple-level marketing company. That's what Tupperware is, what Avon is — they've been around for 30 years. Pyramid schemes aren't around for 30 years."

Bullshit. Lots of scams manage to stick around. Herbalife was just fined $200M for their business practices by the FTC. A slap on the wrist relatively, but still.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:11 PM on May 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Great meeting with @KimKardashian today, talked about prison reform and sentencing.

Wait wait wait - if you didn't see the picture, it's such a fascinating dignity wraith shot, I'm beginning to wonder if it's some next-level commentary shit. Ms. Kardashian looks every bit like The Grim Reaper, in a simple midnight-black robe and a beryllium-steel glare under a dark flow of hair.

Bewigged Trump mugs for the literal one-millionth time in a year, and the composition is misaligned and distant. He is oblivious and shitnicient as the CCD reels in Kim's soul with a hissing of circuits, overlaid by a cheery sounding retro click.

It may not be the Nixon/Elvis photo we have of Romney, but. It is . . . *chef kiss*
posted by petebest at 7:13 PM on May 30, 2018 [16 favorites]

I remain completely unimpressed by Gavin Newsom, who just yesterday was quoted as suggesting that "Dems should root for GOP candidate to make fall ballot" (SF Chronicle). He's just so much a part of that old-school SF political/social elite world, super rich, close family friends with the Gettys, yes, obviously opportunistic and I can't forget all his gross behavior from back in the day either. On the other hand, everybody I know in LA hates Villaraigosa.

So I was super excited to learn about Delaine Eastin, former state schools chief. I also think John Chiang seems pretty solid but everything I've read from/about Delaine Eastin and her vision has left me actually inspired and excited to vote on Tuesday!
posted by KatlaDragon at 7:16 PM on May 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

Depending on how you feel about tactical voting it should be noted that the current polling in CA indicates that Newsom is in the lead among Democrats with Villaraigosa second. Chiang is third and Eastin is a very distant fourth. The top Republican is polling in between Newsom and Villaraigosa.

The top two advance to the general regardless of party. (heck of a job California).
posted by Justinian at 7:18 PM on May 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

Politico, Email snafu reveals White House outreach to Obama and Clinton alumni

But when it comes to selling Trump’s Iran strategy and other foreign policy initiatives, the White House has been blasting out its talking points to an uncharacteristically inclusive list of foreign policy heavyweights – including former Obama administration officials, advisers to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and critics who have publicly accused Trump of being, across the board, “bad at playing president.”

An unusual peek at the White House list of “influencers” came courtesy of communications aide Kelly Sadler, who failed to blind-copy recipients in a May 22 email blast highlighting the administration’s new Iran strategy. The email, reviewed by POLITICO, suggested to its recipients ways to amplify the White House’s message and show support.

But many who received the email said they were left deeply confused about what the White House expected them to do with the information.

“I’m baffled,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a liberal nuclear weapons expert and blistering Trump critic, who leveled the “bad at being president” critique at the president on Twitter.
...
Some of the unlikely recipients said it’s not unusual for a White House to send background briefings to experts in the field, even if they don’t agree with the policies it is promoting – but it was the paper-thin level of content that was more troubling to those people than the recipient list.

Medeiros noted that when he served in the Obama administration, such emails would typically be distributed before a policy decision had been announced and covered, and tried to lay out a persuasive case to experts to understand the administration’s thinking – not simply suggesting fan tweets.

This story seems to serve mainly to throw Sadler under the bus given the ongoing Sadler/Schlapp war (it's going quite poorly), and reaching out to even critics would be a remarkably sensible thing for this administration to do despite their worst instincts, but of course they have to screw it up by not BCCing and filling them with vapid nonsense. And once you're to the point that you're emailing Jeffrey Lewis your talking points, just make them public for crying out loud.
posted by zachlipton at 7:22 PM on May 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

So on the JCPL scale, how many nightmares should I be having of Dems splitting the vote in one of the CA House races and being frozen out of the top two?
posted by zachlipton at 7:23 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

In at least one winnable House race in California? 1/2 on pessimistic days, 1/3 on optimistic ones.
posted by Justinian at 7:25 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah for some of the major statewide races (Governor, Senate) I'm planning to vote for the #2 Democrat. While obviously my solo vote isn't going to tip anything, it would be nice to have the top-ticket races be D v D (given the likely effects on GOP voting and thus downballot races --- GOP has no hope of winning Governor or Senate elections regardless of whether they end up with a candidate on the fall ballot).
posted by thefoxgod at 7:30 PM on May 30, 2018

Uh, that's obviously the chances I give for it happening not how many nightmares you should have. 50% on high JCPL days and 33% on low JCPL. It would take a lot of convincing to get me to believe the odds are much higher or lower than that range at present though the error bars are indeed considerable.
posted by Justinian at 7:31 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

That's potentially going to produce more than an average of one-third to one-half of a nightmare per night. >:/
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:36 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

"“I was totally supportive of [the players] until Trump made his statement,” Stephen Ross, the Miami Dolphins’ owner and creator of programs advocating for social justice, said in his deposition. Noting that owners’ conversations with Mr. Trump were relayed during a league meeting, he said: “I thought he changed the dialogue.”"

Way to turn a dumb-ass corporate decision/PR nightmare with a union/management dispute into a legit First Amendment issue, you fucking dumbass. Now the players can make a very cogent claim that the government is limiting their speech and that any fines the NFL levies against them or their teams is at the behest of the president attempting to control and limit their political speech. Great work, everyone!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:39 PM on May 30, 2018 [116 favorites]

Ooh, ooh! Is this where I get to share the SF League of Pissed-Off Voters' opening to their summary of Gavin Newsom, because truly it is a thing of beauty:

This substanceless gladhander has been flashing fake smiles, pretending to be progressive for the cameras, and generally leaving a slime trail of hair gel behind him since we fought against his crappy mayoral antics here in SF.

I organized a "what's on your ballot" forum through my community group this past weekend, and I made one of my friends present the summary for the governor's race because we're funded by a nonprofit (so can't be partisan) and I knew that whatever I said, my loathing for that man would come through loud and clear. I admit that a lot of it is sheer irrational rage and has nothing to do with policy. If (as most likely will happen) he becomes Governor, everything will be fine and good in California. I can't even get that upset about the idea of him running for President, given our current situation. But ugh.

I voted for Chiang (again, the internalized racism makes me feel bad about this, but I think we could do worse than keep with Jerry Brown's record of fiscal responsibility and also he is NOT GAVIN NEWSOM). My boyfriend is new to voting and pretty overwhelmed by the whole process; he threatened to vote for the guy whose listed occupation was "Puppeteer" but eventually went with Delaine Eastin because of her support for funding early childhood education (he teaches preschool).
posted by sunset in snow country at 7:56 PM on May 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

Illinois approves Equal Rights Amendment, 36 years after deadline

The Illinois House voted Wednesday night to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment more than 45 years after it was approved by Congress, putting it one state away from possible enshrinement in the U.S. Constitution amid potential legal questions.

The 72-45 vote by the House, following an April vote by the Senate, was just one more vote than needed for ratification. It does not need the approval of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has said he supports equal rights but was faulted by Democrats for not taking a position on the ERA.
...
Opponents also contended the measure may be moot, since its original 1982 ratification deadline has long since expired. Supporters argued, however, that the 1992 ratification of the 1789 “Madison Amendment,” preventing midterm changes in congressional pay, makes the ERA a legally viable change to the constitution.

posted by zachlipton at 8:05 PM on May 30, 2018 [47 favorites]

Romney reveals he wrote in wife's name for president in 2016

I hope you relive your David-Lynch-directed meatloafing every night, asshole. I hope that in your dream you look down, away from his satanic visage, only to meet the baleful, accusatory stare of the scallops on your plate. You will always be here, the scallops say.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:06 PM on May 30, 2018 [40 favorites]

I like Delaine Eastin (she's a local, I've liked hearing her speak, good past reputation when I was growing up) but am wondering if there is a point in voting for someone who's that far down on the polls. On the other hand, the top two sound like they're both shitty letdowns compared to the awesome second term of Jerry Brown. But I'll probably be stuck picking one of them anyway in the future, yay. It's gonna be "which one is least awful?"

I am not real enthused at my voting options some terms. There's one local issue here that's huge and I cannot fucking decide about it because both sides make the options sound terrible.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:33 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Romney reveals he wrote in wife's name for president in 2016

Even as he recognised that Trump was unacceptable he couldn't vote for the only viable alternative. Even his rebellions are grey and ineffective.
posted by jaduncan at 8:36 PM on May 30, 2018 [55 favorites]

Trump pal Jerry Jones probably owes most (all?) of his team's great success in the 1990s to Herschel Walker: the Cowboys traded Walker and some other players/picks to the Minnesota Vikings for some of their players and a pile of draft picks, one of which was used to draft future hall of famer Emmit Smith (among others).

Absolutely. Dallas won an insane 3 Super Bowls in four years (1992-5) under two different coaches. (Jerry Jones was such a tool that Jimmy Johnson quit after winning two SBs in a row.) But they've been relentlessly mediocre since then, essentially a .500 team in a fairly weak division.
posted by msalt at 8:45 PM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

FWIW, primary polling is usually pretty crappy, and we've seen some pretty goofy ones of this race. It's relatively clear that Newsom is in the lead, I could see any of several people pulling the second slot.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:25 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm supposed to tell everyone to vote Delaine Eastin for governor and Gayle McLaughlin for lt. gov, and they're both good candidates and I don't think there's a risk of a split-D-primary all-R-general situation in either race, but it's hard to get motivated about such a couple of long shots. Gayle in particular is awesome and I really want to see her career progress, but my main takeaway as a noob CA DSA member is that the California left needs to get its shit together. I'm particularly sick about the hopelessly fragmented field of people primarying Feinstein. It was never going to be easy, but I think a single candidate to her left with broad progressive support would've had a real shot. Instead we've got De Leon who supports single payer but is apparently still Not Pure Enough, then behind him it's just a dead heat of dead-ender vanity campaigns squabbling amongst themselves and sapping enthusiasm from the race.

Anyway Gayle is awesome, vote for her.
posted by contraption at 9:27 PM on May 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

zachlipton: "So on the JCPL scale, how many nightmares should I be having of Dems splitting the vote in one of the CA House races and being frozen out of the top two?"

Eh, it's hard to say. As noted above, primary polling in general is not great, and House polling in general is not great, so primary polling of House races equals feh. There's three races we're talking about here (39, 48, 49), so it wouldn't surprise me if we got locked out of one. On the other hand there's a shot the GOP gets locked out of 49. The DCCC has been doing what it can to consolidate support behind one candidate per race, but if people won't drop out, there's only so much you can do.

[I am not Justinian, although I admire his leadership of the Eastern Roman Empire]
posted by Chrysostom at 9:30 PM on May 30, 2018 [28 favorites]

The archbishop of Constantinople would know of what he speaks.
posted by Justinian at 9:38 PM on May 30, 2018 [29 favorites]

Also, fun reminder that we may not know the results of close CA primary races for days. One race in 2016 took over two weeks for a final result.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:52 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

There’s a bit of a problem in Ca 48 (Rohrabacher) and that’s that one Dem (Kierstead) (my preference) has the state party endorsement, and it says so on the first page of the ballot guide, while another Dem (Rouda) (who I’ll actually vote for, because he) has practically every other endorsement of any worth. Kierstead is probably the more progressive of the two (Rouda used to be a Republican), but failed to win over the local indivisibles and everyone else. The state party really screwed up.

I think/hope Rouda will finish in the top two, but that changes moment to moment.

Maybe let’s end the jungle primary.
posted by notyou at 10:12 PM on May 30, 2018

As a progressive queer San Franciscan, I have never yet voted for Newsom and I am really not looking forward to holding my nose and voting for him in November. I haven't decided about my primary vote. I like Eastin the best, and I appreciate the strategic goal of a Dem v Dem race, which would lead to voting for Villaraigosa. Whatever you do, please do not mistake Newsom's support for same-sex marriage or for cannabis legalization as anything resembling progressive politics.

I'm also really happy to see the League of Progressive Voters get so much love on here! They have the best voter guide around.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:17 PM on May 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

CA-48 is the one that kills me. What the hell is Siddiqui thinking? Is he just a narcissist? Oatman did the right thing, if possibly a little late, and threw her support behind one of the top 2 Democrats. I think Siddiqui is deliberately acting as a spoiler.
posted by Justinian at 10:36 PM on May 30, 2018

I liked what I heard about Newsom until he did that curious Harper's Bazaar photoshoot; it's been kinda meh from there. He'll be a reliable Dem but not much left-er than that.

I guess I'll vote my conscience for the primary.
posted by Standard Orange at 11:00 PM on May 30, 2018

Romney reveals he wrote in wife's name for president in 2016

Even as he recognised that Trump was unacceptable he couldn't vote for the only viable alternative. Even his rebellions are grey and ineffective.

Exactly. That might be the Romneyest thing he's ever Romneyed.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:02 AM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

Kathy Griffin posted a reflection of sorts on the one-year anniversary of the release of that photo, which Sanders also mentioned from the briefing room today as part of a litany of grievances of things people haven't apologized to Trump for, a list she prepared to respond to questions about Roseanne.

It's a bit of a hard read, and some of it is hard to swallow given the photo, but her account of the death threats after the President tweeted, the First Lady questioned her mental health, and Don Jr said "she deserves everything that's coming to her" is compelling. And this is worth remembering no matter how you feel about her:

we need to keep track of when Trump goes after people. Don't just react at the moment, make sure people are ok days, months later.

posted by zachlipton at 1:20 AM on May 31, 2018 [48 favorites]

Trump had Griffin federally investigated and placed on no fly lists as well, as if she were a serious assassination threat. It cost her dearly in lawyer fees as well as threatened her ability to travel and perform, not to mention her sanity. He put the cost of his petty revenge on the taxpayer, as he does with everything.

Watching Trump complain about not getting an apology is like watching Melania complain about social bullying. The cognitive dissonance is jaw dropping. Think about all the incredibly nasty things this guy has said for years without apology, the least of which being that Obama isn't a U.S. citizen and Hillary should be put in jail.

Trump's President of the United States. He wakes up bitter and angry and then bitches and moans for the rest of the day every day to the entire nation about how everyone in the world has treated him unfairly, and how he'll make them pay.
posted by xammerboy at 1:57 AM on May 31, 2018 [106 favorites]

Trump's President of the United States. He wakes up bitter and angry and then bitches and moans for the rest of the day every day to the entire nation about how everyone in the world has treated him unfairly, and how he'll make them pay.

Just always remember that the proper functioning of the USA is less important to him than his narcissistic injuries.
posted by jaduncan at 5:19 AM on May 31, 2018 [27 favorites]

Even as he recognised that Trump was unacceptable he couldn't vote for the only viable alternative.

In Utah, that would have been Evan McMullin, but your point still stands.
posted by corb at 5:30 AM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

jaduncan: Even as he recognised that Trump was unacceptable he couldn't vote for the only viable alternative.

corb: In Utah, that would have been Evan McMullin, but your point still stands.

Out of curiosity I checked, and that's close but not quite it -- in Utah, Clinton got 27.46% and McMullin 21.54%.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:53 AM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Clinton was the viable alternative. McMullin was never going to take the presidency. If more Mormons had voted according to their purported values Utah would not have gone to Trump. Instead, they supported a sleazy, lying, misogynist adulterer, and he won the state by an 18 point margin.
posted by zarq at 5:56 AM on May 31, 2018 [73 favorites]

Also, McMullin is an anti-woman scumbag that wants to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe v Wade, a former Goldman-Sachs exec who gets upset when anyone wants to tax the rich more, and a former CIA agent. His policy regarding public lands is far more in line with violent wackjobs like the Bundys than anyone else. He supports privatization of wide swaths of public services, including the VA and most or all of the public school system. He wants to gut the social safety net and then make it harder for anyone to have access to it. He wants to appoint more "originalists" (read: bigots and corporate pawns) to the SCOTUS, specifically more like Scalia and Thomas (his words). He supports racist, anti-democratic (and anti-Democrat) voter suppression policies. Despite his claims that he believes in anthropogenic climate change, he refuses to support any legislation or regulation that would fix the problem. He does support fracking, increased offshore drilling, and defunding alternative power subsidies.

Evan McMullin isn't your friend, folks. He isn't even actually a Third Way-style "moderate." He's just the right-wing fringe dressed up to look appealing to NeverTrumpers that are desperate for any way to remain conservatives without ever accepting responsibility for their conservatism getting us here in the first place.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:24 AM on May 31, 2018 [68 favorites]

He’s pardoning Dinesh D’Sousa

[Real]
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:31 AM on May 31, 2018 [17 favorites]

Can we still refer to him as "Convicted Felon Dinesh D'Souza" or does that fall away once pardoned?
posted by PenDevil at 6:34 AM on May 31, 2018 [11 favorites]

Can we still refer to him as "Convicted Felon Dinesh D'Souza" or does that fall away once pardoned?

He was still convicted. A pardon is expressly saying "You did this, but we're done with punishing you for it."
posted by Etrigan at 6:36 AM on May 31, 2018 [23 favorites]

Can we still refer to him as "Convicted Felon Dinesh D'Souza" or does that fall away once pardoned?

My understanding is that a pardon carries with it an inferred guilt. So yeah, I'm not stopping that particular epithet.
posted by Twain Device at 6:36 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

A pardon for someone on the religious right involved in illicit election funding and resultant perjury to the FEC? Subtle.
posted by jaduncan at 6:36 AM on May 31, 2018 [37 favorites]

Per the President’s twitter.

The pardon is probably the Presidential power best suited to his stupid narcissism: folks plea for his favor and grace and then he gets to grant them it. (And it doesn’t cost him anything.)

This just gets better and better.
posted by notyou at 6:37 AM on May 31, 2018 [12 favorites]

Also another signal to Manafort and whoever else that they’ll get pardoned too if they stay loyal. It’s not subtle, he’s going to pardon everyone including maybe himself if Republicans let him, and they will if we can’t retake congress.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:42 AM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

This is off-topic but I wanted to warn people about protesting with little old ladies. When something happens at a protest that requires people to move around, I like to pretend that my wheelchair keeps me rooted in place because I don't know, I'm antisocial. At last week Tuesday's with Toomey, there were all these little old ladies were there and when the group was exhorted to perform the chicken dance, these little old ladies made sure I was participating as best as I could. When I smiled and shrugged down at my wheelchair, one said sweetly, 'just take the brakes off, dear.' I was like fuck
posted by angrycat at 6:50 AM on May 31, 2018 [74 favorites]

I think this is aimed squarely at Cohen.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:50 AM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

Stay classy Mr. Predisent

On May 20, 2014, D'Souza pleaded guilty in federal court to one charge of using a "straw donor" to make an illegal campaign contribution to a 2012 United States Senate campaign, a felony.[5] On September 23, he was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house near his home in San Diego, five years probation, and a $30,000 fine.[13][14]

In 2016, D'Souza released a documentary film and book, both entitled Hillary's America, in which he offers his version of the history of the Democratic Party. D'Souza's films have been the subject of considerable controversy, including criticism for espousing conspiracy theories and other unsubstantiated representations of fact.[15][16]

Mmmmm presidential. Has he done Ollie North yet? Jim Bakker? It's like a pungent 80's fever dream. Like a Ted Nugent album with a wig.
posted by petebest at 6:51 AM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

First the D'Souza pardon.

And now breaking reports that he has in fact hit Canada, Mexico, and the EU with aluminum and steel tariffs.

And other reports are surfacing that he is talking about a total ban of German luxury cars.

How is every day stupider than the last.
posted by marshmallow peep at 6:55 AM on May 31, 2018 [41 favorites]

And now they announce that Canada, Mexico, and the EU to face tariffs on steel and aluminum, starting tomorrow.

This is shaping up to be quite a day!
posted by notyou at 6:58 AM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

Has he done Ollie North yet? Jim Bakker?

Dennis Hastert.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:59 AM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

{I stepped away from my keyboard to fill up on coffee in the middle of composing this post, and I've now been sandbagged by Trump's tweeting a presidential pardon for that assclown D'Souza in my absence. I imagine that journalists constantly experience this, except they have to spike perfectly good news articles just to keep pace with Trump's unpredictability. The only way we're going to be able to fight him effectively is by taking back the initiative of the news cycle from him, which is the one major advantage he has left.}

Griffin, while her explanation of her thinking behind that photo stunt is not entirely convincing, makes a very good point about the ways Trump uses his Twitter besides in reaction to narcissistic injury:

The way I like to look at it is Trump is the most powerful news director and campaign director. A tweet from Obama was just a message..a tweet from Trump is an order to his millions of followers and the news media. And that day I was the target of that order.

With that in mind, Trump's morning orders consists of quoting Rush Limbaugh's repeat of the lie that the FBI never contacted Trump about Russian infiltration of his campaign, denying he fired Comey over Russia (in predictable reaction to the NYT story), attacking the "Corrupt Mainstream Media" (ditto), and demanding an apology from Disney CEO Robert Iger for assorted grievances.

That last item is particularly ominous after the WSJ's revelations about Trump pressuring the NFL: Not only does Disney control a major news network, whose 1st Amendment rights are now potentially at stake, but the corporation is also trying to close a major acquisition of News Corp IP that will have to pass the DoJ Antitrust Division's review. Naturally the press are carrying stories about Trump's demand to Iger, because anything he tweets is news by dint of the office he holds, but more tellingly, Hamilton 68 shows Russian-aligned Twitter accounts have picked up Iger as a trending topic. As of this morning, Trump's Internet troll army has now received their target for this news cycle.

But now Murdoch's WSJ breaks into the news cycle with the scoop: U.S. Plans to Hit EU With Steel, Aluminum Tariffs

{Motherfucker!}
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2018 [20 favorites]

Also another signal to Manafort and whoever else that they’ll get pardoned too if they stay loyal. It’s not subtle, he’s going to pardon everyone including maybe himself if Republicans let him, and they will if we can’t retake congress.

Yes. I have wondered at what point the selective use of the pardon power is itself obstruction of justice, but I have to think the courts would be extremely dubious about going out on that much of a limb when this is clearly intended to be within the purview of Congressional oversight via impeachment.
posted by jaduncan at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

And other reports are surfacing that he is talking about a total ban of German luxury cars.

That's not going to play well at Mar-a-Lago.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

(The luxe car ban seems more like hearsay of Trump bluster during a meeting with Macron, and not a serious (to the extent anything Trump does is serious) proposal.)

Cripes. Did Wilbur Ross stuff Steve Mnuchin in a box or something?
posted by notyou at 7:01 AM on May 31, 2018

I think this is aimed squarely at Cohen.

Given that D'Souza was prosecuted by the SDNY, the same office that is currently investigating Cohen, it is absolutely aimed at Cohen, as well as to create "doubt" (i.e., "an excuse") in people's minds that the SDNY office has a history of unfairly targeting Republicans.
posted by Etrigan at 7:02 AM on May 31, 2018 [47 favorites]

For some good news this morning, Bloomberg analyzed Trump's financial disclosure against their Bloomberg Billionaires Index and concluded that Trump’s net worth has slid to $2.8 billion, the lowest since his campaign. "President Donald Trump’s net worth slipped to $2.8 billion, a decline of $100 million over the past year, as revenue at his namesake Fifth Avenue tower and golf courses fell. The drop, the second in two years, [...] occurred as Trump began his second year in the White House and his name was stripped from buildings in Toronto, Manhattan and Panama."

Bloomberg also slips in this veiled criticism about his shady finances: "Trump’s net worth could be higher than estimated if he owns assets or has received payments that aren’t publicly known[...]. It could be lower if he has undisclosed debts or partners, or if companies for which only top-line revenue figures are reported are unprofitable."

Perhaps this explains why Trump is throwing shit at the news cycle's fan to start the day.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:12 AM on May 31, 2018 [25 favorites]

Daniel Dale:

Told that Canada's government says that it's absurd that Canada poses a national security threat - national security being the official rationale here - Commerce Sec Wilbur Ross says, "Governments will say what they say.”

Some facts:
- The U.S. is the destination for 90% of Canada's steel exports, more than $5 billion per year
- Canada is the #1 source of U.S. steel imports, representing 17%
- The Canadian steel industry is concentrated in Ontario (Hamilton, the Soo), aluminum industry in Quebec

The EU has a very detailed list of US products it plans to retaliate against, including steel, bourbon, rice, beans, jeans, motor boats, makeup, and orange juice. Canada has not specified plans yet; government has said it's contemplating several options.

The official justification for the tariffs is national security. Wilbur Ross flatly says Canada and Mexico are getting hit because NAFTA talks have stalled.

posted by zombieflanders at 7:12 AM on May 31, 2018 [29 favorites]

A D'Souza pardon isn't just a message to his underlings that you get a pardon, you get a pardon, everybody gets a pardon.

It's also a message of support for the kind of person whose ex-wife would say "it was my husband who physically abused me in April 2012 when he, using his purple belt karate skills, kicked me in the head and shoulder, knocking me to the ground and creating injuries that pain me to this day.”

And a specific message that election fraud will not be punished.

It's as if he's doing a test-run of pardoning himself.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:25 AM on May 31, 2018 [49 favorites]

Well, these tariffs just made me get off my ass and order the new dishwasher we've been needing to purchase. So, thanks Trump?

(Also, as a dual Canadian-American, am I now an enemy of the state? I've always wanted to be a badass!)
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:25 AM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

> we need to keep track of when Trump goes after people. Don't just react at the moment, make sure people are ok days, months later.

If it were an organized effort it could be called the Public Service, an organization dedicated to protecting people *from* the President.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:33 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Canada and Mexico were exempted from the steel tariffs back in March. So unless there's a major new national security issue which has arisen since then, yeah, it's NAFTA talks.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:37 AM on May 31, 2018

@realDonaldTrump
Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia! The Corrupt Mainstream Media loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know it is not true!

That's a very loud "not that it matters." We've blown way past the "no obstruction" marker and the "I can't be charged with obstruction" marker and are heading straight for "you can't prove it's treason" and "watch me pardon myself for treason."
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:42 AM on May 31, 2018 [34 favorites]

The EU has a very detailed list of US products it plans to retaliate against, including steel, bourbon, rice, beans, jeans, motor boats, makeup, and orange juice. Canada has not specified plans yet; government has said it's contemplating several options.

Of course they do. Trump's been threatening them with this for months -- the original estimate for these tariffs was that they would trigger first week of April -- in a misguided (stupid) attempt to gain trade agreement concessions. The EU will probably file a trade dispute with the WTO over this, which the US will lose, because we're now violating our rules and agreements.

This is unfortunately more evidence that we can't be trusted to uphold our agreements when Republicans are in power. It makes negotiating effectively with powers that do not view us favorably much more difficult.
posted by zarq at 7:43 AM on May 31, 2018 [15 favorites]

Yeah, Trump admitted he fired Comey because of Russia on television. We're beyond ordinary-grade lying and into pure black-is-white, we-have-always-been-at-war-with-Eastasia doublespeak. And he's doing it solely so his supporters will rally around him when the charges finally drop.
posted by Gelatin at 7:55 AM on May 31, 2018 [42 favorites]

On another note, the New York Post cover today reaches new lows in pretty much everything. #45 will like it though. Link to The Hill’s coverage not the Post.
posted by njohnson23 at 7:59 AM on May 31, 2018

In light of the D'Souza pardon I think we should all thank Kim Kardashian for her work yesterday guiding the President on prison sentencing.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:01 AM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

The pardon would mark the latest instance of Trump deviating from the normal pardon process.

Generally, those seeking pardons must wait five years from the date they are released from confinement before becoming eligible, and they must apply to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. D’Souza does not have an application on file, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.

It hasn't been five years since his sentencing.

Remember back when the so-called "Tea Party" types were all in a froth about how Obama was supposedly a tyrant authoritarian who abused the executive order process and usurped Constitutional authority? (Narrator: He didn't.)
posted by Gelatin at 8:10 AM on May 31, 2018 [36 favorites]

I'm also really happy to see the League of Progressive Voters get so much love on here! They have the best voter guide around

Did you mean the League of Pissed-Off Voters? The only League of Progressive Voter guide I have been able to find is from 2016. Being in CA, but not SF, I’m looking for additional voting info.
posted by greermahoney at 8:21 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

My first reaction to the "not that it matters, but..." tweet was that there's no way Trump actually remembers that Holt interview, especially since Fox News isn't exactly replaying it around the clock. My second reaction is to wonder if he remembers firing Comey at all.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:25 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Like, he definitely knows it happened, but I suspect it might be in the same way that I know I was in the second grade but couldn't tell you a single thing about it.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:28 AM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

Depressing paper of the day:

White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy [NBC] [NYT]

Social intolerance embodies an unwillingness to associate or fraternize with individuals whose cultural, racial, or religious ideas or ways differ from one’s own group. Such prejudice is a particularly thorny problem in the context of democracy, which is predicated upon extending representational access to all citizens irrespective of race or creed. To what extent, then, does this social intolerance affect individuals’ support for democratic institutions? Using World Values Surveys from 1995 to 2011, we find that intolerance toward cultural, ethnic, or racial ‘others’ reduces the value that white Americans assign to democracy. Perhaps more troubling, these attitudes also increase white individuals’ openness to undemocratic alternatives – white Americans who exhibit social intolerance are more likely to dismiss the value of separation of powers and to support army rule. We close with a discussion of how our analyses inform American politics in the age of Trump and how political scientists can better understand the connection between social intolerance and anti-democratic orientations.

Manuscript
Appendix
Replication materials

PS: I wasn't sure if this should be an FPP. Views on that?
posted by jaduncan at 8:32 AM on May 31, 2018 [25 favorites]

Some encouraging news via Political Wire: Most Young Adults Are Planning to Vote In 2018

A new AP-NORC/MTV poll finds a majority of young adults who will be old enough to vote in 2018 say they are planning to.

The study found the group highly motivated by the political environment. Forty percent said they felt extremely or very angry about the state of the country and 36% said they felt anxious. Only 13% said they felt positive, with 9% saying they were excited about the state of the country.

My older daughter and her friends, for what it's worth, seem fired up to go vote this November.
posted by Gelatin at 8:33 AM on May 31, 2018 [36 favorites]

There has to be some way to make Donald confront the Holt clip, just as Rudy was shown the clip of himself talking about subpoenas. If another press conference ever happens, a reporter should play it over their phone. My guess is that he'd react exactly the same way -- call it "Unfair!" or similar, but never clarify how his statements could possibly mesh together.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:33 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Did D'Souza violate New York State law? Does the NYS AG now have standing to go after him?
posted by schmod at 8:34 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I mean, I think we all know exactly what two words he'd use to describe it.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:35 AM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

At the risk of apostasy, Trump seems to be talking about the Russia probe in the context that it makes it a bad time to fire Comey (because of the optics), and not that he fired Comey because Comey wouldn’t end the investigation.

Of course, Trump doesn’t speak clearly and often shifts among cover stories, which makes it difficult to track WTF he may mean to say.
posted by notyou at 8:49 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

greermahoney and other California voters, you might want to take a look at the National Nurses United voter recommendations. They don't cover everything but I do respect their opinion. At every East Bay political thing I went to before I moved, NNU was always there with a bunch of nurses wearing red and lobbying for Medicare for All.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:51 AM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

New Reuters-Ipsos poll has Trump's approval at 39%, almost 8 points lower than a week ago. Change in methods maybe?
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:52 AM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe, if you read it in isolation, but then he told the Russian ambassador that firing Comey took "great pressure" off him personally. And all this was after he repeatedly told Comey in private that the investigation was making it difficult for him to do his job (unclear what he thinks his job is) and urged him to “lift the cloud” cast by the investigation.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:53 AM on May 31, 2018 [11 favorites]

Not sure if this is different from the story posted above but...

Andrew McCabe turned over his memo on Comey's firing to Robert Mueller

In the meeting, Rosenstein said President Donald Trump had initially asked him to reference the Russia investigation. Rosenstein ultimately authored a controversial memo outlining the ways Comey had flouted Justice Department protocols leading up to the 2016 election but did not mention the Russia probe.

The source confirmed to CNN that McCabe's memo recounting this meeting with Rosenstein, as well as an early draft of Trump's letter firing Comey, has been turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller. What exactly Trump's draft letter says and when it was turned over remain unclear.
posted by Twain Device at 8:54 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Pool report: "Trump said he is strongly considering a commutation of the rest of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s sentence." - Sam Stein on Twitter

Fucking Blagojevich! It's honest to god too bad that he actually absorbed like a fraction of what Kim K was there to talk to him about, only to turn around and use his power in the most corrupt way possible.
posted by marshmallow peep at 9:01 AM on May 31, 2018 [19 favorites]

Andrew McCabe turned over his memo on Comey's firing to Robert Mueller

McCabe is at that wonderful place where opportunity, legal obligation, and simple revenge all intersect.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:01 AM on May 31, 2018 [27 favorites]

Fucking Blagojevich!

He'll pardon only dead black people and only mega-corrupt criminal Democrats.

A Blago commutation on top of a D'Souza pardon would be an act of coordinated trolling that could only be the work of Stephen Miller.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:05 AM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

Fucking Blagojevich! It's honest to god too bad that he actually absorbed like a fraction of what Kim K was there to talk to him about, only to turn around and use his power in the most corrupt way possible.

Are we assuming a Kardashian is a good person with good ideas on criminal justice here?
posted by Artw at 9:09 AM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

He's literally just pardoning people prosecuted by Comey, probably for that reason alone. This is ridiculous.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:14 AM on May 31, 2018 [41 favorites]

The specific case that was highlighted as her reason for seeking an Oval Office visit was an actual injustice -- a 61-year-old black woman serving a first-offense life sentence for her involvement in cocaine trafficking -- that would have been a good use of the pardon/commutation power.

Instead, per new reports, he's now looking at commuting Blagojevich's sentence and a pardon for Martha Stewart.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:15 AM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

Jesse Rodriguez (MSNBC): Aboard Air Force One, Trump says he's considering pardons or commuting sentences for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Martha Stewart

Matthew Miller (MSNBC): Very curious who is connecting the dots for him here. It's like he's working through a list trying to undo cases brought by either Comey or Comey's friends (Blago would be the second Pat Fitzgerald case).

Comey of course prosecuted Martha Stewart as US Attorney for the SDNY.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:15 AM on May 31, 2018 [27 favorites]

I bet there are people in the regime who are so bubbled that they expect a Blagojevich pardon to garner praise from liberals, allowing them to revel in the "hypocrisy".

Or, failing that, they'd just argue that the two pardons "cancel out". It'll be a "Don't say Trump never gets you anything, liberals!" moment.

Or they'd try turning it into a conversation about which felon's corrupt acts were worse, so that it's somehow a ~~win~~ if Dinesh were less corrupt than Rod. (He's probably more violent, though.) Like the new talking point will be "So you Democrats admit that Blago was bad! Ha!"
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:17 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

More Media matters: The news spent 10 hours on Roseanne and 30 minutes on the nearly 5000 deaths in Puerto Rico. The bar graphs are very simple, yet very damning.
posted by TwoStride at 9:17 AM on May 31, 2018 [97 favorites]

(Also the daily reminder that the offical death toll in PR is ~70 and Trump bragged about how low it was).
posted by TwoStride at 9:19 AM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

Kanye comes out of the closet & the Left is freaking out

Kanye gives a big middle finger to the left for trying to shut him up

HE DA MAN DEPT: Kanye’s political incorrectness was to point out that before @realDonaldTrump ran for prez he was an ICON among rappers

All Dinesh D'Souza tweets. I'm starting to think that Kim Kardashian actually did convince Trump to pardon him.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:20 AM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

As Trump's own lawyer characterized the interview this month,

“He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation. He’s entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that. Actually, he couldn’t get that. So, he fired him and he said, I’m free of the guy, and he went on Lester Holt. Lester Holt’s interview was as good as anybody could do, better than I think any of the people around Mueller could have done, and Lester Holt asked them, why did you do it? He said, I did it because I felt that I had to explain to the American people the president was not the target of the investigation.”

As I read that, my mind twisted around itself twice and disappeared into a black hole. ()&IOP Y*PY*{ ({U*(U*({({
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:24 AM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

> InTheYear2017:
"It'll be a "Don't say Trump never gets you anything, liberals!" moment."

The idea that Blagojevich is a cause célèbre? I don't buy it.
posted by rhizome at 9:25 AM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

New Reuters-Ipsos poll has Trump's approval at 39%, almost 8 points lower than a week ago. Change in methods maybe?

As has been pointed out before, presidential approval ratings are driven in part by public perception of how successful the administration is in implementing policy. Last week...was not a good week in that regard.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:35 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Martha is a raging Hillary supporter and friend of Snoop, there is no way he will pardon her.
posted by Sophie1 at 9:37 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also, from the L.A. Times:

She and the Republican presidential nominee fell out in 2006 when he blamed low ratings for his show “The Apprentice” on Stewart’s spinoff, “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.” He wrote a harsh letter demanding Stewart take full responsibility for the failure. She later called his actions “unforgivable.”

Stewart, a businesswoman and lifestyle mogul, said America can’t elect a leader who enters the job “totally unprepared.”

"We have to be very certain that we elect a person who has experience, knowledge, a base of education in the world of world politics as well as domestic politics,” she said. “So obviously, I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.”

posted by Sophie1 at 9:39 AM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

Did D'Souza violate New York State law? Does the NYS AG now have standing to go after him?

It's probably barred by the state's double-jeopardy law.

The state double jeopardy law generally provides that jeopardy attaches (meaning subsequent prosecutions for the same acts are barred) when a defendant pleads guilty, or when a jury is sworn in a defendant’s criminal trial.

That means the state law could be invoked if the president issues a pardon after a defendant pleads guilty to a federal crime or after the swearing in of jurors in a defendant’s federal criminal trial.

posted by BungaDunga at 9:40 AM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

@pbump: Trump explains the D'Souza pardon, per pooler @EliStokols: "I read the papers – I see him on television." On Martha Stewart: "I think to a certain extent Martha Stewart was harshly and unfairly treated. And she used to be my biggest fan in the world … before I became a politician. But that’s OK. I don’t view it that way.”

Ah, so it's personal and based on random stuff he sees on Fox News. Good to know. And yep, Comey hired Patrick Fitzgerald, who prosecuted both Blago and Scooter Libby, so this is all him working out his personal grievances through the pardon system.
posted by zachlipton at 9:40 AM on May 31, 2018 [11 favorites]

"It'll be a "Don't say Trump never gets you anything, liberals!" moment."

rhizome: The idea that Blagojevich is a cause célèbre? I don't buy it.

I can see them feeling like it ought to be. Remember, this is the crowd that delights in calling stuff "virtue signaling". They may feel that no one is actually bothered by corruption or similar crimes, and thus any liberals/Democrats who act like they think Blagojevich, a liberal/Democrat, truly belonged in prison are just acting sanctimonious -- and arguably, ungrateful.

The Trumpian regard for ethics is the same as its regard for truth -- something for weak people to hike up their nerd glasses and cry over, while mightier ones power through such obstacles. And they tend to project that mentality on others.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:43 AM on May 31, 2018 [14 favorites]

> This is all him working out his personal grievances through the pardon system.

But it was Obama who abused Executive authority.

Probably by being black - that was it, right?

I'm having one of those "I can't even" days, where news of an actual trade war with our closest partners and allies is being drowned out by #FreeMelania and Presidential trolling via the pardon power.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:45 AM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

I see that Trump has moved from only hiring people he knows or sees on TV to only pardoning people he knows or sees on TV. Now is definitely the time for Jim Cramer or whoever to finally go for whatever felony their heart desires because there's at least a 50/50 shot of being pardoned if you're someone Trump recognizes from cable news.
posted by Copronymus at 9:47 AM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

@Yamiche: President Trump on Rod Blagojich per pool: “18 yrs in jail for being stupid & saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say...What he did does not justify 18 yrs in a jail. And he’s a Democrat. ... But I thought that he was treated unfairly.”

Oh my god. Blago is on tape describing a Senate seat in these terms: "it's a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing" and "I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden."

I think this might be the most revealing statement he's ever made about how Trump sees public office as a grift. Everyone does it, so it's very unfair this guy happened to get caught.

D'Souza is handling this with his usual class: "KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned"
posted by zachlipton at 9:51 AM on May 31, 2018 [54 favorites]

President Trump on Rod Blagojich per pool: “18 yrs in jail for being stupid & saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say...What he did does not justify 18 yrs in a jail. And he’s a Democrat. ... But I thought that he was treated unfairly.”

Contrast that with his feelings on people fleeing violence or abject poverty south of the border, or American citizens reeling from their island's destruction, or people convicted of drug possession, or refugees fleeing Syria, or...

A peculiar sense of fairness and justice, to be sure.
posted by Rykey at 9:59 AM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

Then he got fired & I got pardoned

'He's principled and I'm a criminal, who's laughing now! Amirite?! ...Guys?'
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:00 AM on May 31, 2018 [63 favorites]

Psychology textbooks looking for salient examples of "projection" can use Republicans thinking that Democrats would want to see Rod Blagojevich pardoned because he's a Democrat, or thinking that liberals would be so sad to see Bill Maher's show cancelled because he's a liberal.
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:04 AM on May 31, 2018 [37 favorites]

The next Democratic President should feel free to use Trumps new precedent of pardoning by tweet without DOJ review to pardon thousands of nonviolent marijuana offenders.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:08 AM on May 31, 2018 [49 favorites]

I thought I'd seen it all with Log Cabin Republicans. I was wrong. Republicans for the Rule of Law. What will they think of next?

@BillKristol Here's the new ad from Republicans for the Rule of Law, airing on Fox and Friends and Morning Joe Thursday morning in DC.

Republicans for the Rule of Law
posted by scalefree at 10:12 AM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Republicans for the Rule of Law

Ah yes, following in the traditions of Confederates for Emancipation of Slaves.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:16 AM on May 31, 2018 [12 favorites]

Trump pardoning assholes seems like the latest manufactured trolling outrage from the outraged White House troll and grifter.

Gotta say, I also don't think he's either smart or subtle enough to send a message to Michael Cohen and other staffers hoping they won't turn on him.

Or that any of them would be dumb enough to believe he would reward loyalty with anything other than a blade in the back.
posted by zarq at 10:21 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

I was just looking up the definition of "foreshadowing" in the dictionary & found this tweet (follow link for video).

@MMFlint I know Roseanne. And I know Trump. And they are about to rue the day they knew me...
posted by scalefree at 10:26 AM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

Why do reporters keep missing the opportunities to roll with the incorrect/made up word usage to make it really pop?

"Mr. President could you tell us what you mean by "curtailments"? Do you mean the kind with mauve embellishments or those with the extemporaneous accouterments?"
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:27 AM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

Also, Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years, not eighteen (presuming that '18 years' isnt' a repeated transcription error), so that's another oddity in all of this.

Trump not bothering about the fine details before shooting his mouth off is, by far, the least odd part of it.
posted by jaduncan at 10:28 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years, not eighteen (presuming that '18 years' isnt' a repeated transcription error), so that's another oddity in all of this.

Trump has a long history of changing numbers to make them more useful for a story -- more floors in his buildings, higher trade deficits... throwing a few extra years onto a prison sentence to make it seem like more of a punishment is the exact opposite of odd.
posted by Etrigan at 10:32 AM on May 31, 2018 [12 favorites]

Also, Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years, not eighteen (presuming that '18 years' isnt' a repeated transcription error), so that's another oddity in all of this.
See . . this ^ is my problem with the 'lies' issue with Trump.
It's not so much that he lies (he does pretty often). It's that he instinctively, constantly avoids having any truth in his speech.
Even on simple everyday stuff, he's got to put in the vagaries, the doubt, the obfuscations. It's the habit and instinct of a criminal. He can't even bear the weight of truth's responsibility in his own speech. It's the hallmark of cowards, criminals. THEY ARE ALWAYS TRYING TO SURROUND THEMSELVES WITH A WAY OUT. In every second of every situation.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:35 AM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

I'm really not a "it's all a distraction" person, but to my mind, the biggest institutional failure since 2015 has been the press allowing Trump to control the news cycle on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong; these pardons are a serious attack on the rule of law, but just offhand in the immediate news cycle: Trump is presiding over a rapidly escalating trade war encompassing multiple continents; thousands died in Puerto Rico; children are being ripped apart from their parents; and Trump is off to meet with the families of the victims of yet another school shooting as part of a day he says will be "a little fun."

