Month: June 2017

Friday Night Soother: “thank you for your service”

by digby

A good will ambassador of the very best kind:

The Seattle Police Department’s longest-serving horse, Harvest, is retiring. He took one ride through downtown Seattle, stopping at some of his favorite places along the way.

h/t to Dennis Hartley who adds: “A service animal for the whole community…I love it! More of this kind of policing, please…”

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This isn’t going to end well

by digby

Josh Marshall games out what will happen if Trump fired Mueller and Rosenstein as seems to be very possible at this moment:

… It is the most overused phrase in the world. But at that moment I believe the US will move into a genuine constitutional crisis.

Let me walk you through it to try to bear out those ominous words.

If and when Trump fires Mueller he will have shown through his actions that he will not allow any investigation of Russia and his campaign to go forward. Bob Mueller is one of the most respected law enforcement officials in the country. His integrity and independence are considered beyond reproach. If one insists on looking under the veil at his own political leanings, he is a Republican – both a registered Republican and the appointee, as FBI Director, of a Republican (George W. Bush). If Mueller is not acceptable to Trump as an investigator, clearly no legitimate investigator is or ever will be.

So, again, if Trump fires Mueller he will have made clear that no investigation of the bundle of Russia-related issues is acceptable. Anyone who took it on after Mueller would know that as soon as the probe heated up or press reports confirmed the seriousness of the investigation that person would also be fired. Would another legitimate person even accept an appointment after that? It’s hard to see. It may be best to say that accepting an appointment under those conditions would be prima facie evidence of unfitness for the job.

I cannot think of a set of facts in which a President makes more clear that they will use the statutory powers of the presidency to render themselves above the rule of law. That sounds like a hyperbolic statement, I know. But look at the facts we’ve just walked through.

At that point, the logical move within our constitutional system is for the Congress to move toward impeaching the President and removing him from office. Whether anything like that is in the offing seems quite doubtful. At least at first.

I actually think it’s possible that such a move would push Trump into severe jeopardy in the Senate. But impeachments don’t happen in the Senate. The trial happens there. Impeachment happens in the House. And there I think the prospects are far more dubious.

At that point we will move in uncharted waters.

My biggest concern – based in part on just observing Trump but specifically how Comey’s firing went down – is that Trump will just do this in the middle of the night (at least figuratively but perhaps literally). With no warning. Perhaps no warning even to himself. I fear that it will all go down quickly and impulsively so no other Republicans outside the White House, Hill leaders etc., have a chance to walk him through the consequences of his actions. He does it and it’s a fait accompli. Now, maybe I’m too sanguine about GOP leaders’ willingness to draw that line. But I’d like them to at least get the chance. And I tend to doubt they’d get it.

I do too. I don’t think the Republicans in the House have absorbed the full ramifications of what’s happening. They aren’t ready now and they may never be.

The instability of our government is becoming acute and not just because of Trump. It’s also because the GOP is at peak crazy and have no leadership that has ever cared about anything beyond their parochial partisan interests. These are not statesmen, they are operatives, a very different breed. And they have the majority and the power.

Maybe I’m underestimating them. I hope so. But the current Republican Party is a sick organization that lost its honor a long time ago. They brought us this clown show. They will only take action when their voters force them to. And their voters are sticking so far.

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QOTD: DiFi

by digby

“The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn’t apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired. That’s undemocratic on its face and a blatant violation of the president’s oath of office.”

That’s exactly what he’s saying. What now?

The King’s loyal manservant

by digby

You’ve heard by now that Pence had to lawyer up. And I immediately guessed that Trumpie wasn’t happy at the news which he would naturally see as Pence being self-serving. Hence this tweet.

This piece in the Washington Post should soothe King Joffrey:

But one senior White House official cautioned against the “toxic brew of a vice president who’s happy to be the No. 2.”

“One of his greatest strengths is that he never says no — but it’s important that he not be a ‘yes’ man,” this official added, speaking anonymously to offer a more candid assessment.

