Month: January 2017

Revisiting one of Flynn’s greatest hits


by digby

Trump’s closest foreign policy and national security adviser Michael Flynn tweeted this last summer, obviously very upset that anyone would suggest the Russians had hacked the DNC.  He later deleted it, calling it a mistake:

We’ve all made mistakes so one might excuse it by saying he just didn’t read this one carefully. But he added the statement at the top so it wasn’t just a slip of the retweet key. And then there is his ongoing affiliation with the white nationalist “alt-right,” which does have some issues specifically with jews.

In any case,  a man who would retweet such a thing, from an account that twitter has now banned, by the way, and add his own paranoid rant on top of it, is unfit to be so close to power in the White House. (Why was he following this Nazi on twitter in the first place?) He’s much more suited to a nice sinecure at some right wing think tank somewhere. Can’t Heritage make some room for him?

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“Orange Motherf***er, go back to where you came from!”

by digby

No, not that other orange fellow. This nice lady was upset that her neighbor didn’t sweep up the leaves in his yard:

The local TV station caught up with the woman who said she was sorry:

She says she’s afraid of retaliation after the video went viral.

But she also was in tears as she sincerely apologized. She says she and Manawat have had issues as neighbors for years, and the rant came at a moment of frustration and weakness.

“I stooped to the lowest possible denominator to hurt someone because I was angry,” she says.

She says her anger wasn’t directed at the Filipino community but toward her neighbor.

Manawat admits he’s not the perfect neighbor either but says his neighbor crossed the line.

“I’ll miss certain things around my yard, but that doesn’t mean you have to go off on my culture and nationality,” he says.

The neighbor says many who see the video will assume she’s racist or a bad person, but she wants people to know that’s not who she is.

“I wasn’t raised that way,” she says.

They always say they didn’t mean it after they do it and insist they aren’t really racist.They even seem to truly be contrite although some of that may be from fear or embarrassment of the reaction to their behavior. She says she was angry and acted out of character.

It’s like that woman in Kentucky who went off on the Hispanic customer who brought up some items to her friend at the head of the line to pay for. After screaming insults about them being on welfare etc etc, says, “I hate to be that way …” But apparently she feels she just has to.

Note the common refrain from both ladies is that they are having to “pay for” these primitive people and they are “getting something” to which they are not entitled at the expense of the hardworking people who deserve it. In the case of the Filipino neighbor she reaches back to Teddy Roosevelt’s imperial war a century ago as some sort of favor bestowed upon the Filipino people.This is where that “economic anxiety” and “racism” merge. It’s not that economic anxiety justifies the racism. It’s that racism justifies the economic anxiety.

Here’s the thing. Racism comes in a lot of different forms. You don’t have to be waving a confederate flag and singing Dixie to be one. But if you hurl racist insults when you are angry, and attribute all the other person’s perceived flaws as being the result of his or her race or ethnicity, it’s the very definition of racism.

People who aren’t racist don’t do that. They get mad and they yell and lose their tempers just like all humans. But they don’t attribute other people’s flaws to their race. It’s not that complicated.

Update: The original video has been removed, so I replaced it with the news story. It was worse than what they showed which was bad enough.

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After a huge public outcry this week, even Trump questioned the timing of the new Congress’ first initiative, which was to roll back certain ethics procedures. (He wasn’t actually against the rollback, just thought it was premature.) There are also some encouraging signs that repealing the Affordable Care Act may not be quite as easy as Republicans had hoped, which could tangle them up with their followers all over again. If they can be similarly stopped or slowed from enacting the rest of their agenda, we might just get through this thing.

As Weigel reports, however, the larger agenda has been in the planning stages for a long time:

In 2012, Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist described the ideal president as “a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” and “sign the legislation that has already been prepared.” In 2015, when Senate Republicans used procedural maneuvers to undermine a potential Democratic filibuster and vote to repeal the health-care law, it did not matter that President Obama’s White House stopped them: As the conservative advocacy group Heritage Action put it, the process was “a trial run for 2017, when we will hopefully have a President willing to sign a full repeal bill.”

Paul Ryan asked his caucus a year ago, “Assume you get the White House and Congress. Come 2018, what do you want to have accomplished?” They basically want to accomplish a legislative revolution, virtually none of which was discussed in the last campaign.

Trump can at least hold a pen. As long as congressional Republicans let him strut around taking credit for “getting things done,” he’ll be happy to sign anything they put in front of him. Remember, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly told John Kasich’s aides, as he was trying to recruit the Ohio governor for the ticket, that Kasich would be the most powerful vice president in history, pretty much in charge of everything, because Trump would be busy “making America great again.” He has no interest in getting into the weeds of governing, so he’s happy to sign off on Mike Pence’s dream platform.