I don't really know what the solution is. Because he says a lot of stuff, and it's usually more-or-less news. But it can't be the only news.

@PeterGleick: Seriously, I can't stop thinking about this.
What was behind the decision at the @nytimes to put the Roseanne story on page A1 and the 5000 dead Puerto Ricans on page A13?
posted by zachlipton at 10:35 AM on May 31, 2018 [100 favorites]

What was behind the decision at the @nytimes to put the Roseanne story on page A1 and the 5000 dead Puerto Ricans on page A13?

Dean Baquet is a tool? Just spitballin'.
posted by rhizome at 10:39 AM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

What was behind the decision at the @nytimes to put the Roseanne story on page A1 and the 5000 dead Puerto Ricans on page A13?
Perfectly normal stockholder concerns? (see East Timor, evidence of WMDs, but her emails, etc).
posted by Harry Caul at 10:42 AM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

Blagojevich’s wife is going on FOX tonight to lobby for her husband. Because begging the president on national television is how our system of government works now.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:43 AM on May 31, 2018 [35 favorites]

On the Missouri governor front:

Deal with St. Louis prosecutors led to Greitens’ resignation

Gov. Eric Greitens’ resignation was part of an agreement reached with prosecutors to dismiss charges that the governor misused a charity donor list during his campaign.

The deal also prevents Greitens from pursuing action against the St. Louis Prosecutor and her staff re: various actions they took during the violation of privacy case that had to do with Greitens abusive affair. Altogether, a rather unusual deal.

If you want a bit of a deep dive into the Greitens resignation and related political environment, this week's Deep Background podcast from the KCStar is worth a listen:

"Greitens Resigns" front page is historic & comparable to the "Nixon Resigns" front page - Missouri's Republican party thought their supermajority in the state legislature was at risk and took action to protect it - Why the Greitens situation played out so differently than the apparently similar Trump situation - Why Greitens ultimately resigned

FWIW I would indeed give Missouri state Republican Party legislative leadership credit for dealing with scandalous situations in a quick and decisive way over the years. If someone is accused of some malfeasance re: interns or whatever, that person is out of there--usually within a week or two. You can argue about whether things really are clean at a fundamental level, whether there are sexual shenanigans galore in Jefferson City, whether there are payoffs of various types going on.

But when something hits the news, it is generally dealt with swiftly, and that is indeed one reason the Republicans have been able to build and maintain a supermajority in Missouri House, Senate, and statewide offices over the past decade or so. They have taken the position that any particular individual is expendable, that scandals harm the state party and should be nipped in the bud, and that strategy has definitely paid dividends in terms of the long-term strength of the party.

In that sense, the Greitens case was both typical and atypical. Typical in the sense that House & Senate leadership took it seriously, investigated it thoroughly and fairly, and appointed and empowered a strong committee to investigate. The committee was supermajority Republican, reflecting the overall makeup of the House, but was by no means coddling or even leaning favorable towards Greitens. This investigation by the Missouri House Committee, very much led by Republican House members, is to a very great degree what led to Greitens resignation. They were clearly putting party over individuals here--even and individual as important as the governor.

In that sense, one thing you could say is different about Missouri vs the national situation, is that in Missouri, legislative, legal, and social norms are still operational to a much greater degree.

Atypical is in how long it took to jettison Greitens. Typically, these things last a few weeks, not a few months. But Greitens was far more independent and less susceptible to their influence. And above all, he was stubborn and had very little to lose. Big picture is state party leadership certainly wanted to resolve this situation long before the November elections, and certainly they succeeded in that, despite Greitens independence and stubbornness. I thought Greitens was setting up to stick it out to the bitter end, and certainly longer than he did.

Given that they pushed him out months before the August primaries, and even before he had the chance to sign legislation passed in the legislative session that wrapped up just a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to say the influence of the whole affair on November's election will likely be minor at most.
posted by flug at 10:46 AM on May 31, 2018 [17 favorites]

By now, shouldn't we just assume that some Trump lawyer is pocketing a 50/50 split for these pardons?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:56 AM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

Blagojevich’s wife is going on FOX tonight to lobby for her husband. Because begging the president on national television is how our system of government works now.

I'm actually a little surprised Fox News still doesn't have a prime-time show with this basic premise. They air heartfelt pleas for pardons or other presidential favors from carefully-vetted Real Forgotten Americans, and the beneficent POTUS tweets out his rulings over the course of the show, which are then screenshotted and shown in realtime on live TV. Trump would love it, it would be a moneymaker for Fox, and congress wouldn't do shit. Why not?
posted by contraption at 10:58 AM on May 31, 2018 [25 favorites]

I'm not a Missourian and I haven't been following the case super closely, but it seems apparent that Greitens was able to bluster his way along exactly and only until The Man started looking into his PAC's money. The sex and blackmail stuff? Repubs could ignore that, but you start sniffing around the right-wing money hose and they get all nervous. Justifiably, I'm sure.

Plus, one of the pernicious privileges of a public life is felony-evasion. Prosecutors don't want to meddle in their future grifts, after all, and those prosecutors aren't going to want the specter of conviction following them when they run for office.
posted by rhizome at 11:00 AM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

Prosecutors Just Dropped More Inauguration Day Protest Cases After They Got In Trouble Over Project Veritas Videos

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday dropped seven cases against people charged with rioting in Washington, DC, during President Donald Trump's inauguration, after getting in trouble in court for how they handled evidence provided by the right-wing activist group Project Veritas.

The announcement came after a judge concluded last week that the government wrongly withheld the full version of a video of a pre-protest planning meeting secretly recorded by a Project Veritas operative. The revelation of that video led to the discovery of other undisclosed Project Veritas videos, prompting defense lawyers to protest and a judge to find that prosecutors committed a "serious violation."
...
Morin also said that in the next trial, the government couldn't rely on a legal theory it had planned to use, known as the "Pinkerton" theory, to argue that multiple people accused of being part of a conspiracy were criminally responsible for crimes committed as part of that conspiracy. The government could still argue that defendants aided or abetted crimes, the judge said.
...
Project Veritas, an investigative reporting nonprofit led by the conservative activist James O'Keefe III, infiltrated and secretly recorded videos of a Jan. 8, 2017, inauguration protest planning meeting. A portion of one video — in which one of the operatives was recorded saying, "I was talking with one of the organizers from the IWW and I don't think they know anything about any of the upper echelon stuff" — wasn't included in the clipped version provided to the defense.

Defense lawyers argued this part of the video undercut the government's theory that defendants who attended the meeting were involved in planning violent activity.

In a surprising twist, the deceptive editing is reportedly the government's fault. Usually that's O'Keefe's game, but I guess he made an impression on the Justice Department.
posted by zachlipton at 11:02 AM on May 31, 2018 [47 favorites]

How is every day stupider than the last.

It's like a whole new law of thermodynamics, established on Jan 20, 2017:

This is the stupidest day in American history, a record that will be broken by every subsequent day in American history.

posted by FelliniBlank at 11:11 AM on May 31, 2018 [64 favorites]

Wow, it's stunning to me that it's even possible for a state prosecutor like Kim Gardner to make such a self-serving deal. Greitens gets aways with no criminal charges in exchange for stepping down and giving up the right to sue her or her employees over their misconduct during the investigations. How is that legal?
posted by vathek at 11:11 AM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

And why, psychologically, is Trump so determined to screw over Canada and the EU beyond his crudely formulated ideas about nationalist protectionism? Could it have anything to do with how the new owners of Toronto's Trump International Hotel & Tower removed his name from the building or how he was annoyed by the EU red tape involved in buying/building golf courses in Scotland? Does that sound too petty to be believed by the general public?

Mother Jones's David Corn documentation of Trump's obsession with getting revenge makes it seem entirely plausible:

• “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”
• “The point is, one of the things I say later is…get even. When somebody screws you, you screw them back in spades. And I really mean it. I really mean it. You’ve gotta hit people hard. And it’s not so much for that person. It’s other people watch.”
• “When you’re in business, you get even with people that screw you. And you screw them 15 times harder. And the reason is, the reason is, the reason is, not only, not only, because of the person that you’re after, but other people watch what’s happening. Other people see you or see you or see and they see how you react.”
• “If you have a problem, if you have a problem with someone, you have to go after them. And it’s not necessarily to teach that person a lesson. It’s to teach all of the people that are watching a lesson. That you don’t take crap.”
• “‘Always get even. When you are in business, you need to get even with people who screw you.’ – Think Big.”

As Maya Angelou asked, "My dear, when people show you who they are, why don't you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can't you get it the first time?"
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:12 AM on May 31, 2018 [42 favorites]

Wow, it's stunning to me that it's even possible for a state prosecutor like Kim Gardner to make such a self-serving deal. He gets aways with no criminal charges in exchange for stepping down and giving up the right to sue her or her employees over their misconduct during the investigations. How is that legal?

Prosecutorial discretion and absolute immunity.
posted by rhizome at 11:14 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

CBS News: "We are going to Dallas, we are going to Houston. We are going to have a little fun today. Thank you very much," President Trump says as he head to Texas to meet with the families of Santa Fe school shooting victims
posted by EarBucket at 11:14 AM on May 31, 2018 [36 favorites]

It seems dangerous to overthink why Trump does anything.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:15 AM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

Wow, it's stunning to me that it's even possible for a state prosecutor like Kim Gardner to make such a self-serving deal

I could be wrong, but the alleged misconduct by the prosecutor here sounded like nothing. The Greitens team alleged one investigator committed perjury, which didn’t seem well established much less that the prosecutor told him to. Before this the plan was to just refile the case without that investigator, although it didn’t seem like they had a ton of hard evidence either way, the donor list case was the real heavy hitter, and obviously that was true given his resignation over it. Including that in Greitens plea is probably more about letting the career prosecutors keep doing their job without wasting time on bullshit right wing hysteria than hiding some deep corruption in the Grietens sex/rape case.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:28 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Can we still refer to him as "Convicted Felon Dinesh D'Souza" or does that fall away once pardoned?

It's better than just convicted. He confessed and plead guilty.
posted by srboisvert at 11:30 AM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

To clarify, does this agreement also forego any prosecution of the charges that Greitens tied up a woman in his basement and raped her?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:31 AM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

It strikes me that Trump is Werner Herzog's idea of an American President, the end of democracy playing out to the tune of a chicken pecking on a piano.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:36 AM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

It seems dangerous to overthink why Trump does anything.

More dangerously, Trump underthinks everything he does.

Where a normal person would weigh the potential consequences of their actions, consider the advantages and disadvantages, or take into account other points of view, Trump just does what he does. There are, of course, many psychological factors, such as taking revenge, assuaging his narcissistic rage, or simply yielding to his id's impulses, to the black hole at the center of his character. It's unpleasant to contemplate all this, but it can't be ignored (the way Maggie Haberman and her ilk in the mainstream media do).
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:38 AM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

As Maya Angelou asked, "My dear, when people show you who they are, why don't you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can't you get it the first time?"

I'd guess most of Trump's supporters believe him. And they support him because they think he'll screw the people they think they want screwed hard, and they want to watch. That's what MAGA actually means to them.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:39 AM on May 31, 2018 [29 favorites]

We might have a winner for "Pull Quote of the Day". A former WH official, asked about the D'Souza pardon, tells Buzzfeed, Trump isn't playing "the sort of three-dimensional chess people ascribe to decisions like this. More often than not he's just eating the pieces."
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:41 AM on May 31, 2018 [152 favorites]

A big part of the reason Canada produces so much aluminum is that we have ridiculous overcapacity of hydroelectric generation. This means that we can produce aluminum without burning much fossil fuel or generating nuclear waste.

Tariffs on this make American aluminum more competitive but it is much much worse environmentally (in terms of greenhouse emissions at least) because unlike Quebec there are not millions of square miles of watershed dedicated to hydro electric generation in the United States.
posted by srboisvert at 11:43 AM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

It strikes me that Trump is Werner Herzog's idea of an American President, the end of democracy playing out to the tune of a chicken pecking on a piano.

Oh I thought you meant that the presidency was like being filmed while a bear eats your skull.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:43 AM on May 31, 2018 [35 favorites]

> To clarify, does this agreement also forego any prosecution of the charges that Greitens tied up a woman in his basement and raped her?

No, that is a separate case and is being handled now by Special Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, the Jackson County Prosecutor. "'In the interest of pursuing justice to its fullest lengths, we will continue until our work on the case is completed,' Baker said in a statement after the governor announced his resignation."

“Specifically regarding any deals we made with Governor Greitens’ attorneys, no deals were made by my office. Our review of this case, as I have stated before, will be pursued without fear or favor.”

It is also not yet determined whether Baker will re-file the exact same charge (which is thought to be quite weak, legally speaking) or perhaps different but related charges.

Also there are a few other cases that could potentially move forward. There is an investigation into use of instant-deleting text apps by the gov's office, the FBI investigating governor's office improperly influencing state legislators, the question of front corporations to hide campaign contributions, contributions by foreigners being funneled to the campaign, etc etc.

I'm sure some of the air is taken out of these with the resignation, but we'll see.
posted by flug at 11:44 AM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

(the way Maggie Haberman and her ilk in the mainstream media do).

I've said this before, but I think it would be really, really great if we stopped invoking the names of actual human women as symbols of journalistic turpitude or whatever in contexts that don't actually involve them.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:45 AM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

Wow, it's stunning to me that it's even possible for a state prosecutor like Kim Gardner to make such a self-serving deal

Also, it allows Missouri Republicans to get Greitens off the news before the mid-terms He came into office declaring that he wasn't going to do things the old way and did a lot to make the old Guard of both parties pissed off. Also, by resigning, he stopped the investigation in the State Congress that would most likely have led to his impeachment and subsequent criminal prosecution. But the deal does not preclude any further prosecution on the allegations about photographing the woman without consent, those charges were not on the table at the time of the deal.

Come on GOP, look at what Missouri did and get some good ideas.
posted by teleri025 at 11:46 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

But when something hits the news, it is generally dealt with swiftly, and that is indeed one reason the Republicans have been able to build and maintain a supermajority in Missouri House, Senate, and statewide offices over the past decade or so. They have taken the position that any particular individual is expendable,

The reason anyone is expendable is term limits. Missouri has such short term limits on the legislature that by the time someone really knows what's up, they're out. All of the institutional memory is in the lobbyists. Coincidentally, many of the legislators become lobbyists. In this way, actual legislating acts as a farm team for the lobbying groups. Consequently, washing out of the minors isn't seen as a big deal.
posted by notsnot at 11:56 AM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

How the resurgence of white supremacy in the US sparked a war over free speech
posted by XMLicious at 12:03 PM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

"great" america is the time *before* they were being asked to evaluate their privilege, at all.

They want to hurt women, minorities, democrats, immigrants, queers, etc.

It's either this or a happy ignorance about what/how they are asking other people to stop taking up space with their existence.

A few years ago Black Lives Matter did a big protest at the Mall of America around Christmastime. A white acquaintance of mine admitted that sure, it was fine to protest, but lamented that "people are out shopping with their kids! It could be dangerous!" Basically... protest somewhere I don't have to be at all uncomfortable.

I know people want to hurt us. What scares me even more, sometimes, is how many people operate in the relative silence that says "I don't WANT to hurt you, but as long as I don't have to confront or hear about your hurt and live in my bubble, I don't really care."

It scares me how many people we've come to realize don't think we're worth caring about.
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:06 PM on May 31, 2018 [46 favorites]

> Did you mean the League of Pissed-Off Voters? The only League of Progressive Voter guide I have been able to find is from 2016. Being in CA, but not SF, I’m looking for additional voting info.

I sure did! Thanks for catching that. Pissed-Off is what I meant.
posted by gingerbeer at 12:09 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Simply using the pardon power generally, and the more indiscriminately the better, signals to his accomplices he'll pardon them in turn. It's not 3 dimensional chess. It's especially true when he pardons people that are obviously guilty for no better reason than he feels like it.
posted by xammerboy at 12:20 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

It just took a day longer for them to get in on defending Rosanne. They had to settle on a target.

White House Demands TBS Cancel Samantha Bee’s Show
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:38 PM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

The Bee situation is unfortunate because of the misogyny implicit in the slur she used. Not that Rightists actually care about misogyny. But she definitely gave them an opening.
posted by Justinian at 12:41 PM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

Oy.
posted by notyou at 12:42 PM on May 31, 2018

On the other hand, Ivanka is currently selling U.S. foreign policy to the highest bidder either directly or via her father's Play-Doh brain, in one of the most brazen acts of corruption America has seen in living memory, and they were going to lash out at anyone who points that out no matter what language was involved.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:43 PM on May 31, 2018 [29 favorites]

But she definitely gave them an opening.

If they weren't given one they'd invent one. If Mister Rogers reruns were the only thing liberals watched, the White House would demand a Cadaver Synod Firing.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:45 PM on May 31, 2018 [28 favorites]

I dunno, shouldn't the White House be focusing on, like, just about anything other than cancelling TV shows?
posted by Melismata at 12:45 PM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

Yeah, my Twitter feed is like wall-to-wall justification and whataboutism from apparently every left-of-GOP person in the world. I'm aghast that anybody on our side thinks misogynistic slurs are OK regardless of the target.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:47 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Well, yes. Both things can be true; The White House is currently occupied an incompetent, corrupt, evil, greedy, opportunistic regime and it's also unacceptable to be calling people c****.
posted by Justinian at 12:47 PM on May 31, 2018 [12 favorites]

The Bee situation is unfortunate because of the misogyny implicit in the slur she used. Not that Rightists actually care about misogyny. But she definitely gave them an opening.

She gave them an opportunity to up the stakes in the stupid culture war they want to have. And she gave them an easy out on having to defend their horrible family separation policy.

Man oh man are we having a day.
posted by notyou at 12:49 PM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

Respectability politics are the circle firing squad of the left. Ivanka Trump deserves no quarter.
posted by Yowser at 12:49 PM on May 31, 2018 [45 favorites]

Add this to the growing list of assaults on the First Amendment by the Republican party.
posted by LarsC at 12:49 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

The Onion: ICE Agent Decides He Wants Kids After Seeing Incredible Love And Devotion Of Parents Begging Him Not To Take Their Child
posted by Artw at 12:51 PM on May 31, 2018 [46 favorites]

And there are roughly 5,792 totally accurate mean things one can say about Ivanka that are not gendered insults.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:51 PM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

The Bee joke relies on a person being familiar with Trump's previously articulated attraction to his daughter, and the possibility that he may have abused her as a child, with the suggestion that Ivanka use her father's attraction to her for political gain.

I love her show, but that joke was unacceptable.
posted by Emmy Rae at 12:51 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

That particular slur really makes me uncomfortable, but I'm a cis man and the only people I know who use it are women (both cis and trans), so I don't feel right voicing an objection.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:52 PM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

If you want to listen to Michael Cohen threatening NPR's Tim Mak in 2015, you now can. They uploaded it attached to this article. What he said has been reported before.


Trigger warning: He sounds incredibly violent.
posted by Brainy at 12:54 PM on May 31, 2018 [16 favorites]

Oh, goddamit all, yesterday it was necessary to contact one network to fire an awful person, and today, we have to contact another to make sure a good person doesn't pay the price in retaliation.

She's apologized sincerely, and this shouldn't be a distraction from, say, Trump's abuse of executive pardon power or the fact that the post-hurricane Puerto Rico death toll is more like 70 times the official government tally.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:54 PM on May 31, 2018 [17 favorites]

From Twitter:
Sally Field
49 minutes ago

I like Samantha Bee a lot, but she is flat wrong to call Ivanka a cunt.
Cunts are powerful, beautiful, nurturing and honest.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:55 PM on May 31, 2018 [135 favorites]

This went out on the show, not on Samantha Bee's personal twitter, and as such, it's on TBS (as they correctly acknowledge in their own apology). They greenlit this c-word. However you feel about her saying it, it would be ridiculously unfair to make her fall on the sword here.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:01 PM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's not "respectability politics" to save the Strategic Fucks Reserve for a time when the thing we're defending is "good" instead of "bad, but aimed at bad people." I hope Full Frontal doesn't get canceled, but Full Frontal isn't the resistance.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:02 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

No, but there's a difference between "she shouldn't have said that and it would be good to apologize" and "give in to the White House's demands to cancel a show critical of Donald Trump." If the latter happens, I feel much less secure about my job poking around in Scott Pruitt's various bullshitteries.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:04 PM on May 31, 2018 [12 favorites]

It's not gonna get cancelled. I would be absolutely shocked.
posted by Justinian at 1:04 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are multiple angles here:
1. the joke, which I would argue was not a good joke to make and
2. the White House weighing in on whether or not a show that is deeply critical of it should be canceled

One is one bad moment on a show, and the other is a major abuse of presidential power.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:04 PM on May 31, 2018 [71 favorites]

It has been _0_ hours since the last Trump disaster.
posted by Melismata at 1:06 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

She should have called her a feckless piece of shit instead. It was an ugly lapse in judgment, she's apologized, and it's playing right into the Republicans' faux-aggrieved hands to belabor the matter further.
posted by contraption at 1:07 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

Whatever response TBS decides on, it should include the words: "Our decision has nothing to do with, and will not be influenced by, the brazen attempts to silence criticism by the administration of a self-admitted sexual predator."
posted by Behemoth at 1:07 PM on May 31, 2018 [44 favorites]

Yea I don’t care about Bee’s show, but buying into the transparent whataboutism from this White House is what they want. Sanders and anyone in this administration have no credibility whatsoever regardless of the language used while they all defend the same language when used by Trump or lie about his words on tape. They both started the culture war and contantly drag it to new lows while whining about their own bruised feelings over a word. In their words, fuck their feelings.

And that’s not even addressing the issue of prior restraint and the president once again threatening private business to police political speech agaisnt him.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:11 PM on May 31, 2018 [20 favorites]

marshmallow peep: "And now breaking reports that he has in fact hit Canada, Mexico, and the EU with aluminum and steel tariffs. "

Man Trudeau is pissed about the tariffs. It might be hard for people who don't follow him to tell ('cause: Canadian) but wow!

It is simply ridiculous to view any trade with Canada as a national security threat to the US and we will continue to stand up for Canadian workers & Canadian businesses.

This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the US administration.

posted by Mitheral at 1:11 PM on May 31, 2018 [39 favorites]

Are we arguing it’s not a good joke because Trump doesn’t want to fuck his kid or she doesn’t exploit that? Because he absolutely wants to fuck his kid and she absolutely exploits that.
posted by Artw at 1:16 PM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

Canada has announced $16.6B worth of retaliatory tariffs that will target a wide range of goods.

Axios, Swan, Scoop: Trump repeatedly pressured Sessions on Mueller investigation

President Trump pressured Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reclaim control of the Russia investigation on at least four separate occasions, three times in person and once over the phone, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

Why it matters: The fact that there were multiple conversations shows that Trump's pressure on Sessions to stop recusing himself was heavier than previously known. The sustained pressure made several officials uncomfortable, because they viewed it as improper and worry that it could be politically and legally problematic.
...
The details: Two sources familiar with the conversations told me the president never, to their knowledge, ordered Sessions to cancel his recusal from the Russia investigation. Instead, he asked Sessions whether he’d “thought about” un-recusing himself.

Trump told Sessions he’d be a “hero” to conservatives if he did the “right thing” and took back control over the Russia investigation, according to two sources with knowledge of their conversations.
Trump also told Sessions he’d be a hero if he investigated Hillary Clinton, according to one of the sources.

Trump also repeated the “hero” line separately to aides and privately mused about whether it would be possible to limit the scope of the Mueller investigation to avoid his business affairs.

NPR, Tim Mak, LISTEN: How Michael Cohen Protects Trump By Making Legal Threats, in which NPR is publishing Cohen's 2015 call to Mak (when he was at Daily Beast) threatening him over Ivana's original rape allegation. It's the call in which Cohen falsely claims that spousal rape isn't a crime. "Mark my words from f***ing today – today will be the day that you regret."

D'Souza claims that he had dinner with Ted Cruz last month and was told Cruz would push for a pardon for him. Trump, on the other hand, claims "Nobody asked me to do it.”
posted by zachlipton at 1:18 PM on May 31, 2018 [15 favorites]

Man Trudeau is pissed about the tariffs. It might be hard for people who don't follow him to tell ('cause: Canadian) but wow!

Yep. No "I'm sorry" anywhere in there. I kinda appreciate the response - it's firm, but only targets the same produces the US tariffs are targeting and at the same level. So no one can scream that it is disproportionate (well, some people will, because Trump).
posted by nubs at 1:19 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Axios, Swan, Scoop: Trump repeatedly pressured Sessions on Mueller investigation

Since the media apparently only wants to hear about Russia and not about issues -- issues are harrrrrd! -- it would be nice if the Democrats made a habit of helpfully pointing out that every time we see "Trump pressured x on Mueller investigation," that's the kind of obstruction of justice that Nixon in part resigned over.
posted by Gelatin at 1:22 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the US administration.

do sumpin aboot ur goverment eh buddy.
posted by srboisvert at 1:23 PM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

Are we arguing it’s not a good joke because Trump doesn’t want to fuck his kid or she doesn’t exploit that? Because he absolutely wants to fuck his kid and she absolutely exploits that.
posted by Artw at 1:16 PM on May 31 [1 favorite +] [!]

As awful of a person as Ivanka is, I don't find it funny or even fair play to joke about the awful situation her father has put her in since her childhood. She has lived her life either experiencing or being obliquely threatened with sexual abuse by her father. Finding a way to twist that to her advantage doesn't make it acceptable or worthy of mockery.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:24 PM on May 31, 2018 [17 favorites]

Two sources familiar with the conversations told me the president never, to their knowledge, ordered Sessions to cancel his recusal from the Russia investigation. Instead, he asked Sessions whether he’d “thought about” un-recusing himself.

As a reminder, Axios's Jon Swan is one of the three major "Trump Whisperers" along with the NYT's Maggie Haberman and the WaPo's Phil Rucker, whom Trump himself phones up to provide unattributed scoops. Anything "exclusive" that he writes is filtered through the lens of access journalism, so caveat lector. The two unnamed sources above are trying to spin Trump's obstruction by moving the goal posts, in much the same way as they defended Trump's pressuring Comey about the Russia investigation ("It doesn't count as obstruction if he never actually ordered it.").
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:27 PM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

If I go to your storefront and say that I've got a lot of expenses and I wish someone would help me out with them, and by the way this is a really nice store and it would be a shame if something happened to it... I'm not off the hook because I didn't directly threaten anyone or directly ask for payment.

This isn't how it works. This isn't how any of it works.
posted by Justinian at 1:32 PM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

That seems to be the framing those sources are going for, but Swan's story still pretty clearly paints it as demand-via-subtext.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:33 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

If I go to your storefront and say that I've got a lot of expenses and I wish someone would help me out with them, and by the way this is a really nice store and it would be a shame if something happened to it... I'm not off the hook because I didn't directly threaten anyone or directly ask for payment.

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

But Robert Mueller made his bones, so to speak, prosecuting exactly the sort of mob doofus who thought that kind of veiled language was clever -- and ones more actually clever than that.
posted by Gelatin at 1:34 PM on May 31, 2018 [14 favorites]

Samantha Bee calls all kinds of administration people names on that show. I'm not sure why the c-word is suddenly sooooooooooooo much worse than anything else. Like, name calling in general is always going on there.

(Note: not really defending this, just wondering literally why that word is worse.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:35 PM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

> This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail."

Translation: We'll believe that when it happens, but until then...*incredulous whistle*
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:36 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

(Speaking of Mueller, journalists have to persuade their sources to talk to them, while Mueller has several he can compel to talk via subpoena, impending plea deal, or the threat of very serious criminal charges. I doubt today's story comes as any surprise to him, but I would be surprised if the Sessions matter doesn't figure prominently in at least several obstruction of justice counts.)
posted by Gelatin at 1:36 PM on May 31, 2018

Maybe Ted Cruz was asking Trump to pardon his dad for killing JFK?
posted by PenDevil at 1:40 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

Am I taking crazy pills? The problem with c*** isn't that it is impolite any more than the problem with n***** is that it is impolite, it's that one is the worst sexist slur you can use while the other is the worst racist slur you can use. In the United States, obviously, I am aware that the former is much more common in the UK.
posted by Justinian at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2018 [24 favorites]

LISTEN: How Michael Cohen Protects Trump By Making Legal Threats

My favorite part of this is that Cohen repeatedly tries to intimidate the journalist into not using the words "Trump" and "rape" together, and now thanks to this recording Cohen himself is the one doing just that, over and over, to a much larger audience than would ever have read the article in question.
posted by Lyme Drop at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

When catcallers transition from sleazy to aggressive and threatening, what words do they call a woman?
What words do abusers call women while breaking their bones and knocking their teeth out?
What words do men call other men to indicate that they are weak and lesser and effeminate?

Gendered slurs and terms of abuse are not just "naughty" or "impolite." They're part of the machinery of oppression.
posted by FelliniBlank at 1:47 PM on May 31, 2018 [24 favorites]

Trudeau declines to meet Trump because of US precondition

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday he offered to go Washington this week to complete talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade agreement but that Vice President Mike Pence called and told him a meeting with the U.S. president would only happen if Trudeau agreed to put a five-year sunset clause into the deal.

Currently up in the air as to whether the US government has a better relationship with North Korea than Canada.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:49 PM on May 31, 2018 [38 favorites]

Am I taking crazy pills? The problem with c*** isn't that it is impolite any more than the problem with n***** is that it is impolite, it's that one is the worst sexist slur you can use while the other is the worst racist slur you can use. In the United States, obviously, I am aware that the former is much more common in the UK.

As an American man, it's not a word that I use and I would have a big problem if some dude like Bill Maher had used it. But like black people using the N-word among themselves, I'm not getting worked up over this sort of in-group usage. Yes, she said it to be offensive and insulting, but I don't think that it comes from a place of deep seated misogyny on Sam Bee's part.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:52 PM on May 31, 2018 [76 favorites]

Right, which is one difference (among others) between Sam Bee and Roseanne and why the former will keep her job and the latter got canned. I was just reacting to the idea that the issue was being impolite. It wasn't impolite, it was a slur.
posted by Justinian at 1:58 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Boehner: 'There is no Republican Party,' only a 'Trump Party'

Interesting. Go on...

"There is no Republican Party. There's a Trump Party," Boehner said during an appearance at a policy conference on Mackinac Island, Michigan, Thursday while sipping on Bloody Marys.

I feel you, I could use a drink, too! What have you got to say, John?

"But if you can peel away the noise, and the tweets and all that, which is virtually impossible to do, but if you peel all this away, from a Republican standpoint, the things that he's doing by and large are really good things"

Oh, so "Trump Party" wasn't actually a criticism. Hmm...

"Donald Trump, who I know well, was one of my supporters. When I was speaker and I was having a rough week, Trump would call me, pat me on the back, cheer me up. We played a lot of golf together."

*leaves the room while he's still talking*
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:59 PM on May 31, 2018 [42 favorites]

Now that Samantha Bee has inadvertently drawn the attention of the White House and Presidential supporters, is there something that needs doing that is now easier to do because those people are distracted and engaged?
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Are we at the "misogyny isn't historically as bad as racism" part of the argument? 'Cause I'm not on board for that. The reason one hasn't been seen as bad as the other is that sexism has been seen as less bad and more acceptable than racism. We should change that.

But that's it from me, don't yell at me mods, Justinian out.
posted by Justinian at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

Can we please be done with c***s now?

Matt Shuham, Talking Points Memo: Citing D’Souza Pardon, NY AG Repeats Call To Change Double Jeopardy Law

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood on Thursday repeated her office’s call on lawmakers to change state law in order to ensure individuals pardoned by President Donald Trump could still face legal consequences. ... “By pardoning Dinesh D’Souza, President Trump is undermining the rule of law by pardoning a political supporter who is an unapologetic convicted felon. ... Lawmakers must act now to close New York’s double jeopardy loophole and ensure that anyone who evades federal justice by virtue of a politically expedient pardon can be held accountable if they violate New York law.”

On the one hand, it's not a "loophole", it's a protection against prosecutors who already have too much power. On the other hand, the pardon power is obviously being used by Trump to troll liberals, and New York State is uniquely positioned to have probable jurisdiction over a variety of crimes that Don and Jr. and Cohen and Jared and the rest of TrumpCo have no doubt committed.

Donald Trump: forcing me to confront terrible lose-lose dilemmas since 2016.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:07 PM on May 31, 2018 [15 favorites]

Mod note: Y'all let's go out on a limb and say that Finally Litigating "Cunt" Once And For All isn't gonna go well and isn't really workable in this context, and just let that drop at this point.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:09 PM on May 31, 2018 [43 favorites]

J20 updates.

Prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense 69 (sigh...ok, dismissals with prejudice are nice) recordings they had from Project Veritas, some of which "purportedly show defendants discussing de-escalation tactics and their intent not to initiate physical violence with anyone unless they are attacked first." Angry judge, some more charges dismissed, many more still pending.

@ryanjreilly: Dramatic moment as the second #J20 trial went to the jury. A juror passed a note to the judge saying someone had written “Google jury nullification” in the bathroom stall. She did. Then she told the other jurors what she read. And they talked about it.

@max_read: next time write "BUT DON'T TELL THE JUDGE"
posted by zachlipton at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2018 [50 favorites]

That J20 prosecution should be a much bigger scandal, especially after the acquittals in the first case. This literal and explicit prosecution of people on phony felony charges for protesting is as big a threat to civil liberties as anything ICE is doing.
posted by msalt at 2:33 PM on May 31, 2018 [44 favorites]

Prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense 69 (sigh...ok, dismissals with prejudice are nice) recordings they had from Project Veritas, some of which "purportedly show defendants discussing de-escalation tactics and their intent not to initiate physical violence with anyone unless they are attacked first." Angry judge, some more charges dismissed, many more still pending.

I think fruit of the poisoned tree is inadequate. Not only should the evidence be barred, but when officers of the court are found to be knowingly and intentionally tampering with or hiding evidence, they need to face stiff criminal charges. Messing with innocent people's lives intending to imprison them is every bit as bad as assaulting them physically and should carry criminal penalties.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:36 PM on May 31, 2018 [43 favorites]

Messing with innocent people's lives intending to imprison them is every bit as bad as assaulting them physically and should carry criminal penalties.

I'd say it's worse. I'd much rather catch a beating than be wrongfully imprisoned.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2018 [16 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump: FAIR TRADE!

That's it in its entirety.

"I am the loudest! I am the loudest!" [it's disturbing how often I think back to this 11-year-old New Yorker bit to explain the present national mood]

Maybe reporters will have to mention the trade war now that he's tweeted about it?
posted by zachlipton at 2:40 PM on May 31, 2018 [16 favorites]

FAIR TRADE!

starts digging another plot in the Graveyard Of Words That Used To Mean Things
posted by theodolite at 2:49 PM on May 31, 2018 [23 favorites]

Somehow, I don't think Trump is signalling to his followers that the US is about to join the World Fair Trade Organization…

Seriously, the rhetorical violence he engages in to destroy the meanings of words is remarkable. I fully expect that by this evening, #FairTrade will be trending among Kremlin-allied bots/trolls, talked about on Fox News, and debated endless and fruitless by cable news pundits.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:53 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Inconsolable Jeff Sessions Tries To Commit Suicide By Smoking Joint (Onion)
posted by Artw at 2:56 PM on May 31, 2018 [41 favorites]

@ezraklein:
Two reality stars met in the Oval Office. One wanted a pardon for a grandmother serving life in prison without parole for a drug crime. The other wanted a pardon for conservative troll Dinesh D’Souza.

Guess which star was made a media joke?
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:59 PM on May 31, 2018 [55 favorites]

I think fruit of the poisoned tree is inadequate. Not only should the evidence be barred,

It's not only about barring the evidence, it's the fact that they withheld it - including evidence that is potentially exculpatory. IANAL, but that seems a big deal to me; forget fruit of the poisoned tree (which has to do with how evidence is obtained), this is misconduct.
posted by nubs at 3:02 PM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

Currently up in the air as to whether the US government has a better relationship with North Korea than Canada.

Pauvre Canada. Si loin de Dieu, si proche des États-Unis.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

> FAIR TRADE!

Trump tweets of this ilk are most appropriately read in this tone and spirit* of voice.

* with the caveat that this Red Dawn character is identifying himself as a member of a larger group, the existence of which is more important than any individual, which of course Donald Trump would and probably could never do.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:07 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just imagine the statement that Martha Stewart could make by announcing tonight that she wouldn't accept a pardon from President Trump.
posted by hydrophonic at 3:12 PM on May 31, 2018 [25 favorites]

Just imagine the statement that Martha Stewart could make by announcing tonight that she wouldn't accept a pardon from President Trump.

Is that... possible, even? If someone pardons you, can you say "Nah, I'm good."? That would seem to be like a judge saying you get 10 years and you saying "I'll take 15 or no deal." Seems like your wishes would be summarily ignored.
posted by greermahoney at 3:21 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would hope that the "getting pardoned implies guilt" bit would leave room for the person being pardoned to say, "No thanks. Really."
posted by Slackermagee at 3:23 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Is that... possible, even? If someone pardons you, can you say "Nah, I'm good."?

Indeed, it is: "A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it is rejected, we have discovered no power in this court to force it upon him."
posted by mhum at 3:25 PM on May 31, 2018 [20 favorites]

Does that really apply to a situation in which a person has already been convicted and served time, though? They are already guilty in the eyes of the law.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:26 PM on May 31, 2018

On reflection I just can't pull the lever for Villaraigosa, guys. If there's any high quality polling between now and the primary showing a chance to lock Republicans out of the general I will do so tactically but failing that I guess I have to vote Newsom and then take a couple showers to wash the slime off.
posted by Justinian at 3:32 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

Burdick v US also covers this territory:

"Acceptance, as well as delivery, of a pardon is essential to its validity; if rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, the court has no power to force it on him."

(It also states: "There are substantial differences between legislative immunity and a pardon; the latter carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it, while the former is noncommittal, and tantamount to silence of the witness.")

So especially in a case where the sentence has already been served but someone continues to proclaim their innocence, there could arguably be a reason to refuse one.

(Although from what I read there is some debate as to whether that second quote is really part of the judgement --- it seems wrong that a pardon necessarily implies guilt, as it has been used for people who were convicted but innocent).
posted by thefoxgod at 3:33 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Does that really apply to a situation in which a person has already been convicted and served time, though? They are already guilty in the eyes of the law.

The president can also commute a sentence, which removes the punishment but keeps the conviction. A pardon removes both.
posted by dilaudid at 3:35 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Huh, I don't really like either but I'd take Villaraigosa over Newsom. They both have significant negatives, though.

That said, latest poll I saw shows a likely Newsom v Cox race in which case its an easy choice in the fall of course.
posted by thefoxgod at 3:35 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

CA peeps: Berkeley has a good poll out today showing:

33% Newsom (D)
20% Cox (R)
13% Villaraigosa (D)
12% Allen (R)
7% Chiang (D)
4% Eastin (D)

The last one I saw was similar. I don't see how Villaraigosa pulls it off, so enh.
posted by Justinian at 3:36 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm following this thread and everyone says that Newsom has a lot of negatives, but nobody is saying what the negatives *are*. Can someone enlighten us?
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 3:44 PM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

Well for one he (married) was sleeping with a (married) subordinate, which is a pretty bad look in these #metoo days. He has, however, said all the right things about it and apologized. He's also seen as more ambitious than principled. He says progressive things in California but folks suspect that if he has to say something else because he has national ambitions he'll flip before you can say flop.

Basically people see him as primarily interested in whats good for Gavin Newsom. If that happens to be good for California at the same time he'll do it. But that's a side effect.

We have, of course, never seen an ambitious politician before.
posted by Justinian at 3:54 PM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

Newsom has a lot of negatives, but nobody is saying what the negatives *are*. Can someone enlighten us?

He's closely associated with the Gettys, who are big money, although he himself was not born to money. He is now quite wealthy and has invested in things like upscale restaurants and wineries. He famously cheated on his wife with the wife of his best friend & chief of staff. He married Kimberly Guilfoyle, who has since gone on to be a Fox/GOP talking head (and is dating Scaramucci? I think?), which does not speak well for his judgment. He posed with Guilfoyle in a ridiculous photo spread for Vanity Fair or something, horizontally on an oriental rug.

There are a lot of questions about his management of the San Francisco housing crisis, the tech boom, and development in the city. People in SF consider him to be about as business-friendly as it is possible to be and still get elected to public office.

He never ever changes his hair style, despite its ridiculousness. Stuff I can report from people who have worked with him: He's not good at people: he doesn't engage warmly with other human beings, although he's very very smart. He's not a guy you want to hang out with, even if you agree with his political positions.

He did contribute to the beginning of marriage equality, although I'm sure it was at least in part because he wanted to get known on a national level. He clearly wants to be Senator, or President, someday.

I will probably end up voting for him but not because I actually like him. I do think he's not likely to fuck things up too badly, and even Jerry was a disappointment in many ways. There is no holy grail in politics, and I wouldn't wish the job of governor of California on my worst enemy: it's a terrifying gig.
posted by suelac at 3:57 PM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

yon newsom has a lean and hungry look
posted by murphy slaw at 4:05 PM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

AP, Ban on abortions after 15 weeks signed into law in Louisiana, but there's one hurdle left. Signed by a Democratic Governor and sponsored by a Democratic Senator. Implementation is on hold pending the legal challenges to Mississippi's similar law. It's not an accident that they're focused on 15 weeks when amniocentesis and ultrasounds are generally performed after that point.

@ClinicEscort: Didn't want to let today end without noting that May 31 permanently belongs to Dr Tiller—shot dead at church 9 years ago today by an anti-abortion terrorist—on my mental calendar. Won't ever not think of him on this date, & of how far some will go to stop other people being free.
posted by zachlipton at 4:09 PM on May 31, 2018 [52 favorites]

This Sac Bee article about Gavin Newsom and white privilege doesn't have any new information (for me or for people reading this thread), but it kind of helped me put together why I dislike the guy so much.

Also there were those hot mic comments during his Lt. Gov tenure where he said he tries to spend as much time in San Francisco as possible because Sacramento is "just so dull, I just, ugh, God." Hey buddy, you ever hear of Bakersfield? Manteca? Turlock? It's a big state you're applying to lead, here.
posted by sunset in snow country at 4:10 PM on May 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

As someone who was teaching in LA while Villaraigosa was mayor, pleeeease don’t vote for that guy in November (tactically voting for him now to shut out the Republicans is cool tho). He will be a disaster for public schools, and is the worst choice when we need elected leaders to support education in the Trump/DeVos era. For the same reason, teachers are supporting Tony Thurmond over Marshall Tuck for State Supt. Of Public Instruction.
posted by donatella at 4:11 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, there are various reasons I dislike Newsom but honestly a big one is just that I'm sick of the state being so heavy on NorCal politicians and Newsom is the NorCal-iest of them all (in that "SF is better than everywhere else" nonsense way).

[I mean, Brown is obviously also a Bay Area guy but he doesn't give off that same vibe to me]

I have more or less zero doubt that Newsom will be Governor, though, and realistically will not give it much thought at all, as compared to other stuff in politics it feels like complaining about what shade of beige the curtains are or something.
posted by thefoxgod at 4:18 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

You don't like Sacramento and you want to be governor? Good luck with that!