Pence suffered two high-profile embarrassments that have served to define his role in the administration’s early months: First, when he was misled about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with the Russians, and again last month when Trump publicly contradicted him about the reasons for firing Comey.

One Pence loyalist described himself as at his “wits’ end,” adding, “There are some organizational gaps.”

One senior White House adviser said Pence was exasperated with the West Wing communications shop, which sent him out with a half-baked talking point to explain Comey’s ouster. But Pence’s office argues that Trump never undermined Pence with his public comments suggesting he fired Comey over the Russia probe; the president, the Pence team said, was simply adding more context to his decision and that it is not the vice president’s place to explain Trump’s decision-making process.

“The vice president stands by his comments and enjoys a great working relationship with all departments within the White House,” said Jarrod Agen, a Pence spokesman.

Although Trump and Pence enjoy a warm personal relationship, Pence allies say he faces two stark challenges. First, in a West Wing filled with competing factions vying for supremacy, the best interests of the vice president sometimes get lost. Perhaps more importantly, they say, Pence is simply too loyal and willing to parrot the White House message, even at his own potential peril.

One former Pence adviser described the vice president’s role within the White House as more of a “super senior staffer” than an empowered executive. Pence, who has an office in both the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, is often seen floating in the hallways that connect to the Oval Office, not unlike other staffers. Another former aide mentioned Pence’s almost “military-style orientation toward authority.”

Faced with the revelation that Flynn had misled him over contacts with Russians, for instance, Pence had to be urged by staff to forcefully voice his frustrations with Flynn to the president, according to two people with knowledge of the incident.

And while aides said Pence does give Trump his honest and unvarnished counsel in one-on-one meetings, some Pence allies privately wish he would be bolder in asserting his opinions in the group debates the president enjoys.

The flip-side, of course, is that by publicly keeping his opinions close, the vice president — who, for instance, urged the president to withdraw from the Paris climate accord but did not crow about his victory — has not only engendered good will with Trump, but also managed to often steer clear of the sniping and power struggles that plague the administration.

“Pence has found a way to execute the balance between having enormous influence and being an honest broker, which is a hard thing to pull off,” said Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

[Shadow president or mere shadow? Pence seeks to reassure allies unnerved by Trump]

The vice president — who routinely tamps down talk of a future “President Pence” — raised suspicions among Trump loyalists when he launched his leadership PAC, “Great America Committee” in mid-May, just a week after Trump fired Comey and during a moment of particular political danger for the president. Though the group had been long-planned and approved at the highest levels of the White House — the outside group can, for instance, help pay for travel expenses related to campaigning — the timing was inauspicious.

Some in the West Wing wondered if the vice president was trying to position himself at the expense of Trump, and Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, took to Twitter. “No Vice President in modern history had their own PAC less than 6 months into the President’s first term,” Stone wrote. “Hmmmm.”

Pence’s leadership PAC team had originally planned a bigger rollout, which they quickly scrapped, and both Ayers and Obst stressed to Trump aides that the group had been in the works for several months and was intended solely to help the vice president push the administration’s agenda across the country.

[…]Trump initially chose Pence, in part, because he looked like a vice president out of central casting — a sort of generically handsome politician, with a close-cropped helmet of white hair and a compact physique that seemed to recall an iconic, Republican male from a bygone era.

But under Trump, Pence, who heaps plaudits on Trump and frequently refers to his “broad-shouldered leadership,” has in some ways become a parody of a deferential vice president — a servant in waiting, eager to serve his master’s whims.

One Republican operative remembers a meeting with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room, to which Pence arrived late. Though there was an open seat at the table reserved for Pence near Trump, the operative recalled, the vice president stood on the outskirts of the room like a staffer before waiting for a break in the conversation to take his seat.