So what are Democrats to do with this? It’s already going to be an overwhelming task to fight off Trump’s worst nominees, battle back legislation that’s coming from 20 different directions and expose the mountain of scandals that are quickly piling up. The Trump train wreck is already creating a chain reaction of one explosion after an other.

There are many interest groups starting to mobilize against the basket of deplorable nominees, none of whom are being adequately vetted by the transition team, and are also failing to cooperate with congressional requests. Other interest groups are trying to find some reasonable division of labor to resist the flurry of odious legislation, from healthcare to financial reform to deregulation and reversal of environmental rules, the Republicans have planned. But nobody knows exactly how the House and Senate Democrats are going to react. Will they try to cut deals for some crumbs in the legislation and then stand beaming behind the president at his signing ceremony, lending a bipartisan sheen to the carnage? If history is any guide it’s certainly possible.

There are some creative strategic thinkers out there, however, who are looking at the big picture and coming up with some exciting propositions. For instance, Robert Kuttner wrote this provocative piece for the Huffington Post, advocating for a group of experts, preferably bipartisan, to begin seriously putting together the case for impeachment:

There is only one constitutional way to remove a president, and that is via impeachment. What’s needed is a citizens’ impeachment inquiry, to begin on Trump’s first day in office.

The inquiry should keep a running dossier, and forward updates at least weekly to the House Judiciary Committee. There will be no lack of evidence. The materials should be made public via a website. The inquiry should be conducted by a distinguished panel whose high-mindedness and credentials are, well, unimpeachable.

There needs to be a parallel public campaign, pressing for an official investigation. For those appalled by Trump, who wonder where to focus their efforts, here is something concrete ― and more realistic than it may seem.

He goes on to enumerate the high crimes and misdemeanors in which Trump is already implicated, beginning with the massive corruption inherent in his continued ownership of a privately held international company, the details of which he refuses to divulge. There are also his strange and uncharacteristic fondness for Vladimir Putin and his untrammeled nepotism, just for starters.

Some people are reflexively opposed to making such a strong statement so early in the administration. But Trump is already committing impeachable offenses, and dealing with someone like this requires being well prepared to take advantage of any openings to stop him. It is certainly what the Republicans would do if the shoe were on the other foot. In fact, it is exactly what they were planning to do.

The point is to keep the pressure on and keep the focus on Trump’s ongoing corruption scandals. This will not take the place of resistance to the Pence and Ryan express, which is vital. But Democrats have got to walk and chew gum on a high wire blindfolded in this moment, and this is the kind of planning they will need if we are to survive the Trump era.

Nah, no need for an independent inquiry

by digby

I’m sure the GOP congress will not be persuaded by this. But it’s probably good to get them on the record opposing it anyway.

Several high-profile intelligence experts have signed a letter in support of legislation calling to create a bipartisan commission to look into “foreign interference” during the 2016 election that was introduced by House Democrats last month. 

Among the letter’s signers are former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morrell. 

“To understand fully and publicly what happened, how we were so vulnerable, and what we can do to protect our democracy in future elections, we the undersigned strongly encourage the Congress to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate efforts by the Russian Federation to influence or interfere with the U.S. presidential election in 2016,” the letter, which was obtained early by BuzzFeed News, states. 

The letter also warns that “some have questioned whether the Russian government, despite the conclusion of 17 of our intelligence agencies, was really responsible for the hacks. Such doubts only reinforce why an independent, inquiry should occur outside of Congress.” 

“This inquiry should occur immediately. Anything less than a swift investigation will leave us vulnerable to another attack and, possibly worse, permit and normalize future interference.”

Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings and Eric Swalwell introduced legislation to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the hacks, but no House Republican members have yet expressed support. 

Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in December he would not open a new investigation into the cyberattacks, stating that he believed the effort would be redundant. Nunes’ office confirmed to BuzzFeed News that his position remains the same.

This will be my “imagine if” post of the day.

Imagine if there was some evidence that foreign agents had meddled in the election on behalf of the Democratic candidate and that candidate had lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but won by winning around 80,000 votes across a few winner take all states. Can we imagine that the Republicans would not be amassing in the streets with pitchforks and torches right now? I actually think there would have been some serious violence.

Dems aren’t inclined to roll that way but it’s still a good idea for them to keep pushing for inquiries into what happened. You never know what might shake loose. And it’s actually a good idea. If all of this stuff bout Russian hacking is massive conspiracy among the the intelligence agency analysts, the white house and private firms that have looked into it, we really need to know that.