Note: I just got a fortune cookie that said "The problem with political jokes is that they get elected."
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:22 PM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

I guess I have to vote Newsom and then take a couple showers to wash the slime off.

Hey Justinian, can you explain your process here a bit more? If you don't like Newsom and don't think Villaraigosa will make the top two, why not vote for someone you like in the primary? Are you worried about Newsom getting shut out of the top two? Do you feel like getting more votes in the primary puts him in a stronger position for the general? Do you feel unenthused about all the trailing candidates, or want to generally avoid rewarding hopeless campaigns for staying in this stupid primary system? I'm not trying to critique you here, I think you're probably smarter than me and want to understand your tactics.
posted by contraption at 4:40 PM on May 31, 2018

I've argued before that "third party" voting is ridiculous and a fundamental misunderstanding of the American first past the post system. (This is technically a primary, sure, but California's bullshit jungle primary system throws a wrench in the gears and means we should treat this like the general.) It would therefore be kind of hypocritical for me to vote for someone polling in the single digits when they have less than no chance of actually being elected.

Basically it would be like people who voted for Stein or Aleppoman in 2016 because they live in a "safe state". I have Strong Feelings about that. To be clear; if we had actual primaries where the top Democrat was guaranteed a spot on the ballot I would absolutely vote for whoever I liked best and/or had the best shot in the general. But that's not what we have here. We have a weird Frankenstein's monster of a system now so I feel like I need to treat it differently.

It's true that no one would know if I "voted my conscience" because Newsom is almost certainly going to make the ballot but I would know and then I'd have pangs of conscience next time I argued against third party voting in a race they have no chance to win.
posted by Justinian at 4:50 PM on May 31, 2018 [19 favorites]

Trade sanctions against America won’t work. Sanctioning Trump himself might.
posted by Artw at 4:51 PM on May 31, 2018 [46 favorites]

Basically this way I can still yell at kids on my lawn.
posted by Justinian at 4:52 PM on May 31, 2018 [15 favorites]

I’m all for third or fourth or fifth or however many parties under sensible voting systems.
posted by Artw at 4:53 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Absolutely, I tried to make clear this is all because of our first past the post system. In ranked choice voting go nuts. I would probably do so myself.
posted by Justinian at 4:54 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

You kind of have to have the sensible voting system first though I think.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:55 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

It’s time to acknowledge that strikes work (Wash Post)
posted by The Whelk at 5:04 PM on May 31, 2018 [21 favorites]

It might even have the effect of producing a Green Party that isn’t a scammy stunt.

You kind of have to have the sensible voting system first though I think.

True enough.
posted by Artw at 5:04 PM on May 31, 2018

Thanks, I had heard and share your feelings on the futility of voting for third party candidates in general elections, but hadn't been thinking of the jungle primary in those terms. I see the logic of your approach, but I think there's a case to be made that running up the tally for lower-ranked candidates on the D ticket is useful, both for pulling Newsom left and for helping those candidates build credibility and support within the party apparatus, in a way that voting third party in a general is not.
posted by contraption at 5:15 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

It might even have the effect of producing a Green Party that isn’t a scammy stunt.

You kind of have to have the sensible voting system first though I think.

I think the DSA are doing a better job of building a viable third party by doing practical things like fixing broken tail lights and helping to advocate for low-income tenants, as well as running for small local offices like city council. The Greens, as far as I am concerned, are a bunch of grandstanding all-hat-no-cattle blowhards who swoop in like seagulls every presidential election year, make a lot of noise, in some years crap all over everything, then swoop out and disappear for another four years. A party that wants to be a real viable third party has a better chance if they follow the DSA playbook.

The Greens are especial fools if they don't treat local elections like they matter. Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic: The Real Reasons Why Republicans Could Win In Calfornia:

Preemptive finger-pointing is already starting among Democrats as they grow increasingly concerned that Tuesday’s California primary could deal a painful blow to their hopes of recapturing the House of Representatives.

But the rising laments may all be missing the root cause of the gathering threat: a long-term failure by California Democrats to invest in building a network of credible local elected officials.

Particularly in Orange County, the epicenter of the competition for House seats in the state, Democrats are confronting what could be called a “resume gap.” While Republicans are fielding an array of candidates who are current or former elected officials, Democrats are relying entirely on first-time contenders who entered their races without any elected experience, existing political networks, or name identification in their districts. That’s making it tougher for any of the Democratic candidates to consolidate support within their party.

Local elections are what build this deep bench. If the DSA is willing to caucus with the Democrats when it counts and pull them to the left otherwise, I think they could build a viable third party eventually, if they keep running local candidates who do good jobs and can climb the political ladder.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 5:28 PM on May 31, 2018 [30 favorites]

See Also Alexandria Vs. Goliath: She’s surpassed expectations, but can this democratic socialist defeat Boss Joe Crowley in their June 26 congressional primary?
posted by The Whelk at 5:33 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

WaPo, Prosecutors interview Comey as they investigate whether McCabe should be charged

Investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office recently interviewed former FBI director James B. Comey as part of a probe into whether his deputy, Andrew McCabe, broke the law by lying to federal agents — an indication the office is seriously considering whether McCabe should be charged with a crime, a person familiar with the matter said.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz accused McCabe in April of misleading investigators and Comey four times — three of them under oath — about authorizing a disclosure to the media. Horowitz referred the findings to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

Lying to federal investigators can carry a five-year prison sentence, though McCabe disputes that he intentionally misled anyone. Comey’s interview, while significant, does not indicate prosecutors have reached any conclusions, and people familiar with the process said it is not surprising given the allegations McCabe faces. A referral from the inspector general does not guarantee charges will be filed.
...
The U.S. attorney’s investigation into McCabe is likely to intensify partisan squabbling, pitting respected law enforcement leaders against one another and potentially giving Trump ammunition to attack.

This seems bad, right?
posted by zachlipton at 5:36 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

My stylist's mother-in-law lives in Puerto Rico. They got a satellite last week, so now they have TV and internet. First time since the hurricane. And now they're preparing for another hurricane season.
posted by angrycat at 5:41 PM on May 31, 2018 [11 favorites]

Interesting development in the Greitens case: Tuesday a judge ruled that the dark-money nonprofit that Greitens founded, and that supported his work as governor, must turn over all sorts of financial records by Friday.

Now Missouri House committee charged with investigating Greitens has reiterated that it is still expecting those records:

Gov. Eric Greitens' dark-money nonprofit may still be forced to turn over documents lawmakers believe might demonstrate efforts to illegally circumvent the state's campaign disclosure laws. . . .

In the days leading up to Greitens' decision to resign, sources with knowledge of the nonprofit told The Star that A New Missouri’s donors were panicking over the prospect that the House subpoena could reveal their identities. . . .

[S]tate Auditor Nicole Galloway . . . said in a letter to House and Senate leaders that Greitens' resignation shouldn't deprive Missourians "of the right to know how dark money and special interests are secretly influencing their government. This is too important to the future of our state and to the integrity of public service to be swept under the rug."

posted by flug at 6:12 PM on May 31, 2018 [33 favorites]

Southern Co., CVS, Dow Chemical Funding Trump Dark Money Group Tied to Racist, Anti-Semitic Views

(I'd not heard of MapLight before but they appear to be real?)
posted by Artw at 6:13 PM on May 31, 2018 [16 favorites]

Investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office recently interviewed former FBI director James B. Comey as part of a probe into whether his deputy, Andrew McCabe, broke the law by lying to federal agents — an indication the office is seriously considering whether McCabe should be charged with a crime, a person familiar with the matter said.

Hmn. I wonder if the newly hired Trumpist Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been talking to the WaPo's Matt Zapotosky. Zapotosky's first insider story about considering criminal charges for McCabe came shortly after Cohen-Watnick was tapped at the DoJ. This is purely speculative, of course, but someone at the DoJ or with a line there is leaking information to damage McCabe's reputation.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:20 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

The reason anyone is expendable is term limits. Missouri has such short term limits on the legislature that by the time someone really knows what's up, they're out. All of the institutional memory is in the lobbyists. Coincidentally, many of the legislators become lobbyists. In this way, actual legislating acts as a farm team for the lobbying groups. Consequently, washing out of the minors isn't seen as a big deal.

Yes, this is so true. Since watching term limits in action I have become a big opponent of them. They totally tip the balance of power away from people/voters and elected officials and towards big corporations and big money--whoever can afford lobbyists.

It's one of those things where it becomes easy to convince the average voter to support something that actually works against their self-interest in a pretty big way.

Term limits with a very long limit, say 20 or 24 years, wouldn't be too harmful.
posted by flug at 6:24 PM on May 31, 2018 [31 favorites]

While all these Trump pardons are pretty horrible on their face, if you zoom out and put them in context of all the administration's other justice and law enforcement actions, it creates a pretty disgusting narrative:

White collar and celebrity criminals get pardons even if they never asked for them. Minority criminals are animals who don't even deserve standard legal protections and btw it would be awesome if we could torture them too.
posted by p3t3 at 6:51 PM on May 31, 2018 [36 favorites]

It's old and trite, but not without merit: We have term limits called "elections". So if those aren't doing the job, then those are what needs to be fixed. (I do think limits make sense for executive positions, because history warns us many, many times about presidents-for-life, but if the individual doesn't personally hold sway over citizens, then they should have the opportunity to gain experience.)

flug: It's one of those things where it becomes easy to convince the average voter to support something that actually works against their self-interest in a pretty big way.

A very informative and thorough article Washington Monthly published in 2014: "The Big Lobotomy: How Republicans Made Congress Stupid". It discusses the "reforms" Congress underwent from the 90s onward as part of the Contract with America, which included term limits (not in holding office, which I suspect would require a constitutional amendment, but in chairing a committee).

The gist is that by a combination of ignorance and malfeasance, the legislative branch has experienced the equivalent (both metaphorically and in some instances literally) of a company eliminating the accounting department to save on costs. It's obviously self-defeating, but that could well be the point, at least for the opportunists who aren't true believers.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:53 PM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

And now breaking reports that he has in fact hit Canada, Mexico, and the EU with aluminum and steel tariffs.

Speaking of aluminum, remember how last month, the Trump administration eased sanctions on a Russian aluminum firm tied to the oligarch Oleg Deripaska? "RUSAL has felt the impact of U.S. sanctions because of its entanglement with Oleg Deripaska, but the U.S. government is not targeting the hardworking people who depend on RUSAL and its subsidiaries," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement at the time.

And in the wake of the Trump administration's trade war announcement, RUSAL shares are up in the Hong Kong market. We'll see how they trade in Moscow and Berlin when those markets open...
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:59 PM on May 31, 2018 [16 favorites]

Hitting most of the world with tariffs while easing sanctions on Russia is laughably blatant. I'd ask who he thinks he's fooling but we all know exactly who he's fooling.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:02 PM on May 31, 2018 [61 favorites]

Through strategy, instinct, and horseshoe-up-his-ass blind luck, Trump has abused the media into grading him on the steepest of curves and giving him the benefit of the doubt when he has proven time and again he deserves nothing but the most extreme scrutiny.

Trump is employing a strategy that might be familiar to coaches of inferior middle school basketball teams: Foul your opponents on every play, because, by human nature, referees are not equipped to blow the whistle on every play for fear of seeming biased. They are going to let some plays go by. In politics, journalists are the referees. And because they give Trump a pass on so many of his fouls, he avoids scrutiny that politicians who play by the rules would be subjected to regardless of ideology.

. . . Trump has declared the media the enemy of the people, and the media has responded with no fresh tactics. He is fighting a war that uses the media’s own rules against it, and he is winning in a landslide. (Tim Miller, Crooked.com)

I keep passing televisions, catching a section of something and feeling like we're never going to get out of the eighties. The lights, the makeup, the terrible dialogue, the evil Republican party. (After walking by the sensation passes and I gladly ignore any subsequent considerations. So! What's for lunch?)
posted by petebest at 7:10 PM on May 31, 2018 [32 favorites]

So, I wanted to respond to this earlier, but needed to wait till I was home:

How the resurgence of white supremacy in the US sparked a war over free speech

Thi is something that's been brewing for some time, and frankly, it's been long overdue. What's under fire isn't free speech, but an idea of "free speech absolutism" that has always been on shaky ground, and the advocates of which are finding that they don't really have good answers to people pointing out that a concept of free speech that privileges eliminationist rhetoric over the voices of the dispossessed really isn't free speech.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:12 PM on May 31, 2018 [23 favorites]

This may have got overlooked earlier

Roger Stone says the quiet part loud:

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate and his former political strategist, who has come under scrutiny by Mueller’s team, said the president sent a clear message.

“It has to be a signal to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and even Robert S. Mueller III: Indict people for crimes that don’t pertain to Russian collusion and this is what could happen,” Stone said. “The special counsel has awesome powers, as you know, but the president has even more awesome powers.”

posted by T.D. Strange at 7:33 PM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

Justinian: "Absolutely, I tried to make clear this is all because of our first past the post system. In ranked choice voting go nuts. I would probably do so myself."

A number of cities have some flavor of ranked choice, Maine will have it for the primary, at least. Massachusetts looks to be working on a ballot initiative to add it.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:34 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Minority criminals are animals who don't even deserve standard legal protections and btw it would be awesome if we could torture them too.

Not true: members of minorities convicted of crimes can be pardoned if they're racist and violently misogynistic GOP operatives or if they have been dead for 70 years.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:34 PM on May 31, 2018 [14 favorites]

Tomorrow's schedule: Coast Guard Change-of-Command Ceremony ("No brand has improved more than the United States Coast Guard"), a meeting with Pompeo, and then Camp David. We're either going to see Melania get into a helicopter tomorrow afternoon or they're going to troll the hell out of the country.
posted by zachlipton at 7:35 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Bit suprised at the lack of an OJ pardon.
posted by Artw at 7:37 PM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

So, I've been kind of remiss on the ELECTIONS NEWS lately. Sorry about that. To make up for it, here's a Georgia governor poll that has Abrams leading either GOP candidate. It's an internal, but still.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:45 PM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

We're either going to see Melania get into a helicopter tomorrow afternoon or they're going to troll the hell out of the country.

It takes a while for the new agent to get the accent and mannerisms down
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:00 PM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

Please, no internal polls and no early exit polls on election day! They’re riddled with error and bias but they pretend to have the credibility of a real poll. They’re a street-corner Rolex or dog food with melamine in it. They’re the faerie changelings of polls, sent to cause mischief and tie knots in our hair at night. I’ll be damned if you get me to believe one of these is any better than a coin flip ever again!

(But thanks for the awesome election updates, Chrysostom)
posted by Emmy Noether at 8:03 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Seniors Are More Conservative Because the Poor Don’t Survive to Become Seniors

The premature disappearance of the poor, then, occurs precisely at the moment when they would be expected to reach their “participatory peak” in society. But they don’t live long enough to achieve that milestone.

Oh.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:04 PM on May 31, 2018 [124 favorites]

To make up for it, here's a Georgia governor poll that has Abrams leading either GOP candidate. It's an internal, but still.

o_o

I conducted an internal poll and voters agree by a count of 1-0 that internal polls are lying garbage.
posted by Justinian at 8:17 PM on May 31, 2018 [9 favorites]

Please, no internal polls and no early exit polls on election day!

Totally agree on exit polls, and don't get too excited about early voting numbers, either.

But I think internals *can* be of value, if everything checks out as above board. Are they are a reputable pollster, do they publish all the details (which show they've made reasonable choices), preferably they used live calling, etc. Basically, if everything that makes a poll trustworthy in general is there, I think it's okay to give it at least some weight, if maybe not quite as much as a public poll.

In this particular case, Garin Hart Yang is a real outfit (B+ in the 538 ratings). Sample was 601 voters, which is maybe a little small, but not ridiculous. Live calls to both landlines and cell phones, good. Sample was 45% Trump voters, 43% Clinton - actual 2016 result was 51/46, so in the ballpark, maybe a little Dem favoring. To me, that adds up to somewhat Abrams-favoring, but still pretty reasonable inputs. So, I'd put *some* trust in this result.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:19 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

I conducted an internal poll and voters agree by a count of 1-0 that internal polls are lying garbage.

Ha, and I just wrote a bunch of words on that! *Some* internals are totally bs, no doubt, and just put out there to push a narrative. But I don't think all.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:20 PM on May 31, 2018

You guys heard it here first, Chrysostom has staked his good name and reputation entirely on the accuracy of this poll. There is literally no other way to read his comment.
posted by Justinian at 8:21 PM on May 31, 2018 [36 favorites]

> Seniors Are More Conservative Because the Poor Don’t Survive to Become Seniors

That's incredibly obvious in hindsight, so congrats to Washington Post for putting in the work to prove it. Does that explain why "Medicare for all" faces such an uphill battle, along with all the other sociopathy US politics?
posted by fragmede at 8:25 PM on May 31, 2018 [8 favorites]

Bit suprised at the lack of an OJ pardon.

OJ didn't commit the type of crimes Trump plans to pardon his cronies for, so he lacks the proper messaging value.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:30 PM on May 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

OJ didn't commit the type of crimes Trump plans to pardon his cronies for

I wish I had your confidence.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:31 PM on May 31, 2018 [21 favorites]

THUS FAR
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:34 PM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

I just wish I had the last 24 months back. The nation has turned into a tawdry mash-up of House of Cards and Celebrity Apprentice.

We have a corrupt President, guilty of probably half a dozen different felonies, to many of which he has already confessed on national television.

We have an Evangelical Christian, family values movement that’s falling over itself in a mad rush to support a philandering sexual assaulter.

We have the small-government faction of the body politic that has embraced the closest thing we’ve had to a fascist autocrat since the office of the President was created.

We have the staunchly free-trade, “the markets crave certainty” capitalists shoring up support for a guy that likes trade wars and is more erratic in his fiscal policy than a broke college student with a new Amex card.

We have the Executive Branch fellating, Blue Bloods idolizing cop-agandists drooling for another takedown of those damn FBI and DOJ traitors.

I just want to wake up and have it be summer of 2016 again, okay?
posted by darkstar at 8:45 PM on May 31, 2018 [51 favorites]

@jendlouhyhc:

Breaking: Trump administration officials are making plans to order grid operators to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants in an effort to extend their life, a move that would represent an unprecedented intervention into U.S. energy markets.

“Federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity,” says a 41-page draft memo obtained by Bloomberg and circulated before a National Security Council meeting on the subject Friday. Memo outlines plan for DOE to direct operators to purchase electricity or generation capacity from facilities at risk of retirement. Government also would establish a "Strategic Electric Generation Reserve" w/ aim of promoting nat'l defense & maximizing domestic energy supplies.

They've been talking about this for quite some time, including a previous rejected attempt to get FERC to guarantee the profits of coal plants. Energy policy isn't one of my topics, but doing this as a national security measure rather than a grid reliability one is even more absurd. Is there any serious argument anywhere that we could have a war and go "damn, if only we had more coal power plants we could win this war?" I know Trump is absurdly stuck in the past on everything, but has saving electricity for the war effort been a thing since WWII?
posted by zachlipton at 8:48 PM on May 31, 2018 [18 favorites]

Breaking: Boeing technicians in South Carolina have voted to unionize, by a margin of 104 to 65, according to National Labor Relations Board
posted by Chrysostom at 9:12 PM on May 31, 2018 [87 favorites]

"Strategic Electric Generation Reserve"

So I would think that would look like the government buying unprofitable coal and nuclear plants, not making consumers do it with higher then necessary rates. But then, consumers are tax payers, so same thing at the end.
posted by ctmf at 9:17 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I know Trump is absurdly stuck in the past on everything, but has saving electricity for the war effort been a thing since WWII?

This is a persistent mistake I see people even here making, that Trump is wrong in his methods but still has an interest, however misguided, in making America better than it is. He does not. From start to finish his goals are purely selfish; Making America Great Again has nothing to do with them. Making money for himself & his allies, collecting on grudges, breaking down diplomatic & military alliances based on trust & common interest in favor of transactional atomic deals with no relation to each other, generating adoration to feed the hole at his core; these are his goals. A reliable & cost effective grid serves none of those goals so it must be sacrificed for them.
posted by scalefree at 9:19 PM on May 31, 2018 [53 favorites]

Breaking: Boeing technicians in South Carolina have voted to unionize, by a margin of 104 to 65, according to National Labor Relations Board

Woof. Boeing went to a lot of trouble to build the 787 plant far away from a strong unions. Good work.
posted by N-stoff at 9:22 PM on May 31, 2018 [69 favorites]

Boeing technicians in South Carolina have voted to unionize, by a margin of 104 to 65, according to National Labor Relations Board

This is far from a done deal. This is a small sub-unit of the over 3000 employees at the plant, which Boeing claims is illegal. A regional National Labor Relations Board director approved the certification. However, Boeing will appeal that ruling to the full five-member NLRB of which three are Trump appointees. Elections have consequences.
posted by JackFlash at 9:59 PM on May 31, 2018 [22 favorites]

Energy policy isn't one of my topics, but doing this as a national security measure rather than a grid reliability one is even more absurd.

Australia went through a round of this recently; one of Australia's largest electricity generators, AGL, has announced they're shutting one of Australia's larger coal generators at Liddell in 2022 (slightly before it was about to reach end-of-life, and bang on when their coal subsidies end) and converting the site to a combination of wind, solar and battery. AGL have made it clear for a while that they see the writing on the wall for coal - even before solar panel prices crashed - so this isn't out of character.

The current conservative government has, bizarrely, characterised this as an attempt to drive up electricity prices, and openly discussed nationalising the plant to sell it to a competitor.

Coal is a hell of a drug.
posted by Merus at 10:06 PM on May 31, 2018 [17 favorites]

Good grief. As if coal and nuclear don’t already get a pile of federal subsidies to keep them afloat and profitable.
posted by notyou at 10:23 PM on May 31, 2018 [6 favorites]

Good grief. As if coal and nuclear don’t already get a pile of federal subsidies to keep them afloat and profitable.

It's never enough. Trump is exploiting America. He sees vulnerabilities & exploits them. This is just one with less plausible cover & more naked profit than most.
posted by scalefree at 10:31 PM on May 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

You ever feel like you've been here before and are powerless to stop what happens next? Retuers, Leverage nears pre-crisis heights as regulators soften their stance

Leverage levels for buyouts are close to pre-credit crisis levels as banks are more willing to underwrite highly leveraged deals following the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s softened stance towards lending risk.

So far during the second quarter, leverage for US buyouts averages 6.57 times, the highest level since it reached 6.65 times during the third quarter of 2014. Leverage at this level had not been seen before that since 2007, before the credit crisis hit when leverage on buyouts topped out at 6.8 times on average, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data.

Leverage, a measure of a company’s debt versus its earnings before interest and tax, was inching higher this year but took off after the Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting indicated in February that banks could underwrite deals that fell outside the constraints of the Leveraged Lending Guidance implemented in 2013.

NYT, Big Banks to Get a Break From Limits on Risky Trading

Big banks are getting a big reprieve from a postcrisis rule aimed at curbing risky behavior on Wall Street.

Federal bank regulators on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping proposal to soften the Volcker Rule, a cornerstone of the 2010 law that was enacted after the financial crisis to rein in risky trading. The change would give Wall Street banks more freedom to make their own complex bets — activities that can be highly profitable but also leave them more vulnerable to losses.

The rule, part of the broader Dodd-Frank law, was put in place to prevent banks from making unsafe bets with depositors’ money. It took five agencies three years to write it and has been criticized by Wall Street as too onerous and harmful to the proper functioning of financial markets. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve proposed easing several parts of the rule, and four other regulators are expected to soon follow suit, kicking off a public comment period that is expected to last 60 days.

The loosening of the Volcker Rule is part of a coordinated effort underway in Washington to relax rules put into place in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Big banks, emboldened by President Trump’s deregulatory agenda and a more favorable political climate in Washington, have begun pressing for changes to several postcrisis rules, including the Volcker Rule.

And for the one that's not quite like the others...Reuters, Europe making progress on anti-U.S. sanction measures over Iran: France. It's a tiny little report on some remarks by France's Foreign Minister about EU efforts to avoid US sanctions on Iran. The last sentence, almost an afterthought, is ominous though:

Le Drian said there was still a need to create financial mechanisms away from the dollar, in euros or other currencies, that will help firms dealing with Iran, and for Teheran to be able to export its oil.

Meanwhile, instead of comforting any of this, the President has started a trade war with Canada, Mexico, all of Europe, and depending on whether the big hand of the clock is pointing to an odd or even number, sometimes China. Oh, and threatening to ban German cars completely.
posted by zachlipton at 10:34 PM on May 31, 2018 [20 favorites]

Big Banks to Get a Break From Limits on Risky Trading

Tim Kaine and Mark Warner can't wait to sponsor the repeal bill
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:49 PM on May 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

activities that can be highly profitable but also leave them more vulnerable to losses

Wall Street sawed off the branch they were sitting on in 2008, Volcker glued it back on and nailed a couple of flimsy braces to it in 2010, now Wall Street is sawing off the brace in 2018 and we're finally back on track to global financial meltdown. Après nous le déluge, but in the meantime, let the fucking bon temps rouler.

Good work Rs! See you on the way down!
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 12:55 AM on June 1, 2018 [22 favorites]

So El Presidente is tweeting about the employment numbers before they're released. They're supposed to be kept under wraps to prevent insider trading. Would he'd be tweeting about them if they were bad?
posted by PenDevil at 5:10 AM on June 1, 2018 [25 favorites]

I don't know if its related to that recent analysis that found DJT's tweets aren't read by the billions of so called followers, but two things seem to be happening here. Increasingly provocative tweets by him, and, simultaneously a pushing of news about him at everyone i.e. scattershot, planetarily, not just his core or even his country.
posted by infini at 5:30 AM on June 1, 2018

CBS News: "We are going to Dallas, we are going to Houston. We are going to have a little fun today. Thank you very much," President Trump says as he head to Texas to meet with the families of Santa Fe school shooting victims

AP: Trump Meets With Families Affected by Texas Shooting

Hart, an Army veteran, said she also suggested employing veterans as sentinels in schools. She said Trump responded, “And arm them?” She replied, “No,” but said Trump “kept mentioning” arming classroom teachers. “It was like talking to a toddler,” Hart said.

Reporters were not permitted to witness the meeting.[...]

Before Thursday, Trump was most recently in the Lone Star State on May 4 to attend the annual National Rifle Association convention. He pledged in his address that NRA members’ Second Amendment rights “will never, ever be under siege as long as I am your president.”

posted by Doktor Zed at 5:42 AM on June 1, 2018 [40 favorites]

Rhonda Hart, whose 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was killed at the school, told The Associated Press that Trump repeatedly used the word ‘wacky’ to describe the shooter and the trench coat he wore. She said she told Trump, “Maybe if everyone had access to mental health care, we wouldn’t be in the situation.”

"Wacky." "Wacky. Wacky. Wacky."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:29 AM on June 1, 2018 [35 favorites]

‘wacky’

Note the use of cutesy diminutive language for white male mass murderers (wacky, sick puppies, gotta nab 'em) yet with Obama and Hillary it's "he's the founder of ISIS" or "she's a disgusting corrupt traitor." Can't risk insulting his base too much.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:37 AM on June 1, 2018 [57 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very poorly for a very long period of time. Highly restrictive on Trade! They must open their markets and take down their trade barriers! They report a really high surplus on trade with us. Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?

We buy more wood from Canada than we sell to it, therefore we must cut down our last tree. Easter Island, here we come.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:45 AM on June 1, 2018 [15 favorites]

It seriously boggles my mind that this man hasn't yet been punched square in the jaw in one of these "no reporters allowed" private meetings with grieving families. If I was talking to someone about my recently-murdered child, and that someone had recently responded to the mass murder event by reassuring the NRA that he would refuse to act to protect other kids from being murdered, and he used the word 'wacky' to describe the murderer, I imagine I would black out and then come to pinned to the ground by half a dozen Secret Service agents.
posted by Mayor West at 6:46 AM on June 1, 2018 [115 favorites]

I was just thinking the exact same thing, Mayor West.
posted by Catblack at 6:48 AM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Term limits with a very long limit, say 20 or 24 years, wouldn't be too harmful.

And with an additional 20 or 24 year ban on engaging in lobbying activities.
posted by Gelatin at 6:53 AM on June 1, 2018 [24 favorites]

Washington Post: Signs of sophisticated cellphone spying found near White House, U.S. officials say

Probably a dozen countries (/nonstate global entities) effectively have listening equipment installed inside Trump's wormeaten brain.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:08 AM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

538 updated their pollster ratings few days ago in advance of the 2018 midterm elections, accompanied by a podcast and two articles by Nate Silver. Podcast: A Conversation About Our Pollster Ratings. Articles: Which Pollsters To Trust In 2018 and The Polls Are All Right.
posted by nangar at 7:09 AM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think fruit of the poisoned tree is inadequate. Not only should the evidence be barred,

It's not only about barring the evidence, it's the fact that they withheld it - including evidence that is potentially exculpatory. IANAL, but that seems a big deal to me; forget fruit of the poisoned tree (which has to do with how evidence is obtained), this is misconduct.

posted by nubs at 3:02 PM on May 31 [7 favorites +] [!]

Good point. The fruit of the poisoned tree doesn't even apply here. They not only withheld evidence, one could argue that they intentionally tampered with it when they presented it in an edited format. It should be a crime.
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:12 AM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

The Daily 202: Floating clemency for Blagojevich, Trump diminishes the gravity of political corruption - James Hohmann, Washington Post.

Post title says it all for me. The column has a consise history of why Blagojevich ended up behind bars in the first place, the arguments for and against a pardon, and the relationship he has had with Trump as a Celebrity Apprentice contestant.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:15 AM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

Yet not pardoned ( so far ) is felony political donor and tax evader Charles Kushner.

Weird.
posted by mikelieman at 7:42 AM on June 1, 2018 [8 favorites]

The next Democratic President should feel free to use Trumps new precedent of pardoning by tweet without DOJ review to pardon thousands of nonviolent marijuana offenders.

posted by T.D. Strange at 10:08 AM on May 31 [46 favorites +] [!]

I've gotta say, Trump's only prior knowledge of the pardon process probably comes from watching previous presidents pardon the Thanksgiving turkey.

(Whoa, that's a lotta 'p's.)
posted by Mental Wimp at 7:45 AM on June 1, 2018 [24 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very poorly for a very long period of time. Highly restrictive on Trade! They must open their markets and take down their trade barriers! They report a really high surplus on trade with us. Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?

As an example of just how weird this world is becoming, this morning on the CBC - which is sort of the place you expect serious & sober reporting on events that impact Canada and the world - the business reporter who read this tweet did so in the same way that Stephen Colbert reads a Donald Trump tweet; as a mocking impression of the man.

I don't know what to make of it; it's not that the Ceeb doesn't do comedy - they do it quite well, generally - but they don't do it as part of a segment with a reporter about a trade issue. It probably doesn't mean anything, but it felt really, really weird to me in a way that cut through all the other general weirdness of life in 2018. I probably need to go scream into the void for a bit.
posted by nubs at 7:46 AM on June 1, 2018 [35 favorites]

The void's full, sorry.
posted by Horkus at 7:51 AM on June 1, 2018 [84 favorites]

I don't know what to make of it; it's not that the Ceeb doesn't do comedy - they do it quite well, generally - but they don't do it as part of a segment with a reporter about a trade issue.

honestly i'm not sure there IS a way to report on this 'trade issue' that doesn't come off like a comedy bit because the whole thing is such a shrieking farce
posted by halation at 7:58 AM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

I imagine that Melania and the White House know exactly where she is

With Trump going off the rails this week and Melania out of sight, the context of her absence is important—and absolutely not normal. While ordinarily one might give a couple the benefit of the doubt, the Trumps continue to undermine public confidence in them at every step.

NBC Chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson @HallieJackson reports:

.@FLOTUS will NOT be joining the president at Camp David this weekend, per her office.

(Mrs. Trump has joined him on 3 of the 5 trips he's taken there - last was Sept. 2017.)

Her office said this wk she's been working - holding staff mtgs on initiatives/long-term planning.

Michael Ian Black @michaelianblack: I’ve been obsessing a bit over Melania’s disappearance - and that’s what it is. First Ladies don’t just drop out of sight; they go to Memorial Day wreath layings, for example. Or accompany their husbands to Camp David. They are *in* the public view.

Jon Rogers @jonrog1: Okay, if one of our female co-workers went missing incommunicado for as long as Melania's been gone, and then all we got was a weird e-mail written in her husband's distinctive style, we'd have called the cops by now.

posted by Doktor Zed at 7:58 AM on June 1, 2018 [112 favorites]

How many mod notes will be required before people here stop conspiracy-speculating about Melania?
posted by zarq at 8:15 AM on June 1, 2018 [8 favorites]

People keep insisting its an important discussion that we must have, but the only place it ever seems to lead is to conspiracy theories and shitty jokes about domestic violence.
posted by parallellines at 8:16 AM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

I mean. I think it’s a valid topic of conversation, in that it reminds all women that you can literally disappear under suspicious circumstances while married to a known abuser and (mutiply) accused rapist, and people won’t even want to talk about it if your husband is powerful enough.

So yes. It’s relevant.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:20 AM on June 1, 2018 [125 favorites]

I imagine that Melania and the White House know exactly where she is

it's nigh-impossible to disappear when you have full time secret service protection (although I do like the image of Melania trying on wigs and sunglasses and lying down in the backseat of a sedan while her paramour drives away. They don't know where they're going, but they don't care so long as they can be together).

Wherever Melania is (Manhattan most likely) she's clearly done with the spotlight for the moment, and speculating about why gets us into some weird territory, so *shrug*.
posted by dis_integration at 8:27 AM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

There's a very big difference between your friends and family not knowing where you are, and CNN not knowing where you are.
posted by parallellines at 8:27 AM on June 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

It's not US politics, but worth noting: Prime minister Mariano Rajoy of the conservative People's Party (Partido popular), who's been leading a minority government, has been removed from office this morning by a vote of censure in the Spanish parliament and replaced by Pedro Sanchez of the Socialist Party. According to French news reports I've been reading so far, support from the Basque Christian Democratic Party ( EAJ or PNV) for the move was critical in pulling this off.
posted by nangar at 8:29 AM on June 1, 2018 [12 favorites]

We don't know what's happening and people keep speculating or joking that she might have been abused or abducted. It's terrible.

The mods have asked three times. These threads are already difficult enough for them to manage without people ignoring their notes / requests.
posted by zarq at 8:29 AM on June 1, 2018 [10 favorites]

Prime minister Mariano Rajoy

The former treasurer of Rajoy's party was sentenced to 33 years and a 44 million euro fine last week.
posted by zarq at 8:34 AM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

Mod note: Folks I think we can do multiple things at once and (a) acknowledge that it's weird that the WH and the president and FLOTUS are all being weird about the visibility of FLOTUS, (b) acknowledge that the more general question of women being hidden from public view by controlling men has all SORTS of weird troubling history and potential implications, and (c) not keep going back to the well on time-filling jokes and "jokes" in the absence of any actual substantial information in this case. In short, we can drop it with this particular idle schtick without declaring the situation meaningless or not-weird, and wait until there's actually some specific there there to discuss it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:36 AM on June 1, 2018 [33 favorites]

Earlier in the thread there is a link to this tweet from a CNBC reporter saying he passed by Melania and her aides in the White House three days ago. So whatever oddness there is about her not going out in public, it seems like a pretty credible source saying she is fine otherwise.
posted by mikepop at 8:41 AM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

Skipping a Camp David vacation with Trump is a new development in the saga of Melania's absence, one that is unusual both for her and for any First Lady. While we've already run the gamut of possibilities for where she is and what she's doing—and not all of them sinister—the fact remains that she has not been seen with her husband in over three weeks. In that time, Trump has been noticeably more volatile, especially this past week. Last weekend, he tweeted an odd paean to "young and beautiful lives" that had been "devastated" by the Russia investigation in what was obviously a reference to the absent Hope Hicks, and today he attacked Samantha Bee over her controversial joke about his #1 daughter. Trump, as an arch misogynist, relies on the emotional labor of the women tied to him to keep him balanced and calm him down—or at least to appear in public with him to boost his image. From what we can reasonably infer, Melania has stopped providing him with her support, which may be one more reason why he's beginning to crack up.

(And yes, I miscalculated by closing my previous post with Jon Rogers's humorous take, which I had hoped would leaven the more serious two before it. Sorry, mods.)

On preview: Cortex, I'll drop this issue until there's actual news again.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:42 AM on June 1, 2018 [13 favorites]

Trump is employing a strategy that might be familiar to coaches of inferior middle school basketball teams: Foul your opponents on every play, because, by human nature, referees are not equipped to blow the whistle on every play for fear of seeming biased. They are going to let some plays go by. In politics, journalists are the referees. And because they give Trump a pass on so many of his fouls, he avoids scrutiny that politicians who play by the rules would be subjected to regardless of ideology.

And worse, the media has an instinctive bias against improving its behavior, not only because they'd be bombarded by bad-faith accusations of bias but also that to do so would be to at least tacitly admit that they've been giving Trump's constant fouls too much of a pass all along.
posted by Gelatin at 8:47 AM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

"Those who are predicting, expecting -- or simply hoping for -- a surge of voter turnout, especially among younger citizens, in this year's elections need to reflect on these sobering voter turnout rates for the 13 states that held primary elections through May 22."
posted by jgirl at 8:53 AM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

As a counter-point to the article that jgirl linked: I (a younger citizen) am barred from my state's (New York's) primary because I didn't set my party registration early enough, but you better believe I'm donating and voting in the general.

I don't know about the rules in other states, but would similarly expect that primary voting suppresses younger voters elsewhere.
posted by ragtag at 9:01 AM on June 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm all out of evens and fucks and everything: (and massive trigger warnings in linked article! Child abuse, suicide, sexual violence) White Supremacist Pedophile Runs For Congress. This is in Virginia's 10th district. No, not as a Republican, as an "independent" "libertarian," but still, that someone so morally and spiritually bankrupt and open about it is running for public office...nope, no evens and no fucks left.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:07 AM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

The reason anyone is expendable is term limits. Missouri has such short term limits on the legislature that by the time someone really knows what's up, they're out. All of the institutional memory is in the lobbyists. Coincidentally, many of the legislators become lobbyists. In this way, actual legislating acts as a farm team for the lobbying groups. Consequently, washing out of the minors isn't seen as a big deal.

Yes, this is so true. Since watching term limits in action I have become a big opponent of them. They totally tip the balance of power away from people/voters and elected officials and towards big corporations and big money--whoever can afford lobbyists.

It's one of those things where it becomes easy to convince the average voter to support something that actually works against their self-interest in a pretty big way.

Term limits with a very long limit, say 20 or 24 years, wouldn't be too harmful.
posted by flug at 10:24 AM on June 1 [20 favorites +] [!]

Partly in the name of time-filling derails, but also in the name of what I think is a huge institutional bulwark against authoritarianism, I have to say that I think term limits are a crucially important part of any democratic system. What I don't always appreciate are norms dictating silence from former political actors, although, yeah, generally I appreciate those too.

Xi Jinping had term limits removed, Trump came out in support of "trying that" immediately after. Nah, let's not.

I would welcome (although certainly not resent if any party felt less than compelled to do so) more voluminous condemnation of Trump and the Great Enswampening from the Obamas (both), Clintons (both), and Bushes (both). We are in unprecedented times, and if there was a moment to break norms in the name of good, it's now. I appreciate what's been said by them so far, but hell, we've got a hell of a lot of former leaders who could put a hell of a lot of weight behind citizen efforts to hobble this administration. Fight now or suffer later, and that goes for them as well as we non-politicians. It would be great if former politicians embraced that they are private citizens now and engaged in the political process from the grassroots like the rest of us have to.
posted by saysthis at 9:10 AM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

NBC has a Seychelles-related scoop: Jared Kushner Close Friend Rick Gerson Now Under Scrutiny From Mueller—Gerson met with a UAE royal in the Seychelles around the time of a secret meeting there between Trump friend Erik Prince and Russian and Emirati officials.

A close friend of Jared Kushner has come under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his proximity to some key meetings between Trump associates and foreign officials, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Richard Gerson, a hedge-fund manager in New York, was in the Seychelles in January 2017, less than two weeks before President Donald Trump's inauguration and around the time Trump associate Erik Prince secretly met with Russian and United Arab Emirates officials, including Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, four of the people said.

While in the remote Indian Ocean island nation, Gerson met with Prince Mohammed — also known by his initials as MBZ — and communicated with a Lebanese-American businessman with close ties to the UAE, George Nader, who had organized the Erik Prince meeting, according to text messages Gerson sent at the time and a person familiar with the meeting.

Gerson had met Nader just weeks earlier when Trump officials, including Kushner, gathered for a secret meeting with MBZ at a Four Seasons hotel in New York, four people familiar with the meeting said. Trump's incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn and chief political adviser Steve Bannon, as well as the UAE's ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Otaiba, also attended the meeting.

This is the first time we're hearing about this meeting, but you can bet it won't be the last one uncovered. (Incidentally, it's looking like we'll need a fresh thread before this evening is over at this rate.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:11 AM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

The article is bullshit and ax-grinding in a foul turducken of concern trolling. If you're wanting to see if turnout looks to increase, you look at the delta from the last off year election, not the absolute percentage of voters. And what do you know:

Even though Oregon voters cast 150,000 more ballots this year than in 2014, this huge surge of NAVs added to our denominator pulled down the state's overall voting rate.

posted by NoxAeternum at 9:24 AM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

Using anonymized smartphone-location data and precinct-level voting, we show that Thanksgiving dinners attended by residents from opposing-party precincts were 30 to 50 minutes shorter than same-party dinners.

The effect of partisanship and political advertising on close family ties

Research on growing American political polarization and antipathy primarily studies public institutions and political processes, ignoring private effects, including strained family ties. Using anonymized smartphone-location data and precinct-level voting, we show that Thanksgiving dinners attended by residents from opposing-party precincts were 30 to 50 minutes shorter than same-party dinners. This decline from a mean of 257 minutes survives extensive spatial and demographic controls. Reductions in the duration of Thanksgiving dinner in 2016 tripled for travelers from media markets with heavy political advertising—an effect not observed in 2015—implying a relationship to election-related behavior. Effects appear asymmetric: Although fewer Democratic-precinct residents traveled in 2016 than in 2015, Republican-precinct residents shortened their Thanksgiving dinners by more minutes in response to political differences. Nationwide, 34 million hours of cross-partisan Thanksgiving dinner discourse were lost in 2016 owing to partisan effects.

posted by T.D. Strange at 9:24 AM on June 1, 2018 [25 favorites]

I don't know what to make of it; it's not that the Ceeb doesn't do comedy - they do it quite well, generally - but they don't do it as part of a segment with a reporter about a trade issue. It probably doesn't mean anything, but it felt really, really weird to me in a way that cut through all the other general weirdness of life in 2018. I probably need to go scream into the void for a bit.

I think other countries are much better equipped to deal with Trump. Canada has been sleeping next to the Elephant since before confederation really. We were already aware of the tenuous nature of international agreements and their enforcement mechanisms because we have always been on the other end of a massive power imbalance. We have danced delicately around enforcing agreements because there was an ever present chance they could be cancelled altogether by the US. This was true no matter how honourable the American administration was.

Trump ramps up the awkwardness because now the elephant we sleep next to is more prone to hypnic jerks but were are already well practiced at getting out to the way. We can weather a US trade war because we have many many times before.
posted by srboisvert at 9:25 AM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

On the plus side, it’s nice to wake up next to an elephant and be the one with more wood.

