Month: May 2017

DOJ Revolt?

by digby

I’m surprised there hasn’t been more discussion of this. Seems like a big deal:

May 12, 2017

Rod J. Rosenstein, Esq.
Deputy Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Deputy Attorney General:

We, the undersigned, are former United States Attorneys and Assistant United States Attorneys for the Southern District of New York. In view of the recent termination of James Comey as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we are writing to request that you appoint a special counsel to oversee the FBI’s continuing investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election and related matters. This letter is addressed to you rather than the Attorney General since he has recused himself from this matter.

As you know, Jim has had a long and distinguished career with the Department of Justice, beginning with his appointment as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York serving under United States Attorneys Rudolph Giuliani, Benito Romano and Otto Obermaier from 1987 through 1993. He returned to the Southern District of New York in 2002 when he was appointed the United States Attorney and served in that capacity until he was confirmed as Deputy Attorney General in 2003. Most of us came to know Jim when he worked in the Southern District of New York. Many of us know him personally. All of us respect him as a highly professional and ethical person who has devoted more than 20 years of his life to public service.

While we do not all necessarily agree with the manner in which he dealt with the conclusion of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, we sincerely believe that his abrupt and belated termination for this conduct, occurring months later and on the heels of his public testimony about his oversight of the investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election, has the appearance – if not the reality – of interfering with that investigation. Even if this investigation continues unabated, there is a substantial risk that the American people will not have confidence in its results, no matter who is appointed to succeed him, given that the Director of the FBI serves at the pleasure of the President. We believe it is critical in the present political climate and clearly in the public’s interest that this investigation be directed by a truly independent, non-partisan prosecutor who is independent of the Department of Justice, as is contemplated by 28 C.F.R. §600.1.

We are Republicans, Democrats and independents. Most importantly, we are proud alumni and alumnae of the Department of Justice. We do not suggest that you or any other members of the Department of Justice or a newly appointed Director of the FBI would not conduct yourselves properly, but the gravity of this investigation requires that even the appearance of political involvement in this investigation be avoided. As former prosecutors, we believe the only solution in the present circumstances would be to appoint a Special Counsel pursuant to 28 C.F.R. §600.1, and we urge you to take that course.

Respectfully submitted,

Jonathan S. Abernethy Elkan Abramowitz Richard F. Albert
Marcus A. Asner Martin J. Auerbach Miriam Baer
Thomas H. Baer Kerri Martin Bartlett Maria Barton
Andrew Bauer Bernard W. Bell Richard Ben-Veniste
Neil S. Binder Laura Gossfield Birger Ira H. Block
Suzanne Jaffe Bloom Barry A. Bohrer Daniel H. Bookin
Jane E. Booth Katharine Bostick Laurie E. Brecher
David M. Brodsky Stacey Mortiz Brodsky William Bronnermn Jennifer K. Brown Marshall A. Camp Bennett CapersMichael Q. Carey Neil S. Cartusciello Sarah ChapmanRobert J. Cleary Brian D. Coad Glenn C. ColtonWilliam Craco Nelson W. Cunningham Constance Cushman Frederick T. Davis John M. Desmarais Rhea Dignam Gregory L. Diskant Philip L. Douglas Sean Eskovitz Jesse T. Fardella Meir Feder Ira M. Feinberg Michael S. Feldberg Steven D. Feldman Edward T. Ferguson David Finn Eric P. Fisher Sharon E. Frase Steven I. Froot Maria T. Galeno Catherine Gallo Robert Garcia Kay K. Gardiner Ronald L. Garnett Scott Gilbert Barbara S. Gillers Mark Godsey Joshua A. Goldberg James A. Goldston Mark P. Goodman George I. Gordon Sheila Gowan Stuart GraBoisPaul R. Grand Helen Gredd Bruce Green Marc L. Greenwald Jamie Gregg James G. Greilsheimer Jane Bloom Grise Nicole Gueron Barbara Guss Steven M. Haber Jonathan Halpern David Hammer Jeffrey Harris Mark D. Harris Roger J. Hawke Steven P. Heineman Mark R. Hellerer William Hibsher Jay Holtmeier John R. Horan Patricia M. Hynes Linda Imes Douglas Jensen James Kainen Eugene Kaplan Steven M. Kaplan William C. Komaroff David Koenigsberg Cynthia Kouril Mary Ellen Kris Stephen Kurzman Nicole LaBarbera Kerry Lawrence Sherry Leiwant Jane A. Levine Annmarie Levins Raymond A. Levites Donna H. Lieberman Jon Liebman Sarah E. Light Jon Lindsey Robin A. Linsenmayer