Others say differences in background and temperament have also prevented Pence from ever becoming a true Trump confidant. The president, after all, habitually evaluates others based on their personal wealth, and Pence — who joked on the campaign trail that he and Trump were separated by “a whole bunch of zeros” — can never compete with Trump’s mogul friends.

People familiar with the interactions between the two men say the president often finds ways to remind Pence who is the ultimate boss. He jokingly yet repeatedly ribs Pence for, as Indiana governor, endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) over him in the state’s primary and often teases Pence about his far smaller crowd sizes — a quip Pence himself has deployed.

One person recalled that sometimes, when Pence speaks in a meeting, the president offers him a verbal pat on the head. “Wasn’t he a great pick?” Trump will say, with the tone of a dad whose kid finally said something useful.

Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential expert and law professor at St. Louis University, noted that Pence seems to enjoy significant face time with Trump and serves as a liaison to Capitol Hill, but added that he can come off as “sort of a sycophant-in-chief.”

“He runs a real risk in that so often his celebration of Trump is focused on how great Trump is, and not on the substance of the specific policies he’s trying to sell, and so I think that can end up making him look like he’s just sort of weak and not presidential and not dignified,” Goldstein said.
[…]
During a frenzied day when it looked like Trump might withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, Pence served as a conduit to the business community, many whose members called to voice their alarm. “I hear you,” he told the worried executives. “I’ll be right back to you.”

And once Trump had decided to remain in the trade agreement, Pence again reported back, telling them matter-of-factly, “It’s been taken care of.” Pence, one Republican operative noted, never tried to claim any credit for the president’s reversal.

He wouldn’t want to make the King angry, would he?

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Nugent comes to Jesus

by digby

It’s tempting to give him shit, but if he’s serious about not inciting violence anymore then good for him. But until he resigns his seat on the board of the NRA it’s going to be a little bit hard to take him seriously:

“I have reevaluated my approach,” he told Curtis Sliwa and Eboni Williams on ABC radio in New York. He said he was a “street fighter” who used “certain harsh terms.”

He did not mention the terms, but he has called President Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a “worthless bitch,” among other things.

But he said he plans to watch himself now.

“At the tender age of 69, my wife has convinced me that I just can’t use those harsh terms. I cannot, and I will not,” he said, adding:

“And I encourage even my friends/enemies on the left in the Democrat and liberal world that we have got to be civil to each other, that the whole world is watching America, where you have the God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and we have got to be more respectful to the other side.” 

His comments came one day after an attacker opened fire on Republicans practicing for a baseball game. Six people were injured ― including two members of Congress ― and the gunman was killed in the attack in Alexandria, Virginia.

Nugent said that people really are angry and that it’s “crazy” that “people on the left don’t want secure borders.”

But he said he wanted civil discourse over this and other issues.

“I’m going to take a deep breath, and I’m going to back it down, and if it gets fiery, if it gets hateful, I’m going away,” he said. “I’m not going to engage in that kind of hateful rhetoric anymore.”

Nugent said he wouldn’t make excuses for his “wild-ass comments” made while on stage but blamed it on the “adrenaline and intensity” when performing.

He said he would be “feisty” and “passionate,” but added, “I will avoid anything that can be interpreted as condoning or referencing violence.”

Nugent also claimed he’s never referenced violence, but Williams wouldn’t let that one slide.

“Well, come on, Ted,” she chided. “I think some people might have taken it that way for sure. Yeah.”  

During a 2007 performance, Nugent held up what appeared to be two machine guns and said that Obama could “suck on my machine gun” and that Clinton could “ride one of these into the sunset.”

He also drew the attention of the Secret Service in 2012 when he said he would be “dead or in jail by this time next year” if Obama got reelected.

However, Nugent is now promising to turn down the volume on his rhetoric and called on others to do the same.

“Here’s the battle cry for America: zero violence.”

I can sign on to that. But really, Ted, you need to be talking to your own people not the liberals. There’s plenty of violence on all sides but the right is the only political faction that makes a profit at it.