Yes, that was a trade deficit dick joke. You’re welcome, everybody.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:37 AM on June 1, 2018 [62 favorites]

Lawyer pleads guilty to criminal tax fraud in case involving business associate of Michael Cohen [ABA Journal]

A New York lawyer pleaded guilty on Thursday for her role in helping “taxi king” Evgeny Freidman withhold nearly $5 million from the government in surcharges collected for cab rides.

The lawyer, Andreea Dumitru, 43, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal tax fraud in the third degree, according to a press release from the New York Attorney General’s office.

Freidman has been a business partner of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. The government claimed Dumitru and Freidman, a disbarred lawyer, withheld nearly $5 million in taxes that had been collected from passengers over a four-year period ending in 2015.[...]

Dumitru pleaded guilty to a felony, but she will be allowed to withdraw the plea and plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of tax fraud in the fifth degree if she complies with the agreement.

In a separate case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced in March that Dumitru, an immigration attorney, was being indicted on one count of asylum fraud and one count of making false statements. According to the press release, Dumitru is alleged to have submitted more than 180 fraudulent asylum applications for clients between 2012 and 2017.

posted by melissasaurus at 9:39 AM on June 1, 2018 [12 favorites]

Axios : Steve Bannon does nationalist victory lap — in Italy

One happy man: Steve Bannon has been in Italy in recent days promoting the coalition-in-waiting. Sources tell Axios he met with Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, in March and encouraged him to partner with Five Star.

Deal Street Asia/Bloomberg News: S Korean firms buy $100m debt on US residential property part-owned by Kushner Cos.

Two South Korean financial firms have bought $100 million of debt on a New Jersey residential building that’s part-owned by the family of Jared Kushner.
...
Prior to receiving the Citigroup loan earlier this year, Kushner Cos. and its partner in the building, KABR Group, had trouble finding a firm to refinance more than $180 million of loans, including expensive construction debt and $50 million held by Chinese investors. Kushner Cos. had drawn criticism for pitches to Chinese investors that alluded to its White House ties. Jared Kushner is son-in-law and senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.

posted by OnceUponATime at 9:42 AM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

“Federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity,” says a 41-page draft memo obtained by Bloomberg and circulated before a National Security Council meeting on the subject Friday.

The "national security" justification for a raft of bad policies, from subsidizing coal and nuclear plants the market chose to phase out to imposing tariffs on one of our closest allies to
implementing inhumane treatments of immigrants including asylum seekers, is a frightening development. As is the fact that his base swallows it with glee because they perceive someone outside their tribe being hurt.

Not to mention that it sets a bad precedent. I doubt his supporters thought for a minute that a Democratic president could use the same power to be as actually authoritarian as they pretended Obama was.
posted by Gelatin at 9:43 AM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

How the fuck does Jared Kushner have security clearance? He had to update his disclosure form several times to include over 100 foreign contacts. (Apparently he's very bad at filling out disclosure forms accurately.) He tried to set up a back-door communications channel with Russia. Officials in other countries see him as an easily-influenced mark. He's a grifter.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 9:44 AM on June 1, 2018 [33 favorites]

Two grift updates from the Washington Post:

Trump's golfing has cost about 10 times more than the Mueller investigation.

Scott Pruitt has spent $1600 on 12 pens.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:53 AM on June 1, 2018 [54 favorites]

How the fuck does Jared Kushner have security clearance

Like most things during the enTrumpening of government that make you go, "how!?", it turns out that security clearance isn't a matter of laws and regulations, but a matter of norms and traditions. This Politico piece talks about it a bit. Basically if the president wants to he can ignore the recommendations of the people who conduct the security background investigation and just give him clearance.

I'll give one thing to Trump and his ilk, they've highlighted how many of our systems that are meant to keep people honest and ethical can be circumvented by the president just being shamelessly dishonest and unethical. Nixon may have said that it's not illegal if the President does it, but Trump means it and isn't ashamed to take that idea to the extreme.
posted by runcibleshaw at 9:57 AM on June 1, 2018 [37 favorites]

The "national security" justification for a raft of bad policies, from subsidizing coal and nuclear plants the market chose to phase out to imposing tariffs on one of our closest allies to
implementing inhumane treatments of immigrants including asylum seekers, is a frightening development.

I have no doubt this is intentional to try and evade judicial review. Courts have traditionally been extremely deferntial any time the government cries "national security". Judges (well, many of them, not the Republican activists like Gorsuch) understandably don't want to been seen as legislating or doing diplomacy from the bench, so when the government cites national security, that's often the end of the case, government wins.

If the Trump administration continues to expand their reliance on national security into more and more tangential issues with dubious support, you'd hope to see greater pushback from the courts than usual. Except it's pretty hard to have confidence in that.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:02 AM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

Peter Baker, NYT: How Trump’s Election Shook Obama: ‘What if We Were Wrong?’

In the weeks after Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Obama went through multiple emotional stages, according to a new book by his longtime adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes. At times, the departing president took the long view, at other points, he flashed anger. He called Mr. Trump a “cartoon” figure who cared more about his crowd sizes than any particular policy. And he expressed rare self-doubt, wondering whether he had misjudged his own influence on American history.

Set to be published next week by Random House, Mr. Rhodes’s memoir, “The World as It Is,” offers a peek into Mr. Obama’s tightly sealed inner sanctum from the perspective of one of the few people who saw him up close through all eight years of his presidency. Few moments shook Mr. Obama more than the decision by voters to replace him with a candidate who had questioned his very birth.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:11 AM on June 1, 2018 [15 favorites]

Scott Pruitt has spent $1600 on 12 pens.

This is a complaint from someone that doesn't know how much fountain pens can cost. $133/ea for a custom imprinted fountain pen is the price of an expensive, but probably gift item for others as VIP memento.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:15 AM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think the rest of us are a little past the "What If" part of that question.

I don't think a fine dissection of the final 6 months of President Obama's term will be at all kind now.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:17 AM on June 1, 2018 [8 favorites]

This is a complaint from someone that doesn't know how much fountain pens can cost.

I know that rich-people luxury items cost a lot of money, yes.

$133/ea for a custom imprinted fountain pen is the price of an expensive, but probably gift item for others as VIP memento.

"These are only unnecessary luxury items intended for grubby low-end bribes" doesn't exactly acquit Pruitt.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:18 AM on June 1, 2018 [33 favorites]

This is a complaint from someone that doesn't know how much fountain pens can cost. $133/ea for a custom imprinted fountain pen is the price of an expensive, but probably gift item for others as VIP memento.

I don't mind that expensive gift giving.

As long as the recipients were drug tested, means tested, none of their relatives had any convictions and they had spent years on a waiting list.
posted by srboisvert at 10:20 AM on June 1, 2018 [66 favorites]

We're going to drug test foreign EPA counterparts and dignitaries?

Maybe read the friendly article if you wanna weigh in on this. I am not sure I think this sort of knickknack for visitors is sensible but I find it entirely believable given other stories we've seen over the last decade about such exchanges between officials.
posted by phearlez at 10:23 AM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

'The U.S. President Is Destroying the American World Order'
(Der Spiegel) Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer talks about the danger of war against Iran, the deterioration of trans-Atlantic relations under U.S. President Donald Trump ( and the serious need for Germany to invest massively in the European Union's future) .
posted by adamvasco at 10:24 AM on June 1, 2018 [13 favorites]

I'm an electrical engineer. I work in something tangentially related, and I've been watching the situation with the DOE and the attempt to prop up coal. (And commented on this before.) I'll say this:

Coal and nuclear make the grid LESS reliable during emergency situations, not more.

During hurricane Harvey, coal and nuclear plants had to shut down. The former because outdoor coal stocks are dangerous to be near during heavy rain (coal slides), and the latter because personnel had to be evacuated, and unattended reactors have to be shut down.

During the last New England cold spell, Vermont Yankee (a nuke) had to shut down because a nearby transmission line went down.

Both are bad for reliability becuase they are not nimble. They produce a lot of power, but revving up and revving down are not within their capabilities. (Existing generators, anyway. Brand new nukes could be nimbler).

This is an example of the GOP's war on science escalating into a war on engineering.
posted by ocschwar at 10:26 AM on June 1, 2018 [94 favorites]

New York Times: We Ran Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are

Hidden within: It isn’t perfect — wage growth remains unexceptional despite its growth spurt in May, and the ratio of prime-age adults working remains below its historical levels.

"Workers are paid poorly when they're working at all, but boy howdy gee whiz jobs are fantastic." Cancel your subscription.
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:29 AM on June 1, 2018 [58 favorites]

Few moments shook Mr. Obama more than the decision by voters to replace him with a candidate who had questioned his very birth.

Everything we've read since the election gives this impression that Clinton, Obama, Clapper, Comey... all of them were just watching the election unfold with a sense of disbelief coupled with a confidence that Trump just couldn't win, the world just didn't work that way...

In Obama's case, it seems that there was a sense that the danger of some kind of civil violence resulting from Republicans believing he was abusing the system was the greatest threat he was worried about, besides maybe the possibility of actual vote tampering from Russia, which the Obama administration appears to have taken very seriously.

I was worried about the threat of civil violence too. I was worried about the threat of vote tampering.

But I was also genuinely worried that Trump could win and become an American version of Vladimir Putin. I was worried about this before the public knew he actually had any connection to Putin, back in February of 2016, when I posted the FPP about taking seriously the possibility that Trump could win, and posted down in the comments that:

I still think Trump/Putin is a more relevant comparison than Trump/Hitler.

When informed that her country's president, Vladimir Putin, had called Trump "brilliant," she told The Huffington Post, "When Putin came to his first term or second term, nobody [in Russia] actually thought that this is serious. Everybody was joking about it. And nobody could imagine that after five, six years, we would have a war in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and these problems in Syria," in which Russia has become involved.

"Everybody [is] joking about Donald Trump now, but it's a very short way from joke to sad reality when you have a really crazy president speaking about breaking every moral and logic norm. So I hope that he will not be president. That's very simple."

Putin is bad enough.

and

Trump is different. He could corrupt our democratic process irreparably. He and Putin are big fans of each other. Putin was democratically elected but has been unwilling to yield power. They are cut from the same cloth. Trump has said he will torture people. He has said he will discriminate against people based on their religion. He has invited his supporters to physically attack people at his rallies.

And then! Trump was saying we should pull out of NATO and altering the Republican platform to take out military aid to Ukraine, and the Russians were hacking the DNC, and Manafort was quitting after it was revealed he was getting money from the Party of Regions. It was like the metaphor became literal. He wasn't just like Putin. He was a creature of Putin. And I became terrified that he would win and we would essentially become a Russian satellite state.

So anyway... I was terrified of the possibility of Trump winning and governing as Putin's puppet really early in the campaign. And I am not smarter than Obama. (Very few people are smarter than Obama I think.) And I knew a hell of lot less than Obama, who must've been briefed about the Carter Page situation and the Papadopoulos situation and Manafort's past... So if I was this scared, just based on my limited knowledge, why wasn't Obama equally scared? And Comey and Clapper and the rest of them... That's what I can't figure out.
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:31 AM on June 1, 2018 [50 favorites]

Since the president can declassify information to whoever he or she pleases -- for example, as when Trump accidentally blew a sensitive surveillance operation of ISIS by boasting to the Russians -- I presume Trump simply ordered Jared Kushner to be given a security clearance, and hey presto.
posted by Gelatin at 10:31 AM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

10,000 Trump misstatements by the end of his term? Washington Post fact-checker says it’s possible.

Off-hours? Glenn Kessler lets out a short laugh. “We’re always on call, all the time. He’s always tweeting or what have you.”

Kessler leads the three-member Washington Post fact-checking unit. They put together a database tracking President Trump’s misstatements, which made news itself last month when it documented more than 3,000 of Trump's false or misleading statements since he took office.
...
Kessler estimates that, at this pace — 6.5 a day, more than 200 a month — the misstatements could hit 10,000 by January 20, 2021.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:33 AM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

So anyway... I was terrified of the possibility of Trump winning and governing as Putin's puppet really early in the campaign. And I am not smarter than Obama. (Very few people are smarter than Obama I think.) And I knew a hell of lot less than Obama, who must've been briefed about the Carter Page situation and the Papadopoulos situation and Manafort's past... So if I was this scared, just based on my limited knowledge, why wasn't Obama equally scared? And Comey and Clapper and the rest of them... That's what I can't figure out.

He was effectively blackmailed by Mitch McConnell and other republican leadership out of doing anything at all. Or, at least that's a convenient excuse.
posted by dilaudid at 10:34 AM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

One that Mitch “shitstain on the republic” McConnell has never (to my knowledge) denied.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:36 AM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

10,000 Trump misstatements by the end of his term? Washington Post fact-checker says it’s possible.

A "misstatement" is when one accidentally says the recent school shooting took place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, not Santa Fe, Texas. Trump no doubt has countless of saying something boneheaded and wrong out of carelessness more so than a specific intent to deceive.

But most of the time, Trump just lies.
posted by Gelatin at 10:37 AM on June 1, 2018 [19 favorites]

@CPotterPgh
Area newspaper suffers $1 million hit due to tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, whose trade policy is espoused by its editorial page.

There is no nose these people won't cut off in order to spite their faces, as long as a lib is owned in the process.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:57 AM on June 1, 2018 [30 favorites]

OnceUponATime: "So if I was this scared, just based on my limited knowledge, why wasn't Obama equally scared? And Comey and Clapper and the rest of them... That's what I can't figure out."

It doesn't seem too confusing to me--it's very difficult to acknowledge the depth of hatred and perfidy that is the core of the Republican party and has been for decades. You'd think that when their emperor finally strode out of the palace wearing no clothes, Obama would've been able to see it for what it was, but when your brain has sunk a lot of energy into avoiding the thought that a significant fraction of your countrymen are racist shitheads, it's easier to just continue that way.
posted by TypographicalError at 11:03 AM on June 1, 2018 [10 favorites]

Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?

Oh I see it now... he's the fucking Once-ler from The Lorax.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:06 AM on June 1, 2018 [12 favorites]

Buzzfeed legal reporter Zoe Tillman @ZoeTillman has a roundup of courthouse news, from the Special Counsel grand jury to the EDVA:

• Jason Sullivan, who worked as Roger Stone's social media strategist during the 2016 campaign, came before the grand jury today. Declined to comment after, his lawyer said "he's going to fully comply with all legal requests made to him for information, and he's done nothing wrong"

• Special counsel's office and Concord Management (company charged in the Russian troll farm case) have proposed a schedule going into the fall for Concord's various anticipated motions challenging Mueller's authority and the indictment

• Judge in Paul Manafort's Virginia case had rescheduled a hearing on Manafort's motions to suppress evidence and for a hearing on leaks from June 8 to June 29, citing a scheduling conflict

posted by Doktor Zed at 11:17 AM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

So if I was this scared, just based on my limited knowledge, why wasn't Obama equally scared? And Comey and Clapper and the rest of them... That's what I can't figure out.

It's easy to forget how much it seemed like Clinton had it in the bag. No one but 538 put her at less than 90% chance of winning. Princeton literally had her at 99%.

And, significantly, while Obama knew that Russia was interfering, and he thought that Trump was at best a buffoon, as far as I can tell not even Obama was briefed on the FBI's suspicion that Russia might be infiltrating the Trump camp, let alone that Trump may have been actively cooperating with the Russians. I might be wrong on this point or have misinterpreted things, so if anyone has a link, I'd love to see it. But I was under the impression that the FBI counterintelligence investigation re Trump's campaign was under incredibly tight wraps and very few people (perhaps not even the President) knew of it.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:19 AM on June 1, 2018 [15 favorites]

I hope Trump opens the letter and it's just a big dickbutt
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:30 AM on June 1, 2018 [22 favorites]

From that ABA Journal article melissasaurus quoted:

The government claimed Dumitru and Freidman, a disbarred lawyer, withheld nearly $5 million in taxes that had been collected from passengers over a four-year period ending in 2015.

I don't know whether those taxes go to New York City or New York state or where, but let's just see what $5,000,000 could buy.

On page 6 of Understanding New York City's Budget (PDF), a chart shows what $10 million buys. It could be spent on:

132 new teachers, or
9.7 billion gallons of wastewater treated, or
100 additional school based nurses, or
213 homeless family shelter units for a year, or
1.2 million home-delivered meals for seniors, or
67 lane-miles of city streets resurfaced, or
13,558 small business job placements

So this is one crime we know about, by one guy we know about, that cost the city 65 teachers. Or 560,000 meals for seniors. Or 33 miles of fixed potholes.

This is a story we need to tell. One tax cheat means how many over-crowded classrooms? How many broken axles? How many hungry grandmothers?

How many of these criminals are there? How many of these crimes are there?

I pay my taxes. You pay your taxes. These people are robbing us blind.

And this is what the president and his associates are doing. Every day. And they're proud of it. "That makes me smart!" That's what he said.

The problem isn't that taxes are too high. The problem is that some people are criminal tax cheats.
posted by kristi at 11:38 AM on June 1, 2018 [132 favorites]

Guess whatever the letter from Kim had in it was satisfactorily pleasing to trump . . . because the summit is back on for June 12. . .
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:47 AM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have also been thinking a lot about the Media Matters article that TwoStride linked showing that the news spent 10 hours on Roseanne and 30 minutes on the nearly 5000 deaths in Puerto Rico.

It occurred to me this morning that we kind of do the same thing here in these threads. I know, given how terrible everything is, it's hard to find things to talk about that AREN'T terrible, but I really think it's important to evaluate our own ratios, look at the narratives we tell ourselves individually and collectively.

If you categorize the comments in this thread, do you feel like we're talking enough about the things we need to talk about? (For me, that's stuff like: how do we take back Congress, specifically? What useful things are Democrats - and DSA activists - doing right now? What means do we have to resist other than calling our legislators? Are there things going on at the state and city level that can make a difference?)

If, like me, you feel like we could improve our signal-to-noise ratio, or hope-to-gloom ratio, or living-wage-to-Melania ratio, I invite you to chip in with more of what we need more of. Not just here, but also in real life conversations and social media and everywhere. Short of buying Sinclair and Fox, we can't fix the stupid media bias, but we can control what we highlight in the conversations we have.
posted by kristi at 11:48 AM on June 1, 2018 [53 favorites]

kristi: The problem isn't that taxes are too high. The problem is that some people are criminal tax cheats.

This is what underfunding the IRS has done. I actually know a couple of well-meaning, otherwise very liberal people who think that this is a good thing, because it means the IRS can't hassle ordinary folks over small tax mistakes. (And tbh I think the IRS was worse about this in the 80's and early 90's.) But this isn't what the IRS is about, IME - they're there to go after big-time tax cheats and scofflaws. People who deprive the public - that's you, me, nice Mrs. Smith down the street, your kids' teachers, etc. - of what they need and deserve.

Perhaps the IRS needs a rehabilitation campaign as well as more funding and staff.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:57 AM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

“the summit is back on for June 12. . .”

Ahh, just a mooch away. What could possibly go wrong??
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 12:02 PM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

@TheRickyDavila:
Let me be very clear, as someone with a lot of family in Puerto Rico, most of the now estimated over 4,600 American citizens who died as a result of Hurricane Maria, died because of malicious negligence and a purposeful, lackluster, racially motivated excuse of a recovery effort.
posted by Artw at 12:03 PM on June 1, 2018 [66 favorites]

CNN: BREAKING: President Trump says he will meet Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore https://cnn.it/2spwKYB
"I think we would be making a big mistake if we didn’t have it,” President Trump says of the summit with Kim Jong Un that is now back on
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:03 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

@frankthorp: After telling reporters that the letter from King Jong-un was "a very interesting letter," Pres Trump says, "I haven't opened it yet..."

This might be the weirdest thing he's said yet, honestly. The summit is back on because he got a letter, but he hasn't opened it? He claimed it was "a very nice letter" just a second ago. And now he says he could be in for a "big surprise" when he does.

@nycsouthpaw: The letter intrigued him--the heavy bond of the envelope, the quality of the hand lettered address, a heft that bespoke several pages--but not so much that he wanted to open and read it. First, let's go talk to reporters about its characteristics as a thing, he thought.
posted by zachlipton at 12:05 PM on June 1, 2018 [72 favorites]

Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?

Oh I see it now... he's the fucking Once-ler from The Lorax.

The stupid thing -- one of the stupid things -- here is , well, have you ever been to the Canadian north? Do you have any idea how many goddamn trees we have up there? I actually went googling for a number and came up with 318 million trees, or 40% more than there are in the entire United States. Granting that we both want to keep some for enjoyment purposes, we still have 12 times as many trees per capita. Please, take some of them. They're like the zucchini that everyone grows and then tries to foist off on the neighbors, at least as far as we're concerned.

(Obviously this is simplistic, but the whole point of trade is to let each country do what they do best, no? No-one trees better than the Great White North. Except for Russia, but for once I don't think they enter the picture here.)
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:08 PM on June 1, 2018 [14 favorites]

In Obama's case, it seems that there was a sense that the danger of some kind of civil violence resulting from Republicans believing he was abusing the system was the greatest threat he was worried about, besides maybe the possibility of actual vote tampering from Russia, which the Obama administration appears to have taken very seriously.

Well, the Republicans did stage a riot in Florida to get GWB into office by scaring the Supreme Court with a threat of domestic uprising....so it is not like it was unprecedented.
posted by srboisvert at 12:11 PM on June 1, 2018 [17 favorites]

"I think we would be making a big mistake if we didn’t have it,” President Trump says of the summit with Kim Jong Un that is now back on

So he admits it was a big mistake to cancel it?

(Of course not -- he will pretend that canceling it put "maximum pressure" that cause whatever concession was in / they pretend was in that letter.)

It would be good for world peace if North Korea gave up its nukes, but given that the Un family obviously sees them as a safeguard to their hold on power (not unlike the houses of Dune, come to think of it), it's hard to imagine him agreeing to do so, so it's also hard to imagine the summit resulting in a success.
posted by Gelatin at 12:14 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here's the video where he discusses how great the letter is. He also asks the press how much they'd pay to know the contents of the letter. And here's the video of him saying he hasn't opened it and could be very surprised.

I know the disgraced doctor said he got a very good score on that "which of these is a camel" test, but this is legitimately concerning.
posted by zachlipton at 12:16 PM on June 1, 2018 [41 favorites]

Monmouth is gonna drop a dozen polls for competitive House districts starting Monday. They're teasing these polls harder than Donald Trump illegally leaking secret unemployment numbers.

Monmouth is currently 538's top rated pollster. I will prepare my celebratroy and/or panickstricken margaritas in advance.
posted by Justinian at 12:17 PM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

Well, the Republicans did stage a riot in Florida to get GWB into office by scaring the Supreme Court with a threat of domestic uprising....so it is not like it was unprecedented.

So imagine what will happen if Trump gets impeached after the right wing media has spent so much time convincing the base that the FBI probe is a corrupt and politically motivated effort by the "deep state" to steal the results of the 2016 election.
posted by duoshao at 12:17 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

I stand corrected, but to reiterate: more trees than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick.
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:21 PM on June 1, 2018 [25 favorites]

What The Long-Awaited DOJ IG Report On 2016 Will Cover

The Justice Department’s Inspector General is expected, any day now, to release his much anticipated report on the department’s activities in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

The review is mostly focused on DOJ’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. It is separate from the Inspector General probe into surveillance warrants sought for an ex-Trump campaign advisor, nor will it likely cover the other GOP allegations of bias in DOJ’s Trump-Russia investigation. (The Inspector General, it’s worth noting, hasn’t formally announced any inquiries into the Trump investigation matters besides the one reviewing the surveillance warrants).

Topics are:

• Comey’s Clinton Press Conference, And His Two Letters To Congress
• Whether McCabe Should Have Been Recused From The Clinton Probe
• Did A DOJ Official Feed Inappropriate Info To The Clinton Campaign?
• Other DOJ/FBI Leaks During the Campaign
• An Interestingly-Timed Clinton Foundation Records Release

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 12:22 PM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

I will prepare my celebratroy and/or panickstricken margaritas in advance.

And the tears, whether of joy or sorrow, will salt them all the same.
posted by notyou at 12:24 PM on June 1, 2018 [13 favorites]

In Obama's case, it seems that there was a sense that the danger of some kind of civil violence resulting from Republicans believing he was abusing the system was the greatest threat he was worried about, besides maybe the possibility of actual vote tampering from Russia, which the Obama administration appears to have taken very seriously.

Well, the Republicans did stage a riot in Florida to get GWB into office by scaring the Supreme Court with a threat of domestic uprising....so it is not like it was unprecedented.

I was just in the process of making this same point. Obama was right to fear that danger, just wrong to think that the most likely scenario was a Clinton presidency with Trumpist riots. But that mainly just shows that, when there are fears of riots only from one side (as in 2000), the pragmatic calculations of people even on the left (Obama, Gore, Congressional Democrats, etc) is severely biased. The rational response is to induce corresponding fears of riots or the like from the left. That's why the Mueller protest plans are effective: the rational elite (not Trump, but many others in Washington) know that his firing would lead to a riot-like situation and I think that genuinely affects their efforts to restrain Trump.

But the left really need to expand its street-protest plans beyond this one gambit, going beyond mere marches while of course avoiding the amoral tactics of the right, if it wants to counter the threats and pressures from the perpetual implicit threats of violence from their side. If the Republicans are threatening to burn it all down if Trump is impeached, for instance, the left needs something to counter that in the case that he is found guilty of serious crimes and not impeached -- not violence, but (eg) major national work stoppages, shutting down the cities, or something equally damaging to the interests of the elite. And the left needs to make such plans public and give them tastes if it wants their threats to be as credible as those from the right. Otherwise everyone in Washington will just agree that, guilty or not, the most pragmatic plan will be to let Trump remain in place and his policies remain unchecked until the left can muster the supermajority of votes it needs to displace him in 2020 or 2024. Democrats may well win back control in 2020 without any of this, but whenever we bump into the edges of laws and norms (2000, 2016, every day since) the huge pressures bought to bear by the implicit threats from the right pushes everyone, left and right, ever rightward as we continually accommodate one side.
posted by chortly at 12:33 PM on June 1, 2018 [31 favorites]

On the latest Pod Save America, the one guy who I think was sleepless because he just had a kid was talking about how Mueller will not save us, that the only way we will lose Trump* is when he takes off in a helicopter in 2021, and in both content and delivery the message was like from one who, perhaps because he's just had a kid, has had a long conversation with himself about the dark nature of our reality

*aside from a mortal injury, but even then we'd still have Pence.
posted by angrycat at 12:43 PM on June 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

They're like the zucchini that everyone grows and then tries to foist off on the neighbors, at least as far as we're concerned.

(Obviously this is simplistic...

NO! That metaphor resulted in a visceral response, and I understand your "We need to get rid of some of these fucking trees" attitude and offer hugs.
posted by mikelieman at 12:44 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

The rational response is to induce corresponding fears of riots or the like from the left.

Except the left's response to the right's violence is to figure out why they did it and put them in prison.

The right's response to any leftist violence is for the cops to shoot them all and let god sort it out.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 12:45 PM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

given that the Un family

Kim family. Kim family. Kim family.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:48 PM on June 1, 2018 [87 favorites]

Newsweek: "Climate change is real" postcard was one of "threats" to Pruitt

The postcard, which was obtained by The Hill, appears to show a man standing on an iceberg in the ocean with the note: “Dear Mr. Pruitt, CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL!!! We are watching you. For the sake of our planet, our children & our grandchildren, will you be a reasonable man? I repeat, we are watching you!”

The postcard was deemed a threat, according to documents obtained by The Hill. Patrick Sullivan, the Office of Inspector General’s assistant inspector general for investigations, sent the postcard to numerous members of the EPA. “Although the message does not contain a direct threat, the statements ‘will you be a reasonable man?’ and ‘we are watching you’ can be interpreted as intimidating and potentially threatening,” he said.

Begging officials to stop destroying the planet is deemed a credible enough threat that said official required a bulletproof desk and a bulletproof car with bulletproof seat covers. Malignant narcissists see all criticism, no matter how desperate and pleading, as a threat. It's unfortunate that they have control over the fate of humanity.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:55 PM on June 1, 2018 [48 favorites]

It's unfortunate that they have control over the fate of humanity.

posted by Rust Moranis at 12:55 PM on June 1 [+] [!]

Right now, this is true. It is up to us to make it not true.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:57 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Here's the video where he discusses how great the letter is. He also asks the press how much they'd pay to know the contents of the letter. And here's the video of him saying he hasn't opened it and could be very surprised.

CNBC's John Harwood @JohnJHarwood notes: "according to Bush WH vet @TonyFratto, a president will typically have a letter of this type read to him by sender’s representative before letter is delivered in person"

Trump still comes off as a reality-TV buffoon, though.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:58 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm just reading the NYT article linked upthread:

Mr. Obama did not impose sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the meddling before the election because he believed it might prompt Moscow into hacking into Election Day vote tabulations.

So apparently they can do that??
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:02 PM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

NYT: “We Ran Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are"

Now reprinted by whitehouse.gov, minus the one sentence about how the jobs numbers aren't actually good.

Thanks, NYT. Cancel your subscription.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:04 PM on June 1, 2018 [46 favorites]

"A letter was given....It was a very nice letter....It was a very interesting letter...This was a letter presentation that ended up being a two hour conversation. We found the whole subject matter very interesting."

Moments later...

"I haven't seen the letter yet. I didn't open the letter."

They spoke for two hours about a letter that they didn't open. I don't see any other way to interpret this. The letter just sat in the center of the table while they talked about its various qualities and aspects, and they speculated about the subject matter that they imagined it contained.
posted by vverse23 at 1:04 PM on June 1, 2018 [13 favorites]

It's easy to forget how much it seemed like Clinton had it in the bag. No one but 538 put her at less than 90% chance of winning. Princeton literally had her at 99%.

Maybe there was a valid reason that Clinton was projected to win. Has anyone investigated whether voter registration records in certain states may have been hacked to disqualify some voters? Pennsylvania has a Democratic governor now. It shouldn't be hard to dig into that.
posted by msalt at 1:09 PM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

Thanks, NYT. Cancel your subscription.

But the jobs numbers actually are very, very good. The one sentence you're talking about doesn't make the jobs numbers bad, they're like saying "this is a truly excellent ice cream sundae though the sprinkles on top are a little sparse". Let's not be like Trump where the jobs numbers were completely fake and unemployment was actually 42% but then the moment he got elected the jobs numbers became real and all his doing.

The economy is currently roaring along. That's a fact. It is the result of the Fed's monetary policy and Obama's good stewardship and there hasn't yet been enough time for Trump to screw it up since it takes time for stuff to percolate through. Plus the Fed, at least, is maintaining continuity. Trump probably doesn't know or care enough about monetary policy to get involved and fuck it up so the danger from him will be wars, trade or otherwise.

The economy is great. Thanks Obama. Trump will get a lot of credit for it even though he doesn't deserve it beyond not fucking up the Fed.
posted by Justinian at 1:11 PM on June 1, 2018 [25 favorites]

Maybe there was a valid reason that Clinton was projected to win. Has anyone investigated whether voter registration records in certain states may have been hacked to disqualify some voters?

We know they were hacked to gain access to the voter rolls though there has been no evidence that anything was changed. Beyond the rolling disclosures where we learn every few months that the penetrations were a tad worse than previously disclosed. So it wouldn't actually surprise me but, so far, it doesn't appear to be the case.

The valid reason that Clinton was projected to win was that she was ahead in the polls. It's just that all the analysts and all the aggregators save 538 misinterpreted those polls to fit their pre-existing bias (or as the 538 guys would say their "priors"). 538 and Sam Wang were looking at exactly the same polls and coming to radically different conclusions. 538 was correct and Wang and all the others were wrong. That didn't have anything to do with voter rolls it mostly had to do with people not believing that the country was shitty enough to actually elect Trump.

The nation was. (With a little help from our friends Comey and Russia.)
posted by Justinian at 1:15 PM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

Maybe there was a valid reason that Clinton was projected to win. Has anyone investigated whether voter registration records in certain states may have been hacked to disqualify some voters?

Forget actual voter records, how about investigating possibly malicious manipulation of the polls showing her projected win?
posted by dilaudid at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Speaking of the amazing economy:

The Guardian: Donald Trump is deliberately forcing millions of Americans into financial ruin, cruelly depriving them of food and other basic protections while lavishing vast riches on the super-wealthy, the United Nations monitor on poverty has warned.

Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty around the world, has issued a withering critique of the state of America today. Trump is steering the country towards a “dramatic change of direction” that is rewarding the rich and punishing the poor by blocking access even to the most meager necessities.

“This is a systematic attack on America’s welfare program that is undermining the social safety net for those who can’t cope on their own. Once you start removing any sense of government commitment, you quickly move into cruelty,” Alston told the Guardian.

Millions of Americans already struggling to make ends meet faced “ruination”, he warned. “If food stamps and access to Medicaid are removed, and housing subsidies cut, then the effect on people living on the margins will be drastic.”

Asked to define “ruination”, Alston said: “Severe deprivation of food and almost no access to healthcare.”

[...]

Alston added that “the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege”.

He cautioned middle-class Americans from thinking they were immune from the lash of such policies, as Trump’s assault “bodes ill for society as a whole. The proposed slashing of social protection benefits will affect the middle classes every bit as much as the poor.”
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:22 PM on June 1, 2018 [68 favorites]

American elections will always be close by design. A ham sandwich could run against a great candidate and still have a good chance of winning.
posted by xammerboy at 1:25 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

They spoke for two hours about a letter that they didn't open.

That's diplomacy for you. It was more important for Kim Yong Chol to visit the White House and talk directly to Trump (and he would undoubtedly know the contents of the letter). And Kim Jong Un knows as well as we do that Trump won't read anything put in front of him that's more syntactically complex than "See Jane run", so sending one of his top lieutenants to the Oval Office was that much more vital than, say, an exchange of correspondent over Twitter.

Naturally the Trump White House tantalizingly leaked the contents to the WSJ: "The letter was described as fairly basic, according to one foreign government official who was briefed on the contents. It expresses the North Korean leader’s interest in meeting without making any significant concessions or threats. [...] Mr. Kim’s letter was to be inspected by U.S. officials before it was delivered to Mr. Trump, White House officials said ahead of the meeting."

Ordinarily there wouldn't be any problem with this protocol, but Trump couldn't resist playing the reality TV show host in front of the press corps and wound up making the situation look absurd.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:29 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

Trump on the NK summit: "It's a process. We're not go in [sic] and sign something on June 12 and we never were. We are going to start a process. And I told them today: take your time. We can go fast, we can go slowly."

Wha...? Did... did someone get to him? This is a good statement with reasonable management of expectations and so utterly unlike Trump that I am confused. Unless, per DZ's comment, it seems clear to Trump and State that this meeting is just gonna be a photo op without any actual concessions by anyone involved? And even Trump has managed to absorb that fact? That would be my guess. But even so, this is like the single most reasonable statement I've ever seen come out of Trump's mouth which I guess is a good thing.
posted by Justinian at 1:32 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Has anyone investigated whether voter registration records in certain states may have been hacked to disqualify some voters?

The only hint I've seen of that is this NYT article from last September.

The calls started flooding in from hundreds of irate North Carolina voters just after 7 a.m. on Election Day last November.

Dozens were told they were ineligible to vote and were turned away at the polls, even when they displayed current registration cards. Others were sent from one polling place to another, only to be rejected. Scores of voters were incorrectly told they had cast ballots days earlier. In one precinct, voting halted for two hours.

Susan Greenhalgh, a troubleshooter at a nonpartisan election monitoring group, was alarmed. Most of the complaints came from Durham, a blue-leaning county in a swing state. The problems involved electronic poll books — tablets and laptops, loaded with check-in software, that have increasingly replaced the thick binders of paper used to verify voters’ identities and registration status. She knew that the company that provided Durham’s software, VR Systems, had been penetrated by Russian hackers months before.

“It felt like tampering, or some kind of cyberattack,” Ms. Greenhalgh said about the voting troubles in Durham.

There are plenty of other reasons for such breakdowns — local officials blamed human error and software malfunctions — and no clear-cut evidence of digital sabotage has emerged, much less a Russian role in it. Despite the disruptions, a record number of votes were cast in Durham, following a pattern there of overwhelming support for Democratic presidential candidates, this time Hillary Clinton.

But months later, for Ms. Greenhalgh, other election security experts and some state officials, questions still linger about what happened that day in Durham as well as other counties in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Arizona.

Honestly if I was a responsible federal official with evidence that something like this had actually affected vote totals, I am not sure I would let that leak to the public. It might undermine the legitimacy not just of Trump's presidency, but of the US government as a whole, and of future elections. Sort of like the value of a dollar bill, the legitimacy of a government is kind of illusion which is turned into reality by people's belief in it.

If people stop believing in it, it ceases to be real, and the government loses a lot of its power. Which creates a power vacuum that history tells us is usually filled by gangs and warlords, so...

Anyway, I'm fairly convinced in my own head that Russia did swing the election for Trump, with a combination of hacking the DNC, trolls and bots sowing fake news on social media, and possibly small scale registration tampering like this. But those at most added up to a few percent of the vote. We can't just blame Russia. We also have to blame the domestic problems that put someone like Trump within that few percent margin of victory so that the Russians could swing it.

However, I still believe in the legitimacy of the government as a whole, and think our best chance to fix this is to operate within the rule of law and the constitution. If those are abandoned, I think we'll like our next Supreme Leader even less than Trump.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:34 PM on June 1, 2018 [18 favorites]

Left update : how the democratic socialists helped break records for abortion access fundraisers

I particularly like the bowling team named the Bowlertariat
posted by The Whelk at 1:39 PM on June 1, 2018 [31 favorites]

dilaudid: Forget actual voter records, how about investigating possibly malicious manipulation of the polls showing her projected win?

I think I've touched in this before, but I'm pretty sure that sabotaging polls (by hacking the media companies' servers, I guess?) would actually be harder than sabotaging voter records (such as by hacking the registration database). Both things are decentralized (sort of), but multiple simultaneous polls happen daily/weekly, whereas the election was a one-off and had no overlap between the people-counters. (Each region has a single precinct, not multiple overlapping ones that ensure redundancy, although doing that might not be a terrible idea?)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:40 PM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

Tim Johnson, McClatchy DC: "New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway U.S. voters, experts say"

"A website called usareally.com appeared on the internet May 17 and called on Americans to rally in front of the White House June 14 to celebrate President Donald Trump’s birthday, which is also Flag Day.

FireEye, a Milpitas, Calif., cybersecurity company, said Thursday that USA Really is a Russian-operated website that carries content designed to foment racial division, harden feelings over immigration, gun control and police brutality, and undermine social cohesion.

The website’s operators once worked out of the same office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency had its headquarters, said Lee Foster, manager of information operations analysis for FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence."

posted by OnceUponATime at 1:55 PM on June 1, 2018 [26 favorites]

> cjelli:
"Via Daniel Dale, Trump: 'My letter was a response to their letter. The media forgot that. You know, the media said, "Oh, you had a meeting, then you cancelled." I didn't cancel the meeting. I cancelled it in response to a very tough statement.'"

Took me three or four passes to figure out what this is about.
posted by rhizome at 2:04 PM on June 1, 2018

This is one of those things that ought to be a major scandal but gets downgraded in an environment where the government can't tell parents what they've done with their children. WSJ, Trump Tweeted About Jobs Report Before Release

About an hour before the Labor Department released a report Friday morning showing the unemployment rate had fallen to its lowest level since April 2000, Mr. Trump said on Twitter he was “looking forward” to seeing the figures.

The president had been briefed on the numbers Thursday evening, but they hadn’t yet been made public. Longstanding rules on sensitive economic data call for executive branch officials to withhold comment for at least an hour after figures are released.
...
Mr. Kudlow on Friday dismissed a furor in markets over the president’s tweet. “All these traders need to see a shrink,” he said in an interview. “People are really overthinking this.”
...
One person close to the White House, and familiar with the process by which the monthly job numbers are released, said Mr. Trump has “been told before that every piece of economic data that he receives the night before he can’t comment on until 9:30 a.m. the next day.”

Asked if the tweet resulted from a breakdown in White House processes, the person added: “It was a breakdown in his conduct.”

posted by zachlipton at 2:04 PM on June 1, 2018 [23 favorites]

This is a good statement with reasonable management of expectations and so utterly unlike Trump that I am confused. Unless, per DZ's comment, it seems clear to Trump and State that this meeting is just gonna be a photo op without any actual concessions by anyone involved? And even Trump has managed to absorb that fact?

The problem is that Trump still hasn't absorbed the crucial piece of information that what the North Korean regime wants most out of this meeting is international legitimacy. If they can be seen as a peer in negotiations with the US, then they've already pulled off a diplomatic coup. Like hosting Kim Chon Yong at the White House, holding a summit between leaders is a concession in itself by the US. That's why the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations all kept Kim Jong Il and Jong Un at arm's length during discussions about their nuclear program. Unfortunately for the US, with a gutted State Department and a Secretary with no diplomatic experience, nobody has learned these lessons from recent history.

What for Kim is a long sought–after goal, which eluded his father, Trump apparently continues to regard as just a photo op.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:05 PM on June 1, 2018 [28 favorites]

The president had been briefed on the numbers Thursday evening, but they hadn’t yet been made public.

Trump phones up all his pals every night to chat. Does anyone think he didn't tell them about the unemployment report? Does anyone think one of them didn't login to their trading account the second the phone call ended?
posted by PenDevil at 2:09 PM on June 1, 2018 [46 favorites]

The joke's on Kim, then, because he wants to be treated as a peer by a superpower that commands respect throughout the world, and instead he's putting all this time and effort into getting a sit-down with Donald Trump.

I'm only slightly kidding; if Kim's goal is legitimacy, with the world at large, a highly publicized meeting with the West's newest rogue state doesn't do a whole lot to get him there.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:15 PM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

What for Kim is a long sought–after goal, which eluded his father, Trump apparently continues to regard as just a photo op.

“We need a negotiator,” Trump said, talking about politics, in 2007 on CNN. “We don’t need sound bites. We don’t need people walking off planes, waving, sitting with a dictator, waving, getting back on the plane, waving, and nothing happens. We need negotiators.”

From a good Politico analysis of Trump as a negotiator. Spoiler warning: he's bad. He got rolled by the ghost writer of The Art of the Deal:

“Most writers for hire receive a flat fee, or a relatively modest percentage of any money the book earns,” [Tony] Schwartz said in the speech. Schwartz, by contrast, got from Trump an almost unheard-of half of the $500,000 advance from Random House and also half of the royalties.
...
It’s a telling example, Harvard Business School negotiating professor Deepak Malhotra said in a recent interview. “What should have been a great deal on a book about negotiation actually is one of the most interesting pieces of evidence that he’s not a good negotiator.”

Cancelling the summit

suggests he’s either not as good at negotiating as he promised he was, or that negotiating with disparate factions of Congress or in geopolitically fraught international arenas is harder than he thought it would be and harder than anything he’s ever done. The truth, according to negotiation experts who have studied Trump’s track record, people who have negotiated for him and against him, associates, biographers and former employees, is that it’s all of that.

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 2:16 PM on June 1, 2018 [17 favorites]

More from the Politico article:

And with North Korea, according to Latz and Malhotra, Trump gave up too much leverage by agreeing so easily to the summit in Singapore. Trump, Malhotra wrote in March for CNBC, “has given the North Korean leader everything he wants,” and that his decision to meet “validates Kim Jong Un’s claim that only a nuclear-armed North Korea will be treated with respect by the Trump administration.”
...
Latz said he expects the summit to happen still at some point, and sooner rather than later. Why? Because what made Trump take the meeting in the first place remains the case. With the other negotiating setbacks, the worrisome swirl of the Mueller probe and the midterms mere months away, Trump needs a win. “He got himself into an almost untenable situation from a leverage perspective because he had communicated that he really wanted a deal here,” Latz said. “Despite the fact that Trump canceled and sent the signal he doesn’t really need the deal, he does really need the deal.”
...
But regardless of what happens from here, a former Trump Organization executive told me, Trump will do what he does. He will try to spin it into a win.