Edward J.M. Little Mary Shannon Little Walter Loughlin
Daniel Margolis Walter Mack Kathy S. Marks
Mark E. Matthews Marvin S. Mayell Sharon L. McCarthy
James J. McGuire Joan McPhee Christine Meding
Paul K. Milmed Judith L. Mogul David E. Montgomery
Lynn Neils Peter Neiman Rosemary Nidiry
Tai H. Park Robert M. Pennoyer Elliott R. Peters
Michael Pinnisi Robert Plotz Henry Putzel
T. Gorman Reilly Emily Reisbaum Peter Rient
Roland G. Riopelle Michael A. Rogoff Benito Romano
Amy Rothstein Thomas C. Rubin Daniel S. Ruzumna
Robert W. Sadowski Elliot G. Sagor Peter Salerno
Joseph F. Savage John F. Savarese Edward Scarvalone
Kenneth I. Schacter Frederick Schaffer Gideon A. Schor
Julian Schreibman Wendy Schwartz Linda Severin
David Siegal Marjorie A. Silver Paul H. Silverman
Charles Simon Carolyn L. Simpson David Sipiora
Dietrich L. Snell Peter Sobol Ira Lee Sorkin
David W. Spears Katherine Stanton Franklin H. Stone
Richard M. Strassberg Howard S. Sussman Erika Thomas
Richard Toder Timothy J. Treanor Paula Tuffin
Peter Vigeland David Wales Max Wild
Samuel J. Wilson Elaine Wood Paulette Wunsch
Thomas Zaccaro Ellen Zimiles 

cc: Jefferson B. Sessions III, Esq.
Attorney General of the United States

Bmaz at Emptywheel writes:

This letter reflects the signers’ personal views, not of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Department of Justice, or any other government agency.

But it is STRONG. And it is hard to not love it completely. It is raw, and it is real. Nobody asks defense attorneys to sign these missives, nor would anybody give them credit for having done so, were they asked.

This letter, however, is from the elite of the elite prosecutors, with SDNY historic names attached to it (and sometimes significant family names you may not notice), and there are a LOT of them. Almost wonder who did “not” sign on to it?

So, what does it mean?

A LOT. If you know how District level US Attorney offices run, but especially the hallowed ground in SDNY, then you know just how unusual and remarkable is this collective letter.

Think I mentioned “stunning” earlier. It is all that.

Why? Because the problem in the US is here, and it is now. It is bigger than Red versus Blue. It is bigger than Me versus You. It is bigger than all that. There is a fracture in the very machinery governance itself runs on.

The clockworks of governance are buggered. “We are Republicans, Democrats and independents.” And we all deserve better than the orange narcissist piloting the nation into an iceberg.

As Bmaz points out, these aren’t bleeding heart defense attorneys. They are all former federal prosecutors. This is not business as usual, people.

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The tantrum presidency

by digby

This piece by David Roberts at Vox really gets to the essence of Trump. It’s not “strategy” or “distraction” that makes him do what he does. He’s not a genius mastermind. He’s better understood as an impulsive child. An excerpt:

Why is it so hard to accept that Trump is acting out of pique, on impulse, because Comey on his TV gave him bad feels?

On Twitter I talked about “theory of mind,” a basic capacity humans develop around the age of 2 or 3 to recognize that other people are independent agents, distinct minds, with their own beliefs, desires, fears, etc. We learn to “read” behaviors as evidence of those internal states.

And because we are relentless pattern seekers, we are constantly developing theories of people, seeking to explain what they do through reference to their beliefs and plans.

This has badly misled us with Trump. Much of the dialogue around him, the journalism and analysis, even the statements of his own surrogates, amounts to a desperate attempt to construct a Theory of Trump, to explain what he does and says through some story about his long-term goals and beliefs.

We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him. It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next.

But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there’s no there there? What if our attempts to explain Trump have failed not because we haven’t hit on the right one, but because we are, theory-of-mind-wise, overinterpreting the text?

In short, what if Trump is exactly as he appears: a hopeless narcissist with the attention span of a fruit fly, unable to maintain consistent beliefs or commitments from moment to moment, acting on base instinct, entirely situationally, to bolster his terrifyingly fragile ego.

We’re not really prepared to deal with that.
Trump’s dysfunction

There is clearly something wrong with Trump. But exactly what he is — or, if you prefer to medicalize it, what he has — is a matter of some controversy.

In a recent Rolling Stone article, Alex Morris explores the battle within the field of psychiatry over whether to diagnose Trump at a distance. (Vox’s own Brian Resnick also has a great piece on it.)

The nub of the disagreement comes down to whether Trump has a disorder.

There are nine traits used to identify narcissistic personality disorder (things like “requires excessive admiration” and “has a grandiose sense of self-importance”). Fitting five or more is considered sufficient for diagnosis. All nine describe Trump’s public behavior with eerie accuracy.

But a disorder, by definition, inhibits normal functioning, impedes success. And Trump is inarguably successful. He’s one of the most powerful people in the world. Whatever kind of personality he may have, some psychiatrists argue, he can’t have a disorder. He’s doing well for himself.

Whether you see this as evidence of Trump’s fitness or evidence of the power of inherited wealth in America, I’m not sure it makes much difference from a citizen’s point of view. Whether or not Trump has NPD, he clearly has the NP part.

Like all extreme narcissists, he feels a gnawing sense of inadequacy and thus requires constant adulation, admiration, and reinforcement for his oversize, hypersensitive ego. Like all extreme narcissists, he is exquisitely attuned to offense, to any hint of being the dominated party or the loser, and incredibly vengeful when he feels he’s been crossed (which is frequently).