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What a long strange trip it’s been

by digby

When Trump announced two years ago, I wrote the following. But even with all that I never dreamed it would come to this:

The GOP race for the presidency has been upgraded from a clown car to a three-ring circus with the official entry of Donald Trump into the race. After daughter Ivanka delivered a stirring introduction worthy of Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill, the audience waited expectantly for the great man to appear. And it waited. And waited. Finally after several long moments, the great man finally emerged above the crowd on the mezzanine level of the glittering Trump Tower building waving as if he were Juan Peron (or the Queen of England). As Neil Young’s “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” continued to play over and over again, he then descended to the stage on an excruciatingly slow-motion escalator and began his speech by insulting his fellow Republican candidates for failing to know how to put on a competent political event.

It was a perfect beginning to what is going to be an astonishing political spectacle.

Right out of the gate he began to free-associate like a drunken Tea Partyer on 2 Shots For A Buck night, insulting Mexican immigrants by calling them rapists and drug dealers, asking when we’ve ever beaten China or Japan (!) at anything, declaring himself to be potentially the greatest jobs president God has ever created and more. Oh, and he also told us that he’s worth $8,737,540,000 — more or less. It was the best presidential campaign announcement ever, even better than Lindsey Graham’s.

The media seemed a little bit shell-shocked in the early going — perhaps they’ve never actually heard what the average right-winger believes. They seemed to find it noteworthy that he was incoherent and contradictory, with promises of totally free trade even as he said he would make Mexico pay a tariff to construct the Great Wall he envisions building on the border.

And they didn’t seem to know what to think about his endless gobbledygook about “making” the world do what he wants it to do. They are clearly unaware that members of the far right don’t follow the philosophy of Edmund Burke. They follow the philosophy of Glenn Beck, Joe McCarthy and P.T. Barnum. Not even Roger Ailes can control the way their minds work.

Donald Trump may not make sense to the average journalist — but to the average Tea Partyer, he’s telling it like it is, with a sort of free-floating grievance about everyone who doesn’t agree with them mixed with simplistic patriotic boosterism and faith in the fact that low taxes makes everybody rich. It’s not about policy or even politics. It’s about following your instincts. (“In your heart you know he’s right.”)

But it wasn’t long before Twitter lit up with insider jokes and insults among the Village press. Salon chronicled some of them here. The only one to take Trump seriously was Bloomberg News’ Mark Halperin, whose first impression was quite a bit less derisive than anyone else’s, giving him a solid B- on his tiresome political report card:

Substance: Made a concerted and admirable effort to laundry-list his presidential plans before the speech was finished, calling for the replacement of Obamacare, cautioning foreign adversaries about messing with the U.S., expressing opposition to the current trade bill, promising to build a southern border wall and sticking Mexico with the bill, terminating Obama’s executive order on immigration, supporting the Second Amendment, ending Common Core, rebuilding infrastructure, resisting cuts in entitlement programs. Still, left open too many questions about the hows and wherefores, given that he has never run for nor held office. 

Best moment: Protracted run-up to formal declaration of candidacy was spirited and engaging. 

Worst moment: Lost his rhythm a bit whenever cheerful supporters in the crowd tossed out helpful prompts or encouraging chants. 

Overall: A madcap production–garrulous, grandiose, and intense—that displayed his abundant strengths and acute weaknesses. For the first time in decades, Trump is a true underdog, but his ability to shape the contours of the nomination fight should not be ignored. On the debate stage, through TV advertising (positive and negative), in earned media, and by drawing crowds, Trump has the potential to be a big 2016 player. He staged an announcement event like no other, and now he will deliver a candidacy the likes of which the country has never seen.

What is it they say about a stopped clock? Well, even Mark Halperin is right twice a day. The Villagers in general may not be able to see it — but for reasons about which we can’t even speculate, Mark Halperin is on to something when it comes to Donald Trump.