“He believes he’s in a position of strength no matter where or when he is,” the executive said. “You have to understand that. If you knock Donald on his ass, he will tell you the best position to be in is on your ass.”

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 2:20 PM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

What The Long-Awaited DOJ IG Report On 2016 Will Cover

More about the potential political fallout of this report from the Washington Post's Matt Zapotosky and his DoJ leakers: As Justice Dept. Inspector General Moves From Clinton Email To Russia And Trump, He Risks Becoming A Political Weapon

In the coming weeks, Horowitz is expected to release a nearly 500-page report criticizing the Justice Department and FBI for their handling of the Clinton email investigation, people familiar with the matter said. They, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about matters they are not authorized to discuss publicly. Meanwhile, he has intensified his review of the Russia investigation, interviewing the FBI agent who once led the case and inviting him back for a second conversation, one of these people said.

Those who know Horowitz say his findings will be as nonpartisan as they are thorough. But his work is almost certain to be weaponized by President Trump against federal law enforcement, and some question whether it will quell the tension gripping Washington.[...]

Trump has, in the past, questioned the inspector general’s effectiveness. [...] But more recently, the president has seemed to see the efficacy in using Horowitz’s findings to advance his line of attacks.[...]

Trump also has repeatedly mused to associates and aides in the Oval Office about Comey being investigated and charged, particularly amid the heat of his book tour, according to administration officials and advisers.

And there should be no question by now that Trump would seize any opportunity to misuse presidential powers against his political enemies. As "a source who talks frequently to Trump" recently told Axios's Jon Swan, “It’s not just payback; it’s punishment. It’s never enough to win. There’s never too much blood. There’s never too many guts on the floor. That’s his mentality. If you give him a paper cut he'll never forget that paper cut.”
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:26 PM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

So if I was this scared, just based on my limited knowledge, why wasn't Obama equally scared? And Comey and Clapper and the rest of them... That's what I can't figure out.

-It's possible he believed the polls showed HRC winning, maybe even a "blue wave".
-It's possible he thought it was too much risk, a historic risk of bloodshed with a clearly unstable man as one of the leaders. Best to let the government itself work it out, as it theoretically was designed to do.
-It's possible there are powers greater than the POTUS that advised against doing anything.
-(Other)

Whichever formula of the above it was, it's clear that:
a) It's bad. Mmkay.
b) We don't know The Whole Story.
c) The corporate news failed us, failed democracy, spectacularly. Without question. And they continue to do so - why, is probably a whole other story. Ideally it would be irrelevant.
posted by petebest at 2:56 PM on June 1, 2018 [10 favorites]

This is just...I don't know how to describe this
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:25 PM on June 1, 2018 [20 favorites]

I'm pretty sure the cartoonishly large letters from Blues Clues were smaller.
posted by zachlipton at 3:28 PM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

Okay, that actually is an interesting letter without even opening it...
posted by xammerboy at 3:32 PM on June 1, 2018 [23 favorites]

Good grief, RWLD, that's a grotesque photo op of Trump with Kim and the novelty oversized envelope. Couldn't someone have dissuaded Trump from posing with it by telling him it makes his hands look small?

That said, Kim—former director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, i.e. NK's ex-spymaster—has clearly done his psychological profile of Mr. Tiny Hands. The NK delegation is clearly going to run rings around their US counterparts in Singapore.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:34 PM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

Good grief, RWLD, that's a grotesque photo op of Trump with Kim and the novelty oversized envelope.

Well what do you expect from a President running the country like an episode of The Price Is Right?
posted by rhizome at 3:37 PM on June 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

I can only assume that letter is big because it's written in 72 pt font and very simple words.
posted by PenDevil at 3:50 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

It's probably just a picture of Kim holding out a large wad of cash with a question mark.
posted by xammerboy at 4:01 PM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

CNN, Kim's tunnel explosions a goodwill gesture? Not so fast

What first appeared to be a gesture indicating North Korea might be willing to dismantle its nuclear weapons program appears to have been little more than a propaganda effort for the world's cameras.

Billing it as an exercise in transparency, North Korean officials invited international journalists to witness the detonation of their underground nuclear test tunnels at Punggye-ri -- but intelligence has increasingly shown that the public spectacle may have amounted to little more than a show, according to US intelligence and international arms control officials.
...
"The explosions seem to have been too small" for scientists to have discerned any significant geologic activity such as collapsing tunnels, an international arms control official who follows North Korea closely told CNN.

posted by zachlipton at 4:28 PM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

Kim Jong Un will stay in a big, beautiful $6,000 per night hotel and the United States will pay for it and we’re going to enjoy it.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:50 PM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

Inside is a card, it's cover is a kitten with googly eyes, and when Trump opens it, it plays the opening lyrics of the Baha Men song: "Who let the dogs out?"

Inside the card is a polite request to move the border so Seoul is on the north side of it as a condition of the meeting, written in glitter-gel ink, and a five dollar bill.
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:54 PM on June 1, 2018 [25 favorites]

That said, Kim—former director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, i.e. NK's ex-spymaster—has clearly done his psychological profile of Mr. Tiny Hands. The NK delegation is clearly going to run rings around their US counterparts in Singapore.

If there's anything working for a narcissist will teach you, it's how to manipulate a narcissist.

I've spent a lot of time in my life hunting down the biggest, sparkliest, most expensive, and simultaneously most banal greeting cards for a narcissistic parent, and even I'm impressed at the size of that letter. I bet there's glitter involved.
posted by camyram at 4:56 PM on June 1, 2018 [24 favorites]

Reuters: Trump names Fears as homeland security adviser: White House

Eponystopian.
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:06 PM on June 1, 2018 [72 favorites]

That's the face you make when you can't remember where you are or what you're doing
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:23 PM on June 1, 2018 [10 favorites]

Washington Post: White House Press Briefings Got Shorter In May For The Fourth Straight Month

Average length of media Q&A sessions with White House spokesmen, in minutes:
January—29.6 mins
February—25.6 mins
March—19.3 mins
April—19.1 mins
May—17.6 mins

"To cancel the briefings would be to give up a major public-relations platform — an un-Trump-like move. But to gradually pare down the briefing time would be to limit the White House's exposure to tough questions. That is what's happening now."
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:38 PM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

The WSJ tries to slip this story into the Friday evening news cycle: U.S. in Early Talks for Potential Summit Between Trump and Putin

The White House is planning for a potential summit between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, according to people familiar with the efforts, a meeting that would bring to the international stage one of the world’s most enigmatic political relationships.

A senior administration official said Friday that Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, has been in Washington to help arrange a meeting between Messrs. Trump and Putin.

The planning is still at an early stage, the official said, with the two nations needing to agree on a date and location.

“This has been an ongoing project of Ambassador Huntsman, stretching back months, of getting a formal meeting between Putin and Trump,” the official said.

Any meeting between the two presidents would be expected to include discussions on Syria, Ukraine and nuclear-arms control. The summit’s purpose would be to resolve longstanding differences, people familiar with the matter said.[...]

The Russia summit “will be focused on specifics, not grand bargaining,” the official said. “Those things need to be negotiated.”

Sounds like Pompeo is feeling his oats after freezing Bolton out of the recent NK negotiations/meetings.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:43 PM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

ELECTIONS NEWS

** 2018 Senate:

-- CA: Polls from UC Berkeley and YouGov both find that Feinstein leads handily, and that DeLeon is safely in the lead for 2nd place. GOP lockout is virtually assured here.

-- WA: PPP poll has incumbent Cantwell up 52-36 on Hutchison. [MOE: +/- 3.8%] Poll was commissioned by a progressive group.

-- MA: MassInc poll finds Elizabeth Warren crushing any of her GOP rivals by 35 points or so.

-- OH: Fallon Research poll has Sherrod Brown up 48-34 on Renacci. [MOE: +/- 3.46%] Poll was commissioned by a conservative group.

-- ND: In an odd turn, the Koch brothers are putting money into re-electing Dem Senator Heitkamp.

** 2018 House:

-- CA-49: Different pollsters find very different looks in this race where either party could be locked out. SurveyUSA and Tulchin Research. My take: primary House polling sucks, and no one has any real idea of what is going to happen.

-- TX-07: PPP poll has incumbent GOPer Culberson up 47-45 on Dem Fletcher. [MOE: +/- 4.9%] This poll was commissioned by the DCCC.

-- PA-16: PPP poll has incumbent Kelly up 48-43 on Dem challenger DiNicola. [MOE: +/- 3.9%] Poll was commissioned by DiNicola.

-- KS-04: "U.S. Rep. Ron Estes has a Republican primary opponent. His name is Ron Estes. "

-- Vox: Can Medicare For All be a winning issue for Dems?

-- New Yorker: Progressives struggling to win in machine-dominated New Jersey.

-- Cook: What if there's no majority for Speaker?

** Odds & ends:

-- DKE look at gubernatorial races. Several good Dem pickup opportunities. However...

-- Former Dem Senator Mark Begich is jumping in the Alaska race. This is annoying, because Alaska's current independent governor is only there because the Dems supported him last time. In a three person race, the GOP is almost sure to win. I don't know wtf Begich is thinking. This comes on top of an independent running a suicide mission candidacy in the Kansas race, which turns a possible Dem gain into a sure GOP win. Grr.

-- CA gov: That YouGov poll has Newsom with 33, Cox 17, Villaraigosa dropping back to fourth place.

-- MA gov: That MassInc poll has governor Baker beating either potential Dem opponent by 40 points. A lot of Warren-Baker voters in the Bay State.

-- OH gov: That Fallon poll has GOPer DeWine up 40-34 on Cordray.

--- Among teenagers pre-registered to vote in California, only 9.44% registered as Republican. 37.42% registered as Democrat, 44.69% non-affiliated.

====

Next week: Specials in California and Missouri. Plus, primary-palooza, with primaries in: CA, IA, MS, MT, NJ, NM, SD.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:13 PM on June 1, 2018 [33 favorites]

That YouGov poll has Newsom with 33, Cox 17, Villaraigosa dropping back to fourth place.

I was hoping this meant Chiang was surging and I could tactically vote to try to help him into second to lock out these asshole Republicans, but no it's because Dems are lining up on Newsom. Which is fine but sadly won't result in massive trollery.

Among teenagers pre-registered to vote in California, only 9.44% registered as Republican.

lol
posted by Justinian at 8:25 PM on June 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

U.S. in Early Talks for Potential Summit Between Trump and Putin

Дональд, пришло время оценить твою работу
posted by kirkaracha at 9:08 PM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

I keep going back and looking at that bizarre picture of trump holding that big envelope next to a top DPRK baddie and am 100% convinced that is a straight up prank in the spirit of the small hands photoshop gag.

So of course @darth is all "hold my beer"
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:43 PM on June 1, 2018 [18 favorites]

Can I get a non-twitter link to the "trump holding big envelope" picture? Tried but search is failing me and I really want to see it!
posted by Meatbomb at 10:04 PM on June 1, 2018

The problem is that Trump still hasn't absorbed the crucial piece of information that what the North Korean regime wants most out of this meeting is international legitimacy.

It's not that he hasn't absorbed it. He just doesn't care, it's not a thing that matters to him. What matters is getting a great big hit of praise & admiration he can savor like a drug. He'll do anything for that.
posted by scalefree at 10:09 PM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

Also: Kim can't do the deal if Trump is going to talk after about what a winner he is and loser Kim is. It's ridiculous with so much at stake, but I don't know that Trump is capable of that.
posted by xammerboy at 10:19 PM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

If Kim does even 2% of what Trump wants, then Trump will come out with praise for him. It's his pattern. He has just enough business sense to know it's best to claim the other person across from the table did well rather than mock them, at least until it's too late to turn back whatever deal is made.

...although that said, there's also the issue of the inevitable criticism his "deal" will receive, and his backlash to that criticism, whereupon he may dump all over Kim to salvage his wounded pride. But that will take hours at least, if not days. He might even make it to the following weekend.

Regardless, his first instinct will be to portray himself as a winner, and that means making it look like he made a deal, therefore praising Kim. Probably with his usual hyperbole.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:23 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

> Can I get a non-twitter link to the "trump holding big envelope" picture? Tried but search is failing me and I really want to see it!

Acosta's: https://imgur.com/Kl4DXNz
Darth's: https://imgur.com/HFMEv1k
posted by christopherious at 11:23 PM on June 1, 2018 [6 favorites]

The original photo shows an envelope that could hold letter-sized sheets of paper unfolded... or a folded Publishers Clearing House-sized check for their bribe to Trump...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:38 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's weird. By just changing the envelope and Trump's hands, Darth's photo makes Trump's expression look doubly deranged.

In the original/real photo: why is Trump holding the envelope with such an awkward looking grip?
posted by duoshao at 3:52 AM on June 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Last night I attended the Minnesota state DFL (Democratic) convention, where we endorsed Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith as our senate candidates. Today should be interesting as the race for the endorsement for governor seems quite competitive, with the three main candidates ranging from centrist to quite progressive. This is the first convention I've been a part of and I have both good and bad impressions. It was interesting to hear the mixed response when Al Franken's name was mentioned. The crowd roared whenever Paul Wellstone's name was invoked, which was quite often. There is a lot of money pouring into this race from outside Minnesota and the amount spent on signs and shirts and brochures must be exorbitant--I can't help but think of how many hungry kids could be fed instead. On a positive note, there is a big focus on voter turnout and an intense level of enthusiasm.
posted by a fish out of water at 5:23 AM on June 2, 2018 [18 favorites]

> The NK delegation is clearly going to run rings around their US counterparts in Singapore.

I would wager that if you allowed me to choose two dozen of my closest friends and gave us a month to research and prepare, we would do a better job of negotiating a peaceful and mutually-beneficial arrangement than Trump and his merry gang of incompetent sociopaths are likely to.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:30 AM on June 2, 2018 [22 favorites]

if Trump is going to talk after about what a winner he is and loser Kim is.

I keep thinking about all the insults he's lobbed publicly at Kim up to now: Little Rocket Man, fire and fury, sick puppy, and the rest. I guess for Trump that stuff's just a Tuesday morning tweet, long memories are for losers, glad you've finally come around to agreeing to sit and praise me. But why would he think his statements don't crucially inform the strategy Kim—and more importantly, China—are formulating for these negotiations? So, so stupid.
posted by Rykey at 6:52 AM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

"I purposely didn't open the letter." I'm not saying the President of the US can't read, but that's what someone who can't read would say.
posted by nicwolff at 6:53 AM on June 2, 2018 [26 favorites]

@realDonaldTrump
“We ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are.” Neil Irwin of the @nytimes.

#cancelyoursubscription
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:24 AM on June 2, 2018 [22 favorites]

White Supremacist Pedophile Runs For Congress. This is in Virginia's 10th district. No, not as a Republican, as an "independent" "libertarian,"

This is the guy who posted that he was going to have his new Nazi friends kick down my door and gang-rape me in response to me writing the motion to expel him from the Libertarian Party. (My motion passed unanimously.)

The local media stopped covering him as soon as they figured out that he was a very sick man and that attention only fed his delusions. It's sad that the national news media has no such compunctions. It's also very aggravating that some are reporting that he's an LP candidate without asking anyone in the LP for verification.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:32 AM on June 2, 2018 [68 favorites]

More dripping out about Israeli interference on behalf of Trump.

Did Russian Trolls Have Company?: New Evidence on Israel-based PSY-Group’s Possible Social Media Efforts in 2016 US Election

According to LinkedIn and other sites, Charnoff was previously the IDF Commander of the Social Media Productions Desk, and is also the National Director of iVoteIsrael, a Republican-aligned Israeli-American voter registration group criticized for its “flimsy façade of non-partisanship.”

The research comes from New Knowledge AI, an Austin-based company with a team of highly respected technologists that sells products and services to fight disinformation and to identify fake social media accounts and propaganda campaigns. The organization posted a Twitter thread that poses some serious questions about who is behind PSY-Group, and whether the company coordinated an election interference campaign similar to the Russian Internet Research Agency.

If Israel was behind a similar interference campaign as Russia, support for Israel within the Democratic party needs to be a thing of the past, full stop. We don't allow any other country to attack our President on the House floor, and then illegally interfere in our election. Cut them off.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:39 AM on June 2, 2018 [28 favorites]

If Israel was behind a similar interference campaign as Russia, support for Israel within the Democratic party needs to be a thing of the past, full stop.

Ooooh boy.

So, as we should do with Russia (but frequently forget to do), I’m thinking we should take care to refer to the specific regime or administration or political bad actors rather than the country — Putin/oligarchs rather than Russia(ns), Netanyahu/Likud rather than Israel(is) — for general avoidance of beating the war drums or otherwise nudging everything farther along towards WW3.

And given the rise in anti-semitism these last few years, perhaps this is, uh, even more fucking important.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:59 AM on June 2, 2018 [47 favorites]

That said: I am at a point where I am genuinely confused. So far the list of countries that likely interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf looks like this:

- Russia under Putin
- Saudi Arabia under(?) MBS
- UAE with Saudi Arabia, I believe? But I don’t remember the principals
- Israel under Netanyahu
- possibly Turkey is in there under Erdogan?

All of this allied with the rising right wing white nationalists movements in the UK and the US

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?

There’s like one section that clearly wants to go to war with Iran (KSA, UAE, Israel?), and then another that’s allied with Iran? Is this right?

Did the Trump Crime Family just promise everything to everyone in some sort of weird...jelly fish orgy of corruption? Like there’s no consistency, no coherent plan, not even a recognition that the choices you make have any discernible influence on the future, just a naked money grab without any intention of ever following through on any promises unless it happens to be convenient at the time?

Oh God.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:08 AM on June 2, 2018 [41 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted. We're not having a fight about Israel in here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:14 AM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

But why would he think his statements don't crucially inform the strategy Kim—and more importantly, China—are formulating for these negotiations?

Narcissists can only see things from their own perspective. It's part of what makes them narcissists. He's literally blind to what others think & feel.
posted by scalefree at 8:19 AM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

White Supremacist Pedophile Runs For Congress. This is in Virginia's 10th district.

The ironical thing is that he's only able to run for office because Gov McAuliffe restored civil rights to felons in 2016. He ran for a House of Delegates seat last year and won 1.68% of the vote, so don't worry about him being a viable candidate.
posted by peeedro at 8:19 AM on June 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Did the Trump Crime Family just promise everything to everyone in some sort of weird...jelly fish orgy of corruption? Like there’s no consistency, no coherent plan, not even a recognition that the choices you make have any discernible influence on the future, just a naked money grab without any intention of ever following through on any promises unless it happens to be convenient at the time?

Yes. Exactly. No policies, not even horribly wrongheaded ones, only doing & saying what's necessary in the moment to further the objective of satisfying his urges of stealing, punishing "others," settling grudges & preening before adoring crowds. This is what I've been saying for a while now. This is who he is.
posted by scalefree at 8:25 AM on June 2, 2018 [26 favorites]

America is a resource to be exploited. That's its natural function. It has no purpose beyond that.
posted by scalefree at 8:29 AM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

If Israel was behind a similar interference campaign as Russia

The Israeli government were possibly the first to try the distributed cyber-propaganda/influence thing with the Internet Megaphone [Jerusalem Post, Nov 2006].

Amir Gissin, who heads the Public Affairs Department at the Foreign Ministry, has been working behind the scenes to promote the idea. "During the war an initiative began, and we had the opportunity to do some very nice things with the Megaphone community," Gissin recently told the David Bar-Illan media conference in Ariel. "An Israeli company developed a type of software that functions like a beeper from one central place. They send alerts and anyone who downloads the software gets a pop-up with links to an activity. It can be to vote for Israel in a CNN survey or react to an especially nasty article. We still have a long way to go, but this is our future."

I kinda recalled this being 5 or 6 years ago, but nope... 12.

I’m thinking we should take care to refer to the specific regime or administration or political bad actors rather than the country

Especially since the actual people of the country are generally getting screwed over by their own regime/administration just as hard. While searching through an old blog of mine for info on the Megaphone thing I actually rediscovered a good quote on the topic:

"The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all on the same side. And we are against them all."

"People are so isolated, and so alone, and so suspicious, and so competitive with each other, and so sure that they are about to be conned by their neighbor, or by their mother, or by their sister, or their grandmother. What's the use of having fifty percent of the world's wealth, or whatever it is that you have, if you're going to live this pathetic, terrified life?"

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

-- Arundhati Roy
posted by Buntix at 8:37 AM on June 2, 2018 [43 favorites]

“We ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are.” Neil Irwin of the @nytimes.

What a great opportunity! Now you can start using your words to describe how all those jobs are earning lower wages than in the past, because of tax and fiscal policies that promote cash hoarding by corporations and wealthy people!

Now that you’ve run out of words to describe how great the low unemployment figures are, maybe you can use some of the free bandwidth to describe how a lot of it is because people have stopped holding out for a decent paying work in their chosen field, and have just taken a survival job out of desperation.

Or you can start describing how socioeconomic mobility has gotten worse. Or how the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. Or how wages generally have fallen when inflation-adjusted, even while per-capita productivity has increased. Or how there is massive socioeconomic inequality for women and people of color. Or how new college graduates will have a tougher time affording their own homes than their grandparents did.

“Ran out of words” MY ASS.
posted by darkstar at 8:40 AM on June 2, 2018 [97 favorites]

I would wager that if you allowed me to choose two dozen of my closest friends and gave us a month to research and prepare, we would do a better job of negotiating a peaceful and mutually-beneficial arrangement than Trump and his merry gang of incompetent sociopaths are likely to.

Our Fellow MeFites are truly the best people, and I suspect we've probably workshopped a few solutions at some point already, and it's just a matter of searching for it, compiling, proofreading, and printing to PDF.
posted by mikelieman at 8:41 AM on June 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

“Ran out of words” MY ASS.

Never, ever, ever forget that this is the same NYT that printed Judith Miller. If they act in good-faith, it's an accident.
posted by mikelieman at 8:42 AM on June 2, 2018 [26 favorites]

Did the Trump Crime Family just promise everything to everyone in some sort of weird...jelly fish orgy of corruption?

TBH Trump opening up some kind of favors-for-favors bidding process to all comers makes even more sense than just gaining the favor of Russia.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:48 AM on June 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

> Nationwide, 34 million hours of cross-partisan Thanksgiving dinner discourse were lost in 2016 owing to partisan effects.

I'd love to know what the figures are worldwide. Up here in (my liberal bubble in) Toronto, I was hanging out at a friend's place yesterday, and there were a few friends of friends I didn't know there. Somebody made a negative statement about Trump's steel tariffs and how they're going to fuck shit up for people he knows in Hamilton and another dude blurted out "I love Trump!" Everyone chuckled because the assumption seemed to be that he was kidding, but then he followed up with a bunch of nonsense about how Trump's a genius and not like the other fake politicians, etc., etc., etc.., and it was like he'd lifted a cheek and loudly farted in terms of the effect on conversation and energy in the room. We tried to engage with him a bit but everything he said in response boiled down to; Don't Get Me Wrong I'm Not Racist, But Trump's Fucking Great And He's Going To Get Stuff Done. And this was coming from a public sector union employee! It passeth all understanding. After a few minutes everyone just gave up and changed the subject.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:50 AM on June 2, 2018 [13 favorites]

- possibly Turkey is in there under Erdogan?

I’ve not quite figured out how Turkey’s failed coupe fits into the great fascist push of 2016, but I suspect it jeans they count more as “messed with” than “messing with”. Erdogan is definitely a bad actor though.
posted by Artw at 8:52 AM on June 2, 2018

> Nationwide, 34 million hours of cross-partisan Thanksgiving dinner discourse were lost in 2016 owing to partisan effects.

I'd love to know what the figures are worldwide.

Worldwide, there's not a whole lot of Thanksgiving dinners happening.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:56 AM on June 2, 2018 [45 favorites]

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?

I think this is just the consequence and result of the End of History conception of capitalist ideology. Turns out that once you arrive at your desired global state, you can't just turn off ideological forces and call it done with. By turning citizens into consumers, completely atomizing democratic polities, you weaken democratic and civil society and make it possible for naked corruption to replace civic participation.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:10 AM on June 2, 2018 [23 favorites]

Mod note: A few deleted; rather than have a fight about it, let's not be throwing around 'pussy grabber' as a bleak-humor-joke-but-not-joke. Like ironic racism/sexism, we can do without repeating the actual phrase as a way of showing how we disapprove of the phrase etc.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:26 AM on June 2, 2018 [12 favorites]

It passeth all understanding. After a few minutes everyone just gave up and changed the subject.

My wife and I were up in SF a couple weeks ago and struck up a conversation with a couple from the U.K. who were in town for their son’s graduation from USF. He was an expat American and she was an expat from Turkey. Nice, smart conversation until Trump came up and the dude was all MAGA! and, as you experienced, the energy just evaporated. What’s worse, the woman from Turkey had just explained how Trump was just the same as Erdrogan and she was quite concerned — she was in Turkey during the coup — and her husband just couldn’t hear it.

It’s like we aren’t even breathing the same air.
posted by notyou at 9:49 AM on June 2, 2018 [35 favorites]

If Israel was behind a similar interference campaign as Russia...

It was a private Company, not the government of Israel. There's a difference. No one is saying that the English government was behind the work of Cambridge Analytica.
posted by xammerboy at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

There’s like one section that clearly wants to go to war with Iran (KSA, UAE, Israel?), and then another that’s allied with Iran? Is this right?

This is confusing to me too. Best sense I can make of it is just... if you put American foreign policy up for sale, you are going to have a lot of interested buyers. It makes sense if you think of Qatar and UAE as parties putting in competing bids.

Likewise Ukraine and Israel may have been trying to buy some influence away from Russia/Iran.

Another way of looking at it is that there have been invisible cyberwars going on all around us for a couple of years now, and we are just now getting the tools we need to be able to see them.
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:08 AM on June 2, 2018 [9 favorites]

How do the Macedonian teens fit in with this
posted by Apocryphon at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I believe the United Arab Emirates gave money (a lot of it) to someone or something Trump related, and shortly after Trump denounced Qatar. Qatar, in return, bought out some of Jared's debt, and shortly after Trump no longer seemed to think Qatar is a problem. You can't even keep up with the naked corruption.
posted by xammerboy at 10:19 AM on June 2, 2018 [15 favorites]

Its not even an auction, its a free for all bazaar and its a buyer's market
posted by infini at 10:33 AM on June 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

It was a private Company

And the Internet Research Agency wasn't "the Russian government" either, but it's trivially easy to create "private companies" that are really third party cutouts for an intelligence service.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:33 AM on June 2, 2018 [19 favorites]

It passeth all understanding. After a few minutes everyone just gave up and changed the subject.

I ran into this with my son's great aunt. I was trapped in a car with her while she was waxing prosaic about 45, and since we were on the way to a baby shower, where I am the token liberal of the clan, I just kept biting my tongue, and then she said what great things he was doing for the country, and I lost it and said, One fucking thing, tell me one fucking good thing he's done? We're a gold star family, was it when he insulted veterans? Maybe it's when they started ripping babies away from their moms? Or was it the racism against people who look like me? Which of those is so fucking great, Gertrude? And she started up with butter emails, and I was like look, there is no way for us to have this conversation and it not end badly. I am a socialist. I think 45 is a clear and present danger to me and mine. I cannot believe people like you, who have crucifixes displayed as obvious signaling of their faith can support a serial adulterer who beat and raped his wife and went on to star in and continuously sleep with porn stars. So before I end up putting you in the irredeemable racist pile, and you put me in the irredeemable moonchild pile, let's just never speak of this again.

Christmas, I'm not looking forward to it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:34 AM on June 2, 2018 [99 favorites]

And don't forget that Trump hired Black Cube, an Israeli company made up of ex-Mossad agents, to find dirt on and destroy people that worked on the Iran deal under Obama. This is the same company Weinstein hired to follow and intimidate his accusers. Just another small scandal that's hardly a blip in the news that would have sunk any other president.
posted by xammerboy at 10:35 AM on June 2, 2018 [23 favorites]

Apologies for mis-quoting people above, it was unintentional and inappropriate.
posted by carsonb at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Shortly before Trump announced tariffs, his former adviser dumped millions in steel-related stocks.

President Trump’s decision Thursday to impose crippling tariffs on the imports of steel and aluminum took many by surprise — particularly investors, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day’s trading down more than 400 points, or 1.7 percent, at 24,608.

But one billionaire investor and former Trump adviser, Carl Icahn, was seemingly unvexed, having dumped a million shares tied to the steel industry a week before the president announced 25 percent tariffs for foreign-made steel.

A Feb. 22 SEC filing shows Icahn sold off his $31.3 million stake in the Manitowoc Company, which is a leading global manufacturer of cranes for heavy construction based in Manitowoc, Wis., according to the company’s website. Since Trump’s announcement Thursday, Manitowoc’s stock has plummeted to about $26. Icahn — who has had majority interest in several companies including Motorola, Xerox, Family Dollar and Pep Boys — had sold his shares for about $32 to $34 each, according to the SEC disclosure, which was first reported by Think Progress.

Icahn had not actively traded any Manitowoc stock since January 2015, according to regulatory filings.

posted by scalefree at 11:47 AM on June 2, 2018 [54 favorites]

There's more weirdness going down in VA-5 after Rep. Tom Garrett dropped out after that wierd alcoholic video. The presumed GOP front runner state Sen. Bill Stanley just dropped out at today's nomination meeting, apparently to run for governor? But that's not until 2022... Now the nomination seems to be between Liberty "University" professor, legit Christian nationalist, and creationist Cynthia Dunbar and little known distillery owner and veteran Denver Riggleman, who has pledged to join the Freedom Caucus. Dunbar is fucking insane.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:49 AM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

And it's looking like Dunbar could win because Riggleman "doesn’t support a total federal ban on abortion including in cases of rape or incest. Dunbar does."

The speeches are really gross:
"Pro-Dunbar speaker just told every committee member who is 100% pro-life to stand up. Then she walked & looked each of them in the eye & said they’d reject principles if the vote for libertarian Riggleman

Says Dunbar the only one who’ll stop “men from using girls bathrooms”

Just in time Edit: Riggleman just won on the 4th ballot. One of the other candidates seems to have flipped to support him and end Dunbar.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:56 AM on June 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

> Worldwide, there's not a whole lot of Thanksgiving dinners happening.

We've got Thanksgiving dinners up here, too (back in the day I had one ruined by a fight with my wife's uncle over Rob Ford), but as others in the thread have pointed out, the mere mention of Trump can ruin pretty much any social gathering.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:13 PM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

CBC: After a year of playing nice with Trump, Trudeau declares war on the American gherkin

Begun, the Gherkin War has.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:24 PM on June 2, 2018 [14 favorites]

“We ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are.” Neil Irwin of the @nytimes.

@JohnJHarwood (CNBC)
average monthly job growth:

—first 16 months of Trump presidency: 185K

—last 16 months of Obama presidency: 215K
posted by chris24 at 12:33 PM on June 2, 2018 [58 favorites]

A graph showing Unemployment over the Last Decade (based on)
posted by growabrain at 12:39 PM on June 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

The latest assertion by trump’s legal team that he is untouchable.

The Times also has the complete letter from Trump's legal team to Mueller's team, with some annotations.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:40 PM on June 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

There are a lot of awful legal arguments in there, but the footnote reading simply "courts have explained it that way" without any citation to which courts or cases are involved is a strong contender for the worst.

Footnote 48, which is blank, is also a compelling candidate.
posted by zachlipton at 12:52 PM on June 2, 2018 [54 favorites]

@qjurecic: (managing editor, Lawfare)
The footnotes to this letter are an absolute trip. Fox News, The Hill, the WSJ editorial board, the Washington Times—and, of course, Andy McCarthy in the National Review
posted by chris24 at 12:55 PM on June 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

Begun, the Gherkin War has.

In which ths US trade representatives find themselves in a bit a of a pickle.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:58 PM on June 2, 2018 [24 favorites]

Today in Stupid Watergate Strikes Back, this is basically Nixon's " when the president does it, it's not illegal." Funny thing is, the first article of impeachment for Nixon and Clinton was obstruction of justice.
posted by chris24 at 1:00 PM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

@steve_vladeck: It's not exactly confidence inspiring on the part of @realDonaldTrump's lawyers that their statutory (as opposed to constitutional) analysis is focused on the _wrong_ federal obstruction-of-justice statute—18 U.S.C. § 1505 instead of 18 U.S.C. § 1512:

I was told the people he would hire would be, what was it again, the best?
posted by zachlipton at 1:01 PM on June 2, 2018 [20 favorites]

From the annotated letter from Trump's lawyers to Mueller that kirkaracha linked above:

Lying to the Media Is Not A Crime
It is not a crime for a politician to lie to The Times and, by extension, to the public. But there are at least two reasons that Mr. Trump’s role in drafting a misleading statement may be of interest. First, it could be evidence of his mind-set when he undertook other actions that may have impeded the investigation. Secondly, a Watergate-era precedent exists for Congress to consider lies to the public to be obstruction of justice in the looser context of impeachment proceedings. An article of impeachment that lawmakers approved against Nixon before he resigned included “making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing” there had been no misconduct.

Seems to me that we have clear public evidence of collusion already, so all those "No collusion!" tweets seem to fit squarely into that category.
posted by kristi at 1:18 PM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I was told the people he would hire would be, what was it again, the best?

@amyfiscus: (NYT)
Font aficionados will be interested to know that the letterhead on John Dowd’s letter to Mueller was written in Comic Sans.
posted by chris24 at 1:21 PM on June 2, 2018 [50 favorites]

The latest assertion by trump’s legal team that he is untouchable.

Reminds me of a certain movie, that expression. Where the untouchables are on the other side, mind, but that's Trump's Mirror for you once more.
posted by Stoneshop at 1:28 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Let's see, Trump tweeted 40 minutes before the story dropped accusing Mueller of leaking his lawyers' letters to the MSM. Then once the Times story drops, Fox almost immediately has an "exclusive" of the letter. In case you were wondering who leaked it.
posted by chris24 at 1:32 PM on June 2, 2018 [30 favorites]

Trump's tweet about his lawyers' letter also misspelled counsel as "councel", but it was deleted in less than ten minutes later and a corrected tweet was posted, which suggests Dan Scavino's improving his turnaround time.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:56 PM on June 2, 2018 [9 favorites]

@MarshallCohen: In a letter to Mueller, Trump's lawyers said he "dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times" about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians. But here are FIVE TIMES @JaySekulow and @PressSec previously denied Trump's role in the misleading statement.
posted by zachlipton at 2:18 PM on June 2, 2018 [27 favorites]

Don Jr also denied that Trump helped write it when he testified to House Intel Committee.
posted by chris24 at 2:22 PM on June 2, 2018 [19 favorites]

To paraphrase something from Twitter on the shit constitutional arguments in the letter, who knew the Founders liked kings after all?

Oh and Giuliani has confirmed the letter and says it's still their strategy and they will go to court if Mueller subpoenas Trump.
posted by chris24 at 2:33 PM on June 2, 2018

Um. @MLDavies: I was about to sit down on this bench in Central Park and then thought... perhaps not. [photo of a Central Park bench bearing the inscription "Donald & Melania: May you grow together as these two oaks. Room enough to not stifle the other, yet close enough to shelter each other from the wind. —Mark & Roma

In case you were wondering, Mark Burnett (Apprentice producer and tapekeeper) is married to Roma Downey.
posted by zachlipton at 2:33 PM on June 2, 2018 [11 favorites]

Mark Burnett has thousands of hours of tape on Trump exactly like the pussy grabbing tape. He could've released any or all of them at any time.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:36 PM on June 2, 2018 [15 favorites]

Lying to the Media Is Not A Crime
It is not a crime for a politician to lie to The Times and, by extension, to the public.

Let's consider the legal aspect of this.

18 U.S. Code § 1001 - Statements or entries generally

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or

(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;

shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.

(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party’s counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding.

(c) With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to—
(1) administrative matters, including a claim for payment, a matter related to the procurement of property or services, personnel or employment practices, or support services, or a document required by law, rule, or regulation to be submitted to the Congress or any office or officer within the legislative branch; or
(2) any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.

My hypothesis is that lying to the press could definitely be charged as a violation of this statute, but in normal times it would never come up.

These are not normal times.
posted by mikelieman at 3:12 PM on June 2, 2018 [9 favorites]

That’s a nice thought, mikelieman, but is it your contention that the press is an office of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of government?
posted by Sys Rq at 3:30 PM on June 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

From Rolling Stone, a brief and incomplete history of misogyny and spousal abuse in trumplandia: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/a-history-of-sex-and-abuse-in-the-trump-administration-w516979
posted by Dashy at 3:31 PM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

T.D. Strange: Mark Burnett has thousands of hours of tape on Trump exactly like the pussy grabbing tape. He could've released any or all of them at any time.

He's an Evangelical Christian too. In addition to Survivor and The Apprentice, he produced The Bible mini-series.
posted by bluecore at 3:33 PM on June 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

@peter_cazar:
The differences between the questions Dowd imputed to Mueller in his January memo and those Sekulow compiled in March seem to suggest that Gate's flip in the interim produced some serious evidence of collusion. Nader's cooperation, too, seems to have added a lot of material on top of what Dowd thought case entailed in January.
posted by chris24 at 3:35 PM on June 2, 2018 [15 favorites]

Marcy Wheeler: THE EVASION IN TRUMP’S RESPONSE ON THE JUNE 9 MEETING STATEMENT: DID PUTIN DICTATE THE STATEMENT?

Right in the middle of this heated effort to respond to the NYT, Trump bizarrely spent an hour chatting Vladimir Putin up over dinner at the G-20 (yeah, I wrote that comment about Melania in February!). The question here is not just “why did you release such a partial statement that the documentary record proves is inaccurate?” Nor is it, “why did you emphasize adoptions — Russian code for sanctions — rather than the sanctions that were at the core of the meeting?”

It’s also the unstated question: “Did you dictate that statement? Or did Vladimir Putin?”

Here’s the nutty bit. We don’t actually have to speculate about whether that spin — adoptions rather than sanctions — came up in the chat between Putin and Trump. In an interview not long after news of the June 9 meeting broke, Trump actually told the NYT he and Putin were talking about adoptions.

TRUMP: She was sitting next to Putin and somebody else, and that’s the way it is. So the meal was going, and toward dessert I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about — things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.

HABERMAN: You did?

TRUMP: We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting. As I’ve said — most other people, you know, when they call up and say, “By the way, we have information on your opponent,” I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said [inaudible], “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?” They just said——

HABERMAN: The senators downstairs?

TRUMP: A lot of them. They said, “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”

By his own admission, Trump went from the July 7 dinner chat about adoptions with Putin and “dictated” a statement that just happened to focus, misleadingly, on adoptions.

So, yeah, the big question in this entire list is the unstated one: did you dictate that statement? Or did Putin?

posted by T.D. Strange at 3:56 PM on June 2, 2018 [26 favorites]

That’s a nice thought, mikelieman, but is it your contention that the press is an office of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of government?

Right, there's simply no way that statue can be read as applying to lies to the press or public at large. It would be laughed out of court without so much as a real hearing.
posted by Justinian at 3:59 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hope from California: For the first time, "No Party Preference" voters outnumber Republicans. (Short blurb with chart.) Registration is at an all time high, and young people aren't signing up as Republicans.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:24 PM on June 2, 2018 [20 favorites]

Trump allies gang up on Gowdy. The GOP lawmaker was once a conservative hero. Now he’s under fire on the right for balking at Trump’s ‘spygate’ theory.

Rep. Trey Gowdy has been a pitbull investigator for Republicans for years. Now, he’s in President Donald Trump’s doghouse for daring to challenge the president’s unsupported claim that Democrats and their sympathizers in the FBI embedded a spy in his 2016 campaign.

Trump allies have been pummeling Gowdy in recent days, branding him a gullible or clueless backer of the intelligence community. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, labeled him “uninformed.” Another Trump-tied attorney, Victoria Toensing, said Gowdy “doesn’t know diddly-squat” about the particulars of federal investigations. And Fox News host Lou Dobbs tagged him a “RINO” — a term for a fake Republican.

posted by scalefree at 4:39 PM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

At least some Capitol Hill Democrats recognize the unconstitutionality of Trump's lawyers' letter:

Sen. Chuck Schumer ‏@SenSchumer: This would be a valid legal argument — if our government were a dictatorship. Fortunately, we are a government of laws, not men. And in America, no one is above the law, including the president.

Rep. Adam Schiff @RepAdamSchiff: The President’s legal arguments would render whole sections of the Constitution moot, and allow a president to engage in any form of criminality and obstruct an investigation into his own wrongdoing. Nobody is above the law. Not this President. Not any president.

Rep. Ted Lieu @tedlieu: The lawyers for @realDonaldTrump who wrote the confidential memo must have been out of the country during the whole Watergate thing and the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Nixon. Either that, or they aren't very good lawyers.

But since it's a Saturday, a lot are still posting pre-composed Tweets or haven't caught up to the fact that Trump just formally declared a constitutional crisis. The Democrats are going to need to get their collective act together in time for the Sunday morning political shows, because there's no question that Guiliani and Team Trump will be everywhere tomorrow.

(Well, at least now we know why almost the entire Trump clan convened with him at Camp David, except for Eric and Melania, who apparently want no part in this.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:58 PM on June 2, 2018 [43 favorites]

man if you can’t get trey gowdy to ride along on your witch hunt your premises must be so thin as to be incorporeal.

cotton mather’s ghost is looking at this shit and saying “this is getting a little hysterical, guys”
posted by murphy slaw at 4:58 PM on June 2, 2018 [15 favorites]

Kris Kobach thought it would be a good idea to show up to a parade to wave at the crowd next to a replica .50 caliber machine gun. The city of Shawnee is not amused.
posted by zachlipton at 5:11 PM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

man if you can’t get trey gowdy to ride along on your witch hunt your premises must be so thin as to be incorporeal.

I have two theories.

1) He found his limit and could no longer in good conscience go along with degrading the rule of law in our country.
2) He is leaving politics and, as a former federal prosecutor returning to the practice of law, has made a self-interested calculation that he needs to reclaim some semblence of credibility on these matters for his future career.

Which is more likely? It's a mystery!
posted by Justinian at 5:37 PM on June 2, 2018 [18 favorites]

If you wonder where Giuliani is getting his arguments, this very old article from the Times on presidential subpoena's in history is interesting...

In an nutshell, Jefferson was subpoenaed in Burr's trial for treason. He really didn't want to participate, because it would look like he was helping to defend Burr. He argued that he couldn't be subpoenaed because his official role kept him to busy with matters of state. The Chief Justice disagreed, saying if anything this was an argument for disregarding the order, not against simply issuing the subpoena.

In declining to honor the subpoena personally, Jefferson wrote the Burr prosecutor that compliance with such court orders “would leave the nation without an executive branch,” which the Constitution had never intended “be withdrawn from its station by any coordi nate authority.”

Following the Marshall ration ale, John Henry Wigmore, in his classic legal text on evidence, declares there is “no reason at all” why a President should enjoy a special privilege not to be a witness in civil or criminal trials.

“The general principle of testimonial duty to disclose knowledge needed in judicial investigations is of universal force,” the 1961 edition of Wig more states. “It does not suffer an exemption which would apply irrespective of the nature of the person's knowledge and would rest wholly on the na ture of the person's occupation.”