Like all extreme narcissists, he sees every interaction, every situation, as a zero-sum contest in which there will be winners and losers. Like all extreme narcissists, he is prone to building a fantasy world in which he is always on top, always the winner. And like all extreme narcissists, he sees other people only through the lens of how they reflect or affect him.

But Trump is not merely a narcissist. There are other things going on.

Many narcissists are quite well-regulated. Using other people to one’s advantage takes not only in-the-moment charm but an ability to think ahead, as in a game of chess. Succeeding requires fooling other people, and fooling other people requires an ability to hold a complex social map in one’s head, to sustain a consistent performance over time.

Trump does have some crude cunning to manipulate people in the moment. He can sense what they want and what will elicit their approval.

But he lacks any ability to hold beliefs, commitments, or even deceptions in his head across contexts. (On Twitter, I compared him to a goldfish.) He is utterly unable to step back and put his gut emotions in larger perspective, to see himself as a person among people, in social contexts that demand some adaptation. He is impatient with attempts to influence him to take a larger view — he demands one-page memos, for instance.

Matt Yglesias says that Trump lies all the time. And it’s certainly true that he says false things all the time. But even to say “lie” seems to suggest a certain self-awareness, an ability to distinguish performance from reality, that Trump shows no signs of possessing.

Trump does have consistent attitudes, and that has given his actions some consistency. Above all, he is utterly terrified of, and hostile to, weakness.

Fear of weakness helps explain why Trump mocked John McCain for being taken prisoner, why he mocked a disabled reporter, why he’s been so consistently racist. Somewhere in his reptile brain, he views being captured, disabled, or persecuted as weakness, as being dominated.

It also explains his fondness for autocratic strongmen — the ones who dominate.

But these attitudes, these instincts, do not seem to yield persistent beliefs or principles. Trump is highly attuned to dominance and submission in the moment, but each moment is a new moment, unconstrained by prior commitments, statements, or actions.

Trump defies our theory of mind because he appears to lack a coherent, persistent self or worldview. He is a raging fire of need, protected and shaped by a lifetime of entitlement, with the emotional maturity and attention span of a 6-year-old, utterly unaware of the long-term implications of his actions.

There’s more insight at the link about why so many people are eager to attribute something Machiavellian at work. There’s a need to create some framework, a narrative, around which to understand him. It’s tremendously stressful to think he’s just careening around bumping into the furniture because the danger is so much greater that he will accidentally destroy us.

This is an utterly terrifying conclusion. A Machiavellian Trump — one who was merely acting the fool, manipulating the public and media in service of some diabolical long-term agenda — is less frightening than a purely narcissistic and impulsive one.

No agenda guides him, no past commitments or statements restrain him, so no one, not even his closest allies (much less the American public or foreign governments) can trust him, even for a second. He will do what makes him feel dominant and respected, in the moment, with no consideration of anything else, not because he has chosen to reject other considerations, but because he is, by all appearances, incapable of considering them.

This makes him, as many others have noted, extremely vulnerable to being manipulated by whoever happens to talk to him last, whoever butters him up and makes him feel important. (And that includes the TV.)

It’s one thing when that involves a wild Twitter accusation or the firing of a staff member. All Trump’s crises so far have been internal and self-inflicted, more or less.

But what will happen when he gets into a confrontation with North Korea, when Kim Jong Un deliberately provokes him? Will his response be considered and strategic? Will he be able to get information and aid from allies? Will he be able to make and keep commitments during negotiations?

There’s no sign of hope for any of that.

More likely he will prove, as he has in literally every confrontation of the past several years, congenitally unable to back down or deescalate, even if doing so is clearly in everyone’s best interests.

More likely he will be desperate to maintain face and will listen to whatever his security staff whispers in his ear.

More likely he will make rash and fateful decisions with insufficient consultation and no clear plan.

That’s who he is: a disregulated bundle of impulses, being manipulated by a cast of crooks and incompetents, supported by a Republican Party willing to bet the stability of the country against upper-income tax cuts. We need to stop looking for a more complicated story.

That’s correct. And we need to figure out how to deal with someone like this. Our institutions are more fragile than we know and it remains to be seen if they are capable of dealing with this unprecedented challenge. If they are to do that we must be clear about what we’re dealing with:

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Sean Hannity, man of the people

by digby

.@KevinNR elitists like you that have zero understanding of the dire reality millions are facing, out of work in poverty and on food stamps

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 12, 2017

All those people with terrible economic anxiety know Hannity tells the truth. He understands. He gets it:

Monday, April 23, 2012

Mr Empathy

by digby

Sean Hannity today in answer to a caller who said that people couldn’t relate to Mitt Romney because he’d never gone to bed hungry:

I don’t believe people are going to bed hungry. Do you know how much, do you ever go shopping? I go sometimes but I hate it. Do you ever go? … you can get, for instance I have friends of mine who eat rice and beans all the time. Beans protein, rice. Inexpensive. You can make a big pot of this for a week for negligible amounts of money and you can feed your whole family.