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No speeches, so it’s all good

by digby

The good news is that Trump didn’t give any speeches to Goldman Sachs so there’s no reason to believe he’s a sell-out whore to Wall Street:

Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton has emerged as the leading candidate to be chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and could be announced as the nominee as soon as Wednesday, according to an official working with the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump.

Mr. Clayton, whose clients have included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Capital Inc., would succeed SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, another lawyer with a history of representing Wall Street banks before becoming a regulator. Mr. Clayton, who met with Mr. Trump on Dec. 22, is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he also worked on the 2014 initial public offering of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., according to Sullivan’s websit

Mr. Clayton would become the latest Trump appointee with longstanding Wall Street ties, joining former Goldman executive Steven Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary; former Goldman President Gary Cohn, who will run the National Economic Council; and private-equity investor Wilbur Ross, the pick to head the Commerce Department.

Mr. Clayton represented Goldman when it received a $5 billion investment from billionaire Warren Buffett’s company during the peak of the credit crisis in September 2008, according to his bio on Sullivan’s website. He’s also represented Goldman in connection with other investments and acquisitions, according to the law firm. Sullivan is a key outside legal adviser for Goldman and is more closely associated with Wall Street than perhaps any other law firm.

Mr. Clayton has a wide-ranging corporate practice spanning mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, corporate governance, and investment advice for high-net-worth families. Other matters that Mr. Clayton has worked on include advising Morgan Stanley on the sale of its physical oil-trading division and Bear Stearns on its sale to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.—two deals shaped heavily by the financial crisis and its aftermath—and the 2014 IPO of Moelis & Co., a boutique advisory firm. He’s also represented an ownership group for the Atlanta Hawks and British Airways in its 2010 merger with Iberia.

Mr. Clayton would take over the SEC at a time when congressional Republicans are pressuring the agency to loosen fundraising rules for smaller public companies, lighten its oversight of private-equity firms, and repeal executive-compensation rules opposed by corporations.

Yet another example of his inherent corruption. Trump has many good reasons to want to stay in the good graces of Wall Street for the sake of his business. And so he will.

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Light ’em up
by Tom Sullivan

Yesterday’s swift reversal by Republican House members of an effort to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics showed just how primed Republicans are to overreach and how swift public opprobrium can put on the brakes. Monday night, the GOP caucus had signaled its intent to go back to the good, old days of Tom DeLay, as Josh Marshall explained:

… the House GOP Caucus voted to put the OCE back under the authority of the Ethics Committee, which of course has a GOP Chair. Basically that means abolishing the OCE since the whole point of the OCE is that it’s independent of the Committee. One of the sales’ points for this new set up is that it “provide[s] protection [for Members of Congress] against disclosures to the public or other government entities” of the results of any investigations. In other words, if wrongdoing is found the newly-neutered OCE can’t tell anyone. Awesome. They can’t have a press person, issue reports, do anything without the say of the Ethics Committee. In other words, the whole thing is a joke, both the new version of the OCE (now the ““Office of Congressional Complaint Review”) and this whole move. But it’s the Trump Era. Members want to get down to business, get their piece of the action and not have anyone giving them any crap. Just like the big cheese down Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s the Trump Era.

Well, not so fast. By the time Donald Trump consigliere Kellyanne Conway finished defending the gutting Tuesday morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” phones were already lighting up on Capitol Hill. Later in the morning, Donald Trump tweeted displeasure not at the House’s effort, but its timing, tweeting, “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority.” By just after noon, Republicans reversed course. Politico adds:

“The Trump tweet amplified the discomfort that our members had,” said a senior House Republican aide. “It didn’t change the course where things were already heading.”

[SC Rep. Mark] Sanford said Trump elevated the issue “beyond-the-beltway” and further stoked public outrage. “It became an outside of Washington issue.” Members discussed the president’s feelings among themselves and at a hastily called meeting, according to several people present.

“It was everyone lighting up the phone lines, and then Trump’s tweet,” [NY Rep. Chris] Collins said. “President-Elect Trump’s tweets totally shifted the mood of the conference.”

First off, Democrats tend to underperform Republicans in the calling-your-congresscritter department. The T-party deployed this tool very effectively, driven by missives from conservative think tanks and astroturf groups as well as rants from talk radio. This episode demonstrates just how powerful public pushback can be, and it’s a tool the left absolutely must learn to use better and right now.