First, let’s dispense with the fact that his ideas are more bizarre than anyone else in the field. They are not. Say what you will about the Donald, but nobody can bring the wingnut cha-cha-cha like Tea Party fave Dr. Ben Carson:

“I mean, [our society is] very much like Nazi Germany. And I know you’re not supposed to say ‘Nazi Germany,’ but I don’t care about political correctness. You know, you had a government using its tools to intimidate the population. We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe.”

This week’s latest poll actually shows him in first place.

Lindsey Graham often appears on television and breathlessly proclaims that we must stop ISIS “before we all get killed here at home!” Presumed top-tier Scott Walker makes so many gaffes you can’t count them anymore, including some doozies like musing publicly with Glenn Beck about shutting down legal immigration.

Compared to that, building a wall on the border is standard boilerplate on the right and it certainly isn’t hard to find candidates who are willing to demagogue China or Japan and claim that liberals have destroyed the American way of life. Trump’s style is colorful, to be sure. His ideas are disjoined and irrational. But they are hardly unique. In fact, he represents a very common strain in American political life: the right-wing blowhard.

Trump actually has something that none of these other candidates have and they’re pretty important. First, of course, is the money. Trump says he’s worth 9 billion. Let’s assume he’s exaggerating by 50 percent. That’s still a whole lot of money, more than enough to finance a presidential campaign for as long as he wants to do it. The Beltway wags seem to believe that he’s only announcing so that he can get himself into the debates but it seems more likely that he’s finally so wealthy that the cost of a campaign is so negligible he figures he’s got nothing to lose. After all, if he were to spend even a hundred million on the primary it wouldn’t make a serious dent in his bottom line. What else has he got to do?

But there is something else he has that may be even more valuable than money: stardom. I don’t think it’s possible to place a political value on the fact that Trump has had a prime-time network TV show for over 10 years with “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice.”

“The Apprentice” averaged 6 to 7 million viewers a show with finales sometimes getting between 10 and 20 million viewers. Last year’s “Celebrity Apprentice” averaged 7.6 million a show. Fox News’ highest rated shows rarely get more than a couple of million viewers and they are all elderly hardcore Republicans. The Donald has a wider reach and might even appeal to the most sought-after people in the land: non-voters.

It’s impossible to know if that’s a serious possibility. But it’s fair to say that many more people in the country know the name of Donald Trump than know anyone else in the race (with the possible exception of Jeb Bush). It’s hard to quantify that kind of name recognition but it’s certainly not worthless in our celebrity-obsessed culture. And remember, Trump would not be the first show business celebrity who everyone assumed was too way out there to ever make a successful run for president. The other guy’s name was Ronald Reagan.

Obviously, Trump is no Reagan. But he does bear a passing resemblance to another wealthy presidential gadfly who wasn’t taken seriously by the political cognoscenti: Ross Perot. 1992 featured a Republican incumbent who was widely considered a shoo-in for reelection and a Democratic Party offering up a long list of people who were trying out for what was assumed to be the next opening in 1996. When Perot appeared on the scene with his quirky style and his facile prescriptions for the nation’s intractable problems (“I’ll get under the hood and fix it”) nobody thought he was more than a flash in the pan. But he ended up getting 20 percent of the vote in the general election — and that was after a couple of epic implosions that had undoubtedly eroded much greater support.

So far, Trump is running as a Republican and there’s no reason to think he would go third party as Perot did. But if he had the slightest encouragement, can anyone think he wouldn’t? After what he said about his fellow Republicans today, it certainly doesn’t appear that he cares what they think.

Sure, Trump is a clown. But he’s a very rich and a very famous clown. And he’s really not much more clownish than many of the current contenders or some serious contenders in the past. It’s interesting that the one time Mark Halperin deviates from the conventional wisdom he may actually have seen something more interesting than the rest of his cohort: the fact that Donald Trump has the potential to be a serious 2016 player. And that says everything you need to know about the Republican presidential field and the state of our politics today.