Look, you should have vegetables and fruit in there as well, but if you need to survive you can survive off it. It’s not ideal but you could get some cheap meat and throw in there as well for protein. There are ways to live really, really cheaply.

In case you were wondering, Hannity makes 30 million dollars a year and owns a private jet.

And he’s worth every single penny because all those people living on rice and beans need someone who understands them to speak out against elitists who are trying to keep them down by arguing against taking away health care from millions to finance tax cuts for Sean Hannity. He’s on their side.

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Follow the money laundering
by Tom Sullivan

Former Palm Beach mansion Trump “flipped” in 2008 to a Russian oligarch for $100 million. It has been demolished.

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, has become part of the investigation into President Donald Trump’s finances, Reuters reports:

A unit of the U.S. Treasury Department that fights money laundering will provide financial records to an investigation by the Senate into possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump and his associates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Senate Intelligence Committee requested the records late last month as part of its investigation into possible collusion during the 2016 campaign between the Trump campaign and Russia. Treasury slapped the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort with a $10 million fine in 2015 for “willful and repeated violations” of anti-money laundering requirements, although Trump’s financial interest ended in 2014.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), a member of the intelligence committee and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview Friday that he is particularly interested in information about shell companies, money laundering and the use of property transfers that may be germane to the committee’s Trump investigation.

Representatives for FinCEN and Sens. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and Mark Warner (D., Va.), the intelligence committee chairman and vice chairman, declined to comment.

[…]

FinCEN receives hundreds of reports each day from financial institutions flagging suspicious activity, and it is tasked with making sure banks and other companies comply with rules to do so. It provides the data to law-enforcement agencies, and its own analysts examine the data to identify suspicious patterns of the flow of funds around the world. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, for instance, the agency took the lead in tracking terrorist-financing sources and using financial records to help reveal the structure of terrorist networks.

The documents the Senate Finance Committee has requested may consist of “Suspicious Activity Reports from banks, casinos, and other places, about transactions involving any Trump projects,” writes Adam Davidson for New Yorker.

A review of Trump’s dealings by USA Today provides more details:

The president and his companies have been linked to at least 10 wealthy former Soviet businessmen with alleged ties to criminal organizations or money laundering.

Among them:

• A member of the firm that developed the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York is a twice-convicted felon who spent a year in prison for stabbing a man and later scouted for Trump investments in Russia.

• An investor in the SoHo project was accused by Belgian authorities in 2011 in a $55 million money-laundering scheme.

• Three owners of Trump condos in Florida and Manhattan were accused in federal indictments of belonging to a Russian-American organized crime group and working for a major international crime boss based in Russia.

• A former mayor from Kazakhstan was accused in a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in 2014 of hiding millions of dollars looted from his city, some of which was spent on three Trump SoHo units.

• A Ukrainian owner of two Trump condos in Florida was indicted in a money-laundering scheme involving a former prime minister of Ukraine.

Not to mention Trump’s loans with Deutsche Bank, fined $630 million this year for laundering Russian money, as well as the Bank of Cypress

Trump makes a point of denying Russia ties when it suits him. The Associated Press reported in early January, Trump told the press, “I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away. And I have no loans with Russia.” But, the AP found:

While Trump neither owns nor licenses his name to properties in Russia, it’s not for lack of trying. He and his children have not “stayed away,” as he said, but have regularly expressed interest in pursuing projects there since the Soviet era.

The dealings that Trump has had with Russian nationals have been transactional — selling a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian oligarch for $95 million, for example, or taking the Miss Universe beauty pageant to Moscow in 2013.

At a press conference last July, Trump told reporters, “I have nothing to with Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia — for anything.” Except for that one thing. And a few other things:

As he put it: “What do I have to do with Russia? You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach, Florida. Palm Beach is a very expensive place. There was a man who went bankrupt and I bought the house for $40 million and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million including brokerage commissions. So I sold it. So I bought it for 40, I sold it for 100 to a Russian. That was a number of years ago. I guess probably I sell condos to Russians, okay?”

The Washington Post’s fact checker gave Trump’s denials four Pinocchios.

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Donald Trump Jr. told a real estate conference in 2008.

“Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” golf writer James Dodson says Trump’s son Eric told him in 2013 at one of Trump’s North Carolina courses. Eric Trump denied that conversation took place after the story appeared in The Hill on Monday. “We have zero ties to Russian investors,” he told the New York Post the same week the White House scrambled to build a credible explanation for the James Comey firing.

It’s not that Trump has no investment in Russia, but that Russia has investments in him:

A Reuters review has found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded luxury towers in southern Florida, according to public documents, interviews and corporate records.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld might say.

Charlie Pierce considers the $10 million fine Trump paid “because his busted Atlantic City casino was found to have failed to follow anti-laundering standards,” plus the money laundering ties USA Today presents, and offers this take:

Here’s what I think. The president* needed money. The Russians oligarchs needed a laundromat. There is an obvious common interest here. That the Russians could gain more leverage over him than he had over them in this arrangement should be obvious. I think that he will always value his dreams of financial empire more than the national interest, and that he would do anything to keep those dreams alive, even demolish the institutions of free government along the way.