They can ignore the subpoena, but everything I know about the law and my gut says they will lose, though it truly isn't 100% certain. More broadly, I hope this is the line Trump crosses that will finally get his base to turn against him.
posted by xammerboy at 5:55 PM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

I hope this is the line Trump crosses that will finally get his base to turn against him

It should be clear by now that there is no such line.
posted by jammer at 6:08 PM on June 2, 2018 [67 favorites]

I hope this is the line Trump crosses that will finally get his base to turn against him

It should be clear by now that there is no such line.

Corollary: The Republican Party establishment will never turn on Trump.

not that this is anything new.
posted by pjenks at 6:13 PM on June 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

I know we want to believe that the Trumpian base does, on some level, respect democracy and the rule of law.

They don't. They will nope right out if it means emotional gratification for them and not having to deal with "press one for English" and women denying them sex and whatever else they're mad about at the moment.

A third of our fellow citizens are fully on board with autocratic, incompetent government. Their "red line" isn't some dismantling of a norm, it's the provision of positive human rights to women, minorities, immigrants and LGBTQ people. That's the reality we have to deal with.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:29 PM on June 2, 2018 [59 favorites]

David Frum made some excellent points today. I can't believe I just said that but it is true.

If as Trump and his lawyers assert it is perfectly legal for the President to start or stop any federal investigation for any reason, and the President has absolute authority over Article II appointees, it must therefore be perfectly legal for the President to order investigations aimed at undermining political opponents. However, Trump has repeatedly and loudly claimed that Obama "illegally" used his DOJ to investigate Trump with the intent to undermine him.

Similarly, Republicans and Trump have loudly claimed (falsely) that under Obama the IRS was weaponized against conservative groups. But the IRS commissioner is an Article II appointee. If Trump and his lawyers claims are correct it cannot be the case that Obama ordering the IRS to audit his opponents is illegal. They are mutually contradictory claims.

And so on. Trump has repeatedly and emphatically made claims which are directly contradicted by his own lawyer's filings. I know it is completely pointless to bother wondering if Trump, the Republicans, or their cultists are at all bothered by this hypocrisy (or even recognize it) but we can still recognize it.

Giuliani is on MTP tomorrow. I hope he is asked if it would have been legal for Obama to order the FBI to surveil the Trump campaign in order to damage his chances.
posted by Justinian at 6:33 PM on June 2, 2018 [45 favorites]

this very old article from the Times on presidential subpoena's in history is interesting...

"The first magistrate of the Union," Marshall wrote in granting the motion for a subpoena, "may more properly be likened to the first magistrate of a state [than to a king] and is not known ever to have been doubted but that the chief magistrate of a state might be served with a subpoena."

...the terms "magistrate" or "chief magistrate" were sometimes used in the early days of the republic to refer to the President of the United States

Ceterum autem censeo Trumpem esse delendam
posted by kirkaracha at 6:36 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

I hope MTP calls Giuliani to inform him "oh, sorry, we changed our policy and we are no longer giving fascist bootlickers air time on our show"
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:38 PM on June 2, 2018 [12 favorites]

"If Mueller tries to subpoena us, we're going to court," Giuliani told ABC News this evening.

The Giuliani media offensive has kicked off.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:57 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

I can't figure what Mueller is waiting for. It must be clear to him that Trump will not submit to a voluntary interview. It must also be clear that he cannot conclude the investigation without interviewing Trump. So why hasn't he issued the subpoena yet? My best theory would be that he believes that would precipitate the final showdown between Trump and DOJ and he's trying to get in as much investigating as possible before that happens. But he can't delay it forever and we have reporting that he feels the Obstruction portion of the investigation is nearing its conclusion.
posted by Justinian at 7:05 PM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I can't help but feel that China is the big winner in all this America-for-sale business. While these contradictory backscratching deals cover America and everyone else involved in shit, China sits pretty and, from a geopolitical perspective, comes out looking awfully good (yes, I know they're a nightmare totalitarian state, but very little ties them to international malfeasance). They basically seem like Fortinbras, hanging out on the sidelines while everyone else fucks themselves and others up, and comes in at the end to hoover up all the wreckage.

They've been given a tremendous gift because every other economic superpower is both dysfunctional and corrupt,and unlike every other participant in the global shitshow, they don't seem to have had to do anything particular to achieve that goal. Hell, they'll probably end up getting credit, internationally, for anything conciliatory or sane that North Korea does. We've basically already ceded economic and diplomatic sovereignty in east Asia to China. It would not surprise me to see Europe, in the wake of our tariff fuckery, also cozying up to China. North America will still align closer with us because we're a market which is literally next door, but if we could alienate them as well we probably would.
posted by jackbishop at 7:07 PM on June 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

I think Mueller probably agrees (in a way) with what Giuliani has already nakedly stated: that the real fight will be in the court of public opinion. If he initiates the end-game without having a verrrrry clear legal narrative not just about obstruction--which frankly might not be enough for Republicans to impeach--but also the collusion, then there's a non-zero chance that team Trump wins that fight.

I think we're going to first need to see whether Cohen's legal troubles lead to anything substantive in the Russia investigation. If Mueller sees something there he can use, I think things will move quite quickly after that, because of his proximity to Trump and the amount of deep shit he's in. If Mueller doesn't see anything related to Russia in Cohen's communications, but just the normal Trump-crime-syndicate stuff, then I'm honestly not sure whether he tries to follow that rabbit hole or he pulls the trigger on everything else.
posted by Room 101 at 7:19 PM on June 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

I think Mueller probably agrees (in a way) with what Giuliani has already nakedly stated: that the real fight will be in the court of public opinion.

Other high-profile lawyers have commented to the effect that Avenatti is not unskilled, but that his moves seem more oriented toward the press than the courtroom. This, I suspect, is why: his and Daniels' real target is Trump, and (recognizing that he will not see the inside of a courtroom) they want to damage his reputation in whatever way they can to weaken him before any potential impeachment fight.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:30 PM on June 2, 2018 [18 favorites]

I can't figure what Mueller is waiting for. It must be clear to him that Trump will not submit to a voluntary interview. It must also be clear that he cannot conclude the investigation without interviewing Trump.

Why must it be clear to Mueller that he cannot conclude the investigation without interviewing Trump? All of this interview business has been brought up by Trump and his surrogates and seems to me to be a smokescreen, trying to divert attention from reality. The media is playing into it, his base is playing in to it, we appear to be playing into it (myself included -- I don't mean for this to be snarky). Mueller is working with all of the information that he has -- and we have no idea what that entails. We are reacting to the false reality being created by Trump and Giuliani, et al. They keep telling lies, and those lies appear to be intentional to create a false reality.
posted by W Grant at 7:35 PM on June 2, 2018 [33 favorites]

"If Mueller tries to subpoena us, we're going to court," Giuliani told ABC News this evening.

I'm honestly surprised that the expectation is to go to court and not just for Trump to fire Mueller. But then this is Giuliani talking, not Trump, and Rudy seems to be a bit out of the loop on what the actual official line is (see the Cohen reimbursement for the Stormy Daniels payment) so he could just be guessing.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:55 PM on June 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I can't figure what Mueller is waiting for.

Possibly the midterm election? If there's a substantial change in the balance of power in Congress the impeachment threat could change things. Now if there's a treaty with North Korea he may be safe.
posted by sammyo at 8:02 PM on June 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

"If Mueller tries to subpoena us, we're going to court," Giuliani told ABC News this evening.

sub·poe·na
səˈpēnə
LAW
noun
1.
a writ ordering a person to attend a court.
"a subpoena may be issued to compel their attendance"

I mean, I get what Giuliani is trying to get across—they're going to fight a subpoena in court if one is issued—but... it's just. so. stupid!
posted by carsonb at 8:02 PM on June 2, 2018 [17 favorites]

If as Trump and his lawyers assert it is perfectly legal for the President to start or stop any federal investigation for any reason, and the President has absolute authority over Article II appointees, it must therefore be perfectly legal for the President to order investigations aimed at undermining political opponents. However, Trump has repeatedly and loudly claimed that Obama "illegally" used his DOJ to investigate Trump with the intent to undermine him.

This is quite the logical conundrum. If Trump felt at all bound by the rules of logic it would be a real problem for him. But that's not who he is. To Trump things are true because they favor him & false because they don't. He'd see no contradiction between arguing in favor of a Unitary Executive for himself & denying it for Obama. He couldn't make it sound coherent because it's not - except in his narcissistic head. If forced he'd probably fall back on his usual collection of rhetorical dirty tricks & distractions. But he won't, there's nobody in a position to hold his feet to the fire except maybe Mueller & he's not talking yet.
posted by scalefree at 8:02 PM on June 2, 2018 [22 favorites]

Mod note: petebest, if you want to talk about a moderation decision, please bring it to the contact form.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:08 PM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

It must also be clear that he cannot conclude the investigation without interviewing Trump.

That is not true. It is very uncommon for a federal grand jury to subpoena the target of a criminal investigation. If prosecutors think they have a strong criminal case against a target, there is no point in interviewing them. They will simply proclaim their innocence or else invoke their Fifth Amendment right not to answer any questions. The prosecution instead builds its case on other testimony and evidence, not an interview with the target.

There is a somewhat murkier distinction when a person is not a target but instead a subject of an investigation. A grand jury will often subpoena a subject of an investigation. It is unclear at this point if Mueller regards Trump as a subject or a target of his investigation. The stronger Mueller's case, the more likely he leans toward viewing Trump as an indictable target, which means less likely to issue a subpoena.

Note that Clinton was threatened with a subpoena in a civil case which is quite different. He was not in criminal jeopardy at the time of his interview.
posted by JackFlash at 8:19 PM on June 2, 2018 [9 favorites]

If you wonder where Giuliani is getting his arguments, this very old article from the Times on presidential subpoena's in history is interesting...

In an nutshell, Jefferson was subpoenaed in Burr's trial for treason. He really didn't want to participate, because it would look like he was helping to defend Burr. He argued that he couldn't be subpoenaed because his official role kept him to busy with matters of state.

This makes zero sense as an argument in this day and age, though I wouldn't put it past team Trump to go there... but section 3 of the 25th Amendment (and I know, I know, Trump doesn't want to be reminded of that amendment...) gives what seems like a pretty clear remedy to the situation: if complying with the subpoena is really such a burden you can't get your presidenting on, tag in the veep til it's done.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:24 PM on June 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

He's going to serve meatloaf, isn't he: Trump to host Ramadan dinner [real]
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:26 PM on June 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

That is not true. It is very uncommon for a federal grand jury to subpoena the target of a criminal investigation. If prosecutors think they have a strong criminal case against a target, there is no point in interviewing them.

It's also very uncommon for the subject of the criminal investigation to be the President of the United States. I don't mean it's literally impossible for Mueller to wrap things up without interviewing Trump but as a practical matter his investigation won't be viewed as complete without such an interview. Or at least forcing Trump to take the 5th.

A case involving the President isn't a normal case. There are all sorts of considerations that don't normally apply.
posted by Justinian at 8:28 PM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

A case involving the President isn't a normal case. There are all sorts of considerations that don't normally apply.

Which is why Mueller will offer Trump the opportunity to state his case voluntarily in an interview. But if Trump declines and Mueller plans to indict him, I doubt he will issue a subpoena. This is all an invention by the Trump defense team. Don't get suckered into his obfuscation.

This assumes that Mueller is actually seeking a criminal indictment. If he is only gathering evidence to present a report to Congress, that is a different story. In that case Trump is not an indictable target and a subpoena is appropriate.
posted by JackFlash at 8:52 PM on June 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

Justinian: " Or at least forcing Trump to take the 5th."

This is of course the real problem from the view of team Cheeto and why I think they are spreading all this misinformation and FUD about Mueller's ability to successfully subpoena Trump. His allies have grave doubts about the Cheeto's ability to sit mute pleading the fifth. They know there is a very good chance after a handful of questions he'll go off script and start

• claiming privilege
• denying he did anything
• claiming he did things but it was legal
• claiming that can't prosecute a sitting president

around and around (with combinations)¹. And every time he comes around to "telling what really happened and why it wasn't illegal" he'll admit to a new charge of influence peddling/collusion/obstruction/tax evasion/killing a man to watch him die. And he'll be throwing "allies" under the bus with every second admission.

[1] sprinkled with a bunch of what-about-isms and getting Mexico to pay of course.
posted by Mitheral at 9:02 PM on June 2, 2018 [11 favorites]

He's going to serve meatloaf, isn't he: Trump to host Ramadan dinner

Surely it would be pulled pork and bourbon-marinated alligator.
posted by N-stoff at 9:21 PM on June 2, 2018 [9 favorites]

I kind of hope not, because I expect that the catering staff are professionals and surely nobody in the Administration cares about the details of State dinners apart from Donnie getting his double dessert. Still, it's certainly very possible that someone in the kitchen could get things wrong, and unlike in previous Administrations there won't be anyone reminding them to be punctilious.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:36 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

If he is only gathering evidence to present a report to Congress

What I would hope to see is jail time for everyone who lied to Congress and/or the FBI (which is everyone from Hopey, Javanka, and Junior to Erik "Dial-A-Fascist" Prince, J. B. Sessions III (disbarred), Manafort, Doctor Carter Page, and The Corey. Plus a big fat pile-driving, frog-marching, straightjacketed ticket to Leavenworth for Il Toupeè. Plus, if not an indictment for lying and collusion, at least enough of an earthquake to send Pence fleeing into the sewers for life. Then a referral for all of Trump's money-laundering and tax fraud crimes to wipe out the majority of his mafia networks for good.

What I expect to see is obstruction, lying, and a very clear but "Your move, congress" charge of collusion for at least Trump, Junior, and Jared.

If we don't get at least four counts of obstruction on Klownwïg, then the ship has sailed, all law is a farce, and all bets are off. We officially become a corrupt, meaningless shell of America for the lifetime of everyone around today. It would pretty much look like it does now, just minus the hope and a sense of right existing.

OR, the hacked votes are disclosed the whole administration is invalid, all orders, laws, and judges are null and we start over with President Pelosi. The Taco Trucks On Every Corner act (TTOEC) passes unanimously and the future is bright, crunchy, and spicy.
posted by petebest at 9:38 PM on June 2, 2018 [18 favorites]

I kind of hope not, because I expect that the catering staff are professionals

Once upon a time the entire WH staff were professionals, so I don't think this is a dependable expectation.
posted by rhizome at 9:57 PM on June 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

Someone should tell Trump it's not a subpoena, it's a superpoena, the best poena, everyone is impressed with the size of his poena.

He'll race to testify.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:06 PM on June 2, 2018 [78 favorites]

They [China] basically seem like Fortinbras, hanging out on the sidelines while everyone else fucks themselves and others up, and comes in at the end to hoover up all the wreckage.

Fair enough, since all of American's 20th century strength that didn't come from stealing a resource-rich continent was derived from exactly this maneuver during WW2. Better yet, we built our industrial base supplying the winning side with weapons, and scooped up all the best minds of the losers and their victims.
posted by msalt at 10:18 PM on June 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

If Mueller drops dirt on a scheme involving the president, but ALSO two hundred GOP congresspeople and senators, would the members of congress be conflicted out of the impeachment vote?
posted by ctmf at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

And so on. Trump has repeatedly and emphatically made claims which are directly contradicted by his own lawyer's filings. I know it is completely pointless to bother wondering if Trump, the Republicans, or their cultists are at all bothered by this hypocrisy (or even recognize it) but we can still recognize it.

It matters, legally. The judges blocked Trump's immigration policies because his tweets contradicted his claims that they were for national security reasons.

Interestingly, right at the beginning of the Times' article they say the reason Trump's lawyers don't want him answering questions is that they've determined he simply can't do it without lying, contradicting himself, or otherwise weakening his case. He just isn't capable of it.
posted by xammerboy at 10:39 PM on June 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

This was fun to watch, and I want to see more, much more, of this type of thing. With the reinforcing musical soundtrack!
posted by Clathrate Bomber at 11:26 PM on June 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

Someone should tell Trump it's not a subpoena, it's a superpoena, the best poena, everyone is impressed with the size of his poena.

It actually might be sufficient simply to deliver it in a comically oversized envelope.
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:35 PM on June 2, 2018 [44 favorites]

The whole "I'll see you in court" response to the subpoena is hilarious
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:59 PM on June 2, 2018 [20 favorites]

“We ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are.”

Dear The New York Times,

A few nights ago I stopped at a local fast food establishment and ordered a Taco. While it was late, it was still two hours before their closing time.

"I'm sorry," the attendant at the Drive-Thru said, "but we are out of meat."

Being a reasonable person who believes that a restaurant that includes meat in virtually every menu item should keep a supply of such handy, I left without ordering, and decided to take my business elsewhere henceforth.

And now apparently your establishment has run out of words. Do you see where this is heading?
posted by mmoncur at 12:22 AM on June 3, 2018 [74 favorites]

@JohnJHarwood (CNBC) average monthly job growth: —first 16 months of Trump presidency: 185K —last 16 months of Obama presidency: 215K

How in the world could these words have been missing from the Times article? The president has set up this issue as his litmus test. Many of his base consider everything else he does a trade-off for more jobs (and Gorsuch). The article makes it sound like he's achieved something unprecedented by providing no context.
posted by xammerboy at 1:08 AM on June 3, 2018 [41 favorites]

A twitter thread by Matthew Chapman that basically repeats what has been the consensus on MeFi for a while, but puts it into a neat little package:

Believe it or not, Trump's insane proclamation that he will keep tariffs in place until there are no more Mercedes on Fifth Avenue gave me a moment of clarity. I think I finally understand Trump's economic philosophy now. And we are absolutely screwed.

The one thing that you need to understand about Trump is that he is, at his core, a con man with no empathy. Therefore, he assumes that all other people are also con men with no empathy, and every exchange of goods and services that exists in the world is, on some level, a con.

Trump assumes every transaction in the world — between people, businesses, nation-states, even between two different agencies of the same government — has a winner and a loser, a scammer and a sucker. He believes if you're not ripping someone off, you're getting ripped off.

From an economist's perspective, this is complete nonsense. Unless there are major information asymmetries or distortions of market power, and often even then, most transactions are generally to the mutual benefit of both parties. Otherwise no deals would ever get made.

But Trump — the man who created a fake university, made stiffed contractors, hired the mob, and filed for bankruptcy six times — cannot believe his. So he goes out of his way to cherrypick how he sees the world, so that everything we do looks like either a ripoff or a steal.

It's not simply that Trump *doesn't* think the Paris Climate Agreement, Iran nuclear deal, TPP, NAFTA, or luxury cars from Germany are a good deal for America. It's that he *can't* think that. It's an alien concept to him that a deal other people want with us could also help us.

To Trump's mind, the mere fact other countries sought out these deals with us, and that their own economies benefit, is unassailable proof we got ripped off. He can't see the evidence they helped us too. His mind will only cherry-pick potential ways it could be bad for us.

This is why Trump will never, ever, be able to negotiate with the rest of the world. He doesn't believe in mutual benefit. The second anyone tells him "this is your end of the deal" he'll rip it up. He believes only one party can have an end of the deal, and it shouldn't be him.

So folks, I hate to tell you this, but he's only getting started. He will forego billions, maybe trillions, of dollars in world trade. He will forego bilateral security agreements. And if he ever gets something from another nation it will be by force. As I said: we're screwed.

And we're not just screwed on foreign policy, but domestic. This explains his behavior over DACA, spiking two bipartisan deals even though they were what he asked for. He assumed if Democrats were willing to talk, his deal wasn't ripping them off, ergo it would rip him off.

That implies if Democrats win Congress, we are going to enter an all-out legislative standstill like we've never before seen. Our system is entirely reliant on compromise and compromise isn't compatible with Trump's beliefs. We will struggle to pass even basic reauthorizations.

So yeah: our nightmare is not going to end until we get this pathological con man out of office. He is not just bad at being president, he has a defective way of seeing the world that is not compatible with being president. And we will pay for it.

posted by PontifexPrimus at 1:48 AM on June 3, 2018 [187 favorites]

It's not just Trump's worldview that's toxic. The Republicans got us here by cynically refusing to shore up the economy for the lower class on a bet that the public would blame Obama.
posted by xammerboy at 2:36 AM on June 3, 2018 [15 favorites]

growabrain: A graph showing Unemployment over the Last Decade (based on)

I think this is the actual source as the curves appear identical. (Lest anyone think the first link is some creative home-made econometrics—it's just the straight BLS data with who was president at the time marked clearly.)
posted by XMLicious at 3:18 AM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

That’s a nice thought, mikelieman, but is it your contention that the press is an office of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of government?

Nope. The press is not an office of the government.

Let's take another look at this text:

"(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section," -- No problems here.

whoever, -- Donald J. Trump

in any matter (emphasis mine) -- e.g.: Trade agreements are in the jurisdiction of the executive.

"within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—"

as per the White House Press Secretary, Tweets are official statements by the President.

And here's a material mis-statement. (aka lie )

April 28 “The trade deficit with Mexico is close to $70 billion, even with Canada it’s $17 billion trade deficit with Canada.” (The U.S. had an $8.1 billion trade surplus, not deficit, with Canada in 2016.)

Additionally, these lies deprive Congress of their lawful role of oversight.
posted by mikelieman at 3:56 AM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

You're misinterpreting the statute though. It doesn't mean that it's unlawful for someone within the executive, legislative, or judicial branch to lie about their duties, it means that it is unlawful to lie to entities in the pursuit of duties within those branches. That isn't to say that it isn't an extremely broad power which has been used in even broader ways than with which we should probably be comfortable but you've got the directionality wrong.

Additionally, even if your interpretation could be supported as a novel reading of the statute there's no way in hell a novel reading would ever be used in pursuit of the President. Trump isn't gonna be taken down by stretching or bending precedent. We'll be extraordinarily fortunate if he could be removed even with rock solid evidence that falls squarely within well-adjudicated and bog standard legal ground.
posted by Justinian at 4:45 AM on June 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

tl;dr it's perfectly legal and extremely common for investigators to lie to you. It's illegal for you to do the same to them.
posted by Justinian at 4:46 AM on June 3, 2018 [10 favorites]

This isn't novel, in fact that "Depriving Congress of oversight" thing by lying to the public goes back to former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega's mock indictment of President George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, et al for their lies re: the invasion of Iraq.

I have her book on my bookshelf, but here's the orig. Tomgram post, and I would like to specifically highlight her summation:

Is there probable cause to believe that the defendants used deceit, craft, trickery, dishonest means -- including lies, false pretenses, misrepresentations, deliberate omissions, half-truths, false promises, and statements made with reckless indifference to their truth -- to obstruct, impede, or interfere with Congress' lawful government function of overseeing foreign affairs, relating to the invasion of Iraq?

And of course, Congress-at-large is getting their statements from the President about all sorts of matters in the Executive branch VIA tweets and the Press. Which is the basis of my original statement.
posted by mikelieman at 5:05 AM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Regarding Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, whose amazing campaign ad was linked to earlier in this thread- Saw this on Twitter, from yesterday:


"@ocasio2018 is your latest ad running on TV too or is it just online? It's so inspirational that everyone should see it!"

We're trying to fundraise to get it on air! Help us get it on TV: ocasio2018.com/donate "

Okay, I donated again. I want this to be on TV! Again, even if she doesn't win, I think it's great for people to be able to see something like this.
posted by robotdevil at 6:32 AM on June 3, 2018 [14 favorites]

as per the White House Press Secretary, Tweets are official statements by the President.

Yes but there may have been Ambien involved with that one.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 6:35 AM on June 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

mock indictment

Indulging in liberal fanfic is not going to help our problem with fascists.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:54 AM on June 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

mock indictment

Indulging in liberal fanfic is not going to help our problem with fascists.

...not to mention this Bush-era liberal fanfic is not even citing the same USC section as the current wild fanfic...

This is, not a useful line of discussion.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:02 AM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

The only actual useful discussion in a political thread is how to get folks to actually show up to vote. Numbers are on our side, but so many opt out (not voting is a vote for Trump)
posted by sammyo at 7:12 AM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

(not voting is a vote for Trump)

Wow that was spooky, I just meandered to the tv and clicked on the Zakaria interview of Steve Bannon and he made almost exactly the same point about November Sixth.
posted by sammyo at 7:20 AM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

The only actual useful discussion in a political thread is how to get folks to actually show up to vote. There’s nearly 3 million voting Dems who would like some further options.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:33 AM on June 3, 2018 [11 favorites]

Ace Attorney Rudy Guliani had quite the morning already:

JUST IN: Does Pres. Trump have the power to pardon himself?

"He's not, but he probably does," Rudy Giuliani tells @GStephanopoulos. "He has no intention of pardoning himself, but that doesn't say he can't."

Asked about shifting explanations for statement on Trump Tower meeting, Rudy Giuliani tells @GStephanopoulos:

"This is the reason you don't let the president testify. Our recollection keeps changing, or we're not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption."

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani tells @ThisWeekABC that Robert Mueller has not responded to January letter from the president's attorneys.

Rudy Giuliani tells @GStehapnopoulos he doesn't know whether Mueller has concluded investigation into alleged collusion, but "I've got a feeling he did. I have a feeling that collusion has come up completely empty."

Bookmark that one.

Giuliani to @ThisWeekABC: "For every one these things he did, we can write out five reasons why he did it. Four of them are completely innocent, and one of them is your assumption that it's a guilty motive, which the president would deny."

What?

Giuliani tells @ThisWeekABC he still believes Mueller will wrap up probe by September 1.

"He's as sensitive as everybody to not doing another Comey and interfering horribly in the election."

Rudy Giuliani says prosecutors have "everything" they need in investigation, calling subpoena for Pres. Trump "unnecessary."

"They have to make a decision without it. So, come on, man up and make your decision."

They're really on one additional count of obstruction per day at this point. And isn't leading Trump on about the investigation coming to a close how human mustache Ty Cobb got fired?
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:41 AM on June 3, 2018 [26 favorites]

Hm. Some random thoughts on voting: I just filled out my California ballot last night, kinda dredgingly so. I believe in voting, but some elections are just more exciting than others to everyone, and some aren't very interesting to anyone, and some elections, well, some folks are far more invested than others. I think this election is falling into the third category for me because I am having a hard time caring about most of what's on the ballot. Before opening the voting guides, I maybe knew how I felt about three voting options.

* If there's a shit ton of candidates to vote for, that makes it difficult to choose. When there's ten, twenty, thirty candidates up for the job, how do you distinguish who's best? I haven't heard much buzz about anyone before sitting down to look everyone up so most of the candidates I was going in ice cold about. How much have I heard about the lieutenant governor election? Nothing. The Board of Whatever? Nothing.
* The whole "jungle primary" thing is a damn mess here, see above. At the very least I think some folks just pick based on Democrat vs. Republican and if there's multiple or no folks in those categories, I think that doesn't help.
* In the case of our city council election, there's 10 (ish, I forget) candidates and from the research I've done, they all sound like they're for the same things. How do I pick who's best? Who's different? I seriously ended up picking based on who had ANY information about themselves I could find, because most had nothing. Why should I care about you because you stuck more signs on the lawns?
* There's not a lot I found on a lot of candidates, so how am I supposed to know why to vote for you? At the very least, a person who's not really into this election who does what I did and opens their voter guide/doesn't find much online is going on very little information. If you don't bother to submit anything, or wrote very little, for the voter guide, I didn't vote for you. I don't care that much about your personal biography if it doesn't relate to the job you want, I don't care about your family--what are you going to support and vote for? If you can't be bothered to say, then I'm not voting for you. You need to put some damn effort into saying somewhere why I should pick you.

As for the prop whatevers, let's just say some of those were so difficult I just gave up on trying to choose a yes vs. a no. I had no bloody idea what was best and gave up and left them blank. Sometimes the arguments against a prop, you'd be all "well, yeah, I don't like that one seems to up traffic and pollution, but if we don't vote for it, we don't solve the bigger problem of no housing either." Sometimes the arguments provided are freaking terrible to argue your case.

All of this shit made me very unmotivated to take that much time to fill out my ballot, especially when I had very little care for my options and couldn't figure out what I "wanted." I don't think we're ever going to solve those problems, but that's some issues why I didn't want to enthusiastically fill out my ballot this time.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:59 AM on June 3, 2018 [13 favorites]

The only actual useful discussion in a political thread is how to get folks to actually show up to vote.

Exactly. In the meantime, staying on top of the elected officials we have by contacting their offices, attending town halls and public events, joining local groups, etc. keeps the pressure on them.

Speaking of which, after Trump's lawyers' arguments in this leaked letter and Giuliani's absurd claims on cable news - to say nothing of Trump declaring trade war on our allies - now would be a nice opportunity to call up members of congress to remind them of the costs of supporting this administration.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:04 AM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

They're really on one additional count of obstruction per day at this point.

CAN TRUMP STOP BREAKING THE LAW FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND SO I CAN WRAP THIS SHIT UP?!! (Mueller meme)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:06 AM on June 3, 2018 [21 favorites]

For Jenfullmoon and my other fellow Californians: I used Voter's Edge as a guide. Input your zip code and get a guide especially for your area. This way I was able to vote for the Superintendent of Schools candidate endorsed by the teacher's union (for example) and not just rely on glossy campaign brochures.

I know that plowing through propositions and candidates is a PITA, but in this age of the internet, it's really easier to be an informed voter than it was when you had to hunt down printed guides and hope they were not the "tricksy" kind. Yet another reason to mourn the decline of unions, IME - if you belonged to a union, they would keep their members informed and guide them.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:22 AM on June 3, 2018 [24 favorites]

Mod note: Couple things removed, please do drop it with the "what if Trump got taken down via THESE citations!" stuff and general Sunday lull time-filling. There's a whole website, go read or post something fun or go outside or something.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:25 AM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

Damn, that Voter’s Edge thing looks awesome if you’re in California, Illinois, or New York. I hope they expand it to all states.
posted by Weeping_angel at 8:32 AM on June 3, 2018

Damn, that Voter’s Edge thing looks awesome if you’re in California, Illinois, or New York. I hope they expand it to all states.

Me too! I don't think it's a coincidence that Voter's Edge is available in BLUE states. It's like the red states don't want an informed citizenry! (ha ha who am I kidding no they don't! especially not informed women/LGBT/POC citizenry) But there are other guides such as Vote411, put out by the League of Women Voters. There is the Progressive Voter's Guide as well.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:48 AM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

Eric Garland gone fully weird.
posted by Artw at 8:53 AM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Suck it arugula eaters, North Korea reportedly wants a McDonald’s. That could be a pretty big deal.
posted by peeedro at 9:13 AM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh we’re stuck in the Golden Arches Theory era of political thinking?

(Note: there have been many wars between countries with McDonalds in them, that theory is bollocks)
posted by Artw at 9:22 AM on June 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Democrats are going to need to get their collective act together in time for the Sunday morning political shows, because there's no question that Guiliani and Team Trump will be everywhere tomorrow.

Brian Buetler: Trump’s lawyers articulated a theory of his impunity from federal criminal law, and of the president’s absolute power to determine who will or will not be investigated for crimes, so naturally the Sunday shows booked zero Democrats between them to discuss.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:27 AM on June 3, 2018 [29 favorites]

"He's as sensitive as everybody to not doing another Comey and interfering horribly in the election."

It's like that scene in Godzilla where the scientist says, "Let them fight".

Two shitty actors from the same shitty party, slugging it out in the political arena.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:37 AM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Zinke cites ‘environmental disaster’ in sending park police to border

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is doubling down on his decision to send law enforcement officers from his department, including from the National Park Service and U.S. Park Police, to help apprehend illegal immigrants along the U.S., Mexico border.

Speaking to Fox Business News on Thursday, Zinke called the state of the border an “environmental disaster.” He cited strewn needles and garbage on park land at the border and habitat destruction as reasons why he was deploying U.S. Park Police (USPP) and National Park Service (NPS) officers.

“It’s unfettered and we need to shut the border down for a number of reasons,” Zinke said. “I’m in charge of our federal lands. I’m a steward...and now all of a sudden our agents are down at the southern border you know what you have to look at? Needles.”

Zinke had to get a piece of that sweet fascist dehumanization pie. Drawing the National Park Service into the ethnic cleansing business is, even for him, an exceptionally vile act of institutional degradation. I suspect he's aiming for more of an inner-circle gig in the WH with more control over the apparatus of state violence.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:42 AM on June 3, 2018 [56 favorites]

What I don't get is why McDonald's would want to set up in North Korea. Setting up a restaurant for the elites in a brutal dictatorship at the request of the dictator is very different than expanding into new markets in Russia and China. Those expansions may have had symbolic value, but they were also business decisions driven by economic liberalization in those countries. McDonald's now has about 650 franchises in Russia and 2400 in China. There's presumably limited growth potential in North Korea, and at every step McDonald's would have to work closely with the unpredictable and violent North Korean government. Surely there would also be supply chain difficulties if they wanted to offer standard McDonald's fare.

I'm sure that because everything is dumb, Trump will accept the absurd idea that opening a North Korean McDonald's is a concession from Kim, but doesn't McDonald's get a say in the matter? Trump can give his blessing to the idea, but he doesn't even have the power to grant McDonald's a reprieve from international sanctions, let alone to compel McDonald's to open up a North Korean franchise.
posted by vathek at 10:09 AM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

"He's as sensitive as everybody to not doing another Comey and interfering horribly in the election."

So we're not even pretending Comey didn't swing the election to Trump anymore?
posted by kirkaracha at 10:16 AM on June 3, 2018 [48 favorites]

I think this election is falling into the third category for me because I am having a hard time caring about most of what's on the ballot.

The first rule of Voting Club is RELAX. The worst thing you can realistically expect to happen is that you might be embarrassed about a vote later. You do not need to be an expert on everything and everyone, and it is ABSOLUTELY OKAY if you vote for Person A and later realize you'd have preferred to vote for Person B. For any individual, voting is a low-benefit, low-consequence activity and it's okay to treat it that way.

The second rule is that people will be trying to call your attention to bad shit about their opponents. If you aren't seeing commercials about how someone eats puppies or news reports about them eating puppies or people mentioning the puppy-eating on metafilter or TPM or whatever, then odds are either that they don't eat puppies or that they've been good about keeping their puppy-eating under wraps so it's not your fault for voting for them.

The third rule is that it's okay to trust your gut about people as people. We're mostly good about picking out who are the creepy weaselly fucks, people the people who were bad at that got eaten by creepy weaselly fucks.

So anyway, an easy voting tree for stuff you mostly don't care about or races where you don't actively have a favorite candidate:

(1) Rule out Republicans.
(2) Rule out Democrats you've heard bad shit about or who just give you the willies.
(3) Lots of Democrats to vote for? Eliminate the ones that seem to be white men.
(4) Lots of D women and POCs? Fuck it, just pick one. Just go with how the spirit moves you.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:20 AM on June 3, 2018 [55 favorites]

Eons ago, the culture war centered on a proposed building (still in some kind of complicated status, but likely to be built) called Park51. It was dubbed a "ground zero mosque" (it wasn't a mosque but an Islamic community center, and it was not near 9/11's Ground Zero) by xenophobic ignoramuses. Among their favorite arguments in online forums was that "they" wouldn't permit a church in Mecca, and thus "we" shouldn't permit mosques. Alongside dozens of other folks rightly demolishing the idea, I countered that this was equivalent to refusing permits for Korean restaurants… until a McDonald's is built in Pyongyang.

So anyway, I apologize for my own contribution to the process whereby our entire reality became replaced with a series of recycled half-assed jokes.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 10:47 AM on June 3, 2018 [25 favorites]

Should I know who Eric garland is? What role does he play in the cobwebs of red connecting threads?
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:00 AM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

He’s the “it’s time for some game theory” guy, one of a small constellation of people who used to get folks around here with long twitter threads on things that sounded exciting but later turned out to be kind of bollocks. I think we are wise to most of them by now.
posted by Artw at 11:07 AM on June 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

What I don't get is why McDonald's would want to set up in North Korea.

Worldwide publicity as the defining marker of peace, democracy, freedom and prosperity returning after horrible repression. I'm not in marketing but I'm pretty sure that's good PR.
posted by msalt at 11:08 AM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

What I don't get is why McDonald's would want to set up in North Korea.

Dressing up your dictatorship with capitalistic bells and whistles is all the rage now. It's a sign to North Koreans that the country is going to become more prosperous, like China.

Also, I can't help but think you'd finally taste one of those burgers and think "this is it?" It confirms the assertion that things being better in the west is a big con.
posted by xammerboy at 12:13 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

@anneapplebaum: The American ambassador in Germany has just implied that he would like to unseat the current German government
posted by zombieflanders at 12:16 PM on June 3, 2018 [27 favorites]

Should I know who Eric garland is? What role does he play in the cobwebs of red connecting threads?

Eric Garland is the guy who blew up on Twitter with his "Let's talk some game theory" thing a while back, which was encouraging but he has no real insider info. He's not a journalist, or a political scientist, or a lawyer. Some of his threads have been rational and encouraging but in the end he's not really a relevant voice except for the volume of his Twitter amplifiers.

Basically he's less useful than Seth Abramson (whom you should also not listen to), but less harmful than Louise Mensch.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:19 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Eric Garland, not to be confused with Merrick Garland, Eric Garner, or Eric Greitens.

I'm so tired.
posted by box at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2018 [47 favorites]

Or Eric Trump.
posted by Melismata at 12:37 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, I can't help but think you'd finally taste one of those burgers and think "this is it?" It confirms the assertion that things being better in the west is a big con.

LOL. Do you remember your first mcdonald's? Because I do. It was the early 70's and the first McDonalds within 40 miles opened up a few miles from my childhood home and holy shit it was awesome.

Now the 70's were bad. Velveeta was special cheese for guests and Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread wasn't ironic. But it was nowhere near mass starvation and malnourished North Korea bad.

There is a reason McDonald's succeeds just about everywhere and it isn't because it is a con. The fact that you and I can and probably do now buy plenty of better burgers for $10-20 a pop doesn't change that McDonald's is still an amazing meal for an amazing price.

You don't end up as the near unstoppable spear tip of capitalism without being sharp.
posted by srboisvert at 12:43 PM on June 3, 2018 [37 favorites]

The third rule is that it's okay to trust your gut about people as people.

This is how we got people saying, even after every stupid lie had been refuted, “I don’t know, I just don’t like her.”

And it’s always a “her.”
posted by schadenfrau at 12:44 PM on June 3, 2018 [53 favorites]

If you have some time today/tomorrow, Swing Left has a phonebank for the California primaries (39th, 48th, 49th). They're not targeted at specific candidates, which isn't a great strategy concerning the risk of being shut out by the jungle primary, but boosting Democratic turnout in general is still a really important part of not being shut out.
posted by zachlipton at 12:49 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

All of this shit made me very unmotivated to take that much time to fill out my ballot, especially when I had very little care for my options and couldn't figure out what I "wanted."

Besides the Voter's Edge website which others provided I've also found the endorsements by trusted newspapers to be quite useful for propositions and lower-level races. I live in LA so the LA Times is the obvious choice. The utility of newspaper endorsements will vary greatly depending on your location.

That said, you're right that there can be a bewildering number of choices for a bewildering number of issues and races. It has become a problem.
posted by Justinian at 12:50 PM on June 3, 2018

For example, something like 40% of the races (10/25) I have to vote for are for judgeships. We shouldn't be electing judges at all and this many at once is absurd. Make these appointed positions and, boom, all of a sudden the ballot is much shorter. Still a lot of positions most people will have no basis for voting on (seriously, we're major outliers for doing actual research) but 15 races is somewhat less intimidating than 25.
posted by Justinian at 1:01 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Zinke cites ‘environmental disaster’ in sending park police to border

Can't find it offhand but back when Zinke started consolidating the Forestry Service & some others with BLM I predicted he was heading towards some new Gestapo or SS. I've never been more upset to be proven right.
posted by scalefree at 1:29 PM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

Hey guys! I got a great idea! You know who really needs a racist right wing government? GERMANY! I think they'd do really well with it, even better than the last time.

Trump’s Right Hand Man in Europe Rick Grenell Wants To ‘Empower’ European Conservatives.

BERLIN, Germany: Trumpian U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has expressed great excitement over the wave of conservatism in Europe, saying he wants to “empower” leaders of the movement.

posted by scalefree at 1:57 PM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

(1) Rule out Republicans.
(2) Rule out Democrats you've heard bad shit about or who just give you the willies.
(3) Lots of Democrats to vote for? Eliminate the ones that seem to be white men.
(4) Lots of D women and POCs? Fuck it, just pick one. Just go with how the spirit moves you.

Hah, that is about what I did :) I will have to vote for the Democrats who give me the willies for governor again anyway, sigh.

This is how we got people saying, even after every stupid lie had been refuted, “I don’t know, I just don’t like her.”
And it’s always a “her.”

Hell if I know what to do about that one.
(I just deleted a ton of things I'd like to say there.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:59 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Some haruspicy on early voting in CA from Nate Cohn.

Turnout among dems, particularly white dems, in CA-48 is through the roof. Rohrabacher may have to retire to his dacha on the Black Sea if Dems don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by splitting the vote too much. The biggest threat might be in CA-39 though. Clinton won CA-39 by 8 points so this should be an easy pickup in this environment, but the Demo vote here is relatively young and minority voters and they just don't turn out in primary elections and there is a bunch of vote splitting going on.

Having two Republicans on the ballot in CA-39 would be a disaster. Vote, people!
posted by Justinian at 2:06 PM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

Axios: Michael Cohen's secret dream

On election night 2016, shortly after Donald Trump's team realized he would win the presidency, Michael Cohen told a handful of people on the 14th floor of Trump Tower about his own dreams for the future — to be mayor of New York.

"This is the beginning of a dynasty," Cohen told the group, according to a source who heard him.

Surprised by the remark, one of the people asked Trump's longtime personal attorney that if by "dynasty" he meant Ivanka or Don Junior was going to get the political bug next. Cohen replied: "I've already got the bug." Cohen then added: "Nobody's going to be able to fuck with us. I think I'm going to run for mayor."

Sometimes you plan to found House Harkonnen but end up doing a Romanov speedrun.
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:14 PM on June 3, 2018 [50 favorites]

This time next year appearances by the first lady are just going to be a pink Jackie O costume glued to a mop being carried from place to place by Stephen Miller and people will be like "stop conspiracizing about the first lady, god"
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:28 PM on June 3, 2018 [45 favorites]

Unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if Cohen did end up being NYC mayor.
posted by localhuman at 2:39 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

ABC's Meridith McGraw @meridithmcgraw has an update on the continuing absence of Melania: NEW: First Lady Melania Trump will not attend the G7 or Singapore summit with President Trump, @FLOTUS Communications Director Stephanie Grisham tells me
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:40 PM on June 3, 2018 [10 favorites]

Maybe I was overthinking the burger thing. Maybe it's just this simple / ridiculous:

Kim Jong Un is also believed to like burgers: In 2011, a South Korean newspaper reported that his father regularly had McDonald’s flown from China on Air Koryo jets. And President Trump is, of course, a big fan of fast-food as well. According to NBC, Kim hopes to open a chain in Pyongyang in part to cater meals for future bilateral conferences.

posted by xammerboy at 2:47 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just got done helping my 93 year old, blind and wheelchair blind grandmother fill out her mail in ballot, I’ve been doing so every year since I turned 18 right after bush v gore/the people. This year before we started she said that she didn’t want to spend a lot of time, and to just pick the candidates that were democrats, preferably women and minorities. She’s kind of my hero right now.
posted by Drumhellz at 3:10 PM on June 3, 2018 [65 favorites]

Taking this to its logical extreme: Giuliani: Trump Could Have Shot Comey And Still Couldn’t Be Indicted For It

“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Rudy Giuliani told HuffPost Sunday, claiming a president’s constitutional powers are that broad. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”

Giuliani said impeachment was the initial remedy for a president’s illegal behavior ― even in the extreme hypothetical case of Trump having shot former FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation rather than just firing him.

“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”

posted by zachlipton at 3:32 PM on June 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'm wondering where any NK storefront would source raw materials from.