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Why the Ken Starr playbook won’t work with Mueller 

by digby

I wrote about the Trump surrogates’ strategy to beat back this scandal for Salon this morning:

President Donald Trump was so angry that FBI Director James Comey refused to drop the investigation of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and publicly declare that the president himself wasn’t under investigation that he put himself in the crosshairs of a criminal case. On Wednesday night The Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating the president for possible obstruction of justice. Trump can complain forever about this being a witch hunt, but he brought this new problem entirely on himself. According to Politico, he’s obsessed:

Trump, for months, has bristled almost daily at the ongoing probes. He has sometimes, without prompting, injected, “I’m not under investigation” into conversations with associates and allies. He has watched hours of TV coverage every day — sometimes even storing morning news shows on his TiVo to watch in the evening — and complained nonstop.

This is not a mentally healthy person. And just as he decided that Comey was a bad man, he has now decided that Mueller is one as well. This came on Thursday morning:

You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017

Immediately after the news broke that Mueller was planning to interview intelligence officials to determine if Trump had asked them to intervene, thus confirming an obstruction investigation, the White House disseminated a hastily written, embarrassing list of talking points that was promptly leaked to the press. Trump in his own inimitable way echoed it with his plaintive early morning whine.

As Salon’s Matthew Rozsa has pointed out, Trump’s most ardent supporters followed the talking points as well, starting with Sean Hannity on his Fox News show Wednesday night, who called for both Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (who appointed Mueller) to resign immediately. Andrew McCarthy of National Review said the special counsel was unnecessary, as did bomb-throwing author Ann Coulter.

None of the defenders have been more obnoxiously combative than former House Speaker and Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich. He has been vociferous in his condemnation of Mueller in recent days, despite a glowing endorsement just three weeks ago:

Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) May 18, 2017

By last weekend Gingrich had changed his tune, telling a radio-show host that Congress should abolish Mueller’s office because James Comey “makes so clear that it’s the poison fruit of a deliberate manipulation by the FBI director leaking to The New York Times, deliberately set up this particular situation. It’s very sick.” Talk show host Laura Ingraham agreed.

I sure hope we see the Kasowitz team challenge the constitutionality of the special prosecutor’s office. It’s an abomination.

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) June 15, 201

By Thursday Gingrich had gone full Breitbart and was bleating incoherently about a “deep state” conspiracy:

Muelleris now clearly the ti[p of the deep state spear aimed at destroying or at a minimum undermining and crippling the Trump presidency.

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) June 15, 2017

The brazen redefinition of Mueller’s task tells you how arrogant the deep state is and how confident it is it can get away with anything

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) June 15, 2017

Gingrich is selling a book called “Understanding Trump,” so that explains a lot of this. And he’s always been hyperbolic and overwrought. But he’s also always been a hard-core national security hawk, so his sudden concern for the encroachments of the surveillance state is pretty rich. Donald Trump is the first and only American citizen he’s ever defended against the “deep state.”

While there is a strong push among right-wing activists and Trump’s surrogates to delegitimize Mueller, aside from a few gadflies like Rep. Steve King of Iowa most elected officials are maintaining support for the special counsel for the time being. But conservative activists are following a well-worn playbook. This was the strategy employed by Bill Clinton’s defenders back in the 1990s during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Portraying independent counsel Kenneth Starr as a zealot and a partisan was a highly successful tactic to keep the public on their side.

Clinton, too, got in trouble for a cover-up. In his case he was trying to keep an extramarital affair secret, much as millions of people have done before. He was charged with perjury for lying in a deposition about the affair and also accused of obstruction of justice for asking friends to find Lewinsky a job, which was interpreted as an attempt to keep her quiet.