If Trump cannot shut down the Senate investigation, he will surely try to divert attention from it, either to avert prosecution, expose mixed loyalties, or forestall the mirror on the wall confessing he is not really the fairest. He is a con man who fancies himself a shark, but his eagerness to make deals that goose his insatiable ego make him an easy mark for the real sharks. It may turn out that while he thought he was playing his foreign investors, they were playing him.

Friday Night Soother

by digby

If only they were this cute we might be able to stop worrying about the end of the world …

Live look at the Trump White House attempting to get on the same page about why they fired FBI Director James Comey pic.twitter.com/qUij5AXwha

— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) May 11, 2017

Here are some tips to comfort Sean and the other kids:

This one’s for Kellyanne Conway:

Trump:

a giant
unidentified
dead thing
is decomposing off the coast of the indonesian island of seram

and nobody
knows
what
it
is pic.twitter.com/zPjpyOtdjJ

— Nick Andersen (@nicktheandersen) May 12, 2017

.

This is going to be good

by digby

Spicey in Manhattan:

The things you see in New York City.  Melissa McCarthy riding Sean Spicer’s podium through Midtown #SNL pic.twitter.com/BEorGZ15yS

— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) May 12, 2017

They hate it, they really hate it

by digby

The new Trumpcare isn’t any more popular than the old Trumpcare:

Less than a quarter of American voters surveyed in a new poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University approve of the legislation passed last week by the House of Representatives to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Fifty-six percent of those polled said they disapprove of the legislation, dubbed the American Health Care Act, while just 21 percent said they support it. The support for the legislation represents an improvement over the 17 percent who said they supported the iteration of the bill that failed to pass the House in March.

Overall 66 percent said they disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of healthcare, while 32 percent said they approve of it.

Forty-nine percent of respondents said the AHCA will hurt the nation, while 29 percent said it will help it and 13 percent said it will have no impact. Republican voters – 48 percent of whom supported the AHCA in the poll – were the only group with a positive view of the bill. Every other gender, party, age, educational and racial group opposed the legislation.

That’s why this is happening:

Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), who helped revive efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, on Wednesday became the latest Republican lawmaker to face angry voters at a town hall, just days after he voted for a House bill that would make sweeping changes to the nation’s health care system.

Appearing at a crime victims center in a Democratic pocket of his New Jersey district, MacArthur fielded questions for nearly five hours from a loud and feisty crowd about his role in crafting the GOP health care bill and its effect on the insurance marketplace. A few constituents also demanded that he call for a special prosecutor to investigate whether President Donald Trump’s aides colluded with Russia during the presidential campaign.

Throughout, MacArthur defended the so-called American Health Care Act over boos and jeers from constituents, many of whom charged that the congressman would have blood on his hands if the bill becomes law. Several times during the event, MacArthur struggled to retain control of the room, getting shouted down even as he told the story of the 1996 death of his 11-year-old daughter, who was born with special needs.

“I’m asking you guys to have some respect,” he pleaded exasperatedly at one point.

“Can I be disrespectful on behalf of all the people you’re gonna kill?” responded one constituent who was angry over the health care vote.

Last month, MacArthur authored an amendment that helped bring a substantial number of House conservatives on board to the GOP health care bill, leading to its eventual passage last week. The provisions of the so-called MacArthur amendment would allow states to waive essential benefits such as maternity care and emergency room visits. It would also allow states to opt out of Obamacare’s community rating rules, which require that insurers charge the same price to consumers in a certain area regardless of gender or pre-existing condition.

“It was dead in the water until you revived it,” said Derek Reichenbecher, 38, who has a heart condition. “This is my life. Without health care coverage, I’m dead. I’m dead.”

The bill passed the House, 217 to 213, with all Democrats and 20 Republicans voting against it, and is now in the Senate’s hands.

In another exchange, MacArthur cast his role in helping craft the bill as not allowing perfect be the enemy of the good ― arguing that members of Congress don’t always “vote on the bill they wish was in front of them.” But the line failed to quell his constituents, who booed and shouted him down once more.

“You submitted it! You were an architect!” one person yelled, referring to his amendment.
[…]

Outside the building, dozens of people gathered to protest MacArthur and the health care bill. They carried signs that read, “Killer Tom,” “Health care, not wealth care,” and “Stop Twitler now” ― a reference to the president and his active Twitter account. A group of demonstrators also held a “die-in” to protest the health care bill. They laid down on the ground and held up mock tombstones while someone dressed as the grim reaper stood over them.

These guys are in a world of hurt. But you know, you lie down with Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell — what do you expect?

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Vengeance and self-interest

by digby

What in the hell is a man like this doing in the White House? What in the world made people think he was qualified for the most important job in the world?

Trump as president has been the man and manager he’s always been. He’s practically never worked for anybody but himself, he’s always cultivated a workspace marked by competition and chaos, and the only difference between how he operated on the 26th floor of Trump Tower and how he’s steering the West Wing of the White House are the stakes.