The model in Russia was the McComplex. McDonald’s first built a factory to turn raw materials into restaurant quality ingredients. They sourced locally what they could and imported the rest. The imports decreased over time as local suppliers were able to meet McDonald’s needs but it took over 30 years before they were able to completely outsource to locals.
posted by peeedro at 3:36 PM on June 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

This time next year appearances by the first lady are just going to be a pink Jackie O costume glued to a mop being carried from place to place by Stephen Miller and people will be like "stop conspiracizing about the first lady, god"

No-one here would mistake me for being Mr. Moderation Should Be Heavy but I saw a couple of the comments that got deleted and, yeah, some were inappropriate gross jokes.

With that said, a week or two more of this and I would guess the press will start demanding answers. The WH saying this is a private matter would be an answer which would appropriately buy them more time even then. But continuing the charade that nothing strange is going on should be a non starter soon. This is a public figure we're talking about; some kind of statement is appropriate. Even "please respect our privacy at this moment."
posted by Justinian at 3:43 PM on June 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

“I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there is no law that says the president cannot be indicted, just Nixon-era Department of Justice rules.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:12 PM on June 3, 2018 [10 favorites]

It is correct there is no formal prohibition on the indictment of a President in the simple sense. What are in place, are just those Department guidelines (renewed more recently than Nixon, however, during the Clinton v. Jones mess, IIRC). What's not certain is whether there would be any teeth in it -- it's not clear that the President can be arrested and forced to stand trial during their term of office. Or, for that matter, if the President could still simply carry out a Friday Night Massacre at that juncture to put someone in charge at DoJ willing to dismiss the charges and kill the prosecution. (So long as we're talking about a Federal indictment.) Not to mention just pardoning everyone else involved to get rid of all the witnesses....

An indictment would be a big deal for public opinion, and could certainly create a huge Constitutional mess, but that's because it's not the intended Constitutional remedy for this situation. That's impeachment.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:37 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Today the President's lawyer said on national television he can literally kill his political opponents without consequences.

Maggie Habermann was busy reading through Bill Clinton's book and attacking Bill for [checks notes]...blaming the press. [Real].

Another banner on brand day for the NYT.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:40 PM on June 3, 2018 [65 favorites]

And now, it's time to play WITCH HUNT, The Boardgame (NYT):

OBJECT OF THE GAME: Despite overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice and collusion with a foreign power (or three!), you must prove that the charges the Special Counsel brings against you are just a politically motivated WITCH HUNT! Fun for the whole crime family!
posted by growabrain at 4:46 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

California election question: does anyone have a good resource pointing out which races are in danger of shutting out Democrats, to help me figure out when I need to vote strategically and when I can vote for the candidate who seems best, even if they're unlikely to win?

Also, should we have a separate California election thread, and would someone who's not still plowing through their election booklet start one maybe?
posted by kristi at 4:55 PM on June 3, 2018

Taking this to its logical extreme: Giuliani: Trump Could Have Shot Comey And Still Couldn’t Be Indicted For It

And hey, if some stochastic terrorism results from him putting the idea of Comey being shot out there, all the better.
posted by chris24 at 4:57 PM on June 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

Not to mention just pardoning everyone else involved to get rid of all the witnesses....

Thereby removing their fifth amendment protections against self-incrimination. So he'd have to pardon them for contempt of court, and keep pardoning them, over and over, if they refuse to testify.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:57 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

If you combine the two, Giuliani is saying that Trump could shoot Comey, then pardon himself for it, which would make him unindictable (federally, anyway) even out of office.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:58 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

Thereby removing their fifth amendment protections against self-incrimination. So he'd have to pardon them for contempt of court, and keep pardoning them, over and over, if they refuse to testify.

Galaxy brain: just shoot all the prosecutors and name new ones that won't bring charges. And shoot all the Democratic members of Congress, plus any Republicans that would vote to impeach. Taken to the "logical extreme", Guliani is literally arguing for The Night of the Long Knives.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:01 PM on June 3, 2018 [25 favorites]

An indictment would be a big deal for public opinion, and could certainly create a huge Constitutional mess...

A well-documented indictment would have a crucial effect on public opinion, even if -- perhaps especially if -- Trump & co. successfully block it in court.

All the excuses about "need more investigation" would be out the window. Obstruction of Justice would be literally inarguable. And proponents would have the obvious argument of "Your own defenders say you can't be prosecuted until you're impeached. So we need to do this to let the courts determine whether you're guilty or innocent."
posted by msalt at 5:10 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

Thereby removing their fifth amendment protections against self-incrimination. So he'd have to pardon them for contempt of court, and keep pardoning them, over and over, if they refuse to testify.

Pardons for contempt! Pardons for the underlying crimes! Pardons for the as yet undiscovered crimes! You get a pardon! You get a pardon! Everyone gets a pardon!

But, yes, presumably (ab)using the pardon power to quiet witnesses means some people would be allowed to take the Fifth, or else refuse to testify and then be pardoned for contempt first, and then later for their underlying crimes if they were targeted upon a Presidental prosecution stalling.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:13 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

California election question: does anyone have a good resource pointing out which races are in danger of shutting out Democrats,

It's really mostly 3 house races; the two coastal Orange County districts and the one just north of Anaheim. They are CA-39, CA-48, and CA-49. If you're in SF you don't have to worry about it.
posted by Justinian at 5:17 PM on June 3, 2018

All the excuses about "need more investigation" would be out the window. Obstruction of Justice would be literally inarguable. And proponents would have the obvious argument of "Your own defenders say you can't be prosecuted until you're impeached. So we need to do this to let the courts determine whether you're guilty or innocent."

If the Administration get the Supreme Court to stay any prosecution during the term of office, then obstruction is hardly inarguable, rather the opposite.

If the Administration does it through serial firing AGs or abusing the pardon, that's more blatant obstruction. At which point, barring unlikely midterm results, Mitch McConnell will have a very stark choice to make.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:19 PM on June 3, 2018

It seems to me that a court could keep calling the same person to testify and upon refusal, holding them in contempt, forcing another round of pardons. You can't pardon someone for a future crime, each contempt of court would be a separate crime, so this could go around and around.

Anyway, my other nightmare scenario is that Trump isn't impeached, loses the election, there's clearly an indictment ready to drop as soon as his term ends, so he resigns 10 minutes before and has President-for-10-minutes Pence pardon him on the way out the door, to avoid the entire self-pardon question. It would probably be legal!
posted by BungaDunga at 5:22 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

If you combine the two, Giuliani is saying that Trump could shoot Comey, then pardon himself for it, which would make him unindictable (federally, anyway) even out of office.

So we built the world's largest war and espionage machine, and now anyone with a lot of money can use it to hotwire the democratic process and then do whatever they want with the power and no-one can ever hold them accountable?

This doesn't seem like a good idea.
posted by MrVisible at 5:23 PM on June 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

He can't pardon himself for state crimes of which murder is one. And he probably can't pardon himself, though that isn't a sure thing and hasn't yet been tested in court.
posted by Justinian at 5:25 PM on June 3, 2018

It seems to me that a court could keep calling the same person to testify and upon refusal, holding them in contempt, forcing another round of pardons. You can't pardon someone for a future crime, each contempt of court would be a separate crime, so this could go around and around.

I have some vague recollection of there being limits on this sort of thing (precisely because it can go around and around like that in theory) but it's been a long time since I've read anything substantial on the issue.

Anyway, my other nightmare scenario...would probably be legal!

Ugh. It probably would be. It'd be like some horrible Walking Dead reveal where the buoyant new President arrives at the White House to displace Trump....and is met by a grimly smiling Pence.

End of season, roll credits.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:29 PM on June 3, 2018

Guys I'm starting to think maybe our system of government has some flaws.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [46 favorites]

It's a shame the founders never stress tested their government prototypes with varying percentages of assholes.
posted by Slackermagee at 5:40 PM on June 3, 2018 [32 favorites]

Your Founding Fathers assumed good faith, or at least that only one or two individuals at a time would demonstrate bad faith. Can't do that anymore.
posted by Pinback at 5:49 PM on June 3, 2018 [21 favorites]

Galaxy brain: just shoot all the prosecutors and name new ones that won't bring charges. And shoot all the Democratic members of Congress, plus any Republicans that would vote to impeach. Taken to the "logical extreme", Guliani is literally arguing for The Night of the Long Knives.

Or The Handmaid's Tale; if memory serves me correctly, Congress getting machine-gunned was part of the impetus for Gilead taking over. (Somehow I always thought terrorists -- at last, those not affiliated with Gilead -- did so; I didn't consider that the revolutionary dictatorship itself would do so, but now here we are.)

(I'm mortified about the "Un family" error upthread; I knew both that it should be "Kim family" and that many Asian surnames go first. Apologies.)
posted by Gelatin at 5:51 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Crowd cheers when valedictorian quotes Trump. Then reveals it was Obama (Thomas Novelly, Louisville Courier Journal)

"I just thought it was a really good quote,” Bowling said. “Most people wouldn’t like it if I used it, so I thought I’d use Donald Trump’s name. It is southeastern Kentucky after all.”

Bell County, which is located in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth near the Tennessee border, overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2016 Presidential election. Nearly 80 percent of ballots were cast for the political outsider and celebrity.

Bowling said there was no backlash to his speech at all.

"There was a portion of the crowd that thought it was absolutely hilarious," Alisha Russell, a Kentucky law student who attended the ceremony said in a Twitter message. "But there was definitely some collective groaning too."

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:56 PM on June 3, 2018 [22 favorites]

GCU Sweet and Full of Grace: "For any individual, voting is a low-benefit, low-consequence activity and it's okay to treat it that way."

This is fundamentally at odds with all the other messages we get about voting. In particular, this argument means that no, it's not important that you vote.

I appreciate what you're trying to say, but the fact that you have a strategy or that you are willing to vote randomly doesn't make it okay that people feel forced to vote randomly because they don't know how to accomplish their civic duty well. California ballots are too large and the jungle primary system is ridiculous.
posted by TypographicalError at 6:03 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh, okay; he IMMEDIATELY revealed it was Obama (as in, "just kidding, that was actually Barack Obama"). Before I read the article I thought maybe he only "revealed" it after he was called out on it a couple days later.
posted by yhbc at 6:04 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

kirkaracha: "Guys I'm starting to think maybe our system of government has some flaws."

Color me shocked that a system of government which explicitly included racial animus has a failure mode due to racial animus.
posted by TypographicalError at 6:06 PM on June 3, 2018 [14 favorites]

North Korea's top three military officials sacked, as nuclear summit nears

North Korea’s top three military officials have been removed from their posts, a senior US official said on Sunday, as a scheduled summit between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un neared in Singapore.

The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was commenting on a report by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency that all three of the North’s top military officials were believed to have been replaced.

posted by BungaDunga at 6:08 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

I remember a rumor that Kim was loathe to leave, because he afraid there might be a coup in his absence.
posted by xammerboy at 6:21 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

CNN: Melania Trump expected to attend Gold Star event at White House

OK, so we'll finally get photographic proof of life to dispel the rumors and worries! That's-

Monday's reception is closed to the press

Oh.
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [21 favorites]

It's a shame the founders never stress tested their government prototypes with varying percentages of assholes.

They did. Articles of Confederation got us to the Constitution because of the issues said Articles surfaced sooner than later,
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:28 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

All the excuses about "need more investigation" would be out the window. Obstruction of Justice would be literally inarguable.

"Literally inarguable" presumes Republicans argue in good faith. Republicans argue about things that are factually untrue all the time. If they couldn't, they'd have nothing to say.

Mitch McConnell will have a very stark choice to make.

McConnell made his choice when he told Barack Obama, upon being briefed about Russian attempts to influence the US election, that he (McConnell) would claim any attempt by Obama to bring these attempts to the public's attention was nothing but partisan efforts to influence the election, despite knowing full well it wasn't true.

McConnell arguably committed treason for Trump once already; why would he shirk at doing so a second time? (Only if Trump is a negative for the Republican Party.)
posted by Gelatin at 6:39 PM on June 3, 2018 [47 favorites]

Guys I'm starting to think maybe our system of government has some flaws.

We're still running the kludgy, first-iteration version of democracy, dating from the days when it was taken for granted that only white men with a property qualification could vote. We're using the same system, with a few tweaks here and there, since the 18th century. An 18th century government for a 21st century society - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

We never had to rebuild a government from the ground up post-World War I or II; again, we're one of the first "we don't have a king now what?" experiments. (Switzerland was a democracy for even longer, but it was never a colonial power or slave economy with the attendant racial divisions.) If Reconstruction hadn't been prematurely aborted, things would probably be different - but here we are.

I also don't think that the writers of the Constitution ever thought that the US would be as urban as it is now, or as split by urban vs. rural ideology. I recall, after the 2004 elections, calls to abolish the Electoral College as undemocratic; that died down, especially after Obama was elected, but now it's really hard to paper over the cracks in that system.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:42 PM on June 3, 2018 [37 favorites]

This is not how things are supposed to work. The Pentagon is going to be taking over security clearance investigations from the Office of Personnel Management.

[TheHill] Pentagon to take up federal security checks: report
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:04 PM on June 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

I have some vague recollection of there being limits on this sort of thing (precisely because it can go around and around like that in theory) but it's been a long time since I've read anything substantial on the issue.

In Go, rule 2 (the "ko rule") states that the stones on the board must never repeat a previous position of stones. Moves which would do so are forbidden, and thus only moves elsewhere on the board are permitted that turn.

Maybe we could get that spliced into US law?
posted by Meatbomb at 7:11 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

Anyway, my other nightmare scenario is that Trump isn't impeached, loses the election, there's clearly an indictment ready to drop as soon as his term ends, so he resigns 10 minutes before and has President-for-10-minutes Pence pardon him on the way out the door, to avoid the entire self-pardon question.

If they try this, President Kamala Harris should just un-pardon him as her first official act. By Guiliani logic, "it doesn't say you CAN'T do that!"

In Trump's case though, the solution is easier. Just start subpoenaing him to testify under oath in civil suits and in criminal trials of his associates. No 5th amendment for him to claim, and it will be too late to further pardon either contempt or perjury convictions.

The first time he's asked the same question twice he'll lie. Even better, start asking him questions about stuff Mueller developed extensive evidence of. Either he perjures himself or confirms under oath all of his crimes. Most likely both.
posted by msalt at 7:14 PM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

Gelatin: "Or The Handmaid's Tale; if memory serves me correctly, Congress getting machine-gunned was part of the impetus for Gilead taking over. (Somehow I always thought terrorists -- at last, those not affiliated with Gilead -- did so; I didn't consider that the revolutionary dictatorship itself would do so, but now here we are.) "

No, it was a Reichstag fire type thing - the attack was staged by the theocratic types in order to provide a pretext for taking over and suspending the Constitution.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:26 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

For Jenfullmoon and my other fellow Californians: I used Voter's Edge as a guide.

I'm finding Voter's Edge a bit weird in the way it randomly picks candidates to display. I mean, what the hell is a Zoltan Istvan? He sounds like the villain from a 1980s cartoon.

For the Santa Clara region, I like Mithriltabby's "Hold Your Nose and Vote" guide to candidates and issues. Even he seems a little overwhelmed by the candidates. He's also open about his biases- for instance, he takes Feinstein to task for her position on digital security. Even so, if she gets the nomination he'll vote for her.
posted by happyroach at 8:32 PM on June 3, 2018

Jeff Merkley being unallowed to inspect a detention center for children in a former Wal-Mart feels like it should be a lot bigger than it's being treated

I mean, this is something that feels like thousands of people should show up there and force their way in to check on those kids
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:43 PM on June 3, 2018 [68 favorites]

I mean, what the hell is a Zoltan Istvan? He sounds like the villain from a 1980s cartoon.

Or maybe just a guy with Hungarian or similar Eastern European heritage? Those guys aren't ALL evil villians :)
posted by Meatbomb at 8:54 PM on June 3, 2018 [18 favorites]

Zoltan Istvan

Yup, those are very common Hungarian names (both personal and family, so "Zoltán István" and "István Zoltán" are both entirely plausible names). "István" is just the Hungarian form of "Stephen"; "Zoltán" is a legacy of Turkish rule, because it's a cognate of "sultan".

And if you want a really villainous-sounding Hungarian name... well, "Attila" is in fact moderately common as both a personal and family name.
posted by jackbishop at 9:14 PM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

We're still running the kludgy, first-iteration version of democracy

Technically we're running on the 1787 stealth reboot after scrapping the 1778 original version.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:18 PM on June 3, 2018 [13 favorites]

Jeff Merkley being unallowed to inspect a detention center for children in a former Wal-Mart feels like it should be a lot bigger than it's being treated

Video. A Walmart shell, with blacked-out windows, suspected to contain hundreds of imprisoned semi-stateless children. A US Senator is stonewalled and has the cops called on him instead of being given any information. A "resettlement" office is making kids disappear. How much more it's happening here do we need?
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:23 PM on June 3, 2018 [95 favorites]

This is from a while ago, but it's late Sunday night, so:

>> If you combine the two, Giuliani is saying that Trump could shoot Comey, then pardon himself for it, which would make him unindictable (federally, anyway) even out of office.

> He can't pardon himself for state crimes of which murder is one.

Soooo... what you're saying is that Trump would have to shoot Comey on the streets of Washington, District of Columbia, yes?

That's the kind of rules-lawyering I'm expecting from noted Gold fringe / Moon lawyer Rudy Giuliani at this point, at least.
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:41 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

We never had to rebuild a government from the ground up post-World War I or II; again, we're one of the first "we don't have a king now what?" experiments. (Switzerland was a democracy for even longer, but it was never a colonial power or slave economy with the attendant racial divisions.) If Reconstruction hadn't been prematurely aborted, things would probably be different - but here we are.

The fact that we didn’t have a huge constitutional convention post civil war to remove all the concessions to slavers will be seen in retrospect (along with the failure and sabotage of the reconstruction in general) as this aha! Point of where it could’ve changed but didn’t.

That being said if the blue wave happens (not a given) and if they’ve got enough vigor rot start playing dirty (so not s given) there are a couple of things Dems could do to expand democracy and make it less ...of a sham (Statehood for DC and PR, a new voting rights act with holidays and ranked choice and automatic registration, remove the artificial limit on the House, abolishing the electoral college, etc)
posted by The Whelk at 9:41 PM on June 3, 2018 [16 favorites]

Someone must be making money ‘caring’ for the immigrant children ripped from their families. Who?
The parents would provide care for the children free of charge. Why is the government so eager to take them hundreds of miles from that free care?
I am so upset about this.
posted by Gadgetenvy at 9:52 PM on June 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

Jeff Sessions no longer sparks joy (Alexandra Petri, WaPo)

"I think, you know, Cabinet secretaries serve at the pleasure of the president. If this president no longer has pleasure in General Sessions, then he ought to make a change.” — Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under George W. Bush

Alberto Gonzales appears to be recommending to President Trump a time-honored trick from the KonMari method. Go through each item in your cabinet and ask yourself, “Does it spark joy?” If not, maybe it is time to declutter.

Look around at this array of fixtures you have assembled. All of these various products that looked so good on TV. But is joy lacking? What do you need and what are you just keeping around from force of habit?

Jeff Sessions: He once sparked joy, back on the campaign trail. But now you look at him and think: All the lawyers in America, and I selected this guy? Yes, he has been implementing some grotesque and heartless policies when it comes to sentencing and the separation of families at the border, with such evident zeal that it almost breaks your heart to remove him. But even the thought of all the exciting cruelty is not enough. Your Jeff was supposed to do one thing: Shield you from investigation in a way that would appear to be a serious misuse of the office. This Jeff has done many things, but not that. When you look at him, all you see is failure, and a man who recused himself.

Betsy DeVos: Does she perform a function? Possibly. Maybe she is not doing anything now, but if there is a potential grizzly, you will need someone who knows about that.

Jared Kushner: A gift from your favorite daughter, even though your Jared has not done any of the things you had hoped when you brought it home — fixing the opioid crisis, running government like a business, peace in the Middle East — that doesn’t mean it won’t. And you just got your Jared a security clearance, so maybe that will help. Put it in a labeled box so that it is clear to others what its function is intended to be and they will not trip over it.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:57 PM on June 3, 2018 [20 favorites]

Yup, those are very common Hungarian names

Judges changing their names to common Irish names when running for election is a thing.
posted by xammerboy at 10:00 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Guys I'm starting to think maybe our system of government has some flaws.

We're still running the kludgy, first-iteration version of democracy, dating from the days when it was taken for granted that only white men with a property qualification could vote.

It's a shame the founders never stress tested their government prototypes with varying percentages of assholes.

This is a weird historical blindspot that appears common in the US. By 1776, the British colonists had been part of a (quasi) democratic system that had been iterated and stress-tested for over 500 years, exploring many variants of the trade-off between executive (monarchal) and legislative power, many quite relevant to our debates in 2018. By 1776, a lot of ground had already been covered and many bad ideas gradually (and bloodily) overcome:

1215 Magna Carta, barons codify their powers and establish right to trial; 1295 Model Parliament (House of "Commons") established; 1388-1414 Parliament sentences certain King's ministers to death, gains rights to taxation and law-making; 1539 Henry VIII's Statute of Proclamations removes most of Parliament's powers; 1649 Cromwell overthrows Crown and establishes "protectorate"; 1660 restoration of Crown and 1685 James dismisses Parliament; 1689 William restores Parliament and establishes "Bill of Rights" and constitutional monarchy where parliament has primary power; 1708 last legislative veto by monarch, but monarchs still hold much power over ministers; 1708-1776 and following, continual battles between Parliament and monarchs with Parliament gradually gaining more and more power.

Even by 1776, many aspects of the US Presidency were a throwback to earlier monarchal powers, and almost all of these have proven time and again to be bad ideas, as had already been fairly well-established in 500 previous years of British history, as well as in numerous other contemporaneous "emerging" democracies. Even putting aside the pre-modern era and the question of suffrage (by which measure the US is arguably still not a full democracy), democracy had been heavily iterated and stress-tested prior to the founding of the United States, and has been perhaps less tested in the US than virtually anywhere else since 1776. Until, perhaps, now.
posted by chortly at 10:05 PM on June 3, 2018 [43 favorites]

Also, I can't help but think you'd finally taste one of those burgers and think "this is it?"

McD's burgers are surprisingly good outside the US. Japan, at least. I mean it's still a "why would you do that when *gestures around*" situation, but they aren't bad. It's a noticeable difference.
posted by ctmf at 11:33 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Daily Beast, Lachlan, Embattled Chinese Telecom Giant ZTE Hired Trump Campaign Veteran, in which ZTE hires Bryan Lanza, from the Trump campaign and transition, the day after Trump tweeted he was considering abandoning the penalties against ZTE.

Axios, Google backs out of hosting progressive political fundraiser. This is how the game is played. Google gets to sponsor CPAC and offers space for a gazillion political events, but after Breitbart bulled them for hosting a Run For Something fundraiser, Google cancelled the event (it was held at another location).

John Paul Rollert, BuzzFeed, Trump's Power Isn't Fear. It's Fatigue.

Trump has proven himself ill adept at such duplicitous behavior. A recent poll shows that he has failed to convince the majority of Americans of his honesty, with only 37% saying he tells the truth “all or most of the time.” Indeed, rather than strategically dissemble to achieve some goal, he more often using lying in a lionlike manner, as a club of sorts to achieve some purpose. As the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman described this tendency in a December tweet, the president “wears people down by repeating the same falsehoods/criticisms of what he doesn’t like over and over.”

The observation provides a useful insight into Trump’s unlikely success in politics, which has largely relied on exploiting norms of civility. For instance, in the early days of his presidential campaign, Trump benefited from the practice, routine even in the cynical precincts of US politics, of extending the benefit of the doubt to others — not only trusting what they say is accurate and true, but trusting that they believe it's true as well.

But these assumptions are only warranted if both parties hold truth and accuracy in relatively high esteem, and as journalists have rudely discovered, when one party dispenses with such commitments, it complicates matters mightily.
...
As Trump has lost the benefit of the doubt, he has increasingly relied on the strategy Haberman describes above, wearing down the resistance of disbelief until people just throw up their hands in exasperation. The success of such an approach doesn’t rely on a foxlike cunning, but it also doesn’t require the lion’s threat of blunt force trauma. Yes, a willingness to step aside may be an act of submission, but especially in polite society, it is more often the sign of exhaustion.

And this makes for one of the great ironies of President Trump’s leadership style: It intimidates not so much by fear as simple fatigue. Indeed, beyond a few weak-kneed House members and well-fed lackeys in the West Wing, no one really fears getting their ass kicked by Donald Trump. But they’re terrified at the prospect of endlessly having to hear about it.

It only complicates matters mightily if journalists keep maintaining the same assumptions of good faith for years no matter how many times they've been proven false, but here we are.

David @drvox Roberts on the futile exhaustion of being a Vox-type policy liberal, or just caring about facts and arguments at all, in the age of Trump (cleaned up):

I'm struggling to find the words to describe the situation with this "emergency" coal bailout the Trumpies are contemplating. It's a familiar situation in the Trump Era, but we don't have great language to describe it. So lemme attempt.

It's as though, in the name of fertilization, Trump took a giant dump on the lawn. Then we have this swarm of earnest liberals & scientists, discussing the history of poo, the chemical composition of poo, the technical & economic reasons that poo is a poor fertilizer. IOW, dozens of smart people will spend hours of their valuable time discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of human poo as a fertilizer. Thousands of person-hours of labor. But in the end ... why? Trump doesn't know, or care, & never will know or care. No one in a position of power capable of stopping Trump from crapping on the lawn cares about the merits. And no one who cares about the merits is in a position of power capable of stopping him. So what is served by discussing the merits at all?

Same with this coal bailout. Of COURSE it's a bad, dumb idea. But the people doing it don't care about the merits, and the people who care about the merits aren't in positions of power. In reality, the only question that really matters re: the bailout is whether Trump can get away with it -- whether there's any legal mechanism or court that can stop him. It is a pure power game. That's all. The merits just don't factor in, at any point.

LOTS of stuff Trump does is like this. It's just obviously bad, but he doesn't care, his administration doesn't care, so all that matters is how much they can get away with, legally. ONLY legal powers -- not wisdom, or good arguments -- can stop them. But if you absorb & accept this truth ... well, it renders an enormous swathe of the left basically useless. All those earnest policy analysts, the think tankers & academics, the pundits -- all of them focused on the merits in an era when merits are utterly epiphenomenal. The people who matter now are the fighters, the doers: the lawyers, politicians, & activists working to diminish Trump's power & increase the power of his opponents. The power game is the only real game right now. That makes people like me basically like an appendix.

Anyway, that's my reaction to this coal bailout. I see all these smart allies writing 1000s & 1000s of words about the (lack of) merits -- bless them -- but what for? If anyone involved gave a f*ck about merits, the proposal never would have surfaced in the first place. We just live in a political era when facts & arguments seem beside the point. And honestly, people like me seem beside the point. It's punch & counter-punch now, and here I am on the sidelines, pointing at charts & graphs. ☹️ I have no happy conclusion to this thread. For my part, I'm going to go walk my dog in the beautiful Seattle summer sun. I recommend you try something similar!

And just for fun, In Estes vs. Estes, the congressman hopes his 'rep' will set him apart, in which there's Congressman Ron Estes running for re-election (R-KS-04) and Ron M. Estes, a Wichita man we don't know a ton about besides the fact that he has the same name and is also running.
posted by zachlipton at 11:52 PM on June 3, 2018 [51 favorites]

We are certainly living in a time of constitutional crisis. There's no doubt Trump is breaking the emoluments clause, and that congress has fallen down on the job. I'm kind of interested in seeing what will happen with the Maryland suit. When the court finds that Trump's businesses are unconstitutional, will congress continue to sit on its hands? Will it matter if a court of law spells out that his behavior is criminal in black and white? How far gone are we?
posted by xammerboy at 11:56 PM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

I mean, it's like law,

its only a constitutional crisis if someone cares about it
posted by The Whelk at 12:06 AM on June 4, 2018 [29 favorites]

We're still running the kludgy, first-iteration version of democracy, dating from the days when it was taken for granted that only white men with a property qualification could vote.

The UK has been a constitutional monarchy since the Glorious Revolution. Parliament was not terribly democratic, until the reform acts and extensions of the franchise in the 1800's, but even so it was probably fairly comparable to the early US where voting was restricted to "white male property owners". The US Constitution sets up a system more or less like the British one; the House of Representatives (elected by property owners) = Commons, the (elected/appointed by state legislatures) Senate = Lords, the executive = the king and his ministers. The only real innovation of the American model was making the judiciary separate (and returning a lot of power to a quasi-monarch, where in Britain policy was directed by Parliament).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:22 AM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

chortly: "This is a weird historical blindspot that appears common in the US … By 1776, a lot of ground had already been covered and many bad ideas gradually (and bloodily) overcome:"

This^. The history of English (in fact, pretty much all European) democracy is basically half a millenia of:

• Monarch abuses power - government kicks out / waits out monarch, changes the rules so that can't happen like that again.
• Government abuses power - monarch kicks out / waits out the government, changes the rules so that can't happen like that again.

But the way things are now I'm not sure America would have a President - or even a Government - left after that…
posted by Pinback at 12:22 AM on June 4, 2018

It seems to me that a court could keep calling the same person to testify and upon refusal, holding them in contempt, forcing another round of pardons.

The power of courts to punish contempt is inherent and original. Even if contempt of court is "an offense against the United States", the power of courts to punish contempt arises from the nature of a court itself (see: US v Hudson) and arguably should not be subject to the Presidential prerogative. Even if pardons extend to criminal contempt, though, that still leaves the court's other inherent powers.

Courts have an inherent power to imprison for contumacy (refusal to obey a court order, i.e.,what is sometimes called civil contempt.) This isn't a punitive power and I don't see how it can be nullified through a pardon. It seems to me that "pardoning" someone for continuing to ignore a subpoena of this sort would effectively be an exercise of the judicial function, which is something that can't be done by either the Executive or Legislature.

The other relevant power that can't be nullified is the court's power to make declarations. Trump can't stop a court declaring something to be unlawful, even if a pardon would release someone from criminal punishment. This presumably means that Trump's cronies are still vulnerable to civil claims and penalties, and it almost certainly means that assets acquired through bribery and corruption can be seized. At some point it will probably be necessary to remind Trump's cronies of this: even if they escape jail, civil confiscation laws that the Republicans themselves supported mean that they'll die poor.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:56 AM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

And this makes for one of the great ironies of President Trump’s leadership style: It intimidates not so much by fear as simple fatigue.

But this is how truly abusive people operate. It reminds me of the descriptions of Weinstein repeatedly cajoling women to do his will over and over and over again.
posted by xammerboy at 2:00 AM on June 4, 2018 [31 favorites]

And this makes for one of the great ironies of President Trump’s leadership style: It intimidates not so much by fear as simple fatigue.

It's not a "leadership style"; it's a narcissistic personality trait. It's like looking for hidden motivations and strategy in a toddler (no offense to toddlers).
posted by camyram at 3:55 AM on June 4, 2018 [34 favorites]

Donald Trump is keeping the best of company. Bashar al Assad is set to be the only other world leader to meet Kim Jong-Un. (Guardian report)
posted by stonepharisee at 4:38 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

The link to that Facebook video shared by Jeff Merkley on the kids detention center in a Wal-Mart is now returning a "sorry, something went wrong" error notice, and I couldn't find it on Youtube.
posted by salix at 4:47 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Some links that have hit my social media that I haven't seen here yet...

David Corn, Mother Jones: "Why the Bombshell Trump Letter Could Be a Big Problem for Donald Trump Jr."

Trump Jr. certainly did not inform the committee that his father had dictated the statement. In fact, he made it seem as if Trump was marginally involved, if at all. Yet according to the letter written by Trump’s own lawyers, Trump was in charge of the statement.

Trump Jr.’s remarks to the committee conveyed an inaccurate impression and can be seen as an attempt to provide cover for his pop. They might even be considered false statements. By the way, it’s a crime to lie to Congress. 

Danny Hakim, NYT: "Cambridge Analytica’s Parent Company Helped Shape Saudi Arabia’s Reform Movement"

“So the government of Saudi Arabia turned in recent years to the parent company of the political data firm Cambridge Analytica for help, according to Western consultants who worked in the kingdom, company executives and a review of public documents.

The work by Cambridge’s parent, a secretive defense and intelligence contractor called SCL Group, presaged the tumultuous changes that are reshaping the kingdom. The company, now mired in scandals related to its corporate practices and the use of Facebook user data, conducted a detailed population study.”
...
"SCL has a long history of quietly helping governments control their populace and wield power. Last year, it was hired by the government of the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally, to conduct a social media campaign against its rival Qatar."

Dion Nissenbaum, WSJ: "U.S. Weighs Expanding Military Role in Yemen War"

The Trump administration is weighing an appeal from the United Arab Emirates for direct U.S. support to seize Yemen’s main port for humanitarian aid from Iranian-backed Houthi fighters, according to U.S. officials, a move they worry could have catastrophic effects on the country.

posted by OnceUponATime at 4:57 AM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

I believe I have identified the root-cause of these issue tickets:

1. It's a shame the founders never stress tested their government prototypes with varying percentages of assholes.

2. Your Founding Fathers assumed good faith, or at least that only one or two individuals at a time would demonstrate bad faith. Can't do that anymore.

The design spec for Federal Government assume that people with significant disagreements would retire to a Field of Honour and resolve their differences like Gentlemen. By dueling to the death (or satisfaction)

So, we need a patch that restores that "out of band" limiter on PERSONAL power in some manner.
posted by mikelieman at 5:36 AM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Over the weekend, Giuliani floated the unique defense that Trump could not have obstructed justice because as president he has the authority to direct the Justice Department.

I hope the media is made aware that Giuliani is, once again, basically admitting that Trump did things that would be considered obstruction of justice, and simply claiming that if the President does it, it is not illegal.

And that that justification did not save Nixon, for whom obstruction of justice was one of the articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary committee before his resignation.
posted by Gelatin at 5:46 AM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

Yup, those are very common Hungarian names

>Judges changing their names to common Irish names when running for election is a thing.

Zoltán István changing his name to name to Flaith Ó Stiofáin will totally help him blend in in California and make him more electable.
posted by nangar at 5:48 AM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

And this makes for one of the great ironies of President Trump’s leadership style: It intimidates not so much by fear as simple fatigue.

Keeping up with Trump's lies, falsehoods, inaccuracies, etc., is exhausting in itself.

This morning, he started off with a self-congratulatory tweet about his 500th day in office when it's actually been 501 from his inauguration. He then goes on to boast about everything he's accomplished—"many believe more than any President in his first 500 days". His list includes, "Massive Tax & Regulation Cuts, Military & Vets, Lower Crime & Illegal Immigration, Stronger Borders, Judgeships, Best Economy & Jobs EVER, and much more...". Each subject here will now have to be scrutinized to determine the bullshit quotient of Trump's claims, and as per the Bullshit Asymmetry Priciple, a.k.a. Brandolini's Law, the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

At least there's a silver lining to his ceaseless stream of fact-free tweets, US Today reports: Morning Consult/Politico poll: Majority of Voters Say President Trump Tweets Too Much

A new Morning Consult/Politico poll found that most voters agreed on their negative feelings toward Trump's use of his favorite social media platform. A majority (72%) said Trump uses Twitter too much, and almost no one (2%) said he should use it more. Just 13% said he uses it the right amount and 12% had no opinion.[...]

Voters also concurred that Trump's constant use of Twitter is a bad thing (62%), compared to 20% who said it's a good thing. The remaining (18%) did not answer.

Similarly, more than half (57%) said Trump's tweets hurts the country's political standing in the world, while 14% said it helps. Still, 16% said his behavior on Twitter does not have much of an impact on how the rest of the world views the U.S., while 13 % didn't answer.

Nearly half of voters (47%) think that Trump's tweets may negatively affect congressional candidates up for re-election in 2018, particularly those in his own party. Just 17% said Trump's tweets will help those Republicans seeking re-election, 19% said his tweets won't make a difference, and 17% did not respond.

Most important, "61% of Americans feel that things have gone down the wrong track, while the rest (39%) think the U.S. is going in the right direction."
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:53 AM on June 4, 2018 [19 favorites]

> At least there's a silver lining to his ceaseless stream of fact-free tweets, US Today reports: Morning Consult/Politico poll: Majority of Voters Say President Trump Tweets Too Much

Many of Trump's supporters were saying that as far back as during the campaign. It was usually literally the only criticism they had, and it boiled down to "I like his racist, destructive policies, but does he have to be so goshdarn rude about it?"
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:07 AM on June 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

Welp. Now he's explicitly claiming the right to pardon himself.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:13 AM on June 4, 2018 [34 favorites]

Trump is in for a rude shock when he discovers that his pardon power does not extend to state crimes, and that conspiracy, obstruction of justice, racketeering, and money laundering are all illegal in New York, even if colluding with the Russians to interfere in a national election strictly isn't.
posted by Gelatin at 6:20 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

You can only pardon a conviction, which is impossible because he's innocent.
posted by PenDevil at 6:20 AM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Honestly, I think there's a basic fallacy in statements, uttered widely throughout the ideological spectrum, that begin "The founders thought...". And that's simply because they weren't a hive mind.

Even dueling, which could be seen a as a kind of "solution" to these issues, was controversial in that time. Like slavery, some founders were for it, some opposed it, and many discussed it as a necessary evil (blech). Their Constitution was assembled by a committee, and it doesn't exactly have opinions about anything in the way that individuals do.

That's why debates about originalism, textualism, and even a "living" Constitution often run into walls. Yes, it's best to have a rule of law and not the opinions of people who carry out the law, but a certain degree of common sense has its place too.

The phrase "the Constitution is not a suicide act" gets used to a lot of Orwellian bad ends, but I like it when it applies near-literally. One instance of that is my view that the second amendment couldn't possibly grant a right to armed overthrow of the government (except in the sense that "treason doth never prosper", but you don't need to grant that as a right any more than we need laws granting the moon's right to gravitational pull). Another example would be Giuliani's incredible hypothetical about Trump killing Comey -- he's saying the Constitution is a literal homicide pact. (Jesus, I just realized that many of the deplorables envision a combination of those two ideas into one: that Donald has a presidential and a Lockean-self-defense-blood-of-tyrants-Gadsden-flag right to personally overthrow the government.)

Gelatin:And that that justification did not save Nixon, for whom obstruction of justice was one of the articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary committee before his resignation.

Putting aside my gloom-and-doom, there's an important legal aspect of that which Giuliani is deliberately glossing past, described well in this Tweet thread from former White House counsel Ian Bassin. The takeaway is: The unitary executive model of criminal justice holds that the president cannot be found criminally liable for any of his acts, and that the proper recourse for any wrongdoing on his part is impeachment.

Rudy's tactic is to get everyone to agree to the former (that obstruction of justice is not something the president could be arrested/tried for) and then make us think that means it's also an unimpeachable offense. So even though I (and Ian Bassin) personally disagree with unitary executive theory, it does have an internal coherence and doesn't mean the president is "allowed" to do anything whatsoever for any meaning of "allowed".
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:20 AM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

it does have an internal coherence and doesn't mean the president is "allowed" to do anything whatsoever for any meaning of "allowed".

Which can ONLY exist in a vacuum devoid of the concepts "Equal protection of the law" and "Due process of Law", which would be silly -- except in this timeline/sim/reality/whatever.
posted by mikelieman at 6:25 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Many of Trump's supporters were saying that as far back as during the campaign. It was usually literally the only criticism they had, and it boiled down to "I like his racist, destructive policies, but does he have to be so goshdarn rude about it?"

Naturally. Authoritarian fascists normally love the pomp and ceremony of fascism, which makes it helpfully jingoistic and part of a possibly invented tradition that people can demonstrate fealty to. Many dictatorships have felt the need to create an alternative history that justified their prominence whilst using nuanced language for the human rights abuses they perpetrated. The goal is always the same though; signing up for the abuses whilst maintaining the polite fiction that all is normal. Privilege is frequently not only the ability to be spared persecution, it is the system being set up to not force the favoured to confront the persecution of others.

Trump isn't that good at that, so the mask is off. The fact that people still voted for him is very much on them.
posted by jaduncan at 6:26 AM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

You can only pardon a conviction, which is impossible because he's innocent.

I disagree -- Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may or may not have committed in connection to the Watergate scandal. Nixon's acceptance, of course, was a tacit admission of guilt, even if the so-called "smoking gun" tape wasn't. (Narrator: It was.)

(I also disagree that Trump is innocent, of course, but even more important is the fact that not even his defenders pretend he is any more. I hope the media notices and makes that fact part of the narrative. Trump would hate that.)
posted by Gelatin at 6:26 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

> The appointment of the Special Councel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

“Councel.” I don’t know if it would be more or less depressing if these stupid spelling mistakes are actually made on purpose, as some reports have suggested they are. Waking up to news stories about Trump’s tweets always makes me want to get back into bed and call in sick.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:26 AM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Rudy's tactic is to get everyone to agree to the former (that obstruction of justice is not something the president could be arrested/tried for) and then make us think that means it's also an unimpeachable offense. So even though I (and Ian Bassin) personally disagree with unitary executive theory, it does have an internal coherence and doesn't mean the president is "allowed" to do anything whatsoever for any meaning of "allowed".

Rudy's tactic makes sense if his bet is that this Republican Congress will allow him to do pretty much anything. I'm also not sure he's wrong, so the midterms are critical.
posted by jaduncan at 6:28 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Rudy's tactic makes sense if his bet is that this Republican Congress will allow him to do pretty much anything. I'm also not sure he's wrong, so the midterms are critical.

Indeed. There's no way the Democrats would capture the necessary 2/3 majority to convict and remove Trump upon impeachment by the House, and I strongly doubt enough Republicans would put country over party to make it so, but consider that we know what we know, and Trump's approval ratings is in the doldrums as it is, with Republicans in charge of oversight and in many cases actively helping to cover up his crimes.

Democrats in charge of even one house of Congress would result in more robust investigations and, therefore, even more evidence of Trump's (and cronies') criminality entering the public domain. (Democrats could also, hopefully, refuse to appropriate any more money for private jets or luxury office furniture for Trump's Cabinet.) And of course, Trump's agenda would be crippled heading into his re-election campaign.

The midterms are always crucial. Fortunately, it seems, Democrats are well aware of it this time.
posted by Gelatin at 6:36 AM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

Breaking: #SCOTUS grants DOJ's request to vacate the DC Circuit's decision in Azar v. Garza, the case involving the undocumented teen who was seeking an abortion.

Information about this case is here.

Guys. Oh no.
posted by prefpara at 6:36 AM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

More re Azar v. Garza - it looks like SCOTUS said the case was moot once the abortion had taken place, so it's not like there's a brand new bad legal theory put into operation that further limits abortion rights. Sorry I freaked out for a second.
posted by prefpara at 6:39 AM on June 4, 2018 [32 favorites]

If you thought it was just Haberman, behold the NYT's Jonathan Martin: So Bill Clinton all but sets himself on fire over one straightforward Monica q on a PR tour for this novel gag, but gets handed a lifeline bc the current occupant of WH declares he is above the law

Yep. Bill Clinton's answers to 25 year old Lewinski scandal questions are exactly the same as the Republican president telegraphing his intent to pardon himself for treason.

You couldn't make the NYT up if you tried.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:44 AM on June 4, 2018 [45 favorites]

This is becoming an object lesson in how the pettiness of New York City journalism affects coverage of nationally important stories by the so-called "newspaper of record". Trump hates the NYT but craves its approval—hence his personal phone calls to win over Maggie Haberman with exclusive leaks—while the NYT and the Clintons paradoxically feud with each other.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:04 AM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did the Right Thing’ During the Monica Lewinsky Scandal

Jeezus, Bill -- how hard would it have been to say "Knowing what I know now, maybe I would have done things differently"? Or that the Me Too movement caused many men to re-examine their behaviour, himself included?