According to Gallup, Clinton received the highest job approval ratings of his administration during the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment process. As the situation unfolded, Clinton’s job approval ratings went up, not down, and ratings remained high throughout the impeachment proceedings and his Senate trial. Members of the public stuck with him throughout not because they thought he was innocent — virtually nobody did — but because they believed these personal failings were frivolous reasons to impeach a duly elected president. The underlying crime for his alleged perjury and obstruction didn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

It’s too early to tell whether the public will rally to support Donald Trump in similar fashion, but so far it’s not looking good. His approval rating is bouncing between 35 percent and 40 percent at the moment, which is dreadful for a president just 145 days into his first term. According to a new Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 68 percent of the Americans surveyed were at least moderately concerned about the possibility that Trump or his campaign associates had inappropriate ties to Russia and 60 percent of them said they think Trump attempted to obstruct or impede the investigation, as well as 25 percent of the Republicans. Only 22 percent of the Americans surveyed said they approved of Trump’s firing of Comey.

It may turn out that Trump didn’t technically obstruct justice. He may not have been personally involved in the Russian campaign to interfere in the election. Time will tell. But his behavior is nonetheless very troubling on a far more serious level than Bill Clinton’s hedging on the meaning of “is” and trying to get Monica Lewinsky a job. Trump refuses to accept that anything untoward happened during the 2016 presidential campaign at all.

This is why the Clinton-Ken Starr playbook won’t work. This scandal isn’t about a sexual dalliance or even a “third-rate burglary,” as was the case with Watergate. It is about a foreign country interfering in our democratic processes and potentially infiltrating a presidential campaign. It’s a counterintelligence investigation that has now reached all the way into the Oval Office. It doesn’t get any more serious than that.

Despite this, our president is having public tantrums on social media and his surrogates are acting as though it’s all a game. The White House is in chaos and the Republican leadership can barely acknowledge that there’s a problem. Robert Mueller and his team of investigators are the only ones involved in this crisis who seem to be competent professionals. The American people have nowhere else to turn.

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Trump investigation: Noise to signal ratio
by Tom Sullivan

Russian TV tower. Public domain.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian agents is pursuing the grinding work of collecting evidence. The Trump transition team’s general counsel Thursday ordered preservation of all documents and memos related to the investigation, according to a memo The New York Times obtained:

The so-called preservation order covers any transition team information involving Russia or Ukraine. It also seeks any background investigation records involving the former manager of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort, and his business partner, Rick Gates; the former foreign policy adviser Carter Page; and the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Flynn was fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of a call with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

The memorandum also names Roger J. Stone Jr., an informal adviser to Mr. Trump.

With the order, the transition team lawyers are indicating that they have reason to believe that the five men’s actions are part of investigations by the Justice Department or the House or Senate Intelligence Committees, or will be.

“President Trump now finds himself exactly where he doesn’t want to be,” writes Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post. The obstruction component stems from his “campaign to deep-six the investigation … openly, at full volume.” He has no one but himself to blame.

But as it may happen that a victim must be found, Trump has got a little list. Alex Shephard writes at the New Republic, “Trump has been searching for a foil for the last six months and hasn’t yet found one, so he keeps going back to Hillary Clinton. But even Trump has to sense that Clinton-bashing will not save him.” That won’t stop him from trying, but this chaff won’t fly:

Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, 'bleached' emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017

The increasing noise to signal ratio on the Trump/Russia/obstruction/finances investigation (TROF? FORT?) bumped up yet another notch last night when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued a statement cautioning people not to believe everything they hear from anonymous sources. Perhaps someone got a call from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, directly or indirectly.

Strange new statement from Deputy AG Rosenstein on 'anonymous allegations', says "Americans should be skeptical". pic.twitter.com/BxRCCvRWXg— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 16, 2017

Twitter had a field day.

Preet Bharara‏ tweeted back at Rosenstein, “Americans should also exercise caution before accepting as true lies about firing of FBI Director & defamation of a war hero special counsel.”