A strategically incoherent, predictably unpredictable, private-sector lord who ran his family business by doing what he wanted when he wanted and with limited consideration for consequences stretching beyond his own immediate interests and gratification, Trump has spent the first not quite four months of his presidency running headlong into the constitutional checks and balances of American democracy. The system of safeguards against dictatorial intemperance has flummoxed him. Where there has been objective failure, Trump as usual has proclaimed historic success.

In instances, though, in which executive power is sufficient for actual action, he has been nobody but his imperious, impetuous, spiteful self. And here, according to the reporting of POLITICO and other news organizations, Trump made a fraught, monumental, republic-rattling decision the way he’s always made decisions—quickly—and for the same central reasons—vengeance and self-interest. Comey wasn’t the first person he fired—he canned National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and interim Attorney General Sally Yates—but this sacking in many ways was Trump’s quintessential act as the country’s chief executive.

Enraged by the FBI’s ongoing investigation into his and his campaign’s Russian ties, Trump had pliant Justice Department deputies outline Hillary Clinton-related reasons to fire Comey—reasons that seemed contrived given Trump’s praise for Comey on the campaign trail, the kiss he blew in Comey’s direction this past January and his statement of support just last month. On Tuesday, however, Trump wrote a short letter of his own in which the second paragraph in particular pulsed with telltale Trump, down to the self-serving and factually unsupported statement replete with clumsily inserted commas. “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation …”

And then he didn’t do the actual firing himself, which has been a feature of his management style through the years. He didn’t call Comey. He had Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard who now has the title of Director of Oval Office Operations, take his letter to Comey’s office. Famous for saying “You’re fired” on TV, Trump never has relished firing people in real life.

He’s a bully and a coward.

“Listen,” said Jack O’Donnell, a former high-ranking Trump casino executive in Atlantic City, “he’s always been very protective of himself, first and foremost. In that regard, this, I believe, is consistent—because he’s certainly trying to protect himself.”

“This is who he is,” said Artie Nusbaum, one of the top bosses at the construction firm that built Trump Tower. “No morals, no nothing. He does what he does.”

People who work or have worked with Trump have been saying this forever.

“He says, ‘Go do it’—that’s the end of it,” Trump Organization executive vice president George Ross told me last year.

“He gets an idea in his head and just says, ‘Do it,’” Res told me earlier this year. “There’s no direction. The idea isn’t built up or fleshed out. He just says, ‘Let’s do this.’”

Trump fired Comey without consulting many people, heeding only the advice he wanted to hear and evidently without much of a plan to handle the five-alarm fallout some White House officials say (preposterously) they did not expect.

“His whole pattern of conduct is exactly what he did here—ready, fire aim,” said Alan Marcus, a former Trump publicist. “He just doesn’t stop and think. It’s not ready, aim, fire. It’s ready, fire, aim.”

That’s the President of the United States they’re all describing.

Trump’s worldview, based on hundreds of interviews in the last year and a half, as well as an extensive, ongoing study of what he’s said and done for decades, is that everybody is out to get everybody. Life is a zero-sum struggle, and you’re on your own. For him to win, others must lose. “Man is the most vicious of all animals,” Trump told People in 1981.
“The world is a horrible place,” he wrote in Think Big in 2007. “Lions kill for food, but people kill for sport. People try to kill you mentally, especially if you are on top. We all have friends who want everything we have. They want our money, our business, house, car, wife, and dog. Those are our friends. Our enemies are even worse! You have got to protect yourself in life.” 

“To think there’s any logic beyond self-preservation is wrong,” one Trump source told me.

“He doesn’t give a crap who he fires,” Nusbaum said, “if he can stop the investigation or slow it down.”

Even so, Trump doesn’t like firing people, and never has, and has said so many times, mainly because in his mind dismissing somebody he has hired is an admission he made a mistake. This is why he so conspicuously dragged his feet before the firings of people like Corey Lewandowski and Flynn. But Trump didn’t hire Comey. Barack Obama did. So Trump fired the director of the agency investigating him, letting Comey find out from a TV in Los Angeles, where he was giving a speech, while Trump’s bodyguard back in Washington delivered the letter from his boss… 

On Wednesday morning, on Twitter, Trump engaged in characteristic name-calling and chest-beating. 

“This guy,” Res said. “There’s no end to it. It’s going to be like this for a long time.”

Are we going to survive this?

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No wonder he’s so concerned about wire-tapping

by digby

So the leader of the world’s only superpower tweeted this this morning:

James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Comey is reportedly hoping there are tapes. I don’t know if any of it’s true.

I do know that there have long been rumors that he bugged his campaign headquarters and has listened in on guest’s conversations at Mar-a-lago.

And there’s this:

The suburban house on Water Mark Place in Sterling, Virginia, doesn’t look like a Donald Trump residence: no classical columns, no gold accents. But sources say it has one feature, common to many Trump properties, which opens a window onto the candidate’s worldview: an extensive and closely-monitored surveillance system.