This also brings up an instructive chicken-and-egg question: Did the Trump tweets prompt the swift public outcry or did swift public outcry prompt the Trump tweets? Politico’s account and the timing of Conway’s “Good Morning America” comments suggest it was the latter. If so, this provides one model for pushing back against the GOP agenda in the Trump era.

We heard in August, “Trump tends to echo the words of the last person with whom he spoke.” We saw it again after Trump’s first post-election meeting with President Obama at the White House. Trump softened his position on gutting the Affordable Care Act, “a jaw-dropping demonstration of just how easily influenced he is,” Jordan Weissmann wrote for Slate. Citing the Obama meeting, William Saletan observed, “Having a fragile, approval-craving narcissist as president isn’t the end of the world. It just means that to get him to do the right thing, you have to pet him.” Saletan continued:

The second model is Times columnist Tom Friedman. In the group session at Times headquarters on Nov. 22, Friedman worked Trump like a horndog in a bar, trying to get him into bed on climate change. “You own some of the most beautiful links golf courses in the world,” Friedman told Trump. “I’d hate to see Royal Aberdeen underwater,” the columnist added. When Trump ragged on windmills, Friedman whispered sweet nothings: “General Electric has a big wind turbine factory in South Carolina.” Trump, eager for approval, told the Times staffers about his “many environmental awards” and bragged, “I’m actually an environmentalist.” By the end of the session, Friedman had Trump eating out of his hand.

The assumptions in these earlier accounts was that people who could get physically close to Trump would be powerful influencers. But as we’ve seen, Vladimir Putin sends him a flattering letter and Trump melts into a puddle. As much attention as Trump pays to social media and as much as he echoes what he hears, this House ethics episode suggests that, if we are disciplined about it, those of us outside the Beltway might be able to move the new president and quickly without needing a White House audience, just a telephone and his Twitter handle.

Saletan wrote:

That’s how you move Trump. You don’t talk about ethics. You play the toughness card. You appeal to the art of the deal. You make him feel smart, powerful, and loved. You don’t forget how unmoored and volatile he is, but you set aside your fear and your anger. You thank God that you’re dealing with a narcissist, not a cold-blooded killer.

Ponder that, with a combination of lighting up phones on Capitol Hill and Trump on Twitter, we might steer both him and a Republican Congress in ways that didn’t seem possible just days ago.

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The flickering lights

by digby

I want to thank everyone one last time for donating to my holiday fundraiser. I truly appreciate your contributions and your very kind words as well. It gives me strength and determination going into this next, scary year.

The challenges are immense and we have to choice but to meet them. A lot of people have been sharing this Hannah Arendt quote which seems just right for the moment:

“even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and … such illumination might well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given to them.”

Thanks to all of you, together we will try to shed some light and hopefully illuminate this time just a little bit.

Thank you again. It means more to me than you know.

Happy New Year!

— digby

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by digby

Your new president. (It is not The Onion.)

President-elect Donald Trump rang in the new year together with Joseph “Joey No Socks” Cinque — a convicted felon with ties to notorious Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, a recently released video has revealed.  

Cinque can be seen in a video obtained by the Palm Beach Daily News, cheering loudly as a tuxedo-clad Trump runs through a number of campaign promises before the hundreds of guests attending the New Year’s Eve bash the President-elect threw at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday. 

“The taxes are coming down, regulations are coming off, we’re going to get rid of Obamacare,” Trump can be heard saying as an exuberant Cinque stands next to him, pumping his fists into the air. 

Cinque’s Sunday appearance with Trump might raise some eyebrows.

Beyond a 1989 felony conviction for possessing nearly $100,000 worth of stolen artwork, Cinque “used to be friends with John Gotti,” according to a New York Magazine profile from 1995.      

Cinque was also “shot three times and left for dead” in a 1980 incident that authorities described as “a hit,” according to the profile.
Further, Saturday’s Mar-a-Lago party was far from the first time Cinque cheered on Trump.

An Associated Press report from this spring showed that the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences, a company owned and operated by Cinque, has awarded more than a dozen of Trump’s golf courses, hotels, casinos and private clubs with so-called “Star Diamond” awards “of true excellence in hospitality.” 

Delaware man says he survived Istanbul attack by playing dead
The same report also found that about half of the roughly 30 people listed as “trustees” to the company are Trump friends or business associates.    

Trump, meanwhile, was listed on the company’s website as its “ambassador extraordinaire,” and he even appeared in a 2009 tribute video to Cinque in which he said, “There’s nobody like him. He’s a special guy.”  