Have literally never seen a statement like this https://t.co/94zbnIqsVc— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 16, 2017

James Fallows pushed back with an observation on the reliability of news leaks:

Percentage of recent Trump-related, anon-sourced reports in WSJ/NYT/WaPo that have proven wrong: very low

% of Trump’s own claims: v high https://t.co/uyOr7G56ZU— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) June 16, 2017

Trump himself is back on the Twitter this morning. Using his Social Media super powers, Trump boasts, he can reach the silent majority:

The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media – over 100 million people! I can go around them— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2017

Vice President Mike Pence has hired a criminal defense lawyer. Trump needs to hire a psychiatrist.

They care Donnie

by digby

It turns out that Trump’s antics on the investigation aren’t fooling most people:

An Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found about 60 percent of Americans think Trump attempted to obstruct or impede the investigation.

But opinions are largely split among partisan lines, with only about 25 percent of Republicans saying they think Trump tried to meddle in the probe.

The poll also finds that 68 percent of Americans are at least moderately concerned Trump or his campaign associates had inappropriate links to Russia. Just about 30 percent of Americans said they were not concerned.
Only 22 percent of Americans support Trump’s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, compared with the more than half of Americans who disapprove of the president’s decision.

Slightly more than one-quarter of Americans are very or extremely confident the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into the Russian election meddling can be impartial and fair. Another 36 percent of Americans are moderately confident it can be.

The poll was conducted from June 8 to 11 among 1,068 adults. The margin of error is 4.1 percentage points.

The poll follows a report Wednesday that Mueller’s team is now looking into whether Trump sought to obstruct justice.

Maybe it won’t matter. But the idea that people don’t care is way off base.

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The latest on the Trumpdeath bill

by digby

The New York Times reports that Republicans are getting nervous about this too:

“I’ve said from Day 1, and I’ll say it again,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee. “The process is better if you do it in public, and that people get buy-in along the way and understand what’s going on. Obviously, that’s not the route that is being taken.”

The secrecy surrounding the Senate measure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act appears to be remarkable — at least for a health care measure this consequential. In 1993, President Bill Clinton empowered the first lady, Hillary Clinton, to assemble health care legislation in private, with input from a panel of more than 500 experts.

That approach won scathing reviews from lawmakers in both parties. But it took place at the White House, not in Congress. Once the Clintons’ health plan reached Capitol Hill, it died in the public spotlight.

Republican leaders this week defended their actions.

“Look, we’ve been dealing with this issue for seven years,” the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said. “It’s not a new thing.”

Mr. McConnell said there had been “gazillions of hearings on this subject” over the years — a less-than-precise tabulation that offered little comfort to Democrats who want hearings held now, in this particular year, on the contents of this particular bill.

In the summer of 2009, when Democratic members of Congress were defending their effort to remake the nation’s health care system, they were taunted by crowds chanting, “Read the bill, read the bill.”

Now Democrats say they would love to read the Republicans’ repeal bill, but cannot do so because Republicans have not exposed their handiwork to public inspection.

“They’re ashamed of the bill,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said. “If they like the bill, they’d have brass bands marching down the middle of small-town America saying what a great bill it is. But they know it isn’t.”

The Senate’s decisions could have huge implications: Health care represents about one-sixth of the American economy, and about 20 million people have gained insurance under the 2010 health law, President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

In theory, the bill-writing process is open to any of the 52 Republican senators, but few seem to have a clear, coherent picture of what will be in it.

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, offered a hint of the same frustration felt by Democrats seeking more information about the bill.

“I come from a manufacturing background,” Mr. Johnson said. “I’ve solved a lot of problems. It starts with information. Seems like around here, the last step is getting information, which doesn’t seem to be necessarily the most effective process.”

Mitch McConnell is a very accomplished Senate leader and he’s telling them all “don’t worry be happy, I know what I’m doing.” But he’s not infallible. Consider his most famous quote:

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Democrats shouldn’t be spooked by his self-assurance. He can fail.

Remember, John Boehner was a very accomplished leader too and he had to throw himself on his sword to keep the government open.

This can be stopped.

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