The interior is monitored by multiple surveillance cameras, according to three former Trump employees familiar with the house. The video is watched remotely by Trump’s security team 250 miles away in New York City, the sources said.

Trump’s adjacent golf club, the Trump National Golf Club, also has an extensive web of surveillance cameras, these former employees said. The technology includes a license plate reader to record who comes and goes from the club, two of the sources said.

The extent of the video surveillance is far beyond what is routine for a golf club, said the three former employees, all of whom are familiar with the industry. Two of them said that the cameras were monitored intently, almost invasively. Workers, they said, would occasionally get called by security in New York if they were in an unexpected place.

The elaborate surveillance arrangement is consistent with a pattern: BuzzFeed News previously reported that in his bedroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump had a switchboard that allowed him to eavesdrop on any landline there, according to people who worked at the estate. Unlike at Mar-a-Lago, there is no allegation of phone eavesdropping capabilities at Trump’s golf operations near the nation’s capital.

Overseeing Trump’s surveillance operations is Matthew Calamari, a powerful behind-the scenes figure who has been in Trump’s world for 35 years. Calamari reportedly came to Trump’s attention when he tackled hecklers at a tennis match. According to one Trump biography, the large and imposing Calamari, a former college linebacker, said he would be willing to kill for his boss.
[…]
Asked about surveillance at Trump’s Virginia home and adjacent golf club, a Trump Organization spokesperson said in an emailed statement, “We do not comment on the specific security procedures that are put in place at our properties. That said, there are numerous inaccuracies outlined in your ‘findings’ and your allegations of surveillance are simply untrue.”

The spokesperson declined a request to specify what was inaccurate or untrue, and to answer questions about other aspects of this story, such as Calamari’s role. A spokeswoman for the campaign declined to comment on any aspect of this story, saying the response from the Trump Organization was “perfectly adequate.”

When BuzzFeed News previously revealed that Trump had a switchboard in his Mar-a-Lago bedroom and that sources said he used it to listen in on conversations, a Trump spokeswoman denied it.

This story is based mainly on five sources: four former employees of the golf resort, and one person close to the campaign. All but one said they plan to vote for Trump. The former employees spoke on condition of anonymity because, like virtually all Trump employees, they had signed sweeping nondisclosure agreements. The person close to the campaign said he isn’t authorized to speak to the press.

On some occasions, Trump’s home in Virginia has also been used by special guests, two sources said. There were “politicians that would stay there,” said one former club worker, who claimed to have seen them. This person recalled Trump saying, “Anything they need, make sure they have.” Sometimes, this person said, the guests “would come there for a safe haven.”

“People stay there,” said the source familiar with the Trump campaign. Politicians, he said, believed it was “a safe place to go.” This source emphasized that no one except Trump ever stayed in Trump’s actual bedrooms.

A third source, who used to work at the golf club, said he was unaware of politicians staying there but said other members of Trump’s family and some officials of the Trump Organization did. Two other sources said they were unaware of anyone except Trump staying in his private residence in recent years.

Trump’s house has a two-car garage, a bit of lawn, and a myrtle tree planted amid some hedges. From the exterior, the place looks like the home of a retired orthodontist rather than that of a billionaire real estate tycoon and presidential candidate.

Still, records confirm that Donald Trump purchased it in 2009, through a company called Trump Marks Asia, LLC. Trump uses this little-known and subdued private residence very rarely, sources say, just a few times a year when he visits his golf course. There’s one entrance from the public street, and a separate entrance from the fairway attached to the Trump National Golf Club.

In addition to his home, Trump’s club has another private residence, a row house, available for club guests or members to rent. Like Trump’s personal home, it is accessible from two entrances, either the golf club greens or the street. This home is sometimes rented to members or guests who need overnight stays.

Trump’s home, according to three former employees, is equipped with multiple cameras throughout. One of the sources said that the cameras covered the entire home, including hallways, with the exception of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Another source confirmed this. “At his home, there were exterior and interior views,” the former club official said. Another former employee who said he has been to the house repeatedly said that “from what I understand there were cameras everywhere.”

Three sources said the cameras in Trump’s home are constantly monitored by Trump Organization security officials back in New York City, rather than by security at the next-door club. The sources said the Trump video cameras operate on a web-based system, and each camera feed is assigned a different IP address.

To watch the video feed, said one former club employee, “All you need was an IP address.”

Three former employees said that they believe the extensive surveillance system inside Trump’s home was installed out of concerns for Trump’s safety.

As for surveillance at the golf club near Washington, it is also extensive. Trump first bought the Virginia golf club in 2009, when it was called Lowes Island Golf Club, and quickly made dramatic changes to the grounds and the surroundings. As he redid the grounds, for example, his workers cut down hundreds of treesthat had interfered with the view of the river. “[N]ow we have unobstructed views of the Potomac River,” he later told the Washington Post.

Another change was an extensive upgrading of surveillance equipment and an increase in cameras on the property. “When he first took over, there weren’t many,” said one longtime former worker. “Now there are.” This person said the rationale for the cameras at the club was theft. “The club was losing money. There was theft. Liquor. Things were stolen from the service carts.” This person said, “There are cameras everywhere, now.”