But when asked by reporters about Cinque in May, Trump denied knowing anything about him or his criminal past. 

“If a guy’s going to give you an award, you take it,” the President-elect said at the time. “You don’t tend to look up his whole life story.”

He lies of course. Clearly this mobster who was shot in the street in a mafia hit is a close pal.

I’ve decided that I will allow myself one “imagine if” per day.  This is today’s: “imagine if Hillary Clinton/Bernie Sanders/Barack Obama/Any Democrat was filmed at a New Years Eve party (which people paid them personally for the privilege of attending) on stage with a known mobster pumping his fists with enthusiasm at his or her promise to take health care from millions of people.

Video shows Donald Trump speaking about Istanbul nightclub attack, Obamacare and more at New Year’s Eve bash. https://t.co/1hCxiDS4cH pic.twitter.com/wwzsdh16jo

— ABC News (@ABC) January 2, 2017

And no, I have no idea why some guy is standing on stage with him awkwardly holding an eagle statue.

Update: Here’s a much longer story about Trump and Joey “no socks” and their relationship going back many years.

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QOTD: “What are we going to do?”

by digby

Uttered by everyone in the world at some point in the past few weeks. Today it was this:

OVERHEARD in the Speaker’s lobby: “The guy puts out a tweet and half our conference goes nuts. What are we going to do?”

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 3, 2017

Hey guys, remember the GOP primary? Before it as fun and you got to beat up on Hillary and enjoy all the liberals screaming in agony? Remember when it was you?

Yeah. You aren’t immune. He’s just that crazy.

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What could go wrong? Everything …

by digby

Yeah, it’s a very risky time. And it isn’t just us silly old liberals who think so:

U.S. unilateralism under Donald Trump, China’s growing assertiveness and a weakened German Chancellor Angela Merkel are helping make 2017 the “most volatile” year for political risk since World War II, according to Eurasia Group. 

“In 2017 we enter a period of geopolitical recession,” the New York-based company said in its outlook. International war or “the breakdown of major central government institutions” isn’t inevitable, though “such an outcome is now thinkable.” 

With Trump’s ascent to the presidency on an America-first platform, the global economy can’t count on the U.S. to provide “guardrails” anymore, according to Eurasia, which advises investors on political risk. Trump’s signals of a thaw with Russia, skepticism toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and his “alignment” with European anti-establishment parties such as France’s National Front could weaken the main postwar alliance protecting the global order, according to the report released Tuesday.

The warning is a reminder of the range of threats to stability in 2017, from elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands and Britain’s planned exit from the European Union to the transition of power in the U.S., setbacks in emerging nations such as Brazil and Europe’s refugee crisis.
In China, a scheduled leadership transition makes it likely that President Xi Jinping will be “more likely than ever to respond forcefully to foreign policy challenges,” potentially leading to spikes in U.S.-China tensions, according to Eurasia. To maintain domestic stability, Xi might “overreact” to any sign of economic trouble, leading to a risk of new asset bubbles or capital controls, Eurasia said. 

Merkel, who is seeking re-election in the fall, faces likely disputes over Brexit, Greece’s simmering debt crisis and an “increasingly authoritarian” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatening a refugee accord between the EU and Turkey. France’s presidential election in April could lead to the National Front taking power, according to Eurasia. 

“Despite just how wrong the polls have been in recent major electoral contests across the developed world, Merkel will win a fourth consecutive term,” the report said. “But the need to appease domestic critics this year will leave her a diminished figure, impacting the quality of her leadership both at home and in the EU.” 

Other risks cited by Eurasia include: 

• Lack of economic reforms, with only China on a “positive trajectory” among 14 major nations and Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the U.K. declining. 
• Politicians blaming central banks, including the Federal Reserve, for economic woes. Such attacks mark “a risk to global markets in 2017 by threatening to upend central banks’ roles as technocratic institutions that provide financial and economic stability.” 
• A “witch hunt” against parts of the opposition in Turkey, even tighter control over government and the media by Erdogan, and pressure on the Turkish central bank to keep rates low and rely increasingly on fiscal stimulus to offset slowing growth. 
• North Korea’s nuclear program, which may yield some 20 nuclear weapons, combined with technological advances allowing strikes at the U.S. west coast in the future.

If you believed in US exceptionalism it’s long past time to rethink it. We’re just running with the lemmings. Unfortunately, we are a big clumsy giant who is likely to stomp all over everybody as we race over the cliff.

Things were already unstable. So it was an especially bad idea to put an unfit, unqualified, cretinous moron in charge of the most powerful nation in the world. Good work America.

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