Constitutionally, politically -- maybe he did the right thing. But that clearly wasn't the intent of the question. Stay slick, Willie.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:11 AM on June 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

Trump’s lawyers sent Robert Mueller a letter in January that claimed that the president can't be subpoenaed, then in March Mueller told them he had the option of issuing a subpoena.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:12 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Lawfare has an interesting analysis of the letter from Trump’s lawyers to Mueller.

In fact, the letter is interesting chiefly not as a legal document but as information about the Trump lawyers’ understanding of the state of the Mueller investigation on obstruction. One of the reasons attorneys normally protect product of this sort is that it offers a window into both the concerns of the lawyers who produced it and what they know factually about what the investigators have. This document does that—and we can peak through that window.

So let’s read the letter here not as legal analysts but as analysts interested in what we can glean about the Trump team’s thinking and about Mueller’s thinking. The document sheds more light on the former, because the Trump team produced it and the letter lacks an insider view of Mueller’s thinking and intentions. But the Trump team has more information than the public does about what Mueller is up to, so, at least to some extent, the document provides some insights on that too.

Also, "Hours before the Times published the letter on Saturday, the president tweeted, 'Is the Special Counsel/Justice Department leaking my lawyers [sic] letters to the Fake News Media?'" Wow, it's almost like he knew they'd be leaking the letter.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:16 AM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

Masterpiece Cakeshop is out -- held for the bakery. Opinion PDF.

Today is not a good day.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:18 AM on June 4, 2018 [25 favorites]

Since someone said the YouTube link to Jeff Merkley's video was down, I figured I should share this link to the video on his Facebook page.

A US Senator turned away by police as he tries to inspect a federal contractor providing childcare services in an old Wal-Mart building with blacked out windows.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:24 AM on June 4, 2018 [30 favorites]

Wow, it's almost like he knew they'd be leaking the letter.
Often media outlets will contact the subject of a story hours before release to allow comment on the story. No surprise that Trump WH chose twitter instead.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:29 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

A US Senator turned away by police as he tries to inspect a federal contractor providing childcare services in an old Wal-Mart building with blacked out windows.

At least they didn't lock him in a room with a bottle of whiskey like the conspirators did in Seven Days in May -- he had video cameras with him, after all -- but there's no way this "federal contractor" looks good in this scenario, or deserves the slightest benefit of the doubt.
posted by Gelatin at 7:32 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

> We're still running the kludgy, first-iteration version of democracy, dating from the days when it was taken for granted that only white men with a property qualification could vote. We're using the same system, with a few tweaks here and there, since the 18th century...We never had to rebuild a government from the ground up post-World War I or II; again, we're one of the first "we don't have a king now what?" experiments... If Reconstruction hadn't been prematurely aborted, things would probably be different - but here we are.

Yeah. France ended up with a really sane electoral system. It took them five tries and really bloody history to get there, but it's sane and it works. It's at least partially because of the way the electoral system works that their equivalent of Trump got squashed in last year's election. Another important factor is a strong aversion to anything resembling fascism by older French voters. But the trajectory Trump followed, winning a major party's nomination with only a plurality vote and winning electoral college in the general election while losing the popular vote, isn't possible there given the way their elections work. You actually have to win a %#@&!# majority!

This year, the country's oberserving the 50th anniversary of 1968 when they narrowly averted a sixth republic – who knows what that would have looked like.
posted by nangar at 7:34 AM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I've been thinking about what Dr. David Robert's wrote :

I see all these smart allies writing 1000s & 1000s of words about the (lack of) merits -- bless them -- but what for? If anyone involved gave a f*ck about merits, the proposal never would have surfaced in the first place. We just live in a political era when facts & arguments seem beside the point. And honestly, people like me seem beside the point. It's punch & counter-punch now, and here I am on the sidelines, pointing at charts & graphs. ☹️ I have no happy conclusion.

Agreed that in the corridors of power 6 facts are irrelevant, as they largely are when arguing with conservatives. However, on a lot of issues liberals and leftists pride themselves on being fact and reality based, whether it's quoting Marx or using statistics from the National Science Foundation. I'd go further and say one of the pillers of left/liberal philosophy is that policy should reflect and change in accordance to reality.

So, while it may not help directly in combating policy, the statistics and analytics of Dr. Robert's and friends helps with the moral of the opposition, giving us the needed feeling of being on the side of rationality and science. It's the equivalent of "Why We Fight".

TL:DR: it may be irrelevant to the political debate, but we need it to help keep going on.
posted by happyroach at 7:48 AM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

More on Masterpiece Cakeshop -- basically, they said that the CO commission did not act neutrally toward the baker's religious beliefs in determining the baker violated the CO Anti-Discrimination Act, and showed hostility toward those religious beliefs in reaching its decision. They did not say that the baker is free to discriminate against people based on sexual orientation; that remains to be adjudicated; the Commission will need to weigh the baker's religious beliefs in determining whether it violated CADA: "...it is proper to hold that whatever the outcome of some future controversy involving facts similar to these, the Commission’s actions here violated the Free Exercise Clause; and its order must be set aside."

It remains to be seen whether this "hostility toward religious beliefs" standard carries over to non-Christian religions.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:48 AM on June 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Masterpiece Cakeshop is out -- held for the bakery. Opinion PDF.

Today is not a good day.

FWIW, various legal experts seem to think that it significantly narrows the effect of the ruling:

@rickhasen:

J Kennedy's majority opinion is essentially a punt, requiring that body adjudicating claim of religious freedom against an anti-discrimination claim cannot have animus toward sincere religious beliefs. It decides nothing else. Battle between Kagan and Gorsuch shows what's coming

The Masterpiece Cakeshop opinion is vintage Kennedy---narrow, focused on dignity and animus, and leaving important issues to a later time whenever possible. That's what Kennedy did with partisan gerrymandering in 2004. The bill there has now become due.

There's also the possibility that the "animus" language is aimed directly at Trump's travel ban. That's the good news. The bad news is that bigots and libertarians (and the large overlap between the two) will absolutely run with this as much as they can.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:52 AM on June 4, 2018 [22 favorites]

Often media outlets will contact the subject of a story hours before release to allow comment on the story. No surprise that Trump WH chose twitter instead.

I think the more likely scenario is that Trump leaked it himself to one of his cronies at the NYT.
posted by benzenedream at 7:54 AM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

Yeah, that's the rub. Under this ruling, legal recourse is still available to hit back against assholes who refuse to serve LGBTQ+ people, but the PR victory means there will be more assholes testing the limits -- or just blowing past them because they don't care about the hair-splitting and just see the endorsement of bigotry.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:01 AM on June 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

Yes, that's what I meant when I said "The bad news is that bigots and libertarians (and the large overlap between the two) will absolutely run with this as much as they can."
posted by zombieflanders at 8:03 AM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, Colorado actually has a law prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation (which gave rise to this case). Most states do not, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. We can change that; there's work to be done. Check your state's laws here.
posted by melissasaurus at 8:07 AM on June 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

Also, every headline regarding all this subpoena shit should really be: PRESIDENT CLAIMS HE IS ABOVE LAW
posted by benzenedream at 8:17 AM on June 4, 2018 [47 favorites]

Sorry if it seemed like I was minimizing that burden -- even from the outside looking in, I know it's extreme. I just meant that the laws that are out there aren't going away because of this decision. Cold comfort when what you need is more help, not just to avoid rollbacks.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:31 AM on June 4, 2018

> The appointment of the Special Councel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Politco's Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein replies to this now-deleted tweet*: "If this is true, you'd think Trump's ex-campaign chairman would've made this argument since he's facing a potential life sentence. But he hasn't."

And Kellyanne Conway's husband, George, @gtconway3d adds: "And if this were true, you’d think this conservative Republican-controlled Department of Justice would revoke or decline to utilize the Special Counsel regulations. But it hasn’t."

And CNN's Katelyn Polantz @kpolantz points out: "One federal judge, Amy Berman Jackson in US District Court for the District of Columbia, has already upheld Robert Mueller’s investigation so far, after Paul Manafort challenged the authority the DOJ gave Mueller."

* It took almost an hour for someone controlling Trump's twitter to delete the misspelling and to post a corrected one. But, like Trump's blocking people on Twitter, his deleted tweets present legal liabilities.

(Incidentally, it looks like we need a new thread at the rate this one's been expanding this morning.)
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:33 AM on June 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

So among the other illegal duties Scott Pruitt had his aide perform, he had her try to buy a used Trump-branded mattress for him.

... what?
posted by suelac at 8:46 AM on June 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

March for Our Lives announced a partnership today with Change the Ref -- they're launching a nationwide bus tour called "Road to Change":

The Road to Change kicks off on Friday, June 15 in Chicago, where we’ll be joining the Peace March, led by students from St. Sabina Academy.

From there we are traveling from city to city, with more than 50 planned stops in over 20 states including Iowa, Texas, California, South Carolina, and Connecticut. We’ll also hold a separate Florida tour with more than 25 stops, visiting every congressional district.

We’re going to places where the NRA has bought and paid for politicians who refuse to take simple steps to save our lives — and we’ll be visiting a number of communities that have been affected by gun violence to meet fellow survivors and use our voices to amplify theirs.

At each stop, we’ll register young people to vote and educate them on the reforms we need to save lives, and whether their local candidates and elected officials support these reforms or support the NRA.

posted by melissasaurus at 8:46 AM on June 4, 2018 [29 favorites]

Talking Points Memo: So, uh, Pruitt Asked Top Aide To Secure ‘Used Mattress’ From Trump Hotel

Among a slew of odd and unprofessional personal requests that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt asked his top aide Millan Hupp to undertake for him, Democratic lawmakers revealed in a letter on Monday that Pruitt asked Hupp to secure a “used mattress” from the Trump International Hotel for him.
...
“As I remember, the administrator had spoken with someone at the Trump Hotel who had indicated that there could be a mattress that he could purchase, an old mattress that he could purchase, but that’s the extent of the conversation that I can — that I can remember,” she said, according to the transcript.

Hupp said she didn’t know why Pruitt wanted the mattress other than he mentioned it “around the same time that he was moving.” She said she never “actually connected” with someone at the Trump Hotel about the secondhand bedding.
...
It’s been previously reported that Hupp also used official business hours and her agency email address to help Pruitt and his wife find an apartment — including booking appointments with realtors and visiting properties. She told lawmakers that she spent more than a couple hours a week for more than a month working on this task for Pruitt.

Cummings and Connolly expressed concern that Pruitt may be violating federal ethics laws and regulations, including the improper gift statute.

Pruitt is smart; if you try to get a used mattress from the Ritz-Carlton Moscow it's a lot more expensive
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:48 AM on June 4, 2018 [21 favorites]

This is clearly the court punting on the real underlying question, but doing so means they're encouraging right wing religious bigots to more discriminatory behavior to set up the perfect "test case". They want a SCOTUS ruling affirmatively blessing religious discrimination against the gay and enshrining religious preference as an exemption to all laws. And the court has already played footsie with giving them that in Hobby Lobby and now the liberals even have joined in. It doesn't really matter if there's ostensibly state boards to rule on these issues and decide the level of preference to give to individual religious views, that's exactly what they want to set up Masterpiece Cakeshop II.

They're not going to stop until getting that ruling.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:50 AM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

CEO of 'non-profit' shelter that called police on senator for trying to visit detained children paid $770,860

Gets my vote for most American headline of the day.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:53 AM on June 4, 2018 [65 favorites]

Looking at this cake thing, if nothing else, it seems like it might be also more towards free speech absolutism - and I think if one thing happens, there's going to be a lot of requests for anti-gay-marriage cakes from LGBT friendly bakeries.

The Commission ruled against Phillips in part on the theory that any message on the requested wedding cake would be attributed to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did not address this point in any of the cases involving requests for cakes depicting anti-gay marriage symbolism

Also, I will eat my hat if the three supporting cases of people while this case was in progress requesting bakeries to make cakes with anti-gay-marriage language were not specifically designed to make this case winnable in the Supreme Court.
posted by corb at 8:57 AM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

CEO of 'non-profit' shelter that called police on senator for trying to visit detained children paid $770,860

IANAL, but "private contractor holds children incommunicado against their will, denies visitation by Senator" strikes me as a ripe target for a habeus corpus case, if not kidnapping charges.
posted by Gelatin at 8:58 AM on June 4, 2018 [45 favorites]

There is no way that an old Walmart building has the plumbing necessary to house any large group of people, not for toilet facilities, not showering facilities, not separate boys and girls facilities, and certainly not kitchen facilities to prepare basic nutritional food for children. Where is the media outrage at this??? WTF is up with the State of Texas and its Child Welfare oversight?
posted by W Grant at 9:04 AM on June 4, 2018 [67 favorites]

CEO of 'non-profit' shelter that called police on senator for trying to visit detained children paid $770,860

This is a common scam for so-called "non-profit" charities. For example the CEO of the southern California branch of Goodwill Industries received $1.2 million in annual compensation.

Non-profit just means that no profits are distributed to owners or shareholders. It does not prevent executives from siphoning off every dollar of profit into their own pockets as salary. Technically, its not profit, it's just a salary. The ability to transform otherwise taxable profits into non-profit salaries is a gimmick for avoiding income taxes, leaving even more money for the executives. Non-profits are also exempt from paying state sales taxes and property taxes.
posted by JackFlash at 9:10 AM on June 4, 2018 [39 favorites]

Every dollar that goes to that CEO was not spent on the humane treatment of the hundreds or thousands of children he imprisons. There are and will be more like him. Don't forget it.

Where is the media outrage at this??? WTF is up with the State of Texas and its Child Welfare oversight?

By consensus of state and federal governments and in the eyes of half the country, a visible undocumented immigrant child is barely human. An invisible undocumented immigrant child is less.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:12 AM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Hey, remember when conservatives were frothing with outrage because they thought Obama was going to set up concentration camps?
posted by Gelatin at 9:15 AM on June 4, 2018 [62 favorites]

Today's Democracy Now! had a great interview with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia: part 1, part 2. She's also authored a new book, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change. (part 1 of the interview starts at around 40:30 in the full show .mp4, alt link, .torrent, part 2 extended interview .mp4)
posted by XMLicious at 9:17 AM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Hey, remember when conservatives were frothing with outrage because they thought Obama was going to set up concentration camps?

No hypocrisy here: they never claimed to worry about anybody but white people ending up in camps.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:18 AM on June 4, 2018 [23 favorites]

they never claimed to worry about anybody but white people ending up in camps


Of course not. But they should worry. As I said the other day, Trump's tribalists don't seem to consider that power they hand Trump can be used against them.
posted by Gelatin at 9:22 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

And not just by the Democrats, either.
posted by MtDewd at 9:29 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

In advance of the G7 summit in Quebec on Friday, this peek into current Franco-American relations was leaked to CNN: Trump's Phone Call With Macron Described As 'Terrible'

A call about trade and migration between US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron soured last week after Macron candidly criticized Trump's policies, two sources familiar with the call told CNN.

"Just bad. It was terrible," one source told CNN. "Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can't handle being criticized like that."[...]

Thursday's strained call is particularly notable because Macron is arguably the European leader to whom Trump is closest. In an interview with the BBC in January, Macron said he had a "very direct relationship" with his US counterpart.

"I'm always extremely direct and frank. He is. Sometimes I manage to convince him, and sometimes I fail," Macron said at the time.

Trump can expect a similar call from British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday, sources tell CNN. It's not her style to be combative, but one source said May is expected to be direct in her criticisms and that Trump could expect a tough conversation.

The Trump administration is bent on turning this into G6+1.
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:32 AM on June 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

Hey, remember when conservatives were frothing with outrage because they thought Obama was going to set up concentration camps?

In retrospect, this was pure projection.
posted by mordax at 9:36 AM on June 4, 2018 [48 favorites]

Pruitt asked Hupp to secure a “used mattress” from the Trump International Hotel for him.

What in the everloving fuck for?

Is there anything about these people that isn't sketchy as hell?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:44 AM on June 4, 2018 [23 favorites]

I honestly bet the scenario was: He stayed at a Trump hotel and liked the bed, and demanded an aide to acquire the exact bed he slept on

yeah honestly this is not an uncommon request from hotel guests at mid-to-higher-level chains; many chains develop bedding themselves and actually sell their beds and bedding due to the frequent nature of requests like these. Trump's hotels don't, probably because they don't really have their shit together; they just outsource, as they do with everything else the man slaps his brand on, so if Pruitt really liked that bed it's probable that no one on-staff knew the exact brand being used, as it was probably whatever happened to be on sale, and so the only next step for the underling tasked with satisfying his whim was was, 'well, can we just buy that particular one, then'
posted by halation at 9:55 AM on June 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

I honestly bet the scenario was: He stayed at a Trump hotel and liked the bed, and demanded an aide to acquire the exact bed he slept on

I don't know whether he actually liked the bed, but I can guarantee you that he wanted to be able to say to Trump, "Hey, I loved the bed at your hotel so much that I bought it!" It's possibly the perfect compliment to Trump: it says that his brand is high-quality, and it put money in his pocket.
posted by Etrigan at 10:07 AM on June 4, 2018 [50 favorites]

Trump can expect a similar call from British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday

Ehhh... Macron has power, May does not. Anything other than outright begging from May seems unlikely.
posted by Artw at 10:11 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Josh Marshall (subscription required), Did Putin Help Trump Come Up With His Cover Story? (Pretty Likely)

One of the many revelations from that ‘leaked’ letter from the White House to the Mueller team is that the White House is now stating as a fact what it had long denied or at least seriously downplayed: that the President personally “dictated” the text of the original, false statement from his son describing the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. The Times later reported this. But it’s long been disputed just how much role he had in writing the statement. But now that the President’s direct and apparently sole authorship is confirmed, it brings us back to a critical question that hasn’t been discussed in some time: Did Trump talk with Vladimir Putin one on one to get his cover story straight about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting?

I was reminded of this this morning when Natasha Bertrand, then of Business Insider and now of The Atlantic, tweeted out a link to a piece she wrote a year ago. The gist is this. The night before the President dictated that bogus cover story about Russian adoptions he’d met privately with Vladimir Putin and discussed, by his own account, Russian adoptions!

As Bertrand notes, the fact that this meeting happened “the night before Trump reportedly crafted his son’s statement about the Trump Tower meeting raises questions about whether Putin played a role, directly or indirectly, in influencing the version of events Trump’s team relayed to the press.”
...
So the President learns news of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting is going to break. His staff is chattering and brainstorming about it all day. He seeks out President Putin and has a highly irregular private meeting with Putin with no other Americans. He discusses Russian adoptions. The next day he takes over the press response and personally dictates a statement which is false and makes Russian adoptions the centerpiece of the meeting.

Marcy Wheeler has a similar take on this theme, The Evasion in Trump’s Response on the June 9 Meeting Statement: Did Putin Dictate the Statement? Trump's NYT interview a short time later is particular striking in this regard: "And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting."
posted by zachlipton at 10:47 AM on June 4, 2018 [32 favorites]

> zachlipton:
"Marcy Wheeler has a similar take on this theme"

Josh pretty much only ever refers to himself or his site (and links thereto), so I wouldn't doubt that he got his source material from Emptywheel.
posted by rhizome at 10:58 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

So how's democracy working out?
From the last zapped link
“the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
also
NEW THREAD PLEASE
posted by adamvasco at 11:11 AM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

First of the new Monmouth House polls is out, for PA-01. They are continuing their practice of providing several different turnout models. Fitzpatrick is the GOP incumbent, Wallace the Dem challenger:

Registered voters: Fitzpatrick 49 / Wallace 42

Normal midterm: Fitzpatrick 48 / Wallace 47

Enthused Dems: Wallace 48 / Fitzpatrick 47

PA-01 went 49-47 Clinton.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:16 AM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Josh pretty much only ever refers to himself or his site (and links thereto)

That's kind of unfair, since in the piece we're talking about he links to and credits Natasha Bertrand for this tweet and this article she wrote a year ago. I would take him at his word that Bertrand was his inspiration for this bit of analysis.
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:23 AM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Almost a week old, but I didn't see this upthread- @KatiePhang: Per Special Master in the #MichaelCohen case, only 252 items flagged as potentially “privileged”. Special Master has given SDNY prosecutors almost 300,000 items so far & will likely turn over another 1,000,000 today.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:32 AM on June 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

That's kind of unfair, since in the piece we're talking about he links to and credits Natasha Bertrand for this tweet and this article she wrote a year ago. I would take him at his word that Bertrand was his inspiration for this bit of analysis.

Maybe, and I did allow for that with my "pretty much," but since it's behind a paywall I'll have to take your word for it. Marcy's post came out on Saturday, btw, and Natasha's recollection was six hours ago. Anyway, derail over for me.
posted by rhizome at 11:36 AM on June 4, 2018

Josh pretty much only ever refers to himself or his site (and links thereto), so I wouldn't doubt that he got his source material from Emptywheel.

Josh Marshall has previously flagged the suspicious timing of Trump's statement following his Putin dinner tête-à-tête. For example, last August Did President Trump Dictate the False Statement? Or Was It President Putin?

Marcy Wheeler has also examined the curious timeline of events, such as this post from February:

Early July 7: NYT approaches WH officials and lawyers; WH schedules a conference call w/NYT for next morning.

July 7: Trump chats up Putin at dinner. (Note, whenever Melania decides it’s time to get revenge on Trump for treating her like shit, she can go tell Mueller what she overheard of this conversation.)

July 8, morning: Conference call doesn’t happen. NYT submits 14 questions about the meeting to the WH and lawyers of Trump campaign aides who attended the meeting (do these aides include all of Don Jr, Kushner, and Manafort?); Trump and his aides develop a response on Air Force One, with Hicks coordinating with Don Jr and his lawyer Alan Garten, who were both in NY, via text message.

July 8, afternoon: Jamie Gorelick provides a statement describing his revisions to his security clearance forms.

July 8, 5PM: NYT publishes story.

July 8, slightly later: Circa publishes different story based on Mark Corallo’s statement, admitting Magnitsky Act discussion.

July 9, morning: Hope Hicks calls Corallo, with Trump in the room, accusing him of trafficking in conspiracy theories. It is this call, according to the NYT, where Hicks said the emails would never come out.

July 9: Don Jr issues a new statement.

n.b. Within two weeks of Don Jr's statement, Mark Corallo resigned as spokesman for Trump's legal team, Marc Kasowitz was replaced by John Dowd, and Gorelick stopped handling Kushner's Russia issues. Something apparently went down that month with which some people were suddenly uncomfortable with associated.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:36 AM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Since someone said the YouTube link to Jeff Merkley's video [of the Walmart child detention center] was down, I figured I should share this link to the video on his Facebook page.

Here are two more copies on different platforms, if you don't want to trust YouTube (=Google) and Facebook:

London Daily Mail

CBS News (full 24 min video)
posted by msalt at 11:39 AM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

A glimmer of normalcy, because to act otherwise would be blatantly illegal (and of no additional benefit to the GOP at this time) -- President Donald Trump has nominated Democrat Geoffrey Starks to fill the open seat on the Federal Communications Commission

If approved by the Senate for a term ending in June 2022, Starks will replace recently departed Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Republicans will maintain a 3-2 majority led by Chairman Ajit Pai, with Starks and Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel representing the minority party. Trump would not have been allowed to nominate a Republican because US law requires a 3-2 split when the FCC has five members.

Clyburn is an awesome, geeky lady, who worried that the FCC is abandoning its "prime directive" of protecting consumers as she left the post:

"I'm an old Trekkie," Clyburn told Ars in a phone interview, while comparing the FCC's responsibility to the Star Trek fictional universe's Prime Directive. "I go back to my core, my prime directive of putting consumers first." If the FCC doesn't do all it can to bring affordable communications services to everyone in the US, "our mission will not be realized," she said.

And the Dems would still be in the minority, so no actual danger to Pai's plans to undermine the FCC at every turn. (Both articles by Jon Brodkin for Ars Technica)
posted by filthy light thief at 11:39 AM on June 4, 2018 [24 favorites]

Hey, some Democrats have been in the news making statements about Rod Blagojevich, I wonder what they have to say? Something about the abuse of executive power and the limits of the pardon?

Holder: "I thought that sentence was a little harsh."
Durbin: "If there's a way to reduce the sentence for him and his family, I would support it."

[facepalm.tiff]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:42 AM on June 4, 2018 [44 favorites]

That's kind of unfair, since in the piece we're talking about he links to and credits Natasha Bertrand for this tweet and this article she wrote a year ago. I would take him at his word that Bertrand was his inspiration for this bit of analysis.

Several journalists independently have wondered about the Putin-Trump July 7 dinner conversation in light of Don Jr.'s statement, which should lend more weight to their theory about Putin giving Trump his talking points.

In Josh Marshall's piece, he notes: "I initially got onto this idea from a tweet from my friend Laura Rozen who asked what I took to be a rhetorical question about whether Trump and Putin discussed the statement. I poked around and discovered what I discussed above. Later I realized that higher up in her thread Laura had flagged the same points. So she made this connection before I did."

All of which should make us very suspicious about why Trump suddenly wants to schedule a summit with Putin with things heating up about the origins of Don Jr's statement.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:44 AM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Almost a week old, but I didn't see this upthread- @KatiePhang: Per Special Master in the #MichaelCohen case, only 252 items flagged as potentially “privileged”. Special Master has given SDNY prosecutors almost 300,000 items so far & will likely turn over another 1,000,000 today.

Does anyone know what they mean by "items" here? Because those kind of numbers seem like they're counting each word or byte or something.
posted by runcibleshaw at 11:49 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

July 7: Trump chats up Putin at dinner. (Note, whenever Melania decides it’s time to get revenge on Trump for treating her like shit, she can go tell Mueller what she overheard of this conversation.)

Just throwing this out there on a day with a lot of depressing news.

I don't expect it to be true, but I'm encouraged that there's a non-zero chance that Melania is in the Witness Protection Program as a Mueller Confidential Informant.
posted by mikelieman at 11:55 AM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Does anyone know what they mean by "items" here? Because those kind of numbers seem like they're counting each word or byte or something.

I expect that the atomic entities they're referring to would be items by individual Bate's Number
posted by mikelieman at 11:57 AM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

So Sarah Sanders is being asked to explain why she previously said Trump didn't write Don Jr's statement when Trump's lawyers say he did, and she refuses to answer, saying she can't comment on a letter from outside counsel. She also has no answer for why anyone should believe anything she says.

They should walk out on this farce.
posted by zachlipton at 12:01 PM on June 4, 2018 [48 favorites]

Although we really need a new thread, Sarah Huckabee Sander's press briefing today has been awful even by her standards. The Toronto Star's ever-diligent Daniel Dale @ddale8 has been live-tweeting the highlights, such as:

• Asked why Trump thinks he has an absolute right to pardon himself, Sarah Sanders says, "Thankfully the president hasn't done anything wrong and wouldn't have any need for a pardon." Pressed, she repeats that line nearly word for word.
• Asked about the tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the EU, Sanders says they'd talked for months to try to avoid this, but they had no other option. She also says good relations will continue despite the tariffs.
• Asked about Pruitt reportedly enlisting a public employee to shop for a used mattress from Trump's hotel, Sanders says, "Certainly looking into the matter...Couldn't comment on the specifics of the furniture used in his apartment."
• Asked how tariffs on Canada reinforce U.S. "national security," Sanders says Trump feels a strong steel industry is critical to the U.S.'s ability to protect itself.
• Asked by a righteously indignant @jdawsey1 how people can believe anything she says from the podium if she's just gonna say inaccurate things, Sanders repeats, "I'm not going to respond to a letter from the president's outside counsel."

And that's just a sample of this shit-show.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:06 PM on June 4, 2018 [39 favorites]

I expect that the atomic entities they're referring to would be items by individual Bate's Number

In other words, about 1.3 million sheets of paper (or electronic equivalent).

Incidentally, if you've never had the chance to use a handheld mechanical Bates stamper, you're missing out. It makes a really satisfying kerchunk noise.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:09 PM on June 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

There's every chance that Pence is as scandal-prone as Trump or Pruitt; we just don't know it yet.

I mean? What a golden fucking opportunity to undertake a significant amount of grift and kickbacks and fraud and scandalous personal enrichment that would be wholly overshadowed by similar crimes on a vastly larger scale, committed by loud smug cretins incapable of covering their tracks.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:18 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Asked by a righteously indignant @jdawsey1 how people can believe anything she says from the podium if she's just gonna say inaccurate things, Sanders repeats, "I'm not going to respond to a letter from the president's outside counsel."

That is not a normal question for the press to ask the White house press secretary.
posted by Gelatin at 12:23 PM on June 4, 2018 [31 favorites]

Does anyone know what they mean by "items" here? Because those kind of numbers seem like they're counting each word or byte or something.

In this episode of Left, Right and Center Presents: All the President's Lawyers they discuss the item count. The expert said that what constitutes an item is very broad and very granularly such that each attachment to an email may have a separate number and even signature block images in an email may be counted separately.

I haven't seen it covered anywhere but since they've captured many computers and many phones each which have hundreds of thousands or more likely millions of files on them (if you count the OS and applications), I wonder where they draw the line. After all, on this computer I have every photo I've ever taken with my non-phone cameras amounting to tens of thousands of files. For the purpose of a criminal proceeding, would these count as "items"?
posted by mmascolino at 12:23 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

That is not a normal question for the press to ask the White house press secretary.

But it absolutely should be.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:25 PM on June 4, 2018 [27 favorites]

That is not a normal question for the press to ask the White house press secretary.

But it absolutely should be.

Well sure, but there's a reason I can't name any of Obama's press secretaries. Because they didn't lie like this.
posted by mcstayinskool at 12:29 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

In this episode of Left, Right and Center Presents: All the President's Lawyers they discuss the item count. The expert said that what constitutes an item is very broad and very granularly such that each attachment to an email may have a separate number and even signature block images in an email may be counted separately.

I haven't seen it covered anywhere but since they've captured many computers and many phones each which have hundreds of thousands or more likely millions of files on them (if you count the OS and applications), I wonder where they draw the line. After all, on this computer I have every photo I've ever taken with my non-phone cameras amounting to tens of thousands of files. For the purpose of a criminal proceeding, would these count as "items"?

Your first paragraph indicates lawyers are more inclusive rather than less, and some have turned to machine learning to sort millions of records, like parsing millions of unsorted, unstructured emails from the Enron scandal (after the fact) in a matter of hours instead of the months it took for people to manually sort through them.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:31 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Well, just got off the phone with my Representative again. (My Senators, I haven't called. They both already have acknowledged they'd like to impeach at this stage).

Bragging about the power to pardon himself is as good as a public admission of guilt, to my mind. We're long past the "any normal administration" line and closing in on the "naked autocracy" one.
posted by Archelaus at 12:32 PM on June 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

there's a weird moment at 4:40 here.........

from 2 people who know him well, and now have few reasons not to throw him under the bus....
(TW ***spousal +/- Child sexual abuse ****)
posted by Wilder at 12:34 PM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Well sure, but there's a reason I can't name any of Obama's press secretaries. Because they didn't lie like this.

And by "like this" one presumes you mean "not only prolifically but with obvious contempt for the press." Sanders' mere presence at that lectern is trolling.

It's one thing to present the Administration's point of view, but as we (should have) learned in the runup to the Iraq War, when an Administration chooses to say untrue things, the obvious inference should be that the facts do not support them, and that they acknowledge as much by lying.
posted by Gelatin at 12:35 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

mcstayinskool: there's a reason I can't name any of Obama's press secretaries. Because they didn't lie like this.

To be fair, Obama didn't make their job this hard. But to be honest, SHS has chosen to stay in this position despite all the (accurate, honest, appropriate) criticism to her work and her words.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:36 PM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

SHS has chosen to stay in this position despite all the (accurate, honest, appropriate) criticism to her work and her words.

And why not? Michelle Wolf called her a liar, and much of the very media she routinely lies to rushed to her defense (because, of course, Wolf's statement was an implicit criticism of the press, too -- I was going to say "like Colbert's," but he was even more overt about calling the Washington press out for being mere stenographers).
posted by Gelatin at 12:39 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Bad news for Rear Admiral Feelgood.

ABC: Pentagon investigating White House doctor who withdrew his nomination as Trump's VA secretary
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:04 PM on June 4, 2018 [23 favorites]

And the Dems would still be in the minority, so no actual danger to Pai's plans to undermine the FCC at every turn.

I note that this is straight out of the Authoritarian government handbook. It's OK to have members of the opposition in government- it shows you're a democracy after all- as long as they're out of power.

That's the Republican plan. As long as the Democrats don't get a majority in Congress, they'll keep going according to plan. And given the confidence of the White House, I can't help but think they know something or they're planning something to keep a majority in Congress.

So again- we can't trust in a Blue Wave, we need to work for it.
posted by happyroach at 1:06 PM on June 4, 2018 [26 favorites]

Why no one can engage with this administration no matter how worthy the cause: Trump Told Kim Kardashian She and Kanye West Are Helping Him With Black Voters

That's of course the outcome Kanye was going for, but Kim really seems like she was trying in good faith to do good. That's not possible. Any contact with him is toxic.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:08 PM on June 4, 2018 [28 favorites]

The "best" people, National Park Service chief apologizes for behaving ‘in an inappropriate manner’ (WaPo):

The top-ranking official at the National Park Service has apologized for behaving “in an inappropriate manner in a public hallway” in the wake of an inspector general’s investigation into an anonymous allegation that the official made a gesture involving his genitalia in front of other employees.

In staff-wide email to Park Service employees on Friday, P. Daniel Smith wrote that “[a]s a leader, I must hold myself to the highest standard of behavior in the workplace. I take my responsibility to create and maintain a respectful, collegial work environment very seriously. Moving forward, I promise to do better.”

As The Washington Post first reported, an anonymous agency employee wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in March to describe how Smith shortly after taking office as the Park Service’s deputy director “grabbed his crotch and his penis and acted out as though he was urinating on the wall.” The crude gesture allegedly took place while Smith was talking to another employee at the headquarters of the Interior Department, which houses the Park Service.

posted by peeedro at 1:20 PM on June 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

As The Washington Post first reported, an anonymous agency employee wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in March to describe how Smith shortly after taking office as the Park Service’s deputy director “grabbed his crotch and his penis and acted out as though he was urinating on the wall.”

I will use this opportunity to point to the current venting thread https://metatalk.metafilter.com/24778/Fucking-Fuck-XI rather than articulating my frustration here.
posted by mikelieman at 1:26 PM on June 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

So today we have one story about a used hotel mattress and one story about a urination gesture. Huh. pee tape truther 4 lyfe
posted by melissasaurus at 1:35 PM on June 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

And the Dems would still be in the minority, so no actual danger to Pai's plans to undermine the FCC at every turn.

I note that this is straight out of the Authoritarian government handbook. It's OK to have members of the opposition in government- it shows you're a democracy after all- as long as they're out of power.

In this case, US Code requires that no party can hold more than a majority of seats on the commission.

(5) The maximum number of commissioners who may be members of the same political party shall be a number equal to the least number of commissioners which constitutes a majority of the full membership of the Commission.

posted by books for weapons at 1:37 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

So today we have one story about a used hotel mattress and one story about a urination gesture. Huh. pee tape truther 4 lyfe

More examples of Micturating Towards the Führer.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:41 PM on June 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

Hey, remember when conservatives were frothing with outrage because they thought Obama was going to set up concentration camps?

posted by Gelatin at 9:15 AM on June 4 [41 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

It's vital to keep in mind that one strategy the ratfuckers have always used is inoculation. This is another form of it. By accusing your opponents of doing what you are secretly already doing, you inoculate your supporters from being persuaded by any accusations against your side, even if the accusations are backed by evidence. Your supporters just hear those accusations as tit-for-tat, and not of any substance.

They've done this repeatedly in a number of areas. They basically ask themselves, "What is it that we're doing that the public would really dislike," and then proceed to accuse Democrats and liberals of doing those things. It's why there were so many outrageous claims about Obama and his administration. They were inoculating against the outrage that they knew they would otherwise face when they undertook their twisted agenda.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:47 PM on June 4, 2018 [55 favorites]

angrycat I dunno, maybe I'm too harsh on her, but I figured the tearing up was entirely acting to try and make herself and, by extension, Trump seem more human and less evil.

Clearly they don't rank dead kids very high in their priority queue. I'm sure that on some very abstract level they kind of give half a shit, but they rank NRA money, 2nd Amendment fanatics, and a whole host of other issues as being vastly more important than a dead kid or fifty.

However things in the US have not (yet) reached the point where Sanders can say what she feels, namely "my gun rights matter more than your dead kids" [1]. That'd cause significant political blowback even for a Republican politician. So Sanders has to maintain the lie that Trump cares but merely feels that the solution isn't more Evil Gun Grabbing Big Government but rather some random word salad involving armed teachers and good guys with guns.

And, most important, in this particular instance her main job (that is, saying "fuck you" to everyone in the room) wouldn't work because of both the issue and the questioner, so she went for the easy emotional hook of pretending to be choked up by his question.

I could be wrong, maybe it was actual, genuine, emotion. But I doubt it. I'd bet a cake that she was faking it to get the kid, and the real press, off her back on the issue.

[1] which, BTW, is a direct word for word quote from not just one but several gun fans I've spoken with online. The fact that more than one person has used that exact phrase indicates that it's from somewhere, whether an NRA mailing or some popular gun fan or what I don't know, but it's a talking point from hardcore online gun fans.
posted by sotonohito at 1:49 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hey, so even my desktop was crashing, so I made my first #POTUS45 thread.

Maybe we should head over ---- > here? < -----
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:51 PM on June 4, 2018 [24 favorites]

So today we have one story about a used hotel mattress and one story about a urination gesture. Pepe's 'feels good, man', Calvin stickers, Moscow tape, etc. It's urine all the way down.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:51 PM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

What good does being in the streets do? It doesn't seem to make a difference.

South Korea, 2016

Ukraine, 2014

Slovakia & Armenia, 2018


And Jordan, too.
posted by progosk at 2:12 PM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

The protestors in many places, including the listed ones, don't have a few giant disadvantages that protestors in the United States have. Take SK for example. Seoul is the central hub of the entire nation, and it's relatively easy to get to for every single citizen. A protest in Seoul is essentially shutting down the country.

The United States has no such loci. We're a huge country of low population density with many people living nowhere near DC or wherever. Yes, local protests are good. But even if it seems like it should have even more of an impact, 100 moderately sized protests spread out across the land do not have the same impact as one all-encompassing massive protest which shuts down the center of the country. But we don't have a center of the country to shut down!

Where do you protest in the US to shut everything down? How does everyone get there? The answers are "you can't" and "they don't".
posted by Justinian at 2:19 PM on June 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Where do you protest in the US to shut everything down? How does everyone get there? The answers are "you can't" and "they don't".

posted by Justinian at 2:19 PM on June 4 [+] [!]

I think you just need a critical mass in each major city. It doesn't take many people to clog streets and shut down regular order if they're coordinated and sufficient in number. They don't all have to be in the same place at the same time. Ten cars "stalled" across a freeway can shut it down. If 10% of employees walk out, it's difficult to keep going. If 500 people clog the steps of the state capitol building, no one gets in or out. Even easier are things like not buying anything except in emergencies for a week. I assure you, the businesses will feel it. Immediately.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:30 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I agree but it's simply much easier to get a ton of people in one spot than a bunch of people in 100 spots. That's all I'm saying. The logistics of a protest to shut down the country are easier to arrange in a place like South Korea which is roughly the size of Alabama and has a single location which is by any reasonable definition the central focus of the whole country.
posted by Justinian at 2:37 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Rudy Giuliani told HuffPost Sunday, claiming a president’s constitutional powers are that broad. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”

Giuliani said impeachment was the initial remedy for a president’s illegal behavior ― even in the extreme hypothetical case of Trump having shot former FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation rather than just firing him.

“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”

This betrays literal Barry Zuckerkorn levels of legal ignorance, which once again could be be remedied by presenting Giuliani with a dictionary. Emphasis mine:

im·peach
/imˈpēCH/
verb
verb: impeach; 3rd person present: impeaches; past tense: impeached; past participle: impeached; gerund or present participle: impeaching
(US)
charge (the holder of a public office) with misconduct.
"the governor served only one year before being impeached and convicted for fiscal fraud"
synonyms: indict, charge, accuse, lay charges against, arraign, take to court, put on trial, prosecute
"congressional moves to impeach the president"

Impeachment *is* indictment, with the special difference being that the former applies only to holders of public office and is not necessarily restricted to matters of law.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:41 PM on June 4, 2018

Weekly Standard Congressional Reporter Haley Bird: I ask Ted Cruz if he agrees with Trump that the president can pardon himself. Cruz is silent for eighteen (18!) seconds before telling reporters it’s not a constitutional area he’s studied.

Do you think Ted Cruz wakes up in the morning yearning for the sweet release of oblivion or has his mind already snapped and he's running on autopilot while his soul is in his happy place?
posted by Justinian at 2:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

What good does being in the streets do? It doesn't seem to make a difference.

All you have to do is look what happens when more than 100 40 10 black people gather in protest to see how vulnerable the system itself feels about social issues.
posted by rhizome at 2:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Do you think Ted Cruz wakes up in the morning yearning for the sweet release of oblivion or has his mind already snapped and he's running on autopilot while his soul is in his happy place?


Ted Cruz can do something about it or quit if he doesn't like it, I have no concern for his mood beyond that. All of these responsibility-shirking R jerks can.
posted by rhizome at 2:57 PM on June 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

All you have to do is look what happens when more than 100 40 10 black people gather in protest to see how vulnerable the system itself feels about social issues.

Last fall I was biking home from work here in Toronto, and passed a very small protest being held near a community centre on Dundas East. It appeared to be organized by First Nations women; there was a banner, a woman giving a speech and four or five others off to the side as though they had already spoken or were waiting their turn. There was a crowd of maybe 25-30 people, and yet the Toronto cops apparently considered this act of civil disobedience sufficiently threatening that there were about a dozen officers there, most decked out in SWAT-style gear. I know I felt safer!
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:26 PM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

CNN is reporting that Mueller is accusing Manafort of witness tampering and has asked the court to revoke his house arrest. I assume that means he would go directly to jail and not pass go or collect $200.
posted by Justinian at 5:47 PM on June 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

Mod note: There's a new catchall thread, let's move over there if folks don't mind.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:50 PM on June 4, 2018

Y'all I am in South Dakota on vacation. It is simultaneously exceptionally beautiful and aggressively republican.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:51 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

[There's a new catchall thread, let's move over there if folks don't mind.]

Frankly I'm surprised you said anything instead of leaving me quarantined in this thread where I can't hurt anyone.

Err... I mean, thanks!
posted by Justinian at 5:53 PM on June 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

Y'all I am in South Dakota on vacation. It is simultaneously exceptionally beautiful and aggressively republican.

Of course they're aggressively republican. 39% of their state general revenue comes from the federal government (they're #4), and they're 44th in terms of tax revenue collected.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:44 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

MetaFilter: simultaneously exceptionally beautiful and aggressively liberal
posted by schmod at 7:05 PM on June 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

🍪🍪🍶
posted by petebest at 7:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Of course they're aggressively republican. 39% of their state general revenue comes from the federal government (they're #4), and they're 44th in terms of tax revenue collected

Looking at those links, North Dakota is the least reliant on federal funds, despite being 45th in revenue collected. And they have around the same revenue per capita, so it's wouldn't appear to be just that. Huh.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:02 AM on June 5, 2018

This might explain it.

TLDR -- Oil money means ND doesn't depend on other states taxes the way SD does.
posted by jclarkin at 12:10 PM on June 14, 2018 [1 favorite]