In fact, this former Trump employee said, the club installed license tag readers so Trump security personnel would know which cars were coming and going.

He said the surveillance features are far more elaborate than other golf clubs he’s familiar with. “Trump security can look up any camera,” the former employee said. “They have a strong monitoring system.” If workers are in a spot where they are not supposed to be, this person said, the office in New York would call: “They will call and say, ‘What are you doing there?’”

Another former club official said that did indeed occur.

Security and surveillance at the Trump Organization is a family affair. For years, Trump’s head of security has been Matthew Calamari. Some described the beefy Calamari as daunting and even intimidating, while others said he is an efficient and quiet professional. Soon after he took down two men disrupting a tennis game at the US Open, he began working as the mogul’s bodyguard.

In Lost Tycoon, the 1993 biography of Trump, author Harry Hurt III describes a scene where Trump calls to Calamari from the back of his limousine, playfully testing his loyalty.

“You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you, Matty?” Donald called out from the rear of the limousine.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Trump,” Calamari assured him.

“Anything at all?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Trump.”

“Would you kill for me, Matty?” Donald pressed.

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you kill for me, Matty?” Donald repeated, as if he were a cheerleader inciting a crowd to riot.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Trump!”

“Would you kill for me, Matty?” Donald said again in an even louder voice.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Trump!”

“See.” Donald grinned, turning back toward Fitzsimmons. “Matty would kill for me.”

Calamari is now listed as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Trump Organization, though numerous sources said his duties chiefly involve security. Though he works for the Trump business, he was briefly paid by the Trump presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission reports, which say he received $4,322.15 in July, as well as expense reimbursements in March.

Calamari’s son, Matt Calamari Jr., also works for the Trump Organization. “He picked up the security business from his dad,” explained one former security official at the Trump Organization, who said the younger Calamari is remarkably good at the technical end of security, in spite of his young age.

Public records indicate that he is 23 years old. Calamari Jr. lists his title on LinkedIn as the Trump Organization’s “Director of Surveillance.”

Indeed, four sources said the younger Calamari seems to be the expert in surveillance technology and supervises these operations for Trump at all his properties. “His son handles surveillance,” said a former Trump official at the golf club.

Neither of the Calamaris responded to requests for comment.

One major surveillance equipment contractor for the Trump Organization is AISG — American Integrated Security Group — which has touted its work on a separate Trump golf course, the Trump National Doral course in Florida. In a four-page case study it posted online, AISG writes that it dealt with both Matt Calamari Sr. and Jr.

The company also describes 360-degree “low profile cameras that look like smoke detectors” and an internet server system for storing and monitoring video. It says the “first phase” of its contract involved installing over 100 cameras, and it continued later with even more video surveillance.

The case study quotes Trump officials praising the cameras for allowing high-quality zooms on people’s faces, and for license plate recognition.

Officials at the security company said the Calamaris wanted to make sure that they had the very best and that they could thoroughly monitor employees at the golf course.

It is unclear which contractor installed the cameras at Trump’s Virginia home and the golf club it is attached to.

While Trump’s visits to his home occur just a few times a year, the staff of the golf club are expected to always keep the fridge stocked, everything immaculate, and the temperature in the house just right.

These details are no laughing matter. When Trump showed up one June, according to three sources, the air conditioning unit was off and the heat was on, making the home uncomfortably warm. Trump fired the club’s general manager.

Bully’s logic

by digby

This piece by Amy Davidson in the New Yorker about the role Jeff Sessions is playing is a must-read. I continue to believe that he is one of the most dangerous people we’ve ever entrusted with police power in this country and I’m terrified of what he’s going to be able to do to a whole lot of people. He has zero respect for the rule of law.

I also thought this observation about the Comey firing was especially sharp:

It may seem to some Clinton supporters as though the President has reason to be grateful to Comey for having announced, a week and a half before the election, that the e-mail investigation was being revived. In the alternative world of Fox News and Trump tweets, however, the narrative has remained that Clinton should have been prosecuted. For those who believe that Hillary got off easy, the big news coming out of Comey’s congressional appearance last week was his comment about Huma Abedin forwarding some of Clinton’s e-mails to Anthony Weiner. (As it turns out, Comey vastly overstated the number of such e-mails, and the F.B.I. corrected his testimony.)

But Administration officials apparently thought that, since everyone seemed to have a reason to be angry with Comey, they could do what they wanted with him—even though he was the F.B.I. director and was investigating people connected to the White House, and even though there is such a thing as obstruction of justice. By all accounts, the White House was generally surprised by the outraged reaction—which came not only from Democrats.

Those expectations were based on a bully’s logic: if you beat up on the unpopular kid, no one will call you on it, no matter the right or wrong of the matter. And this is a bully’s Administration. With Trump, and with the Cabinet members like Sessions who help him along, one can focus on the absurd and miss the vicious.

I think that’s right. They are vicious and sometimes it’s easy to forget that with all the stupidity.

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